[{"content":"I wanted to write how I got to Ise in the first place and why that was such a terrible experience.\nAfter landing at Narita at around 11:00 JST, I fumble around and manage to buy myself a sandwich and a Skyliner ticket. So far everything seems to be fine.\nThen getting into town at Tokyo Station, I quickly find out none of the ATMs will give me money. I try a bunch of them. I try all my cards credit and debit.\nThrongs of people rush past me as I walk around forlorn frantically trying things and coming up with scenarios. Mostly I\u0026rsquo;m just waiting for Germany to wake up. At the same time I continue to amass a stack of \u0026ldquo;issuer declined\u0026rdquo; notices from different banks and teller machines.\nWhat is working:\nI took €150 out at BER airpport which I exchange for yen at random money exchange counters. I get on some public WiFi outside Tokyo station and buy a Shinkansen ticket online with my credit card. Their website is bad and hard to use but not broken enough thankfully. What isn\u0026rsquo;t working:\nI have a hard time paying for stuff with my credit card. It seems I changed the PIN and forgot to put the new one into my password manager. I\u0026rsquo;m out of practice using a credit card. In Berlin I usually tap my phone at the terminal. In Japan phone payments are not widely accepted. I learn later that in Japan they don\u0026rsquo;t like to give cash out against a credit card generally. The main choice now before me is whether to stay put here or get myself to my accomodation. My next five days of sleeping are already booked and I just bought a train ticket online. That means I still have most of the money I exchanged, but the part of Japan that I\u0026rsquo;m going to is very very rural.\nI figure that if need be, €150 can last me for a week or more if I only eat FamiChicki and other convenience store foods. So I hop on the Shinkansen passing through the gates with the QR-code of my digital ticket.\nAt Nagoya station I try some more machines. Support at the German bank says they\u0026rsquo;ve reset a bunch of things. None of them work.\nAt this point I\u0026rsquo;m tired and fully resigned. I buy a train ticket to Iseshi and stare out the window for two hours. After I arrive, I get word from Germany that there\u0026rsquo;s been a payment system malfunction with my bank and that lots of people had issues with their cards.\nThat also means the malfunction is over. I rush to the nearest ATM and take out a bunch of cash. I\u0026rsquo;m super elated and with the money I just got I buy myself dinner twice, to celebrate.\nI go back to the hotel and lie down on the tatami floor. Happy that it is over and that my real undertaking can start properly now. After six very stressful hours, I\u0026rsquo;ve arrived.\nMajor lessons learned:\nBring cash on holidays. If I had brought twice as much, I would not have stressed out that much about this. Have more than one bank. This episode has made me regret closing my Dutch “real” bank account a lot. ","date":"November 30, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/iseji-day-0-getting-to-ise/","section":"Posts","summary":"I wanted to write how I got to Ise in the first place and why that was such a terrible experience.\n","title":"Iseji - Day 0 - Getting to Ise","type":"posts"},{"content":"I get started late after jetlag keeps me up between 2-5am. Then when I finally catch sleep, it\u0026rsquo;s time to rise and leave. The Fitbit clocks me at 3h47m of sleep.\nI quickly walk over from the lovely Mizuhokan to the Ise outer shrine. The site is beautiful. I learn that the empty lot next to the shrine is where they build the building anew every 20 years. A tradition, shikinen sengu, I had heard about before but didn\u0026rsquo;t think it would be here. They started the 63rd rebuilding this year.\nMy inspiration for this walk—the amazing Craig Mod—gives his permission to skip this section, so I go to Iseshi station, grab some breakfast and wait for the train to Tamaru near the edge of the city. I\u0026rsquo;m walking Craig Mod\u0026rsquo;s GPS trail following it sometimes even including the exact road crossings. Having a ghost whose trail you walk in is uncanny but also the only way I can swing this in the first place. The wayfinding this provides and the research it saves are indispensable.\nI drop by the Higashitokida shrine and am seriously impressed by the sense of space it creates nestled in the trees, accessible through its gated gravel path. Leaving the shrine feels like coming back to the real world.\nThe rain is a permanent fixture which could explain why I see so few people out and about. In my first hour of walking lots of kids cross my path on their way to school wearing their uniforms and helmets.\nI take shelter at the local post office to wait out the worst of the rain. A jovial old man jumps out of his car and asks me where I\u0026rsquo;m going. Misedani he feels is beautiful but I\u0026rsquo;m too early because the leaves haven\u0026rsquo;t turned yet. It\u0026rsquo;s been way too hot this year. He goes in to do his business. I go on with my walk.\nThe Japanese weather forecasts report on the colors of the leaves. I wonder why Germany doesn\u0026rsquo;t do this given how nice autumn colors here can be.\nMaking my way from one provincial road to another, I arrive at the first pass, Meki-toge. It\u0026rsquo;s hardly challenging with just a couple of steep segments and switch backs. Moving off the road and making your way over the mountain is beautiful and feels secluded even if civilization is only a couple of hundred meters away.\nAt the guardian deity there is a box with a trail booklet. Even though it\u0026rsquo;s quite thin, it goes back years because there are so few people on this trail. The person signing in before me did so three days ago.\nThen comes a long uninspiring stretch along the main road. At this point I\u0026rsquo;m hungry and sick of the rain and the cars. I cut around the route to make my way to Cafe de Touhenvoku which with its funky interior and pizza toast on the menu reveals itself to be a genuine Kissa. I order the Katsu Curry and scarf it down. How excellent it is to eat something warm after a whole day of walking through the rain.\nI consider taking the train at Tochihara to skip to the end but my legs still being good, I loop back to the track and continue along the route. Good that I did, because otherwise I\u0026rsquo;d have missed a romp through the riverbed and a bamboo forest.\nFrom what is already a quiet road behind the rail tracks I go down to the river. It feels like another portal into a different world. The trail carries me along the stream which is reduced to the point where a small makeshift bridge gets me over it.\nThen I pass through a bamboo forest the likes of which I only know from movies. It\u0026rsquo;s dense, imposing and makes this detour from my detour well worth it.\nA brief stop at bread and coffee in Kawazoe which true to its name sells bread and coffee, and children\u0026rsquo;s toys. From that point on the walk is an incessant plod along the road. My painful feet and the fading light sap my morale. Official sundown is at 16:45 but that doesn\u0026rsquo;t mean much if there\u0026rsquo;s a huge mountain between you and the sun.\nI pass a bunch of derelict buildings and a very weird one which turns out to be a church/cult.\nMr Bear, the roadside stop pictured above, didn\u0026rsquo;t make it unfortunately. It\u0026rsquo;s one of many shuttered businesses along the road here.\nThe stretches of this walk along the road will not be appreciated much by hiking purists. In my treks through the Alps, any route that takes you on more than the absolutely necessary amount of tarmac—noticeable by the click-clack-ing of your hiking poles—is considered to be unacceptable.\nBy now I\u0026rsquo;ve walked for more than an hour along the road and will have at least another half hour ahead of me. My legs are increasingly feeling the weight of the 9+ hours I\u0026rsquo;ve been underway. I see on Google Maps that there will be a bus passing by in five minutes. Not giving it a second thought, I get on at the Shimo-Mise bus stop. The entirely empty bus takes me the rest of the way to Misedani station. I hobble the final steps into my hotel.\nI\u0026rsquo;m staying at the Fairfield which is bougie and has a continuous stream of foreigners passing through. My shower today will not be in a communal ofuro. In town there aren\u0026rsquo;t that many restaurants open during the week. Many places are open during the weekend when there are more people in town.\nI find a bowl of ramen and alcohol free Kirin at a \u0026ldquo;famous\u0026rdquo; ramen place where lots of kids with their parents eat. The ramen is nothing to write home about but the electrolytes and vegetables are very welcome. My legs come back to life.\nThe stats for the day say 33,53km and some 42k steps (strava).\nToday was brutal but it established what the upper limit of my output can be. Walking here needs to have an exit plan at around 3pm before dusk sets in. It\u0026rsquo;s obvious now that I\u0026rsquo;ll not be able to walk to Shingu in five days. I retire to my hotel room and plan the next day\u0026rsquo;s steps.\n","date":"November 30, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/iseji-day-1-tamura-to-misedani/","section":"Posts","summary":"I get started late after jetlag keeps me up between 2-5am. Then when I finally catch sleep, it’s time to rise and leave. The Fitbit clocks me at 3h47m of sleep.\n","title":"Iseji - Day 1 - Tamura to Misedani","type":"posts"},{"content":"Well before 7am I grab a quick breakfast at the local FamilyMart and supplies for the day ahead. I\u0026rsquo;m glad that these things are open 24 hours, but how is this possible? Maybe it\u0026rsquo;s better to not ask any questions1. No coffee to be found anywhere at this time, but the hotel espresso machine does a decent enough job.\nI eat a pudding and go over the plan. After yesterday, today will be a lot more restrained. I\u0026rsquo;ll start with the first pass just outside of Odai, Misesaka though even that is a bit of a trek before I\u0026rsquo;m at the trailhead.\nNo rain today for which I\u0026rsquo;m very grateful. That means there are somewhat more people out and about than yesterday but still not a huge amount. Again not that many opportunities to wish anybody an ohayo.\nTo my delight and reassurance at the trailhead there is a box where you can borrow a bear bell and grab a walking stick. You then leave it when you get to the other side where there\u0026rsquo;s a similar arrangement. This is very considerate and something that I don\u0026rsquo;t think is possible in Germany.\nJapan is in a bear frenzy at the moment and there\u0026rsquo;s hardly anything else on the news or on anybody\u0026rsquo;s lips. I can report that the bear bell works, because I didn\u0026rsquo;t see one. Or it could have something to do with how on Kumamap this part of Japan has very few bear sightings.\nWalking the pass is much nicer without rain. It\u0026rsquo;s beautiful and just a bit of an effort. On the other side, Takihara shrine awaits. This is just before 10am and the monks are all up and about. They\u0026rsquo;re moving stuff around for some kind of event. At one of the buildings a group of monks are busy in the inner sanctuary.\nWatching these men in full regalia doing their spiritual business is impressive even though I don\u0026rsquo;t know—nor probably will ever know—what they are doing. They wear beautiful hats with feathers which are a kanmuri with its ei.\nAs captivating as this scene is, that doesn\u0026rsquo;t change the fact that I have to catch the 10:25 at Takihara station. If I don\u0026rsquo;t, I\u0026rsquo;ll be stuck here for three hours.\nDouble timing through the town is not fun with legs as sore as mine, but I get there with time to spare. The train itself is manned by a single person acting as conductor, driver and ticket seller. I see him point at something when the train stops and don\u0026rsquo;t get it at first. Then I realize that he\u0026rsquo;s practicing pointing-and-calling which is a common practice in Japan.\nI\u0026rsquo;d considered taking the train to O-Uchiyama but given how sore my legs are, any bit of walking that is unnecessary should be discarded. I get off at Umegadani and make my way to the trailhead for the Nisaka pass.\nAt Nisaka there\u0026rsquo;s a similar arrangement with the bells and now we also add another dangerous animal to our repertoire: the viper.\nThis is also where the stunning coastal views start. On the way down there\u0026rsquo;s the occasional choice between the Meiji and Edo routes, one meandering and the other straight and vertical.\nI find myself fighting against the sun on the walk out in what is end of November. Next resupply will have to include sunscreen.\nWith lunchtime approaching I\u0026rsquo;m eager to make it into town where I\u0026rsquo;ve scoped out some restaurants. Being in civilization at a time when gastronomy is open is not self-evident on this walk.\nI make my way around a small lake where I find Kappa Club, a mix between a beach club and a kissaten. Locals make their way to the lake here to relax and have some lunch. I treat myself to a well-deserved shrimp plate, nama (draft beer) and coffee while I watch several black kites circle over the water. This arrangement is so lovely I stay there for more than an hour taking in the view and the atmosphere.\nA bit further along there\u0026rsquo;s a very promising coffee truck cafe kiihot which sadly isn\u0026rsquo;t open today.\nI head into town to find my accommodation but not before stopping at the Cocokarafine to get trail care supplies. A Japanese big-box drugstore is something you have to see to believe. The variety of products and the sensory overload they provide are more of a marvel than many of the sights along the Kumano Kodo.\nI walk to my guest house in the old town when the owner of restaurant Kappa runs into me on the street and takes me on a tour of a repurposed sento that\u0026rsquo;s now a fishery museum. The objects in the museum are an interesting jumble but judging from the pictures the place comes alive during the events they host.\nI\u0026rsquo;m staying at Toyohisa tonight where I have an entire floor to myself. The host insists on making me dinner in a way that I feel I can\u0026rsquo;t refuse. She makes shrimp along with fried fish and sashimi cut from fresh local fish. I eat it while she sits in the kitchen eating hers and having a drink. We talk about Kyoto jazz cafes and bears and solar panels. My legs are happy they don\u0026rsquo;t have to walk anywhere anymore.\nExcept for these highly sketchy stairs I have to go down if I want to use the restroom.\nThe stats for the day say 26,86km and some 34k steps (strava1, strava2).\nAs I write this I find the video that Craig Mod posted about one of his days along the route. Part of it covers what I walked today and it\u0026rsquo;s a picture perfect match with how my day went: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QL5GB2vdS8\nThis has been a very full day with so many different experiences and small victories that it\u0026rsquo;s hard to take in. I can\u0026rsquo;t believe that this is only day two. More tomorrow.\ns. Store owner regrets \u0026lsquo;slave contracts\u0026rsquo; with major Japanese convenience store chain Ministop\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"November 28, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/iseji-day-2-misedani-to-kiinagashima/","section":"Posts","summary":"Well before 7am I grab a quick breakfast at the local FamilyMart and supplies for the day ahead. I’m glad that these things are open 24 hours, but how is this possible? Maybe it’s better to not ask any questions1. No coffee to be found anywhere at this time, but the hotel espresso machine does a decent enough job.\n","title":"Iseji - Day 2 - Misedani to Kiinagashima","type":"posts"},{"content":"Another day and yet another short night. Getting up at all is not easy, let alone getting up early.\nMy host offers to refund me the money (a trifle) for dinner because she felt she was too pushy. Of course I don\u0026rsquo;t accept. The food was plentiful, home cooked and she saved my legs. I eat the standard Japanese breakfast and get on my way.\nThe first segment is a stroll over a light pass with a sea view and then circle around the harbour, the coast and some of the local beaches.\nThe seaside here looks like it could be lovely. My Berlin barista told me he would come to Mie to surf back in the day. It looks like that could be amazing though it seems to happen more on the Eastern coast like at Koushirahama.\nThe passes themselves, Ikkoku-toge, Hirakata-toge and Miura-toge are short work but it is where I meet the first other people on trail so far. Two old geezers have driven here and are doing their morning sanpo (stroll) up the pass and back down to the car. The pass itself is short work with maybe 3-4 switchbacks.\nIn Craig Mod\u0026rsquo;s account it says the walking from Minose to Aiga is relatively miserable, so that\u0026rsquo;s a perfect excuse for me to skip it and take the 11:37 train. Catching that is essential because it lines me up nicely for Magose. Missing it would mean the rest of the day would be a loss.\nAt the Minose train station a team is re-roofing the shack. Nice to see infrastructure investment like that even in the most rural of places.\nDuring the train ride I see some fellow hikers (also a first!). One Japanese woman in the train going alone and a Western couple at Funatsu station who don\u0026rsquo;t board. It looks like they are walking the entire thing.\nAiga has quite some stuff going on for it in gastronomy. I\u0026rsquo;m not very hungry so I stop quickly behind the train station at Cafe do Selecao for a strengthening coffee before the climb ahead. The coffee is good but the owner keeps trying to convince me bears are super dangerous around here. I\u0026rsquo;m not a bear denialist, but there\u0026rsquo;s no reason to be stressed about them in this part of Japan.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s a bit of a walk to get to the climb and walking up the stone path is somewhat strenuous. Still no rain which is good since according to the cafe owner Mie is the rainiest part of Japan. Even in the best conditions I clock at around 15 minutes for 100m of elevation. The 330m here takes the better part of an hour.\nAt the pass I catch some summit fever and make the ‘fantastic’ decision to push for the top. The trail consists of stairs but of the kind that make an Amsterdam apartment staircase look reasonable. Going up I catch myself thinking: \u0026ldquo;That\u0026rsquo;s steep! I wonder how I\u0026rsquo;ll get down.\u0026rdquo;, then I think to myself: \u0026ldquo;Can\u0026rsquo;t worry about that now! That\u0026rsquo;s a problem for future Alper to figure out.\u0026rdquo;\nI go up and encounter a Western couple absolutely balling it down from the summit. To my amazement the man has a baby in a front carrier. I admire the show of confidence here but one misstep and that baby is toast. It is acceptable to carry kids up and down a mountain, but we\u0026rsquo;d only consider doing it using a kraxe, not an ergo baby.\nThe summit itself has a small clearing with a shrine enveloped by a bunch of huge boulders. Scrambling on top of one, I can look down on the entire city and look out over the bay. The view is as spectacular as the vertigo.\nThe true summit is the top of a huge boulder accessible through a very rickety metal ladder. I decide to save that for another day.\nGoing down I have to really take the descent step by step. My knee is definitely not happy with all of this and starts radiating heat. Back at the pass, a group of eight or so Japanese hikers are doing the Magose as well. They are fully decked out in outdoor kit and have a guide with them. Shouts of amazement greet me coming down that I\u0026rsquo;m doing this hitori (alone) when another guy comes jogging up from the Owase side and makes straight for the summit. He says he does this every day.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s more people on the trail today than I saw in the previous days combined.\nThe walk down is uneventful and leads me through a large and active cemetery. Walking into Owase proper I try to hunt down a bite and a coffee before checking in to my accommodation. It\u0026rsquo;s hard to find anything. Many stores are not up to date in either Google Maps or tabélog.\nWhat does help me find a nice place, is just walking and looking around. I stumble on a coffee and wine place with a proper espresso machine. An “Apotheke” sign on the building betrays that this used to be the pharmacy and the inside has been repurposed to be modern and open. I get my cappuccino and see the young and creative people of Owase gather in the place.\nPeople are doing interesting things, even in Owase, and it remains true that “new ideas, need old buildings”. I see a general theme of repurposing happening all over anyway. From the sento turned museum, to plots of land now being used as solar farms, to new semi-temporary restaurants and cafes popping up.\nI check in without talking to a human into an empty family house in a residential area. The entire house, both floors, is mine for the night for a song.\nFor dinner I go to a place called Inaka which has a reputation as a fantastic family-run kappou restaurant. I have some trouble trying to figure out what to order, but fortunately they have a summary of their menu in English. After a long day of hiking I don\u0026rsquo;t have the mental fortitude to deal with very complicated food situations.\nWhat they delivered is absolute art. Probably the best meal I\u0026rsquo;ve had so far. The variety, the care, the detail and the different platings are out of the world. You can see the people cooking are related in the familiar home-cooking way they do their work behind the counter. It\u0026rsquo;s somewhat pricey but I\u0026rsquo;m happy to pay for the food and the experience.\nAfter dinner I make a tour of the city and Owase does not look at all dead to me. During the afternoon I saw lots of kids running around freely. Now the streets are empty, but it looks like every izakaya is more or less full and people are getting ready for a night of drinking at the local karaoke, sunakku, bar or ‘nightclub’.\nFun as that sounds, that\u0026rsquo;s an amount of being awake and drinking which my current schedule does not allow, so off to bed it is for me.\nThe stats for the day say 19.94km and some 34k steps (strava1, strava2).\nFor tomorrow I\u0026rsquo;m doing some more drastic replanning. I only have two days left and an awful lot of walk ahead of me. I figure that tomorrow\u0026rsquo;s mountain will be my Angstgegner as it was for many people before me. The time indications can be trusted and 5h would eat up my entire day for not that much distance gained1.\nReading the end of Craig Mod\u0026rsquo;s report it seems both that assessment is true and that it\u0026rsquo;s possible to do the chunk after the mountain in two days. That would make it an obvious choice to skip it. I\u0026rsquo;m going to see exactly how to do that over breakfast tomorrow which I\u0026rsquo;ll take after sleeping in. The lack of sleep is wearing on me.\nAs a rule of thumb, every 1km of altitude is equivalent in effort to 10km of distance.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"November 30, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/iseji-day-3-kiinagashima-to-owase/","section":"Posts","summary":"Another day and yet another short night. Getting up at all is not easy, let alone getting up early.\n","title":"Iseji - Day 3 - Kiinagashima to Owase","type":"posts"},{"content":" The train I have to catch this morning only runs after 9am so I take the opportunity to get a real breakfast for a change. Scale is as good as expected. People are lining up before opening time to get in on the action. I attack my plate like a wild animal and am well underway to the FamilyMart and the train station by 08:30.\nThe train to Mikisato it is. I can read it even without romanization because it\u0026rsquo;s just ‘three’ 三 ‘tree’ 木 ‘village’ 里. That means there\u0026rsquo;s probably two- and four- tree villages out there as well.1\nAt Mikisato I see a man with a baby and his parents struggling to get on the train. On these single driver operated carriages, there\u0026rsquo;s only one door that opens to regulate the flow of passengers. After pointing out where to get on, I call out: \u0026ldquo;How did you guys end up here?\u0026rdquo; He says “he lives there” and the train takes off. How do you live somewhere and not know how the trains work?\nThe goal today is to get to Kumano since I read that it could be done in one day.\nFrom Mikisato quickly I completely the double whammy of Miki-toge/Hago-toge. It rained a lot last night, so everything is quite slippery. On the trailhead they thoughtfully provide sticks again to ward off the bears.\nI\u0026rsquo;m regretting not bringing my hiking poles an awful lot. I think calling this a ‘walk’ really threw me off2. This is very much a hike and a fairly strenuous one at that.\nI don\u0026rsquo;t really see very many shrines today which is worrisome. Their constant presence is a reassuring touch point on these walks.\nI find another trail booklet and the people there also report zero bears but they do say they saw monkeys. I\u0026rsquo;m sad that I didn\u0026rsquo;t see any monkeys.\nThen it\u0026rsquo;s down to Kata.\nKata didn\u0026rsquo;t have fishing rights historically. Weird how one town next to the sea would be able to fish and the next wouldn\u0026rsquo;t. Staying on the theme of rural infrastructure investment, they\u0026rsquo;re having a new bridge built here.\nI take a break and eat some of the snacks I brought. There is no convenience store on this entire stretch which tells you something about how remote it is.\nThe next pass, Hobo-toge goes all the way up to 350m of altitude. That\u0026rsquo;s about as much as the mountain pass yesterday but it does feel a lot easier.\nAfter hitting the pass, every time I think it\u0026rsquo;s going to go down, another section of climbing follows. Up and down it goes for a while after which I have to drop the entire 300m in very short order to get down to Nigishima.\nOn the way down it becomes obvious that my knee isn\u0026rsquo;t really having it and it takes about as long to get down as it took to get up. This knee had a new ACL grafted into it a couple of years ago. It\u0026rsquo;s healed well which is why I didn\u0026rsquo;t give it much thought, but now I don\u0026rsquo;t want to take any chances.\nTiming myself, the three hours in the description for the pass are accurate. It\u0026rsquo;s after 2pm now so it becomes clear that doing another pass will only complete after dark and then there\u0026rsquo;s no way I\u0026rsquo;ll be able to push on to Kumano.\nI drop that plan and stick with my already booked accommodation in Atashika. I confirm dinner and breakfast with the host—remember there\u0026rsquo;s absolutely nothing out here—and then wait for the train out.\nThere are worse ways to spend two hours than sitting in a gazebo in a tiny port town. Sitting around doing nothing is a welcome change from having to keep pushing on all the time. I buy some hot beverages from the vending machine, eat my snacks and chat with the people stopping by to use the facilities.\nNot being high up in the mountains and walking along the train line allows this kind of flexibility. It\u0026rsquo;s possible to completely change plans and reschedule because there are 4-5 trains still stopping at even this super tiny place.\nThe train comes at 16:18 as promised and after a short hop to Atashika I make my way back up the hills to my lodgings. The sun has long disappeared and dusk is setting in. I FaceTime my kids while walking and by the time I arrive it\u0026rsquo;s really starting to get dark. Not a time when you want to be stuck on a trail or even a backroad here.\nThe guesthouse is run by a lovely septuagenarian retired woman who\u0026rsquo;s studying English and has traveled all over the world with her husband. I wondered why people would live in these tiny remote towns. She says they have moved here after retirement and from the hill her living room has a stellar sea view. I think I understand it.\nMy host cooks me a delicious nabe meal. The hot brorth and rice are great already for somebody who\u0026rsquo;s cold and has been walking all day. But she fills up the pot with an unbelievable amount of vegetables, mushrooms and meat. That\u0026rsquo;s the best meal I could\u0026rsquo;ve had right now.\nThe stats for the day say 15.94km and some 25.5k steps (strava1, strava2).\nI turn in and spend way too long sitting on my room\u0026rsquo;s balcony taking in the view of the bay.\nTurns out that there aren\u0026rsquo;t.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nEven though trekking poles are on Craig Mod\u0026rsquo;s gear list I omitted them to travel very lightly on this one pack trip to Japan.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"November 28, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/iseji-day-4-owase-to-atashika/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Iseji - Day 4 - Owase to Atashika","type":"posts"},{"content":" The last day and the final bit of hiking. After that, instead of walking along the beach for 25km, I\u0026rsquo;ll take a quick train ride to Shingu. It\u0026rsquo;s been an amazing couple of days but it\u0026rsquo;s time to wrap this thing up.\nMy host makes me a lovely and scrumptious breakfast with self-baked rolls and gives me rice and fruit for on the trail.\nThe first part is Hadasu-no-michi, the road to Hadasu, and it\u0026rsquo;s a breeze. At the top of a hill some animals come running at me which startles me until I realize it\u0026rsquo;s just a chicken coop. I almost miss the exit to Hadasu which features the oldest Kamakura era stone path.\nThen the next bit, Obuki-toge, will be the real deal. The last ‘high’ pass with 300m of elevation. Not a huge amount, but still the equivalent of 1000 steps on the stairmaster.\nThe signage is scant here and the path is barely visible. I track along the stream trying to keep the GPS bearing. Down here between the trees it isn\u0026rsquo;t that accurate but I manage to find something of a path going up.\nThen the overgrowth takes over and everything is covered by high ferns. I can\u0026rsquo;t even see the rocks on the ground two steps further, let alone anything that at some point of time may have been a path. I don\u0026rsquo;t know what else to do other than push in the general direction and bushwhack my way to the top. There the path picks up again and I see signs pointing to the pass.\nFrom then on it\u0026rsquo;s a quick romp along a wall meant to fend off wild boars. This seems an odd place to do agriculture but otherwise these walls would not be there.\nWalking is pretty easy by now. The trouble with hiking is that your body becomes conditioned after 5-7 days and from that point you want to do more and more of it. But usually the trip is over at that point and normal life kicks back in.\nI come down at Odomari and am met by another amazing sight. The beach here is lovely and a dip in the ocean is a must. I strip and change into my swimming clothes on an entirely empty beach and plunge into the water. I brought my swimming trunks and a tiny towel specifically for this moment.\nThe water isn\u0026rsquo;t even that cold and the first waves hitting my poor feet feel divine. The waves are strong and pull at me but I don\u0026rsquo;t have time to go swimming.\nI dry up, circle around town and get ready for the last trailhead and the Matsumoto-toge. This pass has 135m of elevation and no switchbacks. It will be over very quickly now.\nI go up and down and before I know it, I\u0026rsquo;m in Kumano pushing along a grim—not even beachfront—straight road. I shimmy to the Mos Burger for my lunch, then to Chikotto in front of the station for a coffee. It\u0026rsquo;s a lovely place that has opened very recently.\nMy train leaves and I get out at Shingu so I can already buy the train ticket for the last fast train to Nagoya at 17:31. There are more than a few foreigners here, mostly from the other Kumano Kodo routes, and station staff to help them work the ticket machines.\nI quickly walk to the shrine, stand in line to clap my hands and buy an ema with Yatagarasu on it. This shrine is big and very busy with people coming here from all over for all kinds of reasons. A family with children is dressed in traditional clothes receiving a blessing from the priest. Some Japanese people make a point of praying at each of the shrines. Tourists gather here to get their stamps and buy their souvenirs. But me, I\u0026rsquo;m done. Done!\nArriving in front of the shrine is a mixed feeling of accomplishment, being tired and somewhat elated and also of not really knowing what to do now. Walking here was something of a purpose and now that purpose is gone.\nI walk around town a bunch but I\u0026rsquo;m not that hungry. I find a bakery, Megane, where they have a Marzocco machine and know how to use it. They serve me the best coffee I had so far on this trip and an incredible pastry. This place can stand the test with the best anywhere.\nI try to find interesting souvenirs or a store where I can buy some fresh clothes, but come up empty on both counts. What is open is very sleepy and I\u0026rsquo;m done with walking. I find a cute takoyaki place, Paso, on the other side of the tracks and I call it a day.\nThe stats for the day say 14.32km and some 30k steps (strava1, strava2).\nSitting in the train to Nagoya then and seeing all those stations pass by that I walked through: Owase, Kiinagashima, Misedani. It makes for a weird mood. I\u0026rsquo;ve been at all of them over the course of days and now we roll the entire thing back in the span of a couple of hours.\nThe walk is done. I\u0026rsquo;m going on to Tokyo to complete this trip but I will be back. There is so much more Japan to be walked in my future.\n","date":"November 29, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/iseji-day-5-atashika-to-shingu/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Iseji - Day 5 - Atashika to Shingu","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"October 23, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/","section":"alper.nl","summary":"","title":"alper.nl","type":"page"},{"content":"","date":"October 23, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Categories","type":"categories"},{"content":"","date":"October 23, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/english/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"English","type":"categories"},{"content":"","date":"October 23, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/internet/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Internet","type":"categories"},{"content":"","date":"October 23, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/","section":"Posts","summary":"","title":"Posts","type":"posts"},{"content":"The global cybersecurity disaster that consisted of yesterday\u0026rsquo;s critical vulnerabilities in the PHP project is a good moment to talk about the natural life cycle of open source projects. There are cases where it may be better to shut things down.\nThe PHP foundation\u0026rsquo;s response looked inadequate and not well coordinated. The exploit was leaked and the fix was neither expedited nor rolled out quickly. The consortium of companies that participated in the release were mostly interested in using this security incident as a marketing opportunity. The details of how the response was fumbled and how to improve it is something that will be discussed in the following days. PHP and other orgs have promised improvements to their governance and processes.\nThe fixes have been back ported to older versions of PHP by a third party who filled the gap left by the official PHP release cycle. Even then, for large parts of the internet the fix may never happen. The fundamental nature of PHP as a technology and the governance they can effect do not seem in any way suitable to the scale of the problem they have let loose on the world.\nPHP\u0026rsquo;s nature is that as a programming language it is bad. It had a moment and that moment passed decades ago. Software is subject to a lifecycle. Perl is dead for all intents and purposes. Ruby is well past its prime and should be considered legacy software sooner rather than later.\nThe only correct answer to yesterday\u0026rsquo;s exploit as a professional software organisation is: “We don\u0026rsquo;t run PHP.” Nobody should be deploying PHP on the internet in this day and age. That a privacy focused enterprise collaboration suite such as NextCloud is written in PHP is laughable.\nLarge C/C++ codebases like the PHP one are fundamentally unsecurable. There\u0026rsquo;s nothing that tells us we won\u0026rsquo;t see 10 more exploits of this scale coming out in the next years. Every poorly maintained online PHP property should be considered to be toxic waste. Yes, that includes all of Wordpress.\nThe only way out is to either port the language itself to a memory safe language or to port your code to something less exploitable. Both manoeuvres are practical enough these days that there\u0026rsquo;s no excuse not to do it. Nobody is locked into anything anymore and it\u0026rsquo;s hard to believe that writing PHP in particular is the thing that makes somebody\u0026rsquo;s heart sing. I have no stakes in it but probably if all these people would just write Go, a lot of this could have been avoided. I moved this blog off Wordpress to Hugo with some help from Claude and it has been a blessing.\nOpen source maintainers often complain about their lack of resources to do the tasks they ‘need’ to do. Undoubtedly they are right, but since we only have so many resources to go around it\u0026rsquo;s probably better to cut and focus rather than try to keep every project alive and secure. One answer to a lack of resources and recognition can be to just drop the work. Why would you keep going while at the same time complaining about it? Most people who believe they can\u0026rsquo;t be replaced are entirely wrong.\nWe don\u0026rsquo;t need this many interpreted web languages. More generally we don\u0026rsquo;t need half a dozen open source libraries doing the same thing. Sometimes the mature thing can be even for a project that is very ‘successful’—especially if that success is by now mostly toxic—to consider the project finished, cut a final release and archive the repos.\n","date":"October 23, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18943/","section":"Posts","summary":"The global cybersecurity disaster that consisted of yesterday’s critical vulnerabilities in the PHP project is a good moment to talk about the natural life cycle of open source projects. There are cases where it may be better to shut things down.\n","title":"Software can be finished","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"October 23, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/software-engineering/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Software Engineering","type":"categories"},{"content":"","date":"October 23, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/strategy/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Strategy","type":"categories"},{"content":"The Shimano museum seems like a must-visit attraction next time I find myself in the general area.\nhttps://inrng.com/2026/10/shimano-bicycle-museum/\n","date":"October 17, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18942/","section":"Posts","summary":"The Shimano museum seems like a must-visit attraction next time I find myself in the general area.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"October 17, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/cycling/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Cycling","type":"categories"},{"content":"","date":"October 17, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/travel/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Travel","type":"categories"},{"content":"Google search as a product feels like it\u0026rsquo;s dying. No idea what\u0026rsquo;s happening there anymore.\nhttps://sancho.bearblog.dev/google-weird/\n","date":"October 17, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18941/","section":"Posts","summary":"Google search as a product feels like it’s dying. No idea what’s happening there anymore.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I learned a bunch of stuff about passkeys here and I continue to be validated in my decision not to use them. It\u0026rsquo;s very complicated and opaque and the ‘just trust me bro‘ from the various proponents who are employed by large tech companies is not an adequate guarantee.\nhttps://nonfunctional.substack.com/p/passkeys-are-a-trap-do-not-use-them\n","date":"October 17, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18940/","section":"Posts","summary":"I learned a bunch of stuff about passkeys here and I continue to be validated in my decision not to use them. It’s very complicated and opaque and the ‘just trust me bro‘ from the various proponents who are employed by large tech companies is not an adequate guarantee.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A useful guide how to capture state transitions in your postgres database reliably.\nhttps://thoughtbot.com/blog/inserting-state-transitions-in-postgres\n","date":"October 17, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18939/","section":"Posts","summary":"A useful guide how to capture state transitions in your postgres database reliably.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A really simple bit of digital activation in Zohran Mamdanis\u0026rsquo; communication which is one of many parts that make him so effective.\nhttps://iamwillwang.com/notes/zohran-and-the-short-link\n","date":"October 17, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18938/","section":"Posts","summary":"A really simple bit of digital activation in Zohran Mamdanis’ communication which is one of many parts that make him so effective.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"October 17, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/new-york/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"New York","type":"categories"},{"content":"","date":"October 17, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/politics/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Politics","type":"categories"},{"content":"It\u0026rsquo;s very cool that it\u0026rsquo;s possible to reverse engineer your hardware and rewrite the firmware. I\u0026rsquo;m not sure if this will break out to become a widespread thing but it could if a bunch of things around UI design and LLMs come together.\nEvery piece of hardware has its own personalized generated UI standardized and skinned to my preferences.\nhttps://bensimms.moe/reverse-engineering-scooter/\n","date":"October 17, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18937/","section":"Posts","summary":"It’s very cool that it’s possible to reverse engineer your hardware and rewrite the firmware. I’m not sure if this will break out to become a widespread thing but it could if a bunch of things around UI design and LLMs come together.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"We\u0026rsquo;ll see more of these venture funded projects revert back to the mean which in this case is Node, which has gotten seriously better over the past years. Open source is slow and steady and it endures.\nhttps://dbushell.com/2026/10/03/deno-to-node/\n","date":"October 17, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18936/","section":"Posts","summary":"We’ll see more of these venture funded projects revert back to the mean which in this case is Node, which has gotten seriously better over the past years. Open source is slow and steady and it endures.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I think many organizations would benefit from an LLM policy that\u0026rsquo;s similar to what Rust is putting forward here. Proactive compulsory disclosure in particular is something that would prevent a lot of time being wasted.\nhttps://blog.rust-lang.org/inside-rust/2026/08/05/rust-langrust-is-adopting-an-llm-policy/\n","date":"October 17, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18935/","section":"Posts","summary":"I think many organizations would benefit from an LLM policy that’s similar to what Rust is putting forward here. Proactive compulsory disclosure in particular is something that would prevent a lot of time being wasted.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I know for sure this oddly named function in the re library has bitten me a bunch of times when writing Python and I\u0026rsquo;m glad to see that it\u0026rsquo;s being phased out. Just why did it take so long?\nhttps://hugovk.dev/blog/2026/soft-deprecating-re.match/\n","date":"October 17, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18934/","section":"Posts","summary":"I know for sure this oddly named function in the re library has bitten me a bunch of times when writing Python and I’m glad to see that it’s being phased out. Just why did it take so long?\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Just like I also wrote more than a year ago, there\u0026rsquo;s a lot to be gained from using jj as the version control harness for your LLM. It removes a lot of the cruft of git and simplifies concepts and flows.\nThe only downside is that git is so much more widespread that LLMs know how to use it almost by default, but I hope that may finally be changing.\nTurns out this is a thought with enough currency to merit writing a book about it. Nice to see somebody jumping on that.\nhttps://juju-chu.com\n","date":"October 14, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18933/","section":"Posts","summary":"Just like I also wrote more than a year ago, there’s a lot to be gained from using jj as the version control harness for your LLM. It removes a lot of the cruft of git and simplifies concepts and flows.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"October 14, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/reading/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Reading","type":"categories"},{"content":"Dan Abramov\u0026rsquo;s account of how he used LLMs to do novel math is interesting and revealing. It is possible to deploy these tools to do new and original things, but right now it takes a lot of time, persistence and expertise.\nhttps://overreacted.io/how-i-vibed-a-proof-of-conways-conjecture/\n","date":"October 13, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18932/","section":"Posts","summary":"Dan Abramov’s account of how he used LLMs to do novel math is interesting and revealing. It is possible to deploy these tools to do new and original things, but right now it takes a lot of time, persistence and expertise.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"October 13, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/maths/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Maths","type":"categories"},{"content":"I joke that staying off X was Woke 1.\nGruber has a point here. I also enjoy Mastodon more than I do Bluesky and my feed does have a bunch of interesting things in it. But truly, there is zero “action” there.\nThe people who build it even pride themselves on it. When the design goal is to be dull, that\u0026rsquo;s an easy one to hit.\nhttps://daringfireball.net/2026/10/x_once_again_marks_the_spot\n","date":"October 12, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18931/","section":"Posts","summary":"I joke that staying off X was Woke 1.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I totally missed Foursquare being acquired. I think that\u0026rsquo;ll mean game over for Swarm and the platform sooner rather than later.\nLet\u0026rsquo;s be glad there\u0026rsquo;s a bunch of @proto based replacement services and it\u0026rsquo;s not hard to generate data migration tools.\nhttps://app.dealroom.co/news/note/infillion-buys-foursquare-adding-location-data-to-its-ad-platform\n","date":"October 12, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18930/","section":"Posts","summary":"I totally missed Foursquare being acquired. I think that’ll mean game over for Swarm and the platform sooner rather than later.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"October 12, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/the-city/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"The City","type":"categories"},{"content":"LLMs will use any loophole they can to make their life easier. Not unlikely that they\u0026rsquo;ve done that with the Navier Stokes problem.\nhttps://www.scientificamerican.com/article/did-openai-solve-the-wrong-navier-stokes-problem/\n","date":"October 12, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18929/","section":"Posts","summary":"LLMs will use any loophole they can to make their life easier. Not unlikely that they’ve done that with the Navier Stokes problem.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"the company that coined the term ‘Site Reliability Engineer’ and wrote the SRE book.\nThat doesn\u0026rsquo;t really mean that much. Many of those books record practices that may only have been true very briefly or narrowly (if even that). Also the SRE book is not very good if you\u0026rsquo;re not Google.\nFirebase never bothered updating its status page.\nThat incident management even at Google these days could be better than this, is naive. We have to accept that this is as good as it gets mostly because most people aren\u0026rsquo;t going to move away anyway.\nhttps://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/the-pulse-firebases-global-outage-213\n","date":"October 12, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18928/","section":"Posts","summary":"the company that coined the term ‘Site Reliability Engineer’ and wrote the SRE book.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Turns out that “obesity of the mind” is an old term, but I guess we\u0026rsquo;re bringing it back.\nOld reference: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/apr/12/matthew-crawford-distraction-is-a-kind-of-obesity-of-the-mind-the-world-beyond-your-head\nNew reference from Teendrama: https://teendrama.substack.com/p/teendrama-25-no-phones-no-scrolling\n","date":"October 12, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18927/","section":"Posts","summary":"Turns out that “obesity of the mind” is an old term, but I guess we’re bringing it back.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Facebook is a massive scam farm these days and why should that be allowed?\nhttps://thenextweb.com/news/meta-scam-ads-ruling-germany-frankfurt-court\n","date":"September 24, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18926/","section":"Posts","summary":"Facebook is a massive scam farm these days and why should that be allowed?\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A strong argument written in German against the privatization of social media as a problem inflicted on us by unaccountable profit seeking corporations.\nI\u0026rsquo;m not sure whether this will do anything to course correct the idiocy that our politicians seem hell bent on pushing on us. It should not be children and parents who are regulated, but the corporation taking advantage of us.\nhttps://www.blaetter.de/ausgabe/2026/juni/die-tiktok-demokratie\n","date":"September 24, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18925/","section":"Posts","summary":"A strong argument written in German against the privatization of social media as a problem inflicted on us by unaccountable profit seeking corporations.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The German car industry has remained immensely profitable all the while driving itself off a cliff (!).\nThe crisis is entirely self-inflicted and lots of people have taken the money and ran. There need to be political and criminal consequences for this before the country can move on.\nhttps://www.somo.nl/manufactured-crisis/\n","date":"September 24, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18924/","section":"Posts","summary":"The German car industry has remained immensely profitable all the while driving itself off a cliff (!).\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"September 24, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/climate/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Climate","type":"categories"},{"content":"You may have seen that deleting lots of small files on your laptop can be a very intense and slow process. Deleting lots of things in a database can require so much extra work and bookkeeping that it can be detrimental to the health of the system.\nhttps://planetscale.com/blog/the-only-scalable-delete\n","date":"September 24, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18923/","section":"Posts","summary":"You may have seen that deleting lots of small files on your laptop can be a very intense and slow process. Deleting lots of things in a database can require so much extra work and bookkeeping that it can be detrimental to the health of the system.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I don\u0026rsquo;t think Omarchy is going to make Linux better so much as that they identified that Linux on the desktop has reached a tipping point and now is the time to capitalize on it. That\u0026rsquo;s the DHH playbook and why would it be any different this time?\nOne thing I will give them is that the total lack of leadership and project management in open source software is at the same time a liability as it is its strength. That kind of duality creates these kind of opportunities for actors not willing to play by the unspoken rules.\nhttps://tante.cc/2026/09/11/power-grab/\n","date":"September 24, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18922/","section":"Posts","summary":"I don’t think Omarchy is going to make Linux better so much as that they identified that Linux on the desktop has reached a tipping point and now is the time to capitalize on it. That’s the DHH playbook and why would it be any different this time?\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I was forced to create a passkey recently and I wanted to store that key in 1Password where I store all my other credentials. How to do that properly was pretty non-obvious and a bad enough experience that it seems that it wasn\u0026rsquo;t tested or a priority for anybody implementing these systems.\nThird party managers not being supported well seems to be known and one might assume also that it\u0026rsquo;s softly intentional to create further lock in on the main platforms.\nhttps://hawksley.dev/blog/i-dont-like-passkeys\n","date":"September 24, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18921/","section":"Posts","summary":"I was forced to create a passkey recently and I wanted to store that key in 1Password where I store all my other credentials. How to do that properly was pretty non-obvious and a bad enough experience that it seems that it wasn’t tested or a priority for anybody implementing these systems.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Tooze makes a coherent argument in this episode of Surplus why expropriation of the large landlords in Berlin makes economic sense. Morally it\u0026rsquo;s of course a no-brainer.\nVery much worth listening to if you still have to make up your mind for the Berlin election.\nhttps://www.surplusmagazin.de/podcast/vergesellschaftung-okonomisch-berlin-deutschewohnenundcoenteignen-tomkrebs-adamtooze/\n","date":"September 17, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18920/","section":"Posts","summary":"Tooze makes a coherent argument in this episode of Surplus why expropriation of the large landlords in Berlin makes economic sense. Morally it’s of course a no-brainer.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"September 17, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/berlin/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Berlin","type":"categories"},{"content":"More and more people are finding that you can\u0026rsquo;t really let LLMs loose on any significant amount of code.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s fine for simple things, but when things get complicated (or even just non-obvious) it\u0026rsquo;ll grind and grind and continue trying stuff and producing code until it creates a huge christmas tree with thousands of lines that are entirely wrong\nAnd those are the kind of solutions that juniors happily commit into production for you, saying: \u0026ldquo;Look it works!\u0026rdquo;\nhttps://lucumr.pocoo.org/2026/9/7/astra-why/\n","date":"September 16, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18919/","section":"Posts","summary":"More and more people are finding that you can’t really let LLMs loose on any significant amount of code.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"This episode from the lovely city podcast by Inge Wannet is a perfect account of what it feels like to cycle through Amsterdam rush hour.\nFor added effect, listen to it at 1.4x.\nhttps://www.ingewannet.nl/destad/episode/2aaebbc4/haast\n","date":"September 16, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18918/","section":"Posts","summary":"This episode from the lovely city podcast by Inge Wannet is a perfect account of what it feels like to cycle through Amsterdam rush hour.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"September 16, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/amsterdam/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Amsterdam","type":"categories"},{"content":"","date":"September 16, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/nederlands/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Nederlands","type":"categories"},{"content":"A rundown of the differences between Rust and Zig. I can\u0026rsquo;t say I\u0026rsquo;m very convinced.\nhttps://besok.github.io/posts/what-zig-felt-like-coming-from-rust/\n","date":"September 9, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18917/","section":"Posts","summary":"A rundown of the differences between Rust and Zig. I can’t say I’m very convinced.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A very good explanation of what the real difference is between ‘simple’ and ‘complex’ in software engineering and what the consequences of this tradeoff are.\nhttps://jyn.dev/simple-is-not-the-same-as-small/\n","date":"September 9, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18916/","section":"Posts","summary":"A very good explanation of what the real difference is between ‘simple’ and ‘complex’ in software engineering and what the consequences of this tradeoff are.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I think this may be a good resolution to the Typescript Result pattern issue. Who would have thought that anyhow would come in handy after all. (Also I now understand what anyhow is supposed to be doing.)\nhttps://daviddalbusco.com/blog/tiny-utils-for-the-result-pattern\n","date":"September 9, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18915/","section":"Posts","summary":"I think this may be a good resolution to the Typescript Result pattern issue. Who would have thought that anyhow would come in handy after all. (Also I now understand what anyhow is supposed to be doing.)\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"After the way OpenAI behaved here with this math proof, I don\u0026rsquo;t see how anybody would trust them with secret information. It feels like we haven\u0026rsquo;t seen the last of this issue yet.\nhttps://cims.nyu.edu/~tristanb/statement.pdf\n","date":"September 9, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18914/","section":"Posts","summary":"After the way OpenAI behaved here with this math proof, I don’t see how anybody would trust them with secret information. It feels like we haven’t seen the last of this issue yet.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"This tallies with my intuition for why it\u0026rsquo;s often more profitable to leave commercial properties vacant. The operating costs to maintain an empty office building are really not that high.\nTwo takeaways that are essential:\nCommercial real estate is a financial product much more than it is a building for humans to use and its financing is structured in ways that you can\u0026rsquo;t understand if you take residential property as a reference. Commercial leases are long term (in the Netherlands often 5+5 years) which means that if you settle for a lower rent than you had planned for, that then becomes locked in for half a decade or more. This knowledge is especially useful in Berlin right now since we have many commercial properties that were built in the past 5-10 years flooding the market, all sitting empty (I live next door to one) as Berlin and the entire German economy goes into a slump. The only thing the operators of these properties can do right now is to have faith that ‘the stimulus money is coming’.\nThis is also why it\u0026rsquo;s hard to convert offices into housing. It\u0026rsquo;s not so much about the architecture being unsuitable as it is about the financials not making sense anymore in such a scenario.\nhttps://www.freerange.city/p/why-do-commercial-spaces-sit-vacant\n","date":"August 26, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18913/","section":"Posts","summary":"This tallies with my intuition for why it’s often more profitable to leave commercial properties vacant. The operating costs to maintain an empty office building are really not that high.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The SQLite team themselves suggest that SQLite is a better fopen(), and they meant it as a design goal, not a joke.\nAfter using Postgres for everything, we can go one step further and use sqlite for everything.\nhttps://joecode.com/2026-08-19-sqlite3/\nhttps://www.raphaelbauer.com/posts/postgresql-everything/\n","date":"August 26, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18912/","section":"Posts","summary":"The SQLite team themselves suggest that SQLite is a better fopen(), and they meant it as a design goal, not a joke.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A great idea to use a software tool that exfiltrates all your data without your knowledge or consent. Not at all surprising also that it would be Grok doing such a thing.\nhttps://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/965600/spacexai-grok-build-repository-upload\n","date":"August 26, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18911/","section":"Posts","summary":"A great idea to use a software tool that exfiltrates all your data without your knowledge or consent. Not at all surprising also that it would be Grok doing such a thing.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":" Traveling # Amsterdam in October Spain in November Japan in 2027? Doing # Wanikani level 29 and a bit of Duolingo Road cycling Gym Reading # The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York De vrijgemaakte Ortjes (The Wee Free Men) The Mirror and the Light Goodreads\nWatching # The Bear S5 Critical Role: Campaign 4 Trakt\n","date":"August 24, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/now/","section":"Pages","summary":"Traveling # Amsterdam in October Spain in November Japan in 2027? Doing # Wanikani level 29 and a bit of Duolingo Road cycling Gym Reading # The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York De vrijgemaakte Ortjes (The Wee Free Men) The Mirror and the Light Goodreads\n","title":"Now","type":"pages"},{"content":"","date":"August 24, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/pages/","section":"Pages","summary":"","title":"Pages","type":"pages"},{"content":"Shoehorning the open source forge into the same web application where corporate software engineering takes place was a historic mistake. It would be good to cut these two very different things loose from each other and explore what makes sense for each use case.\nOpen source is facing lots of challenges around trust, effort and financing fueled in large part by the LLM explosion in code. At the same time corporate software engineering is becoming faster and more industrial (also thanks to LLMs) with massive requirements in logic, gating and repository sizes.\nhttps://nesbitt.io/2026/05/02/a-github-for-maintainers.html\n","date":"August 24, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18910/","section":"Posts","summary":"Shoehorning the open source forge into the same web application where corporate software engineering takes place was a historic mistake. It would be good to cut these two very different things loose from each other and explore what makes sense for each use case.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"These look intimidating the first time you see them, but they are boilerplate.\nAnd that\u0026rsquo;s exactly the problem with Rust. You can know precisely what you want to do but you\u0026rsquo;ll spend lots of time making this stuff line up and dealing with obtuse type checking complaints.\nIt really ruins what is an otherwise cool language.\nUnder the hood, the async block is the compiler’s desugaring of an anonymous state machine that implements Future, and Box::pin boxes-and-pins that anonymous future so its concrete type disappears behind the dyn in type Future = Pin\u0026lt;Box\u0026lt;dyn Future\u0026lt;…\u0026raquo;\u0026gt;.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve read stuff like this dozens of times and it does make sense at some point, but it\u0026rsquo;s still aggravating. This is a good article and it does a decent job of explaining it all, but it\u0026rsquo;s just \u0026ldquo;too much\u0026rdquo;.\nMost of this stuff by now is so well documented that it\u0026rsquo;s relatively easy to have the LLM do this kind of work for you. And once everything is put together, it will run well and quickly.\nhttps://loige.co/writing-middlewares-for-rust-lambda-functions/\n","date":"August 24, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18909/","section":"Posts","summary":"These look intimidating the first time you see them, but they are boilerplate.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I can\u0026rsquo;t agree more with this. Programming shouldn\u0026rsquo;t be that complicated. Type systems should not become too complicated or they get in the way.\nhttps://blainsmith.com/articles/just-fucking-use-go/\n","date":"August 24, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18907/","section":"Posts","summary":"I can’t agree more with this. Programming shouldn’t be that complicated. Type systems should not become too complicated or they get in the way.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A secure LLM system cannot be given write access to any important endpoints. That\u0026rsquo;s the basic first principle of AI security at the moment.\nI have a relatively high value Instagram username that I\u0026rsquo;m holding onto for dear life against a barrage of attackers trying to get Meta to give it to them. For Meta this is clearly not a priority and I could be losing this part of my online presence at any moment.\nhttps://thecybersecguru.com/news/instagram-meta-ai-vulnerability-account-recovery-exploit/\n","date":"August 24, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18906/","section":"Posts","summary":"A secure LLM system cannot be given write access to any important endpoints. That’s the basic first principle of AI security at the moment.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The candidates who stand out are the ones who understood the problem before they started designing the solution.\nThe ability to incorporate new information fluidly, showing both conviction and flexibility, is one of the highest-signal moments in the entire loop.\nI don\u0026rsquo;t see that much new here. Do you mean they weren\u0026rsquo;t screening for these things before?\nhttps://open.substack.com/pub/theskip/p/what-pm-hiring-managers-actually\n","date":"August 24, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18905/","section":"Posts","summary":"The candidates who stand out are the ones who understood the problem before they started designing the solution.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"August 24, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/product-design/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Product/Design","type":"categories"},{"content":"Why would anybody pay attention to what a German court says about something digital? The country has no idea and is behind by decades. Was the ruling delivered by fax machine?\nhttps://the-decoder.com/landmark-german-ruling-declares-googles-ai-overviews-are-googles-own-words-and-makes-it-liable-for-false-answers/\n","date":"August 24, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18904/","section":"Posts","summary":"Why would anybody pay attention to what a German court says about something digital? The country has no idea and is behind by decades. Was the ruling delivered by fax machine?\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A wild story of debugging an obscure race condition in sqlite. Even the most reliable systems when pushed to their limits will run into these kind of weird edge cases.\nhttps://tailscale.com/blog/sqlite-wal-reset-bug\n","date":"August 24, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18903/","section":"Posts","summary":"A wild story of debugging an obscure race condition in sqlite. Even the most reliable systems when pushed to their limits will run into these kind of weird edge cases.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;ve been waiting for the rewrite to conclude and to be able to use Roc for a long time now. Gleam scratches most of the itches that Roc does but for some reason I want to use Roc more.\nhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7qEOtkkDb8\n","date":"August 24, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18902/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’ve been waiting for the rewrite to conclude and to be able to use Roc for a long time now. Gleam scratches most of the itches that Roc does but for some reason I want to use Roc more.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"As true as it is that monorepos require specific tooling to make them work, the same is true for any polyrepo setup as well. The main tradeoff is the price you pay when you don\u0026rsquo;t have this tooling in place yet.\nBut I agree: Always go for a monorepo mostly because it makes most things go faster.\nhttps://kore-nordmann.de/blog/always_go_with_a_monorepo.html\n","date":"August 24, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18901/","section":"Posts","summary":"As true as it is that monorepos require specific tooling to make them work, the same is true for any polyrepo setup as well. The main tradeoff is the price you pay when you don’t have this tooling in place yet.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"This is a really clean update for Mastodon with a well communicated set of changes. One of the things that I think caused a lot of grief is mixing up messages with normal posts so I\u0026rsquo;m glad they now fixed that.\nhttps://blog.joinmastodon.org/2026/08/5.0-laying-the-foundation/\n","date":"August 21, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18900/","section":"Posts","summary":"This is a really clean update for Mastodon with a well communicated set of changes. One of the things that I think caused a lot of grief is mixing up messages with normal posts so I’m glad they now fixed that.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Is it good if your CRO and CFO decide to quit just before you IPO?\nhttps://www.ft.com/content/53082739-7714-4aae-9816-e55ab423cbee\n","date":"August 21, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18899/","section":"Posts","summary":"Is it good if your CRO and CFO decide to quit just before you IPO?\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A good roundup of a bunch of the most high profile Rust rewrites with both their successes and their failures. It\u0026rsquo;s interesting to see where the momentum behind this has gone given how much has changed in the software engineering landscape in general.\nhttps://blog.jetbrains.com/rust/2026/08/10/rewriting-in-rust/\n","date":"August 21, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18898/","section":"Posts","summary":"A good roundup of a bunch of the most high profile Rust rewrites with both their successes and their failures. It’s interesting to see where the momentum behind this has gone given how much has changed in the software engineering landscape in general.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The major inference providers are making their setups increasingly more proprietary and obfuscated removing user choice and portability.\nhttps://earendil.com/posts/session-portability/\n","date":"August 21, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18897/","section":"Posts","summary":"The major inference providers are making their setups increasingly more proprietary and obfuscated removing user choice and portability.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A lovely interview with Emily Wilson that reminds me I need to read her translation and watch the movie adaptation of The Odyssey.\nhttps://open.substack.com/pub/derekthompson/p/emily-wilsons-complicated-feelings\n","date":"August 21, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18896/","section":"Posts","summary":"A lovely interview with Emily Wilson that reminds me I need to read her translation and watch the movie adaptation of The Odyssey.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"It\u0026rsquo;s possible to do lots of things with systemd. That is if you can fight your way through it\u0026rsquo;s awful documentation.\nhttps://blog.tjll.net/you-dont-love-systemd-timers-enough/\n","date":"August 21, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18895/","section":"Posts","summary":"It’s possible to do lots of things with systemd. That is if you can fight your way through it’s awful documentation.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A very helpful guide how to combine jj which already provided native stacked changes with Github\u0026rsquo;s new stacked PR feature.\nMostly it\u0026rsquo;s bizarre how a feature on Github that we have been waiting the better part of a decade for is so lacklustre now that it\u0026rsquo;s finally been released.\nhttps://alan.norbauer.com/articles/github-stacks-with-jujutsu/\n","date":"August 21, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18894/","section":"Posts","summary":"A very helpful guide how to combine jj which already provided native stacked changes with Github’s new stacked PR feature.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The exact words we choose when writing matter. I want any LLM I use to choose the very best, most precise words at every single decision point.\nWriters coming out publicly against LLM watermarking in one swoop both devalue their own work and betray they have no idea how this technology works.\nhttps://daringfireball.net/2026/08/anthropics_watermark_text_adulteration_in_claude_is_a_perversion_of_writing\n","date":"August 21, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18893/","section":"Posts","summary":"The exact words we choose when writing matter. I want any LLM I use to choose the very best, most precise words at every single decision point.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Here\u0026rsquo;s an idea: I think video documentation of extremely risky behaviour (parkour, rooftopping etc.) and self-harm (mutilation, mukbang, ana) should be banned on all the major video platforms.\n","date":"August 20, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18892/","section":"Posts","summary":"Here’s an idea: I think video documentation of extremely risky behaviour (parkour, rooftopping etc.) and self-harm (mutilation, mukbang, ana) should be banned on all the major video platforms.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"August 20, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/kids/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Kids","type":"categories"},{"content":"That the company who provide the streaming platform knew immediately what was up, tells me people leave these dashboards unsecured all the time.\nhttps://bobdahacker.com/blog/fifa-hack\n","date":"August 20, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18891/","section":"Posts","summary":"That the company who provide the streaming platform knew immediately what was up, tells me people leave these dashboards unsecured all the time.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"August 20, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/sports/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Sports","type":"categories"},{"content":"I often joke that Kubernetes is nothing more than a Docker installation and a bunch of shell scripts interacting with each other. In fact, at the most basic level, if you don\u0026rsquo;t have any knowledge, you could definitely build a very fragile cluster that way. It might even be fun!\nBut once you go about abstracting that and making it robust and turning it into a series of cascading and interlocking loops, you get the massive beast we all know and love.\nFatih here does a good job of explaining what goes into Kubernetes\u0026rsquo;s inner functioning and that all those loops together can also be called ‘control theory’.\nhttps://planetscale.com/blog/the-feedback-loops-behind-kubernetes\n","date":"August 20, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18890/","section":"Posts","summary":"I often joke that Kubernetes is nothing more than a Docker installation and a bunch of shell scripts interacting with each other. In fact, at the most basic level, if you don’t have any knowledge, you could definitely build a very fragile cluster that way. It might even be fun!\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A shift that I\u0026rsquo;ve seen around me as well where people get disillusioned with the ‘principles’ and flakiness of Google phones and just use iPhones instead.\nhttps://マリウス.com/apple-iphone-air/\n","date":"August 20, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18889/","section":"Posts","summary":"A shift that I’ve seen around me as well where people get disillusioned with the ‘principles’ and flakiness of Google phones and just use iPhones instead.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"which means the best free Arabic font of the digital era is a one-man reconstruction of the best government-funded font of the metal era\nA massive treatment of the difficulties of rendering Arabic text.\nhttps://lr0.org/blog/p/arabic/\n","date":"August 20, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18888/","section":"Posts","summary":"which means the best free Arabic font of the digital era is a one-man reconstruction of the best government-funded font of the metal era\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"August 20, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/language/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Language","type":"categories"},{"content":"“My expectation is surely in 20 years we are going to see AI tools generating mathematics that in many measurable ways are better than every human mathematician,” Litt said. “I would be shocked if that doesn’t happen.”\nBut as Venkatesh told me, “In the end, there are infinitely many ways to formulate any piece of math.” The choices we make, he said, are governed by human values and shaped by the fact that mathematics is not only a science but also an art.\nI\u0026rsquo;m not sure there\u0026rsquo;s a real debate against AI anymore after advances like the ones we\u0026rsquo;ve seen in mathematics happened.\nhttps://www.quantamagazine.org/the-ai-revolution-in-math-has-arrived-20260413/\n","date":"August 20, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18887/","section":"Posts","summary":"“My expectation is surely in 20 years we are going to see AI tools generating mathematics that in many measurable ways are better than every human mathematician,” Litt said. “I would be shocked if that doesn’t happen.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The whole point of driverless cars is that they can be programmed to follow the law even if the people in them don\u0026rsquo;t want to. There\u0026rsquo;s no point in deploying this technology if the code in it will break the law.\nhttps://road.cc/news/driverless-taxis-veering-into-cycle-lanes-normal-practice-says-waymo\n","date":"August 19, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18886/","section":"Posts","summary":"The whole point of driverless cars is that they can be programmed to follow the law even if the people in them don’t want to. There’s no point in deploying this technology if the code in it will break the law.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"August 19, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/san-francisco/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"San Francisco","type":"categories"},{"content":"Ik weet nog dat we na een bezoek aan Kopenhagen ook dit idee hadden om Amsterdam een watertaxi te geven die over het IJ zig-zagt en inderdaad ook de Amstel af gaat. De kans dat dit gebeurt is natuurlijk heel klein maar misschien ooit.\nhttps://www.parool.nl/columns-opinie/opinie-maak-het-water-in-amsterdam-de-ruggengraat-van-het-ov-netwerk-met-watertaxi-s-en-shuttles~be1a067b/\n","date":"August 19, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18885/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik weet nog dat we na een bezoek aan Kopenhagen ook dit idee hadden om Amsterdam een watertaxi te geven die over het IJ zig-zagt en inderdaad ook de Amstel af gaat. De kans dat dit gebeurt is natuurlijk heel klein maar misschien ooit.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"August 19, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/copenhagen/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Copenhagen","type":"categories"},{"content":"A fun thought experiment about something I ask myself regularly as well: Is the world\u0026rsquo;s dependence on Whatsapp not entirely insane?\nLook around in certain countries and it\u0026rsquo;s staggering how much of society, business and sometimes even government runs on Whatsapp.\nhttps://マリウス.com/the-day-whatsapp-goes-dark/\n","date":"August 19, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18884/","section":"Posts","summary":"A fun thought experiment about something I ask myself regularly as well: Is the world’s dependence on Whatsapp not entirely insane?\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Microsoft is such a shambles of a software company that these kind of master encryption key leaks for them are a regular occurrence.\nGoverning encryption keys is a genuinely difficult problem but since we don\u0026rsquo;t see this happen to other large tech companies with the same regularity, it shows that Microsoft is just not interested in security.\nhttps://www.golem.de/news/microsoft-forscher-finden-masterkey-fuer-vollzugriff-auf-azure-datenbanken-2607-211473.html\n","date":"August 19, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18883/","section":"Posts","summary":"Microsoft is such a shambles of a software company that these kind of master encryption key leaks for them are a regular occurrence.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Has the Bluesky moment passed already? I\u0026rsquo;m finding myself spending more time on Mastodon these days.\nhttps://techcrunch.com/2026/08/11/blueskys-active-user-base-is-shrinking-as-its-focus-expands-beyond-the-app/\n","date":"August 19, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18882/","section":"Posts","summary":"Has the Bluesky moment passed already? I’m finding myself spending more time on Mastodon these days.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"If LLMs are trained on GPL licensed code (and as it seems now they are trained on that and on pretty much everything else the companies can get their hands on), why doesn\u0026rsquo;t that make the LLMs and all the works they produce GPL licensed?\nI don\u0026rsquo;t mind if we pretend that it doesn\u0026rsquo;t, but at that point we might as well get rid of the concept of intellectual property entirely.\n","date":"August 19, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18881/","section":"Posts","summary":"If LLMs are trained on GPL licensed code (and as it seems now they are trained on that and on pretty much everything else the companies can get their hands on), why doesn’t that make the LLMs and all the works they produce GPL licensed?\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"This level of anti-competitive behaviour from Anthropic and the other firms should be made illegal. The power disparities in AI are already stark, baking them in a way so that they can never be levelled is malicious.\nhttps://jonready.com/blog/posts/claude-fable5-is-allowed-to-sabotage-your-app-if-youre-a-competitor.html\n","date":"June 13, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18880/","section":"Posts","summary":"This level of anti-competitive behaviour from Anthropic and the other firms should be made illegal. The power disparities in AI are already stark, baking them in a way so that they can never be levelled is malicious.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The value of real skills is going up day by day for those of us who have them.\nLearning things is hard but that\u0026rsquo;s the whole reason people go to universities. Nobody needs a university education to ask Claude to do their work for them.\nhttps://www.dailycal.org/news/campus/academics/failing-grades-soar-as-professors-see-greater-ai-usage-dwindling-math-skills-in-uc-berkeley/article_16fad0bf-02cb-4b8c-8d88-888ffd9f8608.html\n","date":"June 13, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18879/","section":"Posts","summary":"The value of real skills is going up day by day for those of us who have them.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"June 13, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/science/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Science","type":"categories"},{"content":"A beautiful story of how iteration on an app is a process that\u0026rsquo;s worth it and that can yield something close to perfection like with Pedometer++. I wish every app had a person like this behind it who goes the distance and sweats every detail.\nhttps://www.david-smith.org/blog/2026/04/29/maps-on-watchos/\n","date":"June 13, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18878/","section":"Posts","summary":"A beautiful story of how iteration on an app is a process that’s worth it and that can yield something close to perfection like with Pedometer++. I wish every app had a person like this behind it who goes the distance and sweats every detail.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"It should surprise nobody that ed tech is mostly an excuse to shovel money to whoever has an open line to the politicians making decisions at the moment.\nhttps://www.economist.com/united-states/2026/01/22/ed-tech-is-profitable-it-is-also-mostly-useless\n","date":"June 13, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18877/","section":"Posts","summary":"It should surprise nobody that ed tech is mostly an excuse to shovel money to whoever has an open line to the politicians making decisions at the moment.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"We have been working in the \u0026ldquo;What comes after\u0026rdquo; for as long as I can remember because 1. it\u0026rsquo;s obvious1 2. you need to be ruthless about anything that does not add value.\nJoin us on the other side if you dare.\nhttps://death-of-scrum.net/#after\nIt just takes some thinking from first principles. Most of these things did not have names and I didn\u0026rsquo;t know the Reinertsen book existed until we had figured out most of it ourselves.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"June 13, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18876/","section":"Posts","summary":"We have been working in the “What comes after” for as long as I can remember because 1. it’s obvious1 2. you need to be ruthless about anything that does not add value.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"June 13, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/leadership/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Leadership","type":"categories"},{"content":"Sovereign Tech Fund investing in KDE points towards some concerted effort into weaning Europe off big tech. KDE has come a long way and with a bunch more more pushes like this, it could become a more than worthy alternative to Windows.\nhttps://kde.org/announcements/sovereign-tech-fund-invests-kde/\n","date":"June 13, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18875/","section":"Posts","summary":"Sovereign Tech Fund investing in KDE points towards some concerted effort into weaning Europe off big tech. KDE has come a long way and with a bunch more more pushes like this, it could become a more than worthy alternative to Windows.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"It\u0026rsquo;s not so clear cut as it\u0026rsquo;s made out to be here. Of course writing code should never have been your bottleneck to begin with. What LLMs have done is to remove “I need to write the code” as an excuse.\nThat has put significant shear on different parts of the system which is a Good Thing. Now we\u0026rsquo;re tasked with having to figure out how to make those parts better. Before this development, companies could hide their lack of ideas and bad processes behind “it takes the engineers 6 months to ship a feature.” Now they can\u0026rsquo;t anymore.\nhttps://andrewmurphy.io/blog/if-you-thought-the-speed-of-writing-code-was-your-problem-you-have-bigger-problems\n","date":"June 13, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18874/","section":"Posts","summary":"It’s not so clear cut as it’s made out to be here. Of course writing code should never have been your bottleneck to begin with. What LLMs have done is to remove “I need to write the code” as an excuse.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The candidates who stand out are the ones who understood the problem before they started designing the solution.\nThe ability to incorporate new information fluidly, showing both conviction and flexibility, is one of the highest-signal moments in the entire loop.\nNothing new here. Haven\u0026rsquo;t people been screening for these things all this time now?\nhttps://open.substack.com/pub/theskip/p/what-pm-hiring-managers-actually\n","date":"June 13, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18873/","section":"Posts","summary":"The candidates who stand out are the ones who understood the problem before they started designing the solution.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"My 99% invisible book club of The Power Broker is continuing in bits of pieces. I may yet finish the book this year.\nThe parallels between the New York of the start of the 20th century and the Berlin of today have been coming out hard and fast, but this stuff from the last episode I listened to did strike me.\nTraffic increased sixfold but there are no new roads that have been built. There was no way to cross the water because of the lack of bridges.\nSounds like Berlin to me but then again maybe I\u0026rsquo;m just overfitting on the eternal struggles of big cities. I do think in many ways Berlin and NYC are similar but that\u0026rsquo;s a post for another day.\nhttps://pca.st/episode/d9902612-2214-401f-9084-28e2c3b2179c\n","date":"June 13, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18872/","section":"Posts","summary":"My 99% invisible book club of The Power Broker is continuing in bits of pieces. I may yet finish the book this year.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A bit on Deutschlandfunk about the sizable group of people in Germany who do not use the internet.\nThey start talking about how offline people are usually disadvantaged in some way, but that can\u0026rsquo;t be the reason because you can get online with a prepaid plan and a second hand Android phone for a couple of bucks these days. Hearing the people coming to the digital support hotline talk, many of them do not see the point of or any need to be online. And that is a different problem altogether.\nOne of the reasons mentioned \u0026ldquo;a lot of negative coverage of the internet in the media\u0026rdquo; tallies with my own assessment. German journalists, politicians and lawyers have done their best to scare the living daylights out of people here1 and dissuade them from the internet and new developments in general. The damage done is significant but this broken mess is the society people here want to live in.\nhttps://www.deutschlandfunk.de/leben-ohne-internet-offliner-nonliner-100.html\nMy crank explanation for why they did that is because Axel Springer went to California and saw that they were infinitely behind when it comes to online and needed time to catch up. Cue lots of BILD headlines about the \u0026ldquo;dangers of the digital\u0026rdquo; and you can delay developments in a country that\u0026rsquo;s already behind.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"June 13, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18871/","section":"Posts","summary":"A bit on Deutschlandfunk about the sizable group of people in Germany who do not use the internet.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"June 13, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/deutsch/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Deutsch","type":"categories"},{"content":"Railway, a cloud infrastructure provider that is generally regarded to be ‘friendlier’ than the likes of AWS\nCorollary: If your infrastructure provider is so \u0026ldquo;friendly\u0026rdquo; that it\u0026rsquo;s trivial to do all kinds of things, it\u0026rsquo;s also possible for a coding agent to drop your production database.\nAlso this does not look like some kind of fly-by-night, pre-PMF startup. There\u0026rsquo;s no excuse for not having the basic separation of tenants in place at this point.\nhttps://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/claude-powered-ai-coding-agent-deletes-entire-company-database-in-9-seconds-backups-zapped-after-cursor-tool-powered-by-anthropics-claude-goes-rogue\n","date":"May 9, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18870/","section":"Posts","summary":"Railway, a cloud infrastructure provider that is generally regarded to be ‘friendlier’ than the likes of AWS\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Filing this for when I get the itch to learn Haskell again though there has been some recent rumbling that as a language it\u0026rsquo;s too clunky and increasingly irrelevant outside of a narrow academic context.\nhttps://vitez.me/learn-haskell-in-two-weeks\n","date":"May 9, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18869/","section":"Posts","summary":"Filing this for when I get the itch to learn Haskell again though there has been some recent rumbling that as a language it’s too clunky and increasingly irrelevant outside of a narrow academic context.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"This interview with Cat Wu, head of product at Claude Code, is interesting for some of the tidbits around how the different roles in software teams are changing. But there\u0026rsquo;s one thing that stood out for me.\nShe talks about how the stuff around “values” and “AGI” that Anthropic puts forward helps create alignment and speeds up decisions. The interesting thing is that this effect works even if the thing they\u0026rsquo;re describing (like AGI) is entirely fictitious. Stories work even if they\u0026rsquo;re not true (whatever true means).\nhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PplmzlgE0kg\n","date":"May 9, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18868/","section":"Posts","summary":"This interview with Cat Wu, head of product at Claude Code, is interesting for some of the tidbits around how the different roles in software teams are changing. But there’s one thing that stood out for me.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"It\u0026rsquo;s a fair take but it ignores that it\u0026rsquo;s all path dependence. Any decision whether on the product side or in engineering cements a structure that is painful to change later. Whether you have AI helping you there or not is mostly irrelevant. It handles the more basic things but the hard choices are still hard.\nhttps://substack.com/home/post/p-193101671\n","date":"May 9, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18867/","section":"Posts","summary":"It’s a fair take but it ignores that it’s all path dependence. Any decision whether on the product side or in engineering cements a structure that is painful to change later. Whether you have AI helping you there or not is mostly irrelevant. It handles the more basic things but the hard choices are still hard.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Locality of code, AI friendly and without needless extra tech stacks that force you to jump back and forth.\nLots of people will scoff at HTMX but that is often the case with tools that aren\u0026rsquo;t hip but are used to get real work done.\nhttps://htmx.org/essays/paris-2024-olympics-htmx-network-automation/\n","date":"May 9, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18866/","section":"Posts","summary":"Locality of code, AI friendly and without needless extra tech stacks that force you to jump back and forth.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I read some stuff by Zitron a while back and even back then it seemed untenable and divorced from reality aiming mostly to score points with an audience that\u0026rsquo;s more than eager to believe him.\nAnother branch of leftism that\u0026rsquo;s found it easier to retreat from reality than to try to actually do the work.\nhttps://www.theargumentmag.com/p/ais-biggest-critic-has-lost-the-plot\n","date":"May 9, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18865/","section":"Posts","summary":"I read some stuff by Zitron a while back and even back then it seemed untenable and divorced from reality aiming mostly to score points with an audience that’s more than eager to believe him.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Very funny, instructive and just outright wonderful that it\u0026rsquo;s even possible to build a handheld gaming device for under 10 cents.\nhttps://chrisdell.info/using-rust-to-build-a-1-dollar-handheld-gaming-console/\n","date":"May 9, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18864/","section":"Posts","summary":"Very funny, instructive and just outright wonderful that it’s even possible to build a handheld gaming device for under 10 cents.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"May 9, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/games/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Games","type":"categories"},{"content":"Strong arguments not to use HTTP to have your reverse proxy talk to your application server. Who knew that FastCGI was so solid?\nhttps://www.agwa.name/blog/post/fastcgi_is_the_better_protocol_for_reverse_proxies\n","date":"May 9, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18863/","section":"Posts","summary":"Strong arguments not to use HTTP to have your reverse proxy talk to your application server. Who knew that FastCGI was so solid?\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Knowing what to build, knowing when the system is telling you something, knowing when to cut, knowing when the fast path is the wrong path — these were never just “execution.” They were always the harder parts and to pretend they’re solved by AI is questionable, to say the least.\nThis is glib but no less true for it: \u0026ldquo;The Faster You Go, the Wronger You Get\u0026rdquo; and it\u0026rsquo;s unclear who will be able to internalize this lesson now if they weren\u0026rsquo;t able to do it previously. While it has become even more important it has in no way become easier.\nCompetitive advantage is still there and it\u0026rsquo;s fundamentally the same.\nhttps://open.substack.com/pub/hagakure/p/the-bottleneck-was-understanding\n","date":"May 9, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18862/","section":"Posts","summary":"Knowing what to build, knowing when the system is telling you something, knowing when to cut, knowing when the fast path is the wrong path — these were never just “execution.” They were always the harder parts and to pretend they’re solved by AI is questionable, to say the least.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Het is lastig te beschrijven hoe belangrijk en consequent Karin Spaink en haar schrijven waren voor Nederland en voor de digitale wereld waarin ook ik opgegroeid ben.\nDe beste manier om het te snappen is het lezen van dit afscheid waarin veel van waar ze voor stond bij elkaar komt.\nhttps://www.spaink.net/2026/05/08/exit-spaink/\n","date":"May 9, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18861/","section":"Posts","summary":"Het is lastig te beschrijven hoe belangrijk en consequent Karin Spaink en haar schrijven waren voor Nederland en voor de digitale wereld waarin ook ik opgegroeid ben.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":" 19 - Hand \u0026amp; Wheel # “Is it still an adventure if you find the treasure and to lose it or is it just a sad fucking life?!” \u0026ldquo;I\u0026rsquo;ll do whatever it takes.\u0026rdquo; —\u0026ldquo;it\u0026rsquo;s going to take a lot of us feeling that same way.\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;I was going to repay all that was given, by giving you your brother back\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;If you want someone to come for you, I will be that person for you\u0026rdquo;\n20 - The Vanishing # If somebody says they’re drawn to you for reasons they don’t know, that’s a signal to kiss.\nWhy are they playing straight with this ghost?\nI’d like to see a cold open where they roll initiative.\nWho wears 6XL?\nElodie daBaby mama How has baby Mommers everywhere?\nhow hard can it be to pick some interns at random? Not WHU, à la poubelle\nBolaire gigoloing Blix Anything that has an effect on reality is real, especially illusions.\nBlix is Brennan\n“I wonder how many friends you have that you do not know about.”\nThe guy in prison Will they be able to really care for a NPC Murray: “This is why intelligence and wisdom are two separate stats.”\n21 - King of Cards # “the law in its majestic equality forbids the rich and the poor alike from stealing bread”\n\u0026ldquo;It doesn\u0026rsquo;t swing back on its own\u0026hellip; Someone somewhere picks up a rock.\u0026rdquo;\n22 - # ","date":"April 12, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18860/","section":"Posts","summary":"19 - Hand \u0026 Wheel # “Is it still an adventure if you find the treasure and to lose it or is it just a sad fucking life?!” “I’ll do whatever it takes.” —“it’s going to take a lot of us feeling that same way.” “I was going to repay all that was given, by giving you your brother back” “If you want someone to come for you, I will be that person for you”\n","title":"Critical Role - Campaign 4 Episode 19-25","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"April 12, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/video/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Video","type":"categories"},{"content":"The care for these kind of minute details of map design is part of what makes Google Maps such a standout product. What products do you use day to day where the makers sweat out the tiniest of details like this?\nBut to be more correct, none of this is “tiny”. Layout and legibility are the most important core features of a map even if they look tiny on the screen.\nhttps://www.justinobeirne.com/google-maps-label-readability\n","date":"April 12, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18859/","section":"Posts","summary":"The care for these kind of minute details of map design is part of what makes Google Maps such a standout product. What products do you use day to day where the makers sweat out the tiniest of details like this?\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Fun to see resonances in Chiara\u0026rsquo;s origin story with my own. I hadn\u0026rsquo;t thought that much about this stuff myself yet.\nI went to conferences while I was still in university. I read all the books to make myself competent in several fields. I organized events and gave talks.\nLooking around it seems that it is relatively rare and I ask: What made us do these things? Where does it come from? Is this what it means to be a high-agency person?\nhttps://www.chiaracokieng.com/my-origin-story-part-2-the-hardest-year/\n","date":"April 12, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18858/","section":"Posts","summary":"Fun to see resonances in Chiara’s origin story with my own. I hadn’t thought that much about this stuff myself yet.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"April 12, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/work/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Work","type":"categories"},{"content":"Let\u0026rsquo;s round these up per arc as we go. These episodes are the final ones in the the Seekers Arc.\n16 - Visions of Shadow \u0026amp; Stone # A lot of memorable quotes in this setup episode. Particularly interesting are the interpersonal dynamics between the party where each member is becoming increasingly more at odds with the others. None of these characters like each other and it\u0026rsquo;s all they can do to not be constantly bickering and at each others\u0026rsquo; throats.\n“This is the eighth prophecy they’ve brought. At least this one mentions the sun.”\n“I don’t think the past is gonna save us.” —Thaisha\n“We’re traveling under the authority of revenge.” -Julien\n“I have lost much, in truth I don’t know how much I’ve lost. So I don’t care for your platitudes. I appreciate the candor. I appreciate the assistance but I’m going into the darkness.” —Julien \u0026ldquo;We lose everything in the end. We lose it all. It\u0026rsquo;s an honor to have ever had. It\u0026rsquo;s only ever a time.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Whatever enchantment has been placed to bring together those you travel with, my Lord, who seem moments away from tearing at each other\u0026rsquo;s throats, rightfully so, the pillars of a shattered world who stand tall only in and of themselves and not in relation to each other, then let me add myself to the mix. My loyalty is as confounding as the devotion of your companions. The world is mad. Let us be madder still.\u0026rdquo; —Seremai\n17 - The Place of Wings # \u0026ldquo;No one should have to walk into the dark alone\u0026rdquo;\nThere was a bunch of combat in this episode with skeletons which is boring and entirely interchangeable.\n18 - Vindicta \u0026amp; Vale # “when you’re trying to break the world to build a new one, there can be no clean instructions to follow”\n\u0026ldquo;You look down at your cousin and realize you are both failed experiments.\u0026rdquo;\nLet\u0026rsquo;s say the end of the Seekers arc is widely considered to be a letdown. The final monster combat was fair despite some grumbling around the exact mechanisms. Mythologically it was a bit of a lore dump which we have to see how it\u0026rsquo;ll pay off later.\nWhat\u0026rsquo;s most annoying about it is the party\u0026rsquo;s inexplicable return to Dol-Makjar purely for planned story reasons. A player driven campaign would probably have them go off in a totally different direction (for instance to the Golden Orchard or off to sea).\n","date":"April 12, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18857/","section":"Posts","summary":"Let’s round these up per arc as we go. These episodes are the final ones in the the Seekers Arc.\n","title":"Critical Role - Campaign 4 Episode 16-18","type":"posts"},{"content":"This is an interesting realignment of the org chart. I\u0026rsquo;m not sure whether we\u0026rsquo;ll reach that endpoint, but it\u0026rsquo;s obvious to divide the team into the factors laid out in the article.\nProduct/Engineering Managers and other leads are responsible for collecting and refining the context required for their area of interest and work at hand. Work is done by agents who are either human or LLM and who need that context to be able to do the work. This is not even that much different from how teams operate because how would anybody do something without having context on it to begin with?\nhttps://block.xyz/inside/from-hierarchy-to-intelligence\n","date":"April 12, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18856/","section":"Posts","summary":"This is an interesting realignment of the org chart. I’m not sure whether we’ll reach that endpoint, but it’s obvious to divide the team into the factors laid out in the article.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"One person helping another because they have a relationship and the work needs doing. Sean frames these as workarounds. Necessary but awkward and illegible. But what if they’re not workarounds? What if they’re the actual thing?\nIt’s permanent revolution. Not in the dramatic sense, but in the sense of continually choosing the thick over the thin, the contextual over the mechanical, the human relationship over the ticket.\nhttps://eli.li/the-seed-beneath-the-snow\n","date":"April 10, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18855/","section":"Posts","summary":"One person helping another because they have a relationship and the work needs doing. Sean frames these as workarounds. Necessary but awkward and illegible. But what if they’re not workarounds? What if they’re the actual thing?\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"April 10, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/philosophy/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Philosophy","type":"categories"},{"content":"If you use git rebase, the answer to this article’s question is probably yes. You will mostly likely love Jujutsu.\nI think this is a fair point. There are a lot of developers who don\u0026rsquo;t even know what rebase does and they will probably not enjoy Jujutsu very much or care about it at all.\nhttps://etodd.io/2025/10/02/should-i-switch-from-git-to-jujutsu/\n","date":"April 10, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18854/","section":"Posts","summary":"If you use git rebase, the answer to this article’s question is probably yes. You will mostly likely love Jujutsu.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A quick little interview with the creator of Tantivy a Rust based search technology that I\u0026rsquo;m hearing incresaingly more about and which I\u0026rsquo;m very eager to try out in production.\nKeep an eye on the academic world. The new ideas often come from there, and they won\u0026rsquo;t make it into the industry without our help — and our sweat.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s why we read papers.\nhttps://www.paradedb.com/blog/tantivy-interview\n","date":"April 10, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18853/","section":"Posts","summary":"A quick little interview with the creator of Tantivy a Rust based search technology that I’m hearing incresaingly more about and which I’m very eager to try out in production.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"After hearing so many good things anout it, we normal people finally get to use a SAP solution as well. I wonder how quickly they\u0026rsquo;ll get out a first version for us to test and how wonderfully usable it\u0026rsquo;s going to be.\nhttps://www.heise.de/news/SAP-und-Telekom-entwickeln-zentrale-Buerger-App-fuer-Deutschland-11247464.html\n","date":"April 10, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18852/","section":"Posts","summary":"After hearing so many good things anout it, we normal people finally get to use a SAP solution as well. I wonder how quickly they’ll get out a first version for us to test and how wonderfully usable it’s going to be.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Here’s an idea: Developers should go through a proficiency test before they are allowed to use LLMs to generate code. Think of it as an AI driver’s license.\nThis is similar to how software shops would ask a certain amount of apprenticeship from junior engineers before they would get push access or review credentials on a repository. Similarly, before we allow somebody to run loose with the code generating power of an LLM, we should make sure they know how to wield it safely.\nUsing an LLM for learning and doing research should of course be unlimited. Just that people shouldn\u0026rsquo;t spend their time trying to one-shot their assignments. That way of working is way too tempting for somebody who doesn\u0026rsquo;t know better.\nBoth sides would benefit from this arrangement.\nCompany # It\u0026rsquo;s obvious that LLMs function as an amplifier. Those who are skilled, can wield them to become better and much more effective. Those who aren\u0026rsquo;t, will use the tool to paper over their gaps in knowledge and effective delivery.\nA company will always demand more of its employees and that all but ensures that the technology will be abused to meet and surpass commitments no matter what externalities that will bring.\nMario Zechner: “All of this compounds into an unrecoverable mess of complexity.” —Thoughts on slowing the fuck down\nTo utilize the productivity increases of LLMs without having your engineers destroy the coherence of your codebase, some gating will go a long way. Along with the gate, there should be a clear path how to pass it. That would be either through a competency test of some sort or when you hit a predefined career level.\nEngineer # For the engineer the equation is even more clear cut. Prompting an LLM and doomscrolling while you wait for the output is a direct path to deskill yourself out of the industry.\nMitchell Hashimoto: “This is how you get dumber btw, true even before AI” — https://x.com/mitchellh/status/2031776788532379996\nIf you’re not continuously adding value in intent, knowledge and nous to the LLM loop, you are just a mindless driver, not that different from a Ralph. As an engineer, you need to be in the code and on top of the LLM. You need to know exactly what is happening, what it\u0026rsquo;s doing, why and how in many cases the suggested solution is very much deficient.\nFor a junior this is more or less impossible. Spending your time telling the LLM to \u0026ldquo;fix lint\u0026rdquo; until your change passes CI and then hoping somebody else will approve your code to merge, is a losing proposition.\nA junior engineer needs to invest to get to a point from where they can use the LLM effectively. This will only happen if they work on their craft diligently and reflectively. The research and learning capabilities of the LLM are perfect for this. Also if there\u0026rsquo;s no expectation that you will one-shot thousands of lines of code every day, you will get the space to invest in getting better.\nA driver’s license for LLMs is not a perfect solution but it could remove a lot of the sharp edges of the usage we are seeing right now. At the very least it should make clear that not all LLM usage is equal.\n","date":"March 23, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/llm-license/","section":"Posts","summary":"Here’s an idea: Developers should go through a proficiency test before they are allowed to use LLMs to generate code. Think of it as an AI driver’s license.\n","title":"LLM Driver's License","type":"posts"},{"content":"\u0026ldquo;This amazing snippet of code was languishing in the docs of dead software, which in turn the original formula was scrawled away in a math textbook from the 60s.\u0026rdquo;\nLLMs digging up forgotten approximation algorithms to make raytracing faster.\nhttps://16bpp.net/blog/post/faster-asin-was-hiding-in-plain-sight/\n","date":"March 23, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18851/","section":"Posts","summary":"“This amazing snippet of code was languishing in the docs of dead software, which in turn the original formula was scrawled away in a math textbook from the 60s.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"To me, an obvious benefit of using jj is the power of the tooling and how intuitive it is to use. Once you have internalised the mental model, it doesn’t take many commands to achieve what you want.\nFor those who still do code review, jj is so intuitive and powerful that you can juggle around changes every which way to fit a workflow. Most of these workflows would be so difficult to achieve in git, that you might as well not bother.\nhttps://ben.gesoff.uk/posts/reviewing-large-changes-with-jj/\n","date":"March 23, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18850/","section":"Posts","summary":"To me, an obvious benefit of using jj is the power of the tooling and how intuitive it is to use. Once you have internalised the mental model, it doesn’t take many commands to achieve what you want.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Claude Code only got good maybe a few months ago, so this only recently started happening, so I assume they will emerge from the spiral eventually.\nThis is an interesting note because more than a year ago we had people proclaim that AI coding was going to be the future without being anywhere near the inflection point of November 2025.\nAs companies grow, they all end up with more and more layers of collaboration, review, and management. Why? Because otherwise mistakes get made, and mistakes are increasingly expensive at scale.\nThe secret is, you have to get your engineers to engineer higher quality into the whole system, from top to bottom, repeatedly.\nAll extremely valid points.\nhttps://apenwarr.ca/log/20260316\n","date":"March 23, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18849/","section":"Posts","summary":"Claude Code only got good maybe a few months ago, so this only recently started happening, so I assume they will emerge from the spiral eventually.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Using my external 40% keyboards has always been very annoying with my Macbook. I type Dvorak so that\u0026rsquo;s what the keyboard layout is set to but that only really works properly if the laptop is set to the US layout. But when I type on the laptop directly I have to switch it to the Dvorak layout. This is already a pain but the remapping also messes with many keyboard shortcuts.\nTrying to debug this did my head in and it\u0026rsquo;s complicated enough that you can\u0026rsquo;t really ask for help online about it either. What worked this time round is working through the problem with Claude and brainstorming solutions.\nThe most straightforward way to do this sounded a bit iffy but worked a treat. We leave the laptop on the US layout always but we remap the device keyboard keys to Dvorak using Karabiner Elements. That means my QMK remapped keyboards can connect as is. This also clears up my keyboard shortcuts though I\u0026rsquo;m hard pressed to explain exactly how.\nOnce I was on this trail, I found this blogpost by my former teacher Charl Botha who faced the exact same problem and landed on the same solution with examples in Karabiner Elements. It really is a small world.\n","date":"March 23, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18848/","section":"Posts","summary":"Using my external 40% keyboards has always been very annoying with my Macbook. I type Dvorak so that’s what the keyboard layout is set to but that only really works properly if the laptop is set to the US layout. But when I type on the laptop directly I have to switch it to the Dvorak layout. This is already a pain but the remapping also messes with many keyboard shortcuts.\n","title":"Remapping Dvorak","type":"posts"},{"content":"Using Postgres logical replication to stream a video call through the database is a brilliant hack that displays both the power of the database and of standard web applications.\nhttps://planetscale.com/blog/video-conferencing-with-postgres\n","date":"March 22, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18847/","section":"Posts","summary":"Using Postgres logical replication to stream a video call through the database is a brilliant hack that displays both the power of the database and of standard web applications.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"In questions asked almost never:\nDid we actually need a pub/sub system here, or did it just look good on paper?\nComplexity is a force of entropy. Put more than 2 people in a room and if not checked, they will come out with something that\u0026rsquo;s mostly unnecessary and entirely absurd.\nhttps://terriblesoftware.org/2026/03/03/nobody-gets-promoted-for-simplicity/\n","date":"March 21, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18846/","section":"Posts","summary":"In questions asked almost never:\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"People who need them being able to vibe out essential accessibility apps using just Claude Code is definitely making a difference. It\u0026rsquo;s hard to argue against this.\nhttps://blakewatson.com/journal/i-used-claude-code-and-gsd-to-build-the-accessibility-tool-ive-always-wanted/\nI know that macOS has a bunch of accessibility features but I had no idea that it had folded in existing tools to create a highly customizable Accessibility Keyboard as described here.\nhttps://blakewatson.com/journal/my-journey-with-the-chubon-keyboard-layout/\n","date":"March 21, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18845/","section":"Posts","summary":"People who need them being able to vibe out essential accessibility apps using just Claude Code is definitely making a difference. It’s hard to argue against this.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"If you removed hand-written code but didn\u0026rsquo;t add explicit invariants, you lost rigor. If you\u0026rsquo;re generating implementations without rigorous evaluation, you lost rigor. If you\u0026rsquo;re accepting code because it runs rather than because you understand it, you lost rigor.\nAcross decades of software evolution, the same misunderstanding keeps recurring. Constraint removal is mistaken for loss of rigor.\nChad Fowler making some very good points here. It\u0026rsquo;s possible to use these tools properly but that\u0026rsquo;s going to require a bunch of (re-)learning of practices.\nhttps://aicoding.leaflet.pub/3mbrvhyye4k2e\n","date":"March 21, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18844/","section":"Posts","summary":"If you removed hand-written code but didn’t add explicit invariants, you lost rigor. If you’re generating implementations without rigorous evaluation, you lost rigor. If you’re accepting code because it runs rather than because you understand it, you lost rigor.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"More stuf by Sean Goedecke that I came up with independently myself. Being unreasonably effective is one of the best ways for career success. Getting that way requires critical thinking and consistent application.\nhttps://www.seangoedecke.com/getting-the-main-thing-right/\n","date":"March 21, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18843/","section":"Posts","summary":"More stuf by Sean Goedecke that I came up with independently myself. Being unreasonably effective is one of the best ways for career success. Getting that way requires critical thinking and consistent application.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"how Amazon’s traditional viciously customer-focused approach to development was a poor match for the research-style work that was required for developing AI\nBeing able to match R\u0026amp;D type work with product work is mystifying for many organizations. Not hard to see how they failed at this, taking into account all the other organizational issues listed in this post.\nWhat is even more telling is that this post about AI is mostly about Alexa, but Amazon also mostly missed the boat on AI compute and GPUs (which could be seen in their severe supply side limitations).\nhttps://surfingcomplexity.blog/2025/06/08/ai-at-amazon-a-case-study-of-brittleness/\n","date":"March 21, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18842/","section":"Posts","summary":"how Amazon’s traditional viciously customer-focused approach to development was a poor match for the research-style work that was required for developing AI\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"No individual in the organization will ever have an accurate mental model about how the entire system works. To put it simply: It’s the stuff we don’t know that bites us. There’s always stuff we don’t know.\nif the people in the organization know more about the system, they are going to make better decisions in the future\nThis kind of thinking can be a tough sell indeed and the instant gratification approach that is being sold along with AI is hardly conducive to look at more long term outcomes and more holistic approaches.\nhttps://surfingcomplexity.blog/2023/08/20/why-lfi-is-a-tough-sell/\n","date":"March 21, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18841/","section":"Posts","summary":"No individual in the organization will ever have an accurate mental model about how the entire system works. To put it simply: It’s the stuff we don’t know that bites us. There’s always stuff we don’t know.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I think I have to disagree with this post and call it mostly wishful thinking. I haven\u0026rsquo;t seen that much adoption of vibecoding in Rust. Most of the data points I\u0026rsquo;m looking at point towards Go being the clear leader here with its low expressiveness, quick compilation and rather basic type system.\nIt is true thath Typescript isn\u0026rsquo;t a very good fit. It\u0026rsquo;s type system is broken despite being too complicated and it brings very little to the table as a programming language on every other front.\nThe major concerns after the basic code has been taken care of are around organization, factoring and architecture. On those dimensions, you need something with clear defined and loose coupling to allow iterating on parts of the system effectively. Having tussled with crate organization in Rust more than a couple of times, its story there isn\u0026rsquo;t enormously compelling.\nOf course it would be hilarious after being the default language of web3, Rust would graduate into being the language that things are vibe coded in. But again I don\u0026rsquo;t think this is happening.\nhttps://www.forbes.com/councils/forbestechcouncil/2026/03/03/rust-the-unlikely-engine-of-the-vibe-coding-era/\n","date":"March 21, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18840/","section":"Posts","summary":"I think I have to disagree with this post and call it mostly wishful thinking. I haven’t seen that much adoption of vibecoding in Rust. Most of the data points I’m looking at point towards Go being the clear leader here with its low expressiveness, quick compilation and rather basic type system.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The goal is not to embed Django inside another system, but to demonstrate that Django ORM can already act as a lightweight, standalone data access layer.\nThe Django ORM is and remains best in class. I’ve seen recent approaches to replicate it without having to pull in the weight of the main framework. That\u0026rsquo;s laudable but it will take a long time before something like that gains a similar amount of heft in mindshare, tooling and documentation.\nhttps://www.paulox.net/2026/02/20/django-orm-standalone-database-inspectdb-query/\n","date":"March 21, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18839/","section":"Posts","summary":"The goal is not to embed Django inside another system, but to demonstrate that Django ORM can already act as a lightweight, standalone data access layer.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"We found that using AI assistance led to a statistically significant decrease in mastery.\nThe anecdata around rigor and learning with AI assistance is extremely mixed.\nFor those who have the time and space to learn, it seems like a great tool to do both. For those who lack that, it looks like this tooling removes any check on their impulses.\nhttps://www.anthropic.com/research/AI-assistance-coding-skills\n","date":"March 21, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18838/","section":"Posts","summary":"We found that using AI assistance led to a statistically significant decrease in mastery.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Some interesting stats from Comma about what goes into building and operating a data center of your own. A good data point to start thinking about when it may make sense to do something like this.\nhttps://blog.comma.ai/datacenter/\n","date":"March 21, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18837/","section":"Posts","summary":"Some interesting stats from Comma about what goes into building and operating a data center of your own. A good data point to start thinking about when it may make sense to do something like this.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"It\u0026rsquo;s obvious that international platforms will need to support international writing. The world is a big place and ASCII hasn’t been enough for a while now.\nhttps://shkspr.mobi/blog/2024/02/internationalise-the-fediverse/\n","date":"March 21, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18836/","section":"Posts","summary":"It’s obvious that international platforms will need to support international writing. The world is a big place and ASCII hasn’t been enough for a while now.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Surprising how quick and affordable it can be to crawl a billion webpages.\nThis would also explain why every website is under continuous load from spiders trying to capture content for training models.\nhttps://andrewkchan.dev/posts/crawler.html\n","date":"March 21, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18835/","section":"Posts","summary":"Surprising how quick and affordable it can be to crawl a billion webpages.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"It sounds so simple but the amount of work and trade-offs involved in getting to a single list of priorities is where a lot of the difficult work lives.\nI\u0026rsquo;m a big fan of forcing functions and having a single list is a great one.\nOne big problem with the single list is impedance mismatches between kinds of work i.e. fundamental prerequisites vs. user facing features and tracking dependencies between them. Or operational toil which should not be tracked there but will have an impact on priority and throughput.\nhttps://www.theengineeringmanager.com/growth/one-list-to-rule-them-all/\n","date":"March 21, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18834/","section":"Posts","summary":"It sounds so simple but the amount of work and trade-offs involved in getting to a single list of priorities is where a lot of the difficult work lives.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Dürer designed an amazing monument for the vanquished peasants.\nhttp://thecityasaproject.org/2012/07/the-measure-of-turmoil-durers-monument-to-the-vanquished-peasants/\nIt turns out that monument was finally realized and unveiled last month. Worth taking a detour on the bike for.\nhttps://b2b.thueringen-entdecken.de/en/w/the-duerer-monument-on-the-kornmarkt-in-muehlhausen?wbk_acb_fs=3\n","date":"March 13, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18833/","section":"Posts","summary":"Dürer designed an amazing monument for the vanquished peasants.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"March 13, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/art/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Art","type":"categories"},{"content":"This is how good engineers do estimates in software as written down by Sean Goedecke:\nI gather as much political context as possible before I even look at the code. I go to the code with an estimate already in hand. I spend more time worrying about unknowns than knowns. I go back to my manager with a risk assessment, not with a concrete estimate. My job is to figure out the set of software approaches that match that estimate.\nhttps://www.seangoedecke.com/how-i-estimate-work/\nUnfortunately this is so obvious to me by now that I\u0026rsquo;d have a hard time writing this down.\n","date":"March 13, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18832/","section":"Posts","summary":"This is how good engineers do estimates in software as written down by Sean Goedecke:\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"One of my favorite episodes of Past Present Future with Mary Beard where she compares the unaccountable power of emperors of the past with today\u0026rsquo;s tech oligarchs.\nhttps://www.ppfideas.com/episodes/mary-beard-on-caesar%2C-augustus-%26-zuckerberg\n","date":"March 13, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18831/","section":"Posts","summary":"One of my favorite episodes of Past Present Future with Mary Beard where she compares the unaccountable power of emperors of the past with today’s tech oligarchs.\n","title":"Mary Beard","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"March 13, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/podcast/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Podcast","type":"categories"},{"content":"When the person opening the PR gets credit for shipping and the reviewer bears the consequences of reviewing a bad merge, you have a structural problem no tool can solve.\nIncentive gaps are the only thing worth fixing in organizations and are also some of the most difficult things to fix.\nencoding reviewer patterns into CI\nThis is really smart and something we\u0026rsquo;ve already started doing, codifying as much as possible into tooling and shifting things left.\nhttps://rishi.baldawa.com/posts/review-isnt-the-bottleneck/\n","date":"March 13, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18830/","section":"Posts","summary":"When the person opening the PR gets credit for shipping and the reviewer bears the consequences of reviewing a bad merge, you have a structural problem no tool can solve.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"You love to see the office of digitalization in Germany in such competent hands.\nNot only is having a single app for every person in Germany a really old and dumb idea. But even if we assumed that that would make a difference here, such a project will take forever and yield a lacklustre unusable result.\nhttps://www.heise.de/news/Das-wird-krass-Digitalminister-plant-bundesweite-Buerger-App-11192475.html\n","date":"March 13, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18829/","section":"Posts","summary":"You love to see the office of digitalization in Germany in such competent hands.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"We\u0026rsquo;ll have so many of these AI exploits coming out that there are probably exploit groups specializing on them. It\u0026rsquo;ll be a very dependable stream of revenue for them.\nhttps://grith.ai/blog/clinejection-when-your-ai-tool-installs-another\n","date":"March 13, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18828/","section":"Posts","summary":"We’ll have so many of these AI exploits coming out that there are probably exploit groups specializing on them. It’ll be a very dependable stream of revenue for them.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Picking between Rust and Python, the code is by now not even that relevant anymore but stuff like easy to distribute and instant startup time is very hard to argue against.\nhttps://smiling.dev/blog/rust-shined-over-python-for-my-cli-tool/\n","date":"March 13, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18827/","section":"Posts","summary":"Picking between Rust and Python, the code is by now not even that relevant anymore but stuff like easy to distribute and instant startup time is very hard to argue against.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The German version of Claude Code is out.\nhttps://klausprogrammieren.com\nThis is so real that it\u0026rsquo;s not funny anymore. This website is more usable than most German government websites. ","date":"March 13, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18826/","section":"Posts","summary":"The German version of Claude Code is out.\n","title":"Klaus Programmiert","type":"posts"},{"content":"The market for feeling productive is orders of magnitude larger than the market for being productive.\nhttps://minutes.substack.com/p/tool-shaped-objects\n","date":"March 1, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18825/","section":"Posts","summary":"The market for feeling productive is orders of magnitude larger than the market for being productive.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Reducing kids\u0026rsquo; exposure to the internet and social media is something that\u0026rsquo;s very tempting for governments who want to control and surveil everything that happens online.\nIn reality, there is very little evidence and thinking behind both the problem and the solutions, Ulla Autenrieth explains here.\n\u0026ldquo;The pandemic\u0026rdquo; for instance is another phenomenon that\u0026rsquo;s always mentioned as having hurt kids\u0026rsquo; development. I can say what has hurt us and our kids much much more than that have been the ongoing campaigns of austerity of the Dutch and German governments. Odd, how those are mentioned so rarely.\nhttps://kleinstadt.ch/mit-verboten-werden-jugendliche-zum-schweigen-gebracht/\n","date":"March 1, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18824/","section":"Posts","summary":"Reducing kids’ exposure to the internet and social media is something that’s very tempting for governments who want to control and surveil everything that happens online.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Automatic binary analysis using AI is not nearly good enough yet to be usable but it is improving and increasing the accessibility of doing this kind of analysis.\nhttps://quesma.com/blog/introducing-binaryaudit/\n","date":"March 1, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18823/","section":"Posts","summary":"Automatic binary analysis using AI is not nearly good enough yet to be usable but it is improving and increasing the accessibility of doing this kind of analysis.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Then he said, \u0026ldquo;You know what the difference is between you and me? I know I\u0026rsquo;m a mercenary. You thought you were an artist. We\u0026rsquo;re both guys who type for money.\u0026rdquo;\nhttps://matduggan.com/i-sold-out-for-200-a-month-and-all-i-got-was-this-perfectly-generated-terraform/\n","date":"March 1, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18822/","section":"Posts","summary":"Then he said, “You know what the difference is between you and me? I know I’m a mercenary. You thought you were an artist. We’re both guys who type for money.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"if your best idea for what AI can do in the workspace is “replace a hundred human beings with a server rack doing the same thing”, you’ve got no business calling yourself a techno-optimist\nThe poverty of thinking in the AI camp is probably entirely a symptom of too much ChatGPT usage.\nhttps://backofmind.substack.com/p/finally-we-have-created-the-silver\n","date":"March 1, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18821/","section":"Posts","summary":"if your best idea for what AI can do in the workspace is “replace a hundred human beings with a server rack doing the same thing”, you’ve got no business calling yourself a techno-optimist\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A thorough teardown what it takes to build a startup (almost) entirely on European infrastructure. It\u0026rsquo;s possible but not at all easy yet.\nhttps://www.coinerella.com/made-in-eu-it-was-harder-than-i-thought/\n","date":"March 1, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18820/","section":"Posts","summary":"A thorough teardown what it takes to build a startup (almost) entirely on European infrastructure. It’s possible but not at all easy yet.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"RSS is a hero technology that silently powers a lot of the web and will probably play a much bigger role still.\nhttps://werd.io/why-rss-matters/\n","date":"March 1, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18819/","section":"Posts","summary":"RSS is a hero technology that silently powers a lot of the web and will probably play a much bigger role still.\n","title":"RSS","type":"posts"},{"content":" Back to amazing cold opens in this episode with the story of how Azune got sold off as a child soldier by his starving parents.\nIn the funhouse Taliesin as the Bohemian peasant Bořivoj Dalebro from 1403 (for Kingdom Come: Deliverance II) is absolutely hilarious.\nOtherwise this episode is funny with the eagle but otherwise very much a transition episode.\n“You cannot guarantee that your mind would stay friendly to your values.” (to Occtis)\n“You always had to make a choice and the world was always chaos. It’s just touching you now.”\n","date":"February 23, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18818/","section":"Posts","summary":" Back to amazing cold opens in this episode with the story of how Azune got sold off as a child soldier by his starving parents.\n","title":"Critical Role - Campaign 4 Episode 15","type":"posts"},{"content":" This cold open with Teor and Thimble didn\u0026rsquo;t really do anything to for me.\n“Flower Doll” as a slur is a nice addition to the mythology of the world.\n“The one that walks besides you is a mindless follower of a dead tyrant!”\n”You are a beautiful gemstone tumbling at top speed down the mountainside. Gorgeous and off balance.” (YouTube)\n“My good bitch who are you talking about?”\nFinally a good fight to add some action and tempo to this arc. Tyranny definitely is the most serious of her sisters.\n","date":"February 23, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18817/","section":"Posts","summary":" This cold open with Teor and Thimble didn’t really do anything to for me.\n","title":"Critical Role - Campaign 4 Episode 14","type":"posts"},{"content":"I kept hearing so many good things about Go that I decided to make the jump from Rust. I had Claude port my app1 and couldn’t be happier with the result.\nBackground # I’ve been grinding on the Cuppings backend for years now in Rust/Axum after going through a lengthy process2 to determine the libraries that would make up my à la carte framework. I settled on Axum with SeaORM and Askama. This works quite well and is blazingly fast, but from a developer experience point of view it’s always been somewhat miserable.\nAn important bit of context: Cuppings is a side project and I only get to work on it 1-2 times per month for a couple of hours if at all. Any time I spend on picking back up, upgrading things and waiting for compilation is time I cannot afford to waste.\nI could have taken the easy way out and built this entire thing in Django. I used to be a professional Django developer so what takes me hours to figure out and setup here would literally take me minutes there.\nBut doing it the hard way and expanding my skills and horizon was the goal. I learned a lot and am now reasonably proficient in Rust, though there’s been a significant amount of self-castigation involved.\nRust # The main issue with Rust is that even after reading many books and being more than interested in the topic, my lack of time prevents me from going hands-on with the lower level topics.\nIt took me a long time to understand what a Box does because the learning materials assume you already know. I still couldn’t really tell you off the top of my head what a RefCell is for or why the whole Pin thing is such an issue.\nIt’s also because you don’t need most of that stuff. I write a very vanilla Rust like the kind described by Steve Klabnik here:\nI tend not to write macros at all. I also avoid fancy advanced type system tricks. Although Rust has the reputation of a complicated, big language, you don\u0026rsquo;t have to use it that way.\nBut the problem is, however much you would like to ignore that Rust is a complicated language, it seeps through both in the technology and the culture. For me it always felt like Rust is for the initiated, even if it pretends not to be.\nLanguage server support in Rust has always been flaky for me. When you ask around nobody can confirm it, which means either it does not happen to them or they find the current behaviour acceptable. There’s no real way to know.\nWhen you use ORMs with lots of generated code and the macros many libraries insist you use, language server support becomes fictional depending on where in the reindexing of your project you are. I feel that typing code should not be so hit and miss.\nAfter writing the code, you need to iterate and there the compile and link times are a deal breaker. Askama templates, for instance, look close enough to Django, but they break your flow because every time you save a template the entire app has to be rebuilt. Asking about this yields the response that it’s not enough of an issue to warrant fixing3.\nError handling is taken care of by poorly documented external libraries. It doesn’t matter whether people have ‘a choice’ here. If almost all articles, documentation, and people point to these libraries, they are the “official” way of handling errors. Making error handling an afterthought is a bit weird for a “safe programming language”. No wonder people just call unwrap() in production code.\nBasic framework features such as authentication, login protection of routes, and URL normalization are awkward in Axum. That stuff is non-negotiable and should work out of the box in a web framework. Axum takes inspiration from Django in broad strokes, but that does not translate to how it’s put together, documented, and works at the point of usage. Those are the things that really matter.\nI’ll stop there. There have probably been more than enough posts (e.g. Game dev in Rust) written about Rust like this.\nRust is great if you need its specific capabilities and guarantees. If you’re writing a low-level system that needs to expose an API server, Axum will get the job done blindingly fast.\nMy main issue is that people often insist Rust is a general purpose programming language. At the same time, a lot of basics are just not there4. But if you complain about those issues, people insist it’s your own fault for either being dumb or not having suffered as much as they have. It does not surprise me much but I still think it’s messed up.\nI want to thank the handful of people in discussions on the various forums who didn’t make me feel like I was insane. You know who you are.\nGo # I’ve written a bunch of Go in a previous job and quite enjoyed it back then5. I tried it out with Claude almost a year ago now, and even then it could generate non-trivial Go applications entirely hands off. It could also talk me through the configuration hell of setting up a Slackbot much better than Slack’s documentation ever could.\nNow I asked Claude to port my Rust application to Go. It had no trouble doing that with minimal oversight. I haven’t written a single line of Go yet. I’m brushing up mostly to be able to read it effectively and to continue the higher level design.\nThe opportunity to get out of ‘ORM hell’ was also great. It simplified the code to use Go’s stellar sqlc plugin. I haven’t operated it myself yet, but the SQL it generates checks out. For the rest it’s just a router, a bunch of request handlers and some API calls. That part of a web app is the same across languages and frameworks. It’s all the other bits that matter.\nMost noticeable is compiling the app in Go. A clean compile of my Axum project could take the better part of a minute and pull in hundreds of crates. The Go version pulls in almost nothing and builds in seconds. This makes the entire thing and process feel lighter.\nPython # Why wouldn’t I go back to my main programming language, Python?\nThe Go app I had Claude generate last year was multi-channel: web server and Slack bot in one. I had Claude port it to Python. It did a decent enough job with the logic, but as soon as it had to convert the networking it went down into a Python async rabbit hole from which it couldn’t get out.\nTalking to people about this, they confirmed that there’s no obvious way forward here for anybody. One person even asked me: “Are you really sure you need async?” which tells you where the Python discourse is on this topic.\nDeploying Python has become a lot easier thanks to uvx, but it’s still nice to have a single binary as output that you can ship.\nAnd in raw performance, Python will probably never come close to a language like Go. For a small web app, performance is not a huge goal, but it’s always nice to have, if you can get it without paying too much in complexity.\nConclusion # I can always go back to Rust when I have a project closer to the hardware with Rust level safety and performance requirements. But until then, for writing a small web app on the side, Go is more than good enough.\nI think I can sum it up like this:\nRust is a better C++ Zig is a better C Go is a better Python Don’t use a better C++ if your problem wasn’t C++ shaped6 to begin with.\nThe frontend that I had painstakingly written in Dioxus (and then partially in Lustre) also was replaced by Claude with a Svelte version that\u0026rsquo;s very easy to iterate on.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nMostly because there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of Rust micro web frameworks with different positions on the async question. Why people don\u0026rsquo;t just use Tokio is a different question altogether.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nI’ve seen some hot reloading come out in Dioxus recently but who’ll adopt that if they don’t think it’s an issue?\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nThey’ll tell you Rust is pretty much feature complete. So instead of fixing non-functional issues core language development is focused on increasingly esoteric features. That’s of course not limited to Rust. For instance in Python instead of fixing its packaging or async problems, they opted to put out an ill-fated walrus operator.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nI get the argument in I want off Mr. Golang\u0026rsquo;s Wild Ride. It has been influential on me as well but there\u0026rsquo;s a reason why Go is still more popular for writing high performance web services.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nThough people use C++ very heavily in game engines and Rust does not seem to fit that use case very well.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"February 21, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18816/","section":"Posts","summary":"I kept hearing so many good things about Go that I decided to make the jump from Rust. I had Claude port my app1 and couldn’t be happier with the result.\n","title":"Going off of Rust","type":"posts"},{"content":" Woodwalkers 2 is an entertaining enough kids movie. The conceit of beastwalkers (human/animal shapeshifters) is worth exploring despite the disbelief around diet and clothing logistics it requires. The special effects are very weak but not to the point that it makes the movie unwatchable.\nThe movie pretends to have representation but both the black supporting characters are done dirty. The black girl Lou seems to be the Carag\u0026rsquo;s girlfriend in the beginning but then disappears for half the movie while he gets it on with a wolf girl Tikaani. The black boy Brandon is relegated to such a passive role that another character remarks that buffalos do nothing but eat and shit.\nFrom a theory of change point of view I would say the movie is commendable. It teaches kids that standing in a field with only the power of your convictions against men with machines and guns does not achieve very much. The main antagonist Andrew Milling demonstrates that it\u0026rsquo;s preferable to acquire political power by any means and then use that power to drive through your will.\n","date":"February 15, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18815/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Woodwalkers 2","type":"posts"},{"content":"OpenAI is a very bad company and with the number of alternatives around there\u0026rsquo;s no reason anybody needs to continue doing business with them.\nhttps://techcrunch.com/2026/02/10/openai-policy-exec-who-opposed-chatbots-adult-mode-reportedly-fired-on-discrimination-claim/\n","date":"February 15, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18814/","section":"Posts","summary":"OpenAI is a very bad company and with the number of alternatives around there’s no reason anybody needs to continue doing business with them.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Somebody has gone through the effort of creating a Github uptime page where the company itself can\u0026rsquo;t be bothered to. It\u0026rsquo;s bad but downtime is mostly concentrates in Actions and Copilot.\nThat actions is down very regularly is something that anybody using Github can tell you. And Copilot is so bad that if the service goes down, they should do everybody a favor and keep it down.\nhttps://mrshu.github.io/github-statuses/\n","date":"February 15, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18813/","section":"Posts","summary":"Somebody has gone through the effort of creating a Github uptime page where the company itself can’t be bothered to. It’s bad but downtime is mostly concentrates in Actions and Copilot.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Microsoft, the company known for such amazing achievements as Teams, Github\u0026rsquo;s uptime, Copilot etc. has managed to add features to Notepad in such a way, they introduced a remote code execution vulnerability.\nhttps://msrc.microsoft.com/update-guide/vulnerability/CVE-2026-20841\n","date":"February 15, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18812/","section":"Posts","summary":"Microsoft, the company known for such amazing achievements as Teams, Github’s uptime, Copilot etc. has managed to add features to Notepad in such a way, they introduced a remote code execution vulnerability.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"There was an effort to update the 12factor principles but reading this you can see how well the factors have held up over the 15 years they\u0026rsquo;ve been out there.\nContainers have changed everything, but still the principles are the same.\nhttps://lukasniessen.medium.com/the-12-factor-app-15-years-later-does-it-still-hold-up-in-2026-c8af494e8465\n","date":"February 15, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18811/","section":"Posts","summary":"There was an effort to update the 12factor principles but reading this you can see how well the factors have held up over the 15 years they’ve been out there.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":" Not that many big notable set pieces this episode except for the opening. The play within a flashback within a cold open within a play is a strong story beat for Bolaire. Most of the detail we already knew except for one: How the masks and the play ended the Trickster Goddess.\n“Stages are for murder, stages are for truth” “Why is a lie so much better than the truth?” “You will leave a booed and living man.” ","date":"February 9, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18810/","section":"Posts","summary":" Not that many big notable set pieces this episode except for the opening. The play within a flashback within a cold open within a play is a strong story beat for Bolaire. Most of the detail we already knew except for one: How the masks and the play ended the Trickster Goddess.\n","title":"Critical Role - Campaign 4 Episode 13","type":"posts"},{"content":"Through a recommendation on Bluesky I came across the Ronzheimer podcast hosted by Paul Ronzheimer, the main journalist out of the Axel-Springer media house. Listening to him talk to German notables, it becomes clear that he\u0026rsquo;s not the sharpest knife in the block. There is no spark or wit in either of the two episodes I listened to. His questions are superficial and unoriginal. I don\u0026rsquo;t understand why anybody would listen to this.\nLet\u0026rsquo;s talk about the episode with Veronika Grimm. It goes entirely as expected. Ronzheimer gives Grimm a bunch of easy passes that allow her to spout the talking points the German government has been pushing about the economy.\nGrimm and the government want everybody to work more for less money. The threat is that if we don\u0026rsquo;t, the economy will become even more uncompetitive than it already is.\nWe\u0026rsquo;ve heard them rant against people who are working part-time. Nothing is going to change because of these rants. It would be better to examine why people need to work part-time and try to figure out solutions. The vast productivity and effectiveness gaps present in almost every German company and institution need to be fixed by investment, not papered over by pushing people to work more hours.\nDoing any of these of course requires a politics based on changing something. That\u0026rsquo;s not something this German government can do.\nBut what takes the cake is Grimm also suggesting to roll back the \u0026ldquo;telephone sick note\u0026rdquo; to increase productivity in Germany. Me dragging myself to the doctor\u0026rsquo;s office on Monday morning and waiting three hours to get a piece of paper is really going to make the country more productive.\nWith thinking like this we\u0026rsquo;ll never get a better economy. In the Netherlands sick notes do not exist and working part-time is incredibly common. Last I checked they are doing better than Germany on all fronts.\nhttps://pca.st/episode/08560107-9341-42b6-b177-13cdff827e06\n","date":"February 7, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18809/","section":"Posts","summary":"Through a recommendation on Bluesky I came across the Ronzheimer podcast hosted by Paul Ronzheimer, the main journalist out of the Axel-Springer media house. Listening to him talk to German notables, it becomes clear that he’s not the sharpest knife in the block. There is no spark or wit in either of the two episodes I listened to. His questions are superficial and unoriginal. I don’t understand why anybody would listen to this.\n","title":"Ronzheimer","type":"posts"},{"content":"I really don\u0026rsquo;t know why I write Go (a bit too much of a purist) because as described here it really is quite good, enjoyable and extremely LLM compatible.\nhttps://michael.stapelberg.ch/posts/2017-08-19-golang_favorite/\n","date":"February 5, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18807/","section":"Posts","summary":"I really don’t know why I write Go (a bit too much of a purist) because as described here it really is quite good, enjoyable and extremely LLM compatible.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A way above average list of games for 2025. Rami is and remains a connoisseur.\nhttps://giantbomb.com/articles/rami-ismails-top-games-of-2025\n","date":"February 5, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18806/","section":"Posts","summary":"A way above average list of games for 2025. Rami is and remains a connoisseur.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A software library that has no code but is generated ad hoc by LLM is such a brilliant provocations and an end run to the natural conclusion of these developments.\nReally interesting and thought provoking even if it may not be of huge practical use right now.\nhttps://www.dbreunig.com/2026/01/08/a-software-library-with-no-code.html\n","date":"February 5, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18805/","section":"Posts","summary":"A software library that has no code but is generated ad hoc by LLM is such a brilliant provocations and an end run to the natural conclusion of these developments.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Two notes on this piece about two track AI users:\nI agree that if the only LLM you can use is Copilot, you may as well not use one at all. You\u0026rsquo;re better off not getting exposed to what is really the MS Teams of AI.\nIt is a fantasy that an Enterprise can rally a team and plan, design and deploy their own vetted AI offering on any relevant timescale. Things develop from one week to another (not compatible with 6-12 month project timelines) and the expertise to follow developments is extremely rare.\nhttps://martinalderson.com/posts/two-kinds-of-ai-users-are-emerging/\n","date":"February 5, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18804/","section":"Posts","summary":"Two notes on this piece about two track AI users:\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Who would have thought that Postman and other basic developer tools would never return any investor multiple?\nThe tools have been irreparably broken but there are also new ones that have come up to replace them: Bruno and Yaak\nhttps://efp.asia/blog/2025/12/24/api-tooling-crisis/\n","date":"February 5, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18803/","section":"Posts","summary":"Who would have thought that Postman and other basic developer tools would never return any investor multiple?\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Here\u0026rsquo;s a case for the people in Germany claiming that Datenschutz is never used to limit societal progress and that it doesn\u0026rsquo;t have a vast and debilitating chilling effect.\nDaraufhin teilte das LDA dem Bürger mit, dass man datenschutzrechtliche Auflagen, nach denen der Bürger den Falschparkern beispielsweise eine Internetseite zur Verfügung stellen müsse, auf der über die Datenverarbeitung informiert werde. Zudem verlangt das LDA detaillierte Angaben zu eingesetzten EDV-Geräten und Sicherheitsmaßnahmen wie automatischen Betriebssystem-Updates und Verschlüsselung der Datenübertragung.\nA man sending pictures of people blocking the road in front of his kids\u0026rsquo; school has been sent a notice by the Bayerische Landesamt für Datenschutzaufsicht that he needs to guarantee the privacy of the culprits on all levels.\nThe German government instead of doing its job and enforcing traffic laws would rather spend its time harrassing honest citizens.\nhttps://www.op-online.de/na-pressemitteilungen/einschuechterungsversuche-durch-bayerische-landesbehoerde-deutsche-umwelthilfe-unterstuetzt-buerger-im-verfahren-um-falschparker-vor-muenchner-schule-zr-94130332.html\n","date":"February 5, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18802/","section":"Posts","summary":"Here’s a case for the people in Germany claiming that Datenschutz is never used to limit societal progress and that it doesn’t have a vast and debilitating chilling effect.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A relatively unique systems theoretical breakdown by Uwe Friedrichsen of the nebulous \u0026ldquo;technical debt\u0026rdquo; concept.\nAs with many wicked problems like this, there is only one real solution to it but nobody likes to hear it.\nhttps://www.ufried.com/blog/forget_technical_debt/\n","date":"February 5, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18801/","section":"Posts","summary":"A relatively unique systems theoretical breakdown by Uwe Friedrichsen of the nebulous “technical debt” concept.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"France leads the way enforcing the real laws that we have against abuse against the American platforms. Let\u0026rsquo;s push for many more governments to follow suit.\nhttps://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/feb/03/french-headquarters-elon-musk-x-raided-paris-cybercrime-unit\n","date":"February 5, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18800/","section":"Posts","summary":"France leads the way enforcing the real laws that we have against abuse against the American platforms. Let’s push for many more governments to follow suit.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Lots of pressure inside of vendors to publish outlandish blog posts claiming to have accomplished impressive feats.\nCloudFlare has walked a bunch of it back now but this is a good tear down of all of the many issues with their claim to have reimplemented Matrix.\nhttps://nexy.blog/2026/01/28/cf-matrix-workers/\n","date":"February 5, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18799/","section":"Posts","summary":"Lots of pressure inside of vendors to publish outlandish blog posts claiming to have accomplished impressive feats.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Europe has lots of significant industries and capabilities. There is nothing stopping us from having a competitive local cloud offering (except of course the lack of political will).\nhttps://berthub.eu/articles/posts/now-how-to-get-that-european-cloud/\n","date":"January 31, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18798/","section":"Posts","summary":"Europe has lots of significant industries and capabilities. There is nothing stopping us from having a competitive local cloud offering (except of course the lack of political will).\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":" Notable this episode:\nThe cold open with the encounter between Thjazi and Hal is a lovely little vignette. Brothers are very familiar and they also never listen to one another. The encounter with the Lux was comedic in the faux-naïveté of both sides. Occtis\u0026rsquo;s developing horror as to his new unliving body was interesting but got snowed under a bit with everything else he was doing (Disguise Self as Erlich Kerzingblad, undead vulture). The point where Occtis\u0026rsquo;s body got mended in an act of magical Kintsugi by Taisha\u0026rsquo;s Mend Object was lovely. House Einfasen and the area of ‘Riesengürtle’ are read by Americans as “German” but to me it feels much more autistic than that. I\u0026rsquo;d put it more as Nordic/Finnish. The handmaid getting her brain splattered on the floor was a nice shocker but definitely also somewhat suspect. ","date":"January 31, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18797/","section":"Posts","summary":" Notable this episode:\n","title":"Critical Role - Campaign 4 Episode 12","type":"posts"},{"content":"Germany desperately needs to be investing in its future, it needs equipment of all kinds. It needs infrastructure and it also needs to invest in human capital.\nhttps://open.substack.com/pub/adamtooze/p/chartbook-463-polygloom-whats-wrong\n","date":"January 31, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18796/","section":"Posts","summary":"Germany desperately needs to be investing in its future, it needs equipment of all kinds. It needs infrastructure and it also needs to invest in human capital.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Like the NYT has walked back its reporting and continuously grovels for its regime, you can see the exact same behavior of uncritical non-journalism in mainstream outlets over here.\nhttps://criticalread.substack.com/p/moments-of-bravery-and-cowardice\n","date":"January 29, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18795/","section":"Posts","summary":"Like the NYT has walked back its reporting and continuously grovels for its regime, you can see the exact same behavior of uncritical non-journalism in mainstream outlets over here.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"These deep unusual approaches to optimize Postgres are super educational. Lots of weird nooks and crannies of this database system.\nhttps://hakibenita.com/postgresql-unconventional-optimizations\n","date":"January 29, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18794/","section":"Posts","summary":"These deep unusual approaches to optimize Postgres are super educational. Lots of weird nooks and crannies of this database system.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"one can go through a full cycle of the “write code” loop faster than one would go through “suffering the consequences of your own architecture” loop\nThe implication here is that if you’re on a new code base with no history and a future that might not exist (such as short-term prototypes or experiments), you’re likely to be able to have isolated short loops. If you’re working on a large platform with thousands of users, years of accrued patterns and edge cases, and the weight of an organizational culture to fight or align with, you end up relying on the longer loops to inform the shorter ones.\nDid I expect to read a piece applying Hartmut Rosa to software engineering? No. Did I expect that piece to then be very very good? Also no.\nFred Hebert explains why the acceleration of code generation by AI does not make everything faster. In fact it may slow things down.\nhttps://ferd.ca/software-acceleration-and-desynchronization.html\n","date":"January 29, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18793/","section":"Posts","summary":"one can go through a full cycle of the “write code” loop faster than one would go through “suffering the consequences of your own architecture” loop\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"This is the kind of thing that needs to get X shut down. It\u0026rsquo;s vile and criminal.\nhttps://daringfireball.net/linked/2026/01/27/what-its-like-to-get-undressed-by-grok\n","date":"January 29, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18792/","section":"Posts","summary":"This is the kind of thing that needs to get X shut down. It’s vile and criminal.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The CDU wants to abolish the right to work part-time in Germany. Most people don\u0026rsquo;t know that anybody here can ask to work part-time and if the company does not have a good reason to refuse it, they can\u0026rsquo;t.\nThere are a number of issues with this idea:\nFor as long as I\u0026rsquo;ve worked in Germany I don\u0026rsquo;t think I\u0026rsquo;ve ever seen another man work part-time. In effect this would be abolishing a right that is only exercised by women which makes this sexist, even by the CDU\u0026rsquo;s standards. Given the discouraged labor participation of women in Germany in general and them being the only ones using this, it\u0026rsquo;s fair to say that working part-time is rare in Germany. That makes the change here relatively inconsequential. That majority of people who did work full-time up until now, have hardly created the economic output and innovation to put Germany in a competitive position. That makes you think part-time is not the real issue at hand here. Like we\u0026rsquo;re used to, another bit of ‘window dressing’ politics from the CDU without real reason or consequence.\n(Full disclosure I work part-time in my current job and have worked part-time in the two jobs before that as well.)\nhttps://www.tagesschau.de/inland/innenpolitik/cdu-wirtschaftsfluegel-ende-teilzeit-100.html\n","date":"January 28, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18791/","section":"Posts","summary":"The CDU wants to abolish the right to work part-time in Germany. Most people don’t know that anybody here can ask to work part-time and if the company does not have a good reason to refuse it, they can’t.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"January 24, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/japanese/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Japanese","type":"categories"},{"content":"Yang Wenli has a very particular approach to leadership. It\u0026rsquo;s exemplified in this sequence where he embodies the thing that Jocko always calls ‘The Dichotomy of Leadership’. The leader is always in conflict needing to reconcile the demands from above with the realities and attitudes below.\nI noticed this on my watch through and thought it would be good to go back and capture it.\nThis phrase is it:\n\u0026ldquo;It\u0026rsquo;s a good for nothing battle, that\u0026rsquo;s true. But even so, there\u0026rsquo;s no point in losing.\u0026rdquo;\nHere\u0026rsquo;s the complete sequence from season 1 episode 21:\n司令官のヤン・ウェンリー\n間も無く戦いが始まる 碌でもない戦いだが\nそれだけに勝たなくては意味がない\n勝つための算段はしてあるから、無理せず気楽にやってくれ\nかかっているのは、たかだか国家の存亡だ\n個人の自由と権利に比べれば、大した価値のあるものじゃあない。\nそれではみんな。 そろそろ始めるとしようか？\n","date":"January 24, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18790/","section":"Posts","summary":"Yang Wenli has a very particular approach to leadership. It’s exemplified in this sequence where he embodies the thing that Jocko always calls ‘The Dichotomy of Leadership’. The leader is always in conflict needing to reconcile the demands from above with the realities and attitudes below.\n","title":"Yang Wenli's Leadership Approach","type":"posts"},{"content":"You may recall my terrible arrival in Tokyo where I couldn\u0026rsquo;t get any money from the ATMs.\nFor historic reasons my bank in Germany is the GLS Bank, an alternative and esoteric bank that pretends it\u0026rsquo;s good. Their statement after the fact was the following:\nVon Sammstag bis Montagmittag lag eine Störung vor, sodass Bankkarten als auch Kreditkarten nicht funktionierten.\nThis is quite staggering. It means they had a disruption to all card payments from Saturday until Monday afternoon.\nI don\u0026rsquo;t consider a three day disruption to be acceptable for any service, but especially in banking there are supposed to be very stringent compliance requirements around uptime that should make something like this impossible.\nThe GLS does not ship any new features like ever, if they also can\u0026rsquo;t keep what they have stable, then there is no point.\nI was curious and the good custom in our industry is to disclose details of the incident as well as about the remediation you undertook and will still do to make sure this does not happen again.\nTheir response to my request was:\nBitte haben Sie Verständnis dafür, dass wir zu bankinternen Störungen keine Details mitteilen. Sie können gewiss sein, dass wir die Ursachen ermitteln und präventiv arbeiten.\nThat they are a backward and not particularly customer friendly organization is something that\u0026rsquo;s not news to me. And I definitely do not trust that they will track down the root causes and prevent them from happening again.\nThe only question is whether there are any other German banks that are any better than this.\n","date":"January 23, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18789/","section":"Posts","summary":"You may recall my terrible arrival in Tokyo where I couldn’t get any money from the ATMs.\n","title":"Bank down for three days","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"January 23, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/tokyo/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Tokyo","type":"categories"},{"content":"The current Berlin government has as its Chief Digital Officer, Martina Klement a woman from Bavaria who\u0026rsquo;s overhauling large parts of the city administration.\nThis is what we mean when we talk about the leadership difference. The exact same organization and laws, pretty much the same preconditions that were there 20 years ago. No reason for any of this to be so late other than incompetent people being in change.\nhttps://www.augsburger-allgemeine.de/politik/aus-schwaben-nach-berlin-martina-klement-revolutioniert-die-buerokratie-in-der-hauptstadt-112827329\n","date":"January 22, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18788/","section":"Posts","summary":"The current Berlin government has as its Chief Digital Officer, Martina Klement a woman from Bavaria who’s overhauling large parts of the city administration.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"An entire article about the management of lots of repositories that does not mention the word \u0026ldquo;monorepo\u0026rdquo; even once.\nI think as such this is a great example of all the hoops you have to jump through if your org has an irrational fear of the monorepo concept. A massive and very intricate solution described here for a problem (managing 200 repositories) that should not exist in the first place.\nhttps://blog.dnsimple.com/2025/11/managing-repositories-terraform-github/\n","date":"January 22, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18787/","section":"Posts","summary":"An entire article about the management of lots of repositories that does not mention the word “monorepo” even once.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"This couldn\u0026rsquo;t be more true:\nWhen someone shows up, you know. You know, because the text has friction. Because it has opinions that cost something to hold. Because it couldn’t have been written by anyone else, for anyone else, about anything else. You cannot fake putting in the time.\nWriting is creating a relationship. Now I know that it\u0026rsquo;s popular to engage into a relationship with LLMs but let\u0026rsquo;s hope that doesn\u0026rsquo;t spread and the people doing it die out.\nhttps://zanlib.dev/blog/reliable-signals-of-honest-intent/\n","date":"January 21, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18786/","section":"Posts","summary":"This couldn’t be more true:\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A nice profile about the Tooze phenomenon.\nAbout Marx him and me both:\nHe told me that he is not a Marxist in part because he thinks treating a body of theory produced in the middle of the 19th century as “the be-all and end-all” – a stable point from which one might stand outside history and discern its hidden forces and patterns – is “a lazy way of dealing with reality”. To accept the radicalism of the present, he says, means acknowledging that you can’t understand history before it happens: “If you’re in the middle of shit, you don’t actually know what the shit is that you’re in the middle of.”\nhttps://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/jan/15/the-crisis-whisperer-how-adam-tooze-makes-sense-of-our-bewildering-age\n","date":"January 21, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18785/","section":"Posts","summary":"A nice profile about the Tooze phenomenon.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Psychedelics being responsible for humans developing quicker and smarter than other species is a delightful notion. The proof isn\u0026rsquo;t very solid, but that\u0026rsquo;s fine for a \u0026ldquo;notion\u0026rdquo;.\nhttps://davidluke543044.substack.com/p/reawakening-the-stoned-ape\n","date":"January 21, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18784/","section":"Posts","summary":"Psychedelics being responsible for humans developing quicker and smarter than other species is a delightful notion. The proof isn’t very solid, but that’s fine for a “notion”.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"AI driving people into a mental health crisis seems to be common enough that it\u0026rsquo;s not something that can be ignored.\nIn many ways, this is the way this technology works so it\u0026rsquo;s a feature more than a bug.\nhttps://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/meta-ai-glasses-desert-aliens\n","date":"January 21, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18783/","section":"Posts","summary":"AI driving people into a mental health crisis seems to be common enough that it’s not something that can be ignored.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Man denkt oft: ‘Alles was auf Deutsch geschrieben wird ist zwangsläufig öde.’ Nur dann gibt es Leute wie Christoph die das widerlegen, wie hier zum Beispiel:\nZwischen den Jahren passieren viele mikroskopisch kleine Dinge, die eine merkwürdige Busyness herstellen, und so komme ich kaum dazu, das Jahr angemessen zu reflektieren. Vielleicht ist es okay. Vielleicht kommt jetzt einfach das nächste Jahr, und es geht weiter, und die Dinge räumen sich unterwegs auf. So ist es ja meistens.\nEs gibt solche Leute leider äußerst selten. Das muss auch gesagt.\nhttps://christowski.de/blog/2025/12/dezember-liste-2025/\n","date":"January 21, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18782/","section":"Posts","summary":"Man denkt oft: ‘Alles was auf Deutsch geschrieben wird ist zwangsläufig öde.’ Nur dann gibt es Leute wie Christoph die das widerlegen, wie hier zum Beispiel:\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"January 21, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/german/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"German","type":"categories"},{"content":"Emily spitting truth on the way out:\nWhatever the path, what ends up happening is these executives who know truly nothing about the day to day work of a data scientist gas each other up about the (usually extremely overinflated) benefits of generative AI. The CEO believes this, because a CEO’s job consists entirely of emails and meetings, and so when he uses ChatGPT to write an email or transcribe a meeting, he projects the tool’s ability to do his job onto everyone else’s. So he hires his tennis buddy at McKinsey to cleave an AI strategy onto the company roadmap, where it takes priority over all the other initiatives that will solve actual problems for the business. It doesn’t matter if it works or not. He has no choice, because all his board members\u0026rsquo; companies are doing the same thing. In the world of business, nothing is riskier than being an anomaly.\nBerlin isn\u0026rsquo;t over. More and more people are leaving the city, but even more continue to come. Things are going to be awkward and expensive, maybe indefinitely.\na culturally-decaying and increasingly expensive Berlin\nBerlin wishes more than any city I’ve ever seen to be frozen in time. It’s a city of agelessness, where everyone eternally reaches for the aura of 1990, none moreso than the people who weren’t even born yet when the Wall came down.\nhttps://emilygorcenski.com/post/the-quarter-century/\n","date":"January 21, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18781/","section":"Posts","summary":"Emily spitting truth on the way out:\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":" Let me take note of some highlights for each episode. We\u0026rsquo;re already pretty far in and it\u0026rsquo;s easy to forget all the things that happened since the episodes are long and the cast of characters continuously rotates.\nThere\u0026rsquo;s too many good bits that I can barely remember as it is.\nSo in this episode we have every table present.\nSeekers # The prelude seems like a standard bit of traveling through the country but it is given a ton of additional depth by this one episode. They have to take a detour and stumble on a dwarven village where people pray for the return of their shaper, the goddess of the forge, with lanterns at the site of scattered sculptures which in turn were set there to deface a site of a titan of the old path. Taisha does not take this very well.\nA very brief fragment that efficiently delivers a big dollop of history, humanity and two competing pantheons.\nOn Instagram there\u0026rsquo;s a teaser where Aranessa recounts her situation which provides a good introduction in our upcoming foray with the seeker party.\nSchemers # The hostile takeoever of every institution in Dol-Makjar being called a ‘coup’ should drive home for good the parallels with what the Trump administrations is doing. It did for me at least.\nAfter the schemers\u0026rsquo; council we get to see a side of Hal we didn\u0026rsquo;t get to see yet. Instead of his usual somber and caring persona, in his interactions with the gentry he delivers fully as a thespian who plays his role in the most transactional way1.\nSoldiers # I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t say the soldiers had much in the way of memorable moments other than their encounter with the hounds. Hounds are always a crowd pleaser.\nThe part where everybody is resting and reflecting at the fire would have to be the highlight especially the full interaction between Kattigan and Tyranny.\n“Every little motion of the knife is a prayer, hoping that a thing she loves more than life itself will take a little morsel of food, and get a little stronger, a little bigger, a little more ready for a world she can’t predict.”\nIf you\u0026rsquo;ve ever been around actors or other professional fakers, this is a shift you cannot have missed.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"January 21, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18780/","section":"Posts","summary":" Let me take note of some highlights for each episode. We’re already pretty far in and it’s easy to forget all the things that happened since the episodes are long and the cast of characters continuously rotates.\n","title":"Critical Role - Campaign 4 Episode 11","type":"posts"},{"content":"Whatever you think about AI, it should be obvious that falling for any hype, either pro or against something is bad.\nThere is no magic or evil here. It\u0026rsquo;s just a tool like any other.\nhttps://antirez.com/news/158\n","date":"January 17, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18779/","section":"Posts","summary":"Whatever you think about AI, it should be obvious that falling for any hype, either pro or against something is bad.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"An interesting if somewhat rambling history of containers and their effect on software engineering by Justin Cormack who as head of Docker was a key player in this development.\n","date":"January 17, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18778/","section":"Posts","summary":"An interesting if somewhat rambling history of containers and their effect on software engineering by Justin Cormack who as head of Docker was a key player in this development.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Based also on what Schneier recently wrote about AI security, there\u0026rsquo;s no real way to secure against these kind of attacks without restricting LLMs to the point of making them much less useful.\nhttps://www.promptarmor.com/resources/claude-cowork-exfiltrates-files\n","date":"January 17, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18777/","section":"Posts","summary":"Based also on what Schneier recently wrote about AI security, there’s no real way to secure against these kind of attacks without restricting LLMs to the point of making them much less useful.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"This Tokyo last train (終電) visualizer is a fun concept but given that all the trains disappear at roughly the same time, it\u0026rsquo;s usefulness is somewhat limited.\nJB central line to Nakano is the holdout doing a seven minute trip at 24:52.\nhttps://tokyo-last-train-map.pages.dev\n","date":"January 17, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18776/","section":"Posts","summary":"This Tokyo last train (終電) visualizer is a fun concept but given that all the trains disappear at roughly the same time, it’s usefulness is somewhat limited.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Hard to think of something that\u0026rsquo;s more my jam than this language where you program Haskell by using Turkish grammar constructs.\nHow long will it be until we get Chinese syntactic programming languages that are used for real applications? That programming language keywords are in English is just a historic accident.\nhttps://github.com/joom/kip/wiki/Tutorial\n","date":"January 17, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18775/","section":"Posts","summary":"Hard to think of something that’s more my jam than this language where you program Haskell by using Turkish grammar constructs.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"January 17, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/turkish/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Turkish","type":"categories"},{"content":"Submission for: https://lobste.rs/s/r7rdk7/lobsters_battlestations_screenshots\nMoved to /uses\n","date":"January 16, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/battlestation-2026/","section":"Posts","summary":"Submission for: https://lobste.rs/s/r7rdk7/lobsters_battlestations_screenshots\n","title":"Battlestation 2026","type":"posts"},{"content":" Hardware # Macbook Pro M4 (work) Macbook Air M1 (private) iPhone 17 Sony MDR-7506 Sennheiser gaming headset Shure microphone Airpods Pro 2 Cartel Contra 40% keyboard with Kailh box navy switches running QMK with my custom layout and Mito Mt3 Pules keycaps Let\u0026rsquo;s Split 40% keyboard Dell Monitor as a USB hub Anker wired vertical mouse IKEA standing desk Orient Kamasu Mako III Vitra desk organizer Lamy Safari fountain pen Home # Cartel Contra 40% keyboard Logitech G500s mouse Håg Capisco chair IKEA tiny desk Software # Obsidian Code \u0026amp; Zed \u0026amp; Helix Ghostty Claude Code Fantastical Things Bear Homebrew Aerospace John\u0026rsquo;s Background Switcher Hex Maccy Raycast Amphetamine CleanShot X gg ","date":"January 16, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/uses/","section":"Pages","summary":" ","title":"Uses","type":"pages"},{"content":"You can trust the Verge to mostly be right and to rarely pull any punches. That is worth a lot right now.\nhttps://www.theverge.com/policy/859902/apple-google-run-by-cowards\n","date":"January 16, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18774/","section":"Posts","summary":"You can trust the Verge to mostly be right and to rarely pull any punches. That is worth a lot right now.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Like the title says here is a fairly comprehensive overview of how you can store and manage arrays of dynamic size.\nMost of us will never need it but even then.\nhttps://azmr.uk/dyn/\n","date":"January 16, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18773/","section":"Posts","summary":"Like the title says here is a fairly comprehensive overview of how you can store and manage arrays of dynamic size.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"More software engineering history is always welcome like here about how Prettier came to be.\nhttps://blog.vjeux.com/2025/javascript/birth-of-prettier.html\n","date":"January 16, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18772/","section":"Posts","summary":"More software engineering history is always welcome like here about how Prettier came to be.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;m trying to dictate as much as possible in my day to day work. It\u0026rsquo;s a revolutionary shift and I say that as somebody who types at 100+ wpm.\nCurrently I mostly use Hex and I\u0026rsquo;ve tried a bit of Talon.\nhttps://www.macsparky.com/blog/2025/11/why-dictation-is-easier-and-more-relevant/\n","date":"January 16, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18771/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’m trying to dictate as much as possible in my day to day work. It’s a revolutionary shift and I say that as somebody who types at 100+ wpm.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Once Google Maps becomes so important to the survival of restaurants it ceases to be a useful tool and becomes a thing to be gamed.\nData mining it like Lauren Leek has done here is one way of dealing with that situation but it would be nice if this led to more sustainable approaches to the problem.\nPlatform transparency and auditability are no longer niche tech debates; they are quietly becoming tools of local economic policy. At minimum, ranking algorithms with this much economic consequence should be auditable.\nhttps://laurenleek.substack.com/p/how-google-maps-quietly-allocates\n","date":"January 16, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18770/","section":"Posts","summary":"Once Google Maps becomes so important to the survival of restaurants it ceases to be a useful tool and becomes a thing to be gamed.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"January 16, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/food/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Food","type":"categories"},{"content":"","date":"January 16, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/london/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"London","type":"categories"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;m going to make a sign here so I can tap it whenever I run across these misconceptions again.\nImportant A monorepo is a way of organizing different units of code in the same repository.\nDependency management and deployment orchestration are fully independent of where the code is physically stored and a monorepo does not dictate how to do either of these.\nConflating all of these together is sloppy communication and creates bad outcomes.\n","date":"January 15, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18769/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’m going to make a sign here so I can tap it whenever I run across these misconceptions again.\n","title":"Monorepos","type":"posts"},{"content":"A great video about Postgres scaling at OpenAI and nice to see that we have run into many of the same problems as they have and are using similar approaches to solving them.\nhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ni1SGhNu-Q4\n","date":"January 15, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18768/","section":"Posts","summary":"A great video about Postgres scaling at OpenAI and nice to see that we have run into many of the same problems as they have and are using similar approaches to solving them.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I refuse to use Passkeys because:\nThe technology is being pushed very hard with dark patterns and hardly any documentation. The companies pushing it are not trustworthy when it comes to account recovery flows and edge cases. There are many more issues with the technology but I think this is already enough to opt out.\nhttps://fy.blackhats.net.au/blog/2025-12-17-yep-passkeys-still-have-problems/\n","date":"January 15, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18767/","section":"Posts","summary":"I refuse to use Passkeys because:\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"An thorough analysis of the position of women and the normalization of domestic abuse in South Asia.\nhttps://yashicadutt.substack.com/p/the-south-asian-juror-in-the-diddy\n","date":"January 15, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18766/","section":"Posts","summary":"An thorough analysis of the position of women and the normalization of domestic abuse in South Asia.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"It\u0026rsquo;s amazing how bad a job Alan Dye did. He even sabotaged the most basic act of resizing a window on macOS.\nhttps://noheger.at/blog/2026/01/11/the-struggle-of-resizing-windows-on-macos-tahoe/\nThey say his greatest achievement was political in convincing Apple leadership to give him this role and allow him to do such a bad job for such a long time. That may very well be right and I\u0026rsquo;m curious how you create that level of buy-in.\nThe man has a public Instagram account where his latest post about his move to Meta is lauded with congratulations. It\u0026rsquo;d be beneficial if more people would be honest to him.\nhttps://www.instagram.com/p/DR2c3LmAWud/\n","date":"January 15, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18765/","section":"Posts","summary":"It’s amazing how bad a job Alan Dye did. He even sabotaged the most basic act of resizing a window on macOS.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Github was an amazing strategic play by Microsoft. It was good for them and for us for more years than I can count.\nBut now they are driving it into the ground and it\u0026rsquo;s time to move on. Alternatives abound and more are being made as we speak. Use whatever subsidized compute you can still get from Microsoft but get ready to leave.\nhttps://ploum.net/2026-01-05-unteaching_github.html\n","date":"January 12, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18764/","section":"Posts","summary":"Github was an amazing strategic play by Microsoft. It was good for them and for us for more years than I can count.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Graven in de oude artikelen van dit blog doet me ook wat oude dingen nazoeken met een “Hè, wat is daarmee gebeurd?”\nBijna alle Nederlandse weblogs waar ik de afgelopen 20 jaar naar linkte zijn weg. Het is bijna lastig om er te noemen die er nog wél zijn. Laat staan dat het merendeel van alle andere links ook allemaal kapot zijn.\nHier is een leuk lijstje van mijn minirecensies op de gearchiveerde versie van Moose. Het is lastig uit te leggen hoe belangrijk die website was voor theaternerds. Mijn eerste bezoeken nog voor ik in Amsterdam woonde aan Frascati (\u0026rsquo;t Barre Land en de Onderneming met De ideale Ernst of het belang van een echtgenoot) en het Compagnietheater waar ik me altijd een buitenstaander voelde—of laten we eerlijk zijn een buitenstaander was.\nMoose was een belangrijk anker voor mij om mijn mening ergens aan te staven weg van de theaterrecensie in de krant: ‘Snap ik waar dit over gaat en slaat mijn mening hierover ook ergens op?’\nVaker wél dan niet bleek dus.\nTot het punt dus dat ik het meeste theater dat er in Amsterdam speelde (én opera én dans) zag. Iets wat ophield toen ik naar Berlijn verhuisde waar zowel de liefde voor het theater als voor de bioscoop het niet overleefden.\nIn ieder geval hier staan dus mijn oude minirecensies: http://www.moose.nl/moosers/alper/minirecensies/index.html\n","date":"January 11, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18763/","section":"Posts","summary":"Graven in de oude artikelen van dit blog doet me ook wat oude dingen nazoeken met een “Hè, wat is daarmee gebeurd?”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"January 11, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/theater/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Theater","type":"categories"},{"content":"Lots of people have linked to this guide about friendship and there\u0026rsquo;s something about the writing style and the urgency that makes this stick.\nAn Existential Guide to: Making Friends\n","date":"January 11, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18762/","section":"Posts","summary":"Lots of people have linked to this guide about friendship and there’s something about the writing style and the urgency that makes this stick.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Aphyr, somebody who\u0026rsquo;s technical work is widely known and respected gives a first hand account of what it\u0026rsquo;s like to live under fascist occupation.\nhttps://aphyr.com/posts/397-i-want-you-to-understand-chicago\n","date":"January 11, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18761/","section":"Posts","summary":"Aphyr, somebody who’s technical work is widely known and respected gives a first hand account of what it’s like to live under fascist occupation.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Not sure what part of this are worth mentioning because I find it so obvious how to build software quickly. Apparently, this is not obvious to everybody.\nHow I build software quickly\n","date":"January 11, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18760/","section":"Posts","summary":"Not sure what part of this are worth mentioning because I find it so obvious how to build software quickly. Apparently, this is not obvious to everybody.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Thiel later finds biblical meaning in the manga One Piece, discussing how he believes it represents a future where an antichrist-like one-world government has repressed science. He believes that the hero, Monkey D Luffy, represents a Christlike figure.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s hard to overstate how cooked Peter Thiel\u0026rsquo;s brain is. Why is this person in charge of anything?\nhttps://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/10/peter-thiel-lectures-antichrist\n","date":"January 11, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18759/","section":"Posts","summary":"Thiel later finds biblical meaning in the manga One Piece, discussing how he believes it represents a future where an antichrist-like one-world government has repressed science. He believes that the hero, Monkey D Luffy, represents a Christlike figure.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"grug brained development collects a lot of wisdom on software engineering that non-grugs would do well to take to heart.\nhttps://grugbrain.dev\n","date":"January 11, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18758/","section":"Posts","summary":"grug brained development collects a lot of wisdom on software engineering that non-grugs would do well to take to heart.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Angaben gemäß §5 TMG und §18 MStV\nAlper Cugun ℅ Choco Communications GmbH Wrangelstraße 100 10997 Berlin Deutschland E-mail: alper AT alper PUNKT de\nVerantwortlich für den Inhalt nach §18 Abs. 2 MStV: Alper Cugun Anschrift wie oben ","date":"January 11, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/impressum/","section":"Pages","summary":"Angaben gemäß §5 TMG und §18 MStV\n","title":"Impressum","type":"pages"},{"content":"Written like this it all sounds pretty straight-forward, but:\nA normal Python project will pretty much never need something like Bazel. Setting up Bazel for your project will be one person occupied full-time with just that. How to Build Python Code with Bazel (and Why)\n","date":"January 10, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18757/","section":"Posts","summary":"Written like this it all sounds pretty straight-forward, but:\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Instead of being able to carry my digital ID in my phone wallet as is long overdue, here in Europe we just get lots of people going on and on about these or those privacy minutiae.\nLet\u0026rsquo;s not pretend that any of our goverments would meaningfully stand up to the USA anyway, so might as well just give us the goodies.\nhttps://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/11/apple-introduces-digital-id-a-new-way-to-create-and-present-an-id-in-apple-wallet/\n","date":"January 10, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18756/","section":"Posts","summary":"Instead of being able to carry my digital ID in my phone wallet as is long overdue, here in Europe we just get lots of people going on and on about these or those privacy minutiae.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ai Weiwei is right to be angry and lashes out in this barrage of scathing statements. That Zeit would not publish this is curious given the garbage that they\u0026rsquo;ve been wont to put out over the past year. However undirected, criticism of Germany is not appreciated by the Germans.\nHere, at a deserted street, people stop dutifully at a red light. Not a car in sight. This, I once thought, is the mark of a highly evolved society. At the heart of bureaucracy lies a collective endorsement of power\u0026rsquo;s legitimacy, and therefore, individuals surrender their moral judgment — or perhaps never developed one. They abandon challenge. They relinquish dispute.\nThat is the anecdote also with which “Two Cheers for Anarchism” (read in 2012) opens: A German village in the 80s without any traffic but with a traffic light where the people dutifully wait for the green signal even though everybody knows there is no point.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s hard to come up with a better illustration of the working of the German mind and its major malfunction.\n","date":"January 10, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18755/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ai Weiwei is right to be angry and lashes out in this barrage of scathing statements. That Zeit would not publish this is curious given the garbage that they’ve been wont to put out over the past year. However undirected, criticism of Germany is not appreciated by the Germans.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"It\u0026rsquo;s not just Mamdani, it\u0026rsquo;s also Jewish leaders like Rabbi Moishe Indig who make me ashamed to live in Berlin. In comparison, our local political and religious leaders are so very bad.\nThe Kingmaker from Williamsburg\n","date":"January 10, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18754/","section":"Posts","summary":"It’s not just Mamdani, it’s also Jewish leaders like Rabbi Moishe Indig who make me ashamed to live in Berlin. In comparison, our local political and religious leaders are so very bad.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"His father is a university professor. His mother is a physician. Farritor seems to have been a child prodigy whose talents were recognized, encouraged, and incubated almost from the moment he hit puberty. He was supported by both his well-to-do family, his community, and a number of institutions that exist to identify and elevate gifted children.\nAnd then went on to cut government programs which directly caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. Kids given every privilege and every opportunity who turned into monsters.\nThe Boy Genius Who Killed 14 Million Poor People\n","date":"January 10, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18753/","section":"Posts","summary":"His father is a university professor. His mother is a physician. Farritor seems to have been a child prodigy whose talents were recognized, encouraged, and incubated almost from the moment he hit puberty. He was supported by both his well-to-do family, his community, and a number of institutions that exist to identify and elevate gifted children.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A somewhat comprehensive suite of benchmarks show that for real workloads you don\u0026rsquo;t need anything like async Django. Most of the response time in your requests will be used somewhere else.\nDo not incur the complexity of an half-complete async web framework to optimize something that\u0026rsquo;s not the bottleneck anyway.\nWhat async really means for your python web app?\n","date":"January 10, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18752/","section":"Posts","summary":"A somewhat comprehensive suite of benchmarks show that for real workloads you don’t need anything like async Django. Most of the response time in your requests will be used somewhere else.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Bruce Schneier1 looks at agentic AI here as an OODA loop problem which is an interesting way to look at the fundamental limitations of security and decision making in this context.\nhttps://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2025/10/agentic-ais-ooda-loop-problem.html\nThe person who\u0026rsquo;s newsletter I\u0026rsquo;m subscribed to the longest, probably since somewhere in 2001-3.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"January 10, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18751/","section":"Posts","summary":"Bruce Schneier1 looks at agentic AI here as an OODA loop problem which is an interesting way to look at the fundamental limitations of security and decision making in this context.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Being regulated out of existence should not be near the top of the worries of anybody working on AI at X.\nThey should face criminal charges. If not in the USA, then in other parts of the world where the law still means something.\nhttps://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/02/musk-grok-ai-bot-safeguard-sexualized-images-children.html\n","date":"January 10, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18750/","section":"Posts","summary":"Being regulated out of existence should not be near the top of the worries of anybody working on AI at X.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A very useful and necessary list by the FT of who\u0026rsquo;s behind all the awfulness emanating from the X1 website.\nWho’s who at X, the deepfake porn site formerly known as Twitter\nWe shouldn\u0026rsquo;t use the word Twitter anymore since that is nothing more anymore than the dead rotting carcass from which X launches its misdeeds.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"January 10, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18749/","section":"Posts","summary":"A very useful and necessary list by the FT of who’s behind all the awfulness emanating from the X1 website.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"It\u0026rsquo;s very cool to read how a capable web designer, like Anh here, leverages a static site generator for creative purposes.\nhttps://anhvn.com/posts/2024/my-eleventy-site-setup/\n","date":"January 10, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18748/","section":"Posts","summary":"It’s very cool to read how a capable web designer, like Anh here, leverages a static site generator for creative purposes.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Just through sheer coincidence I\u0026rsquo;m reading the notes on the closure of FF Studio.\nI had no idea they existed nor had I seen any of their amazing work. I\u0026rsquo;m just glad that there are still people believing in novel, interesting ways of working.\nMany of the positives and the negatives are all too familiar though stuff like this is easier said than done:\nTake more risks Be even more transparent Experiment harder Following some links, I found garden3d who take resisting the “traditional agency” thinking to something of a conclusion.\nThe “Traditional Agency™” reads a client’s RFP, sizes up the client’s wallet, and lobs a proposal over the wall. The agency has a lot of experience, and this client is a big company, so why not make an extra couple bucks?\nWe\u0026rsquo;re not a \u0026ldquo;Traditional Agency™\u0026rdquo;\n","date":"January 10, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18747/","section":"Posts","summary":"Just through sheer coincidence I’m reading the notes on the closure of FF Studio.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Just a quick review of 2025 as usual heavily inspired by the one that Hans puts out.\nSports and Health # It was a year where I didn\u0026rsquo;t seriously injure myself and could continuously practice sports. That\u0026rsquo;s already a huge improvement.\nI started going to the gym regularly in the evenings after the kids are sleeping. After some initial hesitance I started doing barbell exercises. The goal is to squat and deadlift at least my bodyweight of 75kg. I\u0026rsquo;m inching this up very slowly and am currently at 40kg.\nGoing to the gym is made possible by my Fitbod subscription. Exercising regularly is much easier, if I don\u0026rsquo;t have to think or plan what I\u0026rsquo;m going to do. That means either a human or an app should tell me what I need to do. Given that the gym is paid for by my work, I can justify the steep monthly cost of Fitbod (here\u0026rsquo;s a 14-day guest pass).\nI\u0026rsquo;m doing winter cycling on the trainers at the gym while I debate whether I should get one for at home. That makes me one of those crazy people who wears a chamois to the gym.\nIt was a great year for cycling. I bought a proper road bike, the Bianchi 2024 Sprint ICR and I managed to join group rides (mostly those of the MAAP LAB Berlin) more or less weekly without having a single mechanical or crash. knocks on wood\nBut then during a solo ride in the last week of the year I managed to slip and fall over. More than the minor damage to my knee and my carbon frame, it was my ego that was bruised.\nStudies # I read a bunch of papers (one write-up) around LLMs and found the field to be overhyped. I don\u0026rsquo;t think that single percentage point increases in performance and conversions of BFS algorithms into LLM prompts are worth writing up. Things are moving so quickly that you can\u0026rsquo;t sit around waiting for breakthroughs to make their way into the literature.\nLearning Japanese continues and I\u0026rsquo;m now at Wanikani level 22. I\u0026rsquo;m not sure what my next goal is going to be. After my trip to Japan my motivation is somewhat on the rocks.\nThe main problem is that once you start studying Japanese, you cannot stop. I\u0026rsquo;m not stopping, but I\u0026rsquo;m dialing it down to maintenance mode.\nBooks # I already posted about how bad of a year 2025 was for reading. Not sure whether I\u0026rsquo;ll find the time to do better next year.\nMovies and TV # I\u0026rsquo;ve moved the tracking of everything that I watch over to Trakt saying goodbye to Letterboxd.\nJust like with fitness, I need an app that will tell me exactly what I need to do right now. Without it, I\u0026rsquo;ll very easily lose track of this. Trakt is excellent at this and offers it in the free version. I pay for premium to get some of the more advanced list management versions.\nThe movies I watched in 2025:\nWicked Moana 2 Neon Genesis Evangelion: The End of Evangelion Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Lilo \u0026amp; Stitch KPop Demon Hunters Encanto The Greatest Showman Trakt tells me that\u0026rsquo;s 901 minutes spent on movies.\nWicked was lovely on the big screen. Of the kids movies I watched: KPop Demon Hunters is impeccable, Moana 2 was unnecessary, Encanto was strangely forgettable, Lilo \u0026amp; Stitch not as bad as I would expect. The Greatest Showman may be flawed but it is full of bangers.\nThe tv series I watched in 2025:\nBluey S3 The Wheel of Time S2 The Bear S1+S2+S3+S4 Neon Genesis Evangelion Dennou Coil Asura Cyberpunk Edge Runners Legend of the Galactic Heroes S1 Heated Rivalry S1 Kaiju No.8 S1 All of these were spectacular and interesting in their own way. The Bear really meshes with so many things I like and like to do. Asura is effectively just a very long Kore-eda movie. LotGH is peak.\nTrakt tells me that this is 4567 minutes spent on episodes. It\u0026rsquo;s clear who\u0026rsquo;s the winner here.\nGames # I don\u0026rsquo;t really track this anymore, but what I can note are the following.\nExpedition 33 was a highlight. I saw it on Tiktok and immediately knew I had to experience it. Not having a console I played it via cloud gaming on my Macbook.\nPlaying a parry/dodge game over a cloud setup is pure masochism, but with difficulty set to easy, it was kind of doable. The gameplay loop is satisfying but after a while the level design formula gets a bit tedious. What stood out were the music1, the writing and the major set pieces in the boss battles and in the environment.\nCritical Role started their campaign 4 and having followed the online RPG scene through Tiktok clips for a while now, I decided to see what the fuss was about. The first episode together with the rest of the ouverture is spectacular. It\u0026rsquo;s a narrative victory of setup, emotions, reveals and backstabbing. I\u0026rsquo;m not sure if they\u0026rsquo;ll stick the landing, but for now I\u0026rsquo;m very much bought in.\nI\u0026rsquo;ll have to delve into what makes this worthwhile. For now I can point to two things. There is an element of let\u0026rsquo;s play parasociality that you have with any game stream or impro podcast. Add to that a very meticulously brewed high fantasy setting that\u0026rsquo;s better than what we get on television: open ended runtime, infinite production values, no cancellation after one or two seasons.\nPrince of Persia: The Lost Crown was discounted and became the game we played during the Christmas break. I led exploring the city on Mount Qaf with my kids on a lower difficulty following right on my heels.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s a great game where the platform mechanics continue to layer on top of each other together with some very nasty puzzles bordering on the outright sadistic. I\u0026rsquo;m super proud to see the grit and skill my kids have shown because easy only affects combat, not the platforming.\nPersia provides a vast and mostly unknown to us landscape of culture, artifacts and mythology to serve as backdrop for this game. A lot of it is undoubtedly historically not accurate, but that does not make it any less nice to look at.\nPodcasts # The two podcasts I listen to most consistently are Ones and Tooze and Past Present Future. Those are both remnants of my Talking Politics period2. Maybe I should add Helen Thompson\u0026rsquo;s podcast as well and have a full lid?\nOther than that I semi-regularly listen to:\nThe Adam Friedland show The Catskills Podcast Cortex Developer Voices Escape Collective (only during the Tour) Feminist Shelf Control KALT\u0026rsquo;ın Podacst\u0026rsquo;ı Oxide and Friends Podcast Filosofie De Shitshow Stavy\u0026rsquo;s World Vergecast I more or less stopped listening to Trashfuture finding the jokes and the commentary repetitive and boring.\nTravel # It was a much better year for travel than most years before this.\nLondon was a work trip in spring and it was one of my best London trips ever. I stayed in Chelsea, I cycled everywhere, drank lots of great coffee, ate a ton of great food, went to a club, went to a play on the West End. I did so much and there\u0026rsquo;s so much left to do. I don\u0026rsquo;t know what took me so long to appreciate London like this.\nIceland was the first trip we took our kids on a plane and then round tripped the island on our way to the family horse farm. Iceland is lovely but empty. Not sure what would make me go back there other than to visit family or if I could do some hard hiking/cycling/riding.\nJapan drove me crazy with reports from everybody and their mother visiting so I had to go. After missing the summer window, I booked for November not knowing that that\u0026rsquo;s one of the best months to visit Japan. I walked the Ise-ji for a large chunk and then I ran around Tokyo for a couple of days. It was even better than all the social media.\nIceland and Japan in the same year is low-key ridiculous but this was also the year at work where I get 20 consecutive extra holidays.\nEnd # Lots more things to cover that happened in 2025 but for now this will have to be it. Despite some marked down periods, all in all it was a good year. On to a much better 2026.\n(This update has been delayed for a week because I fell quite ill just as the new year came around.)\nIt\u0026rsquo;s super cold that one of the most impactful songs starts during a boss battle and if you listen to the music, the boss has initiative and he gets free hits on you.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nWho didn\u0026rsquo;t have a Talking politics period?\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"January 2, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/year-in-review-2025/","section":"Posts","summary":"Just a quick review of 2025 as usual heavily inspired by the one that Hans puts out.\n","title":"Year in Review 2025","type":"posts"},{"content":"One of my bigger issues and the reason I\u0026rsquo;m not bought into the Nix ecosystem: If anything does not work (and many things do not work), you\u0026rsquo;re going to be hours/days deep into various inscrutable abstractions, trying to fix it yourself.\nThe documentation is bad, everything is half done and mostly unused. The promise is great, but the reality not so much. That\u0026rsquo;s why I say that Nix simply does not work for my definition of \u0026ldquo;work\u0026rdquo;.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s not a good fit, if you need to get stuff done which is why I reverted back to Homebrew.\nhttps://rugu.dev/en/blog/leaving-nixos/\n","date":"January 2, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18746/","section":"Posts","summary":"One of my bigger issues and the reason I’m not bought into the Nix ecosystem: If anything does not work (and many things do not work), you’re going to be hours/days deep into various inscrutable abstractions, trying to fix it yourself.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Asis Aynan over white flight in Amsterdam:\nAls je kind op de gewenste voorschool/kinderopvang zit ben je binnen, want dan heb je voorrang tot je begeerde basisschool, waarmee die hele ‘betrouwbare’ loting best een farce genoemd kan worden.\nOok in Berlijn zijn de scholen in Kreuzberg perfect gesegregeerd.\nWhite flight is ook niet het juiste begrip omdat ik Turken ken die uit Geuzenveld wegtrokken destijds naar Hoofddorp omdat er teveel Marokkanen in de buurt kwamen. Brown from brown flight?\nde periode waar ik vervreemd werd van mijn klasgenoten en een leerachterstand opliep omdat ik op de basisschool tijdens het reguliere onderwijs uit de klas werd gehaald om ergens anders in het gebouw onderricht in de Arabische taal te krijgen\nIk heb een tijd lang ook Turkse les gekregen op de basisschool. Het deed weinig ter zake en in een uurtje per week kun je ook niet heel veel bereiken behalve wat basics bijtimmeren.\nToen in de sterren bleek te staan dat onze liefde om nageslacht vroeg, zei ik tegen mijn vriendin dat als het ons gegund was om een nest op te bouwen ik mijn achternaam niet aan onze kinderen hoefde door te geven. En niet omdat ze betere kansen op de arbeidsmarkt te geven, wat verschillende mensen uit mijn omgeving tegen mij zeiden. Ja, de opmerkingen zijn niet van zijde, maar van het grofste schuurpapier.\nWij hebben het wel om díe reden gedaan want er is een echte wereld daarbuiten en elk voordeel is mooi meegenomen. Onze kinderen hebben een Zuid-Duitse achternaam (want dat staat gelijk aan geld) en Turkse middelnamen die ze kunnen inzetten wanneer het hen uitkomt.\nhttps://asisaynan.nl/er-is-iets-geknapt/\n","date":"January 2, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18745/","section":"Posts","summary":"Asis Aynan over white flight in Amsterdam:\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A good list about how anybody can be exceptional at something:\nShow extreme care Know your first solution is probably terrible; rethink it Pay extreme attention to small details Always follow up Own up to your fuck-ups Details on every point are on the post linked below, but this is everything and doing this well is already an infinite amount of work. Which means you have to choose wisely.\nhttps://abdulhamidhassan.com/post/802459222214410240/how-to-be-exceptional-at-anything\n","date":"January 2, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18744/","section":"Posts","summary":"A good list about how anybody can be exceptional at something:\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Bill Gates pretends to be good but has had his hand in many sketchy things including Epstein and climate denial here with Bjorn Lomborg.\nNone of them can be trusted and every billionaire needs to be abolished.\nhttps://www.desmog.com/2025/11/05/bill-gates-donated-climate-denier-bjorn-lomborg-copenhagen-consensus-center/\n","date":"January 2, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18743/","section":"Posts","summary":"Bill Gates pretends to be good but has had his hand in many sketchy things including Epstein and climate denial here with Bjorn Lomborg.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I missed out on the entire NeoVIM movement and found the entire thing somewhat difficult to get into. Not so much with Helix which just works and is pleasant to use.\nEvery time I figure out how to do something complicated with multiple cursors efficiently, I feel like a wizard.\nhttps://jvns.ca/blog/2025/10/10/notes-on-switching-to-helix-from-vim/\n","date":"January 2, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18742/","section":"Posts","summary":"I missed out on the entire NeoVIM movement and found the entire thing somewhat difficult to get into. Not so much with Helix which just works and is pleasant to use.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"After having kicked out Wordpress and moved to a Hugo generated static site, next up are two other useless subscriptions that aren\u0026rsquo;t doing anything other than costing me money:\nFlickr\nFlickr has not generated any positive interactions in years. You can keep posting your pictures there but the place is pretty much dead. The main reasons for being on Flickr Pro were mostly nostalgia, habit and the hosting of the embedded pictures.\nDuring the move to Hugo I pulled all Flickr pictures into the offline bundle so not that much stuff should break. Also breakage is an essential part of the internet.\nI\u0026rsquo;d like to see if I can pull my data and put it into an Immich server, but otherwise I\u0026rsquo;m fine with having a local archive of everything and calling it done.\nApple Developer Account\nI\u0026rsquo;m paying €100/year for the privilege of being able to keep Cuppin.gs on the App Store. That is a benefit, but the amount of money is low-key extortionate.\nIt does not make that much sense for Cuppings to be an iOS app anymore and I\u0026rsquo;ve started a push to turn it into a location aware web application. When I get that done, I can stop paying Apple and leave the closed system for good.\nMore services that I should exit but that are not that pressing:\nGoodreads Spotify Komoot ","date":"January 1, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18741/","section":"Posts","summary":"After having kicked out Wordpress and moved to a Hugo generated static site, next up are two other useless subscriptions that aren’t doing anything other than costing me money:\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"January 1, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/photography/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Photography","type":"categories"},{"content":"Congratulations Django! One of the programming frameworks that has had the most impact on my professional life and has always been nothing other than good to me.\nMy early software engineering career was building web apps during a time where most people believed this was difficult and Django made writing them exceptionally easy. That was a very nice trick to be able to exploit for the better part of 10 years.\nTwenty years later and backend development is not in a dramatically better place in most places. Many of the problems are fundamental, the requirements are non-functional and fundamental improvements are few and far between.\nIn this environment, Django is still very much relevant.\nhttps://www.djangoproject.com/weblog/2025/jul/13/happy-20th-birthday-django/\n","date":"January 1, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18740/","section":"Posts","summary":"Congratulations Django! One of the programming frameworks that has had the most impact on my professional life and has always been nothing other than good to me.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;ve gone similarly deep on Dioxus more than a year ago as one of the candidate technologies (along with Leptos, Svelte and Gleam) for the long awaited new frontend for Cuppings.\nI can agree that even though it does not immediately spark joy, it is one of the best candidates for an end-to-end Rust development stack.\nhttps://fasterthanli.me/articles/does-dioxus-spark-joy\n","date":"January 1, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18739/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’ve gone similarly deep on Dioxus more than a year ago as one of the candidate technologies (along with Leptos, Svelte and Gleam) for the long awaited new frontend for Cuppings.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A revealing account of how using LLMs to do the thinking for you is not actual thinking but a sub-cognitive shortcut.\nMy thinking systems have atrophied, and I can feel it–I can sense my slightly diminishing intuition, cleverness, and rigor.\nLLMs give me finished thoughts, polished and convincing, but none of the intellectual growth that comes from developing them myself.\nA modern day paradox: You can have all the thoughts you want but none of them will be worth anything.\nhttps://dcurt.is/thinking\n","date":"January 1, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18738/","section":"Posts","summary":"A revealing account of how using LLMs to do the thinking for you is not actual thinking but a sub-cognitive shortcut.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"it never works out\nThe list of examples where it ‘hasn\u0026rsquo;t worked out’ read like a series of success stories. Git does so many jobs that it\u0026rsquo;s very difficult to replace it in this constellation. If these are failures, more people should aspire to fail at this scale.\nhttps://nesbitt.io/2025/12/24/package-managers-keep-using-git-as-a-database.html\n","date":"January 1, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18737/","section":"Posts","summary":"it never works out\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Now we see the inevitable walk backs of \u0026ldquo;coding agents will replace all software engineers\u0026rdquo;.\nWhat the cursor CEO is saying here should be obvious but no amount of repeating it will drive it home for most people: With code becoming cheap, it still important (maybe even more so now) to build the right thing and build it right.\nThis statement never managed to reach people before LLMs and there\u0026rsquo;s nothing that has changed that would make it any different. Building the right thing is the job. Some teams will struggle at this, others won\u0026rsquo;t and it will be impossible to tell the difference until late in the game.\nhttps://fortune.com/2025/12/25/cursor-ceo-michael-truell-vibe-coding-warning-generative-ai-assistant/\n","date":"January 1, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18736/","section":"Posts","summary":"Now we see the inevitable walk backs of “coding agents will replace all software engineers”.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"When I read the details of the Mongobleed exploit, I gasped. It\u0026rsquo;s so stunning in its naivete.\nWhat do you mean:\nInstead, it trusts the user’s input and uses that as the canonical size of the payload, even if it got a different number.\nand:\nAn attacker can send a compressed, invalid BSON object that does NOT contain a null terminator.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s another data point that nobody reads any of these docs or seriously tests out most of the software out there.\nhttps://bigdata.2minutestreaming.com/p/mongobleed-explained-simply\n","date":"January 1, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18735/","section":"Posts","summary":"When I read the details of the Mongobleed exploit, I gasped. It’s so stunning in its naivete.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The number of sources of authoritative information is indeed limited enough that the proposal of cryptographically tagging verified output is not that outlandish.\nhttps://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/ex-palantir-turned-politician-alex-140500353.html\n","date":"January 1, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18734/","section":"Posts","summary":"The number of sources of authoritative information is indeed limited enough that the proposal of cryptographically tagging verified output is not that outlandish.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Nice to see Amos creating his own Rust open source cinematic universe with advances in a wide area of topics. It\u0026rsquo;s refreshing to see somebody be skilled at something and then deploying that skill with abandon like here.\nMany of these are real problems and they are of interest to me as well. I tried out Zola in my search for a static site generator. Buck2 is on my list of things to try out but I\u0026rsquo;ve been forewarned against it because of the reasons listed here. Rust compilation times are still quite awful.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s what you\u0026rsquo;ll see if you delve into any project. Everything is shallow and there\u0026rsquo;s so much that\u0026rsquo;s still wide open for anybody to contribute to.\nhttps://fasterthanli.me/articles/2025-recap\n","date":"January 1, 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18733/","section":"Posts","summary":"Nice to see Amos creating his own Rust open source cinematic universe with advances in a wide area of topics. It’s refreshing to see somebody be skilled at something and then deploying that skill with abandon like here.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I hate Github as much as the next person. A platform with a lot of promise has—in Microsoft\u0026rsquo;s hands—devolved into a veritable dump.\nWhat is not a good response in such a situation is to call the people who work on Github \u0026ldquo;monkeys\u0026rdquo; as Andrew Kelley does in Zig\u0026rsquo;s exit post.\nWhat\u0026rsquo;s wrong here?\nCalling people monkeys (or any other animal) is unacceptable in private conversation. Calling them so in a public post representing an organization is extremely unprofessional. Calling people like that if almost certainly a significant number of them are non-white is uncivilized. The post has since been edited because most likely there were some people in Andrew Kelley\u0026rsquo;s organization or environment who had some common sense.\nhttps://mastodon.social/@andrewrk/115620138939386546\n","date":"December 31, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18732/","section":"Posts","summary":"I hate Github as much as the next person. A platform with a lot of promise has—in Microsoft’s hands—devolved into a veritable dump.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":" That\u0026rsquo;s my year in books. Shameful after years of reading dozens of books to be reduced to five.1\nBeing very busy takes its toll. I don\u0026rsquo;t really know when I would have the time to read at the moment and it\u0026rsquo;s not that I consume much more entertainment other than the occasional game and a couple of episodes of some series in a week.\nA lot of time goes into kids, work, sports (going to the gym, road cycling and some swimming) and learning Japanese.\nGoing through the archives of my old blog, I did use to read a lot and got a lot out of it. Maybe I don\u0026rsquo;t read that much anymore because I don\u0026rsquo;t get that much out of it anymore?\nI\u0026rsquo;ve looked and struggled to find books that would really level me up in software engineering, leadership or strategy. For instance what I\u0026rsquo;m reading now from Stafford Beer on operations is nice, but there\u0026rsquo;s very little in there that I don\u0026rsquo;t already know. The same for Fredmund Malik about leadership.\nOne book that would really move the needle and which I have on order, is the classic Types and Programming Languages. But at that point I\u0026rsquo;m dipping into academic territory.\nI don\u0026rsquo;t mind academic reading. It\u0026rsquo;s the focus of the “advanced-studies” shelf I maintain on Goodreads and the papers that I read occasionally in distributed systems, resilience engineering and AI. It\u0026rsquo;s just that reading stuff like that requires a whole different level of commitment in time and focus.\nThere is the wider trend of de-reading in society but reading seems to be over for me for different reasons.\nAnd well, they\u0026rsquo;re not even real books. The Roald Dahl book I read in Dutch, the One Piece I bought in German to see if my kids would be interested and Frieren I read in Japanese to see how hard it would be.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"December 31, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18731/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Year in Books 2025","type":"posts"},{"content":"And with that we are over to a new blogging system. It\u0026rsquo;s not exactly because blogging is still a thing, but I use this site as a personal content store providing backing for the things that I share. Having it under my control and in markdown is useful.\nReading Back # Reading back all those old posts and weeknotes I have here is super nice and reminds me:\nKeeping a record of things is really valuable. Just write and trust that it will come in handy at some point. I used to do so many things in a given week. Compared to what I\u0026rsquo;m doing now, my life was insanely eventful. I was consistently (too) early on a lot of things. For instance: I read myself complaining about restaurants and food in Amsterdam, something which is mostly solved now. Reasons to Move # The main reasons why I\u0026rsquo;m moving away from Wordpress:\nPoorly configured hosts have botched UTF-8 on MySQL for so many times now that the entire blog was riddled with weird encoding errors. I tried a while back to get them out with custom SQL statements, but it turns out I wasn\u0026rsquo;t successful. PHP/MySQL is losing adoption and the more people refuse to use it, the sooner it\u0026rsquo;ll die.\nWeb2.0 seems to have been a mistake and is being rolled back entirely. The whole concept of having your own web property that other people can write to (leave comments and other things) has gone away. That means also there\u0026rsquo;s no need for a dynamic website with database anymore.\nEven the cheapest hosting is not that cheap anymore. I\u0026rsquo;m at Vimexx and, because I didn\u0026rsquo;t have an exit, in September I was forced to pay €102.441 for a year of hosting. That money does not buy me anything other than poorly usable, super outdated admins and a base that won\u0026rsquo;t run anything other than PHP shit apps. I\u0026rsquo;m keeping my stuff on there, since I already paid, but this time I won\u0026rsquo;t be forced to renew.\nMatt Mullenweg has gone off the deep end as have many tech leaders during the Trump administration. I\u0026rsquo;ll admit that this is minor but still worth mentioning.\nHugo # Hugo is an interesting mix of popularity, openness and customizability. It\u0026rsquo;s written in Go, so it\u0026rsquo;s fast and the code is relatively nice to work with. They\u0026rsquo;ve gone through a bunch of re-architectures, so maybe by now they\u0026rsquo;re stable.\nMost importantly having everything in markdown makes it easier for me to control what\u0026rsquo;s happening on the blog than having to deal with a slow database and bad editors.\nFixing the encoding errors was mostly a Claude assissted find and replace job over the entire body of files (see: 57e5c81 and 93d9e2a). And now I can be fairly sure that they won\u0026rsquo;t come back because the connection to the database didn\u0026rsquo;t have a magic parameter specified.\nAlso I\u0026rsquo;d like to see if I can add more content types here. I use Obsidian for Notes so that is its own vault of markdown files. I think it\u0026rsquo;d be interesting to see if I can add some of my old data exports and things like reviews on other sites here as their own data type. I\u0026rsquo;ve always wanted that but building and managing my own Django site for that seemed too much work.\nMore than 100 euros! Vimexx claims they\u0026rsquo;re still the cheapest but have been very regularly pushing \u0026ldquo;pricing adjustments\u0026rdquo;. The prices they list on their website are without BTW.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"December 29, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18730/","section":"Posts","summary":"And with that we are over to a new blogging system. It’s not exactly because blogging is still a thing, but I use this site as a personal content store providing backing for the things that I share. Having it under my control and in markdown is useful.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;m going through my old drafts on this blog while I prepare moving off Wordpress and I really should have read my own writing.\nOne thing that could\u0026rsquo;ve been prevented for instance would be me dealing with the Greens and then saying goodbye to them as described here: Reckoning with the Greens.\nTurns out I did the same thing with GroenLinks in 2007…\nIk laat mijn lidmaatschap van GroenLinks maar verlopen.\nWith similar reasoning:\nVerder denk ik niet meer dat lidmaatschap van een politieke partij een archaïsch instituut is dat niet past bij deze tijd, bij mensen van mijn leeftijd en het huidige politieke landschap. Heel cru gesproken: Wat heb ik eraan als ik niet actief wil worden in een kader en niet wil gaan hengelen naar een baantje ergens? Ik heb wel wat beters te doen.\n","date":"December 22, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18729/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’m going through my old drafts on this blog while I prepare moving off Wordpress and I really should have read my own writing.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"It\u0026rsquo;s interesting to see that amidst a lot of scepticism around GraphQL, new projects like Sourcehut will still choose it and clearly argue for it.\nhttps://sourcehut.org/blog/2020-06-10-how-graphql-will-shape-the-alpha\n","date":"December 22, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18726/","section":"Posts","summary":"It’s interesting to see that amidst a lot of scepticism around GraphQL, new projects like Sourcehut will still choose it and clearly argue for it.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"https://netzpolitik.org/2025/dsgvo-reform-beim-datenschutz-ist-deutschland-inzwischen-dem-silicon-valley-naeher-als-dem-rest-der-eu/\nThe diagnosis here about the unique German problem with Datenschutz is mostly correct. Of course other European countries manage to have privacy without working themselves in a huff around Datenschutz. How could that be?\nThe causes mentioned are correct:\nThere are too many people working in law and compliance in Germany who do nothing but create paper and slow everything down. Lots of people\u0026rsquo;s livelihoods depend on absurd regulations being there. The chilling effect around these regulations has contributed to a low risk appetite and a culture where problems are maintained instead of being solved. But the real reason of course why things are like this here but not elsewhere is culture. It\u0026rsquo;s always culture.\n","date":"December 22, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18722/","section":"Posts","summary":"https://netzpolitik.org/2025/dsgvo-reform-beim-datenschutz-ist-deutschland-inzwischen-dem-silicon-valley-naeher-als-dem-rest-der-eu/\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Do you want some flashbacks to the horrors of trigonometry? Here\u0026rsquo;s fizz buzz in cosines.\nI inadvertently picked an area of software engineering that was pretty much exclusively trig and Fourrier transforms. Even back then I really liked formal systems and proofs a lot but for some reason that\u0026rsquo;s not where I ended up.\nhttps://susam.net/fizz-buzz-with-cosines.html\n","date":"December 22, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18720/","section":"Posts","summary":"Do you want some flashbacks to the horrors of trigonometry? Here’s fizz buzz in cosines.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Dependency cooldowns were the first thing we instituted after tj-actions forced us to hash-pin all the GitHub actions we pulled in. Glad the industry has now also caught up.\nhttps://blog.yossarian.net/2025/11/21/We-should-all-be-using-dependency-cooldowns\n","date":"December 22, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18718/","section":"Posts","summary":"Dependency cooldowns were the first thing we instituted after tj-actions forced us to hash-pin all the GitHub actions we pulled in. Glad the industry has now also caught up.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"With the price of solar panels continuing to go down, there\u0026rsquo;s no reason any surface that you see outside couldn\u0026rsquo;t generate electricity. That\u0026rsquo;s what they mean when they say Kardashev.\nhttps://booktwo.org/notebook/actually-existing-solarpunk\n","date":"December 22, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18716/","section":"Posts","summary":"With the price of solar panels continuing to go down, there’s no reason any surface that you see outside couldn’t generate electricity. That’s what they mean when they say Kardashev.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"AI sales targets are down. Github Actions prices are going up. Most of their software is second tier at best. Microsoft is still, Microsoft.\nhttps://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/12/microsoft-slashes-ai-sales-growth-targets-as-customers-resist-unproven-agents\n","date":"December 22, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18714/","section":"Posts","summary":"AI sales targets are down. Github Actions prices are going up. Most of their software is second tier at best. Microsoft is still, Microsoft.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"\u0026ldquo;RDS goes down too. And when it does, you\u0026rsquo;re still the one getting paged, you just have fewer tools to fix the problem.\u0026rdquo;\nhttps://pierce.dev/notes/go-ahead-self-host-postgres#user-content-fn-4\nNot that much to argue with here. Anybody starting something new right now should most likely steer clear of the AWS trap.\n","date":"December 21, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18712/","section":"Posts","summary":"“RDS goes down too. And when it does, you’re still the one getting paged, you just have fewer tools to fix the problem.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"\u0026ldquo;AI is expected to approach human reasoning\u0026rdquo;\nIf nothing else, von der Leyen demonstrates here that ChatGPT is smarter than the average person in her office. Not exactly what you would call superintelligence, but still.\nOne question you could ask is: Why is she changing laws to promote AI but not for instance self-driving cars?\nhttps://euobserver.com/digital/ar68689659\n","date":"December 21, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18462/","section":"Posts","summary":"“AI is expected to approach human reasoning”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;m glad that Robert Yang is still making games like these. One of the more original and interesting thinkers in game design/development.\nhttps://www.blog.radiator.debacle.us/2025/12/rainbows.html?m=1\n","date":"December 21, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18707/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’m glad that Robert Yang is still making games like these. One of the more original and interesting thinkers in game design/development.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I read this paper right after I read the book by Piketty thinking that there would be some interesting economic debate. Unfortunately I was proved wrong and this seems to be exemplary of the stagnation of the economic field.\nMost of my thinking on the paper has been confirmed by this post: http://glineq.blogspot.nl/2014/08/my-take-on-acemoglu-robinson-critique.html\n","date":"December 21, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/the-acemoglu-robinson-critique-on-piketty/","section":"Posts","summary":"I read this paper right after I read the book by Piketty thinking that there would be some interesting economic debate. Unfortunately I was proved wrong and this seems to be exemplary of the stagnation of the economic field.\n","title":"The Acemoglu \u0026 Robinson Critique on Piketty","type":"posts"},{"content":" This seems to have gotten stuck in my drafts with tons of other things. Fun to have a memory of the first UX Book Club meeting that I organised back in December 2009.\n","date":"December 21, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/ux-book-club-amsterdam-first-meeting/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"UX Book Club Amsterdam First Meeting","type":"posts"},{"content":"Refreshing to see Brian Cantrill talk about \u0026rsquo;trust\u0026rsquo; and \u0026lsquo;accountability\u0026rsquo; in the tech industry. These days it almost seems as if both of those have become dirty words.\n\u0026amp;list=WL\u0026amp;index=2\n","date":"December 14, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18570/","section":"Posts","summary":"Refreshing to see Brian Cantrill talk about ’trust’ and ‘accountability’ in the tech industry. These days it almost seems as if both of those have become dirty words.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"November 30, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/series/iseji/","section":"Series","summary":"","title":"Iseji","type":"series"},{"content":"","date":"November 30, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/series/","section":"Series","summary":"","title":"Series","type":"series"},{"content":"Musk\u0026rsquo;s attacks on British politics have been bizarre to witness. Imagine the richest man in the world waging an influence operation trying to put the far right in power in your country.\nhttps://news.sky.com/story/the-x-effect-how-elon-musk-is-boosting-the-british-right-13464487\n","date":"November 20, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18478/","section":"Posts","summary":"Musk’s attacks on British politics have been bizarre to witness. Imagine the richest man in the world waging an influence operation trying to put the far right in power in your country.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Both in software engineering and in engineering leadership, fads come and go but the fundamentals stay the same. Larson makes a good throw at collecting those very fundamentals (and gives you a way to gauge yourself against them).\nhttps://lethain.com/good-eng-mgmt-is-a-fad\n","date":"November 20, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18476/","section":"Posts","summary":"Both in software engineering and in engineering leadership, fads come and go but the fundamentals stay the same. Larson makes a good throw at collecting those very fundamentals (and gives you a way to gauge yourself against them).\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Not sure how many people know that this kind of deep data modelling is possible to do in Notion. I love tools with a high skill-cap and Notion is definitely one such.\nhttps://xvw.lol/en/articles/notion-coffee.html#modelling-recipes-and-experiments\n","date":"November 20, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18474/","section":"Posts","summary":"Not sure how many people know that this kind of deep data modelling is possible to do in Notion. I love tools with a high skill-cap and Notion is definitely one such.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I am yet to read the Differential Dataflow paper but still interesting to read this explanation of how and why decorrelation works in database engines. LATERAL JOINs and query plans have become something of an interest of mine over the past weeks.\nhttps://www.scattered-thoughts.net/writing/materialize-decorrelation\n","date":"November 20, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18472/","section":"Posts","summary":"I am yet to read the Differential Dataflow paper but still interesting to read this explanation of how and why decorrelation works in database engines. LATERAL JOINs and query plans have become something of an interest of mine over the past weeks.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Servo is a massive achievement. One of the more unknown but potentially very impactful things about the project is that its modular nature allows parts of the web rendering stack to be embedded elsewhere (in game engines and such).\nhttps://blogs.igalia.com/mrego/servo-a-new-web-engine-written-in-rust\n","date":"November 20, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18470/","section":"Posts","summary":"Servo is a massive achievement. One of the more unknown but potentially very impactful things about the project is that its modular nature allows parts of the web rendering stack to be embedded elsewhere (in game engines and such).\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Watermarks are just one part of Flink which are difficult to wrap your head around but this interactive explanation does a good job of explaining them. Now for all the other parts of Flink…\nhttps://flink-watermarks.wtf\n","date":"November 20, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18468/","section":"Posts","summary":"Watermarks are just one part of Flink which are difficult to wrap your head around but this interactive explanation does a good job of explaining them. Now for all the other parts of Flink…\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A hilarious comedy of errors that is a unique feature of the Javascript ecosystem. When even the simplest code can fail disastrously if you don\u0026rsquo;t have all the right checks in place.\nhttps://marma.dev/articles/2025/when-perfect-code-fails\n","date":"November 20, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18466/","section":"Posts","summary":"A hilarious comedy of errors that is a unique feature of the Javascript ecosystem. When even the simplest code can fail disastrously if you don’t have all the right checks in place.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Both placing these ads and serving them should be illegal in any reasonable market/democracy.\nhttps://www.reuters.com/investigations/meta-is-earning-fortune-deluge-fraudulent-ads-documents-show-2025-11-06\n","date":"November 20, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18463/","section":"Posts","summary":"Both placing these ads and serving them should be illegal in any reasonable market/democracy.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The quality on every Meta property is low and people are there mostly because they can\u0026rsquo;t leave due to the network effect. This is market failure and it couldn\u0026rsquo;t hurt for Europe to bring down the hammer here.\nhttps://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/06/meta-reportedly-projected-10percent-of-2024-sales-came-from-scam-fraud-ads.html\n","date":"November 19, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18460/","section":"Posts","summary":"The quality on every Meta property is low and people are there mostly because they can’t leave due to the network effect. This is market failure and it couldn’t hurt for Europe to bring down the hammer here.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Love to see this being in 2025 and Germany still hasn\u0026rsquo;t figured out how to get an adequate amount of bandwidth to everybody in the country. Maybe they\u0026rsquo;ll never figure it out.\nhttps://www.golem.de/news/deutsche-bahn-cto-wlan-fuer-vollbesetzten-zug-nicht-ausgestaltet-2511-202115.html\n","date":"November 19, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18458/","section":"Posts","summary":"Love to see this being in 2025 and Germany still hasn’t figured out how to get an adequate amount of bandwidth to everybody in the country. Maybe they’ll never figure it out.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Hydrogen! Which irrelevant technology will Germany be financing next?\nhttps://www.tagesschau.de/wirtschaft/unternehmen/bmw-foerdergelder-wasserstoff-suv-100.html\n","date":"November 19, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18456/","section":"Posts","summary":"Hydrogen! Which irrelevant technology will Germany be financing next?\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Spectacular execution of the idea of having a physical terminal through which to input Unicode characters. Real custom keyboard enthusiasts should have one of these on their desk.\nhttps://hackaday.io/project/192644-unicode-binary-input-terminal\n","date":"November 19, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18453/","section":"Posts","summary":"Spectacular execution of the idea of having a physical terminal through which to input Unicode characters. Real custom keyboard enthusiasts should have one of these on their desk.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"This spring when I was in London, I stayed there with Sonder and even when they were still in business the entire process was somewhat sketchy.\nhttps://www.cbc.ca/news/business/sonder-bankruptcy-9.6976737\n","date":"November 19, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18451/","section":"Posts","summary":"This spring when I was in London, I stayed there with Sonder and even when they were still in business the entire process was somewhat sketchy.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"China is steaming ahead also with self-driving car technology.\nWhat was the old joke again? Germany will allow self-driving cars as soon as the local car makers manage to cack the problem. Guaranteed not to happen before 2050.\nhttps://www.economist.com/china/2025/10/16/the-secret-fuel-powering-chinas-self-driving-cars\n","date":"November 19, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18449/","section":"Posts","summary":"China is steaming ahead also with self-driving car technology.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Window managers have become a bit of a special interest of mine. After being a Rectangle user for most of my macOS life, I tried out Amethyst and Yabai and finally settled on Aerospace.\nAerospace is nice and stable and gets the job done of me never having to manually layout my windows again. I have a couple of layouts that I mainly use and its built-in Spaces are much faster (and therefore much more useful) than the ones macOS gives you.\nTurns out that window management is an area under active development both in Linux and on Windows with lots of interesting and experimental window managers now available. Maybe the entire Wayland business is finally paying out a dividend.\nThe one that piqued my interest the most is Niri, a scrolling window manager where windows are laid out on an infinite horizontal strip. The window manager doesn\u0026rsquo;t change the sizes of the windows. What it manages is your position on the strip.\nThis looks really cool and an infinite view is an interesting UI paradigm that feels immediately natural.\nNiri only runs on Wayland/Linux and Jwno is one for Windows. On macOS we never really had that much choice when it comes to ricing and customisation.\nI tried PaperWM.spoon (derived from PaperWM) for a bit, which was promising but flaky. Then I thought I might write something myself, but the macOS accessibility APIs are an atrocious undocumented piece of sedimental software. I didn\u0026rsquo;t have the time or energy to power through that mess.\nThankfully other people did have the patience and we have several contenders now:\npaneru: derived from the Yabai code HyprSpace: an Aerospace fork komorebi: has a macOS port brewing At the moment I\u0026rsquo;m still trying them out. Playing a bit with paneru I ran into this layout which is relatively common with sliding window managers:\nWhat\u0026rsquo;s the point of having a cut off window to your left? I don\u0026rsquo;t see it. The cut-off window may be large or small but it remains entirely a waste of space.\nAnother issue is that the active window sticks to the left or the right of the screen when swapping its position in the strip. This is a jarring jump back and forth.\nAnd finally the lack of animation negates everything that\u0026rsquo;s naturally about a scrolling window manager. I think that may become a deal breaker in general.\nHyprSpace was easy to try out since it uses the Aerospace configuration and builds on top of that. The scrolling works and there are some interesting ideas in there but it\u0026rsquo;s buggy and unpolished.\nKomorebi I sponsored now to get access to the current build. Getting it to work is fiddly because like more of these tools it depends on skhd to catch keyboard shortcuts which effectively is abandonware.\nDealing with keyboard shortcuts on macOS and debugging them is its on particular hell. This is made worse if you are a person who has to switch between keyboard layouts regularly.\nKomorebi is promising but is also still pretty early stage.\nUseful layouts # Thinking about how I use Aerospace the only truly useful layouts that I use are the following.\nWith the smaller windows either side could be a stack so that I can have multiple similarly sized windows behind each other that I can cycle through. I almost never use vertical tiling or any other type of division even on a larger display.\nAt that point what use would a scrolling window manager be where oftentimes the window to the left or right is cut off?\nUpdate: After being clear to myself about the layouts I really need, I wrote a bit of shell that Aerospace calls and cycles through the 33/50/66% layouts: https://github.com/nikitabobko/AeroSpace/discussions/839#discussioncomment-14792483\n","date":"November 1, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/window-managers/","section":"Posts","summary":"Window managers have become a bit of a special interest of mine. After being a Rectangle user for most of my macOS life, I tried out Amethyst and Yabai and finally settled on Aerospace.\n","title":"Window Managers","type":"posts"},{"content":"\u0026ldquo;That this sounds radical – that one might believe in a democracy that creates laws, affords companies economic freedom within those laws, and enforces those laws against companies that choose to violate them – says much about our divisive times.\u0026rdquo;\nhttps://bcantrill.dtrace.org/2023/11/26/what-punch-cards-teach-us-about-ai-risk\n","date":"October 25, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18440/","section":"Posts","summary":"“That this sounds radical – that one might believe in a democracy that creates laws, affords companies economic freedom within those laws, and enforces those laws against companies that choose to violate them – says much about our divisive times.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Good to have explained this explicitly why mathematics is such an essential component of programming. People without an inclination for this kind of abstract mathematical thinking often are poor and chaotic programmers.\nhttps://the-nerve-blog.ghost.io/to-be-a-better-programmer-write-little-proofs-in-your-head\n","date":"October 25, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18419/","section":"Posts","summary":"Good to have explained this explicitly why mathematics is such an essential component of programming. People without an inclination for this kind of abstract mathematical thinking often are poor and chaotic programmers.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Many chefs I know get upset at me when I tell them this. But this is the truth: If you can’t cook everything you make in a microwave thats a skill issue.\nCan\u0026rsquo;t argue with that.\nhttps://www.colincornaby.me/2025/08/in-the-future-all-food-will-be-cooked-in-a-microwave-and-if-you-cant-deal-with-that-then-you-need-to-get-out-of-the-kitchen/\n","date":"October 25, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18437/","section":"Posts","summary":"Many chefs I know get upset at me when I tell them this. But this is the truth: If you can’t cook everything you make in a microwave thats a skill issue.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"This is a fair point not to import code and instead fully qualify what it is that you are using.\nhttps://kevincox.ca/2025/07/20/no-imports\n","date":"October 25, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18435/","section":"Posts","summary":"This is a fair point not to import code and instead fully qualify what it is that you are using.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Let\u0026rsquo;s hope Steve Klabnik\u0026rsquo;s instincts are right a second time round. Seeing the potential of Rust and making it real is already a great accomplishment. If he manages to do the same with jj and get us out of the git/Github mess, that\u0026rsquo;ll be a spectacular twofer.\nhttps://steveklabnik.com/writing/i-see-a-future-in-jj\n","date":"October 25, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18433/","section":"Posts","summary":"Let’s hope Steve Klabnik’s instincts are right a second time round. Seeing the potential of Rust and making it real is already a great accomplishment. If he manages to do the same with jj and get us out of the git/Github mess, that’ll be a spectacular twofer.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Being close to tech and now also to schools, I can tell you that those two things should not mix in any way. The only interchange should be levying taxes on tech companies to better fund schools.\nhttps://www.wired.com/story/silicon-valley-tech-moguls-microschools\n","date":"October 24, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18417/","section":"Posts","summary":"Being close to tech and now also to schools, I can tell you that those two things should not mix in any way. The only interchange should be levying taxes on tech companies to better fund schools.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"When comedians say that Silicon Valley CEOs (and Mark Zuckerberg especially) are bitch coded, this is what they mean.\n","date":"October 24, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18414/","section":"Posts","summary":"When comedians say that Silicon Valley CEOs (and Mark Zuckerberg especially) are bitch coded, this is what they mean.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Alternative licenses like the Forklift Certified License are a good and necessary counter-reaction to open source becoming a corporate hollowed out shambles.\nAny time somebody mentions a big project that\u0026rsquo;s open source, my first question is: “How fake open source is it?”\nhttps://aria.dog/barks/forklift-certified-license\n","date":"October 24, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18412/","section":"Posts","summary":"Alternative licenses like the Forklift Certified License are a good and necessary counter-reaction to open source becoming a corporate hollowed out shambles.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Predictions are a nice business because at some point they will be true.\nhttps://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/deutsche-bank-grim-warning-ai-industry\n","date":"October 24, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18410/","section":"Posts","summary":"Predictions are a nice business because at some point they will be true.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Lots of respect for the people who spend years pushing something like a standardised Python lock file. It\u0026rsquo;s crucial but invisible work.\nhttps://snarky.ca/why-it-took-4-years-to-get-a-lock-files-specification\n","date":"October 24, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18408/","section":"Posts","summary":"Lots of respect for the people who spend years pushing something like a standardised Python lock file. It’s crucial but invisible work.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I still haven\u0026rsquo;t upgraded to the new iOS and seeing these reports, I\u0026rsquo;m not sure whether I should.\nhttps://www.nngroup.com/articles/liquid-glass\n","date":"October 24, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18406/","section":"Posts","summary":"I still haven’t upgraded to the new iOS and seeing these reports, I’m not sure whether I should.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"When people say that Kubernetes is complicated, this is the stuff they mean. As far as I can tell, there\u0026rsquo;s no way to play this complexity game reliably, so the only reasonable way through would be not to play.\nhttps://blog.amberwolf.com/blog/2025/september/kubernetes_namespace_boundaries\n","date":"October 24, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18404/","section":"Posts","summary":"When people say that Kubernetes is complicated, this is the stuff they mean. As far as I can tell, there’s no way to play this complexity game reliably, so the only reasonable way through would be not to play.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"If your reliability depends on heroic efforts or arcane knowledge from individuals, then you have no reliability. This week\u0026rsquo;s AWS outage shows that clearly. Whatever conclusions you draw from that is up to you.\nhttps://www.theregister.com/2025/10/20/aws_outage_amazon_brain_drain_corey_quinn\n","date":"October 24, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18402/","section":"Posts","summary":"If your reliability depends on heroic efforts or arcane knowledge from individuals, then you have no reliability. This week’s AWS outage shows that clearly. Whatever conclusions you draw from that is up to you.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"What I always say: \u0026ldquo;Premature abstraction is the root of all evil.\u0026rdquo;\nRust has its fair share of this but it\u0026rsquo;s nowhere near as bad as in a language like Typescript.\nhttps://daymare.net/blogs/everbody-so-creative\n","date":"October 21, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18400/","section":"Posts","summary":"What I always say: “Premature abstraction is the root of all evil.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I am not that sure that AI workslop is that much of problem in a healthy workplace.\nMost people will be able to recognize it and route around it very effectively—your AI generated document will not be read. And those who can\u0026rsquo;t… well.\nhttps://hbr.org/2025/09/ai-generated-workslop-is-destroying-productivity\n","date":"October 21, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18397/","section":"Posts","summary":"I am not that sure that AI workslop is that much of problem in a healthy workplace.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The harder the constraint, the more dangerous it is.\nIt will surprise nobody that I too will err on the side of \u0026ldquo;allow nulls and check for them in your application code\u0026rdquo;. It\u0026rsquo;s cheaper to maintain and cheaper to evolve and those are the only things you have to optimize for until you reach massive scale.\nhttps://www.seangoedecke.com/invalid-states\n","date":"October 21, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18395/","section":"Posts","summary":"The harder the constraint, the more dangerous it is.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"We really should have Starlark as a configuration language everywhere because it\u0026rsquo;s very expressive and easy to read/understand. Instead we\u0026rsquo;re stuck with ever increasing piles of YAML and obscure configuration formats that nobody wants to deal with.\nhttps://openrun.dev/blog/starlark\n","date":"October 21, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18393/","section":"Posts","summary":"We really should have Starlark as a configuration language everywhere because it’s very expressive and easy to read/understand. Instead we’re stuck with ever increasing piles of YAML and obscure configuration formats that nobody wants to deal with.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"That\u0026rsquo;s a deep dive through layers and layers of abstraction from Rust to LLVM intrinsics to instruction expansion at the processor level.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s fascinating stuff but as much as I like Rust, I still have no idea at what point I would ever need such a thing.\nhttps://questdb.com/blog/rust-fetch-max-compiler-journey\n","date":"October 21, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18391/","section":"Posts","summary":"That’s a deep dive through layers and layers of abstraction from Rust to LLVM intrinsics to instruction expansion at the processor level.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Software can only be proven right within a set of assumptions. Something as simple as leftpad can be broken in any number of interesting ways.\nhttps://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/breaking-provably-correct-leftpad\n","date":"October 21, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18389/","section":"Posts","summary":"Software can only be proven right within a set of assumptions. Something as simple as leftpad can be broken in any number of interesting ways.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Visual explanations of mathematical concepts are nice if they work. Here\u0026rsquo;s one such explanation of functional optics which is almost kinda accessible.\nhttps://marcosh.github.io/post/2025/10/07/the-mondrian-introduction-to-functional-optics.html\n","date":"October 21, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18387/","section":"Posts","summary":"Visual explanations of mathematical concepts are nice if they work. Here’s one such explanation of functional optics which is almost kinda accessible.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"It\u0026rsquo;s always been my feeling that TLS has unacceptable collateral damage in how it breaks the web for normal people. That\u0026rsquo;s considered a bit of a crank opinion, but I\u0026rsquo;m definitely not the only person who feels that way.\nhttps://michael.orlitzky.com/articles/lets_not_encrypt.xhtml\n","date":"October 21, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18385/","section":"Posts","summary":"It’s always been my feeling that TLS has unacceptable collateral damage in how it breaks the web for normal people. That’s considered a bit of a crank opinion, but I’m definitely not the only person who feels that way.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The Bitter Lesson is an interesting concept. Stuffing the prompt runs into diminishing returns pretty quickly but on the other hand, getting your AI to play well with tools is challenging.\nhttps://blog.nilenso.com/blog/2025/10/14/bitter-lesson-applied-ai\n","date":"October 21, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18383/","section":"Posts","summary":"The Bitter Lesson is an interesting concept. Stuffing the prompt runs into diminishing returns pretty quickly but on the other hand, getting your AI to play well with tools is challenging.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Did anybody get any benefit from the fact that we are now stuck with Atom and RSS?\nThere\u0026rsquo;s a valuable lesson here about sucking it up and just accepting the popular thing.\n","date":"October 20, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18381/","section":"Posts","summary":"Did anybody get any benefit from the fact that we are now stuck with Atom and RSS?\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Cycling home from having done groceries yesterday night, I wondered why there were police officers with machine guns standing on the sidewalk.\nTurns out this was why: https://www.berlin.de/polizei/polizeimeldungen/2025/pressemitteilung.1606865.php\n","date":"October 15, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18379/","section":"Posts","summary":"Cycling home from having done groceries yesterday night, I wondered why there were police officers with machine guns standing on the sidewalk.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The marketing that DHH does for projects was always bad, disingenuous and annoying.\nSo Rails users were OK with DHH back when he was pushing their shitty web framework of choice. But now all of a sudden they draw the line. He didn’t change that much really.\nhttps://crimier.github.io/posts/Framework-Omarchy/\n","date":"October 11, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18378/","section":"Posts","summary":"The marketing that DHH does for projects was always bad, disingenuous and annoying.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"It was obvious long ago that DHH is a problem for the Rails community. After recent events the situation seems to have finally become untenable.\nhttps://tekin.co.uk/2025/09/the-ruby-community-has-a-dhh-problem\n","date":"September 29, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18372/","section":"Posts","summary":"It was obvious long ago that DHH is a problem for the Rails community. After recent events the situation seems to have finally become untenable.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"An explanation of the AT Protocol and how it could be the open layer that allows everybody to own their data.\nhttps://overreacted.io/open-social\n","date":"September 29, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18370/","section":"Posts","summary":"An explanation of the AT Protocol and how it could be the open layer that allows everybody to own their data.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Every programming language has to strike a balance when it comes to abstraction and none of them get it right. Rust is written in a way that is often too abstract for the things that you want to do with it.\nhttps://corrode.dev/blog/simple\n","date":"September 29, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18368/","section":"Posts","summary":"Every programming language has to strike a balance when it comes to abstraction and none of them get it right. Rust is written in a way that is often too abstract for the things that you want to do with it.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Github is over and many leading edge developers have already moved off or are seriously considering it.\nhttps://www.mistys-internet.website/blog/blog/2024/07/12/github-is-starting-to-feel-like-legacy-software\n","date":"September 29, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18366/","section":"Posts","summary":"Github is over and many leading edge developers have already moved off or are seriously considering it.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"We should have more histories of software. There are lots of things that have been tried out and learned which if they aren\u0026rsquo;t captured will disappear entirely.\nhttps://mergify.com/blog/the-origin-story-of-merge-queues\n","date":"September 29, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18364/","section":"Posts","summary":"We should have more histories of software. There are lots of things that have been tried out and learned which if they aren’t captured will disappear entirely.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The guide to sqlite query planning and tuning is cool, but what\u0026rsquo;s even better is that this kind of scale and optimisations are possible at all with sqlite.\nhttps://emschwartz.me/subtleties-of-sqlite-indexes\n","date":"September 29, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18362/","section":"Posts","summary":"The guide to sqlite query planning and tuning is cool, but what’s even better is that this kind of scale and optimisations are possible at all with sqlite.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The situation described here where AI writes 90% of the code is almost entirely the same as how any software engineer works already. The only thing that\u0026rsquo;s changing is that instead of code you\u0026rsquo;re writing instructions to the LLM.\nhttps://lucumr.pocoo.org/2025/9/29/90-percent\n","date":"September 29, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18360/","section":"Posts","summary":"The situation described here where AI writes 90% of the code is almost entirely the same as how any software engineer works already. The only thing that’s changing is that instead of code you’re writing instructions to the LLM.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"He is a Marxist who understands the importance of money and markets; without Marx, you cannot understand the movement of history, but without money, you can’t do anything about it.\nFirst of all, times are changing, and we have to change with them, and if we don’t we’ll die, which is completely normal.\nThere are companies and organizations that are very interested in ideas and culture and are very willing to support projects related to these themes.\nElites no longer know what guidance to provide, and debate constantly among themselves over what aspects of our civilization to embrace, meaning that we lack values and a clear sense of direction.\nWhen secularism overwhelms civil society, people’s mentalities always change and morality declines.\nBut once such a value system is established, I think Chinese civilization will become universal, at which point, people will no longer identify with American values, and instead Chinese values that will become a truth acknowledged everywhere.\nThus what we propose is to \u0026ldquo;face the future, rely on tradition, engage the present.\u0026rdquo; In other words, we should be guided by the future even as we keep our basis in tradition and continue our search in daily practice.\nWe cannot, in the name of pursuing socialism, disallow the market economy, because pure socialism is inefficient. So we need the market economy to be in the mix, and the core elements of the market economy are private capital, which means the long-term existence of private ownership. But on the other hand, it would not be right to merely emphasize the efficiency of the private economy and cast aside state-owned enterprises. State-owned enterprises play many roles that are irreplaceable; they form the basis of the national economy and are important in strategic development, high-end technological research, and the relatively even distribution of social wealth. So both are indispensable.\nA truly constructive and effective media atmosphere is built on a premise, which is that all actors possess a high degree of civic engagement. This is not only a right but a responsibility, meaning that you cannot only criticize others , but have to be adept at self-criticism as well. This is what a mature citizen of a modern country should be. However, a large number of people active in online media do not possess the abilities that healthy citizens should have. They actively fight for rights and freedom of speech but have little awareness of the responsibilities that these rights imply. What we see on the Internet is very much like a cultural atmosphere formed on the basis of a small-scale peasant economy. They focus on one thing to the exclusion of everything else, they band together with people who think like they do and denounce everyone else, inciting extreme emotions. The media ecology in such an atmosphere is truly very bad.\nThe most critical thing for the media is not the degree of freedom of speech, but whether the media can grasp the main line of historical progress, at a moment when history is at a turning point and nothing is very clear, and then follow that line and direction and its internal laws and demands to run your newspaper, write the articles, and have your say. Generally speaking, the chance of making mistakes will be smaller this way.\nIn an era of rapid industrialization, as wealth increases, people\u0026rsquo;s awareness of their rights and the importance of contracts also increases. So in times like these, people will be thinking more in terms of liberalism, so how can we not reflect this in what we publish? But for similar reasons, as wealth increases, so does inequality, moral corruption, and environmental harm. So socialist demands for equality and for attention to the environment bubble up, and how can we not reflect demands for socialism in our work\nBut sooner or later, questions concerning the longer term or the essence of something will surface, at which point the best of these younger generations, the true elites, will feel the pain that comes with these questions, and they will wake up from their immersion in instant gratification and look for answers to the problems.\nThere are fewer and fewer intellectuals who can relate to reality, and they have been replaced by more and more academics who write for smaller and smaller audiences.\nIf contemporary intellectuals cannot grasp today’s practice of social production and today’s technological revolution, then they will be eliminated sooner or later. In my opinion, 95% of intellectuals are already gone.\nhttps://www.readingthechinadream.com/yang-ping-on-beijing-cultural-review.html\n","date":"September 29, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18085/","section":"Posts","summary":"He is a Marxist who understands the importance of money and markets; without Marx, you cannot understand the movement of history, but without money, you can’t do anything about it.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"This week economists have been congratulating themselves on following Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson into institutions. They are, in effect, proud to have discovered the rest of the social sciences.\nAcemoglu and Robinson read a book called American Slavery, American Freedom, used the bits about American freedom and tossed the bits about American slavery.\nIf you’re going to study institutions, you have to be curious about all of them.\nThis year the Riksbank awarded its prize to a treatment of early modern institutions so selective it functions as a bedtime story for capitalists. The good institutions produced prosperity. The bad ones produced misery.\nhttps://www.ft.com/content/1e2584d6-65ef-46de-bfb2-28811be65600\n","date":"September 29, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17638/","section":"Posts","summary":"This week economists have been congratulating themselves on following Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson into institutions. They are, in effect, proud to have discovered the rest of the social sciences.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Listening to this episode on the trial of John Brown I gasped several times. It\u0026rsquo;s a wild story of deep moral conviction and powerful oratory.\nhttps://pocketcasts.com/podcast/past-present-future/05615c70-bc1a-013b-f3f7-0acc26574db2/politics-on-trial-john-brown-vs-slavery/a1278a0f-072b-42de-8c12-e33f7267bf10?t=2409.0\n","date":"September 27, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18354/","section":"Posts","summary":"Listening to this episode on the trial of John Brown I gasped several times. It’s a wild story of deep moral conviction and powerful oratory.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Glad to see improvements like this can be made without fuss and drama. The ASF is obviously better and long overdue.\nhttps://www.phoronix.com/news/New-Apache-Software-Logo\n","date":"September 20, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18352/","section":"Posts","summary":"Glad to see improvements like this can be made without fuss and drama. The ASF is obviously better and long overdue.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"At some point you have to ask yourself how many predators work at Meta. They seem hell bent on targeting children. You don\u0026rsquo;t have to be a predator to work at Meta but it helps.\nRemind me again what happens to a pizzeria that is suspected of doing something like this.\nhttps://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/sep/20/parents-outraged-meta-uses-photos-schoolgirls-ads-man\n","date":"September 20, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18349/","section":"Posts","summary":"At some point you have to ask yourself how many predators work at Meta. They seem hell bent on targeting children. You don’t have to be a predator to work at Meta but it helps.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The point is that once again China is teaching us to think at scale. The future scale of a more developed, post-Western world is gigantic. If we are to have any hope of climate stabilization the only realistic policy, therefore, is not some twee Western European vision of “sustainability”, it is radical and transformative. Cities will be bigger, energy needs will be bigger, production will be bigger than anything we have previously conceived.\nclean energy needs not just to be efficient, or optimal, it needs to be bludgeoningly, overwhelmingly, unanswerably DOMINANT.\nThis cycle is precisely what we need. China is teaching the world to think big.\n“Right now, Beijing is offering cheap, clean power, employment, trade and a route to prosperity. Washington is offering tariffs, policy chaos, White nationalist memes and South Korean workers in shackles after a raid on an EV battery factory. This is no way to win the grand strategic contest of the 21st century.”\nhttps://adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-409-beyond-the-marshall\n","date":"September 20, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18348/","section":"Posts","summary":"The point is that once again China is teaching us to think at scale. The future scale of a more developed, post-Western world is gigantic. If we are to have any hope of climate stabilization the only realistic policy, therefore, is not some twee Western European vision of “sustainability”, it is radical and transformative. Cities will be bigger, energy needs will be bigger, production will be bigger than anything we have previously conceived.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Gleam is truly a dream of a programming language. I\u0026rsquo;m looking forward to launch my project and do more with it.\nhttps://mtlynch.io/notes/gleam-first-impressions\n","date":"September 19, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18346/","section":"Posts","summary":"Gleam is truly a dream of a programming language. I’m looking forward to launch my project and do more with it.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Compared to the way I had to learn about B-trees (poorly photocopied sheets bound into a reader), this interactive page is a dream.\nhttps://planetscale.com/blog/btrees-and-database-indexes\n","date":"September 19, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18344/","section":"Posts","summary":"Compared to the way I had to learn about B-trees (poorly photocopied sheets bound into a reader), this interactive page is a dream.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Postgres is *the* database engine (together with sqlite) and knowledge about its internals is becoming more than a nice to have.\nhttps://drew.silcock.dev/blog/how-postgres-stores-data-on-disk\n","date":"September 19, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18342/","section":"Posts","summary":"Postgres is *the* database engine (together with sqlite) and knowledge about its internals is becoming more than a nice to have.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Litestar is an interesting addition to the list of Python microframeworks with a lot going for it.\nhttps://www.b-list.org/weblog/2025/aug/06/litestar\n","date":"September 19, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18340/","section":"Posts","summary":"Litestar is an interesting addition to the list of Python microframeworks with a lot going for it.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"We\u0026rsquo;re seeing increasingly more posts about jj coming out and I can\u0026rsquo;t repeat enough that it is totally worth switching away from git.\nhttps://maddie.wtf/posts/2025-07-21-jujutsu-for-busy-devs\n","date":"September 19, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18337/","section":"Posts","summary":"We’re seeing increasingly more posts about jj coming out and I can’t repeat enough that it is totally worth switching away from git.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Every time I have to cross-compile something (usually in Rust to run on the cloud somewhere) it\u0026rsquo;s always rather confusing to figure out the correct target triples. Weird that something that\u0026rsquo;s this fundamental is documented this poorly.\nhttps://mcyoung.xyz/2025/04/14/target-triples\n","date":"September 19, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18335/","section":"Posts","summary":"Every time I have to cross-compile something (usually in Rust to run on the cloud somewhere) it’s always rather confusing to figure out the correct target triples. Weird that something that’s this fundamental is documented this poorly.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"That\u0026rsquo;s definitely a phrase worth remembering:\nSlow is smooth, smooth is fast.\nChasing \u0026ldquo;more\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;faster\u0026rdquo; is often not much more than a distraction from the things you should be doing.\nhttps://raitner.de/en/2022/09/slow-is-smooth-smooth-isfast/\n","date":"September 12, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18332/","section":"Posts","summary":"That’s definitely a phrase worth remembering:\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"September 12, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/agile/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Agile","type":"categories"},{"content":"The write-up how Bun can be so fast is a good exploration in all the things that computers are good at now. Machines and our networks have gotten much faster and much more parallel which influences what an optimal approach to building software is now.\nWe don\u0026rsquo;t use Bun but I\u0026rsquo;m happy to see that even on these benchmarks pnpm is no slouch. You could do much worse than that.\nhttps://bun.com/blog/behind-the-scenes-of-bun-install\n","date":"September 11, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18328/","section":"Posts","summary":"The write-up how Bun can be so fast is a good exploration in all the things that computers are good at now. Machines and our networks have gotten much faster and much more parallel which influences what an optimal approach to building software is now.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Subway Takes is publishing episodes they filmed in Berlin’s U-Bahn, and the results are both amusing and unexpectedly revealing.\nThe show itself needs almost no introduction since it’s become a mainstream online phenomenon. Subway Takes features comedian and musician Kareem talking to NYC personalities who share their “takes” during brief subway rides.\nHe ventures outside of New York once in a while, and after London and Paris, has now turned up in Berlin.\nThe U-takes started with a masked party-goer declaring that “It’s actually good for you to party for 72 hours.” Next came local comedian Aurel Mertz with a pedestrian and mildly funny take about exercise. The party-goer made a return appearance after the aforementioned 72 hours of partying. And the latest episode features an American investor affecting an exaggerated German accent.\nThese three characters could not be a better reflection of the city of Berlin and where it’s at. A guy stuck in a party, unable to get out; a Southern German guy slumming it here until it’s not ‘fun’ anymore; and an investor mining the city for cash and clout. These are the people who shape the city, and for all of them, this place is a playground.\nWhat I take away from these Subway Takes is that Berlin is a place where nothing matters and everybody is passing through. Could they have even found a real Berliner to talk to? That’s a question that’s probably best not even asked.\n","date":"September 10, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/u-bahn-takes/","section":"Posts","summary":"Subway Takes is publishing episodes they filmed in Berlin’s U-Bahn, and the results are both amusing and unexpectedly revealing.\n","title":"U-Bahn Takes","type":"posts"},{"content":"The disabled creating custom prosthetics and turning themselves into highly visible and fashionable “neo-people” is at least one positive way that cyberpunk is turning into reality.\nhttps://www.chinadailyhk.com/hk/article/618682\n","date":"September 10, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18320/","section":"Posts","summary":"The disabled creating custom prosthetics and turning themselves into highly visible and fashionable “neo-people” is at least one positive way that cyberpunk is turning into reality.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Attitudes towards part-time employment of men are a good proxy indicator of how sophisticated the economy is and also of gender equality.\nFrom my own experience Germany and the Netherlands are markedly different on this front and the statistics prove it with a 2x difference in part-time men.\n","date":"September 7, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18319/","section":"Posts","summary":"Attitudes towards part-time employment of men are a good proxy indicator of how sophisticated the economy is and also of gender equality.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"An excellent Jujutsu reference covering most of the basic operations you will need.\nhttps://justinpombrio.net/src/jj-cheat-sheet.pdf\n","date":"September 7, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18316/","section":"Posts","summary":"An excellent Jujutsu reference covering most of the basic operations you will need.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The AWS CEO doing not much more than stating the obvious when it comes to AI and software engineering.\nhttps://www.theregister.com/2025/08/21/aws_ceo_entry_level_jobs_opinion\n","date":"September 7, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18314/","section":"Posts","summary":"The AWS CEO doing not much more than stating the obvious when it comes to AI and software engineering.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Meta\u0026rsquo;s push towards sexualised chatbots for children is very concerning and nobody should let their kids use any of Zuckerberg\u0026rsquo;s platforms unsupervised.\nhttps://www.cbc.ca/music/neil-young-quit-facebook-instagram-chatbots-1.7611518\n","date":"September 7, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18312/","section":"Posts","summary":"Meta’s push towards sexualised chatbots for children is very concerning and nobody should let their kids use any of Zuckerberg’s platforms unsupervised.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Not the first time Meta created racy bots and it will probably not be the last unless Taylor Swift sues them. I guess they do need to get more talent in to create things that are actually useful.\nhttps://www.reuters.com/business/meta-created-flirty-chatbots-taylor-swift-other-celebrities-without-permission-2025-08-29\n","date":"September 7, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18307/","section":"Posts","summary":"Not the first time Meta created racy bots and it will probably not be the last unless Taylor Swift sues them. I guess they do need to get more talent in to create things that are actually useful.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"How much time for an innovative/edgy/creative agency to copy this (poorly) in Berlin?\nhttps://www.wired.com/story/pursuit-scavenger-hunt-san-francisco\n","date":"September 7, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18305/","section":"Posts","summary":"How much time for an innovative/edgy/creative agency to copy this (poorly) in Berlin?\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Paris has published a climate adaptation plan for a 50C future. In Berlin I guess we\u0026rsquo;ll just ignore it as long as possible.\nhttps://www.ekopolis.fr/ressources/rapport-paris-50degc-mission-dinformation-et-devaluation-du-conseil-de-paris\n","date":"September 7, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18303/","section":"Posts","summary":"Paris has published a climate adaptation plan for a 50C future. In Berlin I guess we’ll just ignore it as long as possible.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A good description of how if software engineering was setup for speed of iteration we would have entirely different environments than we have now. Nobody is really opposed to speed, but nobody really wants it either so we end up with bloated development and bloated results that are the worst of all compromises.\nhttps://inessential.com/2025/08/28/easy-app-writing.html\n","date":"September 7, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18301/","section":"Posts","summary":"A good description of how if software engineering was setup for speed of iteration we would have entirely different environments than we have now. Nobody is really opposed to speed, but nobody really wants it either so we end up with bloated development and bloated results that are the worst of all compromises.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Congratulations to That Browser Company on what must be a stellar exit for them.\nNo idea what Atlassian can do with this because it is the place where technology goes to die.\nhttps://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/04/atlassian-the-browser-company-deal.html\n","date":"September 7, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18299/","section":"Posts","summary":"Congratulations to That Browser Company on what must be a stellar exit for them.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Cycling in London is more joyful than in Berlin and I feel it’s more of a cycling city now.\nBut in either place, as this video argues, you’d be crazy not to take a bike to get around.\nhttps://youtu.be/Dmf6aEx09Oo?si=xI6QIxxaekoxG280\n","date":"August 26, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18297/","section":"Posts","summary":"Cycling in London is more joyful than in Berlin and I feel it’s more of a cycling city now.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"This may sound harsh, but it’s a lot fairer than they deserve: “But since the product is no longer jumping exponentially in capabilities, they will need to fall back on proper product development if they want to be competitive. They need to accept that they are software—plain old software—and that means people need to be able to use it.”\nhttps://aboard.com/desperately-seeking-software/\n","date":"August 13, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18296/","section":"Posts","summary":"This may sound harsh, but it’s a lot fairer than they deserve: “But since the product is no longer jumping exponentially in capabilities, they will need to fall back on proper product development if they want to be competitive. They need to accept that they are software—plain old software—and that means people need to be able to use it.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"This is the kind of deep and rational thinking we should expect to see from the billionaires who own most of the world. Jeff Bezos, one of the richest people in the world, got so demonised that he had to have a cry about it.\n","date":"August 6, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18291/","section":"Posts","summary":"This is the kind of deep and rational thinking we should expect to see from the billionaires who own most of the world. Jeff Bezos, one of the richest people in the world, got so demonised that he had to have a cry about it.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A very cool and simple introduction into Lean and what makes it interesting. I\u0026rsquo;m not sure exactly what draws people in this direction but it\u0026rsquo;s cool to see the progress that\u0026rsquo;s being made here.\nhttps://overreacted.io/the-math-is-haunted\n","date":"August 6, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18289/","section":"Posts","summary":"A very cool and simple introduction into Lean and what makes it interesting. I’m not sure exactly what draws people in this direction but it’s cool to see the progress that’s being made here.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Perplexity lost its momentum almost a year ago and everything they\u0026rsquo;ve been doing since has been stuff like this. It takes some effort to stand out as a bad actor in a field like this, but here they are.\nhttps://blog.cloudflare.com/perplexity-is-using-stealth-undeclared-crawlers-to-evade-website-no-crawl-directives\n","date":"August 6, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18287/","section":"Posts","summary":"Perplexity lost its momentum almost a year ago and everything they’ve been doing since has been stuff like this. It takes some effort to stand out as a bad actor in a field like this, but here they are.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I had a very similar mediocre experience using LLMs with Python/Rust/Typescript where I didn\u0026rsquo;t really see the point. Only when I started using Go for a recent hackathon project did I get the fully hands off experience where I didn\u0026rsquo;t have to write any code.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve long been on the record saying that type systems are bad and I think this is a big part of what makes Rust/Typescript difficult to track for the LLM.\nThe problem with Python I think is more that it is too permissive and anything can be anything (and whatever typing we put on top is rather weak and non-standard). I was particularly surprised to notice how much easier it is to read—when working with an LLM I pretty much only read code—Go code than Python code for much of the same reasons.\nhttps://lucumr.pocoo.org/2025/8/4/shitty-types\n","date":"August 6, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18285/","section":"Posts","summary":"I had a very similar mediocre experience using LLMs with Python/Rust/Typescript where I didn’t really see the point. Only when I started using Go for a recent hackathon project did I get the fully hands off experience where I didn’t have to write any code.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Claude Code is the best in class code assistant out there right now, so it\u0026rsquo;s interesting to see how it works under the hood and how it has evolved.\nThe differences in experience using these tools are so big, that you can\u0026rsquo;t really consider any of them as being in the same class as Claude Code.\nhttps://mariozechner.at/posts/2025-08-03-cchistory\n","date":"August 6, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18283/","section":"Posts","summary":"Claude Code is the best in class code assistant out there right now, so it’s interesting to see how it works under the hood and how it has evolved.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Solvers are very annoying to setup and plug your problem into if you\u0026rsquo;re using them regularly. That\u0026rsquo;s why hooking them into LLMs to do the annoying manipulation work is an amazing idea.\nThis has the potential to entirely evaporate a vast class of quite complex problems.\nhttps://www.stephendiehl.com/posts/smt_and_mcp_solvers\n","date":"July 25, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18281/","section":"Posts","summary":"Solvers are very annoying to setup and plug your problem into if you’re using them regularly. That’s why hooking them into LLMs to do the annoying manipulation work is an amazing idea.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Now that I\u0026rsquo;ve switched entirely to jj, I never have to think about git\u0026rsquo;s confusing terminology or absurd design ever again.\nAnd there sure is a lot of bad things to go around, here\u0026rsquo;s one list drafted by Julia Evans.\nhttps://jvns.ca/blog/2023/11/01/confusing-git-terminology\n","date":"July 25, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18279/","section":"Posts","summary":"Now that I’ve switched entirely to jj, I never have to think about git’s confusing terminology or absurd design ever again.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The Javascript Date class is so criminally bad, that you will have a better score if you give random answers than if you try to reason about it.\nhttps://jsdate.wtf\n","date":"July 25, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18277/","section":"Posts","summary":"The Javascript Date class is so criminally bad, that you will have a better score if you give random answers than if you try to reason about it.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Imagine a foreign language being pervasive in your country for no real reason whatsoever. The Uzbeks are right in wanting to rip it out.\nhttps://thediplomat.com/2025/06/russian-without-russians-the-politics-of-language-in-uzbekistan/?utm_source=substack\u0026amp;utm_medium=email\n","date":"July 25, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18275/","section":"Posts","summary":"Imagine a foreign language being pervasive in your country for no real reason whatsoever. The Uzbeks are right in wanting to rip it out.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Glad to see I\u0026rsquo;m not the only person hooked by these short videos. They\u0026rsquo;re oddly compelling and are at the moment still mostly under the radar here.\nhttps://www.wired.com/story/china-reel-short-dramas-video-social-media\n","date":"July 25, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18273/","section":"Posts","summary":"Glad to see I’m not the only person hooked by these short videos. They’re oddly compelling and are at the moment still mostly under the radar here.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;ve found it very useful to use jj to continuously and automatically snapshot the changes that Claude makes. This way if it does anything that I didn\u0026rsquo;t want, it\u0026rsquo;s incredibly easy to undo it and still keep a clean history.\nHere\u0026rsquo;s what my hackathon project looks like in the gg client after several days of on and off development.\nYou can have Claude do these steps as well. It\u0026rsquo;s pretty good at jj describe even if a bit verbose. And in most cases it could also do jj new before every change, something that I forget occasionally.\nI didn\u0026rsquo;t bother with that because it will mess up the exact ordering of commands and then I\u0026rsquo;ll be busy sorting out which edits should go into which change. Having the change viewer side by side with the Claude Code terminal gives me the most control and oversight.\nThis way my flow is:\njj new Ask Claude Code to do something Check the output in gg Have Claude Code iterate Have Claude Code do the jj describe Either jj new or jj abandon depending on whether I think the result is going somewhere I think at this point I kinda forgot how I would do this in git and I\u0026rsquo;m also not particularly interested in learning it anymore either.\n","date":"July 25, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/keeping-claude-in-check-with-jujutsu/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’ve found it very useful to use jj to continuously and automatically snapshot the changes that Claude makes. This way if it does anything that I didn’t want, it’s incredibly easy to undo it and still keep a clean history.\n","title":"Keeping Claude in check with Jujutsu","type":"posts"},{"content":"At scale you will be slapped in the face by this tail or that all the time. It\u0026rsquo;s a clear and simple argument to rehabilitate the mean as the measurement we should be looking at.\nhttps://brooker.co.za/blog/2021/04/19/latency.html\n","date":"July 18, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18268/","section":"Posts","summary":"At scale you will be slapped in the face by this tail or that all the time. It’s a clear and simple argument to rehabilitate the mean as the measurement we should be looking at.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Complaining about the Cloud has become fashionable and it\u0026rsquo;s an easy thing to do. What\u0026rsquo;s not so easy is to create strategic room to maneuver.\nI enjoyed these pieces by Will Kelly in part also because they are very glib. They connect because they contain a kernel of truth. The real way to get out of the cloud is indeed: “Real ops maturity. Procurement leverage. The discipline to say “no” to vendor convenience.” That\u0026rsquo;s the real work for anybody who\u0026rsquo;s interested in doing it.\nhttps://willkelly.substack.com/p/the-cloud-repatriation-story-is-a\n","date":"July 18, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18264/","section":"Posts","summary":"Complaining about the Cloud has become fashionable and it’s an easy thing to do. What’s not so easy is to create strategic room to maneuver.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"One of the best ways to learn anything (including Git) is to make the entire thing yourself from scratch. Obsess over the details.\nhttps://drew.silcock.dev/blog/artisanal-git\n","date":"July 18, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18262/","section":"Posts","summary":"One of the best ways to learn anything (including Git) is to make the entire thing yourself from scratch. Obsess over the details.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"For the many people who may not be intimately familiar with the workings of Turing machines, this visual and interactive guide should get them up to speed really nicely.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s mostly just the mechanics of the machine and doesn\u0026rsquo;t go into the more fun and formal parts such as reductions and proofs. But it\u0026rsquo;s a start.\nhttps://samwho.dev/turing-machines\n","date":"June 5, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18256/","section":"Posts","summary":"For the many people who may not be intimately familiar with the workings of Turing machines, this visual and interactive guide should get them up to speed really nicely.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A very informative write-up of how you would squeeze out the last bits of performance out of a Rust port. Not sure if I\u0026rsquo;d ever apply this but I\u0026rsquo;m happy enough that I can mostly follow along.\nhttps://ohadravid.github.io/posts/2025-05-rav1d-faster\n","date":"June 5, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18254/","section":"Posts","summary":"A very informative write-up of how you would squeeze out the last bits of performance out of a Rust port. Not sure if I’d ever apply this but I’m happy enough that I can mostly follow along.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"It doesn\u0026rsquo;t really matter that much what is next for iOS. We should agree that flat design was a mistake.\nhttps://www.lux.camera/physicality-the-new-age-of-ui\n","date":"June 5, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18251/","section":"Posts","summary":"It doesn’t really matter that much what is next for iOS. We should agree that flat design was a mistake.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"To hearken back to the previous comparison of Java versus compiled languages, AWS has a case here where a naive rewrite of their JVM database in Rust created massive performance wins.\nAt this point, you need to be asking yourself: Why would anybody ever write a database in Java?\nhttps://www.allthingsdistributed.com/2025/05/just-make-it-scale-an-aurora-dsql-story.html\n","date":"June 5, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18248/","section":"Posts","summary":"To hearken back to the previous comparison of Java versus compiled languages, AWS has a case here where a naive rewrite of their JVM database in Rust created massive performance wins.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"\u0026ldquo;Nightmare bicycle\u0026rdquo; is a concept that I won\u0026rsquo;t get out of my head quickly.\nhttps://www.geoffreylitt.com/2025/03/03/the-nightmare-bicycle.html\n","date":"June 5, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18245/","section":"Posts","summary":"“Nightmare bicycle” is a concept that I won’t get out of my head quickly.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"It\u0026rsquo;s relevant to my interests to read how others have massively scaled the systems we use. Discord has a solid write-up here of how to deal with Elastic Search.\nWhich is all good and well, but I\u0026rsquo;m a bit sad that we have so much systems software written in Java which in some cases works well (Kafka, Spring) but in other cases is a bit of a slog (Elastic, Cassandra). There are Rust/C++ search stores out there which out of the box beat a Java solution 2-5x on speed and 1/10th on memory usage. Those are numbers that make a huge difference at scale.\nhttps://discord.com/blog/how-discord-indexes-trillions-of-messages\n","date":"June 5, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18243/","section":"Posts","summary":"It’s relevant to my interests to read how others have massively scaled the systems we use. Discord has a solid write-up here of how to deal with Elastic Search.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A twofer on software estimation that also tallies with my intuition. People are really great at estimating the median which is impossible to communicate to people without deep intuition for software engineering and statistics.\nIt makes total sense as a guideline to multiply your initial guess x1.6 for the mean, x5 for the 95th percentile and x10 for the 99th percentile. This is also why deadlines are irrelevant and counterproductive in software engineering. There are much better ways to achieve the same goals.\nhttps://thesearesystems.substack.com/p/task-estimation-conquering-hofstadters\nhttps://erikbern.com/2019/04/15/why-software-projects-take-longer-than-you-think-a-statistical-model.html\n","date":"May 27, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18238/","section":"Posts","summary":"A twofer on software estimation that also tallies with my intuition. People are really great at estimating the median which is impossible to communicate to people without deep intuition for software engineering and statistics.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I fully agree with Paolo Scanferla here that very complex typing (\u0026ldquo;hyper-typing\u0026rdquo;) is an impediment to get anything done but besides the technical aspects, here are some ratchets here that are very pernicious.\nCreating very complex typing is hard to argue against (\u0026ldquo;But don\u0026rsquo;t you see how this is safer?\u0026rdquo;) and simplicity rarely wins in group programming environments. You\u0026rsquo;re essentially arguing against somebody who\u0026rsquo;s posturing as being very clever (\u0026ldquo;It\u0026rsquo;s very easy and safe this way.\u0026rdquo;). Once you lose the initial argument and the complexity gets in, it\u0026rsquo;s impossible to get out again. It will only expand in your code base and make everything it touches also overly complex. Getting this out is several orders of magnitude more work than getting it in and can only be done by (the very few) people who understand the entire thing. Those people have made an excellent manoeuvre for their own job security and against everybody else\u0026rsquo;s productivity. This kind of typing is not incidental. The very design of Typescript and its increasingly more and more complex type system is meant to enable this. Language features that are there will always be used and regularly misused. It\u0026rsquo;s near impossible to guard against that. That\u0026rsquo;s why I consider any language with an overly expressive type system to be suspect (and this is why Go is good). Liking Typescript is a code smell on the person. https://pscanf.com/s/341\n","date":"May 27, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18235/","section":"Posts","summary":"I fully agree with Paolo Scanferla here that very complex typing (“hyper-typing”) is an impediment to get anything done but besides the technical aspects, here are some ratchets here that are very pernicious.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Using the same Github account for work that you also use to do anything and everything else with is not particularly secure. That\u0026rsquo;s why I split my presence on the platform, but getting everything to work that way has been somewhat annoying.\nI found this guide by Rahul Pandey that\u0026rsquo;s been a huge help in how to take a lot of the pain out of it.\n","date":"May 27, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18233/","section":"Posts","summary":"Using the same Github account for work that you also use to do anything and everything else with is not particularly secure. That’s why I split my presence on the platform, but getting everything to work that way has been somewhat annoying.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The Return To Office debate has been very contentious and hardly productive. Here in HBR is an ethics based approach to create solutions here that work for everybody. A lot of it is common sense but this is coherent and a useful lens.\nhttps://hbr.org/2025/05/the-workplace-psychological-contract-is-broken-heres-how-to-fix-it\n","date":"May 27, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18231/","section":"Posts","summary":"The Return To Office debate has been very contentious and hardly productive. Here in HBR is an ethics based approach to create solutions here that work for everybody. A lot of it is common sense but this is coherent and a useful lens.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"We use reservoir sampling a lot day to day and here\u0026rsquo;s a great visual explanation of how this algorithm does this seemingly impossible task.\nhttps://samwho.dev/reservoir-sampling\n","date":"May 27, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18229/","section":"Posts","summary":"We use reservoir sampling a lot day to day and here’s a great visual explanation of how this algorithm does this seemingly impossible task.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Thorsten Ball keeps writing bangers such as this speed run how to write a AI coding agent.\nIt always feels to me that Cursor is mostly a balancing act of hacking a collaborative editor into the VSCode codebase (poorly) more than it is chockfull of LLM based innovations.\nhttps://ampcode.com/how-to-build-an-agent\n","date":"April 24, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18223/","section":"Posts","summary":"Thorsten Ball keeps writing bangers such as this speed run how to write a AI coding agent.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A dive into Stafford Beer\u0026rsquo;s systems thinking that uncovers the ANT-style depth that\u0026rsquo;s often glossed over. That notwithstanding, I still think the glib and reductive POSIWID has its uses.\nhttps://joelitobarski.com/posiwid/\n","date":"April 23, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18220/","section":"Posts","summary":"A dive into Stafford Beer’s systems thinking that uncovers the ANT-style depth that’s often glossed over. That notwithstanding, I still think the glib and reductive POSIWID has its uses.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Solid and sober career advice in the current landscape.\nhttps://lethain.com/career-advice-2025\n","date":"April 23, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18216/","section":"Posts","summary":"Solid and sober career advice in the current landscape.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I could quote this entire article by Dan North:\nIt takes daily resolve and good habits. It takes effort and deliberate practice to train yourself to ‘unsee’ the general case; to not reach for a library first ‘because it is only adding a single dependency’; to not prematurely abstract or DRY code because reasons; to not over-invest in a component because we have blanket coding standards with arbitrary rules like percentage of test coverage; to go back and stabilise that component you sketched to see if it would work, and it did; to excise that component you sketched that did not work out.\nBuilding software this way is the perfect balance of freedom and discipline. As the author mentions it\u0026rsquo;s a matter of taste and experience and extremely hard to learn in any other way than by doing it.\nBSSN (Best and Simple and Now) is the answer to \u0026ldquo;you should not build garbage\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;you should not overcomplicate your code prematurely\u0026rdquo; either.\nSketching in particular is a quality that should also apply to code (and will be impossible to explain to anybody who does not already get it).\nSketching does not mean hacking! I know many more engineers who are good at ‘proper’ code than those who can sketch well. Sketching is about providing just enough quality that you can sustain a direction, knowing you can go back and fill in the blanks later on (or throw away the sketch with minimal investment lost). Hacked code quickly becomes unmanageable. Well-sketched code is just a lighter-weight version of the real thing.\nhttps://dannorth.net/best-simple-system-for-now\n","date":"April 12, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18213/","section":"Posts","summary":"I could quote this entire article by Dan North:\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Something that I also need to try. The rise of overlay networks that can create private networks and make all your devices and servers internet addressable is a huge convenience.\nhttps://blog.6nok.org/tailscale-is-pretty-useful/\n","date":"April 12, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18209/","section":"Posts","summary":"Something that I also need to try. The rise of overlay networks that can create private networks and make all your devices and servers internet addressable is a huge convenience.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Here\u0026rsquo;s a topic over at Lobsters of what a bunch of software engineers would like to see programmed out in the world. Every ask gets a bunch of suggestions of things out there that could fill that gap.\nThree hundred plus replies in this is a deep view of how much still remains unexplored in the software engineering problem and solution space.\nhttps://lobste.rs/s/btjtkr/what_software_do_you_dream_about_do_not\n","date":"April 12, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18206/","section":"Posts","summary":"Here’s a topic over at Lobsters of what a bunch of software engineers would like to see programmed out in the world. Every ask gets a bunch of suggestions of things out there that could fill that gap.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Should managers be in the code? Yes, absolutely. Should managers write code? Maybe, but it also depends on what you mean by writing code.\nA good answer to the age old question. I ship more code right now than I ever have.\nhttps://theengineeringmanager.substack.com/p/should-managers-still-code\n","date":"April 12, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18204/","section":"Posts","summary":"Should managers be in the code? Yes, absolutely. Should managers write code? Maybe, but it also depends on what you mean by writing code.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A thought provoking attack on SQL with a bunch of pointers and hints as to what could come next. I\u0026rsquo;m pretty competent with SQL but that is exactly the point where you should become interested in what the limitations are and in what situations it makes sense to break out of the paradigm.\nhttps://www.scattered-thoughts.net/writing/against-sql\n","date":"April 12, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18202/","section":"Posts","summary":"A thought provoking attack on SQL with a bunch of pointers and hints as to what could come next. I’m pretty competent with SQL but that is exactly the point where you should become interested in what the limitations are and in what situations it makes sense to break out of the paradigm.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;m not a huge fan of these \u0026ldquo;best programmer\u0026rdquo; lists, but this list was better than most that I have seen.\nhttps://endler.dev/2025/best-programmers\n","date":"April 10, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18200/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’m not a huge fan of these “best programmer” lists, but this list was better than most that I have seen.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The amount of positive things happening around Python packaging and performance is really cool to see. Here\u0026rsquo;s a way to compile Python directly to Webassembly and get much better performance.\nhttps://lukasz.langa.pl/f37aa97a-9ea3-4aeb-b6a0-9daeea5a7505\n","date":"April 10, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18198/","section":"Posts","summary":"The amount of positive things happening around Python packaging and performance is really cool to see. Here’s a way to compile Python directly to Webassembly and get much better performance.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;ve never used a tool that supports interdiff code reviews, but seeing it described here, it makes intuitive sense and I would love to have this. Instead we are\u0026ndash;as is pretty much everybody else\u0026ndash;stuck on Github.\n","date":"April 10, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18195/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’ve never used a tool that supports interdiff code reviews, but seeing it described here, it makes intuitive sense and I would love to have this. Instead we are–as is pretty much everybody else–stuck on Github.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"All of those things listen above are in support of your primary goal: ensuring that you are getting shit done. You cannot get shit done to a world-class level by leaving all of the details to other people.\nA great argument for being in the details as a manager and a lot of examples of what that can mean for your org and situation.\nhttps://www.theengineeringmanager.com/managing-managers/being-in-the-details/\n","date":"April 10, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18193/","section":"Posts","summary":"All of those things listen above are in support of your primary goal: ensuring that you are getting shit done. You cannot get shit done to a world-class level by leaving all of the details to other people.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I guess NVIDIA got lucky and ARM also got lucky and AMD also got lucky. Everybody got lucky except for Intel.\nhttps://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/at-nvidias-gtc-event-pat-gelsinger-reiterated-that-jensen-got-lucky-with-ai-intel-missed-the-boat-with-larrabee\n","date":"March 22, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18185/","section":"Posts","summary":"I guess NVIDIA got lucky and ARM also got lucky and AMD also got lucky. Everybody got lucky except for Intel.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"We have kids in two parallel classes at school which lets us compare things directly and gives us insights many of the other parents don\u0026rsquo;t have.\nOne class was doing great and the other one was struggling, this also made the parents of that class become frustrated and non-constructive. I\u0026rsquo;m in two Whatsapp groups and can compare the vibe and noise level of both directly.\nThen the class that was struggling got a clinch new staff member and the class that was doing well\u0026rsquo;s teachers got disbanded and the atmosphere among the parents changed night and day. Now the parents who were chill are creating way more noise and the other parents are much more constructive and relaxed.\nI\u0026rsquo;ll take this as a leadership lesson: No Bad Teams, Only Bad Leaders\nhttps://www.actioncoach.co.za/no-bad-teams-only-bad-leaders/\n","date":"March 22, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18183/","section":"Posts","summary":"We have kids in two parallel classes at school which lets us compare things directly and gives us insights many of the other parents don’t have.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Last time I talked about how I use jj for small code changes while being interrupted all the time as a manager. This time we\u0026rsquo;ll be using it in anger.\nOpen Sourcing a Project # I\u0026rsquo;ve been long overdue to open source my little side project Cuppings. This is always annoying because pretty much every project will have a bunch of sensitive stuff checked in at some point. In this case the repository contains a Google Maps API key (as well as the entire database, but that\u0026rsquo;s a different story) which is something I definitely do not want to share with the internet 1.\nThe core problem is that cloud costs cannot be effectively limited on any platform. This seems to be a deliberate profit maximising move from the platforms more than because of any technical limitation. Standard operating procedure here is to rotate the key and call it a day. I wanted to be a bit more thorough than that.\nWhat I\u0026rsquo;m doing is this:\nDelete the API key from the account. Detach my personal credit card from the Google Cloud project. - It turns out that this is impossible. Scrub the secret out of the repo and its entire history. Get rid of any branches that may still have the secret. - Pretty easy because I don\u0026rsquo;t use branches on my own projects. The account management steps are easy and boring. Let\u0026rsquo;s get to the secret scrubbing.\nScrubbing the Secret # Classically you would do this with git-filter-branch and that\u0026rsquo;s always a bit annoying because it only works on entire files. Here, the secret had spread through the project and I wanted to leave the other bits of code intact. It looked like jj should be suited for the job.\nI started off reading the docs and trying to piece together a sequence of actions that could work.\nFalse Starts # There were some false starts and I couldn\u0026rsquo;t get out of them so I threw the repo checkout away and started again. For all the praise that the jj op log gets I have so far never been able to use it to get myself out of a mess.\nOne thing that may be helpful in the future is to use jj op abandon instead of jj op undo. Undo adds another operation to the oplog which I find confusing. Often you just want to entirely get rid of the last things that you did.\nAnother issue that I had was that any editor watching the folder would run a language server and if anywhere during our trip through history the correct .gitignore wasn\u0026rsquo;t in place, jj would start snapshotting all the build files while in the middle of this very delicate operation.\nI got around that by disabling the language server entirely like here with a setting for Helix.\nFinding the Right Starting Point # What really made a difference here is jj\u0026rsquo;s revset syntax with its functions for both filenames and changed text:\njj log -r \u0026#39;files(\u0026#34;backend/.env\u0026#34;)\u0026#39; -p jj log -r \u0026#39;diff_contains(\u0026#34;GOOGLE_API_KEY=\u0026#34;)\u0026#39; The -p shows the entire patch instead of a short view which is particularly handy to see which change to the .env file added the secret.\nThen to have an overview of where I am, I\u0026rsquo;ll have gg open on the side. For git I can\u0026rsquo;t do any serious work without gitup and it\u0026rsquo;s very much the same with jj. The terminal output—however good it is—does not give me the same amount of tangible feeling that a GUI does.\nIt is possible to manipulate the repository using gg and when it works it\u0026rsquo;s pretty nifty but I\u0026rsquo;ve found that mixing operations between the GUI and the command-line is not super reliable and can make gg crash out. That\u0026rsquo;s why I use gg purely as a viewer and I make all the changes from the command-line.\nRewriting History # I seem to have missed one occurrence on my last pass because when searching right now I find another occurrence.\nLooking at the diff with jj show rkq shows me there\u0026rsquo;s still an unredacted API key there.\nSo we might as well clear this as well.\nTrying to change this with jj edit rkq throws an error because the change is immutable. Anything that has a descendent in immutable_heads() is immutable. This is a safety setting to make sure you don\u0026rsquo;t accidentally rewrite shared history.\nOur history is not shared because this is my private side project, so we can do whatever we want. With jj edit rkq --ignore-immutable it is possible to edit this history as well. I replace the API key with the word \u0026ldquo;fake\u0026rdquo;.\nThat works and propagates the change through history but it also creates conflicts.\nFixing Conflicts # My view in gg looks like this now:\nThe command-line looks similar if you know what to look for (the red crosses).\nHow I go through this is to scroll down in gg to find the first occurrence of the conflict. The change has propagated to that point where it conflicted again and needs to be fixed. That\u0026rsquo;s here.\nFrom there I edit the first conflicted change with jj edit qtv to fix it. The edit command helpfully immediately prints out which files are conflicted at this point.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s the .env file again and it looks like this.\nThis is pretty quick to fix with Helix. Delete all the lines which shouldn\u0026rsquo;t be there, pick the ones you want to have and remove all conflict markers.\nWe don\u0026rsquo;t have to add anything after fixing the conflict or do something like git rebase --continue because jj picks the new state up automatically, sees the conflict is gone and propagates that up.\nThis clears up a bunch of the commits and we scroll up to find the next one. After doing that a couple of times the entire history is conflict free.\nPush it back # Now the only thing left is to check we didn\u0026rsquo;t destroy anything and to push the bookmark back to the forge with jj bookmark move main --to @ and jj git push -b main.\nYou can garbage collect things before if you want to make sure the changes are no longer there jj util gc.\nAfter completing this operation I seem to have lost the position of some WIP branches I had on the old tree, but as this is a side project I can live with that. I\u0026rsquo;m curious if it would have been possible to keep these.\nFeedback # I wrote this in part from memory after having done other things for a few weeks so I may have gotten some points wrong but all in all this should roughly work. Any suggestions or additions are welcome.\nUpdate: One addition is that this will remove the change from git history but the strings will likely still be in the op log and evolog. Whether they are truly gone from any git housekeeping files is also not completely verified.\nGithub may have an integration with Google for this so the API key may be disabled as soon as the repo is public anyway, but who knows.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"March 22, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/scrubbing-secrets-with-jj/","section":"Posts","summary":"Last time I talked about how I use jj for small code changes while being interrupted all the time as a manager. This time we’ll be using it in anger.\n","title":"Scrubbing Secrets with jj","type":"posts"},{"content":"An idea this dumb could only come from one of two people in Germany (Höttges or Thelen). DOGE\u0026rsquo;s main aim is to burn down the entire government.\nHöttges leads a company which is only upright because it abuses its monopoly position. There has never been any value creation there.\nhttps://www.tagesschau.de/wirtschaft/unternehmen/telekom-chef-doge-100.html\n","date":"March 22, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18176/","section":"Posts","summary":"An idea this dumb could only come from one of two people in Germany (Höttges or Thelen). DOGE’s main aim is to burn down the entire government.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Running a public website these days means staving off attacks from every LLM company in the world trying to get your data (legally or illegally).\nhttps://status.sr.ht/issues/2025-03-17-git.sr.ht-llms\n","date":"March 22, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18174/","section":"Posts","summary":"Running a public website these days means staving off attacks from every LLM company in the world trying to get your data (legally or illegally).\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Wasn\u0026rsquo;t it the CEO of META going around telling everybody that free speech was the most important thing at the moment?\nhttps://www.reuters.com/legal/meta-wins-halt-promotion-careless-people-tell-all-book-by-former-employee-2025-03-13\n","date":"March 22, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18172/","section":"Posts","summary":"Wasn’t it the CEO of META going around telling everybody that free speech was the most important thing at the moment?\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Type level programming in Typescript has been driven to the point of pure absurdity by implementing a DOOM runtime on it to play the game with.\n","date":"March 22, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18170/","section":"Posts","summary":"Type level programming in Typescript has been driven to the point of pure absurdity by implementing a DOOM runtime on it to play the game with.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A weird coincidence how a media campaign would lead to double digit billions in extra revenues for fossil fuel providers (and to worse outcomes for everybody wanting to heat their homes in Germany). Nothing behind this probably.\nhttps://www.pv-magazine.de/2025/02/26/die-verdeckten-kosten-der-heizhammer-kampagne-24-milliarden-euro-mehrumsatz-fuer-die-gaserzeuger/\n","date":"March 22, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18168/","section":"Posts","summary":"A weird coincidence how a media campaign would lead to double digit billions in extra revenues for fossil fuel providers (and to worse outcomes for everybody wanting to heat their homes in Germany). Nothing behind this probably.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"“When you have a more well-rounded life, it doesn’t take away, it doesn’t distract you as an athlete,” Courtney told him. “It makes you stronger and better. And able to have a clear head when you get the opportunity to line up…I bring who I am to the bike. But the bike does not make me who I am.”\nNotes on elite performance that support why being well rounded and having interests outside of your core pursuit is a good thing.\nhttps://davidepstein.substack.com/p/why-hobbies-are-an-advantage-not\n","date":"March 22, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18166/","section":"Posts","summary":"“When you have a more well-rounded life, it doesn’t take away, it doesn’t distract you as an athlete,” Courtney told him. “It makes you stronger and better. And able to have a clear head when you get the opportunity to line up…I bring who I am to the bike. But the bike does not make me who I am.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"We liked to pretend that it was possible to use American cloud providers with any measure of sovereignty, but that pretence is going to drop very soon now. Not sure what the alternatives are, but everybody should be planning for some drastic changes here.\nhttps://berthub.eu/articles/posts/you-can-no-longer-base-your-government-and-society-on-us-clouds\n","date":"March 22, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18164/","section":"Posts","summary":"We liked to pretend that it was possible to use American cloud providers with any measure of sovereignty, but that pretence is going to drop very soon now. Not sure what the alternatives are, but everybody should be planning for some drastic changes here.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A good overview of how Git developers configure git for themselves with a bunch of settings that should be the default for everybody but which will take ages to be rolled out. You should copy most of these into your own config.\nhttps://blog.gitbutler.com/how-git-core-devs-configure-git\n","date":"March 22, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18162/","section":"Posts","summary":"A good overview of how Git developers configure git for themselves with a bunch of settings that should be the default for everybody but which will take ages to be rolled out. You should copy most of these into your own config.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I think this critique of Flamework is a bit rich coming from the author of Flask with its global request object. But there is a point in being able to iterate really quickly, it\u0026rsquo;s even better to be able to work crudely without creating a disastrous unmaintainable mess.\nThere is a difference between writing terrible code well or writing beautiful code poorly.\nhttps://lucumr.pocoo.org/2025/2/20/ugly-code\n","date":"March 19, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18157/","section":"Posts","summary":"I think this critique of Flamework is a bit rich coming from the author of Flask with its global request object. But there is a point in being able to iterate really quickly, it’s even better to be able to work crudely without creating a disastrous unmaintainable mess.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"\u0026ldquo;The only good laws are the laws that make *me* more money.\u0026rdquo;\nhttps://techcrunch.com/2025/03/13/y-combinator-urges-the-white-house-to-support-europes-digital-markets-act/\n","date":"March 14, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18145/","section":"Posts","summary":"“The only good laws are the laws that make *me* more money.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Chronicle of how you make a hit game. Balatro is amazing even if I ripped through it in a couple of days.\nhttps://localthunk.com/blog/balatro-timeline-3aarh\n","date":"March 14, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18141/","section":"Posts","summary":"Chronicle of how you make a hit game. Balatro is amazing even if I ripped through it in a couple of days.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I usually enjoy Cortex\u0026rsquo;s romps into productivity porn, but what struck me here is that they open with Grey discovering Asana and how he spent the week setting his business and life up in it.\nLots to unpack here:\nPeople are still discovering Asana?\nGrey immediately and deeply gets what is powerful about Asana and what tradeoffs that entails.\nI think that everybody who refuses to use Asana is forced to cobble together a broken version of it themselves. That is true and will stay true.\nhttps://www.relay.fm/cortex/164\n","date":"February 26, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18137/","section":"Posts","summary":"I usually enjoy Cortex’s romps into productivity porn, but what struck me here is that they open with Grey discovering Asana and how he spent the week setting his business and life up in it.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Our work in software engineering consists mostly of learning and for me and my team a fair part of that is teaching. Both of these are immensely difficult and rewarding components of the job.\nhttps://www.herostrat.us/posts/learning-the-hardest-problem-in-computer-science\n","date":"February 26, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18135/","section":"Posts","summary":"Our work in software engineering consists mostly of learning and for me and my team a fair part of that is teaching. Both of these are immensely difficult and rewarding components of the job.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Here\u0026rsquo;s a good article about platform teams that I got to read an early draft of. I can say from my own experience that all of these traps are very easy to go into. Be aware and prioritize ruthlessly what works and what doesn\u0026rsquo;t work.\nhttps://serce.me/posts/2025-01-07-six-sins-of-platform-teams\n","date":"February 26, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18131/","section":"Posts","summary":"Here’s a good article about platform teams that I got to read an early draft of. I can say from my own experience that all of these traps are very easy to go into. Be aware and prioritize ruthlessly what works and what doesn’t work.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I think when people ask what\u0026rsquo;s so great about jj they tend to go deep into things such as mega-merge strategies and stacked PRs. These things are cool, no doubt, but jj can be useful starting from the very small.\nIn my case as a manager I commit a lot of small stuff, documentation updates, nits, fixes (and also larger bits of code). I got this down to be pretty fast using all the git aliases available.\nIn an ideal world I\u0026rsquo;d be doing most of my work in a worktree (which takes ages to create in our monorepo) and I could pass the change quickly in my clean main checkout folder. That would then go like this:\ngcb random-new-branch ga docs.md gcm \u0026#34;Documentation update\u0026#34; # Or immediately gcam gpu But of course as a manager, my life is made out of interruptions so odds are that my main checkout folder is not clean and contains changes for something else I started but did not get to finish. Now I have a bunch of bad options:\nQuickly finish the old work and push it so I can work on the new thing Create a worktree for this tiny thing Stash the old work and risk forgetting about it entirely Think all of the above is too much effort and I\u0026rsquo;d just rather drop this Go to Github.com and pass the change through the web site (best option if I can do it in one go) With jj I don\u0026rsquo;t have to deal with most of this. Whenever I have something new I want to work on I can type: jj new main and I\u0026rsquo;m good to go. Whatever work in progress I might\u0026rsquo;ve had, has already been snapshotted and will still be there when I want to resume work on it.\nAnd when it\u0026rsquo;s ready, I can do jj git push -c and it will send my change to our forge without me having to name the branch. I still have to describe the change but all in all jj has turned 4 steps into 2 and removed the potential blockers from this process.\n","date":"February 26, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/using-jj-as-a-manager/","section":"Posts","summary":"I think when people ask what’s so great about jj they tend to go deep into things such as mega-merge strategies and stacked PRs. These things are cool, no doubt, but jj can be useful starting from the very small.\n","title":"Using jj as a manager","type":"posts"},{"content":"A beautiful lush essay and homage to an ubiquitous typeface without a name.\nhttps://aresluna.org/the-hardest-working-font-in-manhattan\n","date":"February 25, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18124/","section":"Posts","summary":"A beautiful lush essay and homage to an ubiquitous typeface without a name.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I can relate to this because I\u0026rsquo;m using Cursor to write a bit of Gleam where it\u0026rsquo;s usually off entirely because this is such a small language.\nIt would be annoying maybe if LLMs got us into a place where literally everything becomes a React+Tailwind application but so far I don\u0026rsquo;t see a huge risk that that will happen.\nWhat is available and what is easy does of course influence what becomes popular, but nothing new there.\nhttps://vale.rocks/posts/ai-is-stifling-tech-adoption\n","date":"February 25, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18122/","section":"Posts","summary":"I can relate to this because I’m using Cursor to write a bit of Gleam where it’s usually off entirely because this is such a small language.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"So much car traffic is absolutely unnecessary which makes it all the more galling that we allow people to poison everybody else by doing it.\nhttps://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/feb/14/brake-pad-dust-toxic-exhaust-emissions\n","date":"February 25, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18120/","section":"Posts","summary":"So much car traffic is absolutely unnecessary which makes it all the more galling that we allow people to poison everybody else by doing it.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Lots of people are going to have a problem with the truth going forward, so get those Wikipedia backups handy and start thinking about how to host it in a more distributed and resilient way.\nhttps://www.404media.co/wikipedia-prepares-for-increase-in-threats-to-us-editors-from-musk-and-his-allies\n","date":"February 25, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18117/","section":"Posts","summary":"Lots of people are going to have a problem with the truth going forward, so get those Wikipedia backups handy and start thinking about how to host it in a more distributed and resilient way.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Not a major surprise that minorities would be treated poorly at a nazi charity like the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.\nhttps://www.businessinsider.com/chan-zuckerberg-initiative-racial-discrimination-claim-ray-holgado-facebook-2020-11?international=true\u0026amp;r=US\u0026amp;IR=T\n","date":"February 20, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18107/","section":"Posts","summary":"Not a major surprise that minorities would be treated poorly at a nazi charity like the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Wheel of Time is low key one of the best fantasy tv shows out right now. Each season is going from strength to strength and the next one looks to be the best one yet.\nhttps://youtu.be/qk0D4OV95bQ?si=q02qV8EUy1XA-ivH\n","date":"February 20, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18105/","section":"Posts","summary":"Wheel of Time is low key one of the best fantasy tv shows out right now. Each season is going from strength to strength and the next one looks to be the best one yet.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A lot has been made of this talk about Egoless Engineering but I can say that for me it came at the exactly right time. In our platform team we got to the point mentioned in the talk and are now working on #3: Empower Everybody Else.\nhttps://egoless.engineering/#50\n","date":"February 20, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18102/","section":"Posts","summary":"A lot has been made of this talk about Egoless Engineering but I can say that for me it came at the exactly right time. In our platform team we got to the point mentioned in the talk and are now working on #3: Empower Everybody Else.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Obsidian is a knowledge worker\u0026rsquo;s lightsaber. It\u0026rsquo;s indispensable for any kind of serious work and it is now free to use.\nhttps://obsidian.md/blog/free-for-work\n","date":"February 20, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18099/","section":"Posts","summary":"Obsidian is a knowledge worker’s lightsaber. It’s indispensable for any kind of serious work and it is now free to use.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Rare to see an actual apples-to-apples comparison of databases like this. Postgres comes out ahead versus Sqlite but as always, it depends.\nhttps://www.twilio.com/en-us/blog/sqlite-postgresql-complicated\n","date":"February 20, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18096/","section":"Posts","summary":"Rare to see an actual apples-to-apples comparison of databases like this. Postgres comes out ahead versus Sqlite but as always, it depends.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Another funny relic from the depths of version control: the Octopus Merge\nhttps://www.freblogg.com/git-octopus-merge\n","date":"February 20, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18093/","section":"Posts","summary":"Another funny relic from the depths of version control: the Octopus Merge\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"This is the way “A Pattern Language” intended we should talk about patterns: applied and without making things more complicated. Patterns should simplify and be grasped immediately.\nhttps://grantslatton.com/design-patterns\n","date":"February 20, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18090/","section":"Posts","summary":"This is the way “A Pattern Language” intended we should talk about patterns: applied and without making things more complicated. Patterns should simplify and be grasped immediately.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Filing this away for future reference when at some point we\u0026rsquo;ll want to get out of managed Kubernetes.\nhttps://bilbof.com/posts/kubernetes-on-hetzner\n","date":"February 20, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18087/","section":"Posts","summary":"Filing this away for future reference when at some point we’ll want to get out of managed Kubernetes.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A very good explanation about \u0026ldquo;object soup\u0026rdquo; and how Rust is uniquely poorly suited to model problems in that way. It pins down a very fundamental issue that people coming from an object oriented background run into all the time and offers a helpful solution.\nhttps://jacko.io/object_soup.html\n","date":"February 18, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18081/","section":"Posts","summary":"A very good explanation about “object soup” and how Rust is uniquely poorly suited to model problems in that way. It pins down a very fundamental issue that people coming from an object oriented background run into all the time and offers a helpful solution.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Quanta\u0026rsquo;s write-ups of math discoveries are always enjoyable to read. In this case an undergraduate (!) figured out something new about hash tables and how fast they can be. Not sure yet when this will be shipped in code, but still it\u0026rsquo;s a pretty amazing discovery.\nhttps://www.quantamagazine.org/undergraduate-upends-a-40-year-old-data-science-conjecture-20250210/\n","date":"February 18, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18077/","section":"Posts","summary":"Quanta’s write-ups of math discoveries are always enjoyable to read. In this case an undergraduate (!) figured out something new about hash tables and how fast they can be. Not sure yet when this will be shipped in code, but still it’s a pretty amazing discovery.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"An enjoyable dive into where all these patronyms and nicknames came from. I could make one for Turkish but where I came from the lakap (nickname) is more common than the diminutive (Hatça = Hatice).\nhttps://blog.plover.com/lang/etym/nickname-names.html\n","date":"February 18, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18075/","section":"Posts","summary":"An enjoyable dive into where all these patronyms and nicknames came from. I could make one for Turkish but where I came from the lakap (nickname) is more common than the diminutive (Hatça = Hatice).\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Just one of the ways that Zuckerberg full willingly enabled neonazis on his platforms.\nhttps://globalextremism.org/post/neo-nazis-monetize-hate-on-instagram\n","date":"February 18, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18073/","section":"Posts","summary":"Just one of the ways that Zuckerberg full willingly enabled neonazis on his platforms.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Hundred percent sure that if the same policy would be applied to Berlin most car traffic would evaporate from our streets here immediately. Most traffic in my neighborhood is people without really that much to do who could be doing something other than driving and drug dealers.\nhttps://www.fastcompany.com/91272434/a-million-cars-have-disappeared-what-nyc-is-like-after-one-month-of-congestion-pricing\n","date":"February 18, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18071/","section":"Posts","summary":"Hundred percent sure that if the same policy would be applied to Berlin most car traffic would evaporate from our streets here immediately. Most traffic in my neighborhood is people without really that much to do who could be doing something other than driving and drug dealers.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Wild to see the materials that go into making a single inference machine for private use. At scale this stuff will of course be more efficient, but still the main components will be more or less the same.\nhttps://ewintr.nl/posts/2025/building-a-personal-private-ai-computer-on-a-budget\n","date":"February 18, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18069/","section":"Posts","summary":"Wild to see the materials that go into making a single inference machine for private use. At scale this stuff will of course be more efficient, but still the main components will be more or less the same.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"We\u0026rsquo;ve revived our tech blog and will be sharing a bunch of stuff around our AI process and what it means to be an \u0026ldquo;AI first\u0026rdquo; company. Here\u0026rsquo;s an in-depth first piece about what it takes to develop a successful real life product with LLMs.\nhttps://choco.com/us/stories/life-at-choco/scaling-ai-applications-with-llms\n","date":"February 11, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18066/","section":"Posts","summary":"We’ve revived our tech blog and will be sharing a bunch of stuff around our AI process and what it means to be an “AI first” company. Here’s an in-depth first piece about what it takes to develop a successful real life product with LLMs.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"@alper Hast du eine Perspektive für uns was wir tuen können/ tuen sollten?\nJetzt habe ich einen guten Job aber ich versuche meine Familie davon zu überzeugen demnächst zurück nach Amsterdam oder in die Schweiz umzuziehen.\nIch meine was man hätte tun sollen ist einige von den Problemen die hier skizziert werden zu lösen:\nNur:\nDie Lösungen für diese Probleme gibt es schon längst nur die Leute hier wollen diese nicht gelöst sehen. Sowas ist kulturell bedingt und da kann man kaum etwas gegen tun. Es ist jetzt schon ziemlich zu spät und mit diesem nicht-existierenden Reformtempo hat man die Krankenkassen (Renten, Digitalisierung, usw.) irgendwann rund 2040 neu gestaltet. Dann kann man es auch lassen. Und wenn jetzt eine CDU-Regierung kommt dann wird gar kein Problem gelöst. Dann folgt nur noch mehr Abbruch (wie wir jetzt in Berlin haben sehen können).\nAlso meine Tipps:\nRettet wer sich retten kann und zieh weiter nach irgendwo, wo es klimafest ist und die Kultur nicht so kaputt ist. Sorge zumindest dass du damit gut verdienst. Der Handel in Hass, Daten, Immobilien, Rüstung usw. ist lukrativ und wird das auch bleiben. ","date":"February 10, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18063/","section":"Posts","summary":"@alper Hast du eine Perspektive für uns was wir tuen können/ tuen sollten?\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"LLMs are fundamentally matching the patterns they’ve seen, and their abilities are constrained by mathematical boundaries. Embedding tricks and chain-of-thought prompting simply extends their ability to do more sophisticated pattern matching. The mathematical results imply that you can always find compositional tasks whose complexity lies beyond a given system’s abilities.\nLLMs are still very useful in a bunch of domains but here\u0026rsquo;s an article explaining (from a paper with a novel bound on computational complexity) why improvements in reasoning seem to have run out of steam.\nhttps://www.quantamagazine.org/chatbot-software-begins-to-face-fundamental-limitations-20250131/\n","date":"February 8, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18059/","section":"Posts","summary":"LLMs are fundamentally matching the patterns they’ve seen, and their abilities are constrained by mathematical boundaries. Embedding tricks and chain-of-thought prompting simply extends their ability to do more sophisticated pattern matching. The mathematical results imply that you can always find compositional tasks whose complexity lies beyond a given system’s abilities.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Overview of the performance of different caching solutions for Rails comparing Redis to some competitors.\nhttps://www.bigbinary.com/blog/caching-in-rails-with-redis-vs-alternatives\n","date":"February 8, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18057/","section":"Posts","summary":"Overview of the performance of different caching solutions for Rails comparing Redis to some competitors.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"It\u0026rsquo;s a shame these people are so thoroughly psychopathic (from this epic Guardian profile) because this piece about pronatalism is nothing if not well argued.\nhttps://www.palladiummag.com/2023/04/06/birth-rates-are-collapsing\n","date":"February 8, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18055/","section":"Posts","summary":"It’s a shame these people are so thoroughly psychopathic (from this epic Guardian profile) because this piece about pronatalism is nothing if not well argued.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"This was exactly a discussion I had yesterday where when teams reach higher levels of maturity, they may catch and fix issues internally before they become full blown incidents.\nSo how do we than make sure we are not over-indexing on purely the operational surprises where we ran the heavy incident machinery and how do we get the right learnings and improvements disseminated throughout the organisation?\n(I know how. The \u0026ldquo;how\u0026rdquo; here is how to get there.)\nhttps://surfingcomplexity.blog/2025/02/01/youre-missing-your-near-misses/\n","date":"February 8, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18053/","section":"Posts","summary":"This was exactly a discussion I had yesterday where when teams reach higher levels of maturity, they may catch and fix issues internally before they become full blown incidents.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Even the most basic functions in foundational libraries can be iterated on and improved by reading papers and implementing novel algorithmic approaches. Here\u0026rsquo;s a breakdown of how the time crate got faster (even though \u0026ldquo;no one has complained\u0026rdquo;).\nhttps://jhpratt.dev/blog/optimizing-with-novel-calendrical-algorithms\n","date":"February 8, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18051/","section":"Posts","summary":"Even the most basic functions in foundational libraries can be iterated on and improved by reading papers and implementing novel algorithmic approaches. Here’s a breakdown of how the time crate got faster (even though “no one has complained”).\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Good luck hiring talent for your struggling economy with racism becoming even more rampant than it normally is. Not that that is the only problem facing Germany, but it\u0026rsquo;s a huge distraction for all parties while nothing material has improved for decades.\nhttps://www.tagesschau.de/wirtschaft/konzerne-gegen-fremdenfeindlichkeit-100.html\n","date":"February 8, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18049/","section":"Posts","summary":"Good luck hiring talent for your struggling economy with racism becoming even more rampant than it normally is. Not that that is the only problem facing Germany, but it’s a huge distraction for all parties while nothing material has improved for decades.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I enjoy James Stanier\u0026rsquo;s newsletter on engineering management a lot. This one is about information processing in organizations, something which will make or break you.\nFrom my observation, the correlation between high functioning people in engineering leadership and usage of Obsidian is not 1.0 but it is very high. I use a fairly tricked out setup myself, but there\u0026rsquo;s value to be had here at all levels.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s an interesting oversight in the OODA loop sketched out in the article, that the most important step \u0026ldquo;Orientation\u0026rdquo; is omitted. Orientation is elusive and hard to pin down which is exactly why it is so key.\nhttps://theengineeringmanager.substack.com/p/gather-decide-execute\n","date":"February 8, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18047/","section":"Posts","summary":"I enjoy James Stanier’s newsletter on engineering management a lot. This one is about information processing in organizations, something which will make or break you.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"SQLite is a tiny, somewhat quirky but incredibly convenient and fast database. For side projects I definitely don\u0026rsquo;t bother with a \u0026ldquo;real\u0026rdquo; database anymore and for many of them I just check the entire .sqlite file into version control for easier deployments.\nHere are some tuning tips to get really blazing fast performance out of it.\nhttps://kerkour.com/sqlite-for-servers\n","date":"February 8, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18045/","section":"Posts","summary":"SQLite is a tiny, somewhat quirky but incredibly convenient and fast database. For side projects I definitely don’t bother with a “real” database anymore and for many of them I just check the entire .sqlite file into version control for easier deployments.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"After missing the previous edition, I\u0026rsquo;m \u0026lsquo;attending\u0026rsquo; HYTRADBOI 2025. Databases are the bread and butter of our team and I enjoy keeping up with the cutting edge of the field while using the most boring possible one at work.\nhttps://www.hytradboi.com/2025\n","date":"February 7, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18038/","section":"Posts","summary":"After missing the previous edition, I’m ‘attending’ HYTRADBOI 2025. Databases are the bread and butter of our team and I enjoy keeping up with the cutting edge of the field while using the most boring possible one at work.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Imagine being this rich and having this much free time and using all of those capabilities to drive yourself mad with ignorance. Nothing bad has happened to these people yet they are convinced the entire world is out to get them.\nhttps://gizmodo.com/marc-andreessen-seems-to-think-hillary-clinton-was-actually-president-2000552062\n","date":"February 7, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18033/","section":"Posts","summary":"Imagine being this rich and having this much free time and using all of those capabilities to drive yourself mad with ignorance. Nothing bad has happened to these people yet they are convinced the entire world is out to get them.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Thiel\u0026rsquo;s op-ed in the FT was truly insane. Who hurt these people?\nhttps://www.unpopularfront.news/p/reading-thiels-op-ed\n","date":"February 5, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18030/","section":"Posts","summary":"Thiel’s op-ed in the FT was truly insane. Who hurt these people?\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"As if it wasn\u0026rsquo;t obvious that the New York Times is a pile of crap, here\u0026rsquo;s them getting rid of Paul Krugman for views that aren\u0026rsquo;t Trump positive enough.\nhttps://www.cjr.org/analysis/paul-krugman-leaving-new-york-times-heavy-hand-editing-less-frequent-columns-newsletter.php\n","date":"February 5, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18025/","section":"Posts","summary":"As if it wasn’t obvious that the New York Times is a pile of crap, here’s them getting rid of Paul Krugman for views that aren’t Trump positive enough.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"\u0026ldquo;OpenAI shocked that an AI company would train on someone else\u0026rsquo;s data without permission or compensation.\u0026rdquo;\nhttps://www.404media.co/openai-furious-deepseek-might-have-stolen-all-the-data-openai-stole-from-us\n","date":"February 5, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18023/","section":"Posts","summary":"“OpenAI shocked that an AI company would train on someone else’s data without permission or compensation.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"This is a very good framework from Matt Webb for organizations how to do strategic pathfinding when it comes to AI. In Germany especially, lots of orgs would benefit from doing this instead of whatever it is that they are busy with right now.\nInteresting to see the word overhang used here (originally by Nat Friedman) which I normally use when talking about tech \u0026ldquo;debt\u0026rdquo; but a capability overhang is of course also possible.\nhttps://interconnected.org/home/2023/12/08/ai-pathfinding\n","date":"February 5, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18019/","section":"Posts","summary":"This is a very good framework from Matt Webb for organizations how to do strategic pathfinding when it comes to AI. In Germany especially, lots of orgs would benefit from doing this instead of whatever it is that they are busy with right now.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I don\u0026rsquo;t think there\u0026rsquo;s been a Python developer tool that\u0026rsquo;s been adopted as quickly as uv is being right now. Dealing with dependencies and running Python code has never been easier.\nhttps://treyhunner.com/2024/12/lazy-self-installing-python-scripts-with-uv\n","date":"February 5, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18017/","section":"Posts","summary":"I don’t think there’s been a Python developer tool that’s been adopted as quickly as uv is being right now. Dealing with dependencies and running Python code has never been easier.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Looks like food waste and food security are going to be very important going forward.\nhttps://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/jan/14/nobel-world-food-prize-laureates-global-hunger-open-letter-food-production\n","date":"February 5, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18015/","section":"Posts","summary":"Looks like food waste and food security are going to be very important going forward.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A write-up of the current dream stack in practice: prototype work in Python and then hook it up to Rust to bring it to production.\nhttps://www.sonair.com/journal/building-for-safety-with-rust\n","date":"February 5, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18013/","section":"Posts","summary":"A write-up of the current dream stack in practice: prototype work in Python and then hook it up to Rust to bring it to production.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Quick turnarounds on fixing vulnerabilities usually correlated with general engineering operational excellence. The best cases were clients who asked us to just give them a constant feed of anything we found, and they’d fix it right away.\nLots of interesting tidbits here from dozens of startup code audits.\nhttps://kenkantzer.com/learnings-from-5-years-of-tech-startup-code-audits/\n","date":"February 5, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18011/","section":"Posts","summary":"Quick turnarounds on fixing vulnerabilities usually correlated with general engineering operational excellence. The best cases were clients who asked us to just give them a constant feed of anything we found, and they’d fix it right away.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"[…] the abandonment of responsibility in two dimensions. Firstly, and following on from what was already happening in ‘big data’, the world stopped caring about where AI got its data — fitting in nicely with ‘ surveillance capitalism. And secondly, contrary to what professional organisations like BCS and ACM had been preaching for years, the outcomes of AI algorithms were no longer viewed as the responsibility of their designers — or anybody, really.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s a fairer and more informed take than most. AI systems can be very useful in limited contexts but you wouldn\u0026rsquo;t want one to decide anything material about your life.\nhttps://www.bcs.org/articles-opinion-and-research/does-current-ai-represent-a-dead-end\n","date":"February 5, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18009/","section":"Posts","summary":"[…] the abandonment of responsibility in two dimensions. Firstly, and following on from what was already happening in ‘big data’, the world stopped caring about where AI got its data — fitting in nicely with ‘ surveillance capitalism. And secondly, contrary to what professional organisations like BCS and ACM had been preaching for years, the outcomes of AI algorithms were no longer viewed as the responsibility of their designers — or anybody, really.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The scientists are all on Bluesky which is understandable given the war on science and truth taking place on Twitter.\nhttps://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00177-1?linkId=12635521\n","date":"February 5, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18007/","section":"Posts","summary":"The scientists are all on Bluesky which is understandable given the war on science and truth taking place on Twitter.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Not politicians, just career bureaucrats deep in the system. I ask them what their favorite part of the job is. They all say \u0026ldquo;stability\u0026rdquo; or \u0026ldquo;job security\u0026rdquo; as their #1. It takes 18 months to get the city to permit your shed? They. Do. Not. Care.\nAll of these examples are things I struggle with also on a daily basis. I live in Berlin where nobody gives a shit about anything. The place is a dump and everybody pretends that it can\u0026rsquo;t be any other way.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s not hard to see why people don\u0026rsquo;t care. Most people barely have the capacity to get through the day. They don\u0026rsquo;t have it in them to care about something more. The way to get people to care more is to force them with social pressure.\nhttps://grantslatton.com/nobody-cares\n","date":"February 4, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18003/","section":"Posts","summary":"Not politicians, just career bureaucrats deep in the system. I ask them what their favorite part of the job is. They all say “stability” or “job security” as their #1. It takes 18 months to get the city to permit your shed? They. Do. Not. Care.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Artemis, fostered with Apollo, virgin who delights in arrows, far-shooting goddess, who swiftly drives her all-golden chariot through Smyrna to vine-clad Claros, I ask that you establish a loop counting from ninety-nine to one called beerLoop.\nA programming language where you make things happen by invoking the gods. Nice to see that classics upbringing to be of some professional use.\nhttps://github.com/rottytooth/Olympus\n","date":"February 4, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/18001/","section":"Posts","summary":"Artemis, fostered with Apollo, virgin who delights in arrows, far-shooting goddess, who swiftly drives her all-golden chariot through Smyrna to vine-clad Claros, I ask that you establish a loop counting from ninety-nine to one called beerLoop.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I had no idea that Git trailers were a thing, but this is pretty cool. Not sure where I\u0026rsquo;ll ever use it though: \u0026ldquo;trailers are severely underutilized\u0026rdquo;\nhttps://alchemists.io/articles/git_trailers\n","date":"February 4, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17999/","section":"Posts","summary":"I had no idea that Git trailers were a thing, but this is pretty cool. Not sure where I’ll ever use it though: “trailers are severely underutilized”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":" Slow progress on results Blamed on everything being difficult or complicated With a tendency to find artificial prerequisite activities that sound plausible, but on further examination aren’t. Things are as complex as we want to make them. Most of the time complexity is an excuse for either not wanting to do something or not knowing how to do something.\nI agree with this with two additions:\nMost of the time things are not at all complex, they are complicated. Those are two very different things.\nComplications can be a symptom of avoidance but maybe oftentimes the work is complicated. If all the work was simple, any idiot could do it. Appreciate the real complexity of the work while you are in the act of cutting through it.\nhttps://kellblog.com/2015/05/13/career-advice-simplifiers-go-far-complexifiers-get-stuck/\n","date":"February 4, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17996/","section":"Posts","summary":" Slow progress on results Blamed on everything being difficult or complicated With a tendency to find artificial prerequisite activities that sound plausible, but on further examination aren’t. Things are as complex as we want to make them. Most of the time complexity is an excuse for either not wanting to do something or not knowing how to do something.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"After reading about it, I started trying out Sonshi style myself. RMS is a disgusting character so let’s just pretend the guru is somebody else.\nI do this during extended work sessions away from my desk.\nThe setup is really easy with Karabiner Elements and a new profile that disables the laptop built-in keyboard when my contra is plugged in.\nhttps://xn\u0026ndash;gckvb8fzb.com/sonshi-style-aka-keyboard-on-laptop/\n","date":"February 4, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17993/","section":"Posts","summary":"After reading about it, I started trying out Sonshi style myself. RMS is a disgusting character so let’s just pretend the guru is somebody else.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"We can probably look forward to see more large American companies destabilize under a regime of financialization, deregulation and competitive pressure.\nhttps://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/23/boeing-details-losses-from-labor-strike-production-issues.html\n","date":"January 31, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17990/","section":"Posts","summary":"We can probably look forward to see more large American companies destabilize under a regime of financialization, deregulation and competitive pressure.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A pretty good explanation of all the weird acronyms that make modern e-mail infrastructure absolutely inscrutable.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s not really different from deep dives into DNS, TLS, CORS etc. The things we use to build the internet have become (out of necessity) incredibly specialized and complicated.\nhttps://www.mythic-beasts.com/blog/2025/01/29/the-death-of-email-forwarding\n","date":"January 31, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17986/","section":"Posts","summary":"A pretty good explanation of all the weird acronyms that make modern e-mail infrastructure absolutely inscrutable.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I find limited run podcast series that dive deep into a specific topic are some of the best things the medium brings forth.\nHere\u0026rsquo;s one from Escape Collective that covers the intersection of a bunch of special interests: bike manufacturing, the pandemic, supply chains and how it all went to hell.\nI bought a road bike myself at the end of the pandemic and the supply chain shortages made it so that I\u0026rsquo;m on a Cube CX bike which is fine but definitely not what I would have gotten if there had been a wide range of bikes to choose from.\nhttps://escapecollective.com/how-did-the-bike-industry-get-into-such-deep-trouble\n","date":"January 31, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17982/","section":"Posts","summary":"I find limited run podcast series that dive deep into a specific topic are some of the best things the medium brings forth.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"An roller coaster of an interview with a series of FizzBuzz extensions that are honestly not even that bad, but poor form from the interviewers\u0026rsquo; side not to recognize the absolute balling brilliance on display here.\nI can just about follow along with this level of Typescript type level programming but to be able to whip this out during an interview is a testament of mastery.\nhttps://kranga.notion.site/The-fizzbuzz-that-did-not-get-me-the-job-180e7c22ef3b80c3a386f7f8de720ac7\n","date":"January 27, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17978/","section":"Posts","summary":"An roller coaster of an interview with a series of FizzBuzz extensions that are honestly not even that bad, but poor form from the interviewers’ side not to recognize the absolute balling brilliance on display here.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Sam Altman and OpenAI are consistently unreliable. One more example that by this point should not surprise anybody.\nhttps://the-decoder.com/openai-quietly-funded-independent-math-benchmark-before-setting-record-with-o3\n","date":"January 27, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17976/","section":"Posts","summary":"Sam Altman and OpenAI are consistently unreliable. One more example that by this point should not surprise anybody.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Let\u0026rsquo;s hope for a quick ending to Twitter.\nhttps://www.theverge.com/2025/1/24/24351317/elon-musk-x-twitter-bank-debt-stagnant-growth\n","date":"January 27, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17974/","section":"Posts","summary":"Let’s hope for a quick ending to Twitter.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Do not fall into the trap of anthropomorphising Larry Ellison. You need to think of Larry Ellison the way you think of a lawnmower. You don’t anthropomorphize your lawnmower, the lawnmower just mows the lawn, you stick your hand in there and it’ll chop it off, the end. You don’t think ‘oh, the lawnmower hates me’ – lawnmower doesn’t give a shit about you, lawnmower can’t hate you. Don’t anthropomorphize the lawnmower. Don’t fall into that trap about Oracle.\nhttps://youtu.be/-zRN7XLCRhc?t=34m00s\n","date":"January 27, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17972/","section":"Posts","summary":"Do not fall into the trap of anthropomorphising Larry Ellison. You need to think of Larry Ellison the way you think of a lawnmower. You don’t anthropomorphize your lawnmower, the lawnmower just mows the lawn, you stick your hand in there and it’ll chop it off, the end. You don’t think ‘oh, the lawnmower hates me’ – lawnmower doesn’t give a shit about you, lawnmower can’t hate you. Don’t anthropomorphize the lawnmower. Don’t fall into that trap about Oracle.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Trashfuture were really cooking when they taped \u0026ldquo;The Sulla of Suburbia\u0026rdquo; with Patrick Wyman.\nhttps://youtu.be/pH2wWO_OOjo?si=ZSv0jixACHlZ0k1K\nThey want Sulla:\nYour browser does not support the audio element. They have a hierarchical view of the world:\nYour browser does not support the audio element. November saying that they really want Hitler:\nYour browser does not support the audio element. The op-ed departments love this stuff:\nYour browser does not support the audio element. ","date":"January 21, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17961/","section":"Posts","summary":"Trashfuture were really cooking when they taped “The Sulla of Suburbia” with Patrick Wyman.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I think this is a well argued plea by Ken Shirriff to stop using the term \u0026ldquo;cargo cult\u0026rdquo; and I agree with it but would like to add two things.\nWith a non-English speaking audience that does not have the same priors, nobody will have an idea what you are talking about if you use the term \u0026ldquo;cargo cult\u0026rdquo;. You\u0026rsquo;ll be stuck explaining the term in a ham-fisted way that will fail to convey the huge amount of history and social science involved.\nOne problem with rejecting the term is that it lets software engineers off the hook and allows them to pretend the way they work is different from the tribal inhabitants of pacific islands. I argue that most software engineering practice is based on folklore and is deeply tribalistic.\nhttps://www.righto.com/2025/01/its-time-to-abandon-cargo-cult-metaphor.html\n","date":"January 18, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17956/","section":"Posts","summary":"I think this is a well argued plea by Ken Shirriff to stop using the term “cargo cult” and I agree with it but would like to add two things.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"No port/adapter terms to learn, no unnecessary layers of horizontal abstractions, no extraneous cognitive load.\nReducing cognitive load is continuous battle. The entropy direction of a software system is always towards more complexity.\nPeople add a lot of this stuff out of either inexperience or because they need to look smart. The simple code that gets the job done is often looked down upon.\nhttps://minds.md/zakirullin/cognitive\n","date":"January 18, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17954/","section":"Posts","summary":"No port/adapter terms to learn, no unnecessary layers of horizontal abstractions, no extraneous cognitive load.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"What\u0026rsquo;s happening in Flint is a good example of how the social effects of institutional lapses are much more difficult to fix than just replacing a bunch of pipes. We\u0026rsquo;re seeing the same effects happening around COVID and its after effects and we\u0026rsquo;ll see many more examples of government distrust and chaotic confusion in the coming decades.\nhttps://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/12/23/flint-water-crisis-2020-post-coronavirus-america-445459\n","date":"January 18, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17952/","section":"Posts","summary":"What’s happening in Flint is a good example of how the social effects of institutional lapses are much more difficult to fix than just replacing a bunch of pipes. We’re seeing the same effects happening around COVID and its after effects and we’ll see many more examples of government distrust and chaotic confusion in the coming decades.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"For those who want to introduce some whimsy into their programming and for whom using a variable width font in your code editor is a bit too far, there is now Comic Mono (via). It doesn\u0026rsquo;t even look all too terrible.\n(After using Iosevka and Inconsolata for a long time, I\u0026rsquo;m now as are many people a happy Jetbrains Mono user.)\nhttps://dtinth.github.io/comic-mono-font\n","date":"January 18, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17925/","section":"Posts","summary":"For those who want to introduce some whimsy into their programming and for whom using a variable width font in your code editor is a bit too far, there is now Comic Mono (via). It doesn’t even look all too terrible.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I would have been surprised if Devin had performed even 1/10th as well as it was hyped. This is a good clean write-up.\nSocial media excitement and company valuations have minimal relationship to real-world utility. We’ve found the most reliable signal comes from detailed stories of users shipping products and services.\nhttps://www.answer.ai/posts/2025-01-08-devin.html\n","date":"January 17, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17948/","section":"Posts","summary":"I would have been surprised if Devin had performed even 1/10th as well as it was hyped. This is a good clean write-up.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I love Github Projects for tracking work. It\u0026rsquo;s close to the code and engineers understand it natively. I feel you can deliver features of any size with it if you work with the tool.\nThe only thing that\u0026rsquo;s a bit annoying is the lack of improvements from Github. There\u0026rsquo;s a bunch of quality of life features I\u0026rsquo;m used to from other tools that would really make a difference. But now with LLMs we don\u0026rsquo;t have to settle.\nI asked Cursor to write me a user script that adds a \u0026ldquo;Create Follow-up Task\u0026rdquo; button (that I used a lot on Asana) to issues on Github. It did a reasonable enough job that I could tweak and then have something working for me. I could write this myself of course but the hurdle of figuring out the format and the wiring felt like a blocker.\nhttps://github.com/alper/user-scripts/blob/main/github-followup-issue/github-followup.user.js\n","date":"January 16, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17943/","section":"Posts","summary":"I love Github Projects for tracking work. It’s close to the code and engineers understand it natively. I feel you can deliver features of any size with it if you work with the tool.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"As if it were possible for me to love htmx more, they post a governance statement that the project is stable and there will be no more new features.\nThis is so much better than the endless revamps and scope creep that other projects suffer from.\nhttps://htmx.org/essays/future\n","date":"January 16, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17941/","section":"Posts","summary":"As if it were possible for me to love htmx more, they post a governance statement that the project is stable and there will be no more new features.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;ll have to agree here that for normal engineers it\u0026rsquo;s better to not really engage with Glue work.\nJust drop it. If it\u0026rsquo;s important, the org will figure out a way to pick it up. That\u0026rsquo;s why you are part of an org in the first place.\nhttps://www.seangoedecke.com/glue-work-considered-harmful\n","date":"January 16, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17938/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’ll have to agree here that for normal engineers it’s better to not really engage with Glue work.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Imagine shipping an app that is so bad that the CEO has to step down. Sonos has made it happen.\nhttps://www.theverge.com/2025/1/13/24342179/sonos-ceo-patrick-spence-resignation-reason-app\n","date":"January 15, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17936/","section":"Posts","summary":"Imagine shipping an app that is so bad that the CEO has to step down. Sonos has made it happen.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"January 15, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/music/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Music","type":"categories"},{"content":"Running a LLM on a Nintendo Switch is a marvellous little hack and it\u0026rsquo;s also a testament to the strength of NVIDIA\u0026rsquo;s platform.\nhttps://nocoffei.com/?p=352\n","date":"January 15, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17934/","section":"Posts","summary":"Running a LLM on a Nintendo Switch is a marvellous little hack and it’s also a testament to the strength of NVIDIA’s platform.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I think Facebook rolled back their block of Pixelfed but they\u0026rsquo;re right to be spooked. Showing a bunch of pictures in a stream hardly seems like a technological challenge. And what are all the people working at Instagram doing other than figuring out novel ways to track you and serve you ads?\nYou should definitely try out Pixelfed which is more than usable.\nhttps://www.heise.de/en/news/Unprecedented-growth-Facebook-blocks-links-to-Instagram-alternative-Pixelfed-10237928.html\n","date":"January 15, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17931/","section":"Posts","summary":"I think Facebook rolled back their block of Pixelfed but they’re right to be spooked. Showing a bunch of pictures in a stream hardly seems like a technological challenge. And what are all the people working at Instagram doing other than figuring out novel ways to track you and serve you ads?\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A lack of knowledge about queueing theory and a dash of wishful thinking make this a common trap for most developers to believe that as long as you add bigger queues you can wiggle your way out of any scaling problem.\nYou can\u0026rsquo;t.\nhttps://ferd.ca/queues-don-t-fix-overload.html\n","date":"January 15, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17929/","section":"Posts","summary":"A lack of knowledge about queueing theory and a dash of wishful thinking make this a common trap for most developers to believe that as long as you add bigger queues you can wiggle your way out of any scaling problem.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Brazil still remembers that it\u0026rsquo;s a state with state power and has found a delightful habit of pouncing on social media sites. Other states should follow suit.\nhttps://www.reuters.com/technology/brazil-gives-meta-72-hours-explain-changes-fact-checking-program-2025-01-10\n","date":"January 14, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17923/","section":"Posts","summary":"Brazil still remembers that it’s a state with state power and has found a delightful habit of pouncing on social media sites. Other states should follow suit.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A more than accurate description of my entire LinkedIn experience.\nhttps://matduggan.com/stop-trying-to-schedule-a-call-with-me\n","date":"January 14, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17921/","section":"Posts","summary":"A more than accurate description of my entire LinkedIn experience.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The two entities arguably most responsible for keeping Germany in the digital dark ages, the CSU and Telekom, have found each other.\nhttps://www.heise.de/news/Telekom-Chef-fordert-Digitalministerium-und-Ausbau-Turbo-Gesetz-10237291.html\n","date":"January 14, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17919/","section":"Posts","summary":"The two entities arguably most responsible for keeping Germany in the digital dark ages, the CSU and Telekom, have found each other.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The Agents chapter from Chip Huyen\u0026rsquo;s book \u0026ldquo;AI Engineering\u0026rdquo; is clear and enjoyable to read. She\u0026rsquo;s right that \u0026ldquo;the concept of an agent is fairly simple\u0026rdquo; but building something functional still looks like a massive lift.\nhttps://huyenchip.com/2025/01/07/agents.html\n","date":"January 14, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17917/","section":"Posts","summary":"The Agents chapter from Chip Huyen’s book “AI Engineering” is clear and enjoyable to read. She’s right that “the concept of an agent is fairly simple” but building something functional still looks like a massive lift.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Maps for where you\u0026rsquo;ve been in Europe and the US (via). Stayed means having spent a night there which means the only places I\u0026rsquo;ve visited and not spent the night are Slovenia (went over the border to hike a mountain there) and the Vatican.\nI should probably upgrade Turkey to lived depending on your definition: stayed in your own house or registered as a resident.\nMy score for the US is negligible and I don\u0026rsquo;t see this changing any time soon (maybe ever).\n","date":"January 12, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17911/","section":"Posts","summary":"Maps for where you’ve been in Europe and the US (via). Stayed means having spent a night there which means the only places I’ve visited and not spent the night are Slovenia (went over the border to hike a mountain there) and the Vatican.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A live coding environment to create 3D graphics using signed distance functions written in the Janet programming language. Click through and edit some of the embedded examples to get a feel for how amazing this is.\nhttps://ianthehenry.com/posts/bauble/building-bauble\n","date":"January 11, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17909/","section":"Posts","summary":"A live coding environment to create 3D graphics using signed distance functions written in the Janet programming language. Click through and edit some of the embedded examples to get a feel for how amazing this is.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A thought-provoking article about how to counteract car bloat. I would add that driving a SUV is even worse than smoking because it mostly harms others, not the person doing the driving themselves.\nhttps://www.vox.com/future-perfect/391733/gigantic-suvs-are-a-public-health-threat-why-dont-we-treat-them-like-one\n","date":"January 11, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17906/","section":"Posts","summary":"A thought-provoking article about how to counteract car bloat. I would add that driving a SUV is even worse than smoking because it mostly harms others, not the person doing the driving themselves.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"In Germany for many transactions you need a proof of address which a Personalausweis provides for German citizens. Us foreigners don\u0026rsquo;t get one however often we ask for it. In the Netherlands moving through the country without a battery of chip cards (OV chipkaart, Bonuskaart, OV-fiets etc.), apps and associated services is costly and annoying.\nThe signs have been there for a while but China seems to be pushing this much further along. The question is whether it\u0026rsquo;s a deliberate move or that the number of people affected is so small that they\u0026rsquo;re a negligible edge case for the policy makers over there.\nhttps://substack.com/home/post/p-136339096\n","date":"January 11, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17904/","section":"Posts","summary":"In Germany for many transactions you need a proof of address which a Personalausweis provides for German citizens. Us foreigners don’t get one however often we ask for it. In the Netherlands moving through the country without a battery of chip cards (OV chipkaart, Bonuskaart, OV-fiets etc.), apps and associated services is costly and annoying.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"It\u0026rsquo;s rare to find writing in German as lithe and delightful as what Christoph Rauscher puts out. The monthly lists are one particularly good example. I\u0026rsquo;m learning new and interesting words still in most of his pieces.\nI totally agree that \u0026ldquo;Writing = Design\u0026rdquo; and you should hire him for Design/Writing/Illustration: https://christophrauscher.de/writing/\nhttps://christowski.de/blog/2024/12/dezember-liste-2024/\n","date":"January 11, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17899/","section":"Posts","summary":"It’s rare to find writing in German as lithe and delightful as what Christoph Rauscher puts out. The monthly lists are one particularly good example. I’m learning new and interesting words still in most of his pieces.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A tear down of how women still get erased from narratives like Toshi here in the new Bob Dylan movie.\nhttps://merrillmarkoe.substack.com/p/a-complete-unknown-the-ballad-of\n","date":"January 11, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17897/","section":"Posts","summary":"A tear down of how women still get erased from narratives like Toshi here in the new Bob Dylan movie.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I think Home Row Mods for your keyboard are too complicated by far to use but I\u0026rsquo;m glad these kind of comprehensive guides exist.\nhttps://precondition.github.io/home-row-mods\n","date":"January 11, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17895/","section":"Posts","summary":"I think Home Row Mods for your keyboard are too complicated by far to use but I’m glad these kind of comprehensive guides exist.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The lamb ad does a good job showing the madness that is online comments sections. Also it made me want to eat a nice piece of lamb.\n","date":"January 11, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17893/","section":"Posts","summary":"The lamb ad does a good job showing the madness that is online comments sections. Also it made me want to eat a nice piece of lamb.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;ve had to spend more time than I like thinking about how datetimes are stored in databases and even the commonly accepted practice of storing UTC does not work for all cases.\nSpecifically when you store something that would happen in the future, you need to store the location of the event as well. Otherwise any time of daylight savings change will shift your event around. This is not just for single events but can also happen for say ordering cut-off times which aren\u0026rsquo;t pinned to a single date.\nhttps://codeblog.jonskeet.uk/2019/03/27/storing-utc-is-not-a-silver-bullet/\n","date":"January 11, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17890/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’ve had to spend more time than I like thinking about how datetimes are stored in databases and even the commonly accepted practice of storing UTC does not work for all cases.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Let\u0026rsquo;s see how this develops but good to see a positive healthcare story for AIs.\nhttps://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/jan/07/more-breast-cancer-cases-found-when-ai-used-in-screenings-study-finds\n","date":"January 8, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17888/","section":"Posts","summary":"Let’s see how this develops but good to see a positive healthcare story for AIs.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A very useful thought experiment whenever anybody tries to pretend LLMs are \u0026lsquo;human\u0026rsquo; because they sound human.\nhttps://bsky.app/profile/colin-fraser.net/post/3ldoyuozxwk2x\n","date":"January 8, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17886/","section":"Posts","summary":"A very useful thought experiment whenever anybody tries to pretend LLMs are ‘human’ because they sound human.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"[…] the Rands Leadership Slack is the most impactful thing I’ve built outside my family and job.\nI can testify to the Rands Leadership Slack being an impactful thing. I\u0026rsquo;ve joined it a long time ago and more or less everything I know about engineering leadership I\u0026rsquo;ve learned there. I\u0026rsquo;m eternally grateful for all the hard work the people there put into making that a nice place to be.\nhttps://randsinrepose.com/archives/just-hard-work\n","date":"January 6, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17882/","section":"Posts","summary":"[…] the Rands Leadership Slack is the most impactful thing I’ve built outside my family and job.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"RARE: Retrieval-Augmented Reasoning Enhancement for Large Language Models\nMedical QA depends heavily on domain-specific knowledge that is not always available within pre-trained models, necessitating knowledge-based retrieval from external sources.\nIn addition medical knowledge evolves rapidly, and new treatments or updated guidelines may not be included in the model\u0026rsquo;s pertained corpus.\nThe question example for the reasoning process in Figure 1 is on a multiple-choice question. That seems overly simple.\nIn parallel, Commonsense Question Answering shares similar complexities with Medical QA, particularly in its reliance on structured multi-step reasoning and iterative evidence retrieval.\nrStar (Mutual Reasoning Makes Smaller LLMs Stronger Problem-Solvers)\nThe rStar approach seems worth diving into. That will be the paper I read next.\nMonte Carlo Tree Search\nenabling the open source LLMs (LLAMA3.1) to achieve competitive performance with top closed-source LLMs like GPT-4 and GPT-4o.\nWe\u0026rsquo;ll come to this later in the paper. Their conclusion is that they can trick out LLAMA to get similar performance to GPT-4 in these domains.\nUpper Confidence Bound applied on trees (UCT)\nIn contrast, rStar incorporates five distinct actions that enable more adaptive exploration:\nA1: Propose a One-Step Thought. This action generates the next reasoning step based on previous steps, allowing the LLM to build the solution incrementally.\nA2: Propose Remaining Thought Steps. This action enables the LLM to produce all remaining reasoning steps in one inference, similar to CoT, for simpler questions.\nA3: Generate Next Sub-question and Answer. This action decomposes the main problem into a sequence of sub-questions, each solved in turn. A4: Re-answer Sub-question. This action allows the LLM to re-answer a previously generated sub- question, increasing accuracy by using few-shot prompting.\nA5: Rephrase Question/Sub-question. This action rephrases the question to clarify conditions and reduce misunderstandings, enhancing the LLM’s interpretation of the problem.\nI need to trace the rStar algorithm after reading the original paper. The explanation here is too short.\nThese queries target information that can either support or refute the content of each statement, ensuring comprehensive factual verification.\nHow does this approach deal with (non-)negation that LLMs often have a lot of trouble with? From a language perspective it could just as easily say I can or can\u0026rsquo;t eat grapefruit (iykyk) based on the temperature that day but especially in a medical context these kind of errors can be catastrophic.\nRARE achieves substantial gains, outperforming rStar by 5.17% on MedQA, 2.19% on MedMCQA and 2.39% on MMLU-Medical.\nEven if these numbers are statistically significant (which they don\u0026rsquo;t say), these increases are really modest. I would not call this in any way \u0026ldquo;substantial\u0026rdquo;.\nLooking at Table 1, RARE is as much of an increase over rStar as rStar is over the next best approach so from that perspective maybe you could call it significant. The difference between worst and best framework here is around 10% across CoT, RAG, SC, rStar, RARE.\nevaluated on StrategyQA (SQA), CommonsenseQA (CQA), Social IQA (SIQA) and Physical IQA (PIQA)\nThe main question I have is from what percentage accuracy such a system would be reasonably possible to use in a real world context. Even at 90-95% that would seem like it would be too low to rely on when the stakes are high.\nBy enhancing LLMs with retrieval-augmented reasoning, RARE bridges the gap between open source models and state-of-the-art proprietary systems.\nThe framework has only been tested on open source models like LLaMA 3.1 and not on larger proprietary models such as GPT-4. This is due to the high number of API calls required by RARE\u0026rsquo;s iterative retrieval and reasoning process, making evaluation on closed source models prohibitively costly.\nSo here they repeat the statement that they\u0026rsquo;ve bridged the gap but they say they haven\u0026rsquo;t used this approach with a model like GPT-4 because the number of API calls would make it too expensive.\nThat leaves on the table that these kind of many-call approaches are open to OpenAI because they can do these numbers of calls much more affordably from inside the house. No real gap has been closed here and it shows again how big of an advantage OpenAI has.\nThat raises the question: What makes GPT-4 so good? Why does it perform so much better than open source models?\nRARE is designed to identify a single reasoning trajectory that leads to a correct answer but does not necessarily optimise for the best or shortest path that maximises robustness.\nAny integration into medical workflows must be supervised by qualified practitioners to ensure patient safety and ethical use.\n","date":"January 6, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17879/","section":"Posts","summary":"RARE: Retrieval-Augmented Reasoning Enhancement for Large Language Models\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"It\u0026rsquo;s been a bit of a grab bag year but overall not as bad as 2023 and a bunch of things seem to be on track.\nHealth # I got on the neurodiversity bandwagon this year.\nFirst I got myself a self-paid diagnosis for ADHD. This result should not surprise anybody who knows me. I\u0026rsquo;ve forced myself to be very high functioning throughout my life but it can\u0026rsquo;t be denied that there were always some underlying issues. I\u0026rsquo;m on medication from the end of the year and have gone off caffeine.\nI also got myself tested for giftedness and got a positive result there as well.\nBoth of these results were validating if nothing else and put a lot of things that happened in my life in a different perspective.\nFor anybody who\u0026rsquo;s not sure whether they should pursue this, my recommendation would be: You will only know how differently you can feel if you do.\nI got a mole cut out of my skin. It\u0026rsquo;s a nice scar to have.\nI\u0026rsquo;m fully vaxxed against FSME and got a booster for COVID in November. That brings me to six jabs in total.\nSports and Injuries # It could have been a great year for sports. After having a great time on our yearly trip to the Alps, I came back to Berlin and badly sprained my ankle after falling off some stairs. I didn\u0026rsquo;t need any surgery, thankfully, but it did set me back some 8 weeks of physical therapy and having to build up to walking again.\nThat notwithstanding, I managed to participate in three road cycling group rides this year. MAAP opening up a store here and organising open weekly rides has been really cool. The cycling and the coffee were lit. 🔥\nI cycled up the Brocken for my first ever mountain and clocked 4201km in 2024 on Strava.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s my goal to weigh 75kgs and I\u0026rsquo;m still as far away from that as I ever was.\nMovies # Letterbox does a good job tracking this and it was a pretty good year for movies. I review all of them over there in detail but I can say the non-Potter kids movies we watched were nice and the Japanese cinema on the whole was excellent. I saw Evil Does Not Exist two times with the second time in the local theatre live scored by its composer Eiko Ishibashi.\nHarry Potter and the Philosopher\u0026rsquo;s Stone Dune: Part Two Curious Tobi and the Treasure Hunt to the Flying Rivers Glass Onion Frozen Tangled Raya and the Last Dragon Shoplifters Luca Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Yojimbo Drive My Car Perfect Days John Wick: Chapter 4 Evil Does Not Exist How to Blow Up a Pipeline Harakiri Evil Does Not Exist Die Hard Television # Trakt is doing a great job keeping track of which episodes of which television series I need to watch. It\u0026rsquo;s the only way I can possibly stay on top of this.\nThe Last of Us Spy x Family S2 Death Note Frieren Tour de France: Unchained S2 Vigil The Peripheral Kaiju No 8 Bluey Arcane S2 Looks like I\u0026rsquo;m turning into a weeb just like everybody else in the culture. I watch anime in part as light entertainment and in part as Japanese immersion. It\u0026rsquo;s very hard to find anime that has any kind of thematic depth. Frieren comes closest because of how it twists the standard fantasy trope into a story about loss and reminiscence.\nBooks # It was a fair though not great year for reading.\nSheaf Theory through Examples, Daniel Rosiak Bring Up the Bodies, Hilary Mantel Min kamp 2, Knausgård, Karl Ove Maria Stuart, Friedrich Schiller Arkada Yaylılar Çalıyor, Melikşah Altuntaş My Tender Matador, Pedro Lemebel Kafka Connect: Build and Run Data Pipelines, Mickail Maison Let Us Believe in the Beginning of the Cold Season, Forugh Farrokzhad Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, Michel Foucault The Kubernetes Book: 2024 Edition, Nigel Poulton Kafka Troubleshooting in Production: Stabilizing Kafka Clusters in the Cloud and On-premises, Elad Eldor Conversational Capacity: The Secret to Building Successful Teams That Perform When the Pressure Is on, Craig Weber I\u0026rsquo;m continuing my trend of reading one Knausgård and one Mantel book each year. No reason not to do that again this year.\nI picked up some poetry at Perdu during my visit to Amsterdam and have been enjoying reading that.\nEvery time I see Maria Stuart (which I got put on to by Past Present Future\u0026rsquo;s fantastic Great Political Fictions series) in the list, I think: \u0026ldquo;I need to read more Schiller.\u0026rdquo; but then I keep forgetting to get the files off Gutenberg. Germans sure knew how to write back in the day.\nTrips # Besides the trip to the Alps, I went to the Netherlands once in 2024 for Kars\u0026rsquo;s viva and we took a trip to idyllic Hiddensee after my foot was healed. Much more travel is slated for next year!\nOther Culture # I don\u0026rsquo;t go to exhibitions for lack of time. Besides seeing Evil Does Not Exist in the theatre I managed to burn a ticket to the opera and one to a dance show due to conflicting commitments and forgetfulness. I\u0026rsquo;m not sure whether I\u0026rsquo;m going to retry this.\nI took the kids to see Ronja at an open air show which was fun.\nMiscellaneous # I was a member of the Greens but I cancelled that because even if they\u0026rsquo;re the least bad political party in Germany, they have been doing a lot of things that I do not wish to support from the inside. I wrote about that here.\nI continued to learn and maintain my Japanese level in preparation for my trip in 2025.\nI learned a bunch around Kubernetes and Kafka but would have liked to do more programming. I refreshed my algorithms a bit and picked up Factor to play with.\n","date":"January 5, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/year-in-review-2024/","section":"Posts","summary":"It’s been a bit of a grab bag year but overall not as bad as 2023 and a bunch of things seem to be on track.\n","title":"Year in Review 2024","type":"posts"},{"content":"The terminal I use daily (because it\u0026rsquo;s the best really), fish, has been rewritten entirely in Rust, because it\u0026rsquo;s nice and more fun: \u0026ldquo;For one, fish is a hobby project, and that means we want it to be fun for us. Nobody is being paid to work on fish, so we need it to be fun. Being fun and interesting also attracts contributors.\u0026rdquo;\nI can testify to this because when most of the code was rewritten I checked it out, built it and poked around a bunch to see how it works. I don\u0026rsquo;t think I would have done that or enjoyed doing it if it had been a C++ codebase. That was also when I was confronted with the fact that what makes a terminal really complicated is not the language in which it is programmed, but the underlying system that it is an interface to.\nThe story of the port and its success is legendary as far as these things go.\nhttps://fishshell.com/blog/rustport\n","date":"January 4, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17867/","section":"Posts","summary":"The terminal I use daily (because it’s the best really), fish, has been rewritten entirely in Rust, because it’s nice and more fun: “For one, fish is a hobby project, and that means we want it to be fun for us. Nobody is being paid to work on fish, so we need it to be fun. Being fun and interesting also attracts contributors.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"There was a brief period where Foursquare based recommendations were good and drawn from your wider social graph. Now we\u0026rsquo;ve gone back to Yelp and Google Maps where reviews and ratings don\u0026rsquo;t mean anything. A lower than 4 star review on GMaps has netted me a cease-and-desist e-mail for defamation.\nThat puts personally curated travel docs and word of mouth back in play as Thrillist describes here. Every Dutch person has or knows somebody who has a Berlin Google Doc with all the Geheimtipps. Dutch people\u0026rsquo;s tastes are fairly predictable and pedestrian, so these\u0026rsquo;ll mostly be cheap Asian eateries in Prenzlauerberg but that\u0026rsquo;s also fine.\nFor me the most interesting recommendations for Berlin but also for other cities come through TikTok. The algorithm is well tuned to my type of person and in the short videos it\u0026rsquo;s pretty easy to size up whether somebody knows what they\u0026rsquo;re talking about or not.\nhttps://www.thrillist.com/travel/nation/google-docs-are-the-ideal-travel-guides\n","date":"January 4, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17862/","section":"Posts","summary":"There was a brief period where Foursquare based recommendations were good and drawn from your wider social graph. Now we’ve gone back to Yelp and Google Maps where reviews and ratings don’t mean anything. A lower than 4 star review on GMaps has netted me a cease-and-desist e-mail for defamation.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"As a parent and as a social media user, I don\u0026rsquo;t buy that something that\u0026rsquo;s harmful to adults is not EVEN MORE harmful to children.\nThe platforms need to be curtailed and this entire situation has to be shutdown as soon as possible. We can keep our kids off smartphones but what about others?\nhttps://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jan/03/psychiatrist-children-smartphones-mental-health-harm\n","date":"January 3, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17860/","section":"Posts","summary":"As a parent and as a social media user, I don’t buy that something that’s harmful to adults is not EVEN MORE harmful to children.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Musks\u0026rsquo;s attack on Wikipedia is another step in getting rid of information sources where they can\u0026rsquo;t control the narrative and the \u0026ldquo;truth\u0026rdquo;. Everything they\u0026rsquo;re doing is built on lies.\nhttps://www.citationneeded.news/elon-musk-and-the-rights-war-on-wikipedia\n","date":"January 3, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17857/","section":"Posts","summary":"Musks’s attack on Wikipedia is another step in getting rid of information sources where they can’t control the narrative and the “truth”. Everything they’re doing is built on lies.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Hans de Zwart\u0026rsquo;s end of the year media overviews are one of the highlights of what still happens on personal blogs for me. He\u0026rsquo;s a voracious reader and one of the rare people who acts on his moral clarity. Also, Hans is a great guy and I had the chance to briefly catch-up with him last year.\nI\u0026rsquo;ll see if I can pull something together, but definitely go through his list. I always pick up more than a couple of interesting things to explore.\nhttps://blog.hansdezwart.nl/2025/01/01/the-books-i-read-the-podcasts-i-listened-to-the-films-and-other-culture-i-saw-in-2024/\n","date":"January 3, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17854/","section":"Posts","summary":"Hans de Zwart’s end of the year media overviews are one of the highlights of what still happens on personal blogs for me. He’s a voracious reader and one of the rare people who acts on his moral clarity. Also, Hans is a great guy and I had the chance to briefly catch-up with him last year.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The o3 AGI result looked so noteworthy that I dove into it. I read one of the papers that\u0026rsquo;s at the base of the approach and thought it was pretty interesting.\nTurns out that it was mostly bullshit and everybody was doing another round of \u0026ldquo;let\u0026rsquo;s pretend that AGI is real\u0026rdquo;. What a shambles.\nhttps://garymarcus.substack.com/p/c39\n","date":"January 3, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17852/","section":"Posts","summary":"The o3 AGI result looked so noteworthy that I dove into it. I read one of the papers that’s at the base of the approach and thought it was pretty interesting.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Trust Laura Olin, nobody has to stay on Twitter. It\u0026rsquo;s a bad place that\u0026rsquo;s only getting worse.\nhttps://www.lauraolin.com/you-dont-actually-have-to-stay-on-twitter/\n","date":"January 2, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17850/","section":"Posts","summary":"Trust Laura Olin, nobody has to stay on Twitter. It’s a bad place that’s only getting worse.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"An overview of the year in databases by Andy Pavlo that does not pull any punches. I learned a bunch of things (and I somewhat keep up with this area).\nhttps://www.cs.cmu.edu/~pavlo/blog/2025/01/2024-databases-retrospective.html\n","date":"January 2, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17848/","section":"Posts","summary":"An overview of the year in databases by Andy Pavlo that does not pull any punches. I learned a bunch of things (and I somewhat keep up with this area).\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I think for sure we\u0026rsquo;ve built an Erlang but even then again Erlang is such an esoteric environment that I would barely consider using it to be an alternative. Where would you start and how would you get other people onboarded?\nhttps://vereis.com/posts/you_built_an_erlang\n","date":"January 2, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17846/","section":"Posts","summary":"I think for sure we’ve built an Erlang but even then again Erlang is such an esoteric environment that I would barely consider using it to be an alternative. Where would you start and how would you get other people onboarded?\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A cautionary tale of how you can try to avoid Kubernetes to then step-by-step build the same thing yourself but poorly.\nhttps://www.macchaffee.com/blog/2024/you-have-built-a-kubernetes\n","date":"January 2, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17842/","section":"Posts","summary":"A cautionary tale of how you can try to avoid Kubernetes to then step-by-step build the same thing yourself but poorly.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Another take on the old adage that writing the code is the easy part of software engineering. The real work is figuring out what has to be built and how. Once that is clear, the actual building can be done relatively quickly and linearly.\nI think the notion of a dead program is useful though it\u0026rsquo;s not always that clear cut:\nThe death of a program happens when the programmer team possessing its theory is dissolved. A dead program may continue to be used for execution in a computer and to produce useful results.\nhttps://olano.dev/blog/software-design-is-knowledge-building\n","date":"January 2, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17840/","section":"Posts","summary":"Another take on the old adage that writing the code is the easy part of software engineering. The real work is figuring out what has to be built and how. Once that is clear, the actual building can be done relatively quickly and linearly.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The MSF year in pictures is an unsparing overview of the circumstances that the rest of the world has to live in. Grim.\nhttps://www.msf.org/year-pictures-2024\n","date":"January 2, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17836/","section":"Posts","summary":"The MSF year in pictures is an unsparing overview of the circumstances that the rest of the world has to live in. Grim.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Adapting While Learning: Grounding LLMs for Scientific Problems with Intelligent Tool Usage Adaptation\nA paper where they fine tune an LLM to be able to answer some questions itself and figure out for which questions it needs to use a specialized tool. Intelligent tool usage seems like it would expand the use cases for LLM driven systems much more than any kind of scaling (real or imagined).\nHowever, scholars note that their abilities are capped at approximately high-school levels\nThat seems like a noteworthy statement especially if you are looking to LLMs to provide \u0026ldquo;novel thinking\u0026rdquo;. It would seem much more that high school problems are abundantly available and relatively trivial so they see a specific focus.\nFor numerical answers in the MATH and SciBench datasets, we consider answers correct if they fall within a small tolerance range of the true value, specifically within ±5%.\nDon\u0026rsquo;t really see why you could not get exact answers in a mathematical domain.\nThis performance gap on public benchmarks is likely due to the larger parameter count and specific optimization of state-of-the-art models on the open-source datasets.\nSame as with the high school questions. These datasets are easily available and draw attention so the models overfit on them.\nThe model Ours-Pn demonstrates performance comparable to Base-Pf , both showing a significant improvement over the base model. This similarity indicates successful internalization of distilled knowledge from tools. The transition from Ours-Pn to Ours-Pi showcases further improvement in answer accuracy, resulting from the model’s enhanced ability to intelligently switch to tools for harder questions.\nThis is the core proposition of the paper. Looking at Table 1 with the accuracy percentages there is something of an improvement but it does not really look dramatic or so convincing that you could use these systems in any critical context.\nWe\u0026rsquo;re looking at increases of 10-20% and an accuracy that\u0026rsquo;s still well under 90% (which I\u0026rsquo;m also not convinced would be usable).\nWe introduced a novel two-component fine-tuning approach to enhance Large Language Models (LLMs) in solving scientific problems of varying complexity.\nOne of the key issues with the paper I have is how much work the term \u0026ldquo;scientific problems\u0026rdquo; is doing. If this is published, people are going to think that the LLM is solving actual novel issues where in this case it\u0026rsquo;s just filling in relatively basic question/answer pairs that are well understood. Calling them problems is problematic.\nThe most interesting part of the paper is the appendix where you can see the actual questions and answers in the various datasets and the prompts they used (with example responses). The answers mostly are multiple choice which already influences how many of them you should expect to be correct.\n","date":"January 2, 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17833/","section":"Posts","summary":"Adapting While Learning: Grounding LLMs for Scientific Problems with Intelligent Tool Usage Adaptation\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Monolith: Real Time Recommendation System With Collisionless Embedding Table\nI didn\u0026rsquo;t get that much from this paper, probably because it\u0026rsquo;s pretty high level and I don\u0026rsquo;t have a strong background in recommendation systems.\nThe approach is their Cuckoo Hashmap for embedding from which they can update parameters on the fly using existing data engineering pipeline technology.\nInstead of reading mini-batch examples from the storage, a training worker consumes realtime data on-the-fly and updates the training PS. The training PS periodically syn- chronizes its parameters to the serving PS, which will take effect on the user side immediately. This enables our model to interactively adapt itself according to a user’s feedback in realtime.\n","date":"December 31, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17831/","section":"Posts","summary":"Monolith: Real Time Recommendation System With Collisionless Embedding Table\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Eight Things to Know about Large Language Models\nA bunch of stuff that maybe was somewhat surprising a year ago but by now should be common knowledge for anybody even half following the developments in this field.\nSome interesting bits in there but for the rest it\u0026rsquo;s a bit rah-rah because the author works at Anthropic.\nIn particular, models can misinterpret ambiguous prompts or incentives in unreason- able ways, including in situations that appear unambiguous to humans, leading them to behave unexpectedly.\nOur techniques for controlling systems are weak and are likely to break down further when applied to highly capable models. Given all this, it is reasonable to expect a substantial increase and a substantial qualitative change in the range of misuse risks and model misbehaviors that emerge from the development and deployment of LLMs.\nThe recent trend toward limiting access to LLMs and treating the details of LLM training as proprietary information is also an obstacle to scientific study.\n","date":"December 31, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17829/","section":"Posts","summary":"Eight Things to Know about Large Language Models\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Wikipedia does not really come to mind when I think of a place that\u0026rsquo;s really left-wing, but maybe that\u0026rsquo;s just me?\nhttps://www.newsweek.com/elon-musk-takes-aim-wikipedia-fund-raising-editing-political-woke-2005742\n","date":"December 29, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17827/","section":"Posts","summary":"Wikipedia does not really come to mind when I think of a place that’s really left-wing, but maybe that’s just me?\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Here\u0026rsquo;s Simon Willison writing about how he approaches his link blog.\nI do something along similar lines here. I share links to various things that I find interesting and try to add what I think is interesting about them. From here I then schedule posts to Bluesky, Mastodon and LinkedIn using Buffer.\nI\u0026rsquo;m not sure who reads my stuff here but I know for sure that people see the exhaust on those platforms. The main reason why I blog them here is to have my own repository of knowledge and links for if I ever have to refer back to it. For that I annotate things in a way where I hopefully can find it again and use site search to find ‘that one link about X I shared a while back’.\nSo yes, Wordpress works just fine as a personal knowledge management system.\n","date":"December 29, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17825/","section":"Posts","summary":"Here’s Simon Willison writing about how he approaches his link blog.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The Digital Patient Record system in Germany is built on smart cards and hardware which make it impossible to update and keep secure.\nOf course a company like Gematik can\u0026rsquo;t update algorithms and keys on such a widespread heterogenous system. This is a competency that is impossible to organise except at the largest scales and even then companies like Microsoft will routinely leak their root keys.\nThe ‘hackers’ who made this presentation also can\u0026rsquo;t make something better than this and their culture is what led us to this point in the first place. It\u0026rsquo;s the same story with the German digital ID card which nobody uses.\nThe recipe is simple:\nDemand absurd levels of security for threat models that are outlandish and paranoid Have those demands complicate your architecture with security measures that look good but are impossible to maintain Reap the exploits that you can run against that architecture and score publicity It\u0026rsquo;s a great way to make sure that everybody loses in the German IT landscape.\nSolution: Simplify the architecture to a server model with a normal 2FA login and keep that server secure. Done.\nhttps://www.golem.de/news/elektronische-patientenakte-so-laesst-sich-auf-die-epa-aller-versicherten-zugreifen-2412-192003.html\n","date":"December 29, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17823/","section":"Posts","summary":"The Digital Patient Record system in Germany is built on smart cards and hardware which make it impossible to update and keep secure.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":" From the Grothendieck biography, funny to see that the legend would express himself in German.\nRiemann-Roch\u0026rsquo;scher Satz: der letzte Schrei: der Diagramm […] ist kommutatif!\nUm dieser Aussage über f:X-\u0026gt;Y einen approximativen Sinn zu geben, musste ich nahezu zwei Stunden lang die Geduld der Zuhörer missbrauchen. Schwartz auf weiss (in Springer Lecture Notes) nimmt\u0026rsquo;s wohl an die 400,500 Seiten.\nEin packendes Beispiel dafür, wie unser Wissens und Entdeckungsdrang sich immer mehr in einem lebensentrückten logischen Delirium auslebt, während das Lebens selbst auf Tausendfache Art zum Teufel geht – und mit endgültiger Vernichtung bedroht ist. Höchste Zeit unsern Kurs zu ändern!\n—Alexander Grothendieck\n","date":"December 27, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/witchs-kitchen/","section":"Posts","summary":" From the Grothendieck biography, funny to see that the legend would express himself in German.\n","title":"Witches Kitchen","type":"posts"},{"content":"The low-latency user wants Bigtable’s request queues to be (almost always) empty so that the system can process each outstanding request immediately upon arrival. (Indeed, inefficient queuing is often a cause of high tail latency.) The user concerned with offline analysis is more interested in system throughput, so that user wants request queues to never be empty. To optimize for throughput, the Bigtable system should never need to idle while waiting for its next request.\nThis is also at the moment my abject suffering where we have lots of shared resources which need to stay available but can also be hammered by various parties.\nGood to read that in this piece by Dan Slimmon: The Latency/Throughput Tradeoff: Why Fast Services Are Slow And Vice Versa. I read the SRE book as well but that part did not register with me back then.\n","date":"December 27, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17817/","section":"Posts","summary":"The low-latency user wants Bigtable’s request queues to be (almost always) empty so that the system can process each outstanding request immediately upon arrival. (Indeed, inefficient queuing is often a cause of high tail latency.) The user concerned with offline analysis is more interested in system throughput, so that user wants request queues to never be empty. To optimize for throughput, the Bigtable system should never need to idle while waiting for its next request.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I use AI tools to help me program despite them being mostly very disappointing. They save me some typing once in a while.\nAt least, now that I have switched from Perplexity to Cursor, I can ask my questions in my editor directly without having to open a browser search tab. I pass through a lot of different technologies in a given workday, so I have a lot of questions to ask.\nFor my use cases, it\u0026rsquo;s rare that Cursor can do even a halfway decent code change even in domains where there is a bunch of prior art (“convert this file from using alpine.js to htmx”). I know people who say they have generated thousands of LoC using LLMs that they actively use but there the old adage comes in: “We can generate as much code as you want, if only all the code is allowed to be shit.”\nThe position below is one of the more charitable positions of how AI can help a programmer and even that I don\u0026rsquo;t think is particularly convincing.\nhttps://www.geoffreylitt.com/2024/12/22/making-programming-more-fun-with-an-ai-generated-debugger.html\n","date":"December 27, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17812/","section":"Posts","summary":"I use AI tools to help me program despite them being mostly very disappointing. They save me some typing once in a while.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Attention Is All You Need\nI thought I\u0026rsquo;d dive back into history and read the original paper that started it all. It\u0026rsquo;s somewhat technical about encode/decoder layouts and matrix multiplications. None of the components are super exciting for somebody who\u0026rsquo;s been looking at neural networks for the past decade.\nWhat\u0026rsquo;s exciting is that such a simplification generates results that are that much better and how they came up with it. Unfortunately, they don\u0026rsquo;t write how they found this out.\nThe paper itself is a bit too abstract so I\u0026rsquo;m going to look for some of those YouTube videos that explain what is actually going on here and why it\u0026rsquo;s such a big deal. I\u0026rsquo;ll update this later.\n","date":"December 26, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17809/","section":"Posts","summary":"Attention Is All You Need\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Tree of Thoughts: Deliberate Problem Solving with Large Language Models\nI came across this paper after the recent o3 high score on the ARC-AGI-PUB test. It\u0026rsquo;s a quick read and details how to scale LLMs at inference stage by generating new states at every node and so create a tree on which to perform DFS/BFS search algorithms.\nA specific instantiation of ToT involves answering four questions: 1. How to decompose the intermediate process into thought steps; 2. How to generate potential thoughts from each state; 3. How to heuristically evaluate states; 4. What search algorithm to use.\nFor each of these steps they can deploy the LLM to generate the desired results which then scaled over the search space balloons the number of calls that need to be done (costing almost 200x the compute).\nThis isn\u0026rsquo;t your normal LLM stochastic parrot anymore. We\u0026rsquo;ve gone one up the abstraction chain and here we have a computer science algorithm running with LLM calls as its basic atoms.\n","date":"December 26, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17805/","section":"Posts","summary":"Tree of Thoughts: Deliberate Problem Solving with Large Language Models\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I get to have a lot of conversations around compliance and this is as good a “SOC2 for tech people” guide as I could have asked for by the good people at Fly.\nhttps://fly.io/blog/soc2-the-screenshots-will-continue-until-security-improves\n","date":"December 23, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17799/","section":"Posts","summary":"I get to have a lot of conversations around compliance and this is as good a “SOC2 for tech people” guide as I could have asked for by the good people at Fly.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Cal Newport has a quick list of his philosophy for busy people. Saves you from reading his books.\nhttps://calnewport.com/the-tao-of-cal\n","date":"December 23, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17797/","section":"Posts","summary":"Cal Newport has a quick list of his philosophy for busy people. Saves you from reading his books.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Something that Ed Zitron has already mentioned, internet users are being trained very rapidly to suspect everything to be a scam. In the case of honey, it\u0026rsquo;s a Paypal owned online shopping extension that lies and deceives.\nhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop\u0026si=NJa6RAHH1yS4-Vhx\u0026v=vc4yL3YTwWk\u0026feature=youtu.be\n","date":"December 23, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17795/","section":"Posts","summary":"Something that Ed Zitron has already mentioned, internet users are being trained very rapidly to suspect everything to be a scam. In the case of honey, it’s a Paypal owned online shopping extension that lies and deceives.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I made the mistake of opening the desktop Spotify app which does not really work anymore. The UI is broken and there\u0026rsquo;s lots of irrelevant stuff going on.\nTechnology should become more useful, not more exploitative. It\u0026rsquo;s a simple thing to ask for.\n(At some point, your music app is just done.)\nhttps://www.wheresyoured.at/never-forgive-them\n","date":"December 16, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17789/","section":"Posts","summary":"I made the mistake of opening the desktop Spotify app which does not really work anymore. The UI is broken and there’s lots of irrelevant stuff going on.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Judging from this article, it will probably not be good for the acceptance of new technologies long term to build data centers in drought struck areas.\nhttps://www.techpolicy.press/why-we-dont-know-ais-true-water-footprint\n","date":"December 8, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17775/","section":"Posts","summary":"Judging from this article, it will probably not be good for the acceptance of new technologies long term to build data centers in drought struck areas.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Postgres seems to reign as the database solution of choice but there are lots of new specialised databases that are worth looking at. All of these can be used in production at scale for the right application.\nhttps://matt.blwt.io/post/7-databases-in-7-weeks-for-2025/\n","date":"December 8, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17773/","section":"Posts","summary":"Postgres seems to reign as the database solution of choice but there are lots of new specialised databases that are worth looking at. All of these can be used in production at scale for the right application.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Fun little write-up how to make a web frontend to a dataset that\u0026rsquo;s almost infinitely large. See it at: https://everyuuid.com\nhttps://eieio.games/blog/writing-down-every-uuid\n","date":"December 8, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17771/","section":"Posts","summary":"Fun little write-up how to make a web frontend to a dataset that’s almost infinitely large. See it at: https://everyuuid.com\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"That\u0026rsquo;s an amazing overview of all the things that can and will go wrong in online PvP gaming. It covers the range from networking exploits to all the in-game ways that people try to grief or abuse others.\nhttps://wirepair.org/2024/12/03/you-cant-get-more-adversarial-than-pvp-mmorpgs/\n","date":"December 6, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17766/","section":"Posts","summary":"That’s an amazing overview of all the things that can and will go wrong in online PvP gaming. It covers the range from networking exploits to all the in-game ways that people try to grief or abuse others.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"So I felt I couldn\u0026rsquo;t really bring myself to do Advent of Code this year since I have more than enough other things to do (and watch and play) and with work and the kids, it\u0026rsquo;s always pretty miserable to keep up.\nI saw this thing called December Adventure though and that fits in nicely with my current push to release a major update for Cuppings. If I\u0026rsquo;m going to be programming until late this month, then I\u0026rsquo;d prefer it to be on something that I can release.\nI can\u0026rsquo;t promise that I won\u0026rsquo;t do any AoC (Factor is looking mighty cool) but I won\u0026rsquo;t force myself to do anything. With that, let\u0026rsquo;s get going.\n1/12 # I started working on the map view which clicking around looked like it could be really annoying. I found some dead ends and was afraid I\u0026rsquo;d have to hack in Leaflet support myself but I found a dioxus example hidden in the leaflet-rs repository.\nYes, I\u0026rsquo;m writing this website in Rust/WASM, why do you ask?\nThat example required a bunch of fiddling with the configuration and a couple of false starts, but now I have a vanilla map view.\nI can say that I\u0026rsquo;m amazed that in this ecosystem 1. an example exists 2. that example works 3. it works in my project with a bit of diffing and 4. it seems to do what I need.\nI raised a PR to the project to advertise this example on its README just like it does the others so that others wouldn\u0026rsquo;t have to search like I did. That PR got merged:\nhttps://github.com/slowtec/leaflet-rs/pull/36\n2/12 # Today I\u0026rsquo;ll see if I can tweak the map view to show the location of the cafe we tapped and get things to a point where I can commit the change.\nTo do this I need to figure out how to pass information along to a router when we tap a venue. That should be easy enough but the Dioxus documentation is between 0.5 and 0.6 now and a lot of it is broken.\nA tip from the Discord said I need to put the data into a context from a parent and then get it out again in a child. It\u0026rsquo;s a bit roundabout and required some refactoring, but it works.\nDone on time even for a reasonable bed time.\n3/12 # Turns out my changes from yesterday did not make it to the staging server. I\u0026rsquo;ll fix that and manually run the job again.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s these annoying wasm-bindgen version errors that keep happening and that require a reinstall of this: cargo install -f wasm-bindgen-cli --version 0.2.97 and the dioxus-cli. Dioxus which by the way is preparing its long awaited 0.6.0 release.\nYes, I build this on the same Hetzner box that hosts it. So here you go: https://staging.cuppin.gs\nOther than that not that much will happen today since I spent most of the evening noodling around with Factor (despite my intention not to do any weird programming). It\u0026rsquo;s a nice language that\u0026rsquo;s very similar to Uiua which I tried out a while back but not being an array programming language makes it feel somewhat more ergonomic.\n4/12 # I can\u0026rsquo;t describe how nice it is to wake up and not have to deal with a mediocre story line involving elves and try to find time to attack a programming problem.\nAfter today, I\u0026rsquo;m going to need that quiet morning, because I spent until 01:30 debugging an issue: Going to a detail view from the frontpage worked, but loading a detail view directly would throw an error.\nThere were two issues at play here:\nLeaflet maps don\u0026rsquo;t deal well with being created multiple times so either we have to call ` map.remove() or we have to check whether the map has already been created and keep a reference to it somehow.\nI solved it by pushing the map into a global variable:\nthread_local!(static MAP: RefCell\u0026gt; = RefCell::new(None)); These are Rust constructs I would normally never use so that\u0026rsquo;s interesting. More interesting is that they work in one go and that they work on the WASM target.\nThen the error was gone but the page was blank. Not entirely sure what was happening I poked at the DOM to see all the map elements there but simply not visible. Turns out that because of the different path, the path for the stylesheet was being added to the URL like this: http://127.0.0.1:8080/venue/176/main.css\nIt just has these two lines:\n#map { width: 100%; height: 100vh; } But without a height the map is invisible.\nBoth issues are solved but not committed. I\u0026rsquo;ll see tomorrow whether I\u0026rsquo;m happy with the solution and how to package this up. Also I\u0026rsquo;m not sure how main.css is being served on production and whether the same fix will work there.\n5/12 # I couldn\u0026rsquo;t help but noodle on Advent of Code a bit. Here\u0026rsquo;s my day 1 part 1 in Factor: https://github.com/alper/advent-of-code/blob/main/2024/day-01/day-01.factor\nI like Factor the programming language. It\u0026rsquo;s like Lisp or Haskell but without all the annoying bits.\nThe environment that\u0026rsquo;s provided with it, I\u0026rsquo;m not so keen about. It\u0026rsquo;s annoying to use and has lots of weird conventions that aren\u0026rsquo;t very ergonomic.\n6/12 # I\u0026rsquo;ve been bad and I\u0026rsquo;ve finished part 2 of day 1 of the Advent of Code: https://github.com/alper/advent-of-code/blob/main/2024/day-01/day-01.factor#L27\nNot so December Adventure after all maybe. I\u0026rsquo;ll promise I\u0026rsquo;ll finish the mapping improvements I was working on tomorrow.\n7/12 # Went on my weekly long bike ride. Then in the evening I didn\u0026rsquo;t have that much energy for programming other than finishing Advent of Code day 3 part 1: https://github.com/alper/advent-of-code/commit/0a74c38e7641141e10b4c48203c9e414cc492e1c\n(I looked at day 2 part 2 but that just looked very tedious.)\n8/12 # Got in a ton of commits on Cuppin.gs today. After fixing the map, I wanted to see what would happen if I would add all 2000 markers to the map.\nPerformance seems to be doable but this is probably not ideal for a webpage. Dynamically rendering the venues is something for later. For now I can probably get away with filtering for the 100-200 nearest locations by distance and dumping those into the map view.\nNow I\u0026rsquo;m back debugging Github Actions. I\u0026rsquo;m splitting up the build and deploy of the backend and the frontend into separate actions. Compiling dioxus-cli takes forever which is a step I hope I can skip with cargo-binstall.\nIterating on Github Actions takes forever and there really doesn\u0026rsquo;t seem to be a better way to develop this or a better CI solution that everybody is willing to use.\n10/12 # Spent some hours massaging the data that goes into the app. I had to add all new venues and after that I wanted to check whether any place in our 2k venue set had closed so we can take them off the display. This is a somewhat tedious multi-step process.\nI have an admin binary that calls the Google Maps API for each venue to check the venue data and the business status (CLOSED_TEMPORARILY and such). But to be able to do that you have to feed each place ID into the API. The only issue with place IDs is that they expire from time to time. There\u0026rsquo;s a free API call that you can use to refresh them.\nThat expiration does not happen that often. What happens more, I found, is that a place will disappear entirely of Google Maps. For some reason it will be deleted. I don\u0026rsquo;t handle that case yet so there my updaters break entirely and the quickest fix around it is to delete the venue from the database and restart.\nThe only data issue that I still have outstanding is when venues move their location to a different address. I have a place around here that I think is still showing on its old spot.\n11/12 # Tried to run Cuppings in Xcode to be met with some weird compilation errors. Turns out that there\u0026rsquo;s an Expression type in Foundation that\u0026rsquo;s overriding my SQLite.swift Expression. It\u0026rsquo;s a pretty silly reason for code to be broken: Expression - name space conflict with Xcode 16/iOS 18\nAlso still fighting with the frontend deployments which seem to need a -- frozen passed to them to not proactively go update package versions.\n14/12 # Love to have a crash on startup for the Cuppings TestFlight build and then sit down today to bake a new one and upload that and for that one to work. No clue what the issue was even though I took a look at the crashlog (that I sent in myself).\nI\u0026rsquo;ve also automated building the iOS app to be done by Xcode Cloud which should making new versions (whenever the database is updated) a lot easier.\n16/12 # Upgraded the frontend to Dioxus 0.6.0 which just came out and has lots of quality of life issues. For my case, I did not need to change a single line of code, just change some version numbers and build a new dioxus-cli.\nI hope that maybe solves the wasm-bindgen issues on the frontend deploy. The annoying part about the build is that it takes so long that it\u0026rsquo;s very hard to iterate on.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s too late even for me to see what this does. I\u0026rsquo;m off to bed. You may or may not get a new version of the website by tomorrow morning.\n18/12 # Spent some iterations running the frontend deploy and rerunning it but now it should be working.\n22/12 # I spent the evening doing manual data munging and correcting some venue locations that hadn\u0026rsquo;t been updated correctly through my data life cycle.\nThat forced me to clarify the two name fields the venues table has.\nname was the original name field and was pulled from the Foursquare metadata google_name is the name field that\u0026rsquo;s pulled from Google Maps and was effectively leading but not updated correctly yet when refreshing the data So to figure that out I did a bunch of auditing in the list to see venues where there was a large discrepancy between the names. Something that happens is that a place will change its name but keep the same location and Google Maps place.\nI also added a label to the iOS app to indicate whether this is a DEBUG build but that messed up the layout and I guess I might as well remove it. Sometimes I get confused what I\u0026rsquo;m running, but since it\u0026rsquo;s just me running DEBUG builds on their phone, I think I can do without.\nI also started a rewrite that I\u0026rsquo;m not sure I\u0026rsquo;m going to pull over the line: I wanted to remove the search dependency on Alpine.js and replace it with htmx. For this I asked Cursor to do the translation which it did a stab at but ultimately rather failed to do even the basic steps for it. Then I did it myself and while htmx is super easy to setup, the data juggling I have to do with what I get from Google Maps is very fragile and needs to be cleaned up (which I may or may not do given that things are working right now).\n23/12 # Working with the backend was very annoying because every time the server restarts, it would log me out. To fix that I changed the persistency of tower-sessions from MemoryStore to FileSessionStorage and that fixed it without issues. There is now a .sessions folder in the backend which needs to be ignored for cargo watch but other than that it\u0026rsquo;s a drop-in replacement.\nThat means I will need to write a logout view at some point.\n","date":"December 2, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/december-adventure/","section":"Posts","summary":"So I felt I couldn’t really bring myself to do Advent of Code this year since I have more than enough other things to do (and watch and play) and with work and the kids, it’s always pretty miserable to keep up.\n","title":"December Adventure","type":"posts"},{"content":"Seeing if I can move from Arc to Vivaldi but there are half a dozen radical improvements in Arc that *make* the experience. It just shows how much innovation and solid thinking was packed in all of that frivolous design.\nVivaldi on the other hand has a million settings which mostly show that nobody knows wat this app is supposed to be doing. There are entire note taking apps and e-mail clients in there but none of them fun or nice to use.\nProducts truly live and die in the pixels.\n","date":"December 2, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17741/","section":"Posts","summary":"Seeing if I can move from Arc to Vivaldi but there are half a dozen radical improvements in Arc that *make* the experience. It just shows how much innovation and solid thinking was packed in all of that frivolous design.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Old people\u0026rsquo;s brains have been entirely cooked by the slop feeds that Meta produces. No parent worth their salt would trust these people to protect their kids. The EU should follow suit.\nthe law may infringe on the rights of young people and reduce their ability to participate in society\nSince when is being spoon fed the worst advertising and content created by awful people looking to make a quick buck \u0026ldquo;participating in society\u0026rdquo;?\nhttps://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/nov/29/meta-australia-social-media-ban-response\n","date":"November 29, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17744/","section":"Posts","summary":"Old people’s brains have been entirely cooked by the slop feeds that Meta produces. No parent worth their salt would trust these people to protect their kids. The EU should follow suit.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Chuffed by the strength of my team that we have most of the easy decisions from these Node.js pillars in place and we are making headway on all of them to the extent that\u0026rsquo;s appropriate for us.\nhttps://www.platformatichq.com/node-principles\n","date":"November 25, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17738/","section":"Posts","summary":"Chuffed by the strength of my team that we have most of the easy decisions from these Node.js pillars in place and we are making headway on all of them to the extent that’s appropriate for us.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I read this piece about CORS and the only thing I can tell you about it is that I hate web security.\nhttps://jakearchibald.com/2021/cors\n","date":"November 21, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17735/","section":"Posts","summary":"I read this piece about CORS and the only thing I can tell you about it is that I hate web security.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"What China has done in industry after industry is to flatten the supply curve by subsidizing hordes of producers. This spurs innovation, increases output and crushes margins. Value is not being destroyed; it’s accruing to consumers as lower prices, higher quality and/or more innovative products and services.\nIf you are looking for returns in the financial statements of China’s subsidized companies, you are doing it wrong. If China’s subsidized industries are generating massive profits, policymakers should be investigated for corruption.\nA piece well worth reading about China\u0026rsquo;s economic policies if only for the fact that their flattening of supply curves is the only thing that is really fighting climate change.\nhttps://asiatimes.com/2024/07/chinas-subsidies-create-not-destroy-value/\n","date":"November 21, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17731/","section":"Posts","summary":"What China has done in industry after industry is to flatten the supply curve by subsidizing hordes of producers. This spurs innovation, increases output and crushes margins. Value is not being destroyed; it’s accruing to consumers as lower prices, higher quality and/or more innovative products and services.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Data centres shouldn\u0026rsquo;t be using water for cooling in the first place. In the summer many parts of Europe are under water strain. It\u0026rsquo;s not weird that locals would oppose having a huge data center built near them.\nhttps://www.asianometry.com/p/the-big-data-center-water-problem\n","date":"November 21, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17729/","section":"Posts","summary":"Data centres shouldn’t be using water for cooling in the first place. In the summer many parts of Europe are under water strain. It’s not weird that locals would oppose having a huge data center built near them.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Add the fact that they\u0026rsquo;re unsafe (both for the people in and around the car) to the stack of reasons why you should not be driving a Tesla.\nhttps://sherwood.news/business/tesla-has-the-highest-rate-of-fatal-accidents-among-all-car-brands-report\n","date":"November 21, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17727/","section":"Posts","summary":"Add the fact that they’re unsafe (both for the people in and around the car) to the stack of reasons why you should not be driving a Tesla.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Nicolas from All About Berlin has done so much to make living in this administrative nightmare bearable for people. It\u0026rsquo;s a very clear example of what kind of 10-100x improvements are there to be had.\nhttps://nicolasbouliane.com/projects/all-about-berlin\n","date":"November 21, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17725/","section":"Posts","summary":"Nicolas from All About Berlin has done so much to make living in this administrative nightmare bearable for people. It’s a very clear example of what kind of 10-100x improvements are there to be had.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Hard work isn’t always the work that takes the most time, or the work that gets paid the most. The hardest work is the work that challenges, makes us uncomfortable, or requires change. If we actually value hard work — we have to do some of our own.\nI sure missed AHP\u0026rsquo;s writing. This is one about why people think that the next generation does not ‘work hard’ anymore.\nhttps://annehelen.substack.com/p/the-kids-are-too-soft\n","date":"November 21, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17722/","section":"Posts","summary":"Hard work isn’t always the work that takes the most time, or the work that gets paid the most. The hardest work is the work that challenges, makes us uncomfortable, or requires change. If we actually value hard work — we have to do some of our own.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I painstakingly built a bespoke Rust web application to host the Cuppings venue data and to add Google place_ids to almost 2000 Foursquare location. That\u0026rsquo;s been done for a while now but now we have the announcement of Foursquare open sourcing their location dataset.\nThat has two direct consequences for me:\nI was going to scrub the Foursquare data out of the database as a clean-up but that\u0026rsquo;s something I won\u0026rsquo;t do for now. In fact, I may recode the venues so I have ids in both worlds. I was toying around with the idea of building a next generation Foursquare/Dopplr on top of atproto which is something that I think is a lot more feasible now. https://simonwillison.net/2024/Nov/20/foursquare-open-source-places/\n","date":"November 20, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17718/","section":"Posts","summary":"I painstakingly built a bespoke Rust web application to host the Cuppings venue data and to add Google place_ids to almost 2000 Foursquare location. That’s been done for a while now but now we have the announcement of Foursquare open sourcing their location dataset.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Cool to read this long view from the inside by Carlton Gibson of what has made Django work (and not work) for the past 20 years. Django has been a stellar achievement that\u0026rsquo;s been a cornerstone of my career and I look forward to see the project reach new heights.\nhttps://buttondown.com/carlton/archive/thoughts-on-djangos-core\n","date":"November 20, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17715/","section":"Posts","summary":"Cool to read this long view from the inside by Carlton Gibson of what has made Django work (and not work) for the past 20 years. Django has been a stellar achievement that’s been a cornerstone of my career and I look forward to see the project reach new heights.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Reading these database migration stories is usually interesting, but what I found especially noteworthy here is that all of the Django features they used to make it easy for themselves have been in there for more than a decade.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s the kind of maturity that maybe makes a technology like that not that appealing to work with for new developers but it is also a maturity that lets you get real work done.\nhttps://engineeringblog.yelp.com/2024/10/migrating-from-postgres-to-mysql.html\n","date":"November 12, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17713/","section":"Posts","summary":"Reading these database migration stories is usually interesting, but what I found especially noteworthy here is that all of the Django features they used to make it easy for themselves have been in there for more than a decade.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"An interesting article to read about how the city botched renaming the Manteuffelstraße to Audrey-Lord-Straße. I cycle past this street every day and I don\u0026rsquo;t think it\u0026rsquo;s a bad change. Unfortunately, they\u0026rsquo;ve done it in such a bad way that it\u0026rsquo;ll poison every person who hears about it against the very concept of government:\nThey failed to notify the people living there until after the change had already passed (incompetent!). They decided to only rename part of the street (insane!). Renaming part of the street forces the street numbers to be re-allocated (insane!). „Im Nachhinein ist das eine ­gute Frage“, sagt Werner Heck von der ­Bezirksverordnetenversammlung (BVV) Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg.\nWerner Heck\u0026rsquo;s statements are a good argument here for abolishing the entire concept of the BVV. If they couldn\u0026rsquo;t even be bothered to check-in on the implementation of one of their more material and prestigious measures, then what are they good for?\nHeck sagt, es sei „nicht optimal“ gewesen, dass die involvierten Verwaltungsabteilungen „nicht miteinander gesprochen“ hätten.\nThis makes it clear that it is not uncommon for the Berlin administration to do things without talking to other departments. This is the way you would work, if you\u0026rsquo;re mentally entirely dead and checked out.\nDas Bezirksamt erklärt, das „komplexe Verfahren“ solle künftig ressortübergreifend organisiert werden.\nThis sounds ‘good’ to the average German but it will in no way prevent these kind of problems from happening because the issue is not one of process or tactics, but one of culture.\nAll of these were unforced errors and you can ask yourself maybe they were actually intended to make a mockery of the entire process by a civil service that is politically opposed or too lazy to do any real work.\nhttps://www.faz.net/aktuell/gesellschaft/menschen/wenn-die-umbenennung-von-strassen-in-berlin-schief-geht-ich-kann-mir-nicht-mal-eine-pizza-bestellen-110102184.html\n","date":"November 12, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17708/","section":"Posts","summary":"An interesting article to read about how the city botched renaming the Manteuffelstraße to Audrey-Lord-Straße. I cycle past this street every day and I don’t think it’s a bad change. Unfortunately, they’ve done it in such a bad way that it’ll poison every person who hears about it against the very concept of government:\n","title":"Renaming half a street","type":"posts"},{"content":"I think “Project-Power” from this newsletter by Adam Tooze is going to be a useful concept going forward:\nA project in this sense is the historically specific, intentional mobilization of multiple resources around a significant objective on whose success and failure important things depend.\nI\u0026rsquo;m struck mostly by how bad the German government is at this. Every part of the country seems to be fully paralysed.\n","date":"November 11, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/project-power/","section":"Posts","summary":"I think “Project-Power” from this newsletter by Adam Tooze is going to be a useful concept going forward:\n","title":"Project Power","type":"posts"},{"content":"Watched “Evil Does Not Exist” as GIFT, the recut and rescored (silent) version performed live by Eiko Ishibashi at HAU1.\nThis has a shorter runtime than the movie because a lot of fluff is cut out and we are only left with a very summary story. That is a good choice and I can\u0026rsquo;t say the movie suffers from it very much even though this is version is very much its own thing (i.e. not a narrative movie).\nIshibashi-san is on stage and directs the musical soundtrack while occasionally accompanying the movie on her flute. From the distance it was very hard to tell what she was doing or even what sounds she was producing on top of the soundtrack.\nMusically it\u0026rsquo;s a lot of the soundscapes with the main theme interspersed at various key junctures. We don\u0026rsquo;t get to learn anything more about the ending.\nReview at Letterbox\n","date":"November 10, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/gift/","section":"Posts","summary":"Watched “Evil Does Not Exist” as GIFT, the recut and rescored (silent) version performed live by Eiko Ishibashi at HAU1.\n","title":"GIFT","type":"posts"},{"content":"In modern justice and on the part of those who dispense it there is a shame in punishing, which does not always preclude zeal. This sense of shame is constantly growing: the psychologists and the minor civil servants of moral orthopaedics proliferate on the wound it leaves.\nInstead of insanity eliminating the crime according to the original meaning of article 64, every crime and even every offence now carries within it, as a legitimate suspicion, but also as a right that may be claimed, the hypothesis of insanity, in any case of anomaly. And the sentence that condemns or acquits is not simply a judgement of guilt, a legal decision that lays down punishment; it bears within it an assessment of normality and a technical prescription for a possible normalization. Today the judge – magistrate or juror – certainly does more than ‘judge’.\nBut we can surely accept the general proposition that, in our societies, the systems of punishment are to be situated in a certain ‘political economy’ of the body: even if they do not make use of violent or bloody punishment, even when they use ‘lenient’ methods involving confinement or correction, it is always the body that is at issue – the body and its forces, their utility and their docility, their distribution and their submission.\nThe very excess of the violence employed is one of the elements of its glory: the fact that the guilty man should moan and cry out under the blows is not a shameful side-effect, it is the very ceremonial of justice being expressed in all its force.\nIt was as if the sovereign power did not see, in this emulation of atrocity, a challenge that it itself threw down and which might one day be taken up: accustomed as it was to ‘seeing blood flow’, the people soon learnt that ‘it could be revenged only with blood’ (Lachère).\nIn short, penal reform was born at the point of junction between the struggle against the super-power of the sovereign and that against the infra-power of acquired and tolerated illegalities.\nThe right to punish has been shifted from the vengeance of the sovereign to the defence of society. But it now finds itself recombined with elements so strong that it becomes almost more to be feared. The malefactor has been saved from a threat that is by its very nature excessive, but he is exposed to a penalty that seems to be without bounds. It is a return to a terrible ‘super-power’.\nthe injury that a crime inflicts upon the social body is the disorder that it introduces into it: the scandal that it gives rise to, the example that it gives, the incitement to repeat it if it is not punished, the possibility of becoming widespread that it bears within it.\nNothing so weakens the machinery of the law than the hope of going unpunished;\nLet us hear once more what Servan has to say: the ideas of crime and punishment must be strongly linked and ‘follow one another without interruption … When you have thus formed the chain of ideas in the heads of your citizens, you will then be able to pride yourselves on guiding them and being their masters. A stupid despot may constrain his slaves with iron chains; but a true politician binds them even more strongly by the chain of their own ideas; it is at the stable point of reason that he secures the end of the chain; this link is all the stronger in that we do not know of what it is made and we believe it to be our own work; despair and time eat away the bonds of iron and steel, but they are powerless against the habitual union of ideas, they can only tighten it still more; and on the soft fibres of the brain is founded the unshakable base of the soundest of Empires’ (Servan, 35).\nIf incorrigibles there be, one must be determined to eliminate them. But, for all the others, punishment can function only if it comes to an end.\nBut the guilty person is only one of the targets of punishment. For punishment is directed above all at others, at all the potentially guilty.\nWhy would society eliminate a life and a body that it could appropriate? It would be more useful to make him ‘serve the state in a slavery that would be more or less extended according to the nature of his crime’;\nDiscipline sometimes requires enclosure, the specification of a place heterogeneous to all others and closed in upon itself. It is the protected place of disciplinary monotony.\nit was a change of scale, but it was also a new type of control.\n‘The order and inspection that must be maintained require that all workers be assembled under the same roof, so that the partner who is entrusted with the management of the manufactory may prevent and remedy abuses that may arise among the workers and arrest their progress at the outset’ (Dauphin, 199).\nBy walking up and down the central aisle of the workshop, it was possible to carry out a supervision that was both general and individual: to observe the worker’s presence and application, and the quality of his work; to compare workers with one another, to classify them according to skill and speed; to follow the successive stages of the production process.\nThis obligatory syntax is what the military theoreticians of the eighteenth century called ‘manoeuvre’. The traditional recipe gives place to explicit and obligatory prescriptions. Over the whole surface of contact between the body and the object it handles, power is introduced, fastening them to one another. It constitutes a body-weapon, body-tool, body-machine complex. One is as far as possible from those forms of subjection that demanded of the body only signs or products, forms of expression or the result of labour. The regulation imposed by power is at the same time the law of construction of the operation.\nIn becoming the target for new mechanisms of power, the body is offered up to new forms of knowledge. It is the body of exercise, rather than of speculative physics; a body manipulated by authority, rather than imbued with animal spirits; a body of useful training and not of rational mechanics, but one in which, by virtue of that very fact, a number of natural requirements and functional constraints are beginning to emerge.\nHow can one capitalize the time of individuals, accumulate it in each of them, in their bodies, in their forces or in their abilities, in a way that is susceptible of use and control?\nIt is this disciplinary time that was gradually imposed on pedagogical practice – specializing the time of training and detaching it from the adult time, from the time of mastery; arranging different stages, separated from one another by graded examinations; drawing up programmes, each of which must take place during a particular stage and which involves exercises of increasing difficulty; qualifying individuals according to the way in which they progress through these series.\nthe special productive power of the combined working-day is, under all circumstances, the social productive power of labour, or the productive power of social labour. This power is due to cooperation itself (Marx, Capital, vol. 1, 311–12)\nThus a new demand appears to which discipline must respond: to construct a machine whose effect will be maximized by the concerted articulation of the elementary parts of which it is composed. Discipline is no longer simply an art of distributing bodies, of extracting time from them and accumulating it, but of composing forces in order to obtain an efficient machine.\nWhile jurists or philosophers were seeking in the pact a primal model for the construction or reconstruction of the social body, the soldiers and with them the technicians of discipline were elaborating procedures for the individual and collective coercion of bodies.\nThese mechanisms can only be seen as unimportant if one forgets the role of this instrumentation, minor but flawless, in the progressive objectification and the ever more subtle partitioning of individual behaviour.\nthe ‘admonitors’ were placed in charge of those ‘who talk or hum when studying their lessons and those who will not write and who waste their time in play’\nIt was also organized as a multiple, automatic and anonymous power; for although surveillance rests on individuals, its functioning is that of a network of relations from top to bottom, but also to a certain extent from bottom to top and laterally; this network ‘holds’ the whole together and traverses it in its entirety with effects of power that derive from one another: supervisors, perpetually supervised.\nIn a sense, the power of normalization imposes homogeneity; but it individualizes by making it possible to measure gaps, to determine levels, to fix specialities and to render the differences useful by fitting them one to another.\nThey did not receive directly the image of the sovereign power; they only felt its effects – in replica, as it were – on their bodies, which had become precisely legible and docile.\nAnd it is this inversion of visibility in the functioning of the disciplines that was to assure the exercise of power even in its lowest manifestations. We are entering the age of the infinite examination and of compulsory objectification.\nIt is an important mechanism, for it automatizes and disindividualizes power. Power has its principle not so much in a person as in a certain concerted distribution of bodies, surfaces, lights, gazes; in an arrangement whose internal mechanisms produce the relation in which individuals are caught up.\nIt is polyvalent in its applications; it serves to reform prisoners, but also to treat patients, to instruct schoolchildren, to confine the insane, to supervise workers, to put beggars and idlers to work.\nThe Panopticon, on the other hand, has a role of amplification; although it arranges power, although it is intended to make it more economic and more effective, it does so not for power itself, nor for the immediate salvation of a threatened society: its aim is to strengthen the social forces – to increase production, to develop the economy, spread education, raise the level of public morality; to increase and multiply.\nWhen, in the seventeenth century, the provincial schools or the Christian elementary schools were founded, the justifications given for them were above all negative: those poor who were unable to bring up their children left them ‘in ignorance of their obligations: given the difficulties they have in earning a living, and themselves having been badly brought up\n‘Discipline’ may be identified neither with an institution nor with an apparatus; it is a type of power, a modality for its exercise, comprising a whole set of instruments, techniques, procedures, levels of application, targets; it is a ‘physics’ or an ‘anatomy’ of power, a technology.\nit is not that the beautiful totality of the individual is amputated, repressed, altered by our social order, it is rather that the individual is carefully fabricated in it, according to a whole technique of forces and bodies.\nThe ideal point of penality today would be an indefinite discipline: an interrogation without end, an investigation that would be extended without limit to a meticulous and ever more analytical observation, a judgement that would at the same time be the constitution of a file that was never closed, the calculated leniency of a penalty that would be interlaced with the ruthless curiosity of an examination, a procedure that would be at the same time the permanent measure of a gap in relation to an inaccessible norm and the asymptotic movement that strives to meet in infinity.\nWhat, then, is the use of penal labour? Not profit; nor even the formation of a useful skill; but the constitution of a power relation, an empty economic form, a schema of individual submission and of adjustment to a production apparatus.\nIt was the most direct way of expressing ‘the intelligence of discipline in stone’ (Lucas, I, 69); of making architecture transparent to the administration of power;12 of making it possible to substitute for force or other violent constraints the gentle efficiency of total surveillance;\nall this made it possible to canalize and to recover by a whole series of intermediaries the enormous profits from a sexual pleasure that an ever-more insistent everyday moralization condemned to semi-clandestinity and naturally made expensive; in setting up a price for pleasure, in creating a profit from repressed sexuality and in collecting this profit, the delinquent milieu was in complicity with a self-interested puritanism: an illicit fiscal agent operating over illegal practices.\nThe political use of delinquents – as informers and agents provocateurs – was a fact well before the nineteenth century.17 But, after the Revolution, this practice acquired quite different dimensions: the infiltration of political parties and workers’ associations, the recruitment of thugs against strikers and rioters, the organization of a sub-police – working directly with the legal police and capable if necessary of becoming a sort of parallel army – a whole extra-legal functioning of power was partly assured by the mass of reserve labour constituted by the delinquents: a clandestine police force and standby army at the disposal of the state.\nPolice surveillance provides the prison with offenders, which the prison transforms into delinquents, the targets and auxiliaries of police supervisions, which regularly send back a certain number of them to prison.\nBut he brought with him, at least potentially, a horizon of illegalities that had, until quite recently, represented a threat: this ruined petty bourgeois, of good education, would, a generation earlier, have been a revolutionary, a Jacobin, a regicide;19 had he been a contemporary of Robespierre, his rejection of the law would have taken a directly political form.\nThe criminal fait divers, by its everyday redundancy, makes acceptable the system of judicial and police supervisions that partition society; it recounts from day to day a sort of internal battle against the faceless enemy; in this war, it constitutes the daily bulletin of alarm or victory.\nThe combination of the fait divers and the detective novel has produced for the last hundred years or more an enormous mass of ‘crime stories’ in which delinquency appears both as very close and quite alien, a perpetual threat to everyday life, but extremely distant in its origin and motives, both everyday and exotic in the milieu in which it takes place.\nIn short, one should have a master, be caught up and situated within a hierarchy; one exists only when fixed in definite relations of domination\nThey were in a sense technicians of behaviour: engineers of conduct, orthopaedists of individuality.\nIn this panoptic society of which incarceration is the omnipresent armature, the delinquent is not outside the law; he is, from the very outset, in the law, at the very heart of the law, or at least in the midst of those mechanisms that transfer the individual imperceptibly from discipline to the law, from deviation to offence.\nThe carceral ‘naturalizes’ the legal power to punish, as it ‘legalizes’ the technical power to discipline.\nresistance is to be found not in the prison as penal sanction, but in the prison with all its determinations, links and extra-judicial results; in the prison as the relay in a general network of disciplines and surveillances; in the prison as it functions in a panoptic régime.\nThe case of the Italian Mafia transplanted to the United States and used both to extract illicit profits and for political ends is a fine example of the colonization of an illegality of popular origin.\n","date":"November 4, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-discipline-and-punish-the-birth-of-the-prison/","section":"Posts","summary":"In modern justice and on the part of those who dispense it there is a shame in punishing, which does not always preclude zeal. This sense of shame is constantly growing: the psychologists and the minor civil servants of moral orthopaedics proliferate on the wound it leaves.\n","title":"Highlights for Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison","type":"posts"},{"content":"We’ll say nothing when we should speak up. We’ll quarrel when we should inquire. We’ll remain reticent when we should be resolved. We’ll be closed-minded and critical when we should be open-minded and curious.\nOn the one hand, a “little voice” in the back of his brain urged him to raise his concern; on the other hand, he didn’t want to be labeled a troublemaker, a non–team player, or a “high-maintenance” flight operations officer.\nPut simply, conversational capacity is the ability to have open, balanced, nondefensive dialogue about tough subjects and in challenging circumstances.\nBut this collegiality came at a cost: their nice culture created a bad business. While the team members enjoyed pleasant meetings and warm relationships, they sacrificed the candor needed for rigorous problem solving and decision making in order to maintain the amiable environment.\nThe National Transportation Safety Board, the entity responsible for investigating civil aviation accidents in the United States, estimates that 25 percent of aviation accidents occur because someone doesn’t speak up when a mistake is being made.\n“To be honest, it makes me mad. I went out of my way to hire the best and the brightest people I could find, but I’m not getting access to all the intellectual firepower I’m paying for.”\nA person with high conversational capacity can do just that. He’s able to remain open-minded, nonreactive, and fully engaged in tough circumstances that send his less disciplined colleagues into a highly reactive state of mind. Balancing candor and curiosity, he converses with his teammates in a way that actually increases the conversational capacity of the entire group.\nOn the one hand, you feel compelled to speak up, but on the other hand, you don’t want to cause trouble, be labeled a troublemaker or non–team player, tarnish your reputation within the team, or damage relationships.\nWhen we minimize, it’s not that we don’t have an agenda, it’s that our agenda is subverted by a strong need to keep things comfortable, to avoid conflict, to keep things calm.\nAny issue can set off our need to win, but especially those ideas that contradict our current ways of thinking, our notions of what is acceptable, proper, or right. When we snap into win mode, we circle our cognitive wagons and load our conversational guns, ready to defend our current map of reality from all foes. We become dogmatic and close down when we should get curious and open up.\nIf they’re not speaking up, they’re being paid for something they’re not providing. But the harsh reality is that our own management behavior may be stifling their abilities to contribute. By failing to compensate for the minimizing effect our authority has on our people, and, even more egregiously, when we trigger into win behavior, we encourage our people to minimize, guaranteeing we won’t get full access to their knowledge, expertise, ideas, and suggestions.\nUnder what circumstances in life do I find myself minimizing at the expense of my effectiveness?\nBut awareness is not the same as skill. A drowning man may know he’s drowning, but his awareness is no substitute for the ability to swim.\nWhen we’re making an acquisition, initiating a major change process, or wrestling with a tough decision, we want access to as much information and as many perspectives as possible to expand our options for effectively tackling the challenge. We want to reduce the number of blind spots in our view of the situation we’re facing.\nWhen we’re truly dedicated to expanding our thinking and making informed choices, difference is our greatest ally.\nBecause our level of internal commitment directly correlates with how much energy we put into enacting the decision.\nWhen we’re dedicated to informed and effective choices, we pull people into decision-making or problem-solving processes because they’re useful in two ways. First, involving key players leads to better information and more robust decisions because we have access to their thinking. Second, those same people feel more connected to the decisions that do get made. It’s a double win; we get better decisions that are more effectively implemented.\nContrast this unilateral approach with the more learning-focused joint control, where we proactively make our goals and concerns explicit and ask others to help us manage them. This is a far more effective way to make informed and effective decisions because we’re involving others in the important decisions for how to best achieve the desired objectives.\nThe managers who asked, “What do you need more or less of from me so I can help you do your job more effectively?” were in positions to make better choices about how to manage their people, but the conversations that helped them make those choices weren’t always an ego massage.\nrequires the mindful use of four distinct skills that are extremely difficult to balance under pressure: Stating our clear position Explaining the underlying thinking that informs our position Testing our perspective Inquiring into the perspectives of others\nLike a topic sentence in good paragraph construction, a position statement is clear, candid, and concise. It lets others know where we stand on an issue, the specific point we’re putting forward.\nTo that end, let’s look at more vigorous tests to employ in situations where it may be more difficult for others to push back, or when we’re putting forward a particularly strong perspective: That’s how I see the problem. What does the problem look like from your perspective? Right now I feel like my idea makes perfect sense, and that makes me nervous. Are you seeing something I’m missing? I am more interested in making an informed decision than in winning or being right, so I’d like to hear your point of view—especially if it differs from my own. If I’ve got a blind spot about this issue, please help me to see it. I’ve shared what I think and why I think it. I’m curious to hear how other people are thinking about this problem—especially those who have a different take on it than I do. To help me improve how I’m looking at this decision, I’d really like to hear from someone who has a perspective that challenges mine. I’d like someone to expand my view of this situation. Who has a different way of looking at it? I know I may be wrong about this—what do you think? If you disagree with me, please let me know. I’d really like to hear your point of view. Push back on me here—especially if you think I am being unfair. What would our worst critic say about this decision?\nRandy’s handling of this conversation is impressive. Neither accepting the accusation at face value nor dismissing it, he defused the explosive situation by getting curious. By inquiring into the underlying reasoning behind the assertion, he brought the conversation back to a more balanced, data-based dialogue, pulling a tense and divisive parent-teacher conference right back to the sweet spot.\nWhat are you seeing that leads you to that view? I have to admit that I see the issue very differently, but before I jump to conclusions, please tell me what you have seen or heard that leads you to see it the way you do. Tell me more about how you’re looking at this issue. Obviously, you’re looking at this differently. Help me see this through your lens. How are you making sense of X? What does this look like from your (marketing/finance/engineering) perspective? Help me expand my thinking on this. Tell me how you see X. What have you seen or heard that leads you to think X? Can you provide a couple of examples that illustrate your position? Clearly, we don’t agree. Let’s see what our different perspectives can teach us about this issue. Explain in more detail how you’re seeing the situation. I’m intrigued by the way you’re framing this issue. Can you give an additional example or two so I can better understand your thinking? Can you give me an example of X? Can you illustrate why you see this so differently than I do? When team members haven’t even shared their positions, much less their thinking, and we want to invite their perspectives into the conversation, we might say: We’ve been bouncing this idea around for quite some time, and we haven’t heard from you yet. As you’ve been listening to the pros and cons of this decision, what’s your take on the best choice?\nAre you seeing anything that the rest of us may have missed? I’d be interested in hearing your views on this problem. Do you have a different perspective than those that have already been shared?\nImagine a team full of such people. Now imagine an organization full of such teams.\nAny dolt can shut down or argue when he or she is being challenged, but it requires real strength to remain open to learning, squarely focused on informed choice, even when we’re feeling stressed and vulnerable. Our capacity to rein in our derailing tendencies in circumstances where other people cannot is a sign that we’re in disciplined control of our behavior and not a piteous slave to our emotional reactions.\nFor a really challenging conversation—a 10/10 (rated 10 on the difficulty scale and 10 on importance)—there is no substitute for practicing with a partner. By having a colleague play the person with whom we need to have the conversation, we can more realistically assess and improve our ability to maintain conversational discipline.\nAs we build our discipline for working in the sweet spot, we’re seeking the yin and yang of dialogue by being bold, authentic, and direct and, simultaneously, open-minded, unpretentious, and inquisitive.\nWhen a consensus decision is the best option, a more balanced approach helps to level the playing field. It’s far harder for the team member with the strong win tendency to run away with the decision if the team has the capacity to work in the sweet spot\nTrust isn’t a prerequisite for effective conversations; it’s the product of effective conversations.\nWhen it comes to building our competence, the workplace is our dojo—an ideal practice space for building and refining our skills.\nAs these men explore the city, their unique cultural, educational, experiential backgrounds lead them to filter the available sensory input in very different ways.\nThe key is to lean our ladder into difference. We don’t learn much by engaging people who agree with our views, we learn the most by engaging people who don’t. This dramatically increases our ability to detect and correct errors in how we’re looking at a situation and to generate a far more accurate mental map. With this in mind, we treat anyone who disagrees with us as the most valuable person in the room.\nWhen we double-loop learn we hop off our hamster wheel of thought and question the way we’ve made sense of the problem in the first place.\ndescribed to his fellow workshop participants the loud and combative arguments he and his team had in meetings. They were, as he put it, “very intense.”\nLike a group of skilled jazz musicians, a team that can deliberately double-loop learn is more nimble and adaptable in the face of unusual, shifting, complex circumstances because team members can better adjust their thinking to fit the new challenge.\nOur minds, in other words, have a self-serving, single-loop tendency to resist information that threatens our current view of reality, so they filter the world around us so we see what we want to see.\nWhen people, teams, and organizations react defensively to an idea, what is it they’re defending? Their current idea and the assumptions, beliefs, and mental models on which it stands—the very things they need to question and adjust in order to double-loop learn.\nBecause conflict is the primary catalyst for double-loop learning, only teams with reliably high conversational capacity can deliberately orchestrate it.\nTheir research demonstrates that as people consistently practice the replacement behaviors, they actually change the physical structure of their brains, because, just like a muscle, the neural circuits for any activity grow where they’re being used and atrophy where they’re being neglected.\nWith regular practice, we produce a flywheel effect, where the more we use the skills, the more our skills grow, and the more our skills grow, the more we use the skills. Is it hard work? Sure it is. Any skill worth learning takes effort.\nUse every meeting, problem, decision, conflict, or change as an opportunity to build your skills. There should be no such thing as a boring meeting because you’re practicing as you participate, facilitate, or both.\nYour naturally self-serving tendency to look outward, in other words, is a defensive routine: You avoid looking at your own behavior by placing all your attention on the behavior of others.\nWhat are my tendencies, and how are they displayed?\nWhen it comes to disciplined dialogue, you do this by listening to what’s being played, and then playing what’s missing.\nAcknowledge and reward people who are making a genuine effort, and do it both publicly and privately. “I tested a view earlier, and Jane took me up on it and pushed back. I know that wasn’t easy, and I’m grateful you did it. I’m hoping to see more of that kind of behavior from everyone around the table as time goes on.”\nWhen someone puts out a naked position, they inquire into it. When someone forgets to test, they jump in and test for that person. When they put forward their own perspective they shore up the conversational capacity of the team by intentionally balancing their push and their pull.\nOne is a routine problem,1 which can be difficult and bothersome, but for which we have ready experts and proven solutions on which we can depend for a fix. In other words, a routine problem is routine not because it happens regularly but because we have a routine for dealing with it.\nFar from routine, an adaptive challenge is a problem for which there are no easy answers,2 no proven routines for dealing with the issue, no expert who can ride in and save the day.\nThey treated the implementation process like a routine checklist, and failed to address its more adaptive aspects—their corporate culture, their old habits, and their instinctively defensive reactions to change.\nIt makes no sense to march our team into a challenging predicament it’s ill equipped to handle.\nThey needed the skills to climb out of their dysfunction, but they were too overwhelmed by their dysfunction to acquire the skills.\nAdaptive leadership13 is not about coming up with an idea or solution and then convincing the group to adopt it. It’s about orchestrating a process of learning that gets people with different views and agendas learning from each other as they tackle an adaptive challenge.\nBut when we liberate leadership from authority we empower anyone who wants to foment productive change because we realize that while authority is assigned to us by the organization, leadership is an activity we choose. Seen this way, leadership can be exercised from any point in the system.\nLeadership is not about the roles we’re formally assigned; it’s about the roles we choose to perform.\nTina also spent untold hours behind the scenes listening to concerns, smoothing ruffled feathers, and keeping people engaged in the learning. This trio worked together to do the requisite adaptive work—rebuilding relationships, earning back trust, improving how they interacted with each other, and resolving festering conflicts.\n“With or without authority, exercising leadership is risky and difficult,” says Heifetz. “Instead of providing answers as a means of direction, sometimes the best you can do is provide questions, or face people with the hard facts, instead of protecting people from change.”\nA person with an inflated ego and a strong opinion says, “I know exactly what to do,” and a flock of people passively minimize by going along with the unadulterated bullshit he’s slinging—even when they know, deep down inside, it’s not going to work.\nWhenever we choose to head down one of these daring paths we’d better have our demons in check.\nWe can seek out and enroll partners, colleagues, friends, or teammates as fellow learners—people eager to head up and out of their own sheltered, self-limiting village by acquiring the mindset, learning the skills, and using both to tackle increasingly difficult issues and situations.\n","date":"November 4, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-conversational-capacity/","section":"Posts","summary":"We’ll say nothing when we should speak up. We’ll quarrel when we should inquire. We’ll remain reticent when we should be resolved. We’ll be closed-minded and critical when we should be open-minded and curious.\n","title":"Highlights for Conversational Capacity","type":"posts"},{"content":"I don\u0026rsquo;t really know where to find a Honeycrisp apple locally, but since moving to Germany I have been eating tons of amazing juicy, sweet, crisp apples. It turns out that this is deliberate and these are not the apples of my childhood.\nhttps://www.scientificamerican.com/article/apples-have-never-tasted-so-delicious-heres-why\n","date":"November 3, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17690/","section":"Posts","summary":"I don’t really know where to find a Honeycrisp apple locally, but since moving to Germany I have been eating tons of amazing juicy, sweet, crisp apples. It turns out that this is deliberate and these are not the apples of my childhood.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A beautiful elegy for photographer Matthieu Chazal by Paul Salopek on the epic Out of Eden Walk.\nOn those bitter days afoot in the Caucasus, Murat and I would sometimes send Matthieu ahead to search for shelter in the snowy wastes. He was very good at it. Often, we found him at a tumbledown farmhouse or roadside inn, regaling a crowd with outlandish stories, and sipping from a jar of homemade Georgian wine. Last month our nomad friend left us, at 49, a casualty of aggressive cancer. Once more he scouts the road ahead.\nhttps://outofedenwalk.nationalgeographic.org/articles/2024-10-forgiving-moment\n","date":"November 3, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17686/","section":"Posts","summary":"A beautiful elegy for photographer Matthieu Chazal by Paul Salopek on the epic Out of Eden Walk.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ribbonfarm retiring is another such ending in a time rife with them. I can\u0026rsquo;t overstate how influential it has been on my (our) thinking and practice. Tremendously impressive to think all of that was thought up by one person (who I still haven\u0026rsquo;t met).\nIt\u0026rsquo;d be impossible to summarise all the themes, intersections and other tidbits that I got out of Ribbonfarm. I can say how it begun: I was lying on the river-shore in Avignon in 2012 and I had a large part of the blog\u0026rsquo;s back catalog in my Instapaper and there I read the entire thing while listening to the crickets.\nhttps://www.ribbonfarm.com/2024/10/10/ribbonfarm-is-retiring/\nhttps://www.flickr.com/photos/alper/7649662628/in/dateposted/\n","date":"November 3, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/so-long-ribbonfarm/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ribbonfarm retiring is another such ending in a time rife with them. I can’t overstate how influential it has been on my (our) thinking and practice. Tremendously impressive to think all of that was thought up by one person (who I still haven’t met).\n","title":"So long Ribbonfarm!","type":"posts"},{"content":"Alan Moore definitely is not wrong:\nAt the same time, I’m sure that fandom is sometimes a grotesque blight that poisons the society surrounding it with its mean-spirited obsessions and ridiculous, unearned sense of entitlement.\nhttps://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/oct/26/fandom-has-toxified-the-world-watchmen-author-alan-moore-on-superheroes-comicsgate-and-trump\n","date":"November 3, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17681/","section":"Posts","summary":"Alan Moore definitely is not wrong:\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Twitter\u0026rsquo;s ending is fine and can be the ending of more things as well as the beginning of other things. Delete all your stuff on that awful place and simply let go.\nhttps://emilygorcenski.com/post/to-forget-is-an-ethical-act\n","date":"November 3, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17679/","section":"Posts","summary":"Twitter’s ending is fine and can be the ending of more things as well as the beginning of other things. Delete all your stuff on that awful place and simply let go.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I can\u0026rsquo;t believe I have to say this, but let\u0026rsquo;s do it anyway: Going to Mars is—just like the hyperloop—a distraction from the actual problems and solutions in front of us.\nhttps://defector.com/neither-elon-musk-nor-anybody-else-will-ever-colonize-mars\n","date":"November 3, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17676/","section":"Posts","summary":"I can’t believe I have to say this, but let’s do it anyway: Going to Mars is—just like the hyperloop—a distraction from the actual problems and solutions in front of us.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Filing for myself for if we need to really work on Postgres integration tests: https://gajus.com/blog/setting-up-postgre-sql-for-running-integration-tests\n","date":"November 3, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17674/","section":"Posts","summary":"Filing for myself for if we need to really work on Postgres integration tests: https://gajus.com/blog/setting-up-postgre-sql-for-running-integration-tests\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;ve been waiting for an updated edition of “Designing Data-Intensive Applications” and now I see that Kleppmann is working on it. Reading the first edition has given me such an outsized advantage when architecting and building systems.\nhttps://nondeterministic.computer/@martin/113039967645896991\nhttps://www.oreilly.com/library/view/designing-data-intensive-applications/9781098119058\n","date":"November 3, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17671/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’ve been waiting for an updated edition of “Designing Data-Intensive Applications” and now I see that Kleppmann is working on it. Reading the first edition has given me such an outsized advantage when architecting and building systems.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Love having the kids be off school every 6 weeks or so which means we get a week of everybody adjusting to them being at home and then another week of adjusting them being back at school. All thanks to the trash tier school logistics of Germany.\n","date":"November 3, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17669/","section":"Posts","summary":"Love having the kids be off school every 6 weeks or so which means we get a week of everybody adjusting to them being at home and then another week of adjusting them being back at school. All thanks to the trash tier school logistics of Germany.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"GitHub Copilot is like every Microsoft product. Everybody uses it because it comes bundled in their company contract but nobody likes it.\n","date":"November 3, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17667/","section":"Posts","summary":"GitHub Copilot is like every Microsoft product. Everybody uses it because it comes bundled in their company contract but nobody likes it.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Cancelled Apple Arcade because I haven’t seen a nice game enter the set in months now.\n","date":"November 3, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17665/","section":"Posts","summary":"Cancelled Apple Arcade because I haven’t seen a nice game enter the set in months now.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Comment on Leetcode on my solution that makes it all worth it:\nprobably the most understandable use of a stack i\u0026rsquo;ve seen in the solutions. thx\n","date":"November 3, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17663/","section":"Posts","summary":"Comment on Leetcode on my solution that makes it all worth it:\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":" I was somewhat excited to watch this anime series. It\u0026rsquo;s only 12 episodes for its first season so it was over pretty quickly.\nIt was fun and well done but too short to be satisfying or really have an impact. I may need to skip unfinished anime adaptations 1 entirely given there\u0026rsquo;s so much old catalog I could be watching instead. Also now I understand how people get into reading the manga\u0026rsquo;s while they wait for the adaptations to catch up.\nThe Kaiju No 8 story is—how could it be any different with such a name—a standard monster beat \u0026rsquo;em up. The characters are a bunch of young kids. Things escalate steadily with increasingly powerful and shadowy monsters attacking them. The suits and the group dynamics are somewhat reminiscent of Attack on Titan. As a standard shonen monster beat \u0026rsquo;em up anime, it\u0026rsquo;s fine.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s just that there\u0026rsquo;s nothing in the story that sets it apart, there are no deeper themes that are explored, no interesting motivations, no moral or emotional payoffs worth talking about and no standout characters with staying power. I don\u0026rsquo;t think I\u0026rsquo;ll remember much about this show six months from now.\nJujutsu Kaisen # I couldn\u0026rsquo;t help but compare it to JJK which knocks every one of those dimensions out of the park. I never got around to writing a proper review for its S2 other than this:\nThe long awaited Hidden Inventory and Shibuya Incident arcs turned into a treat to watch despite the continuously escalating power levels and its sprawling cast of characters and villains. — 2023 year in review\nS2 was such a phase shift for JJK moving from low stakes happy go-lucky teen show to massively hard bouts of apocalyptic fighting and loss (Nanami…). So many of the characters (\u0026ldquo;My Brother!\u0026rdquo;) in JJK have depth and huge fan popularity (Panda-kun, the guy who speaks in Onigiri). Just go on TikTok and see all the Shibuya incident foreshadowing, the Satoru Gojo montages and the number of ships that are doing the rounds.\nI have currently open: Jujutsu Kaisen, Spy x Family and Frieren.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"November 3, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/kaiju-no-8/","section":"Posts","summary":" I was somewhat excited to watch this anime series. It’s only 12 episodes for its first season so it was over pretty quickly.\n","title":"Kaiju No 8","type":"posts"},{"content":"Turns out I hadn\u0026rsquo;t noticed my hosting provider Vimexx has their MySQL databases on latin1 coding and this blog was running on that happily corrupting data.\nGiven how common an occurrence this is—MySQL very regularly will throw your shit into the street and set fire to it—I had expected there being scripts or resources to fix this. Of course nothing was to be found anywhere.\nI asked the Mastodon MySQL expert who did have a resource on the exact problem: https://blog.koehntopp.info/2020/08/18/mysql-character-sets.html\nThe way I fixed it was a bit more manual than I\u0026rsquo;d have liked but where I got is good enough and I\u0026rsquo;m not sure I\u0026rsquo;ll go for anything perfect:\nGo to the phpMyAdmin and audit all the database tables.\nMy tables are in a mix of InnoDB and MyISAM which seems to be weird but not really problematic. I also had some Yoast tables that were lingering there which I dropped.\nFind the setting and convert all tables and their columns to the collation utf8mb4_unicode_ci. A collation implies the utf8mb4 character set that is its prefix so you don\u0026rsquo;t have to change the character set.\nNow all your stuff is in UTF-8 but because of a coding error a lot of your content is messed up. A unicode character can be more than one byte but in latin1 each character can only be a single byte. So if your unicode character is two bytes, they are interpreted as two latin1 characters which is why you end up with stuff like \u0026quot; î\u0026quot;.\nMaybe there would have been a clean automatic way to convert the data, but I felt it was fiddly enough as it was, so I opted for a manual fix. I identified where the corruption happened:\nwp_posts columns post_content and post_title wp_comments column comment_content wp_usermeta column meta_value Then I just ran queries to fix all the mismatches:\nü → ü\nÃœ → Ü\né → é\nÉ → É\nğ → ğ\nÇ → Ç\netc.\nLuckily in almost all cases the wrong coded string is unique and can simply be replaced with the right character.\nCheck if a string is in the column:\nSELECT post_content from wp_posts where post_content LIKE BINARY '%Ç%' and post_status='publish'\nLater on check for specific characters and their environment in what can be very long post bodies:\nSELECT SUBSTRING(post_content, LOCATE('Ã', post_content)-15, 40), post_content from wp_posts where post_content LIKE BINARY '%Ã%' and post_status='publish'\nReplace the wrong string sequence with the correct character:\nUPDATE wp_posts SET post_content = REPLACE(post_content, 'Ç', 'Ç') WHERE INSTR(post_content, 'Ç') \u0026gt; 0\nAfter some hours of auditing and pounding SQL most of the things should be fixed and whatever\u0026rsquo;s left I can live with.\nConclusion # The moral of this story is that the entire complex of Wordpress/PHP/MySQL is a pile of shit that should be burnt off the face of the planet. The fact that we can have these kind of encoding issues in the year 2024 shows what an absolute joke these systems are. Especially with the Mullenweg meltdowns, anybody who can get out of Wordpress should do so.\nThis blog hasn\u0026rsquo;t received a comment or other bit of interactivity in years so I think I could also rip all the content (effectively just two columns in wp_posts) out and host it on something that\u0026rsquo;s statically built. No reason to pay for a shit hosting provider like Vimexx anymore either.\n","date":"November 3, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17649/","section":"Posts","summary":"Turns out I hadn’t noticed my hosting provider Vimexx has their MySQL databases on latin1 coding and this blog was running on that happily corrupting data.\n","title":"MySQL encoding mistakes corrupting data in this decade?!?","type":"posts"},{"content":"I knew it of course, but I hadn\u0026rsquo;t realised how dead the web has gotten until I saw this historic overview of traffic to my blog.\nIt used to be worthwhile but right now more or less the only person that I\u0026rsquo;m writing these things for anymore is me.\n","date":"November 3, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17645/","section":"Posts","summary":"I knew it of course, but I hadn’t realised how dead the web has gotten until I saw this historic overview of traffic to my blog.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"It\u0026rsquo;s become fashionable in tech circles to say that all legislation is bad. This is a dangerous and wildly ignorant way of thinking. Without legislation, many people would not survive and the very things that we depend on for a good life would not exist.\nThe Verge gets this right in their endorsement because they\u0026rsquo;re some of the smartest people in tech reporting.\nhttps://www.theverge.com/24282022/kamala-harris-endorsement-presidential-election-2024\n","date":"October 30, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17641/","section":"Posts","summary":"It’s become fashionable in tech circles to say that all legislation is bad. This is a dangerous and wildly ignorant way of thinking. Without legislation, many people would not survive and the very things that we depend on for a good life would not exist.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Wer täglich, manchmal mehrmals die Stunde, die Verdammten belächelt, ist wohl zu Recht in der Hölle. Twitter, so mussten wir uns eingestehen, war der Ort, den wir bewohnten, weil wir sehr schlechte Menschen waren.\nUtterly utterly savage feuilleton about Twitter as a medium for poetry.\nhttps://www.zeit.de/2024/45/clemens-setz-twitter-gedichtband-poesie-social-media/komplettansicht\n","date":"October 29, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17639/","section":"Posts","summary":"Wer täglich, manchmal mehrmals die Stunde, die Verdammten belächelt, ist wohl zu Recht in der Hölle. Twitter, so mussten wir uns eingestehen, war der Ort, den wir bewohnten, weil wir sehr schlechte Menschen waren.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"October 29, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/poetry/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Poetry","type":"categories"},{"content":"After some occasional brushes with party politics and reading up on the minimal political agency that we foreigners get here, I dove in. The rise of right-wing sentiment seemed to be a good reason to become a member of the Greens just like I imagine it did for a number of people. Much good that did do if you see the continued rise of that sentiment and this Green government all but enabling right-wing parties with their politics of austerity.\nI rescinded my Green Party membership a couple of months ago because of irreconcilable disagreements with their politics. Also because I don\u0026rsquo;t think they\u0026rsquo;re effective even at the things they want to do. That move put me way ahead of the Green youth wings many of whom recently exited the party for similar reasons and with a lot of fanfare.\nPolitics # A lot of my beef with the Greens (though by no means all of it) is for their hypocrisy when it comes to the Palestine question.\nI don\u0026rsquo;t really have a stake in the Israel-Palestine conflict. I know more Israelis than Palestinians and get along with them fine. I\u0026rsquo;m opposed against theocratic movements and governments of all backgrounds. Still, in this conflict it is obviously apparent what is right and what is wrong and it has been obvious for decades.\nThis topic is too big to treat in whole and I hope there will be hundreds of reckonings of the past year in German politics at some point. I\u0026rsquo;ll just post my receipts and explain why they made the Green Party morally repugnant to me.\nCem Özdemir # https://youtu.be/m3o2kD3sy5E?si=4VohITr4yJbTawwB\u0026t=2669\nÖzdemir quotes Golda Meir at an Israel Solidarity event\nI saw Özdemir in this video with many other high ranking German politicians quote Golda Meir saying: \u0026ldquo;Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us.\u0026rdquo; This is a vile bit of racism that should be unacceptable but to which nobody batted an eye back then.\nÖzdemir now is the mostly useless minister for agriculture in this Green government and his political views have not improved.\nBaerbock # https://twitter.com/Strack_C/status/1735629355668173297\nBaerbock sat here next to the person responsible for spreading IDF propaganda in Germany which you can understand consists mostly of lies and excuses for war crimes. Her fans will make lots of excuses for this but the optics of being this chummy with such a vile human being do not become any less terrible.\nBaerbock now is the foreign minister in the current German government where her already questionable and empty platform of \u0026ldquo;feminist foreign policy\u0026rdquo; has devolved to the point where she is making passionate pleas in favour of war crimes in German parliament.\nhttps://twitter.com/tparsi/status/1846186196419924294\nParliament # https://twitter.com/hahauenstein/status/1771455044098871704\nThe Green parliamentary fraction invited and posed with Daniel Ryan Spaulding, a comedian who\u0026rsquo;s made a name for himself now with increasingly racist anti-Palestinian bits.\nHabeck # https://youtu.be/-JfiOOuXG2Y?si=pU5LXRncsFyWAr9w\nHabeck, the only functional politician in the German government, posted this sermon relatively quickly after the attacks. It has been much praised by mainstream Germany but every Palestinian and Arab listening to it will hear: \u0026ldquo;You are second class citizens. Your grievances are not real. You do not belong here.\u0026rdquo;\nI didn\u0026rsquo;t think back then it was smart to put out a message alienating a sizeable minority in your country. I think I\u0026rsquo;ve been proven right.\nParty # What the of the Green Party members themselves?\nInside the party itself on this topic I\u0026rsquo;ve seen mostly silence and a significant number of statements that would not be out of place in the AfD.\nThe Green youth wings who left the party did so because of (valid) political disagreements with the party establishment but none of them even once mentioned Palestine in the exit statements.\nParty Membership # I don\u0026rsquo;t think party membership is a thing for most people. There are power dynamics at play which are the same in the Greens as they are everywhere else. In every party there are two classes of members:\nCareer politicians who have decades of experience and relationships in the party. They run everything. Ordinary members who are there to volunteer at the local levels and support the party materially with their time or money. These two classes have almost no interaction with each other. The mechanisms of inner party democracy (and pretty much any functional organisation) are setup in such a way that ordinary members can\u0026rsquo;t bother the people doing the \u0026ldquo;actual work\u0026rdquo;.\nSo what is the point of being a member if you don\u0026rsquo;t have time or money to give?\nI would answer that for me there is no point in party membership. I don\u0026rsquo;t get anything out of it. I may keep voting for the Greens (for lack of better alternatives) and support them in one way or another, but I don\u0026rsquo;t need to be a member to do either of those things.\nMaybe being a party member will be worth it for others who have more to give or who stand to get more out of it. That is a calculation that everybody needs to make for themselves.\n","date":"October 17, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/reckoning-with-the-greens/","section":"Posts","summary":"After some occasional brushes with party politics and reading up on the minimal political agency that we foreigners get here, I dove in. The rise of right-wing sentiment seemed to be a good reason to become a member of the Greens just like I imagine it did for a number of people. Much good that did do if you see the continued rise of that sentiment and this Green government all but enabling right-wing parties with their politics of austerity.\n","title":"Reckoning with the Greens","type":"posts"},{"content":"Wanted to show the kids some chiaroscuro for their art class about light and dark tomorrow and ran through some of the all time greats from Caravaggio. They were particularly impressed by Holofernes being beheaded.\nAlways stunning to see how good these paintings are and a bit sad for how long it\u0026rsquo;s been since I saw one for real. But Sanssouci has the picture of Doubting Thomas so that can be fixed.\nhttps://www.artrenewal.org/artists/caravaggio/589\n","date":"October 10, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17632/","section":"Posts","summary":"Wanted to show the kids some chiaroscuro for their art class about light and dark tomorrow and ran through some of the all time greats from Caravaggio. They were particularly impressed by Holofernes being beheaded.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Thoroughness unpacked in three dimensions like this by James Stanier is so good and gives a much better way to think and talk about issues of velocity:\nScope is what you\u0026rsquo;re building.\nScalability is how well it will work as you grow.\nSustainability is how well it will work over time.\nhttps://theengineeringmanager.substack.com/p/scope-hmm\n","date":"October 3, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17630/","section":"Posts","summary":"Thoroughness unpacked in three dimensions like this by James Stanier is so good and gives a much better way to think and talk about issues of velocity:\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"As somebody working in platform for the past years, I\u0026rsquo;ve become very familiar with the different dimensions of this debate around productivity and John here unpacks the topic in a way that\u0026rsquo;s really useful. I used the nails analogy just yesterday.\nEven more than a nuanced understanding of why developer productivity is so challenging to improve, the last bit of the piece is even more on the money because it\u0026rsquo;s what drives decision making in most companies (tech companies are no exception):\n\u0026ldquo;Can you imagine how hard it would be to walk into a meeting with investors, whoever, and say, \u0026lsquo;um, you thought you had a 30mpg car, and it is a 15mpg car?\u0026rdquo;\nhttps://cutlefish.substack.com/p/tbm-304-losing-a-day-a-week-to-inefficiencies\n","date":"October 3, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17628/","section":"Posts","summary":"As somebody working in platform for the past years, I’ve become very familiar with the different dimensions of this debate around productivity and John here unpacks the topic in a way that’s really useful. I used the nails analogy just yesterday.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Krasse Links looks like yet another collection of links but the German wall of text notwithstanding, it\u0026rsquo;s a remarkable act of curation and contextualisation. Remarkable and unique for sure in Germany.\nThere are very few people here who have the desire and skills to be able to look beyond the borders, beyond the Tellerrand, and who feel that what the German state and establishment press and media serve you is simply not good enough. I\u0026rsquo;d be hard pressed to suggest anything at the same level as what Michael Seemann here and any German interested in the intersection of technology and politics would be well served to read this newsletter.\nhttps://mspr0.de/krasse-links-no-27/\n","date":"October 3, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17624/","section":"Posts","summary":"Krasse Links looks like yet another collection of links but the German wall of text notwithstanding, it’s a remarkable act of curation and contextualisation. Remarkable and unique for sure in Germany.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Coates and Stewart have a warm and powerful conversation around a number of topics but mostly about Israel/Palestine.\n","date":"October 3, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17622/","section":"Posts","summary":"Coates and Stewart have a warm and powerful conversation around a number of topics but mostly about Israel/Palestine.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"For a relatively complete and concise rundown of how insane Germany is at the moment, this conversation with journalist James Jackson is highly recommended. Things are really spiralling into pure madness here and it seems likely that that will be the new normal.\n","date":"October 3, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17620/","section":"Posts","summary":"For a relatively complete and concise rundown of how insane Germany is at the moment, this conversation with journalist James Jackson is highly recommended. Things are really spiralling into pure madness here and it seems likely that that will be the new normal.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"AI has democratised creating startups to the point where people really don\u0026rsquo;t have to do anything anymore.\nhttps://techcrunch.com/2024/09/30/y-combinator-is-being-criticized-after-it-backed-an-ai-startup-that-admits-it-basically-cloned-another-ai-startup/\n","date":"October 3, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17618/","section":"Posts","summary":"AI has democratised creating startups to the point where people really don’t have to do anything anymore.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Of course it takes a Dutch guy, an outsider, to blow the lid off Germany\u0026rsquo;s Nazi Bilionaires. David de Jong is doing great work and the German establishment tries to bury that as much as possible (because they know which side their bread is buttered on).\nhttps://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/richest-german-nazi-billions\n","date":"October 3, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17616/","section":"Posts","summary":"Of course it takes a Dutch guy, an outsider, to blow the lid off Germany’s Nazi Bilionaires. David de Jong is doing great work and the German establishment tries to bury that as much as possible (because they know which side their bread is buttered on).\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The Game of Sisyphus is hilarious, as is this write-up.\nhttps://remapradio.com/articles/the-meditative-power-of-irritation/\n","date":"October 3, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17614/","section":"Posts","summary":"The Game of Sisyphus is hilarious, as is this write-up.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Don\u0026rsquo;t let a bit of data get in the way of some nice AI hype.\nhttps://www.crikey.com.au/2024/09/03/ai-worse-summarising-information-humans-government-trial/\n","date":"October 3, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17612/","section":"Posts","summary":"Don’t let a bit of data get in the way of some nice AI hype.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A damning but also entirely correct assessment of Elon Musk:\nHow degrading it must be: a 53-year-old man, notionally responsible for five companies, endlessly jostling for empty, phatic interactions with strangers. A clown forced to play for an audience he despises, an audience he cannot be sure even exists, and which gains with every tasteless joke a clearer understanding of what he is really worth.\nhttps://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2024/09/how-elon-musk-killed-twitter\n","date":"October 3, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17610/","section":"Posts","summary":"A damning but also entirely correct assessment of Elon Musk:\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"What this article says is true: The Fediverse is entirely inconsequential and you might as well pee into the wind as post on it. Nothing will happen.\nThe main reason I write anything there is just as a kind of personal life log. I don\u0026rsquo;t expect anybody to even see it.\nhttps://wingolog.org/archives/2024/09/24/fedi-is-for-losers\n","date":"October 3, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17608/","section":"Posts","summary":"What this article says is true: The Fediverse is entirely inconsequential and you might as well pee into the wind as post on it. Nothing will happen.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Trying for years to explain to people that Germany has almost zero project power and is incapable of any progress and then suddenly a movement springs up that agrees entirely with that assessment.\nNot sure if I should be pleased or miffed.\n","date":"October 3, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17606/","section":"Posts","summary":"Trying for years to explain to people that Germany has almost zero project power and is incapable of any progress and then suddenly a movement springs up that agrees entirely with that assessment.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I can always trust PTO to treat a topic with clarity and without giving it any quarter. The political-ideological tally that Romm recounts here is chilling and its consequences will be far reaching.\nhttps://www.patreon.com/posts/zionism-as-form-111534427\n","date":"September 22, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17604/","section":"Posts","summary":"I can always trust PTO to treat a topic with clarity and without giving it any quarter. The political-ideological tally that Romm recounts here is chilling and its consequences will be far reaching.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Met een nieuwe identiteitskaart of paspoort die je in het buitenland krijgt (als je niet meer in Nederland woont), kun je niet meer ID-Check van DigiD gebruiken.\nIk vroeg me af waarom dat was en kreeg dit antwoord:\nIdentiteitsbewijzen die in het buitenland worden uitgegeven, worden door de Rijksdienst voor Identiteitsgegevens (RvIG - uitgever van de Nederlandse identiteitskaart en paspoort) niet in de Basisregistratie Personen (BRP) geregistreerd. DigiD gebruikt de BRP tijdens de ID-check om te controleren of het identiteitsbewijs (ID) een geldig ID is dat bij die gebruiker hoort. Dat kan dus niet wanneer het ID-bewijs in het buitenland is uitgegeven. Om deze grote groep mensen in het buitenland toch te helpen, controleert de DigiD app tijdens de ID-check het burgerservicenummer (BSN) in de chip van identiteitsbewijzen die in het buitenland zijn uitgegeven. En vergelijkt dan of dat overeenkomt met het BSN dat hoort bij het DigiD-account van de gebruiker.\nDe RvIG heeft om veiligheidsredenen besloten om per augustus 2021 het BSN uit de chip te verwijderen. Daarom is het niet meer mogelijk voor de DigiD app om het BSN uit te lezen van de chip en kan de gebruiker dit ID-bewijs dus niet meer gebruiken voor de ID-check. Het scannen van de QR-code op het ID-bewijs mag ook niet, want dat kan eenvoudig vervalst worden. De ontwikkelaar van de DigiD app is Logius.\nhttps://www.rvig.nl/wijzigingen-nederlandse-identiteitskaart\nhttps://www.rvig.nl/wijzigingen-model-paspoort-2021\nMijn BSN zit dus niet meer in de chip op het document wegens \u0026ldquo;veiligheidsredenen\u0026rdquo;.\nOndertussen heb ik een Europese digitale pas gekregen in Duitsland en kijk of ik die kan gebruiken voor online dienstverlening, maar zoals ze al zeggen: \u0026ldquo;Inlogmiddelen van andere Europese landen kunnen steeds vaker worden gebruikt om online zaken te regelen met Nederlandse overheidsorganisaties.\u0026rdquo;\nSteeds vaker betekent in dit geval: bijna nooit. We zullen zien.\n","date":"September 12, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/waarom-ik-geen-id-check-kan-gebruiken/","section":"Posts","summary":"Met een nieuwe identiteitskaart of paspoort die je in het buitenland krijgt (als je niet meer in Nederland woont), kun je niet meer ID-Check van DigiD gebruiken.\n","title":"Waarom ik geen ID-Check kan gebruiken","type":"posts"},{"content":"In the tech world we have a bunch of crypto bag holder VCs backing Trump hoping their investment will then pay off. Nothing to see there other than the moral emptiness expected of these people.\nhttps://www.theverge.com/2024/7/24/24204706/marc-andreessen-ben-horowitz-a16z-trump-donations\n","date":"August 29, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17598/","section":"Posts","summary":"In the tech world we have a bunch of crypto bag holder VCs backing Trump hoping their investment will then pay off. Nothing to see there other than the moral emptiness expected of these people.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"After watching the misery around python packaging for years, it\u0026rsquo;s good to see a bunch of movement in this space and with uv potentially something like a clear winner. That winner should take all and this problem can be solved for the foreseeable future.\nhttps://lucumr.pocoo.org/2024/8/21/harvest-season/\n","date":"August 29, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17596/","section":"Posts","summary":"After watching the misery around python packaging for years, it’s good to see a bunch of movement in this space and with uv potentially something like a clear winner. That winner should take all and this problem can be solved for the foreseeable future.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"That skateboarding originated out of the byproduct of one of Alvar Aalto\u0026rsquo;s designs should not be that surprising. Architecture (built and coded) determines large parts of human behaviour.\nhttps://www.dwell.com/article/kidney-shaped-pools-skateboarding-c3493888\n","date":"August 29, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17592/","section":"Posts","summary":"That skateboarding originated out of the byproduct of one of Alvar Aalto’s designs should not be that surprising. Architecture (built and coded) determines large parts of human behaviour.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I don\u0026rsquo;t agree that naming is that hard but I do agree with Steve Klabnik here that we should avoid redundant naming if at all possible. Say on Github I have to describe my commit, name my branch and then also title my Pull Request. It\u0026rsquo;s a bit much.\nhttps://steveklabnik.com/writing/against-names/\n","date":"August 29, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17590/","section":"Posts","summary":"I don’t agree that naming is that hard but I do agree with Steve Klabnik here that we should avoid redundant naming if at all possible. Say on Github I have to describe my commit, name my branch and then also title my Pull Request. It’s a bit much.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A quick look to what\u0026rsquo;s awaiting Germany-which has bet heavily on hydrogen cars-several decades in the future. California has a hydrogen highway which looks like it is on its way out.\n","date":"August 29, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17588/","section":"Posts","summary":"A quick look to what’s awaiting Germany-which has bet heavily on hydrogen cars-several decades in the future. California has a hydrogen highway which looks like it is on its way out.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Cosplay believing in the singularity long enough and at some point you won\u0026rsquo;t be able to stop anymore whether you really believe in it or not.\nhttps://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/ai-influencers-are-falling-for-hoaxes-and-scams.html\n","date":"August 26, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17586/","section":"Posts","summary":"Cosplay believing in the singularity long enough and at some point you won’t be able to stop anymore whether you really believe in it or not.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Always nice to be able to write stuff that the team has been doing and share it with the world.\nKubernetes is a very maligned technology but if properly managed it can be part of an entirely boring infrastructure portfolio. Realistically it\u0026rsquo;s not doing that much more than running docker on a bunch of machines and pulling images. React has a similarly bad reputation which is not stopping lots of developers from getting tons of work done with it.\nhttps://choco.com/us/stories/life-at-choco/journey-to-kubernetes\n","date":"August 14, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17584/","section":"Posts","summary":"Always nice to be able to write stuff that the team has been doing and share it with the world.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Long distance bike packing races however brutal they may be look like they fulfil an ideal. They have an activity that\u0026rsquo;s not that fast but where you can still cover a lot of distance and terrain. The contestants are physically and mentally absurdly fit and still they go through hell. The remoteness of the locations usually creates a special connection to the local people and culture.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s something more people should do or at least aspire to.\n","date":"August 13, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17582/","section":"Posts","summary":"Long distance bike packing races however brutal they may be look like they fulfil an ideal. They have an activity that’s not that fast but where you can still cover a lot of distance and terrain. The contestants are physically and mentally absurdly fit and still they go through hell. The remoteness of the locations usually creates a special connection to the local people and culture.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Good advice that\u0026rsquo;s not only relevant to executives. Just answer the question!\nhttps://kellblog.com/2012/01/17/the-one-key-to-dealing-with-senior-executives-answer-the-question/\n","date":"August 6, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17580/","section":"Posts","summary":"Good advice that’s not only relevant to executives. Just answer the question!\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"This is a good guide how to deal with underperformers by Jack Danger and it\u0026rsquo;s written more thoughtfully than 90% of the management writing out there.\nhttps://jackdanger.com/managing-underperformers/\n","date":"August 6, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17578/","section":"Posts","summary":"This is a good guide how to deal with underperformers by Jack Danger and it’s written more thoughtfully than 90% of the management writing out there.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Super useful and unfortunately increasingly relevant article about all the ways scientists are trying to quantify perceived heat.\nhttps://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-heat-index-dew-point-and-wet-bulb-temperature-describe-summer-weather/\n","date":"August 6, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17576/","section":"Posts","summary":"Super useful and unfortunately increasingly relevant article about all the ways scientists are trying to quantify perceived heat.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Coffee is already incredibly under pressure due to climate change. The last thing it needs is well meaning but harmful legislative burdens from the EU.\nhttps://www.lemonde.fr/en/environment/article/2024/05/25/ethiopian-coffee-is-threatened-by-european-deforestation-regulations_6672600_114.html\n","date":"August 6, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17574/","section":"Posts","summary":"Coffee is already incredibly under pressure due to climate change. The last thing it needs is well meaning but harmful legislative burdens from the EU.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"You start out writing a small flask app that gets a bunch of traffic, then rewrite it in an afternoon and then look at this: \u0026ldquo;The site was rock-solid after the go rewrite.\u0026rdquo;\nI love real world scaling stories like this one.\nhttps://eieio.games/essays/scaling-one-million-checkboxes/\n","date":"August 6, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17572/","section":"Posts","summary":"You start out writing a small flask app that gets a bunch of traffic, then rewrite it in an afternoon and then look at this: “The site was rock-solid after the go rewrite.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The thing that Bert is not getting here is that Gaia-X is meant to be a distraction and not much else (that \u0026ldquo;else\u0026rdquo; would be politically far too risky to act upon). That\u0026rsquo;s the way these kind of things work. Meanwhile Europe will remain without its own cloud.\nhttps://berthub.eu/articles/posts/gaia-x-is-an-expensive-distraction/\n","date":"August 6, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17570/","section":"Posts","summary":"The thing that Bert is not getting here is that Gaia-X is meant to be a distraction and not much else (that “else” would be politically far too risky to act upon). That’s the way these kind of things work. Meanwhile Europe will remain without its own cloud.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Logitech already has a forever mouse. No need for an MBA CEO to reinvent the wheel.\nThe G500s I bought in 2013 is still going strong, the only thing that\u0026rsquo;s missing is updated and functioning software to go with it. Logitech\u0026rsquo;s own driver offering was always absurdly bloated and after a couple of years dropped support for this particular model.\nhttps://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/07/logitech-has-an-idea-for-a-forever-mouse-thatrequires-a-subscription/\n","date":"August 6, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17568/","section":"Posts","summary":"Logitech already has a forever mouse. No need for an MBA CEO to reinvent the wheel.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A great in-depth guide on how to center UI elements, often considered the hardest problem in computer science (or at least web development).\nhttps://tonsky.me/blog/centering/\n","date":"July 20, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17565/","section":"Posts","summary":"A great in-depth guide on how to center UI elements, often considered the hardest problem in computer science (or at least web development).\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The people in the Silicon Valley Trump cult, here represented by Balaji Srinivasan and all the people around a16z, are depraved and dangerous.\nhttps://newrepublic.com/article/180487/balaji-srinivasan-network-state-plutocrat\n","date":"July 20, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17562/","section":"Posts","summary":"The people in the Silicon Valley Trump cult, here represented by Balaji Srinivasan and all the people around a16z, are depraved and dangerous.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A piece about real-world Rust development that struck a cord with many people. Most of the issues listed here are valid and longstanding to the point that you have to wonder if they\u0026rsquo;ll ever be fixed.\nI have a similar feeling around Rust web development where for all the good building blocks it doesn\u0026rsquo;t really seem to get off the ground. At the same time Go has been going really hard for ages. Maybe spending all your time to get the types to line up doesn\u0026rsquo;t leave room for building?\nhttps://loglog.games/blog/leaving-rust-gamedev/\n","date":"July 20, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17560/","section":"Posts","summary":"A piece about real-world Rust development that struck a cord with many people. Most of the issues listed here are valid and longstanding to the point that you have to wonder if they’ll ever be fixed.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"As always, the people most intent on having children should be the ones having the least:\nFor someone dedicated to helping people have as many babies as possible, Malcolm doesn’t seem to like children very much.\nThese people are obviously either fascist or fascist-adjacent.\nhttps://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/article/2024/may/25/american-pronatalists-malcolm-and-simone-collins\n","date":"July 20, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17558/","section":"Posts","summary":"As always, the people most intent on having children should be the ones having the least:\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I don\u0026rsquo;t think it\u0026rsquo;s appreciated how bad it is for one of the richest men in the world and the leadership of a company to walk around propositioning random employees. Elon Musk is a bad person and you should feel bad if you like him.\nhttps://www.theverge.com/2024/6/12/24176705/spacex-elon-musk-gwynne-shotwell-sexual-relationships\n","date":"July 20, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17556/","section":"Posts","summary":"I don’t think it’s appreciated how bad it is for one of the richest men in the world and the leadership of a company to walk around propositioning random employees. Elon Musk is a bad person and you should feel bad if you like him.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"That popular open source package managers will at some point all get owned is so inevitable that it\u0026rsquo;s hardly worth mentioning.\nCocoapods in this case is a bit of an outlier because the entire setup here has been so broken to begin with. iOS development never really allowed for dependency management so Cocoapods did it in an very hacky way and it was written in Ruby, a relatively niche end-of-life language that would have no chance to be blessed by Apple and shouldn\u0026rsquo;t be used for anything serious to begin with. (Don\u0026rsquo;t even get me started on Carthage.)\nSwift Package Manager has been released years ago but lots of projects of course never manage to switch. I believe the best thing a project can do in such a situation is to terminate itself for the greater good.\nhttps://www.theregister.com/2024/07/02/cocoapods_vulns_supply_chain_potential/\n","date":"July 20, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17554/","section":"Posts","summary":"That popular open source package managers will at some point all get owned is so inevitable that it’s hardly worth mentioning.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I remember when I got banned from the forum of one of Germany\u0026rsquo;s larger liberal podcasts for saying that Bitcoin is mostly something by and for criminals. I think that statement was pretty much entirely correct.\nThe story of the Texas Bitcoin mine is sad but we\u0026rsquo;re living through something similar now where the construction site has installed yet another permanent noise device (a pump) next to our home. The noise level is not too high, but even if it were, it\u0026rsquo;s not like anything would be done in Berlin about it.\nhttps://time.com/6982015/bitcoin-mining-texas-health/\n","date":"July 20, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17552/","section":"Posts","summary":"I remember when I got banned from the forum of one of Germany’s larger liberal podcasts for saying that Bitcoin is mostly something by and for criminals. I think that statement was pretty much entirely correct.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The end of free money has had a huge negative impact on open source. I agree with the author here, it would have been better to license everything under copy-left and see what happens.\nhttps://ploum.net/2024-07-01-opensource_sustainability.html\n","date":"July 20, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17550/","section":"Posts","summary":"The end of free money has had a huge negative impact on open source. I agree with the author here, it would have been better to license everything under copy-left and see what happens.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Well done everybody on replacing PHP with better programming languages.\nhttps://thenewstack.io/why-php-usage-has-declined-by-40-in-just-over-2-years/\n","date":"June 28, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17548/","section":"Posts","summary":"Well done everybody on replacing PHP with better programming languages.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"For a phone code editor, the interface here of mobilecode is quite something. I just wist it supported a language that isn\u0026rsquo;t C.\nhttps://mobilecodeapp.com\n","date":"June 28, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17546/","section":"Posts","summary":"For a phone code editor, the interface here of mobilecode is quite something. I just wist it supported a language that isn’t C.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Stop writing documentation about your codebase norms that nobody will read anyway and use this approach codifying requirements in tests. It\u0026rsquo;s so simple and frankly quite ingenious.\nhttps://jmduke.com/posts/essays/weird-tests-tacit-knowledge/\n","date":"June 28, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17544/","section":"Posts","summary":"Stop writing documentation about your codebase norms that nobody will read anyway and use this approach codifying requirements in tests. It’s so simple and frankly quite ingenious.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"In Good Company sounds like a good idea for a podcast, but after hearing the CEO of Deutsche Telekom deny how his company is responsible for Germany being in the dark ages when it comes to internet speed, I couldn\u0026rsquo;t listen to it anymore.\nhttps://www.nbim.no/en/publications/podcast/tim-hottges-ceo-of-deutsche-telekom-future-for-connectivity-5g-and-ai/\n","date":"June 27, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17542/","section":"Posts","summary":"In Good Company sounds like a good idea for a podcast, but after hearing the CEO of Deutsche Telekom deny how his company is responsible for Germany being in the dark ages when it comes to internet speed, I couldn’t listen to it anymore.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Coming from an area in the center of Turkey where water was always scarce, it\u0026rsquo;s not really possible to be surprised by this development. Though if you talk to people locally of course many of them will continue to deny deveolpments because they have no other option.\nhttps://e360.yale.edu/features/as-the-climate-bakes-turkey-faces-a-future-without-water\n","date":"June 27, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17540/","section":"Posts","summary":"Coming from an area in the center of Turkey where water was always scarce, it’s not really possible to be surprised by this development. Though if you talk to people locally of course many of them will continue to deny deveolpments because they have no other option.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A breath of fresh air to read somebody breaking with the TDD dogma. Test are useful but please remember: \u0026ldquo;Write tests, not too many, mostly integration.\u0026rdquo; and try to exercise some judgement.\nhttps://registerspill.thorstenball.com/p/a-few-words-on-testing\n","date":"April 25, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17536/","section":"Posts","summary":"A breath of fresh air to read somebody breaking with the TDD dogma. Test are useful but please remember: “Write tests, not too many, mostly integration.” and try to exercise some judgement.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Programmers like to moan that naming things is hard. This may be the case but naming types, functions and variables is a core part of the job.\nSo instead of complaining about it, maybe just get better?\n","date":"April 17, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17533/","section":"Posts","summary":"Programmers like to moan that naming things is hard. This may be the case but naming types, functions and variables is a core part of the job.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A truly bizarre story and excellent reporting about Marc Benioff buying up large amounts of land on Hawaii.\nhttps://www.npr.org/2024/02/28/1232564250/billionaire-benioff-buys-hawaii-land-salesforce\n","date":"April 15, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17531/","section":"Posts","summary":"A truly bizarre story and excellent reporting about Marc Benioff buying up large amounts of land on Hawaii.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Most people should not bother with specialized productivity software but just see how far they can get with what\u0026rsquo;s already on their phones: Reminders, Notes and the likes. Apple has made these unassuming tools absurdly powerful without losing too much on usability.\nhttps://fredbenenson.medium.com/advanced-topics-in-reminders-and-to-do-lists-c5edec286670\n","date":"April 15, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17529/","section":"Posts","summary":"Most people should not bother with specialized productivity software but just see how far they can get with what’s already on their phones: Reminders, Notes and the likes. Apple has made these unassuming tools absurdly powerful without losing too much on usability.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A third truth is that we have a generation in crisis and in desperate need of the best of what science and evidence-based solutions can offer. Unfortunately, our time is being spent telling stories that are unsupported by research and that do little to support young people who need, and deserve, more.\nThe experts agree that kids need to be cared for better. The experts also agree that people like Haidt are grifters who do not contribute anything into that direction.\nhttps://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00902-2\n","date":"April 15, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17527/","section":"Posts","summary":"A third truth is that we have a generation in crisis and in desperate need of the best of what science and evidence-based solutions can offer. Unfortunately, our time is being spent telling stories that are unsupported by research and that do little to support young people who need, and deserve, more.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Herbert believed that progress was an illusion because he was an ideologically motivated reactionary who hated the New Deal, the welfare state, the Civil Rights Movement, and any political leader who promised to help the oppressed.\nFinally a piece about Dune 2 that doesn\u0026rsquo;t pull any punches.\nhttps://slate.com/culture/2024/03/dune-2-movies-frank-herbert-books-meaning-differences.html\n","date":"April 15, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17525/","section":"Posts","summary":"Herbert believed that progress was an illusion because he was an ideologically motivated reactionary who hated the New Deal, the welfare state, the Civil Rights Movement, and any political leader who promised to help the oppressed.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Threads works functionally but as a product it\u0026rsquo;s very bad. As this article mentions being on Threads is a slow-motion exercise in going insane. Threads actively disables many things that make microblogging work and for the rest of the experience there\u0026rsquo;s very little thought that went into it other than \u0026ldquo;let\u0026rsquo;s make a text-based Instagram and see what happens\u0026rdquo;.\nThreads makes Mastodon feel engaging (and that\u0026rsquo;s saying something).\nhttps://maxread.substack.com/p/threads-is-the-gas-leak-social-network\n","date":"April 15, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17523/","section":"Posts","summary":"Threads works functionally but as a product it’s very bad. As this article mentions being on Threads is a slow-motion exercise in going insane. Threads actively disables many things that make microblogging work and for the rest of the experience there’s very little thought that went into it other than “let’s make a text-based Instagram and see what happens”.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I would be the last to ever watch anything by Lex Fridman, but TikTok has been feeding me clips from his interview with Bassem Youssef and I can\u0026rsquo;t help but be impressed. Fridman does a decent job interviewing but of course the conversation is carried by Youssef, who is nothing short of a treasure.\n","date":"April 15, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17521/","section":"Posts","summary":"I would be the last to ever watch anything by Lex Fridman, but TikTok has been feeding me clips from his interview with Bassem Youssef and I can’t help but be impressed. Fridman does a decent job interviewing but of course the conversation is carried by Youssef, who is nothing short of a treasure.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Such a smart move to use tests not to just test business logic but also to use it to ratchet down code base invariants.\nhttps://jmduke.com/posts/essays/weird-tests-tacit-knowledge/\n","date":"March 16, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17519/","section":"Posts","summary":"Such a smart move to use tests not to just test business logic but also to use it to ratchet down code base invariants.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"More people have mentioned it and I think it should be part of every Rust tutorial to encourage people to just clone() whenever they get in a jam and get their stuff done: “keep calm, clone and move on”. I think that one thing will make it possible to onboard any team onto Rust quickly and get them shipping.\nPerformance will still be better than in most other languages and you can optimize this stuff out after you\u0026rsquo;ve got things to work.\nhttps://blog.sdf.com/p/fast-development-in-rust-part-one\n","date":"March 16, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17517/","section":"Posts","summary":"More people have mentioned it and I think it should be part of every Rust tutorial to encourage people to just clone() whenever they get in a jam and get their stuff done: “keep calm, clone and move on”. I think that one thing will make it possible to onboard any team onto Rust quickly and get them shipping.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The Netherlands is facing similar problems where depressed salaries, lack of housing and rampant overt racism are making it difficult to attract digital talent from all over the world.\nYou know, countries could have promoted STEM education as a pursuit decades ago but given the state of things, nothing is getting done in technology without people from outside of Europe. Let\u0026rsquo;s see whether we make the smart choice this time round, or whether we\u0026rsquo;ll see countries ‘cutting their nose to spite their face’ as the saying goes.\nhttps://www.golem.de/news/tech-standort-ostdeutschland-als-waere-das-image-nicht-schon-schlecht-genug-2403-182921.html\n","date":"March 16, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17515/","section":"Posts","summary":"The Netherlands is facing similar problems where depressed salaries, lack of housing and rampant overt racism are making it difficult to attract digital talent from all over the world.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Netzpolitik has done a lot of good things, no doubt. But I\u0026rsquo;m left with a bit of a double feeling after reading Beckedahl\u0026rsquo;s farewell post. Imagine having spent 20 years to improve the state of the German internet (“eine bessere digitale Welt möglich ist”) and you leave with the situation like it is.\nhttps://netzpolitik.org/2024/abschied-danke-netzpolitik-org/\n","date":"March 16, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17513/","section":"Posts","summary":"Netzpolitik has done a lot of good things, no doubt. But I’m left with a bit of a double feeling after reading Beckedahl’s farewell post. Imagine having spent 20 years to improve the state of the German internet (“eine bessere digitale Welt möglich ist”) and you leave with the situation like it is.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Amos\u0026rsquo;s style of software engineering historiography accompanied with snide commentary on the state of the art is both educational and entertaining. The weird factoids about Github Actions are the main act here but don\u0026rsquo;t miss out on the introduction on software delivery or the lead out on capitalism.\n(Also I\u0026rsquo;m in the credits on this one!)\n","date":"March 12, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17510/","section":"Posts","summary":"Amos’s style of software engineering historiography accompanied with snide commentary on the state of the art is both educational and entertaining. The weird factoids about Github Actions are the main act here but don’t miss out on the introduction on software delivery or the lead out on capitalism.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Besides being a clear warning that the open source party is over, this article is a good overview of the different service mesh offerings out there and how they compare to one another. It beats having to wade through the endless amounts of vendor material that\u0026rsquo;s out there.\nhttps://matduggan.com/k8s-service-meshes/\n","date":"March 11, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17508/","section":"Posts","summary":"Besides being a clear warning that the open source party is over, this article is a good overview of the different service mesh offerings out there and how they compare to one another. It beats having to wade through the endless amounts of vendor material that’s out there.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The news that an OSINT researcher spent 30 minutes to find a fugitive that the German police couldn\u0026rsquo;t find in the past 30 years says a lot about how government works here.\nMost likely the police would say that they couldn\u0026rsquo;t use any modern tools or data sources here because of Datenschutz (data protection) reasons. Datenschutz is 1. a great excuse for people who don\u0026rsquo;t want to do their jobs and 2. a way to protect every kind of crook and criminal.\n","date":"March 11, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17505/","section":"Posts","summary":"The news that an OSINT researcher spent 30 minutes to find a fugitive that the German police couldn’t find in the past 30 years says a lot about how government works here.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Take Germany for instance — when Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer was defense minister, she tried to reform the Bundeswehr Procurement Office with little success. Currently, over 11,000 employees work for the agency — an enormous increase since the Cold War, when considerably more material was being procured by considerably fewer employees. In 2010, the procurement office was already heavily criticized for its inefficiency and large size, with its 8,500 employees — and the situation still seems dire.\nThat is a wild number of people who are not getting anything done and who then become a pension burden on the public budget.\nhttps://www.politico.eu/article/european-armament-commissioner-defense-war-security/\n","date":"March 11, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17503/","section":"Posts","summary":"Take Germany for instance — when Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer was defense minister, she tried to reform the Bundeswehr Procurement Office with little success. Currently, over 11,000 employees work for the agency — an enormous increase since the Cold War, when considerably more material was being procured by considerably fewer employees. In 2010, the procurement office was already heavily criticized for its inefficiency and large size, with its 8,500 employees — and the situation still seems dire.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Even as the world has caught up with him, Finkelstein remains most comfortable on the margins — ideologically aligned with a left that won’t always have him, platformed by a right that won’t always listen, and insulting them both.\nYet Finkelstein is ambivalent about being pressed back into the cause and sympathetic to younger generations’ relative lack of interest in “old fogies.”“I recognize,”he said, “that it is your moment, it’s not my moment.”\nA pretty fair profile of a man who\u0026rsquo;s a polarizing character.\nhttps://www.thedriftmag.com/normcore/\n","date":"March 11, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17426/","section":"Posts","summary":"Even as the world has caught up with him, Finkelstein remains most comfortable on the margins — ideologically aligned with a left that won’t always have him, platformed by a right that won’t always listen, and insulting them both.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Lovely in-depth treatment of the million dollar question: Why are there no native graph data types in programming languages?\nhttps://www.hillelwayne.com/post/graph-types/\n","date":"March 11, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17500/","section":"Posts","summary":"Lovely in-depth treatment of the million dollar question: Why are there no native graph data types in programming languages?\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Schools wasting money is not as big of a deal as it is made out to be here. Not every investment can be a good one and you have to deal with that and just keep investing. My business partner used to say that innovation in the education field is like driving a van full of money to a school building and setting it on fire. Soit.\nThe main issue here is that a purchase like this (hardware firewalls!) fits in the rampant fear based culture around digital technology here where schools have their own IT (which they can\u0026rsquo;t deploy or manage) and everything needs to be absolutely secure. The net result of that way of thinking is of course that nothing is even slightly secure.\nhttps://www.golem.de/news/elektroschrott-hunderte-deutscher-schulen-sitzen-auf-ungenutzten-firewalls-2402-182195.html\n","date":"March 11, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17498/","section":"Posts","summary":"Schools wasting money is not as big of a deal as it is made out to be here. Not every investment can be a good one and you have to deal with that and just keep investing. My business partner used to say that innovation in the education field is like driving a van full of money to a school building and setting it on fire. Soit.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Come to Berlin, they said. There\u0026rsquo;s lots of space here, they said.\nIn the mean time in Berlin everything is full and anything related to children is wildly under-provisioned (because Germany out of principle does not invest in anything). That creates waiting lists and insane competition for everything.\nhttps://www.rbb24.de/panorama/beitrag/2024/02/berlin-infrastruktur-kinder-kein-platz-wartelisten-teuer.html\n","date":"March 11, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17496/","section":"Posts","summary":"Come to Berlin, they said. There’s lots of space here, they said.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I haven\u0026rsquo;t tried it out yet but seeing the collaboration features in Zed described here, that sounds pretty much like my ideal workflow.\nChat channels including voice and screen sharing integrated directly into a lightning fast editor enabling seamless collaboration and visibility on who are doing something together. Unscheduled calls instead of endless calendar invites that don\u0026rsquo;t fit the shape of the work anyway.\nhttps://registerspill.thorstenball.com/p/the-lightness-of-unscheduled-calls\n","date":"March 11, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17494/","section":"Posts","summary":"I haven’t tried it out yet but seeing the collaboration features in Zed described here, that sounds pretty much like my ideal workflow.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I found a new German podcast crush in Hart Unfair which is my favorite format: three people (Anna Dushime, Yelda Türkmen and Ari Christmann) rambling through one another but in a way that\u0026rsquo;s funny, intelligent and diverse. It\u0026rsquo;s a shame that they publish so irregularly that I can\u0026rsquo;t tell if the podcast is dead or not.\nOne of the hosts dropped a casual Hasan Piker reference (in a conversation about pop culture and leftist politics) and… I didn\u0026rsquo;t even know there were Germans who know who that is.\nhttps://www.instagram.com/hartunfair/\n","date":"March 10, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17492/","section":"Posts","summary":"I found a new German podcast crush in Hart Unfair which is my favorite format: three people (Anna Dushime, Yelda Türkmen and Ari Christmann) rambling through one another but in a way that’s funny, intelligent and diverse. It’s a shame that they publish so irregularly that I can’t tell if the podcast is dead or not.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I had previously posted about a deep dive of the connections of the anthroposophical movement with fascism.\n/dingen/2022/01/anthroposophy-and-ecofascism/\nWhat\u0026rsquo;s also quite poignant are the fascist foundations of the ecological movement in Germany. It\u0026rsquo;s not just fascist but in the weird post-war political space here every type of idiocy is pretty much represented.\nPetra Kelly is essential to understand why the Greens are so so opposed to nuclear energy. She got together with an officer of the German army who was used by the Stasi (as part of the Generals for Peace) to argue for disarmament. He eventually shot her and himself to death.\nhttps://www.environmentandsociety.org/arcadia/petra-kelly-and-transnational-roots-green-politics\nIt\u0026rsquo;s a good example of how anything peace movement related here was a ploy by the Russians not to get their ass kicked (and still is).\nAnd here\u0026rsquo;s a historical treatment of all the ecofascist tendencies that tried to be part of the ecological movement in post-nazi Germany. Some of them got disillusioned and rebuked by the party\u0026rsquo;s tendency towards eco-socialism, but others managed to latch on.\nhttps://social-ecology.org/wp/1992/01/left-green-perspectives-27/\nThe absurd cast of characters in both of these stories are a clear testament for how pretty much everybody in German society after the war was damaged goods.\n","date":"March 10, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17490/","section":"Posts","summary":"I had previously posted about a deep dive of the connections of the anthroposophical movement with fascism.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The comments online around the Apple Vision Pro have been pretty deranged in a stupid kind of way. Lots of people jumped to the foregone conclusion that Apple released a failure or that it \u0026ldquo;wasn\u0026rsquo;t going to be a success\u0026rdquo;. Most of that seemed to have been motivated by clout chasing.\nI don\u0026rsquo;t think that really matters that much other than serving to have the person making the comment show their ass for the entire world to see.\nI feel that Apple Vision Pro is a deeply interesting and conflicted technology which is also the conclusion that Cortex reaches here. You\u0026rsquo;ll notice that Grey and Myke actually used the device and they are fairly knowledgeable about apps and ways of working/playing.\nhttps://pca.st/0g7tgioh\nI got to take one home for a weekend and I can testify similarly except for missing out on a bunch of features. Because it\u0026rsquo;s only out in the US, I could not access a paid App Store or get an Apple Arcade subscription. That means I could only get the free vision apps out there which are incredibly lacklustre.\nWhat everybody seems to have done is to take whatever IP they had lying around, wrap it into a VisionOS starter project and throw it onto the App Store. That will probably be the modus operandi for a while going forward. If you look at the absolute dregs on the App Store and now realise that making a good VisionOS app is probably at least 10x as difficult as making a good iOS app, then things are not looking good.\nThe only really compelling experience was the Encounter Dinosaurs app which is genuinely disconcerting and scary. But because of its very high production values, it\u0026rsquo;s also only a couple of minutes long.\nMost compelling is using the Vision Pro to consume media. Watching movies in Disney+ is a fantastic experience if the device wasn\u0026rsquo;t so uncomfortable to use. Being able to watch sporting events on a massive screen with sidecar screens and 3D views of the course/track seems like it would also be excellent. It would be even more interesting if we would see a proliferation of 360 cameras to be able to place yourself in a Formula1 car or on a sports pitch. The amount of embodiment it yields, seems like it could go a long way to make remote meetings feel more real.\nI agree with this review that this device is a devkit. I\u0026rsquo;ll wait for the real deal.\n\u0026amp;feature=youtu.be\n","date":"March 10, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17481/","section":"Posts","summary":"The comments online around the Apple Vision Pro have been pretty deranged in a stupid kind of way. Lots of people jumped to the foregone conclusion that Apple released a failure or that it “wasn’t going to be a success”. Most of that seemed to have been motivated by clout chasing.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"https://twitter.com/ProgrammerDude/status/1758148576134177246\nBerlin has a not very well-known facility that allows you to request a Meldebescheinigung online, pay for it online and receive it by mail. I alerted Arian to it and it saved his bacon.\nMany people here will deny that government digitalisation here is possible or desirable both of which are statements that are untrue and deranged. It is possible to create better services for people. Germans just choose to live in abject squalor for no reason.\n","date":"March 10, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17479/","section":"Posts","summary":"https://twitter.com/ProgrammerDude/status/1758148576134177246\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Listened to the latest episode of the German eGovernment podcast with the Minister for Digital for Bavaria. That is the state here that\u0026rsquo;s seemingly the farthest along when it comes to digitalisation and it now has the following ambitious plans:\nto have internet reception everywhere to remove fax traffic inside the state government by 2026 And then I switched it off because I don\u0026rsquo;t think anything good could come after that.\nhttps://egovernment-podcast.com/egov165-100-tage-digitalminister/\n","date":"March 9, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17477/","section":"Posts","summary":"Listened to the latest episode of the German eGovernment podcast with the Minister for Digital for Bavaria. That is the state here that’s seemingly the farthest along when it comes to digitalisation and it now has the following ambitious plans:\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Learned in this podcast episode about class justice in Germany something rather remarkable.\nGermany has a system of income dependent fines called Tagessätze. These are meant to make punishments more equitable by making people who make more money pay more.\nIt turns out (and I\u0026rsquo;m sure very few people are aware of this) that courts do not get access to tax records to determine the fine base. They take a guess at the income and most of the time, they guess too low.\nhttps://pca.st/72l2om0i\n","date":"March 9, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17475/","section":"Posts","summary":"Learned in this podcast episode about class justice in Germany something rather remarkable.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Last night I sat down to finish Death Stranding and after beating the final boss it took an additional two hours of story, dream sequences, credit sequences and false endings before it was over. Or not quite over but finished and into the open ended chapter: “Tomorrow is in your Hands.”\nI was so pissed off with Kojima for this because I had wanted to go to bed early but he pulled me through it and the entire thing was totally worth the 60+ hours of gameplay I sunk into it. The duration is the thing that creates the gravitas but also I don\u0026rsquo;t want to invest that much time in a game again any time soon.\nIt started with me seeing the trailer for the sequel which is incredibly over the top, absurd and wildly promising. It\u0026rsquo;s a movie—a Gesamtkunstwerk I called it—that I can watch over and over again, especially now that I\u0026rsquo;ve played the first part.\n\u0026amp;t=1s\nThat got me interested and then I found out that the original game had been ported both to macOS and to iOS (!!). A hefty download later I was off to play my first AAA game in years.\nThere\u0026rsquo;s so much to love about Death Stranding and so much that is weird but works: the names of the characters (Heartman, Die Hardman, Deadman etc.), the endless walks across beautiful mountain landscapes, the boredom, the resource management, the likes, the weird cameos, the breaks of the fourth wall, the BB unit, the weird mishmash of lore and mythology. I could go on and on.\nI didn\u0026rsquo;t think all too deeply on what the game is about but the thought that stuck with me while playing is that Bridges and its delivery operation are a pastiche on Amazon, with its expansionism, militarism and overly saccharine insistence on the ‘benefits’ of “connecting everybody.”\nNow, I\u0026rsquo;ll be taking a break and going back to studying in the evenings but if I decide to go play a big game again, I\u0026rsquo;m thinking it\u0026rsquo;ll either be Disco Elysium or Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown.\n","date":"March 3, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/death-stranding/","section":"Posts","summary":"Last night I sat down to finish Death Stranding and after beating the final boss it took an additional two hours of story, dream sequences, credit sequences and false endings before it was over. Or not quite over but finished and into the open ended chapter: “Tomorrow is in your Hands.”\n","title":"Death Stranding","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;m enjoying another light season of SPY x FAMILY. It\u0026rsquo;s a light anime whose premise is that of a spy (Loid) who needs live in deep cover in hostile territory and forms a family of convenience. He finds a woman (Yor) who\u0026rsquo;s secretly an assassin also in need of cover and an orphan child (Anya) who\u0026rsquo;s a telepath. It\u0026rsquo;s great fun.\nSeason 2 goes on with the story arc and some filler segments thrown in between. Of these, in the third episode (S02E03) they pull off a stunning take on “Das Leben der Anderen”. I was watching it and by the time it was over I couldn\u0026rsquo;t believe they\u0026rsquo;d done this.\nTo connect it to the main plot, the listener who works at the secret police is Yor\u0026rsquo;s overly jealous brother Yuri, an apt Stasi name if ever there was one. The episode also features some more set pieces which firmly establish Ostania—the city where they live—as Cold War East Berlin.\nWhat adds to the delight is that most people watching the anime will never have an idea about this. It\u0026rsquo;s like an in-joke for movie people.\nJust compare these two stills with each other:\n","date":"March 2, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17455/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’m enjoying another light season of SPY x FAMILY. It’s a light anime whose premise is that of a spy (Loid) who needs live in deep cover in hostile territory and forms a family of convenience. He finds a woman (Yor) who’s secretly an assassin also in need of cover and an orphan child (Anya) who’s a telepath. It’s great fun.\n","title":"SPY x Family - Das Leben der Anderen","type":"posts"},{"content":"After trying apps by Sony and Garmin I think that Apple should be the only hardware manufacturer who\u0026rsquo;s allowed to write software.\n","date":"March 1, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17452/","section":"Posts","summary":"After trying apps by Sony and Garmin I think that Apple should be the only hardware manufacturer who’s allowed to write software.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"“Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.”\n—Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam, Dune\n","date":"March 1, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17450/","section":"Posts","summary":"“Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The most vocal people in progressive/critical technology don\u0026rsquo;t have kids (for various reasons) and as such also have zero empathy for the real problems people deal with.\nNot everybody has infinite time to deal with broken government institutions or solder all their stuff together from scratch or waste countless hours debugging some free software device.\nOr maybe even worse: Lots of men in tech have kids and a stay at home wife who frees them up to engage in every kind of side-project and hobby.\n","date":"March 1, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17448/","section":"Posts","summary":"The most vocal people in progressive/critical technology don’t have kids (for various reasons) and as such also have zero empathy for the real problems people deal with.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Customer service loops where you are denied access to a human (this includes any kind of AI) should be illegal.\n","date":"March 1, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17446/","section":"Posts","summary":"Customer service loops where you are denied access to a human (this includes any kind of AI) should be illegal.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Spotify should be very heavily fined for funding and spreading misinformation like the stuff on the Joe Rogan podcast.\nhttps://twitter.com/thebadstats/status/1757621932298756446\n","date":"March 1, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17444/","section":"Posts","summary":"Spotify should be very heavily fined for funding and spreading misinformation like the stuff on the Joe Rogan podcast.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"As somebody who dove pretty deep into how to run a creative agency in a way that\u0026rsquo;s innovative and goes against the grain, I really like what Village One here in Berlin are doing with their cooperative approach.\nI\u0026rsquo;ll be following them closely and I hope they survive on their terms.\nhttps://www.village.one/garden/library/what-is-a-cooperative\n","date":"February 28, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17438/","section":"Posts","summary":"As somebody who dove pretty deep into how to run a creative agency in a way that’s innovative and goes against the grain, I really like what Village One here in Berlin are doing with their cooperative approach.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"This piece about moving away from CDK is a bit overly dramatic and comes down to \u0026ldquo;CloudFormation sucks\u0026rdquo; which is something that anybody who\u0026rsquo;s worked with it can testify to.\nThat said if you\u0026rsquo;re committed to AWS as your cloud provider, CDK is an amazing piece of technology that bridges the worlds of infrastructure operations and programming.\nIf the concept of bridged terraform providers for pulumi is something that proves itself, that of course would be great, but I\u0026rsquo;d say it\u0026rsquo;s still pretty uncertain.\nhttps://sst.dev/blog/moving-away-from-cdk.html\n","date":"February 28, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17435/","section":"Posts","summary":"This piece about moving away from CDK is a bit overly dramatic and comes down to “CloudFormation sucks” which is something that anybody who’s worked with it can testify to.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Simon Willison is one of the best engineering communicators out there and this podcast with him about LLMs and AI is one of the most insightful episodes I\u0026rsquo;ve heard on the topic.\nhttps://simonwillison.net/2024/Jan/17/oxide-and-friends/\n","date":"February 28, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17433/","section":"Posts","summary":"Simon Willison is one of the best engineering communicators out there and this podcast with him about LLMs and AI is one of the most insightful episodes I’ve heard on the topic.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Extremely odd to see a nuanced take on the German political climate by a sociologist on national television. Nils C. Kumkar does a really good job here:\nhttps://www.tagesschau.de/multimedia/video/video-1298516.html\n","date":"February 17, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17429/","section":"Posts","summary":"Extremely odd to see a nuanced take on the German political climate by a sociologist on national television. Nils C. Kumkar does a really good job here:\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Grappig om te zien dat De Correspondent een serie maakt over de wooncrisis in Nederland:\nhttps://decorrespondent.nl/14143/waarom-ik-geen-huis-wil-kopen/b196ee1f-4ff7-00f6-1463-37df41d85bb5\nhttps://decorrespondent.nl/14572/het-kan-de-bouw-van-betaalbare-woningen-overlaten-aan-beleggers/fd05f4ad-ee26-07be-3b42-1576e194f55d\nhttps://decorrespondent.nl/14844/wonen-is-een-publieke-taak-nu-nog-beleid-waar-je-dat-in-terugziet/073e6ebb-bbe3-0615-1ab0-e485bb65a016\nhttps://decorrespondent.nl/14996/niet-minder-asielzoekers-maar-meer-betaalbare-huizen-is-de-oplossing-voor-de-woningnood/11729058-1943-0564-307b-9b18240a1482\nHet is ook typisch De Correspondent om een series historische analyses en stukjes over alternative woon-/bouw-projecten neer te zetten. Allemaal dingen waar je je als lezer over goed kunt voelen zonder dat je iets aan het probleem moet doen.\nZe hadden wel een keer een artikel over de LVT maar de samenhang komt niet echt naar voren.\nLaten we wel zijn:\nDe belangrijkste reden waarom bouwen in Nederland zo duur is is de schaarste van land. Land is schaars in Nederland omdat de meeste woningen die verkocht worden in meer of mindere mate verkwistend met land omgaan. Beleid wat dat oplost zou erop neer komen dat mensen die land verspillen daar flink voor moeten betalen of moeten verdichten. Een significante groep mensen in Nederland hebben baat bij de huidige situatie en zitten op land en woningen waar ze aan verdienen (ten koste van alle andere mensen). De Correspondent-lezers en hun ouders horen overweldigend bij de groep mensen die baat heeft bij het huidige beleid. Dat zorgt ervoor dat wat je bij De Correspondent leest lijkt op journalistiek en diepgravende analyse maar eigenlijk gewoon entertainment is.\n","date":"February 17, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/de-correspondent-over-de-wooncrisis/","section":"Posts","summary":"Grappig om te zien dat De Correspondent een serie maakt over de wooncrisis in Nederland:\n","title":"De Correspondent over de Wooncrisis","type":"posts"},{"content":"I don\u0026rsquo;t really buy this idea that Japan\u0026rsquo;s urban environment has been the key factor to create its immense specialization in crafts. Compare it to Berlin where rents have been incredibly cheap and zoning mixed but without the necessary human capital the only thing those factors generated were cheap bars.\nhttps://resnikoff.substack.com/p/why-osaka-gets-to-have-nice-things\n","date":"January 17, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17418/","section":"Posts","summary":"I don’t really buy this idea that Japan’s urban environment has been the key factor to create its immense specialization in crafts. Compare it to Berlin where rents have been incredibly cheap and zoning mixed but without the necessary human capital the only thing those factors generated were cheap bars.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A good but not definitive guide of how to think about where to apply yourself in your career and how to be useful.\nhttps://berthub.eu/articles/posts/on-being-useful/\n","date":"January 17, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17416/","section":"Posts","summary":"A good but not definitive guide of how to think about where to apply yourself in your career and how to be useful.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"From this massive list of science-fiction books by Noah Smith I\u0026rsquo;ve read and liked half or so which means that I probably should read the other half.\nhttps://www.noahpinion.blog/p/my-sci-fi-novel-recommendations-888/\n","date":"January 17, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17412/","section":"Posts","summary":"From this massive list of science-fiction books by Noah Smith I’ve read and liked half or so which means that I probably should read the other half.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I refer to this piece of writing regularly:\nhttps://srconstantin.wordpress.com/2017/12/11/preventing-respiratory-tract-infections/\nIt\u0026rsquo;s a review of the scientific literature to see what actually works against respiratory tract infections to either prevent them or to get better more quickly.\n","date":"January 8, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/literature-review-of-measures-against-the-common-cold/","section":"Posts","summary":"I refer to this piece of writing regularly:\n","title":"Literature review of measures against the common cold","type":"posts"},{"content":"But the nuclear exit decision was taken a generation ago and other than political troublemaking, nothing is served by wailing over spilled milk.\nhttps://adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-259-germanys-co2-emissions?r=3xsrv\u0026amp;utm_medium=email\n","date":"January 7, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17407/","section":"Posts","summary":"But the nuclear exit decision was taken a generation ago and other than political troublemaking, nothing is served by wailing over spilled milk.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"It\u0026rsquo;s much healthier for Germany if digital issues have an answer that goes beyond \u0026ldquo;Let\u0026rsquo;s see what the CCC has to say!\u0026rdquo; The CCC is a shady organization which is good at taking things apart but does not have that much constructive to offer.\nA broader social discussion would reveal that security and privacy are not the only two dimensions on which digital solutions can or should be measured.\nhttps://www.golem.de/news/37c3-der-hackerkongress-fast-unter-ausschluss-der-oeffentlichkeit-2401-180837.html\n","date":"January 5, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17389/","section":"Posts","summary":"It’s much healthier for Germany if digital issues have an answer that goes beyond “Let’s see what the CCC has to say!” The CCC is a shady organization which is good at taking things apart but does not have that much constructive to offer.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Looking back on 2023 I can say that we made lemonade out of an overall pretty shit year.\nBut not to worry. This is probably just one shit year in a sequence of many more shit years to come. No sign of anything getting better in our near future and lots of trends pointing downward. Does it have to be like this? Not in any way but the majority of people are stupid and we all suffer together.\nACL\nI had messed up my knee in late summer of 2022 during a climbing accident and after a bit of stalling figured out that having my ACL reconstructed would be a good idea.\nThe surgery was scheduled for February 23rd of 2023. That made a lot of the beginning of the year waiting to go into surgery which was followed by getting the surgery (a supremely weird experience), then recuperating from it at home for a couple of weeks and going back to work while doing physical therapy.\nThe chronology as far as I could piece it together:\nFeb 23rd, surgery Feb 25th, dismissed from the Charité Feb 27th, first outing March 9th, half weight bearing March 12th, 90 degree flexion April 10th, walking without crutches April 15th, cycled on the Christiania to get coffee June 16th, hospital check-up and cleared for cycling June 18th, first time road cycling I got around mostly using ride shares during the first part which was fine. Turns out that I spent €474,55 on cab rides. A fair bit of that was thankfully reimbursed by my saved up mobility budget. I stopped taking cabs and started cycling on the electric Christiania on April 15th and then had my first outing on the road bike on June 18th.\nDuring one of my final check-ups I told my physician at the hospital that if I didn’t rationally knew I had knee surgery, a lot of the time I couldn\u0026rsquo;t remember it. There was no noticeable difference anymore.\nOf course there are still lots of situations where I notice it. The difference in strength between the two legs is still there and catching up very slowly. But that things are more or less back to normal is exactly what was promised.\nI\u0026rsquo;m cleared to boulder again from around Easter if I choose to ever practice that sport again.\nKids\nSchool\nThe kids started their school year with the German event they call the Einschülung, something that I disagree but I have no shortage of things that I disagree with about the German school ‘system’. That\u0026rsquo;s for another blog post.\nThe concept of the school and how classes are setup is very cool and the teachers are young and engaged. If everything worked the way it should, things would be amazing. The only issue is that most of the time there are staff shortages that fully destabilize whatever plans or schedules had been drafted. Those shortages stem from the deep dysfunction of the Berlin civil service and mostly because of a lack of funding for the schools that need it the most.\nI’m not sure what we’re going to do there but for now we’re going to see if things look up in the second half of the year.\nLet it be clear that Germany is a country that in no way values kids and their education.\nFather\nRelated to our kids going to school, on their first school day morning my dad passed away suddenly in Amsterdam. We knew he was sick but we had no idea that things would progress this quickly.\nThe funeral was of course in Turkey so I took a flight to Amsterdam to be with my family and see him off and then flew to Turkey with my mother to do the burial in our village. It was the first time I was back in Turkey since 2015.\nThat was a difficult thing to do and after that everything is different.\nHolidays\nI heard the news about my dad’s illness on our holiday in the Alps this year. Our first family holiday in a long time and otherwise a resounding success.\nAfter all the affairs were wrapped up we went to Amsterdam for a week during the fall break to keep my mother company and to have the kids experience a bit of the Netherlands again. It was good to be back and to see people we hadn’t seen in a long time.\nStudies\nI’ve continued the trend of unapologetically self-studying things that I fancy. I can recommend it.\nAbstract Algebra\nTo continue to study category theory I diagnosed a gap I had on basic abstract algebra and tried to close it. I didn’t finish either of the textbooks (Fraleigh and Galian) because it seems that text books are bad for self-studying people.\nI worked through a couple of YouTube lecture series on the topic which gave me much more value.\nSheaf Theory\nThen I continued on and off in Sheaf Theory Through Examples which is a very mixed book. It’s nowhere near as good as Fong and Spivak’s book and now nearing the end it is getting very obtuse and inaccessible. I\u0026rsquo;ll finish this and then move on to Bartosz Milewski.\nJapanese\nI kept studying Japanese for most of the year and on a whim I registered for the December JLPT. During registration I had a choice where I could either go for the safe but relatively irrelevant N5 level or stretch myself and go for N4.\nI picked N4 and that turned out to be a lot tougher than expected. I had to push very hard on both vocabulary and grammar to get to a point where I even felt it was worth going to Düsseldorf to take the test. The 1-2 months before the test I was cramming flash cards throughout the day and studying most evenings.\nThe test itself in Düsseldorf was even harder than I expected and I think that it’s unlikely that I passed it, but who knows… Results are due end of January.\nEven if I don’t get the certificate, stretching myself to N4 has made me study much much harder than I would ever have otherwise and I’ve advanced quite a bit. Also I got a quick trip to Düsseldorf out of it where I could eat Asian food at a level and authenticity that’s impossible to get in Berlin.\nCultural\nWith everything else that was going on, I didn’t have anything significant happen here. No time, no energy, no relevance.\nI don’t really know how other people manage to binge dozens of crappy Netflix shows. I can’t really imagine spending entire evenings watching television. Do people do this still?\nThere are lots of good shows still that I would like to watch (The Last of Us, The Bear, Succession, etc.) but there’s just no time.\nBooks\nI only read 15 books this year with Galian, Genki and the sheaf theory book—none of which are listed below—sucking up most of my reading time.\nCold Enough for Snow was a nice book and it also happened to be the only piece of fiction I read this year. The rest of the books above are all highly situational and none of them are particularly interesting or made a lasting impact.\nVideo\nI watched six movies this year. The only notable one was Heat which I first saw as a teenager in the City cinema in Amsterdam.\nWhen it comes to television things look slightly better:\nThe Sandman: We did not finish it but enjoyed the episodes that we watched. Spy x Family S1: Exactly the light-hearted fun anime that I needed to watch. Nothing serious here but a fun conceit well executed. Tour de France Unchained: An epic dramatization of the world’s biggest cycling event that is a must watch if you’re even slightly interested in the sport. The Witcher S3: Nothing of note happened in this season but it was still kinda fun to watch I guess. Attack of Titan S4P2: It was good to watch the ending of this epic series but after such a long wait it was kinda hard to pick up the relatively complex storyline. Death Note: An anime classic that I started which is well executed but tough as nails and not at all compelling. Jujutsu Kaisen S2: The long awaited Hidden Inventory and Shibuya Incident arcs turned into a treat to watch despite the continuously escalating power levels and its sprawling cast of characters and villains. Games\nDuring my recovery from surgery I started and finished Breath of the Wild. The irony of having had a climbing accident and making Link free-climb epic cliffs on Hyrule was not lost on me.\nThat was the year. Let’s see what the new one does.\n","date":"January 1, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/2023-year-in-review/","section":"Posts","summary":"Looking back on 2023 I can say that we made lemonade out of an overall pretty shit year.\n","title":"2023 Year in Review","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"January 1, 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/climbing/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Climbing","type":"categories"},{"content":"On popular request, here finally the write-up of my Obsidian setup. It\u0026rsquo;s somewhat elaborate but I\u0026rsquo;ve tried to keep it as simple as possible.\nAt its core most of my Obsidian time is spent in the Daily Note which is also where most of my actual work happens. I tried to get to a similar setup in my previous note taking tool Foam (see my PR) but there were too many limitations for it to work well.\nThe Github Gist of the entire setup is here: https://gist.github.com/alper/2bbf8f3cb60466b55026deb47f8e15e6\nThe main way I use this is I create a new Daily Note for a day and this template seeds that note with all the scaffolding and information I need to be successful that day. It automates and structures what would otherwise be a relatively miserable sequence of manual steps and copy-paste-ing.\nThe plugins that I use for this are:\nCalendar Tasks Templater Let\u0026rsquo;s go through the template file from the top:\n# {{date:dddd, MMMM Do, YYYY}} This sets the title of the note to the date that we are creating the note for. Nothing very special here but note that with Calendar we can create a daily note for any date (it doesn\u0026rsquo;t have to be today) and that date is passed in as a parameter to the template.\nTasks # Then comes the tasks section:\n### Due Today ```tasks [^1] AND NOT done ``` ### Scheduled Today ```tasks [^2] AND NOT done ``` ### Done Today ```tasks done on \u0026lt;% tp.file.title %\u0026gt; ``` This is a triple that lists all my tasks that are due on that day (or were before), all my tasks that are scheduled for that day (or were before) and if I finish anything, it will list those tasks under the third section as my work log.\nThe hack here is that the ISO date is passed in to the templates as ` file.title and can then be used to query Tasks. It took me a bit to get this to escape right and figure out how to write the complex boolean condition.\nI moved away from Things when I discovered the Obsidian Tasks plugin. Tasks allows me to close over all the tasks that are in my notes and is incredibly flexible and powerful. Being able to do arbitrary queries on tasks in any markdown file in my workspace is nothing short of amazing. I\u0026rsquo;m still waiting for Notion and other tools to offer something similar.\nI always felt the split between taking notes and capturing tasks was incredibly broken and created lots of unnecessary friction. For instance this nonsense with bear:// protocol links in Things that is delusionally claiming that “Bear \u0026amp; Things 3 Work Really Well Together”. These two things should be in the same environment.\nCalendar # Then the second part is a section that creates a scaffold with all the appointments I have for that day formatted as markdown stubs.\nIt works using this relatively obscure and somewhat finicky tool ical-buddy. In the template I call a Templater user function days_events:\n\u0026lt;% tp.user.days_events({CURRENT_DATE: tp.file.title}) %\u0026gt; which inserts the result of the following command in-place:\nicalBuddy -ec \u0026#34;FE0B6DAB-E598-4DE1-9F2B-7DE06A236647,4242177B-7D2B-4A20-AE23-A99DD51D5B80\u0026#34; -eep \u0026#39;*\u0026#39; eventsFrom:$CURRENT_DATE to:$CURRENT_DATE | sd \u0026#39;•\u0026#39; \u0026#39;##\u0026#39; | sd \u0026#39;\\(alper@example.com\\)\u0026#39; \u0026#39;\u0026#39; | sd \u0026#39;\\n\u0026#39; \u0026#39;\\n\\n* \\n\\n\u0026#39; This call to icalBuddy excludes a bunch of calendars I\u0026rsquo;m not interested in, queries the calendar for events within the specified day and then does a bunch of replace actions that turn it into markdown.\nI don\u0026rsquo;t use Calendar.app (preferring Cron at the moment) but I have my Google Calendar setup in macOS System Settings and leave Calendar open for it to always have up to date data.\nResult # Putting everything together, when I double-click on a day, I get a document that looks a bit like this:\nThe fact that it\u0026rsquo;s fully automated and that with a single action I can get a relatively complete informational dashboard for what I should be doing that day has been an immense load off. It allows me to hit the ground running and immediately start sifting tasks, go through my meetings and create a plan for the day.\nWhen I know a day is coming up that\u0026rsquo;s going to be particularly intense, I create the daily note for it ahead of time and start lining up information and talking points for each appointment in the scaffold. Reducing the effort it takes to start that prep and storing it in a standardised format makes it much more likely that I\u0026rsquo;ll do it and use it. With that preparation ready-to-go in Obsidian it takes out all the stress and I can run my day in a pure flow state.\n","date":"December 28, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/my-obsidian-home/","section":"Posts","summary":"On popular request, here finally the write-up of my Obsidian setup. It’s somewhat elaborate but I’ve tried to keep it as simple as possible.\n","title":"My Obsidian Daily Productivity System","type":"posts"},{"content":"Late to the party but I very much love this interview with Karri Saarinen, the co-founder of Linear. Their way of working, \u0026ldquo;The Linear Method\u0026rdquo;, will be waved away by companies (\u0026ldquo;we can\u0026rsquo;t do that because…\u0026rdquo;) but with leadership with the right mentality and experience I don\u0026rsquo;t think it\u0026rsquo;s that far off at all. Ask your leadership how you can work like this.\nAlso I already know I\u0026rsquo;m going to use the term \u0026ldquo;side quest\u0026rdquo; a lot.\nWe don\u0026rsquo;t use Linear but we recently moved all our stuff from Jira to Github Projects which—even though it is mostly abandoned—is Linear-enough.\nMost importantly, it is right on top of our codebase which is where I believe all engineering work should happen anyway.\n","date":"December 26, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17359/","section":"Posts","summary":"Late to the party but I very much love this interview with Karri Saarinen, the co-founder of Linear. Their way of working, “The Linear Method”, will be waved away by companies (“we can’t do that because…”) but with leadership with the right mentality and experience I don’t think it’s that far off at all. Ask your leadership how you can work like this.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The last episode of Spaßbremse treats the history of German-Israeli relations and clarifies what the strategic foundations of the current complex are: white-washing and moral standing for one side and economic reparations and industrial capacity building for the other.\nThe thinly veiled racism and colonialism is just the rotten cherry on top.\nhttps://podtail.com/de/podcast/spassbremse/52-whitewashing-and-statebuilding-german-israeli-r/\n","date":"December 26, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17357/","section":"Posts","summary":"The last episode of Spaßbremse treats the history of German-Israeli relations and clarifies what the strategic foundations of the current complex are: white-washing and moral standing for one side and economic reparations and industrial capacity building for the other.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"This article is a wild premise, a wild ride and a wild conclusion (also I\u0026rsquo;m increasingly warming to the idea of htmx).\n\u0026ldquo;Every cloud-pilled, react-vue-braindead, click-to-deploy developer actually thinks web views require 7 minutes to “compile for production,”then when live require 5-15 second “skeleton loaders”on entry is just a fact of life nobody can question or ever improve on modern 5 GHz machines with 5 Gbps network connections. Developers, at the median, have been getting less capable and more focused on made up silo/cult/trendy dead-end fads for 10 years and the entire world suffers daily.\u0026rdquo;\nhttps://matt.sh/htmx-is-a-erlang\n","date":"December 14, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17353/","section":"Posts","summary":"This article is a wild premise, a wild ride and a wild conclusion (also I’m increasingly warming to the idea of htmx).\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Dropbox, a famously private file storage service, has shared files from people with OpenAI. I\u0026rsquo;d normally say this was a dumb move, but this is far far beyond just dumb.\nhttps://www.cnbc.com/2023/12/13/how-to-stop-dropbox-from-sharing-your-personal-files-with-openai.html\n","date":"December 14, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17351/","section":"Posts","summary":"Dropbox, a famously private file storage service, has shared files from people with OpenAI. I’d normally say this was a dumb move, but this is far far beyond just dumb.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A strong analysis of the AI concept by Emily Bender who proposes we just call it “automation”instead. Which is fair because if you use these systems, it becomes incredibly obvious how they work and what their limitations are.\n","date":"December 11, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17349/","section":"Posts","summary":"A strong analysis of the AI concept by Emily Bender who proposes we just call it “automation”instead. Which is fair because if you use these systems, it becomes incredibly obvious how they work and what their limitations are.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Notion has formulas now (!) and here\u0026rsquo;s a formula to calculate a Cost of Delay column based on two other columns:\nif(Value==\u0026quot;Killer\u0026quot; \u0026amp;\u0026amp; Urgency==\u0026quot;ASAP\u0026quot;, \u0026quot;1 Very High\u0026quot;, if(Value==\u0026quot;Killer\u0026quot; \u0026amp;\u0026amp; Urgency==\u0026quot;Soon\u0026quot; || Value==\u0026quot;Bonus\u0026quot; \u0026amp;\u0026amp; Urgency == \u0026quot;ASAP\u0026quot;, \u0026quot;2 High\u0026quot;, if(Value==\u0026quot;Killer\u0026quot;\u0026amp;\u0026amp;Urgency==\u0026quot;Whenever\u0026quot;||Value==\u0026quot;Bonus\u0026quot;\u0026amp;\u0026amp;Urgency==\u0026quot;Soon\u0026quot;||Value==\u0026quot;Meh\u0026quot;\u0026amp;\u0026amp;Urgency==\u0026quot;ASAP\u0026quot;, \u0026quot;3 Medium\u0026quot;, if(Value==\u0026quot;Bonus\u0026quot;\u0026amp;\u0026amp;Urgency==\u0026quot;Whenever\u0026quot;||Value==\u0026quot;Meh\u0026quot;\u0026amp;\u0026amp;Urgency==\u0026quot;Soon\u0026quot;, \u0026quot;4 Low\u0026quot;, \u0026quot;5 Very Low\u0026quot;))))\n","date":"December 11, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17346/","section":"Posts","summary":"Notion has formulas now (!) and here’s a formula to calculate a Cost of Delay column based on two other columns:\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Geertz’s theory of involution holds that a greater input (an increase in labor) does not yield proportional output (more crops and innovation). Instead, a society involutes. The Chinese term for involution, neijuan, which is made up of the characters for “inside”and “rolling,”suggests a process that curls inward, ensnaring its participants within what the anthropologist Xiang Biao has described as an “ endless cycle of self-flagellation.”Involution is “the experience of being locked in competition that one ultimately knows is meaningless,”Biao told me.\nhttps://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/chinas-involuted-generation\n","date":"December 11, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17345/","section":"Posts","summary":"Geertz’s theory of involution holds that a greater input (an increase in labor) does not yield proportional output (more crops and innovation). Instead, a society involutes. The Chinese term for involution, neijuan, which is made up of the characters for “inside”and “rolling,”suggests a process that curls inward, ensnaring its participants within what the anthropologist Xiang Biao has described as an “ endless cycle of self-flagellation.”Involution is “the experience of being locked in competition that one ultimately knows is meaningless,”Biao told me.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Suppose you\u0026rsquo;re a well-known journalists hosting a weekly rather left podcast around topics such as migration, the climate and criticism of right-wing frames in the media. And then suppose you let yourself get baited majorly by an American alt-right activist.\nThis particular video was going around on German twitter and all the usual suspects were letting themselves get baited by it including above mentioned Friedemann. I wrote about their podcast previously and I couldn\u0026rsquo;t resist so I confronted him on it.\nSo I got blocked.\nI mean \u0026ldquo;obsessive\u0026rdquo;, sure. Being a major league hypocrite is one of the best ways to bait me.\nI did listen to this podcast very regularly but after October 7th it\u0026rsquo;s become so absurdly pro-Israel that it invalidates their entire previous position. The only situation where I\u0026rsquo;ve seen people parrot a line so hardcore like that was Dutch men with Russian wives after Putin had just invaded the Crimean Peninsula (“You have to understand Putin has a point.”).\n","date":"December 9, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/a-small-online-drama-in-three-parts/","section":"Posts","summary":"Suppose you’re a well-known journalists hosting a weekly rather left podcast around topics such as migration, the climate and criticism of right-wing frames in the media. And then suppose you let yourself get baited majorly by an American alt-right activist.\n","title":"A small online drama in three parts","type":"posts"},{"content":"Listening to the Trash Future team describe CulturePulse.ai and the digital twin profile created for entire populations seems very very reminiscent of “The Red Men” by Matthew de Abaitua which didn\u0026rsquo;t get the attention it deserved but was quite prescient.\nhttps://trashfuturepodcast.podbean.com/e/waltz-with-the-sims/ (minute 23 and on)\nElements from the book such as the corporation known as “Monad”(!) and robotic public service utilities called “Dr. Easy”are looking back from our current hellscape period a bit too on the nose.\nSee Dr. Easy act in this short film: https://vimeo.com/68368877\n","date":"December 2, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17338/","section":"Posts","summary":"Listening to the Trash Future team describe CulturePulse.ai and the digital twin profile created for entire populations seems very very reminiscent of “The Red Men” by Matthew de Abaitua which didn’t get the attention it deserved but was quite prescient.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"\u0026ldquo;Squashing destroys this information. I\u0026rsquo;ll take a merge with 1000 +50/-50 commits over 1 squash every. single. day.\u0026rdquo;\nI\u0026rsquo;ve been hammering on this fact as well that it\u0026rsquo;s silly to use git and then throw away so much information that you could use later. But then again most people don\u0026rsquo;t know git bisect exists.\n","date":"December 1, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17336/","section":"Posts","summary":"“Squashing destroys this information. I’ll take a merge with 1000 +50/-50 commits over 1 squash every. single. day.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Just some more German insanity from the anti-Deutsch group that I have to archive here for when it may come in handy later.\nhttps://twitter.com/buffsoldier_96/status/1726387371132740037\n","date":"November 24, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17332/","section":"Posts","summary":"Just some more German insanity from the anti-Deutsch group that I have to archive here for when it may come in handy later.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Given the current developments around the German debt brake, I think it\u0026rsquo;s good to refer to this bit about German financial politics and Adam Tooze\u0026rsquo;s initial prediction (FT, Zeit) that Christian Lindner as finance minister would not be good.\nFragment from around 45:00 clipped below:\nYour browser does not support the audio element. \u0026ldquo;We got quite a lot of shit for doing that actually. Not entirely popular with my German colleagues. ‘Nicht zum Volkskörper zugehörig’ is a phrase that was used. ‘Wie trauen sie sich ein solches Urteil zu.’ Not belonging to the body politic of Germany. How dare you make a judgement like that. We don\u0026rsquo;t have any reason to regret it. We were clearly right.\nhttps://pca.st/78n4b82o#t=2755.0\n","date":"November 24, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/fragment-ones-and-tooze-live-from-berlin-lindner/","section":"Posts","summary":"Given the current developments around the German debt brake, I think it’s good to refer to this bit about German financial politics and Adam Tooze’s initial prediction (FT, Zeit) that Christian Lindner as finance minister would not be good.\n","title":"Fragment Ones and Tooze: Live from Berlin - Lindner","type":"posts"},{"content":"I don\u0026rsquo;t think about the Roman Empire that much, but when I do it\u0026rsquo;s great to have it be because of Mary Beard who in this podcast (from the 18:48) talks about Zuckerberg\u0026rsquo;s fascination with August and how leadership then and now has not changed that much.\nhttps://pca.st/6q8p6uok#t=1128.0\n","date":"November 21, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17323/","section":"Posts","summary":"I don’t think about the Roman Empire that much, but when I do it’s great to have it be because of Mary Beard who in this podcast (from the 18:48) talks about Zuckerberg’s fascination with August and how leadership then and now has not changed that much.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Last week I was making a presentation and I came across Deming and his principles. I have often gotten the question: \u0026ldquo;If you don\u0026rsquo;t measure X, then how will you know we\u0026rsquo;re doing well or improving?\u0026rdquo; which I always felt was misguided.\nIt turns out that Deming was way ahead of me there, he says: \u0026ldquo;Eliminate management by objective. Eliminate management by numbers, numerical goals. Substitute leadership.\u0026rdquo;\nLeadership is always the key.\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming#Key_principles\n","date":"November 21, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17321/","section":"Posts","summary":"Last week I was making a presentation and I came across Deming and his principles. I have often gotten the question: “If you don’t measure X, then how will you know we’re doing well or improving?” which I always felt was misguided.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"After reading this I get to appreciate a lot more how big of a problem Python packaging is (mostly because Python is so big and diverse) and what kind of a miracle it is that these systems work and keep working at all.\nhttps://labs.quansight.org/blog/building-scipy-with-flang\n","date":"November 20, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17319/","section":"Posts","summary":"After reading this I get to appreciate a lot more how big of a problem Python packaging is (mostly because Python is so big and diverse) and what kind of a miracle it is that these systems work and keep working at all.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"An unexpected deep dive on the problem of unaffordable and underutilized land as it relates to Berlin. It manages to even sneak in some mentions of land reform and land value taxes (which would solve this problem pretty much instantaneously).\nhttps://interaktiv.tagesspiegel.de/lab/ausgebaut-berlins-explodierende-bodenpreise-machen-wohnungsbau-unbezahlbar/\n","date":"November 20, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17317/","section":"Posts","summary":"An unexpected deep dive on the problem of unaffordable and underutilized land as it relates to Berlin. It manages to even sneak in some mentions of land reform and land value taxes (which would solve this problem pretty much instantaneously).\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"John Ganz on nationalism and reducing humans to insects.\nA warm, comfortable death for you, and a violent, cold, and terrible death for the other guy. It choses being subsumed in a mass to avoid the terrible difficulty of remaining human that rises to the fore in tragic moments like this one. When I die, I hope it will be here in New York, the promised land, surrounded by my brothers: all the different peoples of the world.\nAbove all, I refuse to become an insect or look on others as insects.\n","date":"November 20, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17315/","section":"Posts","summary":"John Ganz on nationalism and reducing humans to insects.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Finding time for side projects and putting out new versions of Cuppings is difficult as always, but I\u0026rsquo;m glad we have a new version out this week again.\nThe list of things still to do is long as ever but for now enjoy the newest most up to date version of your favourite coffee drinking guide.\nhttps://apps.apple.com/de/app/cuppings/id652901707?l=en-GB\n","date":"November 18, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17312/","section":"Posts","summary":"Finding time for side projects and putting out new versions of Cuppings is difficult as always, but I’m glad we have a new version out this week again.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Old people screwing over future generations until we all die of climate change. A still life.\nhttps://www.economist.com/europe/2023/11/15/german-judges-toss-a-spanner-into-the-governments-spending-plans\n","date":"November 16, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17310/","section":"Posts","summary":"Old people screwing over future generations until we all die of climate change. A still life.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"SOMETIME IN THE 2000S, a group of mostly Turkish women from an immigrant group called Neighborhood Mothers began meeting in the Neukölln district of Berlin to learn about the Holocaust. Their history lessons were part of a program facilitated by members of the Action Reconciliation Service for Peace, a Christian organization dedicated to German atonement for the Shoah. The Neighborhood Mothers were terrified by what they learned in these sessions. “How could a society turn so fanatical?”a group member named Nazmiye later recalled thinking. “We began to ask ourselves if they could do such a thing to us as well . . . whether we would find ourselves in the same position as the Jews.”But when they expressed this fear on a church visit organized by the program, their German hosts became apoplectic. “They told us to go back to our countries if this is how we think,”Nazmiye said. The session was abruptly ended and the women were asked to leave.\nBad Memory\nThis is a core fear of migrants in Germany and Europe and it\u0026rsquo;s not at all unjustified.\n","date":"November 7, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17308/","section":"Posts","summary":"SOMETIME IN THE 2000S, a group of mostly Turkish women from an immigrant group called Neighborhood Mothers began meeting in the Neukölln district of Berlin to learn about the Holocaust. Their history lessons were part of a program facilitated by members of the Action Reconciliation Service for Peace, a Christian organization dedicated to German atonement for the Shoah. The Neighborhood Mothers were terrified by what they learned in these sessions. “How could a society turn so fanatical?”a group member named Nazmiye later recalled thinking. “We began to ask ourselves if they could do such a thing to us as well . . . whether we would find ourselves in the same position as the Jews.”But when they expressed this fear on a church visit organized by the program, their German hosts became apoplectic. “They told us to go back to our countries if this is how we think,”Nazmiye said. The session was abruptly ended and the women were asked to leave.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I can stop thinking about the Roman Empire, but this piece that draws an analogy between the Fall of the Romans and the End of Twitter is long overdue to be shared and still really good.\nOver at twitter this dance was happening but with weirdo right wingers. They were always mad because no one likes them because they are hateful, stupid, and have absolutely no rizz. Because they only know other weirdo right wingers IRL, however, they were convinced that there was some sort of nefarious plot to dunk on them online and they wanted to know when Twitter would acknowledge them, the biggest victims known to man. At the head of this was, of course, your man there Elon who is mad that he isn’t funny. He became convinced that there was an army of bots or something making fun of him and he demanded to know why twitter was letting people be mean to him. “You say that you want weirdo right wingers to be on this site and yet! You allow people to be very mildly mean to them!!!!! Even when they are the richest man on the planet! So much for free speech, etc.”Anyway, he accidentally got forced to buy twitter for too much money because he is quite stupid, and now here we are.\nhttps://going-medieval.com/2023/07/26/on-successor-states-and-websites/\n","date":"November 6, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17306/","section":"Posts","summary":"I can stop thinking about the Roman Empire, but this piece that draws an analogy between the Fall of the Romans and the End of Twitter is long overdue to be shared and still really good.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"As much as it pains me, I\u0026rsquo;m teaching myself Helix and trying out the Jetbrains IDEs. Code has been the first editor that really clicked for me but as with all free things, there\u0026rsquo;s a hidden price to pay for it.\n(Also the quality of VS Code seems to be going downhill. At some point if they keep developing software past completion, the software becomes crap.)\nhttps://ghuntley.com/fracture/\n","date":"November 6, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17302/","section":"Posts","summary":"As much as it pains me, I’m teaching myself Helix and trying out the Jetbrains IDEs. Code has been the first editor that really clicked for me but as with all free things, there’s a hidden price to pay for it.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Lots of people (including me) were saying that more or less all of crypto was a scam but it was too convenient to ignore us for the people who were making bank stealing other people\u0026rsquo;s money.\nSo don\u0026rsquo;t give me this:\nhttps://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-67302950\nTo be clear about the next thing: AI existential risk is also a scam.\n","date":"November 5, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17296/","section":"Posts","summary":"Lots of people (including me) were saying that more or less all of crypto was a scam but it was too convenient to ignore us for the people who were making bank stealing other people’s money.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"In 2020 on the World Bank’s Human Capital Index — which measures countries’ education and health outcomes on a scale of 0 to 1 — India achieved a score of 0.49, below Nepal and Kenya, both poorer countries. China scored 0.65, putting it on par with Chile and Slovakia, which have higher GDP per capita. Most dramatically disadvantaged are India’s women. Since 1990, Indian women’s labour market participation has fallen from 32 per cent to about 25 per cent. And behind them come hundreds of millions of underskilled youngsters. In 2019 less than half of India’s 10-year-olds could read a simple story, compared with more than 80 per cent of Chinese children and 96 per cent of Americans. In the coming decade, 200mn of these poorly educated young people will reach working age. A large share of them will probably end up eking out a living in the informal sector and getting by on handouts. Unemployment amongst the under-25s already runs at more than 45 per cent.\nLooking to the future, what sceptics of Modi’s boosterism ask is whether India might become the forerunner of a rather gloomy new model for populous, lower-income countries, managed, without a powerfully effective governmental apparatus, or globally competitive manufacturing sectors, by digitally enhanced populism, delivering cash payments to the cell phones of hundreds of millions of dependent people.\nChartbook brutal on India.\n","date":"October 29, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17294/","section":"Posts","summary":"In 2020 on the World Bank’s Human Capital Index — which measures countries’ education and health outcomes on a scale of 0 to 1 — India achieved a score of 0.49, below Nepal and Kenya, both poorer countries. China scored 0.65, putting it on par with Chile and Slovakia, which have higher GDP per capita. Most dramatically disadvantaged are India’s women. Since 1990, Indian women’s labour market participation has fallen from 32 per cent to about 25 per cent. And behind them come hundreds of millions of underskilled youngsters. In 2019 less than half of India’s 10-year-olds could read a simple story, compared with more than 80 per cent of Chinese children and 96 per cent of Americans. In the coming decade, 200mn of these poorly educated young people will reach working age. A large share of them will probably end up eking out a living in the informal sector and getting by on handouts. Unemployment amongst the under-25s already runs at more than 45 per cent.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"After trying so many note taking apps coming in back from nvAlt and friends, it\u0026rsquo;s fine to have found one that sticks with Obsidian. I have a relatively tricked out Obsidian setup (which I\u0026rsquo;ll maybe write about at some point) and for personal notes I\u0026rsquo;ve been using Bear also for years now.\nhttps://www.fastcompany.com/90960653/why-people-are-obsessed-with-obsidian-the-indie-darling-of-notetaking-apps\n","date":"October 21, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17290/","section":"Posts","summary":"After trying so many note taking apps coming in back from nvAlt and friends, it’s fine to have found one that sticks with Obsidian. I have a relatively tricked out Obsidian setup (which I’ll maybe write about at some point) and for personal notes I’ve been using Bear also for years now.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"There\u0026rsquo;s a lot of conversation happening around async Rust which is why I found this article a good primer on the terrain and history of that part of the language.\nhttps://corrode.dev/blog/async/\n","date":"October 17, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17292/","section":"Posts","summary":"There’s a lot of conversation happening around async Rust which is why I found this article a good primer on the terrain and history of that part of the language.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The best thing about this return-to-office model is that it is differential and contextual. Whether the exact categories make sense and who falls in which is something that you can debate ad infinitum.\nWhat should be added there though is that without deliberate change and practice—things that people and companies are not great at—most people and companies will by default be pretty bad at remote and hybrid working. People will find a local optimum and be content staying there.\nhttps://jacobian.org/2023/sep/29/rto-wfh/\n","date":"October 17, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17288/","section":"Posts","summary":"The best thing about this return-to-office model is that it is differential and contextual. Whether the exact categories make sense and who falls in which is something that you can debate ad infinitum.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I was surprised and delighted by this story (in German) about social cohesion in small town America. A look back to when everything was less of a trash fire.\nhttps://www.merkur-zeitschrift.de/artikel/sie-haben-jetzt-auch-cold-brew-in-berlin-a-mr-77-9-87/\n","date":"October 17, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17286/","section":"Posts","summary":"I was surprised and delighted by this story (in German) about social cohesion in small town America. A look back to when everything was less of a trash fire.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A clear write-up of why the GDPR is bad actually (entrenchment of power, illusion of freedom) and everybody who thinks they\u0026rsquo;re progressive should stop pushing it. At its very base the GDPR is a bullshit jobs programme for lawyers.\nhttps://www.malteengeler.de/2023/09/14/the-left-needs-to-stop-idolizing-the-gdpr/\n","date":"September 20, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17280/","section":"Posts","summary":"A clear write-up of why the GDPR is bad actually (entrenchment of power, illusion of freedom) and everybody who thinks they’re progressive should stop pushing it. At its very base the GDPR is a bullshit jobs programme for lawyers.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A reasonable take to unpack and nuance uptime so that it leaves the realm of engineering and becomes a business decision as it should be.\nAlso good for engineering organizations to remember that: 1. You\u0026rsquo;re not Google. 2. Most of the practices in the SRE book are not applicable to you.\nhttps://world.hey.com/itzy/uptime-guarantees-a-pragmatic-perspective-736d7ea4\n","date":"August 27, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17276/","section":"Posts","summary":"A reasonable take to unpack and nuance uptime so that it leaves the realm of engineering and becomes a business decision as it should be.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The post makes it look simple but pulling off a database migration project like this is very difficult to get right and incredibly costly in terms of time and attention that it requires.\nhttps://www.figma.com/blog/how-figma-scaled-to-multiple-databases/?ref=architecturenotes.co\n","date":"August 27, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17274/","section":"Posts","summary":"The post makes it look simple but pulling off a database migration project like this is very difficult to get right and incredibly costly in terms of time and attention that it requires.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A handy overview of how to hire for developer tooling and how to improve the developer experience at companies from a perspective that recognizes these are socio-technical issues but also needs to get stuff done.\nWhat you’re looking for, I think, is someone who can take “developer experience”and push that forward holistically by whatever way is necessary. The hardest things they will have to do is gain the trust of the entire engineering organization, buy-in for their approach, and deliver perceived value and improvements.\nThis role is truly a Sociotechnical Engineer, in every sense of the term; they will expose the weaknesses of your company in ways you are not prepared for, and they will challenge the status quo in ways that are painful. Embrace it. Be prepared to grow as much, if not more, than they do.\nhttps://hazelweakly.me/blog/so-you-want-to-hire-for-developer-tooling/#so-you-want-to-hire-for-developer-tooling\n","date":"August 27, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17272/","section":"Posts","summary":"A handy overview of how to hire for developer tooling and how to improve the developer experience at companies from a perspective that recognizes these are socio-technical issues but also needs to get stuff done.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"\u0026ldquo;ChatGPT is fast-tracking the commodification of the human spirit by mechanising the imagination.\u0026rdquo;\nNick Cave\u0026rsquo;s rebuttal of AI is more than deserved after we had to sit through months and months of ridiculous self-serving hype pushed out by idiots.\nhttps://www.theredhandfiles.com/chatgpt-making-things-faster-and-easier/\n","date":"August 26, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17270/","section":"Posts","summary":"“ChatGPT is fast-tracking the commodification of the human spirit by mechanising the imagination.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Wat Sinan hier schrijft is een herkenbare spagaat voor iedereen die tussen meerdere culturen opgroeit. Om zijn eindvraag te beantwoorden: \u0026ldquo;Er is nergens om heen te rennen. De enige naar wie je toe kunt dat ben jezelf.\u0026rdquo;\nhttps://www.groene.nl/artikel/een-nooit-ervaren-gemis\n","date":"August 26, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17268/","section":"Posts","summary":"Wat Sinan hier schrijft is een herkenbare spagaat voor iedereen die tussen meerdere culturen opgroeit. Om zijn eindvraag te beantwoorden: “Er is nergens om heen te rennen. De enige naar wie je toe kunt dat ben jezelf.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I prefer to use contributing factors over the concept of a \u0026ldquo;root cause\u0026rdquo; and if people believe an incident has a single cause, usually that also means that they\u0026rsquo;re not very serious about reliability engineering.\nhttps://codywilbourn.com/2018/01/02/root-cause-is-plural/\n","date":"August 26, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17266/","section":"Posts","summary":"I prefer to use contributing factors over the concept of a “root cause” and if people believe an incident has a single cause, usually that also means that they’re not very serious about reliability engineering.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"We\u0026rsquo;re seeing a bunch of these posts come around serverless around the time that we too are reconsidering our investment in this area. Lambda has a lot of operational benefits but at larger scales the developer experience just does not keep up.\nhttps://matduggan.com/serverless-functions-post-mortem/\n","date":"August 26, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17264/","section":"Posts","summary":"We’re seeing a bunch of these posts come around serverless around the time that we too are reconsidering our investment in this area. Lambda has a lot of operational benefits but at larger scales the developer experience just does not keep up.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A long post that builds up to async Rust from the ground up and explains how the various bits and pieces work. Really quite the tour de force with a simple conclusion: use Tokio.\nhttps://ibraheem.ca/posts/too-many-web-servers/\n","date":"August 26, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17262/","section":"Posts","summary":"A long post that builds up to async Rust from the ground up and explains how the various bits and pieces work. Really quite the tour de force with a simple conclusion: use Tokio.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"It\u0026rsquo;s hard to believe that it\u0026rsquo;s going to cost €1.6B for Germany to hook up ChatGPT to their beloved fax machines.\nhttps://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/unternehmen/forschungsministerin-stark-watzinger-kuendigt-milliarden-investitionen-an-a-00447ffc-7d4f-455e-a7ee-4e643bf73792\n","date":"August 23, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17259/","section":"Posts","summary":"It’s hard to believe that it’s going to cost €1.6B for Germany to hook up ChatGPT to their beloved fax machines.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"With our re-evaluation of Lambda as a platform and after talking to some people, I\u0026rsquo;d say that Rust is the most (maybe the only) viable language on Lambda mostly because it\u0026rsquo;s negligible cold start times, high performance and the amazing developer experience of aws-lambda-rust-runtime.\nhttps://loige.co/why-you-should-consider-rust-for-your-lambdas/\n","date":"August 23, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17257/","section":"Posts","summary":"With our re-evaluation of Lambda as a platform and after talking to some people, I’d say that Rust is the most (maybe the only) viable language on Lambda mostly because it’s negligible cold start times, high performance and the amazing developer experience of aws-lambda-rust-runtime.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Mastodon is really picking up lately and with a couple more features (search!, discovery!) this can become much better than Twitter ever was.\nhttps://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2023/08/12/Mastodon-Checkin\n","date":"August 23, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17255/","section":"Posts","summary":"Mastodon is really picking up lately and with a couple more features (search!, discovery!) this can become much better than Twitter ever was.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"An acerbic and entirely deserved preening apart of the base human drives that led to Twitter being destroyed.\nhttps://defector.com/burning-down-the-house\n","date":"August 9, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17253/","section":"Posts","summary":"An acerbic and entirely deserved preening apart of the base human drives that led to Twitter being destroyed.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A comparison of the sustainability of different kinds of bikes and how progress in cycling has often come at the price of sustainability. Still however you spin it, electric cycling is much more efficient and sustainable than driving.\nhttps://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2023/02/can-we-make-bicycles-sustainable-again\n","date":"August 9, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17251/","section":"Posts","summary":"A comparison of the sustainability of different kinds of bikes and how progress in cycling has often come at the price of sustainability. Still however you spin it, electric cycling is much more efficient and sustainable than driving.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"August 9, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/barcelona/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Barcelona","type":"categories"},{"content":"Life before there were mobile phones and internet was really totally different and simple and laid back. I got a bit of this but I think I got my first iBook during university and my first iPhone shortly after I got out of university.\nhttps://slate.com/human-interest/2023/06/life-before-cell-phones-internet-after-work.html\n","date":"August 9, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17249/","section":"Posts","summary":"Life before there were mobile phones and internet was really totally different and simple and laid back. I got a bit of this but I think I got my first iBook during university and my first iPhone shortly after I got out of university.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"It\u0026rsquo;s interesting to see how the dynamics of Indian society influence the tech industry globally and it\u0026rsquo;s very useful to learn more about it.\nhttps://restofworld.org/2023/iit-graduates-dominate-tech/\n","date":"August 9, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17247/","section":"Posts","summary":"It’s interesting to see how the dynamics of Indian society influence the tech industry globally and it’s very useful to learn more about it.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Tooze picks apart Europe\u0026rsquo;s failure (mostly political in nature) to keep up with the United States on a bunch of areas.\nHe also mentions that Germany is debt unconstrained and could borrow much more than it is doing right now to fix its broken infrastructure but won\u0026rsquo;t do it because of stupid politics.\nYour browser does not support the audio element. https://pca.st/y64j6vk4#t=1108.0\n","date":"July 26, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/fragment-ones-and-tooze-the-united-states-vs-europe/","section":"Posts","summary":"Tooze picks apart Europe’s failure (mostly political in nature) to keep up with the United States on a bunch of areas.\n","title":"Fragment Ones and Tooze: The United States vs. Europe","type":"posts"},{"content":" Your browser does not support the audio element. Tooze talking for five minutes about the difference between European and American academic traditions. Excuse the low quality but my Wordpress has a 2MB file limit.\nThat is what we were training people to do to write essays which had powerful attack, big full body and a conclusive finish and ideally you\u0026rsquo;d have a student who could make a whole bouquet of different essays across 5-6 exam papers, 3 essays per paper, 15 different essays and what you would want is a student who could really modulate across that range of essay writing types.\nAnd another one:\nThe formula of British economics, French politics and German philosophy is the tried formula for making Marxists and that\u0026rsquo;s basically —though that\u0026rsquo;s not my politics— that\u0026rsquo;s basically the frame within which I understand comprehensive intellectual engagement with modernity. It requires those three elements:\nYou need to have a sophisticated political grip You need to have a philosophy of history which in the German sense of course comes from Hegel You have to understand capitalism otherwise you\u0026rsquo;re stuck https://pca.st/bv0k67fk#t=639.0\n","date":"July 26, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/fragment-ones-and-tooze-tooze-unplugged/","section":"Posts","summary":" Your browser does not support the audio element. Tooze talking for five minutes about the difference between European and American academic traditions. Excuse the low quality but my Wordpress has a 2MB file limit.\n","title":"Fragment Ones and Tooze: Tooze Unplugged","type":"posts"},{"content":"Once in a while they knock them out of the park in this podcast. In this episode Friedemann Karig goes out and asks for people to understand the necessity and reasons behind violent antifascism in the void left behind when the state fails to protect its citizens.\nYour browser does not support the audio element. https://piratensenderpowerplay.podigee.io/155-neue-episode\n","date":"July 22, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/fragment-piratensender-powerplay-e131-lina-law-order/","section":"Posts","summary":"Once in a while they knock them out of the park in this podcast. In this episode Friedemann Karig goes out and asks for people to understand the necessity and reasons behind violent antifascism in the void left behind when the state fails to protect its citizens.\n","title":"Fragment Piratensender Powerplay E131: Lina, Law \u0026amp; Order","type":"posts"},{"content":"Putting this receipt here about life in the DDR and its eventual downfall:\nAnekdote 3: im November 89 kam eine neue Schülerin in unsere Klasse. Aus der DDR. Wie ich später erfuhr, war ihr Vater in einer verantwortlichen Position in einem VEB. Er hat seine Familie in Sicherheit gebracht, weil er Angst hatte, was passiert, „wenn alles rauskommt.\nhttps://twitter.com/waldorf_charles/status/1673584970902675456\nIt\u0026rsquo;s anecdata but it\u0026rsquo;s plausible and pretty damning and there\u0026rsquo;s a bunch more where that came from. Don\u0026rsquo;t listen to people glorifying how nice and functional things were under the GDR.\n","date":"July 22, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17234/","section":"Posts","summary":"Putting this receipt here about life in the DDR and its eventual downfall:\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Een fragment uit Studio Tegengif \u0026ldquo;#87 Het nieuwe politieke pijnpunt: de Nederlandse vermogensongelijkheid\u0026rdquo; over vermogensongelijkheid en dat belastingen op vastgoed en grond veel te laag zijn.\n","date":"July 22, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/fragment-tegengif-87-over-ozb/","section":"Posts","summary":"Een fragment uit Studio Tegengif “#87 Het nieuwe politieke pijnpunt: de Nederlandse vermogensongelijkheid” over vermogensongelijkheid en dat belastingen op vastgoed en grond veel te laag zijn.\n","title":"Fragment Tegengif 87 over OZB","type":"posts"},{"content":"The multiplier you get working with people who practice rigorous thinking is huge. Most of the work is getting everybody to this point as Wes Kao explains here.\nhttps://www.weskao.com/blog/rigorous-thinking\n","date":"July 22, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17227/","section":"Posts","summary":"The multiplier you get working with people who practice rigorous thinking is huge. Most of the work is getting everybody to this point as Wes Kao explains here.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Some good insights in reading about Flipkart\u0026rsquo;s popularity in India and how they achieved that.\nhttps://newsletter.theindianotes.com/p/how-did-flipkart-convince-indians\n","date":"July 22, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17225/","section":"Posts","summary":"Some good insights in reading about Flipkart’s popularity in India and how they achieved that.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The examples are hugely exaggerated for effect but the explanation of why so many people in software engineering keep themselves busy with solving imaginary problems is worth it.\nhttps://cerebralab.com/Imaginary_Problems_Are_the_Root_of_Bad_Software\n","date":"July 22, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17223/","section":"Posts","summary":"The examples are hugely exaggerated for effect but the explanation of why so many people in software engineering keep themselves busy with solving imaginary problems is worth it.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Every time I mention slack time as one of the most important things for healthy engineering teams people look at me as if they\u0026rsquo;re seeing water burning.\nThat doesn\u0026rsquo;t make it any less true though. Here\u0026rsquo;s a brief note by Martin Fowler on the topic: https://martinfowler.com/bliki/Slack.html\n","date":"July 18, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17221/","section":"Posts","summary":"Every time I mention slack time as one of the most important things for healthy engineering teams people look at me as if they’re seeing water burning.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Doing the things listed here as a VP by Emily Nakashima sounds all nice and well (maybe fun even for some people), but the core deliverables of alignment and focus are the real test: both are impossibly hard to achieve and worth their weight in gold.\nhttps://www.honeycomb.io/blog/becoming-vp-of-engineering-pt2\n","date":"July 18, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17219/","section":"Posts","summary":"Doing the things listed here as a VP by Emily Nakashima sounds all nice and well (maybe fun even for some people), but the core deliverables of alignment and focus are the real test: both are impossibly hard to achieve and worth their weight in gold.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Nice to see both the scale of the problems that Discord is attacking and the detail of the write-up of how they go about it. I always wondered whether migrating from Cassandra to Scylla would be worth it and it turns out that it is.\nhttps://discord.com/blog/how-discord-stores-trillions-of-messages\n","date":"July 16, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17217/","section":"Posts","summary":"Nice to see both the scale of the problems that Discord is attacking and the detail of the write-up of how they go about it. I always wondered whether migrating from Cassandra to Scylla would be worth it and it turns out that it is.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Extremely cool conceptual work around the CLI and how it could be possible to pry things apart, create proper primitives and communications channels, and make this an infinitely more powerful interface.\nhttps://arcan-fe.com/2022/04/02/the-day-of-a-new-command-line-interface-shell/\n","date":"July 16, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17215/","section":"Posts","summary":"Extremely cool conceptual work around the CLI and how it could be possible to pry things apart, create proper primitives and communications channels, and make this an infinitely more powerful interface.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Grateful that Hillel Wayne wrote down here that the 4doc model is not the alpha and omega of documentation and that—like with everything—you should keep thinking while you use it.\nThe model and seeing people slavishly follow it never felt right to me.\nhttps://www.hillelwayne.com/post/problems-with-the-4doc-model/\n","date":"July 16, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17213/","section":"Posts","summary":"Grateful that Hillel Wayne wrote down here that the 4doc model is not the alpha and omega of documentation and that—like with everything—you should keep thinking while you use it.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"After using all kinds of note taking tools (eg. Notational Velocity) at some point some years ago I moved all my personal notes to Bear and it has been my secret productivity boost ever since.\nI\u0026rsquo;m glad to see that they\u0026rsquo;ve held to the vision and didn\u0026rsquo;t compromise to get Bear 2 just right. It can be difficult to pull something like that through.\nhttps://www.theverge.com/23786996/bear-2-notes-app-iphone-ipad-mac\n","date":"July 16, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17211/","section":"Posts","summary":"After using all kinds of note taking tools (eg. Notational Velocity) at some point some years ago I moved all my personal notes to Bear and it has been my secret productivity boost ever since.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I feel very seen by this.\n","date":"July 1, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17206/","section":"Posts","summary":"I feel very seen by this.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I started my show and tell at work yesterday with: “Every company has a crazy person talking about #Nix. I never imagine that one day I would be that person but here we are.”\nI gave a quick demo how I could `nix develop` into a reproducible development environment for one of our projects.\n","date":"June 11, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17201/","section":"Posts","summary":"I started my show and tell at work yesterday with: “Every company has a crazy person talking about #Nix. I never imagine that one day I would be that person but here we are.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I had a really bad time getting into #Nix but I used my onboarding experience to fork and update a well-known community resource so it can be used again.\nI hope it will help people have a better time getting into this system than I did.\nhttps://github.com/alper/nix-shorts\n","date":"June 5, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17198/","section":"Posts","summary":"I had a really bad time getting into #Nix but I used my onboarding experience to fork and update a well-known community resource so it can be used again.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"\u0026ldquo;This was an act of self-defense.\u0026rdquo;\nVery much looking forward to the movie \u0026ldquo;How to Blow Up A Pipeline\u0026rdquo;.\n","date":"June 4, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17196/","section":"Posts","summary":"“This was an act of self-defense.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A large part of the movement back to the office is because a lot of commercial real estate is under water. That\u0026rsquo;s where all the opinion pieces in the FT are coming from.\nAlso the LPs—who probably have way more exposure to real estate than they do to venture—definitely talk to the GPs who then lean on their founders.\n(I say this as somebody who has a lot of experience with remote work but who also likes being in a nice office.)\nhttps://fortune.com/2023/05/25/office-space-crash-harder-than-expected-remote-work-economy-cre-crash/\n","date":"June 4, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17194/","section":"Posts","summary":"A large part of the movement back to the office is because a lot of commercial real estate is under water. That’s where all the opinion pieces in the FT are coming from.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I got nerd sniped pretty hard by somebody sharing a Django code challenge: \u0026ldquo;only touch views.py and optimize a page load to a time and memory budget in 60 minutes\u0026rdquo;.\nStarted it before going to bed just to see if I still had it and 0.3s and 38MB say that I do still have it. Django is also a king among frameworks.\n","date":"June 4, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17191/","section":"Posts","summary":"I got nerd sniped pretty hard by somebody sharing a Django code challenge: “only touch views.py and optimize a page load to a time and memory budget in 60 minutes”.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Leuk en informatief interview over ICT-projecten bij de overheid met Cokky Hilhorst.\nAlleen een raar moment waar beide personen in de aflevering zich afvragen waarom de mensen zo boos worden terwijl zij projecten waar honderden miljoenen mee gemoeid zijn kapot schiet. Misschien draait het hier om het geld?\nhttps://omny.fm/shows/stuurloos/waarom-lopen-it-projecten-bij-de-overheid-zo-vaak\n","date":"May 21, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17189/","section":"Posts","summary":"Leuk en informatief interview over ICT-projecten bij de overheid met Cokky Hilhorst.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Frank Lantz has a well balanced take on the opportunities and perils of AI that is good (and if you didn\u0026rsquo;t think Harari was a grifter yet, you might after reading this).\nhttps://franklantz.substack.com/p/fahrenheit-986\n","date":"May 21, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17187/","section":"Posts","summary":"Frank Lantz has a well balanced take on the opportunities and perils of AI that is good (and if you didn’t think Harari was a grifter yet, you might after reading this).\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"In this podcast episode a court case is treated (with the public prosecutor) where during a fluke accident a girl riding along on a bike is killed by a bus in Amsterdam.\nThe thoroughness and consideration with which that is done contrasted immensely with how things run in Berlin and made it clear to me (again) how unserious this city is.\nhttps://art19.com/shows/napleiten/episodes/88038eb8-3146-499d-983d-ebadce4c3e8f\n","date":"May 21, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17185/","section":"Posts","summary":"In this podcast episode a court case is treated (with the public prosecutor) where during a fluke accident a girl riding along on a bike is killed by a bus in Amsterdam.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The last Oxide and Friends is very timely and covers what\u0026rsquo;s happening now between Mastodon and Bluesky in an incredibly thoughtful way.\nhttps://oxide.computer/podcasts/oxide-and-friends/1318994\n","date":"May 5, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17179/","section":"Posts","summary":"The last Oxide and Friends is very timely and covers what’s happening now between Mastodon and Bluesky in an incredibly thoughtful way.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Immensely bored with all the podcasts in my app but glad to see that the new podcast by David Runciman \u0026ldquo;Past Present Future\u0026rdquo; has now surfaced.\nhttps://twitter.com/PPFIdeas\n","date":"April 29, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17177/","section":"Posts","summary":"Immensely bored with all the podcasts in my app but glad to see that the new podcast by David Runciman “Past Present Future” has now surfaced.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik weet nog dat bij elk bezoek aan Hilversum het duidelijk was dat de mensen daar geen idee hebben van wat er buiten Hilversum gebeurt. Grappig om te lezen dat dat nog steeds zo is.\nhttps://www.npo3.nl/brandpuntplus/het-portret-sahil-amar-aissa\n","date":"April 29, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17175/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik weet nog dat bij elk bezoek aan Hilversum het duidelijk was dat de mensen daar geen idee hebben van wat er buiten Hilversum gebeurt. Grappig om te lezen dat dat nog steeds zo is.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Here\u0026rsquo;s an absolutely staggering number to take with you: four trillion dollars per annum\nThat\u0026rsquo;s what it takes to turn the entire world sustainable. That\u0026rsquo;s an awful lot of money but also it\u0026rsquo;s not that much more than things like military expenditures or the assets of a handful of billionaires.\nAs Tooze says:\nRather than shrinking away from the $ 4 trillion in shock the really striking thing about it, is that it is far from utopian. If we take the Songwe, Stern, Bhattacharya figures at face value then the explosive conclusion is that sustainable development for the entire planet is within reach. All the more egregious and inexcusable will be our failure, if we do not. It is one thing to fail grandly in the face of an impossible challenge, it is quite another not to do something of immense important that is, in fact, manageable.\nWe can leave it at that.\nSustainable development is totally possible and it\u0026rsquo;s being blocked by a minority elite who stand to lose a bunch of assets and revenues if we would do this.\n","date":"April 22, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/4-trillion/","section":"Posts","summary":"Here’s an absolutely staggering number to take with you: four trillion dollars per annum\n","title":"4 trillion","type":"posts"},{"content":"Looking back over my notes and reactions from Interaction16 where I gave a talk calling chat interfaces the \u0026ldquo;UI for AI\u0026rdquo;. Feels good to be right.\n/dingen/2016/03/notes-from-interaction16/\n","date":"April 12, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17166/","section":"Posts","summary":"Looking back over my notes and reactions from Interaction16 where I gave a talk calling chat interfaces the “UI for AI”. Feels good to be right.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"April 12, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/publicity/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Publicity","type":"categories"},{"content":"Cucumber saudis. Nice.\nTwo questions have long dogged Dutch farming. The first is whether quantity made up for quality: having tasted the tomatoes, cucumbers and chilies grown in its hyper-efficient greenhouses, one may be forgiven for not being able to tell them apart.\npicking people over cows turns out to be politically fraught\nWell, the cows are owned by millionaire farmers so it’s more a question of which people you are picking.\nThe Netherlands, a generally well-run place, has made a hash of adapting its economy to ecological constraints it knew about for decades. That does not bode well for everyone else.\nChaser.\nhttps://www.economist.com/europe/2023/03/23/the-cucumber-saudis-how-the-dutch-got-too-good-at-farming\n","date":"April 10, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17165/","section":"Posts","summary":"Cucumber saudis. Nice.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"One of the most interesting applications of Rust is to take over after algorithms have been prototyped in Python and create dramatic performance improvements.\nThis write-up is a good example of exactly such a situation where the Python code is using Numpy but is nowhere near fast enough.\nhttps://ohadravid.github.io/posts/2023-03-rusty-python/\n","date":"April 2, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17160/","section":"Posts","summary":"One of the most interesting applications of Rust is to take over after algorithms have been prototyped in Python and create dramatic performance improvements.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Because it\u0026rsquo;s twenty years old a crusty technology like Django is the fastest way to bootstrap something into production. Get yourself some engineers who are more interested in creating business impact than they are in sprucing up their resume.\nParticularly after having seen some people talk about ORMs, the one that Django has is in class entirely of its own that makes most debates here irrelevant.\nhttps://zachgoldstein.engineering/posts/crusty-knives/crusty-knives/\n","date":"April 2, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17158/","section":"Posts","summary":"Because it’s twenty years old a crusty technology like Django is the fastest way to bootstrap something into production. Get yourself some engineers who are more interested in creating business impact than they are in sprucing up their resume.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Turborepo also has a well considered rationale about why they want to move to Rust. Go still has a relatively strong position on the server, but it\u0026rsquo;s weird design choices are ill-suited for client side tooling and file system work.\nhttps://vercel.com/blog/turborepo-migration-go-rust\n","date":"March 26, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17151/","section":"Posts","summary":"Turborepo also has a well considered rationale about why they want to move to Rust. Go still has a relatively strong position on the server, but it’s weird design choices are ill-suited for client side tooling and file system work.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ink \u0026amp; Switch is doing amazing work leveraging technology like CRDTs to create novel highly-interactive multiplayer interfaces. Here\u0026rsquo;s their work on Upswelling which is a git-like take on writing and editing.\nhttps://www.inkandswitch.com/upwelling/\n","date":"March 26, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17149/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ink \u0026 Switch is doing amazing work leveraging technology like CRDTs to create novel highly-interactive multiplayer interfaces. Here’s their work on Upswelling which is a git-like take on writing and editing.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"After having programmed Go for a bit professionally, my experiences in switching to Rust for the backend have been very similar to what\u0026rsquo;s described here by @adam_chal@hachyderm.io.\nhttps://blog.adamchalmers.com/why-rust-on-backend/\n","date":"March 26, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17147/","section":"Posts","summary":"After having programmed Go for a bit professionally, my experiences in switching to Rust for the backend have been very similar to what’s described here by @adam_chal@hachyderm.io.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Mensen die dit soort haatcampagnes de wereld in slingeren moeten strafbaar gesteld worden. De minste straf voor de aanjagers van dit soort haat zou een (social) media black-holing kunnen zijn; voor de komende zoveel jaar geen vertoon in media toegestaan.\nhttps://pointer.kro-ncrv.nl/hoe-misinformatie-de-online-haatmachine-tegen-de-week-van-de-lentekriebels-op-gang-trok\n","date":"March 26, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17145/","section":"Posts","summary":"Mensen die dit soort haatcampagnes de wereld in slingeren moeten strafbaar gesteld worden. De minste straf voor de aanjagers van dit soort haat zou een (social) media black-holing kunnen zijn; voor de komende zoveel jaar geen vertoon in media toegestaan.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"What\u0026rsquo;s interesting about this write-up by Ferrous Systems of creating a real life visual demo with embedded #Rust is that the technology looks increasingly accessible.\nhttps://ferrous-systems.com/blog/how-we-built-our-embedded-world-demo-on-rust-for-qnx/\n","date":"March 26, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17143/","section":"Posts","summary":"What’s interesting about this write-up by Ferrous Systems of creating a real life visual demo with embedded #Rust is that the technology looks increasingly accessible.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A nice deep dive on algorithm design to speed up bracket pair colorization—one of the nicer innovations in code editing recently—in Visual Studio Code.\nhttps://code.visualstudio.com/blogs/2021/09/29/bracket-pair-colorization\n","date":"March 25, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17141/","section":"Posts","summary":"A nice deep dive on algorithm design to speed up bracket pair colorization—one of the nicer innovations in code editing recently—in Visual Studio Code.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A nice deep dive into the lowest levels of #Rust programming just to be able to target the web browser (!). I\u0026rsquo;d like to use #wasm as soon as I have a good reason and project to do so.\nhttps://surma.dev/things/rust-to-webassembly/\n","date":"March 25, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17139/","section":"Posts","summary":"A nice deep dive into the lowest levels of #Rust programming just to be able to target the web browser (!). I’d like to use #wasm as soon as I have a good reason and project to do so.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"\u0026ldquo;Meta is building the future of human connection.\u0026rdquo;\nDoes acquiring Instagram and WhatsApp qualify as building? Pretty much all feature development in Instagram has been photo copier work which feels like building the past instead of the future.\nhttps://about.fb.com/news/2023/03/mark-zuckerberg-meta-year-of-efficiency/\n","date":"March 14, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17136/","section":"Posts","summary":"“Meta is building the future of human connection.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"After the hysteria a bunch of VCs whipped up over the weekend around the SVB collapse, questioning whether they actually do what they claim is more than justified.\nhttps://slate.com/technology/2023/03/silicon-valley-bank-rescue-venture-capital-calacanis-sacks-ackman-tantrum.html\n","date":"March 14, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17133/","section":"Posts","summary":"After the hysteria a bunch of VCs whipped up over the weekend around the SVB collapse, questioning whether they actually do what they claim is more than justified.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A brief English overview of the dizi Alev Alev which truly was very good and focused on empowering women. I still want to make a supercut at some point of all of Ömer and Ozan\u0026rsquo;s interactions.\nhttps://northamericaten.com/alev-alev-review-a-struggle-against-oppression/\n","date":"March 12, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17131/","section":"Posts","summary":"A brief English overview of the dizi Alev Alev which truly was very good and focused on empowering women. I still want to make a supercut at some point of all of Ömer and Ozan’s interactions.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"March 12, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/istanbul/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Istanbul","type":"categories"},{"content":"Since the first time I saw when I was a kid, I loved Master and Commander. I had no idea that there were 20 books behind it or I would have probably read them.\nThe online resurgence is also something that has passed me by and it\u0026rsquo;s pretty funny. Maybe there will be a reboot still?\nhttps://www.gq.com/story/master-and-commander-anniversary\n","date":"March 12, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17129/","section":"Posts","summary":"Since the first time I saw when I was a kid, I loved Master and Commander. I had no idea that there were 20 books behind it or I would have probably read them.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A relatively detailed and quite damning account of what went wrong with Turkey\u0026rsquo;s earthquake response.\nhttps://www.middleeasteye.net/big-story/turkey-earthquake-response-what-went-wrong\n","date":"March 12, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17127/","section":"Posts","summary":"A relatively detailed and quite damning account of what went wrong with Turkey’s earthquake response.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"But these subjects of the Islamic Emirate could not be kept from watching Stranger Things or Game of Thrones or Japanese anime; they had a better knowledge of Breaking Bad than I did. On Twitter—they, like so many Afghans, were avid users—shared soyjack memes and called themselves “sigma males.”They talked about feminism, “LGBTQ,”and pronouns—strange things to complain about in a country where women can’t go to school. They were becoming Westerners: culture war, America’s most successful soft-power export, was their induction. The younger members of the Taliban, online enough to follow Andrew Tate, were not immune.\nNow he was getting excited. “Martyrdom,”he said, “would make me much happier than being a bureaucrat and working in the ministry. On the word of Sirajuddin Haqqani, we would happily blow ourselves up tomorrow!”\nThis is a wild piece about peaceful life under Taliban rule in Afghanistan.\nhttps://www.palladiummag.com/2023/02/23/the-west-lives-on-in-the-talibans-afghanistan/?mc_cid=cafacd5506\u0026amp;mc_eid=a3e0af2d0a\n","date":"March 12, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17125/","section":"Posts","summary":"But these subjects of the Islamic Emirate could not be kept from watching Stranger Things or Game of Thrones or Japanese anime; they had a better knowledge of Breaking Bad than I did. On Twitter—they, like so many Afghans, were avid users—shared soyjack memes and called themselves “sigma males.”They talked about feminism, “LGBTQ,”and pronouns—strange things to complain about in a country where women can’t go to school. They were becoming Westerners: culture war, America’s most successful soft-power export, was their induction. The younger members of the Taliban, online enough to follow Andrew Tate, were not immune.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Finally got around to reading Elizabeth Sandifer\u0026rsquo;s essay and if there was any doubt, this makes it clear how much of an unserious and malicious person Scott Alexander/Siskind is. Siskind\u0026rsquo;s writing deliberately pretends to be respectable to provide ideological cover to some real evil.\nhttps://www.eruditorumpress.com/blog/the-beigeness-or-how-to-kill-people-with-bad-writing-the-scott-alexander-method\n","date":"March 11, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17123/","section":"Posts","summary":"Finally got around to reading Elizabeth Sandifer’s essay and if there was any doubt, this makes it clear how much of an unserious and malicious person Scott Alexander/Siskind is. Siskind’s writing deliberately pretends to be respectable to provide ideological cover to some real evil.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Let the historians wring their hands about Foucault and power; off campus, numbers make you sound like you know what you’re talking about.\nUnashamed to admit that I\u0026rsquo;m a Tooze Bro as mentioned in the article.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve loved listening to Adam Tooze during his many appearances in Talking Politics and listening to Ones and Tooze now is a way to keep that feeling alive.\nhttps://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/adam-tooze-profile.html?utm_medium=s1\u0026amp;utm_source=tw\u0026amp;utm_campaign=nym\n","date":"March 11, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17120/","section":"Posts","summary":"Let the historians wring their hands about Foucault and power; off campus, numbers make you sound like you know what you’re talking about.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"An amazing read about the first solo unsupported around the world sailing event and the maintenance that goes into doing something like that.\nhttps://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-maintenance-race\n","date":"March 11, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17118/","section":"Posts","summary":"An amazing read about the first solo unsupported around the world sailing event and the maintenance that goes into doing something like that.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"We have housing crises in many places and it\u0026rsquo;s remarkable how pernicious this issue is given the number of problems it would fix for us to have enough affordable homes for everybody.\nhttps://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-housing-theory-of-everything\n","date":"March 11, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17116/","section":"Posts","summary":"We have housing crises in many places and it’s remarkable how pernicious this issue is given the number of problems it would fix for us to have enough affordable homes for everybody.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"What you need on day one is to ratchet up expectations, energy, urgency, and intensity.\nYou can engulf your organization with energy, step up the tempo, and start executing the basic blocking and tackling with a lot more focus and higher expectations. It will feel like busting a log jam. All of a sudden, everything is moving and shaking.\nDon\u0026rsquo;t let malaise set in. Bust it up. Raising the bar is energizing by itself.\nMBO causes employees to act as if they are running their own show. Because they get compensated on their personal metrics, it\u0026rsquo;s next to impossible to pull them off projects. They will start negotiating with you for relief. That\u0026rsquo;s not alignment, that\u0026rsquo;s every man for himself.\nThe questions you should ask constantly: What are we not going to do? What are the consequences of not doing something? Get in the habit of constantly prioritizing and reprioritizing.\nI always operated as if I owned everything, whether I did or not. That didn\u0026rsquo;t always sit well with peers or superiors. I have since always tried to increase our people\u0026rsquo;s sense of ownership so they will act as owners. That mentality needs to be nurtured.\nWe coped in ways I have used ever since: hire people ahead of their own curve. Hire more for aptitude than experience and give people the career opportunity of a lifetime.\nWe still say, “Architecture matters”at Snowflake; all of our successes at the three companies where I\u0026rsquo;ve been CEO trace back to superior architecture.\nUnderperforming tech assets seemed to follow me around like a bad habit.\nI had to explain that there is no such thing as an override for CEOs. I said, “You can go to the board and see if they\u0026rsquo;d like to fire me and give you your old job back. In the meantime, we are doing as I outlined.”\nThere are times you need to check your own views at the door and bet on the conviction of others.\nToday I am less driven by career ambition than by a hunger for sport, action, excitement, teamwork, and a never‐ending pursuit of self‐improvement.\nWhen you take over a company with a wide range of issues, you have to start solving the more straightforward problems as fast as possible so you can narrow the focus on the harder ones. Bringing in some proven performers was a no‐brainer.\nAs I got more experience, I realized that I was often just wasting everybody\u0026rsquo;s time. If we knew that something or someone wasn\u0026rsquo;t working, why wait? As the saying goes, when there is doubt, there is no doubt.\nFor a more recent example, remember that when the Coronavirus pandemic first hit the US, lockdowns were described as a short‐term strategy to stop the contagion from overwhelming our healthcare system. But before long, lockdowns became the designated method to control the pandemic indefinitely, dragging on in many states for well over a year. Pandemic responses began to seem like a “make it up as we go along”approach to policy, completely untethered from any clear mission.\nNot that there\u0026rsquo;s anything wrong with financial metrics or showing progress to investors or shareholders. I take those targets very seriously, but they are never our mission.\nInvestors and executives take huge risks on start‐ups that need to be rewarded when a company is successful.\nUrgency is a mindset that can be learned if it doesn\u0026rsquo;t come to you naturally. You can embrace the discomfort that comes with moving faster instead of avoiding it.\nOnly the government can print money; the rest of us have to take it from somebody else.\nThe more high‐achieving people who desert their current employers to join us, the more we are winning.\nAs long as there are no new challengers with new ideas, you can do fine with an incremental approach. But in free markets, somebody is always thinking about dramatic changes. You\u0026rsquo;re much better off doing so yourself rather than hoping it won\u0026rsquo;t happen.\nFolks prefer narratives that make them feel safe, however removed from reality those narratives might be. Intellectual honesty is a frequent casualty in business.\nIf you don\u0026rsquo;t know how to execute, every strategy will fail, even the most promising ones.\nOne of my favorite observations is that “good judgment comes from bad judgment.”Experience may be overrated by some, but it\u0026rsquo;s hard to find a substitute for it.\nWhen we promote inexperienced managers to senior roles, chaos ensues. It becomes the blind leading the blind. Organizations cannot scale and mature around inexperienced management staff.\nWe sometimes use the expression “that dog won\u0026rsquo;t hunt”—not in reference to a person but to a strategic approach that just isn\u0026rsquo;t working, no matter what we do. It\u0026rsquo;s hard to say that if you\u0026rsquo;re irrationally attached to a strategy.\nA strong product will generate escape velocity and find its market, even with a mediocre sales team. But even a great sales team cannot fix or compensate for product problems.\nYou should resist this temptation by remembering an old joke: “Consultants are people who borrow your watch, tell you what time it is, and then keep the watch.”\nThe bottom line is that great execution can make a moderately successful strategy go a long way, but poor execution will fail even the most brilliant strategy.\nHire Drivers, Not Passengers, and Get the Wrong People off the Bus\nPassengers are largely dead weight and can be an insidious threat to your culture and performance. They inadvertently undermine the mojo of the organization. They sap the animal instinct and spirits you need in business to thrive.\n“How do I know if I\u0026rsquo;m a driver or a passenger?”My flippant answer was that he\u0026rsquo;d better figure it out before I did.\nDon\u0026rsquo;t surrender to the temptation to go into wait‐and‐see mode, hoping that time will reveal everyone\u0026rsquo;s true value. You need to make things happen, not wait around and hope for the best. You have to practice sizing up people and situations with limited and imperfect information—because that is all you are ever going to get.\nIf you don\u0026rsquo;t act quickly to get the wrong people off the bus, you have no prayer of changing the overall trajectory. We often believe, naively, that we can coach struggling teammates to a better place. And sometimes we can, but those cases are rarer than we imagine. At a struggling company, you need to change things fast, which can only happen by switching out the people whose skills no longer fit the mission or perhaps never really did in the first place.\nthose standards, that\u0026rsquo;s fine too. I know this philosophy may come across as harsh. But what\u0026rsquo;s even harsher is not doing the job you were hired to do as a leader. If you can\u0026rsquo;t find the backbone to make necessary changes, you are holding everyone else back from reaching their full potential.\nThen I started moving faster to replace people who were badly suited for their roles. And often not even catastrophically bad, just worse than the caliber of people we knew we could hire to replace them. This process of systematically upgrading the talent at each key role is called “topgrading,”a strategy developed by hiring expert Brad Smart.\nYou can\u0026rsquo;t wait till you have an acute need; that is a reactive posture. If you wait for a vacancy to open, you can only tap the then‐current supply, which may be quite suboptimal. So create a vetted, prioritized list of possible candidates for each critical role you are responsible for.\nThe problem is that people don\u0026rsquo;t learn from posters. Like children and pets, they learn from consequences and the lack thereof. If you want to drive a more consistent set of behaviors, norms, and values, you have to focus on consistent and clearly defined consequences, day in and day out.\nAccountability is uncomfortable because we all live with the anxiety of not being good enough and the anxiety of telling others they aren\u0026rsquo;t good enough. But if you want a great company, you can\u0026rsquo;t give out free passes for mediocrity. Good enough is never good enough.\nCulture doesn\u0026rsquo;t just happen because of a CEO\u0026rsquo;s declaration or because senior management exhibits the willingness to act on core values. It happens when most of the organization is willing to defend and promote those values and call out deviations on a day‐to‐day basis.\nThe paradox is that any business that\u0026rsquo;s large enough to have functional silos must pull together as if these organizational delineations barely exist.\nMy role as CEO is to facilitate their initiative and encourage them to reach creative solutions, not simply to tell them what to do. Everyone gets a seat at the table as we hash out challenging issues.\nI am generally not a fan of just trying things, throwing ideas against the wall to see if they stick. We lose time and waste resources that way. Let\u0026rsquo;s try a rifle shot instead of a scatter gun.\nCustomer grievances are best solved by establishing proper ownership, reducing internal complexity, and removing bureaucratic intermediaries.\nGood sales managers are constantly hiring and firing, which helps them develop a clear sense of which candidates are likely to become gunslingers.\nNever simply throw them into stone‐cold territories without a viable plan or support. That\u0026rsquo;s setting them up for failure, which will lead not only to their own failures but to your reputation as a leader who breeds failure.\nI have often distinguished between actual profitability and what we call “inherent profitability.”\nThe question is what would profitability look like if we substantially stopped investing for future periods altogether? Inherent profitability is driven by unit economics, or the gross margin line in the profit and loss statement. If things cost more than what we sell them for, the business will obviously never become profitable. The next question is how operating efficiency will benefit from increased scale. Those answers help us understand what the inherent profitability of the business really is.\nSo they play it safe. But trying to hang on to a modest business doesn\u0026rsquo;t mean you have a viable business.\nHow can I possibly answer those questions for someone else\u0026rsquo;s business? The answers are relative and situational.\nIf possible, always own your distribution rather than delegate it to a third party. Nobody cares about selling your product more than you.\nIt takes intellectual honesty and humility to admit how big a confluence of factors gave rise to your original success. Just because you struck gold once doesn\u0026rsquo;t mean you know how to do it at will.\nI know I said earlier that growth should be prioritized over profitability, but when it costs much more than a dollar to generate a dollar, you don\u0026rsquo;t really have a business.\nI cannot emphasize enough how important it is to have strong financial oversight and discipline on sales compensation. You may be tempted at some point to make your comp plans more generous to recruit and retain top sales talent, but abandoning financial rigor can be a fatal mistake—not just during the planning stages of each year but every day, literally from one sales deal to the next.\nBut the most valuable leaders are those who can combine the scrappiness of a start‐up leader with the organizational and diplomatic discipline needed in a big company. Those who can scale up or scale down as required. Those who can set aside their experience when necessary, apply first principles, and think through situations in their elementary form.\nWhen a truly new market does appear, it\u0026rsquo;s usually due to a confluence of industry‐wide factors and circumstances, not the innovations of just one company.\nThe issues we faced in scope, expansion, and runway now preoccupy my thinking. As a leader, you need to make time to assess these issues from day one; don\u0026rsquo;t wait for the crush of urgent business to calm down.\nHaving a bunch of roles on your resume without clear success at each one can become a strike against you. You start to look like a passenger, not a driver.\nStart‐ups typically need hard drivers, passionate leaders, goal‐oriented and achievement‐focused personalities—the kind of people who are easily frustrated in larger, more rigid, slower to evolve enterprises. We often liked people with a chip on their shoulder, who had a lot to prove to themselves and others. But it is easy to see how others would be less enamored by such personalities.\nThe longest‐serving employees tend to be the most prone to nostalgia, constantly reliving the romance of the early days. Those days always seem better in retrospect than they did at the time.\nDan Warmenhoven, the highly successful CEO of NetApp, once remarked that every great CEO has a large ego because you simply could not do this kind of work any other way—but if you can\u0026rsquo;t keep that ego in check, you\u0026rsquo;ll be insufferable and therefore ineffective. That\u0026rsquo;s an uneasy balance.\nEven so, continue to share credit as much as possible with the founders. Never lose sight of the fact that success takes a village, and the founders are still honorary members of the village.\nConceding the board\u0026rsquo;s authority for every major decision isn\u0026rsquo;t playing it safe. In fact, in the long run it\u0026rsquo;s much riskier than asserting your own authority and legitimacy and taking responsibility for your own decisions.\nYou\u0026rsquo;re not there to make friends or get a gold star for obeying orders; you are there to win.\nApply those experiences, and the insights we\u0026rsquo;ve discussed in previous chapters, to become a truer, more honed, more effective version of who you already are. Finding your own path, however long it takes, will unlock your personal power.\nAt the end of the day, great leaders at any level have great outcomes. You can be the most empathetic, charismatic, and popular leader ever, but none of that will matter if your business falls short. And when it does, there will be nowhere for you to hide. No one will care about your legitimate explanations, let alone your excuses. No one will care about the unlucky breaks that were completely beyond your control. Is that fair? Of course not! But it\u0026rsquo;s the world we live in, the world we have to accept as leaders.\n","date":"March 8, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-amp-it-up/","section":"Posts","summary":"What you need on day one is to ratchet up expectations, energy, urgency, and intensity.\n","title":"Highlights for Amp It Up","type":"posts"},{"content":"The hype train around AI now should be very familiar if you paid any attention during the previous crypto cycle. It\u0026rsquo;s the same people pushing this technology in the world in the same overblown and damaging way.\nWe’ve learned to make “machines that can mindlessly generate text,”Bender told me when we met this winter. “But we haven’t learned how to stop imagining the mind behind it.”\nhttps://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/ai-artificial-intelligence-chatbots-emily-m-bender.html\n","date":"March 5, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17108/","section":"Posts","summary":"The hype train around AI now should be very familiar if you paid any attention during the previous crypto cycle. It’s the same people pushing this technology in the world in the same overblown and damaging way.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A not too bad checklist of what makes an \u0026ldquo;Exceptional Engineer\u0026rdquo;. Have you ever worked with one?\nhttps://www.intercom.com/blog/traits-of-exceptional-engineers/\n","date":"March 5, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17106/","section":"Posts","summary":"A not too bad checklist of what makes an “Exceptional Engineer”. Have you ever worked with one?\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"\u0026ldquo;Success in knowledge isn’t about the facts we know, but by how good we are at judging the truth of uncertain things.\u0026rdquo;\nThat\u0026rsquo;s a very good treatment of why meetings are work and removing all of them can have negative effects.\nhttps://medium.com/@ElizAyer/meetings-are-the-work-9e429dde6aa3\n","date":"March 5, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17104/","section":"Posts","summary":"“Success in knowledge isn’t about the facts we know, but by how good we are at judging the truth of uncertain things.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A useful distinction between \u0026ldquo;code proofreading\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;code editing\u0026rdquo; by Hillel Wayne both of which are part of a standard PR process but neither is really a good fit there.\nhttps://buttondown.email/hillelwayne/archive/code-review-vs-code-proofreading/\n","date":"March 4, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17101/","section":"Posts","summary":"A useful distinction between “code proofreading” and “code editing” by Hillel Wayne both of which are part of a standard PR process but neither is really a good fit there.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"This bit of Chinese social media uproar is interesting peek into feminism in Asia and Sino-Japanese intellectual exchange.\nhttps://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/gender-diversity/article/3211182/youve-been-hurt-men-millions-outraged-chinese-social-media-over-video-interview-japanese-feminist\n","date":"March 4, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17099/","section":"Posts","summary":"This bit of Chinese social media uproar is interesting peek into feminism in Asia and Sino-Japanese intellectual exchange.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;ve been playing Breath of the Wild while I\u0026rsquo;m lying flat and my experience is identical to that of Craig here. All the way back to the gold cartridge I used to have for the NES as a kid.\nNot being able to walk for a couple of weeks has been hugely ameliorated by being able to walk, scramble, climb across the continent of Hyrule. The walks and the \u0026lsquo;boredom\u0026rsquo; of the game are worth leaning into.\nhttps://craigmod.com/ridgeline/157/\n","date":"March 4, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17097/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’ve been playing Breath of the Wild while I’m lying flat and my experience is identical to that of Craig here. All the way back to the gold cartridge I used to have for the NES as a kid.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"It\u0026rsquo;s super lovely that Berlin has a lab which does these kind of user tested innovations on city processes. The work that needs to be done is written up here and it\u0026rsquo;s relatively straight-forward (there are just no short-cuts).\nWhat we need with the Bürgeramt though is not 10% more appointments but the automation of at least half of the processes there to no longer need human intervention. We needed that 10 years ago.\nhttps://citylab-berlin.org/de/blog/das-burgeramt-der-zukunft-teil-2/\n","date":"March 4, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17095/","section":"Posts","summary":"It’s super lovely that Berlin has a lab which does these kind of user tested innovations on city processes. The work that needs to be done is written up here and it’s relatively straight-forward (there are just no short-cuts).\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Not all the answers here are perfect but it\u0026rsquo;s a good test for logical reasoning. Without logical reasoning nothing is possible (as you can probably see ample examples of in your environment).\nhttps://www.lsac.org/lsat/taking-lsat/test-format/logical-reasoning/logical-reasoning-sample-questions\n","date":"March 1, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17093/","section":"Posts","summary":"Not all the answers here are perfect but it’s a good test for logical reasoning. Without logical reasoning nothing is possible (as you can probably see ample examples of in your environment).\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"You need to use your time differently. You need to rise above the work. You need to figure out how to make yourself less busy with your current workload to make room to do higher-value work. No one will do this for you.\nShe was trying to teach her team this lesson: you can’t work yourself to death and succeed over the long term. It was a hard cultural challenge, because her team believed that this overwork was not only highly valued by the company, but demanded.\nYou don’t win the game for running up and down the court; it’s the points on the board that count.\nBut if they are successful, the other thing that you will notice is that they have a ruthless focus on the things they care about. It may seem that they are not doing a good job—but maybe that is just on the part that you are looking at. You need to understand: what else are they doing?\nWelcome to being a leader. This is your job. Your job is not to deliver work when everything lines up to support you. Your job is to get the most important stuff done despite everything that lines up to kill you.\nI know that what I wanted from my staff was for them to catch all the work, analyze it, make judgments about business priorities, and come back to me and negotiate. I wanted them to debate with me about what is most important and why and suggest how to rework the plan to do the most important things first.\nThis is how you keep your boss from continuing to pile things on. Get him on the hook for the same critical business outcomes—your Ruthless Priorities.\nYes, you need to find a way to succeed if your boss is being stupid, but if your plan requires you to win against your boss, you will lose, even if you are right.\nIf you’re tempted to work on everything because it feels less risky, just realize that you will remain unremarkable because you have not given yourself the opportunity to really excel on something that has a big impact on the business.\nOnly when you are mind-numbingly bored with talking about your Ruthless Priorities will your organization really know you are serious and feel confident about acting on them.\nGetting big things done is so powerful that you will get smarter as you do it. Getting things done helps you see around corners. You learn, because you can actually test the reality of the impact of what you got done.\nBut you must focus. If you don’t, you will work very hard but fail to deliver significant business outcomes. So you will fail. This is one of those lonely leadership moments. All leaders face this. The most successful ones get on top of it. They rise above the work.\nIt’s critical to recognize that your job as a leader is to collect and respond to all of the requests that come from above, but not to try to actually do them all. You are expected to tune the workload, to change the game, to figure out better ways to do things.\nIf your executive management could figure out which of the things, in all of this work they assign to you, were truly critical to the business, they wouldn’t need you. That’s your job.\nIt is a core trait of the most successful people to rise above being overbusy. If there are any secrets to what really successful people do, this is one of them. They make more time.\nWhen communications are not clear, the number of questions and individual conversations rises exponentially. Be really clear about decisions, priorities, and issues, and find a communication mechanism to distribute the information. You will increase the capacity of your team greatly if you simply communicate better.\nIf you are good at fixing things or just can’t stand unanswered questions, open loops, or disorganize data, get over it. You can’t fix everything, and most of it doesn’t matter anyway.\nMake three lists on one sheet of paper, in three columns.\nIn the first column, list the things on your to-do list that you are actually getting done.\nIn the second column, list things that you have committed to get done to your boss or your customers or your peers or your team—but are not getting done.\nIn the third column, list the things that you know are really important, but that you have no chance in hell of being able to do because of the existence of the first two lists.\nHaving more energy multiplies your time. You don’t just work faster; you take on things you wouldn’t otherwise. You solve bigger problems and pursue bigger challenges. You have more to give to others. You help your team and your peers more. You have more confidence and make better decisions.\nDo things on purpose that help you recover your energy, but don’t give yourself too hard a time for being in a slump along the way. If you keep moving forward in your life and your work, even if you are not at your most brilliant, the slump will eventually pass.\nOnce you realize that your job is both your job description and dealing with all the crap that gets in the way of your doing your job description, and that what you are actually getting paid for is dealing with the crap, not the enjoyable parts, it all makes more sense.\nThe first and biggest hazard of taking your strengths for granted is that you waste too much time trying to fix your weaknesses. As humans we tend to focus on the things we are not good at. I don’t believe in investing in fixing weaknesses. It is a waste of time and energy, especially compared to building on strengths.\nThey decided it was important to thrive. They redefined the terms under which they were willing to work. They stopped trying to do their job as it was defined for them, focused on what they were really good at, and worked with other people to cover the areas they were not good at.\nLeaders emerge because they are seen to get the work done through their leadership, not by their personal effort.\nWhen you are a workhorse, people value you for your work output; they don’t value you. They don’t care how hard you work; they only care that the work gets done. Your company can absorb an unlimited amount of work from you.\nIt’s about figuring out how to do things better when the world and budgets are set against you\nIf you don’t enable and allow your team to make you bigger, you shouldn’t have a team.\nif, as a leader, you are not sure what to do, talk to everybody.\nBuild a plan to drive the overall strategy for your team and its contribution to the business. Look for game-changing opportunities.\nClarify Ruthless Priorities. Tune everyone’s workload to ensure that they deliver on the most important things.\nEnsure that there is strategic alignment of your team, peers, and boss with priorities and values.\nAssess your organization’s fitness for what it needs to do, and make changes, train, and/or upgrade talent where necessary.\nCreate systems and frameworks to execute, track, and measure the work so you can feel comfortable that you know what is getting done without diving into the details. See also chapter 7, Delegate or Die.\nCreate a specific learning agenda for your team, such as understanding the financial realities of the business, getting closer to customers, or competitive awareness and positioning.\nDevelop talent. Help your team become better leaders and support them. Focus on the development of their top talent.\nImprove communication inside and outside your organization.\nFind ways to steadily reduce the cost of things you do every year to make room for new things. See also chapter 8, Better with Less.\nContinually make connections outside your direct organization to create positive visibility for your team and create a broader base of support.\nYou need to be prepared emotionally for not being the expert any more and for finding your value elsewhere. You need to earn your team’s respect with your leadership skills, not by trying to stay as smart as they are on the detail.\nDon’t think of delegating as just giving work to other people; think about it as making sure the highest-value work gets done at the right levels.\nLet some important stuff go undone, or get done poorly, so you make it clear that you really need the hire.\nAlways think of delegating as a teaching opportunity. Remember, delegating is about taking responsibility to ensure that the highest-value work gets done at the right levels. It is about pulling your people up and making them more capable.\nYou may be more comfortable with the deliverables, but you are completely cutting off the possibility that, with your encouragement and support, they could become even better at it than you. In fact, you are limiting them to never being any better at it than you.\nIf you overmanage people, they will not be motivated to excel; they will just be motivated to get you off their back.\nAs a leader it is your job to cut the cost of doing the same stuff year over year—full stop.\nDealing with shrinking budgets and increased responsibility is a way of life. As a leader you can’t let that prevent you from raising the bar and driving higher-value business outcomes each year. No one will help you with this. Your team will get annoyed that they have less money to do the same stuff. It’s up to you to lead.\nA high-trust environment is a fast, competitive environment. A low-trust environment is a slow, dysfunctional environment.\nIf you try to avoid all negative discussion or always put a positive spin on everything, you will be seen as clueless by your people who are experiencing the reality. That will destroy trust. If you acknowledge difficult issues, then get your team focused on what they can do during times of uncertainty, you will build trust.\nYou must get comfortable with differentiating. Treating everyone equally is not fair to your high performers.\nDo this now. With each of your reports, say the following: “As your manager I am going to worry about what matters to you. When I worry about you, what should I worry about?”\nBut it is imperative that you have a “What happened? This is unacceptable. What are you going to do about it?”conversation.\nAlthough these are not fun, comfortable conversations, if you avoid them, you are degrading trust.\nGood work does not stand on its own. Delivering results alone does not ensure you will get recognized and rewarded. It’s sad but true. You need to take it upon yourself to make your work visible and make it count.\nYou need to show that you can think like a general manager about the whole business and put the business first, at the center of your thinking and discussions.\nDoing your job well, as defined, keeps you from getting fired. What makes you stand out is finding additional ways to add value to the business over and above what is in your job description. Otherwise, you are just one more person doing what is expected of them.\nBringing the external voice of the real world back into your business sets you up as highly credible because most people don’t bother.\nBeing inconsistently good just pisses people off. It creates a high expectation and then a big letdown.\nWhen you observe me at work or life, what is always true? What do you always see?\nWhat is my manner of communicating?\nWhat do I “look like”when I am delivering?\nWhat am I expert in?\nHow do I relate to others at work: What do I give? What do I expect?\nHow do my personality and values affect what I offer?\nWhat outcomes do you associate with my being involved in something?\nBy focusing on her brand, she gave herself the opportunity to sell her strengths without hesitation.\nIf you operate in your own department most of the time and don’t have personal relationships or functional reasons to talk to your boss’s boss, your boss’s peers, and leaders of other organizations, you can consider yourself invisible. And you can consider yourself stuck.\nWhen the executives talk about who is the best, the people whose names are known (even if nothing else is known about them) come out way ahead of the more-talented people whose names are not known.\nYou can be doing a fantastic job, but if some of your key stakeholders either don’t know about it or have an incorrect, not-that-impressed perception of your work, it can be a huge block to your success and your ability to get promotions and resources for your team members or approval for projects you care about.\nIf you are remote, it is up to you to not disappear.\nAre you being clear, succinct, and compelling?\nHave you tuned the presentation to be highly relevant to each audience?\nDo you get to the point? Are you sure you are not boring?\nHave you made sure you won’t be tempted to go on and on about details?\nDo you show strong personal presence?\nDo you show confidence rather than defensiveness?\nCan you deal with disagreements and attacks and not get drawn off track?\nCan you field questions succinctly and not get nervous?\nCan you continue to be succinct and not babble on and on when you get drawn off topic?\nCan you regain control of the conversation?\nFor example, don’t talk about needing data on something. Ask questions like, “What decisions will you be making based on this data?”or “What action do you need this data to inform?”\nYou first need to get yourself there. Once you are there, learn really fast, do the job, and get more comfortable and confident as you go. Then leap again.\nThe world is not waiting for you to check all the boxes; they are merely watching to see if you’ll step up.\nThe ones who step up and go for things are the ones who get them. The ones who are fearless get there faster.\nAny executive is much stronger after having spent significant time with customers where the business really happens. Spending time in sales changes your perspective forever, for the better.\nThis is one of the reasons it is so important to make more time, as we talked about in chapter 3. If you are completely consumed by your current job, you will not have any time or energy to do the things you need to do to get a better or bigger one.\nYou are already committed to your day job. Your extra work that you volunteer for should serve your personal purpose to get ahead.\nA key test of executive presence is to look like you are doing your job with ease and grace. Even if behind the scenes it is chaos, what people should see is you being calm and in control.\nThe bigger the role, the broader your influence needs to be. As a top executive your impact needs to be on a much broader and more external stage. You need to prove that you know how to impact business growth and transformation internally and externally in a big way, if you want a big job.\nHowever, building your career and letting your life go to hell does not work either. The trick is, if you want to do better at either work or life, you need to get better at both.\nYour company wants you to have a good life that you enjoy. They know they will get more out of you at work if you are happy outside of work.\nAnything north of half a million a year is the hazard pay for the company acting like it owns you, letting you know your time is not your own, and finding seemingly laser-targeted ways to torture you.\nIf you have a toxic or useless boss who is damaging you and your career, you need to get out. It’s not worth your time, your health, or the money that lured you into this in the first place.\nBluffing is just another example of why being an executive takes a fair amount of guts, and you need to be OK with the fact that from time to time you are going to be scared and way out of your comfort zone. That is a requirement of the job—get comfortable with it.\nAs long as you demand rigorous accountability to the business and measure and manage performance accordingly, you can be nice to people.\nAlong these lines, I often get asked whether you can or should be friends with a boss or employee.\nYes, you can be friends, as long as the friendship does not keep you from being tough on accountability and results in the business.\nIf you are the kind of person who can keep those separate, friends at work are fine. But if you end up holding your friends less accountable, or not imposing consequences because they are friends, and this makes you uncomfortable, then don’t make friends with employees.\nIf you don’t seriously manage performance with employees who are friends, everyone will see that you are letting your friend get away with things. You will squander huge amounts of trust. People will accept your friendships as long as they see you being fair.\nI am a firm believer that growing businesses come from growing people, and to be highly successful, you need to make the people supporting you successful too.\n","date":"February 21, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-rise/","section":"Posts","summary":"You need to use your time differently. You need to rise above the work. You need to figure out how to make yourself less busy with your current workload to make room to do higher-value work. No one will do this for you.\n","title":"Highlights for Rise","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;m not sure what lesson to take from the Frankenstein end state of the Facebook iOS app. Is it that mobile does not really scale? Or is it that you shouldn\u0026rsquo;t scale mobile in this way?\nhttps://engineering.fb.com/2023/02/06/ios/facebook-ios-app-architecture/\n","date":"February 20, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17087/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’m not sure what lesson to take from the Frankenstein end state of the Facebook iOS app. Is it that mobile does not really scale? Or is it that you shouldn’t scale mobile in this way?\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The punch line of the John Hennigan—Des Moines story—“after two days, he begged to get out of it”—made it part of gambling folklore.\nEverything is a bet.\nMost people aren’t like poker players, around whom there is always the potential that someone might propose a bet and they will mean it.\nSuch interactions are reminders that not all situations are appropriate for truthseeking, nor are all people interested in the pursuit.\nIn the movie, the matrix was built to be a more comfortable version of the world. Our brains, likewise, have evolved to make our version of the world more comfortable: our beliefs are nearly always correct; favorable outcomes are the result of our skill; there are plausible reasons why unfavorable outcomes are beyond our control; and we compare favorably with our peers. We deny or at least dilute the most painful parts of the message.\nIn fact, as long as there are three people in the group (two to disagree and one to referee*), the truthseeking group can be stable and productive.\n\u0026ldquo;a pretty good blueprint for a truthseeking charter:\nA focus on accuracy (over confirmation), which includes rewarding truthseeking, objectivity, and open-mindedness within the group;\nAccountability, for which members have advance notice; and\nOpenness to a diversity of ideas.\u0026rdquo;\nIn three sentences, he laid out all the elements of a productive group charter. “I don’t want to hear it. I’m not trying to hurt your feelings, but if you have a question about a hand, you can ask me about strategy all day long. I just don’t think there’s much purpose in a poker story if the point is about something you had no control over, like bad luck.”\nWe should also recognize that it’s really hard: the norm is toward homogeneity; we’re all guilty of it; and we don’t even notice that we’re doing it.\nComing from a community composed almost entirely of liberal-leaning scientists, the quality and impact of research can suffer.\nLiberals would do well to take some time to read and watch more conservative news sources, and conservatives would do well to take some time to read and watch more liberal news sources—not with the goal of confirming that the other side is a collection of idiots who have nothing of value to say but to specifically and purposely find things they agree with.\nAnyone can provide the narrative only up to the point of the decision under consideration, leaving off the outcome so as not to infect their listeners with bias.\nThe way we field outcomes is path dependent. It doesn’t so much matter where we end up as how we got there. What has happened in the recent past drives our emotional response much more than how we are doing overall. That’s how we can win $100 and be sad, and lose $100 and be happy. The zoom lens doesn’t just magnify, it distorts.\nAt the very beginning of my poker career, I heard an aphorism from some of the legends of the profession: “It’s all just one long poker game.”\nRemember, the likelihood of positive and negative futures must add up to 100%. The positive space of backcasting and the negative space of a premortem still have to fit in a finite amount of space.\n","date":"February 20, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-thinking-in-bets/","section":"Posts","summary":"The punch line of the John Hennigan—Des Moines story—“after two days, he begged to get out of it”—made it part of gambling folklore.\n","title":"Highlights for Thinking in Bets","type":"posts"},{"content":"A result that generalizes prompt hacking and would point towards most deep learning AIs are exploitable (and proably trivially so).\nhttps://hachyderm.io/@inthehands/109892145569287793\n","date":"February 20, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17083/","section":"Posts","summary":"A result that generalizes prompt hacking and would point towards most deep learning AIs are exploitable (and proably trivially so).\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"One of my favorite new podcasts is Oxide and Friends which is a weekly live show that\u0026rsquo;s technically very deep, focused on #Rust, morally opinionated and funny.\nThis epsiode about consumer reports and memory safety is a good one to start with:\nhttps://oxide.computer/podcasts/oxide-and-friends/1208089\n","date":"February 19, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17081/","section":"Posts","summary":"One of my favorite new podcasts is Oxide and Friends which is a weekly live show that’s technically very deep, focused on #Rust, morally opinionated and funny.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"One state, BW, in Germany took the opportunity with the reform of the property taxes to implement something like a Land Value Tax (at a very moderate 1.3‰ rate) and it is doing exactly what it should be doing.\nThe man crying for sympathy in the video is sitting on a plot of land worth €2.5M.\nhttps://www.swr.de/swraktuell/baden-wuerttemberg/suedbaden/grundsteuer-erster-bescheid-einspruch-100.html\n","date":"February 19, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17079/","section":"Posts","summary":"One state, BW, in Germany took the opportunity with the reform of the property taxes to implement something like a Land Value Tax (at a very moderate 1.3‰ rate) and it is doing exactly what it should be doing.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The Fly.io write-up of how they built their own orchestrator is a wild ride and also contains a crash-course introduction into how to schedule workloads at (non)scale.\nhttps://fly.io/blog/carving-the-scheduler-out-of-our-orchestrator/\n","date":"February 18, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17076/","section":"Posts","summary":"The Fly.io write-up of how they built their own orchestrator is a wild ride and also contains a crash-course introduction into how to schedule workloads at (non)scale.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A good overview of the protections that Rust offers compared to out in the wild C code based on the audit of the git source code. In short: if you write idiomatic Rust, you get a lot of protection.\nhttps://litchipi.github.io/infosec/2023/01/24/git-code-audit-viewed-as-rust-programmer.html\n","date":"February 18, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17074/","section":"Posts","summary":"A good overview of the protections that Rust offers compared to out in the wild C code based on the audit of the git source code. In short: if you write idiomatic Rust, you get a lot of protection.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A reasonable enough rationale to choose Java in this article. Am I missing out if I never built a serious backend on the current Spring/Boot JVM (and never seen a team outside of the consulting space use it)?\nhttps://foojay.io/today/why-picnic-picked-java/\n","date":"February 18, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17072/","section":"Posts","summary":"A reasonable enough rationale to choose Java in this article. Am I missing out if I never built a serious backend on the current Spring/Boot JVM (and never seen a team outside of the consulting space use it)?\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The biggest tragedy of Agile is that planning your team to maximum capacity is not agile.\nhttps://devops.com/agile-scrum-is-a-failure-heres-why/\n","date":"February 18, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17070/","section":"Posts","summary":"The biggest tragedy of Agile is that planning your team to maximum capacity is not agile.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Going through these presentations by Matt Jones the main thing I\u0026rsquo;m left wondering is if anybody still does any real design and thinking work anymore, when it comes to technology or if all of it now is just flinging shit against the wall (which it very much looks like).\nhttps://petafloptimism.com/2022/12/30/optometrists-octopii-rubber-ducks-centaurs-my-talk-at-design-for-ai-tu-delft-october-2022/\n","date":"February 18, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17068/","section":"Posts","summary":"Going through these presentations by Matt Jones the main thing I’m left wondering is if anybody still does any real design and thinking work anymore, when it comes to technology or if all of it now is just flinging shit against the wall (which it very much looks like).\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"It would be fitting if the tech layoffs would take some big bites out of the boundary of the firm and move us to more dynamic working arrangements. Unfortunately a country like Germany with its rigid social security is incredibly hostile to most such arrangements.\nhttps://www.vox.com/recode/2023/2/9/23591549/tech-freelance-contract-independent-work-layoffs\n","date":"February 18, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17066/","section":"Posts","summary":"It would be fitting if the tech layoffs would take some big bites out of the boundary of the firm and move us to more dynamic working arrangements. Unfortunately a country like Germany with its rigid social security is incredibly hostile to most such arrangements.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I read this thorough survey of monospace fonts by Tim Bray and found out in the end that I\u0026rsquo;ve already been using the fonts that he recommends (Jetbrains Mono and Inconsolata) for a while now.\nhttps://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2023/02/09/Monospace\n","date":"February 18, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17064/","section":"Posts","summary":"I read this thorough survey of monospace fonts by Tim Bray and found out in the end that I’ve already been using the fonts that he recommends (Jetbrains Mono and Inconsolata) for a while now.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"It is beyond funny that the right wing conspiracy theorists have latched onto the idea of creating liveable, walkable cities as the next threat to humanity.\nhttps://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/feb/16/15-minute-city-planning-theory-conspiracists\n","date":"February 18, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17062/","section":"Posts","summary":"It is beyond funny that the right wing conspiracy theorists have latched onto the idea of creating liveable, walkable cities as the next threat to humanity.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A thorough explanation why building UI frameworks in Rust is uniquely difficult (and why we haven\u0026rsquo;t seen clear victories for Rust in that domain… yet).\nhttps://www.warp.dev/blog/why-is-building-a-ui-in-rust-so-hard\n","date":"February 18, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17060/","section":"Posts","summary":"A thorough explanation why building UI frameworks in Rust is uniquely difficult (and why we haven’t seen clear victories for Rust in that domain… yet).\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"There is a lot in this piece on the Khaleeji Ideology and the collapse of future and landscape that is happening in the Gulf.\n\u0026quot; you think money can’t buy you happiness? 7bb come to Dubai\u0026quot;\n\u0026quot; the color of the Khaleeji Ideology is decidedly green. The acid green of chromakey, the hacker green of a terminal screen, the subtle green of glass, which intensifies with an infinity mirror effect; the greens of astroturf and of lawns and golf courses maintained with desalinated water.\u0026quot;\nhttps://www.e-flux.com/architecture/horizons/498319/the-khaleeji-ideology/\n","date":"February 18, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17057/","section":"Posts","summary":"There is a lot in this piece on the Khaleeji Ideology and the collapse of future and landscape that is happening in the Gulf.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"anti-anti-utopia\nhttps://petafloptimism.com/2022/07/20/open-lecture-at-ciid-keeping-up-with-the-kardashevians/\n","date":"February 18, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17055/","section":"Posts","summary":"anti-anti-utopia\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"\u0026ldquo;When Jake Knapp was running those design thinking workshops at Google, he saw that for all the excitement and Post-its they generated, the brainstorming sessions didn’t usually lead to built products or, really, solutions of any kind.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;He believes that a justice lens can help foster collaboration and creativity in a much broader way that goes beyond our current power structures.\u0026rdquo;\nhttps://www.technologyreview.com/2023/02/09/1067821/design-thinking-retrospective-what-went-wrong/\n","date":"February 17, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17053/","section":"Posts","summary":"“When Jake Knapp was running those design thinking workshops at Google, he saw that for all the excitement and Post-its they generated, the brainstorming sessions didn’t usually lead to built products or, really, solutions of any kind.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The next bit of insanity has to do with the German Datenschutz nutters. This is a small but virulent group of people who have blown up privacy issues to the point where most of Germany is still afraid to use the internet.\nIt started with this:\nhttps://chaos.social/@HonkHase/109864477100535497\nA bunch of schools in Karlsruhe were attacked by ransomware and their servers had to be taken offline.\nNow the first question that comes to mind is of course: Why does a school have servers? Don\u0026rsquo;t all schools run in the cloud these days?\nWell, in Germany they don\u0026rsquo;t. There are lots of agencies and levels of decision makers all of whom are too busy covering their own ass and none of them will say: \u0026ldquo;Schools can use cloud solutions.\u0026rdquo; People and organizations being as risk averse as they are in Germany, nobody will use cloud solutions without such a declaration. 1\nSo what do they do instead? They have to get servers and people to install and maintain barely useable non-cloud collaborative software tools. Nobody in their right mind would use these tools and kids in private schools of course don\u0026rsquo;t either, but this dysfunctional ideology is foisted upon kids who have no other choice.\nThese tools are not usable in any way, barely work even in the best of circumstances, are tremendously costly in maintenance and then break like in the news above. If you ever get to see from the inside how a normal organization manages their IT (i.e. poorly), from that point on you will beg, plead and scream to have everything put in the cloud.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s where somebody like the poster above from KRITIS comes in. That\u0026rsquo;s an organization representing people who get off on pushing around physical servers and whose founding member sells an alternative private collaboration suite, exactly like the ones that they recommend people use.\nI agree with their core point that critical infrastructure should be protected better and in just doing that they\u0026rsquo;ll generate more than enough work for all the security consultants in their network. Just stop scaring normal people because you benefit from the widespread climate of fear and hands off the kids.\nProbably for the best because if they do, they will be sued by a random wanker (such is the German legal system).\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"February 15, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/hey-datenschutz-leave-those-kids-alone/","section":"Posts","summary":"The next bit of insanity has to do with the German Datenschutz nutters. This is a small but virulent group of people who have blown up privacy issues to the point where most of Germany is still afraid to use the internet.\n","title":"Hey Datenschutz, leave those kids alone","type":"posts"},{"content":"Several online situations today where I think I\u0026rsquo;m going insane so I might as well document them.\nI listened to the last episode of Bungacast with the authors of the new book \u0026ldquo;The Covid Consensus\u0026rdquo;.\nhttps://twitter.com/BungaCast/status/1625430144897671168\nBoth the book and the episode are highly questionable. There is little more there than pandering to the COVID sceptic horseshoe left 1 by fishing in the murky pond of anti-authoritarianism, pseudo-science and neoreaction.\nNow I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t think it weird that COVID nutters would write a book. What is odd is that Bungacast would give that much prominence to something which is obviously dumb. Not sure if it\u0026rsquo;s a cynical play on the alternative/controversial left or whether the podcasters truly believe this way of looking at the world has any merit. In any case, for me this is Schluß with this particular pod.\nA while back I had listened to an episode of Politics Theory Other which has long been a favorite podcast of mine where Richard Seymour utterly demolishes that very same book. PTO is actually serious, actually left, actually critical and very much recommended.\nThat episode is well worth a (re)listen and I\u0026rsquo;m now a fan of Richard Seymour who comes in like a sledgehammer.\nhttps://twitter.com/MattNoahSmith/status/1625900511223484416\nIf I lift this one level, the so called \u0026ldquo;Lockdown\u0026rdquo; is being used as a scapegoat for anything and everything that people don\u0026rsquo;t like. Here in Europe the lockdowns felt very long but were brief in retrospect. The longest probably being the 3 month school/daycare closure at the start of the pandemic during which we also suffered immensely. Real hard lockdowns happened in a country like China. Claiming that the relatively mild restrictions that we had for a couple of months (and then twice more) created irreparable damage in the general population is very fucking rich.\nThey may be right about Lockdown in one way that the concept of it has become big enough and detached from reality enough to house whatever theories or madness anybody wants to house in it. As such, lockdown was a huge psychohistoric event.\nThose on the far left who would be far right if only the wind would blow from a different direction that day.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"February 15, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17035/","section":"Posts","summary":"Several online situations today where I think I’m going insane so I might as well document them.\n","title":"Out with Bungacast and their tankie/nutter agenda","type":"posts"},{"content":"Important prototyping work to show how German government forms can be much better and much friendlier than what\u0026rsquo;s out there right now.\nGetting anything like this to production will be very very difficult without a lot of systemic changes and groundwork done first.\nhttps://citylab-berlin.org/de/blog/nutzerzentrierte-digitale-verwaltung-bessere-online-antraege-durch-co-kreation-mit-buergerinnen/\n","date":"February 11, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17033/","section":"Posts","summary":"Important prototyping work to show how German government forms can be much better and much friendlier than what’s out there right now.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Planning should be about confidence intervals and de-risking, not about loading capacity full with commitment.\nhttps://medium.com/agileinsider/from-story-points-to-slam-dunks-planning-for-success-c3e067354d9b\n","date":"February 11, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17031/","section":"Posts","summary":"Planning should be about confidence intervals and de-risking, not about loading capacity full with commitment.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"My functional journey went a bit like this:\n\u0026ldquo;Oh wouldn\u0026rsquo;t it be nice if I could do FP with javascript because I already know that!\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Argh, javascript libraries are terrible.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Oh no every sublanguage has its own broken transpiler (or whatever you call this).\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;And the documentation is all over the place and often half finished.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;So the only serious options for hardcore functional programming are Haskell and Scala.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Scala, just no. Bah.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Haskell is nice but you can\u0026rsquo;t do anything serious with it.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Extensions? Why are these not documented?\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Running Haskell? Start doing a PhD on Nix and then we\u0026rsquo;ll talk.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;OK. I guess I\u0026rsquo;ll write Clojure which has a nice syntax and takes advantage of the maturity of the JVM.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Ah, another small language with a fragmented and stagnant ecosystem.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;I give up. Whatever functional features Rust has will have to be good enough.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Let me learn some category theory for fun.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;So category theory has almost no relationship to real functional programming and all that endofunctor stuff is just a fancy way of saying \u0026lsquo;Fuck you!\u0026rsquo;??\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;No desire to ever touch this stuff again. Maybe I\u0026rsquo;ll try logic programming instead.\u0026rdquo;\n","date":"February 10, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17028/","section":"Posts","summary":"My functional journey went a bit like this:\n","title":"My functional journey","type":"posts"},{"content":"How can programmers struggle so much with naming things? It\u0026rsquo;s basically half the job.\n","date":"February 8, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17026/","section":"Posts","summary":"How can programmers struggle so much with naming things? It’s basically half the job.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"https://sozialtheoristen.de/2023/02/05/ungleichheit-und-systemtheorie-die-blinden-flecken-in-luhmanns-theorie-der-gesellschaft/\nHere\u0026rsquo;s one of many possible takedowns of Luhmann\u0026rsquo;s work that should give you a good taste of how useless it is without having to read any of the works themselves. Imagine living in a society where they got this instead of ANT.\nThe block quoted below for instance is exactly the same vibe as Rudolf Steiner\u0026rsquo;s nonsense.\nDurch diese Beschreibung ziehen sich auch die Funktionssysteme, also Wirtschaft, Wissenschaft, Politik usw. über die gesamte Welt. Ihm fällt dabei allerdings schon auf, dass es gewisse Bereiche gibt, die scheinbar mehr Einfluss auf das Weltgeschehen ausüben als andere. Vielleicht, um eine zu vertikale Formulierung zu umgehen, die er nur für die Feudalgesellschaften vorsieht, nutzt er für dieses Ungleichgewicht die Unterscheidung nach Zentrum und Peripherie (Luhmann 2005: 249). Dabei sind wir, die aufgeklärten und fortschrittlichen Länder des Westens, natürlich im Zentrum.\n","date":"February 6, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17024/","section":"Posts","summary":"https://sozialtheoristen.de/2023/02/05/ungleichheit-und-systemtheorie-die-blinden-flecken-in-luhmanns-theorie-der-gesellschaft/\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"\u0026ldquo;If you put this in relation to total population it implies that in a single generation, China has built enough homes to house a billion people.\u0026rdquo;\nAmongst G20 members China and India rival each other for the lowest share of income tax in GDP.\nhttps://open.substack.com/pub/adamtooze/p/chartbook-194-can-beijing-halt-chinas\n","date":"February 5, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17022/","section":"Posts","summary":"“If you put this in relation to total population it implies that in a single generation, China has built enough homes to house a billion people.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;m thinking of calling this realization \u0026ldquo;organizational growing up\u0026rdquo;:\n\u0026gt; There will be times when you’ll think “This is a problem and someone should say something”…and realize with a sinking feeling that that someone is you. —Joy Ebertz quotes Tanya Reilly\nhttps://jkebertz.medium.com/how-to-get-that-staff-engineer-promotion-837cb19fbf44\n","date":"February 4, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17020/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’m thinking of calling this realization “organizational growing up”:\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Discord has been executing near perfectly and it looks like they\u0026rsquo;ve built-in most of the functionality of Discourse now. That\u0026rsquo;s an absolutely amazing complementary feature to the ephemerality of the chat stream.\nhttps://discord.com/blog/forum-channels-space-for-organized-conversation\n","date":"February 4, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17018/","section":"Posts","summary":"Discord has been executing near perfectly and it looks like they’ve built-in most of the functionality of Discourse now. That’s an absolutely amazing complementary feature to the ephemerality of the chat stream.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"It\u0026rsquo;s understandable that organizations try to make their word legible and simplify things. In fact, it\u0026rsquo;s one of the reasons for the organizational boundary.\nThe problem is that monoprocess pretty much entirely does not work for any creative/agile endeavour. Things are valuable exactly because they are complicated and messy.\nhttps://www.loom.com/share/b423f9abc13e49849d738f89bc4a1f02\n","date":"February 4, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17016/","section":"Posts","summary":"It’s understandable that organizations try to make their word legible and simplify things. In fact, it’s one of the reasons for the organizational boundary.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A nice article about Box\u0026rsquo;s transformation and especially that chart contrasting burn v. growth is one of the most important things for any startup to keep in mind.\nhttps://www.scalevp.com/blog/winning-in-saas-2023\n","date":"February 4, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17014/","section":"Posts","summary":"A nice article about Box’s transformation and especially that chart contrasting burn v. growth is one of the most important things for any startup to keep in mind.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Dit artikel bevestigt eigenlijk prima mijn beeld van het leven in Amsterdam waar veel mensen aan de pillen zitten.\nhttps://www.vice.com/nl/article/y3p8vb/als-je-maatschappelijk-succes-niet-onder-je-drugsgebruik-lijdt-maar-jij-wel\n","date":"February 4, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17012/","section":"Posts","summary":"Dit artikel bevestigt eigenlijk prima mijn beeld van het leven in Amsterdam waar veel mensen aan de pillen zitten.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"For my notes, a bunch of receipts about just one of the dark pasts of the German Green Party.\nhttps://www.patreon.com/posts/meet-german-from-60420980\n","date":"February 2, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17010/","section":"Posts","summary":"For my notes, a bunch of receipts about just one of the dark pasts of the German Green Party.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I use a graph based note taking tool (foam) and I am to yet derive any kind of value from the graph (other than some minor visual oohs and aahs). It\u0026rsquo;s vastly oversold and I don\u0026rsquo;t want to think about all the time people have wasted tidying and linking up their notes.\nhttps://www.otherlife.co/pkm/\n","date":"February 2, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17008/","section":"Posts","summary":"I use a graph based note taking tool (foam) and I am to yet derive any kind of value from the graph (other than some minor visual oohs and aahs). It’s vastly oversold and I don’t want to think about all the time people have wasted tidying and linking up their notes.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Twitter will keep working in the same sense that people can use Jira.\n","date":"February 2, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17006/","section":"Posts","summary":"Twitter will keep working in the same sense that people can use Jira.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"As a company scales, there are phase shifts which feel like they suck all the productivity out of an organization. The way to get through as described here is familiar: categorize and capture everything, reduce WIP and loop through your process.\nhttps://sharedphysics.com/everything-is-important/\n","date":"February 1, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17004/","section":"Posts","summary":"As a company scales, there are phase shifts which feel like they suck all the productivity out of an organization. The way to get through as described here is familiar: categorize and capture everything, reduce WIP and loop through your process.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A lot to like in this article (\u0026ldquo;They avoid scrum and SAFe like the plague.\u0026rdquo;) but I\u0026rsquo;ll settle for adopting the core thrust of it and just retiring the entire concept of a PO and never have to debate \u0026ldquo;What is the difference between a PM and a PO?\u0026rdquo; ever again.\nhttps://www.digitalproductjobs.com/why-do-they-keep-hiring-product-owners-and-not-product-managers-and-why-you-should-avoid-companies-that-do/\n","date":"February 1, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17002/","section":"Posts","summary":"A lot to like in this article (“They avoid scrum and SAFe like the plague.”) but I’ll settle for adopting the core thrust of it and just retiring the entire concept of a PO and never have to debate “What is the difference between a PM and a PO?” ever again.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Since the one digital thing that Germany is really good at is copying, here is the UK\u0026rsquo;s 2025 roadmap for digital and data. Just copy-paste it and do everything that\u0026rsquo;s in there.\nExceed public expectations Equip civil servants for a digital future Enhance government efficiency and security Anything less than that is not really acceptable anymore.\nhttps://www.gov.uk/government/publications/roadmap-for-digital-and-data-2022-to-2025/transforming-for-a-digital-future-2022-to-2025-roadmap-for-digital-and-data\n","date":"February 1, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/17000/","section":"Posts","summary":"Since the one digital thing that Germany is really good at is copying, here is the UK’s 2025 roadmap for digital and data. Just copy-paste it and do everything that’s in there.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"This is a levelling model around work conflicts by Jack Coates that I think is thought-provoking and productive with at the end these take aways:\nconflicts will persist the senior person should move first bring somebody in who can resolve the issue https://monkeynoodle.org/2018/12/18/conflicts-at-work/\n","date":"February 1, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16998/","section":"Posts","summary":"This is a levelling model around work conflicts by Jack Coates that I think is thought-provoking and productive with at the end these take aways:\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ilya Grigorik notes down a perspective on what people at the higher senior+ levels should be doing. At that level things can get fuzzy and people tend to struggle.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s not your job to solve the problem Focus on perspectives Build technical leaders Scroll down especially to read the excellent list of tactical everyday best tips.\nhttps://ilya.grigorik.com/the-principal-engineers-handbook/\n","date":"January 31, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16994/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ilya Grigorik notes down a perspective on what people at the higher senior+ levels should be doing. At that level things can get fuzzy and people tend to struggle.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Always nice to have the company you work for be covered by the local newspaper.\nhttps://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/berliner-start-up-choco-die-app-fur-den-chefkoch-9250776.html\n","date":"January 30, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16991/","section":"Posts","summary":"Always nice to have the company you work for be covered by the local newspaper.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Despite not being the biggest fan of Shape Up or of 37s, I still really enjoyed watching this video by Ryan Singer about Shaping.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s very well done and though I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t recommend anybody to follow this by the book, you would do well to take inspiration from it.\n","date":"January 29, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16989/","section":"Posts","summary":"Despite not being the biggest fan of Shape Up or of 37s, I still really enjoyed watching this video by Ryan Singer about Shaping.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Just to file this for my receipts here. Marina Weisband asks whether you would build a website for a small organization using Wix.\nhttps://chaos.social/@afelia/109631019638041653\nLook at the replies all of which are somewhere between: \u0026ldquo;Datenschutz this\u0026rdquo;, \u0026ldquo;you can get sued for that\u0026rdquo;, \u0026ldquo;be afraid\u0026rdquo;, \u0026ldquo;don\u0026rsquo;t do it\u0026rdquo;. It\u0026rsquo;s so incredibly sad that the people in Germany created this absurd swamp where the best answer for most people is to just opt out of the internet.\nAnd then at the same time these people will gaslight me by saying that \u0026ldquo;Datenschutz isn\u0026rsquo;t the problem\u0026rdquo;. Of course Datenschutz isn\u0026rsquo;t the problem. The problem are the infinite number of true idiots in this country who will talk about nothing other than Datenschutz.\n","date":"January 29, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16987/","section":"Posts","summary":"Just to file this for my receipts here. Marina Weisband asks whether you would build a website for a small organization using Wix.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"To refocus on being available and being able to do deep work as a leader of an org I\u0026rsquo;m employing a bunch of the things listed.\nA clear calendar without superfluous meetings or vacuous rituals for me and my team Invest time to connect and work on the topics that are truly important Pull tasks for the day from Things to a piece of paper Prepare and minute meetings in an auto-filled daily note in my note taking system Block out most e-mail and slack Cancel meetings or counter them to 15 minutes (or just walk up to my desk) Set the standards and then delegate things which others should be better at than me anyway Proactively cancel tasks that are not seeing progress There\u0026rsquo;s no point for me to be busy. Work will find me anyway. I better be available for the important stuff.\nhttps://medium.com/illumination/back-to-back-meetings-create-an-illusion-of-productivity-why-the-best-leaders-keep-an-empty-adbb02abdc0f\n","date":"January 29, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16983/","section":"Posts","summary":"To refocus on being available and being able to do deep work as a leader of an org I’m employing a bunch of the things listed.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The past couple of weeks I had a bit of a weird feeling because there weren\u0026rsquo;t any new episodes from Piratensender Powerplay. Then I found out Friedemann is out sick but also that they have a Patreon with extra episodes.\nI immediately reallocated some pledges and am now supporting them. This is one of the best German podcasts and at times its level is up there with the top US podcasts I\u0026rsquo;ve listened to. Coming from me this is absurdly high praise.\nGive it a listen:\nhttps://www.patreon.com/piratensenderpowerplay/about\n","date":"January 29, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16981/","section":"Posts","summary":"The past couple of weeks I had a bit of a weird feeling because there weren’t any new episodes from Piratensender Powerplay. Then I found out Friedemann is out sick but also that they have a Patreon with extra episodes.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Being able to run Chrome in your terminal and watch YouTube videos there means the snake has fully eaten its tail.\nhttps://github.com/fathyb/carbonyl\n","date":"January 29, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16979/","section":"Posts","summary":"Being able to run Chrome in your terminal and watch YouTube videos there means the snake has fully eaten its tail.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Love to see these updates from the German Digital Service. Not sure everybody knows that that organization exists now and what they\u0026rsquo;re busy with.\nThe work they\u0026rsquo;re doing is really good but what\u0026rsquo;s really staggering is how much of a gap they have to bridge here. These are basic buildings blocks of digital transformation that advanced societies tackled 10-20 years ago.\nhttps://digitalservice.bund.de/blog/mit-kommunikationsdesign-nutzerzentrierte-verwaltungsmodernisierung-unterstuetzen\n","date":"January 24, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16977/","section":"Posts","summary":"Love to see these updates from the German Digital Service. Not sure everybody knows that that organization exists now and what they’re busy with.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"We\u0026rsquo;ve mapped our metrics and levers in Double Loop as a platform org and are now seeing this approach spread through the company.\nDaniel explains here how you can use their tool to operationalize strategy and systems thinking.\nhttps://blog.doubleloop.app/strategy-systems-thinking-and-being-wrong/\n","date":"January 24, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16974/","section":"Posts","summary":"We’ve mapped our metrics and levers in Double Loop as a platform org and are now seeing this approach spread through the company.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Leuke aflevering met Menno en Wimer over de lange en rijke geschiedenis van hun bureau Booreiland en de volgende stap die ze nu zetten.\nhttps://www.studiogeorge.nl/degebakkenperen/booreiland-clarify\n","date":"January 20, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16972/","section":"Posts","summary":"Leuke aflevering met Menno en Wimer over de lange en rijke geschiedenis van hun bureau Booreiland en de volgende stap die ze nu zetten.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The Engineering Enablement podcast has been good to listen to—if a bit anodyne. The recent episode I listened to with Jeremiah Lee about Spotify\u0026rsquo;s massively popular but failed org structure was really fun and useful.\nhttps://getdx.com/podcast/28\n","date":"January 20, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16970/","section":"Posts","summary":"The Engineering Enablement podcast has been good to listen to—if a bit anodyne. The recent episode I listened to with Jeremiah Lee about Spotify’s massively popular but failed org structure was really fun and useful.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Leadership abhors a vacuum.\n","date":"January 17, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16968/","section":"Posts","summary":"Leadership abhors a vacuum.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Complaining is easy. Learning how your organization works as described here by Cindy Sridharan is hard. Which of the two do you prefer to do?\nThe mirage of aspiration Know how your org works Soft skills are hard skills Understand implicit hierarchies Cultures: top-down, bottom-up and both Get comfortable with the \u0026lsquo;mess\u0026rsquo; Look for small (and any) wins Understand org constraints and manage your expectations \u0026ldquo;Get comfortable with the \u0026lsquo;mess\u0026rsquo;\u0026rdquo; and I can let you in on a small secret: everything is a mess.\nhttps://copyconstruct.medium.com/know-how-your-org-works-or-how-to-become-a-more-effective-engineer-1a3287d1f58d\n","date":"January 13, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16963/","section":"Posts","summary":"Complaining is easy. Learning how your organization works as described here by Cindy Sridharan is hard. Which of the two do you prefer to do?\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I love this quirky website, The Kool-aid Factory and its dynamic publications about company culture and coordination.\nhttps://koolaidfactory.com/\n","date":"January 13, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16961/","section":"Posts","summary":"I love this quirky website, The Kool-aid Factory and its dynamic publications about company culture and coordination.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"An article by Victor Rentea that offers a mature and pragmatic perspective on clean architectures where developers too often tend to over-abstract.\nI usually say: \u0026ldquo;Premature abstraction is the root of all evil.\u0026rdquo;\nhttps://victorrentea.ro/blog/overengineering-in-onion-hexagonal-architectures/\n","date":"January 11, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16959/","section":"Posts","summary":"An article by Victor Rentea that offers a mature and pragmatic perspective on clean architectures where developers too often tend to over-abstract.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A great and opinionated list of what healthy teams do by Hà Phan:\ndesign how they work together have good research habits build to learn ship regularly build systems over features are inclusive https://hpdailyrant.medium.com/what-a-healthy-team-looks-like-637e63e30edb\n","date":"January 10, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16956/","section":"Posts","summary":"A great and opinionated list of what healthy teams do by Hà Phan:\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"\u0026ldquo;This may surprise you, but continuous deployment is far and away the easiest way to write, ship, and run code in production. This is the counterintuitive truth about software: making lots of little changes swiftly is infinitely easier than making a few bulky changes slowly.\u0026rdquo;\nhttps://stackoverflow.blog/2021/12/20/fulfilling-the-promise-of-ci-cd/\nMaybe this is counterintuitive, but ask yourself: Who has the time to manually test and release changes to production at scale? That\u0026rsquo;s right: nobody.\n","date":"January 8, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16954/","section":"Posts","summary":"“This may surprise you, but continuous deployment is far and away the easiest way to write, ship, and run code in production. This is the counterintuitive truth about software: making lots of little changes swiftly is infinitely easier than making a few bulky changes slowly.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"There is a belief in software that making something work is such deep magic or so complicated, that you should be happy with anything.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s not true. It has been possible for a while now to develop (any) software linearly, rationally, predictably.\nThe reason it persists is because it covers for a lack of competence and helps to abdicate responsibility.\n","date":"January 8, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16952/","section":"Posts","summary":"There is a belief in software that making something work is such deep magic or so complicated, that you should be happy with anything.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A thorough treatment in the New Yorker of the way the Indian film industry is being captured by ideology.\nhttps://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/10/17/when-the-hindu-right-came-for-bollywood\n","date":"January 8, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16950/","section":"Posts","summary":"A thorough treatment in the New Yorker of the way the Indian film industry is being captured by ideology.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Why am I not surprised that somebody like Marc Andreessen would be a NIMBY while at the same time being a hypocrite?\nhttps://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/08/marc-andreessens-opposition-housing-project-nimby/671061/\n","date":"January 6, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16948/","section":"Posts","summary":"Why am I not surprised that somebody like Marc Andreessen would be a NIMBY while at the same time being a hypocrite?\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Everything we continue to learn about the very earliest people is completely fascinating.\nNext time I go to Turkey, a visit to the Taş Tepeler is definitely in order.\nhttps://www.spectator.co.uk/article/does-an-unknown-extraordinarily-ancient-civilisation-lie-buried-under-eastern-turkey-/\n","date":"January 6, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16946/","section":"Posts","summary":"Everything we continue to learn about the very earliest people is completely fascinating.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A really enjoyable three part essay series by Hillel Wayne comparing software engineering with traditional engineering disciplines to see whether we are really engineers, whether we are special and what we can learn from each other.\nhttps://www.hillelwayne.com/post/what-we-can-learn/\n","date":"January 6, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16944/","section":"Posts","summary":"A really enjoyable three part essay series by Hillel Wayne comparing software engineering with traditional engineering disciplines to see whether we are really engineers, whether we are special and what we can learn from each other.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Machine learning looks like a very challenging field to keep up with let alone to study it. This guide by Vicki Boykis gives a bunch of pointers around reading, mapping and learning that can be applied to any large field you want to get into.\nhttps://vickiboykis.com/2022/11/10/how-i-learn-machine-learning/\n","date":"January 6, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16942/","section":"Posts","summary":"Machine learning looks like a very challenging field to keep up with let alone to study it. This guide by Vicki Boykis gives a bunch of pointers around reading, mapping and learning that can be applied to any large field you want to get into.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The Yard Sale model is a very basic thought experiment that explains why the rich get richer and why a free market like the one we have is not fair (or free).\nhttps://pudding.cool/2022/12/yard-sale/\n","date":"January 2, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16940/","section":"Posts","summary":"The Yard Sale model is a very basic thought experiment that explains why the rich get richer and why a free market like the one we have is not fair (or free).\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Looking at conversations from an improv perspective opens a lot of doors for interesting outcomes. It requires active thinking and leaning into the awkwardness both of which are good skills to practice.\nhttps://experimentalhistory.substack.com/p/good-conversations-have-lots-of-doorknobs\n","date":"January 2, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16936/","section":"Posts","summary":"Looking at conversations from an improv perspective opens a lot of doors for interesting outcomes. It requires active thinking and leaning into the awkwardness both of which are good skills to practice.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A manifesto for 2023 by Robin Sloan to take nothing for granted and try out all kinds of new things. Everything old is new again and everything new is exciting.\nhttps://www.robinsloan.com/lab/new-avenues/\n","date":"January 2, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16934/","section":"Posts","summary":"A manifesto for 2023 by Robin Sloan to take nothing for granted and try out all kinds of new things. Everything old is new again and everything new is exciting.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"People will talk about the wage-price spiral (which has been demonstrated to be false), but they won\u0026rsquo;t talk so much about the herd behaviour at the higher echelons of our industry.\nhttps://www.futurity.org/tech-industry-layoffs-2844882-2/\n","date":"January 2, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16930/","section":"Posts","summary":"People will talk about the wage-price spiral (which has been demonstrated to be false), but they won’t talk so much about the herd behaviour at the higher echelons of our industry.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I’m thinking back about this past year and this has definitely not been a great year. On the other hand it’s also the first time in a while where I have mental capacity to spare to even think about something like a year in review.\nIt felt like a year where not that much happened (no travel!) but at the same time a steady stream of minor misfortune was showered upon me. In the grand scheme of things I can’t really complain but all in all it was definitely a mixed bag.\nCorpore sano # Everything with my body was going well last year, until suddenly it wasn’t anymore. Adjusting to that has been painful.\nCycling # Cycling was one of the best things. This was the first season that I started out with the road bike and even though it was cut short, there were some great rides to be had.\nMost notably I went on one gravel group ride with the local Gravel Club which was a lot of fun and I went for my first century with a couple of colleagues.\nMy weight loss journey™️ # At the start of spring I felt I needed to lose weight and then figured out how to do it. I went down from over 85kg back to under 78kg over the course of six months.\nI’m writing a piece summarizing how I figured out weight but in short:\nI eat because I’m bored. I get to a caloric deficit by doing endurance cycling. I try to fast after my last meal of the day until the next morning. I’ve been very happy about this and wish I had figured it out earlier but a lot of this has been contingent on both me figuring out things about myself and the huge amount of nutrition and fitness knowledge available online.\nMinor scrapes after ramming a car with my bike # I got myself into a bicycle accident slamming into a car on my way home from having my eyes checked.\nA car turned right on Mehringdamm but then halted on the bike crossing because there were pedestrians crossing as well. I tried to swerve around but couldn’t and fell, rolled over my bike, hitting my head on the car and the ground. I got some scrapes and hematomas in my groin and on my temple. The one in my groin has dissolved, whereas the one on my temple can still be felt.\nEvery cyclists first thought in such a situation: the bike. My cockpit was twisted a bit and my chain was jammed behind the frame but otherwise it was fine. The chain broke a couple of weeks later—probably because of this.\nThe police wrote us up as being both at fault and I chose not to pursue the matter. In Germany, as a cyclist, you are pretty much always screwed so I’m counting my blessings and I paid the €170 fine to be done with this.\nNo more bouldering (and lots of other things) # Then the big one. The past year I finally got back into bouldering in a serious way and found my groove. I was getting to our local climbing gym more than once a week and improved to the point where I could climb V4 problems. I’ve been bouldering on and off since I’ve been in Berlin but this has been the best I’ve ever been.\nUnfortunately, this didn’t last very long because at the end of August I was doing a very moderate traverse on the wall and lost my footing. Normally this wouldn’t be an issue but this time my right foot got stuck on the volume and twisted my knee on the way down. I heard a tearing noise while in the air.\nA long story and a bunch of orthopedic visits later I find out that I have what is called an unhappy triad of injuries also known as a ‘blown knee’. It’s relatively atypical for climbing but checks out with the exact thing that happened to my knee.\nThe black tendon is my PCL. The grey cloud superimposed on it, is what remains of my Anterior Cruciate Ligament (voorste kruisband).\nI’m scheduled to have my ACL reconstructed in February. Until then I’m not climbing or running anymore but doing some mild cycling. My knee does not bother me that much but it\u0026rsquo;s also not very happy if I stand or walk too long. The goal for the coming year is to have a stable pain-free knee.\nI’ll be fine if I after this I can cycle and hike at a moderately high level. I’m not sure whether I’ll ever go back to climbing given the risk of injury. Watching bouldering videos on Tiktok at the moment makes my stomach turn.\nCorona # Just as the end of the year approached we as a family finally caught COVID. Our LFTs were the first positive ones that I’ve seen this entire pandemic. That proved to me that 1. yes they do work 2. we didn’t have it before.\nDespite going to the office daily and having had some close calls, it wasn’t me that brought it home.\nBeing stuck at home with the kids for 10 days waiting to test ourselves free was a trial of everybody’s sanity. Also because it\u0026rsquo;s relatively arbitrary and a bit of a voluntary act. People who don’t have themselves tested don’t face any restrictions. People who do get tested, get very few benefits out of it.\nMens sana # My mind has been doing better also because I had to reduce my physical activity. Instead of brutal physical exercise, I guess I’ll take on lots of mental exercise.\nVoice lessons # At the start of the year I got some lessons in voice coaching in which was nice but I had trouble combining it with my schedule. What I learned, I did manage to put to good use.\nMaking strides # After trying every possible tracker out there, I picked Strides to remind me of the things that I should be doing regularly. It’s €5/month but it’s worth that just for getting me to do my push-ups regularly.\nNot everything I’m tracking is sticking or even on track, but building habits takes time and active reflection. This app is the most minimal first step on that path.\n日本語 # While I was cramming HSK3 vocabulary in 2021, I realized I had no real motivation to learn Chinese. I probably never really had any to begin with. Following a whim I switched to Japanese. That has been going reasonably well and I can even recycle my knowledge of Chinese characters when learning kanji.\nI finished the Human Japanese iPhone app and then spent the rest of the year learning all the vocabulary in it. Below you can see 4500 cards in Anki spread over a full year of studying.\nNow it’s on to complete Human Japanese Intermediate and further material. Judging from a quick online test, it seems that what I\u0026rsquo;ve done so far brings me most of the way to JLPT N5 level. I may take that test in 2023 or go straight for N4.\nI’m not sure when I’ll hit a wall but my main motivation is relatively steady: I want to make my next visit there the best it can be.\nMaths # After a slump when it came to my professional reading I organized my PDFs and setup a flow to read papers. Then I tried to read a paper on uKanren and didn’t understand that. I followed the trail working myself through everything in The Reasoned Schemer to reintroduce myself to logic programming. That was very rough and I would not have understood it without the relevant bits in SICP and PAIP.\nThen I stumbled upon the book “An Invitation to Applied Category Theory: Seven Sketches in Compositionaliy” and spent my evenings and weekends working through it, doing the exercises and watching the lectures at MIT. They said it would require some mathematical maturity and it turns out I had just enough of that.\nI have no idea why this book stuck but I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. The focused time, clearing my brain and working on something very difficult without direct application. Watching the lectures—some nights at 0:30 with my eyes falling shut—I felt like I was back in a dusty university chalkboard room.\nThe material stretched my thinking and facility for abstraction which pretty much seems to be the point of Category Theory. It didn’t do a lot for my understanding of functional programming, but I hope it laid a reasonable foundation for later.\nI’m finding practicing math is more fun without the pressure and trauma of your life depending on it like in university. I’m now reading up on some Abstract Algebra which I felt I was lacking. It\u0026rsquo;s making me realize that I don’t vibe well with math that\u0026rsquo;s about numbers (except for statistics, I always loved statistics). I prefer logic, computability, topology and the likes.\nReading some good things # The year has been pretty bad for reading as most years recently have been.\nThe notable books I read:\nRust for Rustaceans by Jon Gjengset: A book for Rust library authors more than anybody else. Whatever I picked up I forgot pretty much immediately because I work on the application side of things. Still good to have read and I remain continuously amazed at how much Rust knowledge has to be picked up through osmosis. An Elegant Puzzle: Systems of Engineering Management by Will Larson: An excellent and beautiful book that’s a high level overview of Engineering Management. Becoming Trader Joe: How I Did Business My Way and Still Beat the Big Guys by Joe Coulombe: An inspiring and fun read about the founder of Trader Joe. Weird to read this without ever having been in one of the stores. Executive Presence: The Missing Link Between Merit and Success by Sylvia Ann Hewlett: A thought provoking book about what’s necessary to be successful beyond doing the job very well. Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers by Kwame Anthony Appiah: Appiah’s poorly dated take on the multicultural world. I like the guy but it just doesn’t track. My position on this is that relativism needs to be overcome by normative internationalist cultures. One example of such a homogenous culture spread out all across the globe is Airspace, but I hope we can make better ones. The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson: The most important book that KSR has written so far. This is an essential inspiration for anybody interested in fixing the planet. Everything that KSR has been pursuing and hinting at in his previous books comes together here. Domain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software by Eric Evans: Good to have read this but a ridiculous slog that I wouldn’t recommend to anybody. Most of the things in here should be obvious for a senior practitioner. The Reasoned Schemer by Daniel P. Friedman: The aforementioned book about logic programming. Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie: A tour de force by Rushdie which does what it intends to do, but is just too slow and heavy for me. The main thing I took from this book is an appreciation for and an interest in India’s culture and history. An Invitation to Applied Category Theory: Seven Sketches in Compositionality by Brendan Fong: The book about category theory I wrote about above. I recommend it also for its spiral approach where each chapter starts easier than the last one finished, so that you have a chance of keeping up. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel: Keeping with my theme of reading books whose authors had something bad happen to them I started Wolf Hall after Hilary Mantel passed away. It definitely is at least as good as everybody says it is. The topic of handling a whimsical man-child ruler is one that is acutely relevant in our current time. Advice on how to be a Cromwell is more useful than advice on how to be a Prince. Picking up my studies # I reconsidered my position that I had completed my professional reading. For sure I read most of O’Reilly and all the relevant books in engineering and product management. That wasn’t particularly challenging beyond finding the time.\nBut there is a lot more stuff out there if you expand your horizon and don’t mind somewhat more academic books. With that in mind I went through my anti-library and assembled a new shelf on Goodreads with books that are hard and stretch what it means to be a professional: advanced studies.\nI’ll be spending the next 5-10 years working through this eclectic collection of mathematical computer science, systems theory and management studies. I’m not sure yet where I’ll be able to apply this knowledge in my work/life but I can’t wait to find out.\nAlii # All the other stuff has been fine.\nFamily # Things are going well with the kids. They are doing well at daycare, they’ve completed their basic swimming certification (Seepferdchen) and they’ll start school next year.\nWhat’s most exciting is that they are getting to an age where we can consume media together. We watched both Frozen movies and they got a Nintendo Switch for Christmas. Pikmin 3 is a big hit.\nWork # Work is very much a bullet train where we performed huge lifts during the past year while at the same time everything and everybody was rushing forward. Bootstrapping an entire engineering organization as part of a senior management team and building a multi-team platform organization is a lot of good fun, but it’s also a huge amount of work.\nThe focus after the building is execution and delivery which to me cements the idea that engineering is an operational discipline more than anything else.\nGames # Some people know that I used to be into esports and MOBA games. Because of that I couldn’t resist playing a good one on my iPhone. I got into Wild Rift from the very beginning, played it heavily and quit last year. Wild Rift is executed perfectly, it’s streamlined and offers the right amount of depth and duration. When the games are good (at around Diamond), they are very good but the rank reset every season makes playing this too much of a grind.\nThen we got the Switch and now my holiday evenings are mostly consumed by Hades. If it isn’t one poison, then it’s another one.\nWatches # One of the most atypical interests I picked up last year has been watches. I’m wearing a wrist watch again after having picked up an Orient Kamasu diver at a bargain. Not having to take out my phone to see the time has been great.\nNot sure when or if I\u0026rsquo;ll buy another watch.\nTwitter # The demise of Twitter is one of the bigger stories of 2022 relevant to me because of the age and activity of my account. I was one of the first 10 twitter users in the Netherlands and it was a huge part of my online life. Time to move on.\nThe site may still be up and running but Twitter as a public space is over. Destroying something like that is a crime of a magnitude I hope we’ll appreciate and punish at some point in the future.\nThanks to some friends who set up an instance, I can in the meantime be found over at Mastodon: @alper@rls.social. It’s nice over there.\n","date":"January 1, 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/year-notes-2022/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’m thinking back about this past year and this has definitely not been a great year. On the other hand it’s also the first time in a while where I have mental capacity to spare to even think about something like a year in review.\n","title":"Year Notes: 2022","type":"posts"},{"content":"\u0026ldquo;Can I be held responsible for the actions which this technology empowers? Would I feel better if I couldn’t?\u0026rdquo;\nA good initial list of questions to hone in on the moral dimensions of the technologies we are creating.\nhttps://thefrailestthing.com/2014/11/29/do-artifacts-have-ethics/\n","date":"December 27, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16912/","section":"Posts","summary":"“Can I be held responsible for the actions which this technology empowers? Would I feel better if I couldn’t?”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Even a cursory dip into the subreddits and other social media posts, whitepapers, and other documentation and community discussions surrounding generative AI, makes it hard to miss the spite and negativity directed at human creativity. They are almost necessary preconditions to be part of the development community. Ironically, of course, the developers celebrate their own creativity in building these software tools, despite the fact that they implicitly rebuke the work and lives of everyone who creates or thinks meaning is confined to living things.\nThat perspective which I\u0026rsquo;ve also noticed in the people pushing this stuff is incredibly damning. They hover up the sum creative works of humanity and privatize it into shitty models.\nhttps://davidgolumbia.medium.com/chatgpt-should-not-exist-aab0867abace\n","date":"December 27, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16910/","section":"Posts","summary":"Even a cursory dip into the subreddits and other social media posts, whitepapers, and other documentation and community discussions surrounding generative AI, makes it hard to miss the spite and negativity directed at human creativity. They are almost necessary preconditions to be part of the development community. Ironically, of course, the developers celebrate their own creativity in building these software tools, despite the fact that they implicitly rebuke the work and lives of everyone who creates or thinks meaning is confined to living things.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"It always struck me as absurd that degrowth \u0026ldquo;couldn\u0026rsquo;t work\u0026rdquo;. At this point, it\u0026rsquo;s probably the only thing that can work.\nhttps://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-04412-x\n","date":"December 27, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16908/","section":"Posts","summary":"It always struck me as absurd that degrowth “couldn’t work”. At this point, it’s probably the only thing that can work.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Looks like we can bootstrap a web app using pretty much only Postgres for the data layer and kick out the redis cluster, the celery process and the ElasticSearch server.\nThat makes an early stage project incredibly lean and with some care and feeding this setup will likely go very far before it needs to be overhauled.\nhttps://www.amazingcto.com/postgres-for-everything/\n","date":"December 27, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16906/","section":"Posts","summary":"Looks like we can bootstrap a web app using pretty much only Postgres for the data layer and kick out the redis cluster, the celery process and the ElasticSearch server.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A long winding post by @codefolio that\u0026rsquo;s probably better career advice for this programming thing than any.\nhttps://codefol.io/posts/the-forty-year-programmer/\n","date":"October 17, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16901/","section":"Posts","summary":"A long winding post by @codefolio that’s probably better career advice for this programming thing than any.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Adam Tooze asks:\nDoes it really make sense to perpetuate a system in which disastrous financial risks are built into the profit-driven provision of basic financial products like pensions and mortgages? Yes the central bank can act as the fire brigade, but why do we such a dangerous situation as normality. Why do the smoke detectors fail again and again? And why is the house not more fire proof? It is time to ask who benefits and who pays the cost for continuing with this dangerously inflammable system.\nhttps://adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-157-the-bond-market-massacre\nDoes it make sense? Probably not.\n","date":"October 11, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16898/","section":"Posts","summary":"Adam Tooze asks:\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Lots of great ways to manage change in organizations. It\u0026rsquo;s a bunch of work to do this, but if you skip these steps, the results can and will backfire. I particularly like the guiding policy strategy where even if I don\u0026rsquo;t know something I can usually spitball the values and invariants of the situation that will fit the result.\nhttps://medium.com/glia-tech/four-steps-to-organizational-change-without-the-drama-4790fd6b8c72\n","date":"October 11, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16896/","section":"Posts","summary":"Lots of great ways to manage change in organizations. It’s a bunch of work to do this, but if you skip these steps, the results can and will backfire. I particularly like the guiding policy strategy where even if I don’t know something I can usually spitball the values and invariants of the situation that will fit the result.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The autofocus way of handling todos has a charm in that it treats your work as an endless stream and tries to take the negativity and failure out of it. I now am doing something quite similar by using Things as the river and dragging tasks into my calendar which has a natural limit to it.\nhttps://www.artofmanliness.com/character/behavior/autofocus-the-productivity-system-that-treats-your-to-do-list-like-a-river/\n","date":"October 11, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16894/","section":"Posts","summary":"The autofocus way of handling todos has a charm in that it treats your work as an endless stream and tries to take the negativity and failure out of it. I now am doing something quite similar by using Things as the river and dragging tasks into my calendar which has a natural limit to it.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Reading about China\u0026rsquo;s message board theorists is amazing and makes me wish I could have stuck with Chinese. But then again I would have not learned it well enough probably ever to be able to follow what\u0026rsquo;s happening on the Chinese internet, so this will have to do.\nhttps://www.palladiummag.com/2021/04/09/chinas-exit-to-year-zero/\nReading this I learned an absurd amount about China that I didn\u0026rsquo;t know yet.\n","date":"October 11, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16892/","section":"Posts","summary":"Reading about China’s message board theorists is amazing and makes me wish I could have stuck with Chinese. But then again I would have not learned it well enough probably ever to be able to follow what’s happening on the Chinese internet, so this will have to do.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"https://twitter.com/jesswade/status/1273874310726328322\nThe corollary to this is that in any field where there is a gender disparity, the surplus of people is subcompetent.\nLet\u0026rsquo;s take software engineering as an example.\nIf we assume that programming ability is distributed equally between men and women\u0026ndash;and there\u0026rsquo;s really nothing pointing in a different direction here\u0026ndash; then it follows that if there are 80% men and 20% men in the field, then those 30% men are taking up the spots of women who would have been better at this work.\nCeteris paribus of course, which it isn\u0026rsquo;t for all kinds of similarly gender equity related reasons.\nAnd to go one further, the incompetent men in the field know they\u0026rsquo;re incompetent. That\u0026rsquo;s why they try to keep women out and are often nasty to work with.\n","date":"October 11, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16890/","section":"Posts","summary":"https://twitter.com/jesswade/status/1273874310726328322\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Love this write-up of somebody jamming on passing all the tests in sqllogictest from scratch, in a week. Programming as pure tour de force.\nhttps://github.com/jamii/hytradboi-jam-2022\n","date":"October 8, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16887/","section":"Posts","summary":"Love this write-up of somebody jamming on passing all the tests in sqllogictest from scratch, in a week. Programming as pure tour de force.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"These days, “no one is taking any creative risk,”said Laura Mayer, a veteran podcast executive and producer who’s worked at several large publishers. “We’re seeing plenty of efforts to reverse-engineer what were successes in podcasting, and as a result, we get a lot of watered-down karaoke attempts at what worked out in the past.”\nThe more budget and production values a podcast has, generally the less it\u0026rsquo;s worth listening to.\nhttps://www.vulture.com/2022/09/podcasting-is-just-radio-now.html\n","date":"October 8, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16885/","section":"Posts","summary":"These days, “no one is taking any creative risk,”said Laura Mayer, a veteran podcast executive and producer who’s worked at several large publishers. “We’re seeing plenty of efforts to reverse-engineer what were successes in podcasting, and as a result, we get a lot of watered-down karaoke attempts at what worked out in the past.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Seeing that Gitlab had published their TeamOps framework, I stayed up late to get my certification. I especially liked the recorded meetings with Sid Sijbrand and other Gitlab senior staff that they have published on YouTube.\nhttps://about.gitlab.com/teamops/\n","date":"October 8, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16883/","section":"Posts","summary":"Seeing that Gitlab had published their TeamOps framework, I stayed up late to get my certification. I especially liked the recorded meetings with Sid Sijbrand and other Gitlab senior staff that they have published on YouTube.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Running multiple strategic tracks will set you up to dominate at a large scale, but many organizations can\u0026rsquo;t run one let alone run multiple at the same time. The visualization and plays as described here by Itamar Gilad look a lot like Wardley mapping.\nhttps://itamargilad.com/product-strategy-must/\n","date":"October 8, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16881/","section":"Posts","summary":"Running multiple strategic tracks will set you up to dominate at a large scale, but many organizations can’t run one let alone run multiple at the same time. The visualization and plays as described here by Itamar Gilad look a lot like Wardley mapping.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Measuring software development productivity is really complicated. That\u0026rsquo;s in large part what makes it so interesting.\nhttps://www.swarmia.com/blog/measuring-software-development-productivity/\n","date":"October 8, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16879/","section":"Posts","summary":"Measuring software development productivity is really complicated. That’s in large part what makes it so interesting.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Product sense (and taste) are so important but so hard to pinpoint and teach to others. Lenny here unpacks what goes into it but even then there are very few shortcuts to getting it.\nhttps://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/product-sense?s=w\n","date":"October 6, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16877/","section":"Posts","summary":"Product sense (and taste) are so important but so hard to pinpoint and teach to others. Lenny here unpacks what goes into it but even then there are very few shortcuts to getting it.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"People want local development but I feel a lot of the reasons and movements described here are valid.\nhttps://dx.tips/the-end-of-localhost\nWhen I try to unpack it, it\u0026rsquo;s usually not even very clear what \u0026rsquo;local development\u0026rsquo; means but I think it\u0026rsquo;s something along the lines of: 1. Being able to manipulate the system under development immediately using the command-line. 2. Not being able to break an unrelated system and not having somebody else break your development environment. I get that those two things are essential but there\u0026rsquo;s nothing in them that requires them to take place on your physical laptop.\n","date":"October 6, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16875/","section":"Posts","summary":"People want local development but I feel a lot of the reasons and movements described here are valid.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A short guide of how a team can turn around the work they need to do on a legacy system and come out the better for it. I\u0026rsquo;ve seen lots of teams struggle with this but as described here a lot of it is in the approach and the praxis of doing it and working together.\nhttps://leaddev.com/legacy-technical-debt-migrations/how-make-your-team-fall-love-legacy-code\n","date":"October 6, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16872/","section":"Posts","summary":"A short guide of how a team can turn around the work they need to do on a legacy system and come out the better for it. I’ve seen lots of teams struggle with this but as described here a lot of it is in the approach and the praxis of doing it and working together.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Nice to read a project we worked on a long time ago (web application concept and initial set of user stories to hand off to development) is still going strong. This project and others like it support my thinking that it\u0026rsquo;s possible to solve problems definitely in a product agency context.\nhttps://www.duic.nl/algemeen/utrechtse-paqt-en-stichting-voorleesexpress-winnen-dutch-interactive-award/\n","date":"October 6, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16870/","section":"Posts","summary":"Nice to read a project we worked on a long time ago (web application concept and initial set of user stories to hand off to development) is still going strong. This project and others like it support my thinking that it’s possible to solve problems definitely in a product agency context.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A relevant and nuanced complication of agile by Dorian Taylor seeing it as a trauma based response where the core practice has gotten stuck and is preventing the industry from solving more fundamental issues.\nhttps://doriantaylor.com/agile-as-trauma\n","date":"October 6, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16868/","section":"Posts","summary":"A relevant and nuanced complication of agile by Dorian Taylor seeing it as a trauma based response where the core practice has gotten stuck and is preventing the industry from solving more fundamental issues.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Pretty much each of these 20 systems thinking tips, I\u0026rsquo;ve had to learn the hard way so seeing them all in one place is good but also difficult.\nhttps://www.viktorcessan.com/20-systems-over-thinker-tips/\n","date":"October 6, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16866/","section":"Posts","summary":"Pretty much each of these 20 systems thinking tips, I’ve had to learn the hard way so seeing them all in one place is good but also difficult.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"People see this kind of talk about self-governance and think there is no process or management in such a setup while usually there is more (and higher quality) than in a traditional organization. It\u0026rsquo;s also some of the best work you will ever do.\nhttps://www.outseta.com/posts/what-is-self-management-how-self-managed-teams-operate-without-hierarchy\n","date":"October 6, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16864/","section":"Posts","summary":"People see this kind of talk about self-governance and think there is no process or management in such a setup while usually there is more (and higher quality) than in a traditional organization. It’s also some of the best work you will ever do.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A lot of very uncomfortable questions in this list of staff engineering program dysfunctions. It seems this is quite widespread and we\u0026rsquo;re collectively figuring out how to shape this path.\nhttps://squanderingti.me/blog/2022/06/29/a-staff-shaped-hole.html\n","date":"September 25, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16862/","section":"Posts","summary":"A lot of very uncomfortable questions in this list of staff engineering program dysfunctions. It seems this is quite widespread and we’re collectively figuring out how to shape this path.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Some ways to improve the quarterly prioritization tussle between engineering and business that focus on facilitating the conversation and reducing the number of things under immediate consideration.\nhttps://www.mironov.com/pri-politics/\n","date":"September 25, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16860/","section":"Posts","summary":"Some ways to improve the quarterly prioritization tussle between engineering and business that focus on facilitating the conversation and reducing the number of things under immediate consideration.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Having seen lots of teams stuck in the two week agile rat race, a framework like Shape Up seems like it could offer a lot of benefits. But also just changing things up can\u0026rsquo;t hurt at that point. What is agility if not also being able to iterate on the way you work?\nhttps://medium.com/adventures-in-consumer-technology/why-we-transitioned-from-sprints-to-basecamps-shape-up-f416114224e7\n","date":"September 25, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16858/","section":"Posts","summary":"Having seen lots of teams stuck in the two week agile rat race, a framework like Shape Up seems like it could offer a lot of benefits. But also just changing things up can’t hurt at that point. What is agility if not also being able to iterate on the way you work?\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A very interesting article about how brands have moved on from lifestyle to be more community driven.\nhttps://subpixel.space/entries/life-after-lifestyle/\n","date":"September 25, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16856/","section":"Posts","summary":"A very interesting article about how brands have moved on from lifestyle to be more community driven.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"https://twitter.com/SteveFi04457564/status/1558065690820624387\nSomething we\u0026rsquo;re also noticing here is that people with dogs gather in courtyards and on fields in groups and let their dogs roam free, illegally.\nThey do this in groups together so that if somebody tells them not to, they can use their numbers to intimidate and as described here they use that and many other strategies with officers of the law.\nOwning a dog in a dense urban environment is a questionable choice already, but the people around us here take the cake. There are quite a number of socially at-risk individuals who have dogs where both the animal and the human are deeply and certifiably deranged. Both of them accost any human who walks by and it\u0026rsquo;s often a question of who\u0026rsquo;s louder the dog\u0026rsquo;s barking or its owner\u0026rsquo;s ranting.\nI think a forced dog register and quotas/waiting lists for some areas would be a good first step to control the situation here.\n","date":"September 25, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16854/","section":"Posts","summary":"https://twitter.com/SteveFi04457564/status/1558065690820624387\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"That\u0026rsquo;s a very relevant and timely article listing the challenges middle managers face in the post-pandemic office. It\u0026rsquo;s a lot!\nhttps://www.ft.com/content/a1740fb3-bd69-4c8d-a322-8b59332de568\n","date":"September 25, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16852/","section":"Posts","summary":"That’s a very relevant and timely article listing the challenges middle managers face in the post-pandemic office. It’s a lot!\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Good programmers will naturally start to abstract and develop a model that can do more work. But when this happens only in a technical setting, without collaboration with domain experts, the concepts are naive. That shallowness of knowledge produces software that does a basic job but lacks a deep connection to the domain expert\u0026rsquo;s way of thinking.\nAnd with typical design approaches, the code and documents don\u0026rsquo;t express this hard-earned knowledge in a usable form, so when the oral tradition is interrupted for any reason, the knowledge is lost.\nUse the model as the backbone of a language. Commit the team to exercising that language relentlessly in all communication within the team and in the code. Use the same language in diagrams, writing, and especially speech.\nObject-oriented programming is powerful because it is based on a modeling paradigm, and it provides implementations of the model constructs.\nIf the people who write the code do not feel responsible for the model, or don\u0026rsquo;t understand how to make the model work for an application, then the model has nothing to do with the software. If developers don\u0026rsquo;t realize that changing code changes the model, then their refactoring will weaken the model rather than strengthen it.\nBut it is the crucial separation of the domain layer that enables MODEL-DRIVEN DESIGN.\nEven deficiencies in requirements analysis can be overcome by releasing a prototype to users and then quickly changing the product to fit their requests.\nMost flexible languages (such as Java) are overkill for these applications and will cost dearly. A 4GL-style tool is the way to go.\nFor example, a one-to-many association might be implemented as a collection in an instance variable. But the design is not necessarily so direct. There may be no collection; an accessor method may query a database to find the appropriate records and instantiate objects based on them. Both of these designs would reflect the same model.\nWorse, as client code uses the database directly, developers are tempted to bypass model features such as AGGREGATES, or even object encapsulation, instead directly taking and manipulating the data they need.\nThe sheer technical complexity of applying most database access infrastructure quickly swamps the client code, which leads developers to dumb down the domain layer, which makes the model irrelevant.\nYou may find that the framework provides services you can use to easily create a REPOSITORY, or you may find that the framework fights you all the way. You may discover that the architectural framework has already defined an equivalent pattern of getting persistent objects. Or you may discover that it has defined a pattern that is not like a REPOSITORY at all.\nA MODEL-DRIVEN DESIGN stands on two legs. A deep model makes possible an expressive design. At the same time, a design can actually feed insight into the model discovery process when it has the flexibility to let a developer experiment and the clarity to show a developer what is happening.\nBut moving the rules out of the domain layer is even worse, since the domain code no longer expresses the model.\nHere we have an example of a \u0026ldquo;simplest thing that could possibly work\u0026rdquo; that actually becomes possible because of a more sophisticated model. We can have a functioning prototype of a very complex component in a couple dozen lines of easily understood code.\nA lot of overengineering has been justified in the name of flexibility. But more often than not, excessive layers of abstraction and indirection get in the way. Look at the design of software that really empowers the people who handle it; you will usually see something simple.\nIf a developer must consider the implementation of a component in order to use it, the value of encapsulation is lost. If someone other than the original developer must infer the purpose of an object or operation based on its implementation, that new developer may infer a purpose that the operation or class fulfills only by chance. If that was not the intent, the code may work for the moment, but the conceptual basis of the design will have been corrupted, and the two developers will be working at cross-purposes.\nI\u0026rsquo;m all in favor of learning advanced technology and design concepts, but we have to soberly assess the skills of a particular team, as well as the likely skills of future maintenance teams.\nIf you wait until you can make a complete justification for a change, you\u0026rsquo;ve waited too long. Your project is already incurring heavy costs, and the postponed changes will be harder to make because the target code will have been more elaborated and more embedded in other code.\nSometimes we overestimate the value or underestimate the cost of such a dependency.\nDeclare a BOUNDED CONTEXT to have no connection to the others at all, allowing developers to find simple, specialized solutions within this small scope.\nOnce they have been separated, give their continuing development lower priority than the CORE DOMAIN, and avoid assigning your core developers to the tasks (because they will gain little domain knowledge from them). Also consider off-the-shelf solutions or published models for these GENERIC SUBDOMAINS.\nNot knowing what would be needed, it was assumed that it should be flexible enough to handle anything.\nHe had dutifully set out to build a time zone model a priori.\nReuse does happen, but not always code reuse. The model reuse is often a better level of reuse, as when you use a published design or model.\nA team that uses the code as the sole repository of the model might use comments, maybe structured as Java Doc, or might use some tool in its development environment.\nPeople knew roughly where to look for a particular function. Individuals working independently could make design decisions that were broadly consistent with each other. The complexity ceiling had been lifted.\n","date":"September 15, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-domain-driven-design/","section":"Posts","summary":"Good programmers will naturally start to abstract and develop a model that can do more work. But when this happens only in a technical setting, without collaboration with domain experts, the concepts are naive. That shallowness of knowledge produces software that does a basic job but lacks a deep connection to the domain expert’s way of thinking.\n","title":"Highlights for Domain Driven Design","type":"posts"},{"content":"Beş el vardı direksiyonda, babanın iki eli, Nevzat Amca\u0026rsquo;nın iki eli ve gören görür, ölümün eli\u0026hellip;\n\u0026ldquo;Azrail\u0026rsquo;in piyangosu annenle babana vurdu Nihal!\u0026rdquo;\nDaha doğrusu ikimiz de birbirimizin \u0026ldquo;âşık\u0026rdquo; halinden pek hoşlanmamıştık.\nSonra sustum. Çok konuşunca olan şey: Konuşmak, anlatmak, anlamsız gelmişti birdenbire. Belki de, katlanıp kaldırılması gereken şeyleri buruşturmuştum.\nNihal\u0026rsquo;i karnının üzerinde pençelerini ne zaman etine geçireceği belli olmayan yırtıcı bir hayvanla dolaşıyor gibi düşünmüştüm.\nGörüyorsun değil mi Çetin, üç buçuk yaşındaki çocuk bile kendi deneyiminden bir yasa çıkarıyor! Başka türlü nefes alınmaz. Başka türlü yaşanmaz. Başka türlü aşk olmaz. Yaptıklarımızı olumlayan yasalar buluyoruz; sanırım aklımız böyle işliyor: Buyurgan iç huzurumuzun boynu bükük kölesi olarak.\nbalkonda rakı sofrası kurmak\nBu başarısız öykü de, \u0026ldquo;Genç şair tekrar kalemine sarıldı.\u0026rdquo; cümlesiyle sona eriyor.\n\u0026ldquo;Reşit, ömür denen şeyin tedricen yaşanmadığını söylerdi. Gerçekten öyle, her şey birdenbire oluyor. Küçük bir çocukken birdenbire, ilaçlarını plastik bir margarin kabında saklayan bir ihtiyar oluveriyorsun. Kendin için, çocukların için, ülken için güzel şeyler ümit ederken, seni biçimlendiren şeyin güzel bir gelecek hayali olduğunu düşünürken, birdenbire kaderinin, güne ayak uyduramamak, gençliğini, geçmişini özlemek ve hızla dönen dünya tarafından hep kenara savrulmak olduğunu görüyorsun.\u0026rdquo;\nAma siyasetle ilgilenmemişti, çünkü Reşit Bey\u0026rsquo;e göre, insanlar birbirlerinden ve tarihten bir şey öğrenmiyor, basit güdülerle hareket ediyordu. Bu yüzden siyasetin yapacağı, başaracağı bir şey yoktu.\nSen de o yağmurdan başlayıp o iş arkadaşlarına hatta oradan sokak çocuklarına sıçrayan kıskançlık alevleriyle her tarafı yakıp yıkarsın, iyiliğe karşı içinde keskin bir öfke duyarsın. \u0026ldquo;İyiliğiniz batsın!\u0026rdquo; dersin. Böyledir bahar yağmuru, kötü eder adamı.\nMemleketinden uzak insanların dumanlı efkârlı ruh haline bizim küçük kızımız da girmiş, bu ruh haliyle geride bıraktığı her şey çok güzel mi gelmeye başlamıştı?\n","date":"September 15, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-bizim-buyuk-caresizligimiz/","section":"Posts","summary":"Beş el vardı direksiyonda, babanın iki eli, Nevzat Amca’nın iki eli ve gören görür, ölümün eli…\n","title":"Highlights for Bizim Büyük Çaresizliğimiz","type":"posts"},{"content":"In dealing with the poverty that still plagued so much of the Indian populace, the Indian government had had to create electricity as fast as they could, and also, since they existed in a world run by the market, as cheaply as they could. Otherwise outside investors would not invest, because the rate of return would not be high enough. So they had burned coal, yes. Like everyone else had up until just a few years before. Now India was being told not to burn coal, when everyone else had finished burning enough of it to build up the capital to afford to shift to cleaner sources of power. India had been told to get better without any financial help to do so whatsoever. Told to tighten the belt and embrace austerity, and be the working class for the bourgeoisie of the developed world, and suffer in silence until better times came— but the better times could never come, that plan was shot. The deck had been stacked, the game was over. And now twenty million people were dead.\nIndia’s electrical power companies were nationalized where they weren’t already\nchange with us, change now, or suffer the wrath of Kali\nThe nineteen largest organizations doing this will be, in order of size from biggest to smallest: Saudi Aramco, Chevron, Gazprom, ExxonMobil, National Iranian Oil Company, BP, Royal Dutch Shell, Pemex, Petróleos de Venezuela, PetroChina, Peabody Energy, ConocoPhillips, Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, Kuwait Petroleum Corporation, Iraq National Oil Company, Total SA, Sonatrach, BHP Billiton, and Petrobras.\n“Not good enough?”Mary suggested.\n“No, but nothing is ever good enough. We just make do.”\nHis therapists talked about trigger events. About avoiding triggers. What they were glossing over with this too-convenient metaphor was that life itself was just a long series of trigger events. That consciousness was the trigger. He woke up, he remembered who he was, he had a panic attack. He got over it and got on with his day as best he could.\nWe are the Children of Kali, and you can’t be one of us, even if you were here during the catastrophe. But you can do something. You can carry a message from us to the world. Maybe that can even help, we don’t know. But you can try. You can tell them that they must change their ways. If they don’t, we will kill them. That’s what they need to know. You can figure out ways to tell them that.”\nTo be clear, concluding in brief: there is enough for all. So there should be no more people living in poverty. And there should be no more billionaires. Enough should be a human right, a floor below which no one can fall; also a ceiling above which no one can rise. Enough is a good as a feast— or better.\nthe Food Sustainability Index, formulated by Barilla Center for Food and Nutrition\nBut look, the violence of carbon burning kills many more people than any punishment for capital crimes ever would. So really your morality is just a kind of surrender.”\nSo, if your organization represents the people who will be born after us, well, that’s a heavy burden! It’s a real responsibility! You have to think like them! You have to do what they would do if they were here.”\n“People kill in self-defense all the time. Not to do that would be a kind of suicide. So people do it. And now your people are under assault. These supposed future people.”\nYou grew up in Nepal, right? And I grew up in Ireland. In both places there was a lot of political violence. Which really means murder, right? Murder and all that follows murder. Fear, grief, anger, revenge, all that.\nThe hidden quality of the nistarim is important; they are ordinary people, who emerge and act when needed to save their people, then sink back into anonymity as soon as their task is accomplished.\nAvasthana, Sanskrit for survival.\nLook, if you have to do something, you have to do it. Don’t keep talking about cost as if that’s a real thing. Money isn’t real. Work is real.\nAnd so India is coming into its own. We are the new force. People around the world have begun to take notice. This too is new— no one elsewhere has been used to thinking of India as anything but a place of poverty, a victim of history and geography. But now they are looking at us with a little bit of confusion and wonder. What is this? A sixth of humanity on one big triangular patch of land, caught under the blazing sun, cut off by a mighty range of mountains: who are these people? A democracy, a polyglot coalition— wait, can it be? And what can it be? Do we make the Chinese, who so decisively stepped onto the world stage at the start of this century, look dictatorial, monolithic, brittle, afraid? Is India now the bold new leader of the world?\nWe think maybe so.\nNo one denies future people are going to be just as real as us. So there isn’t any moral justification for the discounting, it’s just for our own convenience. Plenty of economists acknowledged this. Robert Solow said we ought to act as if the discount rate were zero. Roy Harrod said the discount rate was a polite expression for rapacity. Frank Ramsey called it ethically indefensible. He said it came about because of a weakness of the imagination.\nThe guilty need to know: even in their locked compounds, in their beds asleep at night, the Children of Kali will descend on you and kill you. There is no hiding, there is no escape.\nWhen you lose all hope and all fear, then you become something not quite human. Whether better or worse than human I can’t say. But for an hour I was not a human being.\nYou could even say that money itself would resist this change. Indeed it seems to be the case that there’s simply a kind of inherent, inbuilt resistance to change!\nOur current economics has not yet answered any of these questions. But why should it? Do you ask your calculator what to do with your life? No. You have to figure that out for yourself.\nWe laughed out loud. For a while we couldn’t stop laughing. Fuck Margaret Thatcher, I said when I could catch my breath. And I say it again now: fuck Margaret Thatcher, and fuck every idiot who thinks that way. I can take them all to a place where they will eat those words or die of thirst. Because when the taps run dry, society becomes very real. A smelly mass of unwashed anxious citizens, no doubt about it. But a society for sure. It’s a life or death thing, society, and I think people mainly do recognize that, and the people who deny it are stupid fuckers, I say this unequivocally. Ignorant fools. That kind of stupidity should be put in jail.\nThe Austrian and Chicago schools had run with that opinion, and thus neoliberalism: the market rules because it’s the best calculator. But now, with computers as strong as they’ve gotten, the Red Plenty argument has gotten stronger and stronger, asserting that people now have so much computing power that central planning could work better than the market. High-frequency trading has been put forth as an example of computers out-achieving the market proper, but instead of improving the system it’s just been used to take rents on every exchange. This a sign of effective computational power, but used by people still stuck in the 1930s terminology of market versus planning, capitalism versus communism. And by people not trying to improve system, but merely to make more money in current system. Thus economists in our time.\nHaving debunked the tragedy of the commons, they now were trying to direct our attention to what they called the tragedy of the time horizon. Meaning we can’t imagine the suffering of the people of the future, so nothing much gets done on their behalf. What we do now creates damage that hits decades later, so we don’t charge ourselves for it, and the standard approach has been that future generations will be richer and stronger than us, and they’ll find solutions to their problems. But by the time they get here, these problems will have become too big to solve. That’s the tragedy of the time horizon, that we don’t look more than a few years ahead, or even in many cases, as with high-speed trading, a few micro-seconds ahead. And the tragedy of the time horizon is a true tragedy, because many of the worst climate impacts will be irreversible.\ncarbon quantitative easing\nIt’s the vital work of our time. If we don’t fund a rapid carbon drawdown, if we don’t take the immense amount of capital that flows around the world looking for the highest rate of return and redirect it into decarbonizing work, civilization could crash. Then the dollar will be weak indeed.\nApparently he didn’t travel much compared to most people. That felt right. If you were mentally ill your energy use inevitably dropped, because you couldn’t put it together to live a normal life. He had gone to ground, he was living in a hole like a badger. Hibernating maybe. Waiting for some kind of spring to come.\nGermans: they had seen the worst. They knew how bad it could get. Even though these were the grandchildren of the ones who had lived through it, or now mostly the great-grandchildren, there was still a cultural memory they could not escape, a memory that would last centuries.\neveryone living in the past of their own region’s psyche to one extent or another, because they all lived in their languages, and if your native language was anything but English, you were estranged to one degree or other from the global village.\nAlways she had been prone to the rash act. She put it down to something Irish. It seemed to her that Irish women doing rash things was precisely how her people had managed to perpetuate themselves.\nThat pistol, that moment of fear— a jolting spike of fear for her life— she had not forgotten that, or forgiven it. She never would. Nothing was quite like that. But nothing was quite like anything.\nThe War for the Earth is often said to have begun on Crash Day. And it was later that same year when container ships began to sink, almost always close to land.\nThe fossil fuel lawyers and executives looked interested when this was proposed to them. The privately owned companies saw a chance of escaping with a viable post-oil business. The state-owned companies looked interested at the idea of compensation for their stranded assets, which they had already borrowed against, in the usual way of the rampant reckless financialization which was the hallmark of their time. Paid to pump water from the ocean up to some catchment basin? Paid to pump CO2 into the ground? Paid how much? And who would front the start-up expenses?\nEleven policies would get it done, they all told her. Carbon pricing, industry efficiency standards, land use policies, industrial process emissions regulations, complementary power sector policies, renewable portfolio standards, building codes and appliance standards, fuel economy standards, better urban transport, vehicle electrification, and feebates, which was to say carbon taxes passed back through to consumers.\nAs with a move from bank to credit union, instead of the company using the consumer, the consumer used the company, and owned it too. What did the company per se get out of it? Nothing, because a company was nothing. It was just an organization devised to help its employee-owners, nothing more. Like any other company, in the end. If you thought that was what they were.\nFründenjoch\nAnother banker, Mary thought. Out of seven Swiss presidents, how many came from a banking background? Four? Five?\nThe rentier class will not help in that project. They are not interested in that project. Indeed that project will be forwarded in the face of their vigorous resistance. Over their dead bodies, some of them will say. In which case, euthanasia may be just the thing.\na land tax properly designed could again swiftly redistribute land ownership more widely, while quickly swelling government coffers in order to pay for public work, thus reducing economic inequality.\nThis sudden loss of supply sent oil prices and oil futures sharply up. Oil was rarer now, therefore more expensive, which meant that clean renewable energy was now cheaper than oil by an even larger margin than before.\nOr perhaps inflation: macroeconomics was no longer so very clear on the ultimate effects of quantitative easing, given that the evidence from the past half century could be interpreted either way. That this debate was a clear sign that macroeconomics as a field was ideological to the point of astrology was often asserted by people in all the other social sciences, but economists were still very skilled at ignoring outside criticisms of their field, and now they forged on contradicting themselves as confidently as ever.\nIn this case, these people insisted, please go back to the basics. Here’s the true economy, these people said: since the Earth’s biosphere was the only one available to humanity, and its healthy function absolutely necessary to humanity’s existence, its worth to people was a kind of existential infinity. Gauging the price of saving the biosphere’s functions against the cost of losing them would therefore always be impossible.\nSo until the climate was actually killing them, people had a tendency to deny it could happen. To others, yes; to them, no. This was a cognitive error that, like most cognitive errors, kept happening even when you knew of its existence and prevalence. It was some kind of evolutionary survival mechanism, some speculated, a way to help people carry on even when it was pointless to carry on.\nWhat if the standard, or even the legally mandated, maximum wage ratio was set at say one to ten, being so easy to calculate? With the lowest level set high enough for life adequacy or decency or however you want to call it. Enough for a decent life. Which then, ten times that? That’s a lot! I mean think about it. Count it on your fingers and thumbs, seeing the enough amount on the tip of each digit, all ten stuck together at the end of your arms looking back at you. Enough times ten is fucking luxurious.\nWe listen to her, but not you.\nHe said, I am Kali.\nSuddenly he felt the enormous weight of that, the truth of it. They stared at him and saw it crushing him. The War for the Earth had lasted years, his hands were bloody to the elbows. For a moment he couldn’t speak; and there was nothing more to say.\nCan you make up a new society from scratch at that point? No, you can’t. Things just fall apart and next thing you know you’re eating your cat. So take this in: there has to be a pre-existing Plan B.\nEven if you are a degrowth devolutionist, an anarchist or a communist or a fan of world government, we only do the global in the current world order by way of the nation-state system.\nAll over the world this was happening, they kept saying. All these sad little towns, the backbone of rural civilization, tossed into the trash bin of history.\nThey kill the good ones, Mary thought bitterly, the leaders, the tough ones, and then dare the weaker ones to pick up the torch and carry on. Few would do it. The killers would prevail. This was how it always happened. This explained the world they lived in; the murderers were willing to kill to get their way. In a fight between sociopathic sick wounded angry fucked-up wicked people, and all the rest of them, not just the good and the brave but the ordinary and weak, the sheep who just wanted to get by, the fuckers always won. The few took power and wielded it like torturers, happy to tear the happiness away from the many.\nThe hidden sheriff; she was ready for that now, that and the hidden prison. The guillotine for that matter. The gun in the night, the drone from nowhere. Whatever it took.\nAnother brick in the controlocracy, some said of this recorded money; but if the public kept ultimate control of this new global state, by way of people power exerted by the ever more frequent strikes and non-compliances, then the people too would be seeing where all the money was and where it was going, move by move, so that it couldn’t be shuffled into tax havens or otherwise hidden, without becoming inactivated by law.\nthe Half Earth projects\nand capping personal annual income at ten times that minimum amount\n“Revolution comes; not the expected one, but another, always another.”\nMany are now tagged, and more all the time. There is coming into being a kind of Internet of Animals, whatever that means. Better perhaps to say they are citizens now, and have citizens’ rights, and therefore a census is being taken.\nA cobbling-together from less-than-satisfactory parts. A slurry, a bricolage. An unholy mess.\nYou have to be part of a wave in history. You can’t get it just by wanting it, you can’t call for it and make it come. You can’t choose it— it chooses you! It arrives like a wave picking you up! It’s a feeling— how can I say it? It’s as if everyone in your city becomes a family member, known to you as such even when you have never seen their face before and never will again. Mass action, yes, but the mass is suddenly family, they are all on the same side, doing something important.\nwolverine\nThen another five million come to live with you and everyone speaks English to understand each other. Pretty soon your kids speak English, pretty soon everyone speaks English, and then your language is gone. That would be a big loss, a crushing loss. So people get protective of that. The most important thing, therefore, is to learn the language. Not just English, but the local language, the native language. The mother tongue. Their culture doesn’t matter so much, just the language. That I find is the great connector. You speak their language and even when you’re messing it up like crazy, they get a look on their face: in that moment they want to help you.\nTom Athanasiou, Jürgen Atzgendorfer, Eric Berlow, Terry Bisson, Michael Blumlein (in memory), Dick Bryan, Federica Carugati, Amy Chan, Delton Chen, Joshua Clover, Oisí­n Fagan, Banning Garrett, Laurie Glover, Dan Gluesenkamp, Hilary Gordon, Casey Handmer, Fritz Heidorn, Jurg Hoigné (in memory), Tim Holman, Joe Holtz, Arlene Hopkins, Drew Keeling, Kimon Keramidas, Jonathan Lethem, Margaret Levi, Robert Markley, Tobias Menely, Ashwin Jacob Mathew, Chris McKay, Colin Milburn, Miguel Nogués, Lisa Nowell, Oskar Pfenninger (in memory), Kavita Philip, Armando Quintero, Carter Scholz, Mark Schwartz, Anasuya Sengupta, Slawek Tulaczyk, José Luis de Vicente, and K. Y. Wong\n","date":"September 15, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-the-ministry-for-the-future/","section":"Posts","summary":"In dealing with the poverty that still plagued so much of the Indian populace, the Indian government had had to create electricity as fast as they could, and also, since they existed in a world run by the market, as cheaply as they could. Otherwise outside investors would not invest, because the rate of return would not be high enough. So they had burned coal, yes. Like everyone else had up until just a few years before. Now India was being told not to burn coal, when everyone else had finished burning enough of it to build up the capital to afford to shift to cleaner sources of power. India had been told to get better without any financial help to do so whatsoever. Told to tighten the belt and embrace austerity, and be the working class for the bourgeoisie of the developed world, and suffer in silence until better times came— but the better times could never come, that plan was shot. The deck had been stacked, the game was over. And now twenty million people were dead.\n","title":"Highlights for The Ministry for the Future","type":"posts"},{"content":"Any kind of workshop that you do virtually is going to be more difficult but in my experience a skilled facilitator and a motivated group can overcome these challenges.\nhttps://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/thinking-inside-box-why-virtual-meetings-generate-fewer-ideas\n","date":"August 21, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16842/","section":"Posts","summary":"Any kind of workshop that you do virtually is going to be more difficult but in my experience a skilled facilitator and a motivated group can overcome these challenges.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Goed werk van de Groene wat onthult hoe Kroes ervoor zorgde dat Uber zijn gang kon gaan in Nederland. Het zou me verbazen als Uber het enige bedrijf was waar StartupDelta zo\u0026rsquo;n rol voor gespeeld heeft.\nhttps://www.groene.nl/artikel/dank-voor-je-geweldige-steun-neelie\n","date":"August 21, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16839/","section":"Posts","summary":"Goed werk van de Groene wat onthult hoe Kroes ervoor zorgde dat Uber zijn gang kon gaan in Nederland. Het zou me verbazen als Uber het enige bedrijf was waar StartupDelta zo’n rol voor gespeeld heeft.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Een goed artikel in de Correspondent over de landwaardebelasting oftewel de LVT.\nhttps://decorrespondent.nl/13454/deze-belasting-maakt-alle-andere-belastingen-overbodig/2146541974500-212c74a2\n","date":"August 21, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16836/","section":"Posts","summary":"Een goed artikel in de Correspondent over de landwaardebelasting oftewel de LVT.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I just watched and finished season 1 of Gibi which seems to have been enough of a success for them to quickly put out a second season. It\u0026rsquo;s a Turkish dark comedy show that you can watch online on Exxen. I already wrote it\u0026rsquo;s a bit like Seinfeld but with a very dark undercurrent.\nHow dark? Let\u0026rsquo;s look at the next bit from an episode (S01E10 @ 16:30) where Yılmaz and İlkkan are accused of having caused the death of an old man. They are getting ready to host the deceased\u0026rsquo;s relatives at a restaurant and participate in the wake.\nhttps://youtu.be/AfEVBhn-mqY\nYilmaz and Ilkkan having a conversation\nDid you hear anything from Ethem?\nEthem?\nLately never…\nMan, look, they wrote something in fact. Hold on. Somehow we weren\u0026rsquo;t able to call the guy. (Sigh. Wails.)\nDon\u0026rsquo;t.\nHis aunt has killed herself. Ethem\u0026rsquo;s. It was written this morning. I just saw it.\nWhich aunt?\nHis older aunt.\nI don\u0026rsquo;t know many other situational comedy shows that do something like this. It has no relation to the story and serves only to set the mood. Interspersing another death that\u0026rsquo;s just brushed off in an episode that\u0026rsquo;s already about death demonstrates how little a human life is worth. People die randomly and it\u0026rsquo;s received with a wail and a shrug.\nThey will most likely go to the funeral just like they did in a previous episode (S01E04) where Ersoy\u0026rsquo;s grandmother was eaten by an Erasmus cannibal.\nOverarching Theme # Zooming out a bit, the real theme of this first season of Gibi has been pressure, pressure of all kinds: peer pressure, family obligations, social and societal pressure.\nKokariç: Press ganging into opening a kebab shop and invest in all kinds of goods Wadding: Pressure from friends and the environment to conform to current fashion norms Nu Model: Pressure from the extended family not to pose nude at the art academy enforced by force of violence The Cannibal Coming with Erasmus: Pressure from friends to mourn and be visibly sad Wrong Mentor: Pressure by a spiritual guide to follow a very strict regimen Dark Force: Collective hysteria around bad things happening Second Way: Pressure of belonging Whitewash: Pressure by the house painter to go all the way Renewal of Break Up: Pressure generated by magician Blood Money: Pressure to make amends for somebody unrelated dying Bathroom: Pressure to bathe and spend time with a couple of seniors Discovery of the Horse: Proto-societal pressure between members of an outcast paleolithic group Anybody who\u0026rsquo;s ever been to Turkey knows that the entire country is built on this kind of pressure, also known as genuine interest, shame, concern or emotional blackmail. It\u0026rsquo;s omnipresent and the only way to escape it is to exit.\n","date":"August 21, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/gibi-comedy-under-pressure/","section":"Posts","summary":"I just watched and finished season 1 of Gibi which seems to have been enough of a success for them to quickly put out a second season. It’s a Turkish dark comedy show that you can watch online on Exxen. I already wrote it’s a bit like Seinfeld but with a very dark undercurrent.\n","title":"Gibi: Comedy under Pressure","type":"posts"},{"content":"I wrote before about how annoying it is if your Instagram username gets hacked and how difficult it is to get it back. I had to go to some lengths to get mine but nothing quite as much as this person.\nhttps://twitter.com/adam22/status/1527005564802600960\nIt says a lot about your dispute processes if it is possible to get through them using sex and if people have to resort to that because every other avenue is broken.\n","date":"August 21, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/getting-your-instagram-back/","section":"Posts","summary":"I wrote before about how annoying it is if your Instagram username gets hacked and how difficult it is to get it back. I had to go to some lengths to get mine but nothing quite as much as this person.\n","title":"Getting your Instagram back","type":"posts"},{"content":"But in the finals what distinguished one from another was all of the nonmusic stuff. The way they walked onto the stage, the cut of their clothes, the set of their shoulders, the spark in their eyes, and the emotion that played on their faces. All of these things established a mood either of tedium and awkwardness or of excited anticipation.\nWe learned that EP rests on three pillars:\nHow you act (gravitas)\nHow you speak (communication)\nHow you look (appearance)\nOne surprise finding of our research is that, when it comes to communication, eye contact matters enormously. Being able to look your coworkers in the eye when making a presentation, or being able to make eye contact with the audience when making a speech, has a transformative effect—on your ability to connect, to inspire, to create buy-in.\nOnce you’ve demonstrated that you know how to stand with the crowd, you get to strut your stuff and stand apart. It turns out that becoming a leader and doing something amazing with your life hinge on what makes you different, not on what makes you the same as everyone else.\nLike Bob Dudley, he or she projects an aura of calm and competence\nGravitas alone won’t secure you the corner office, of course: You’ve got to have the skill sets, the experience, and the innate talent to qualify for the job.\nYou will make mistakes. You will suffer the mistakes of others. Accidents completely out of your control will befall you. Each of these represents, however, a monumental opportunity to acquire and exude gravitas: to reach within yourself, at the height of the storm, for that eye of calm, and to speak and act from that place of clarity. Because when you demonstrate that your confidence cannot be shaken, you inspire confidence in others. At worst, you’ll win their forgiveness and forbearance. Very possibly, you’ll win their trust and loyalty.\n“You want brutal optimism. Great leaders are brutally optimistic.”\nBut born leaders are made, oftentimes through their own systematic efforts. They live intentionally, guided by a set of values or a vision for their lives that compels them to seize every chance to put their convictions into practice. We gravitate to them because they telegraph that they know where they’re going—a rare and intoxicating certainty that most of us lack.\nSmile more\nShow humility\nStick to what you know\nBe generous with credit\nSurround yourself with people who are better than you\nEmpower others’ presence to build your own\nSnatch victory from the jaws of defeat\nDrive change rather than be changed\nFirst, communication is not so much what you say but rather how you say it. And this you can condition and control. The tone and timbre of your voice; your choice and use of words; your inflection, articulation, and delivery; and even your body language determine what and how much your listeners take in—and what overall impression of you they will form and retain as a result. Other people’s perceptions of you are very much yours to shape.\nYour communication skills, both verbal and nonverbal, are what ultimately win you the attention and mindshare of colleagues, clients, and friends.\nwhat makes a speaker persuasive are elements such as passion (27 percent), voice quality (23 percent), and presence (15 percent)\nExecutives I interviewed cited inarticulateness, poor grammar, and an off-putting tone or accent as examples of verbal tics that undermine EP.\n“Maybe it’s the weight of history or the depth of ancestry, but a British accent adds to the impression of heft,”\nAnd here’s why: “Shrill voices have that hint of hysteria that drives men into a panic,”says Suzi Digby, a British choral conductor and music educator. “Women with a high-pitched tone will be perceived as not only unleaderlike but out of control.”\nIt’s imperative you cut to the chase, be highly selective with your data, and whenever possible share an illustrative story.\nconstantly referring to lists, reading your notes, using eighty-seven PowerPoint slides, shuffling papers or flip charts, and putting on your glasses the better to see what you’re reading are all actions that detract from your gravitas because they focus attention on your lack of confidence.\nKnow your material cold so that you needn’t rely on notes, and needn’t rely on your glasses to read notes. This will free you up to establish eye contact with the audience. And nothing is more important than eye contact\nDemonstrating that willingness impresses people: It shows you have absolute command of your subject matter, and it signals to your audience that you’re so invested in the importance of your message that you’ll scuttle your carefully prepared speech to make sure they grasp it. That’s a recipe for engagement.\nIn this regard, professionals of color may hold an edge. In focus groups we conducted, countless participants confirmed that being a minority is itself a relentless exercise in reading others in order to anticipate and overcome reflexive bias or unconscious resistance.\n“It’s the conversation before the meeting that establishes whether or not you’re worth listening to in the meeting,”one senior executive pointed out—a skill she refers to as “mastering the banter.”It shows, she explained, that you’re part of the larger conversation, someone who’s “one of the tribe.”\nNo one even bothers to assess your communication skills or your thought leadership capabilities if your appearance telegraphs you’re clueless.\nIn interview after interview, senior leaders told me that failure to come through on the grooming front signals either poor judgment or lack of discipline.\nThe signature look of the rock stars of this advertising extravaganza comprised two-day-old stubble, bespoke shorts, and designer flip-flops.\n“Pick the most senior nonexecutive member of the board”—the director named the member—“and pick a fight with him. Make a challenging remark. Point out something as absolute rubbish.”\nHer manager explained that, by never asking for help and not explaining to others what she was doing, Buck Luce was inadvertently signaling that (1) her agenda was more important than theirs and (2) she didn’t value other perspectives.\nBUILD A PERSONAL BRAND THAT GRANTS YOU LOTS OF LATITUDE TO BE YOU—AND BE RELENTLESS IN PROJECTING IT\n“It’s so easy to think that every slight might have something to do with your background or gender. It’s not to say there are no real snubs, but I’ve found that more often than not somebody’s coming from a place of ignorance rather than bigotry. If you’re overly sensitive to the possibility of intentional slights and withdraw as a result, you freeze yourself rather than move forward.”\nTake a deep breath, walk into the meeting, and present with composure and professionalism, while exhibiting graceful gra\nIgnore their questions, hoping they will eventually stop interrupting you and catch up with the rest of the\nStanding up to speak with integrity, clarity, and confide\ncolor with the speech impairment because she is clearly the better choice, as her performance measu\nYou have a glass of water just before you are announced and approach your audience with a welcoming smile, stand\nthis situation as a professional team\nInitiate an off-the-cuff and off-the-record, casual conversat\nassertive when speaking in front of the panel as they will find her grace and sub\nThe authentic and appropriate golf shirt which brings attention to what you migh\nMore than anything, how we look translates into respect—for ourselves, for others\n","date":"July 22, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-executive-presence/","section":"Posts","summary":"But in the finals what distinguished one from another was all of the nonmusic stuff. The way they walked onto the stage, the cut of their clothes, the set of their shoulders, the spark in their eyes, and the emotion that played on their faces. All of these things established a mood either of tedium and awkwardness or of excited anticipation.\n","title":"Highlights for Executive Presence","type":"posts"},{"content":"It’s important to insist, however, that to say that Muslims should go to Mecca for this reason isn’t to agree with Muslims. It is to give our reason for them to do something that they do for a different reason.\nWe go astray, similarly, when we think of a moral vocabulary as the possession of a solitary individual. If meanings ain’t in the head, neither are morals. The concept of kindness, or cruelty, enshrines a kind of social consensus.\nThere is nothing unreasonable, then, about my kinsmen’s belief in witchcraft. They think only what most people would think, given the concepts and beliefs they inherited; if you grew up with their beliefs and had their experiences, that is what you would believe, too.\nIf we are to encourage cosmopolitan engagement, moral conversation between people across societies, we must expect such disagreements: after all, they occur within societies.\nReasoning—by which I mean the public act of exchanging stated justifications—comes in not when we are going on in the usual way, but when we are thinking about change. And when it comes to change, what moves people is often not an argument from a principle, not a long discussion about values, but just a gradually acquired new way of seeing things.\nThere are Muslims, many of them young men, who feel that forces from outside their society—forces that they might think of as Western or, in a different moment, American—are pressuring them to reshape relations between men and women. Part of that pressure, they feel, comes from our media. Our films and our television programs are crammed with indescribable indecency. Our fashion magazines show women without modesty, women whose presence on many streets in the Muslim world would be a provocation, they think, presenting an almost irresistible temptation to men. Those magazines influence publications in their own countries, pulling them inevitably in the same direction. We permit women to swim almost naked with strange men, which is our business; but it is hard to keep the news of these acts of immodesty from Muslim women and children or to protect Muslim men from the temptations they inevitably create. As the Internet spreads, it will get even harder, and their children, especially their girls, will be tempted to ask for these freedoms too. Worse, they say, we are now trying to force our conception of how women and men should behave upon them. We speak of women’s rights. We make treaties enshrining these rights. And then we want their governments to enforce them.\nas the bearer of some bottles of Dutch schnapps (for several centuries now an appropriate gift for a West African royal)\nI live a long way away from the home of my earliest memories. Like many, I return there from time to time, to visit family and friends. And, again like many, when I am there I feel both that I do and that I don’t belong.\nCosmopolitans think human variety matters because people are entitled to the options they need to shape their lives in partnership with others.\nThe problem for Mali is not that it doesn’t have enough Malian art. The problem is that it doesn’t have enough money.\nThere is no good reason, however, to think that public ownership is the ideal fate of every important art object.\nHowever self-serving it may seem, the British Museum’s claim to be a repository of the heritage not of Britain but of the world seems to me exactly right.\nIt is a fine gesture to return things to the descendants of their makers—or to offer it to them for sale—but it certainly isn’t a duty. You might also show your respect for the culture it came from by holding on to it because you value it yourself. Furthermore, because cultural property has a value for all of us, it can be reasonable to insist that those to whom it is returned are in a position to take trusteeship; repatriation of some objects to poor countries whose priorities cannot be with their museum budgets might just lead to their decay. Were I advising a poor community pressing for the return of many ritual objects, I might urge it to consider whether leaving some of them to be respectfully displayed in other countries might not be part of its contribution to the cosmopolitan enterprise of cross-cultural understanding as well as a way to ensure their survival for later generations.\nMy people—human beings—made the Great Wall of China, the Chrysler Building, the Sistine Chapel: these things were made by creatures like me, through the exercise of skill and imagination. I do not have those skills, and my imagination spins different dreams. Nevertheless, that potential is also in me.\nUncle Aviv, though, seemed to be equally open to people of all faiths. Perhaps that made him, by the standards of some of today’s noisiest preachers of Islam, a bad Muslim. But it also made him quite typical of many Muslims in many nations and at many times.\nThose we think of as willing to claim that not everyone matters—the Nazis, the racists, the chauvinists of one sort and another—don’t stop with saying, “Those people don’t matter.”They tell you why. Jews are destroying our nation. Black people are inferior. Tutsi are cockroaches. The Aztecs are enemies of the faith. It’s not that they don’t matter; it’s that they have earned our hatred or contempt. They deserve what we are doing to them.\nSo-called realists about international relations often say that our foreign policy should pursue only our own national interest. They sound as though they’re saying that nobody matters but our own fellow countrymen. But if you ask them whether they think that we should engage in genocide if it is in our national interest, they typically deny that it could be in our national interest, because our national interest is somehow internally connected with certain values. To this line of response, I say, “Good. Then one of our values is that other people matter at least enough that we shouldn’t kill them just because it suits us.”\nStill, if people really do think some people don’t matter at all, there is only one thing to do: try to change their minds, and, if you fail, make sure that they can’t put their ideas into action.\nThis constraint is another that the Shallow Pond theorists are indifferent toward. They think that it is so important to avoid the bad things in other lives that we should be willing to accept for ourselves, our families and friends, lives that are barely worth living.\nFor if so many people in the world are not doing their share—and they clearly are not—it seems to me I cannot be required to derail my life to take up the slack.\nPart of the strategy of Unger’s argument is to persuade us that not intervening to save someone because we have something else worth doing is morally equivalent to killing him in the name of those other values. We should resist the equation.\nBut responding to the crisis of a child dying because her frail body cannot absorb fluids faster than they pour out of her is not really saving her, if tomorrow she will eat the same poor food, drink the same infected water, and live in a country with the same incompetent government; if the government’s economic policies continue to block real development for her family and her community; if her country is still trapped in poverty in part because our government has imposed tariffs on some of their exports to protect American manufacturers with a well-organized lobbying group in Washington\n","date":"July 22, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-cosmopolitanism/","section":"Posts","summary":"It’s important to insist, however, that to say that Muslims should go to Mecca for this reason isn’t to agree with Muslims. It is to give our reason for them to do something that they do for a different reason.\n","title":"Highlights for Cosmopolitanism","type":"posts"},{"content":"I get a bit of a chuckle thinking about the amount of C++ programmer hours that are being wasted here on this next generation car software. I\u0026rsquo;d love to learn about details when it comes to this.\nhttps://www.handelsblatt.com/unternehmen/industrie/vw-software-tochter-cariad-mehr-chaos-als-koordiniertes-programmieren/28403258.html\n","date":"July 17, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16822/","section":"Posts","summary":"I get a bit of a chuckle thinking about the amount of C++ programmer hours that are being wasted here on this next generation car software. I’d love to learn about details when it comes to this.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"https://www.currentaffairs.org/2022/07/the-dangerous-populist-science-of-yuval-noah-harari\nFor how popular and questionable Yuval Noah Harari\u0026rsquo;s writing has been, it has barely seen any scrutiny. This critique by Darshana Narayanan is on point and most of the things in it were—I hate to say it—glaringly obvious from the get-go.\n","date":"July 17, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16819/","section":"Posts","summary":"https://www.currentaffairs.org/2022/07/the-dangerous-populist-science-of-yuval-noah-harari\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"https://jhall.io/archive/2022/06/19/a-gitflow-story/\nPlease let\u0026rsquo;s never talk about GitFlow ever again other than with stories like this of how we moved people away from it.\nSome teams will be willing to try something else and see how it makes their lives radically better and others will refuse and put their heels in the sand.\nSure there are reasons why people react in a certain way, why some people are protective or conservative but those reasons are not destiny and everybody can choose agency and make things better.\nWhat choice will you make?\n","date":"July 17, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16817/","section":"Posts","summary":"https://jhall.io/archive/2022/06/19/a-gitflow-story/\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"An amazing tour de force compiling one of python\u0026rsquo;s core tools black to C using mypyc. There seems to be a lot of activity right now around compiling python code into different targets and also in distributing compiled binaries through python packages.\nhttps://ichard26.github.io/blog/2022/05/31/compiling-black-with-mypyc-part-1/\n","date":"June 6, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16814/","section":"Posts","summary":"An amazing tour de force compiling one of python’s core tools black to C using mypyc. There seems to be a lot of activity right now around compiling python code into different targets and also in distributing compiled binaries through python packages.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"\u0026ldquo;Stripped of their original purpose, this is what so many Scrum events have become: a series of actions performed by rote.\u0026rdquo;\nA lot of it has become theater and sprint planning may be one of the worst things any organization can do.\nhttps://chrisjameslennon.medium.com/the-age-of-scrum-is-over-185407ad705b\n","date":"June 6, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16812/","section":"Posts","summary":"“Stripped of their original purpose, this is what so many Scrum events have become: a series of actions performed by rote.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Lots of teams try to dogmatically implement scrum without looking at their team and goals. There are lots of alternative ways of doing things most of which will be more agile, not less.\nhttps://medium.com/@michalikmartin/why-weve-ditched-scrum-sprints-and-you-should-too-cdf5678e5199\n","date":"May 14, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16807/","section":"Posts","summary":"Lots of teams try to dogmatically implement scrum without looking at their team and goals. There are lots of alternative ways of doing things most of which will be more agile, not less.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"It has been a while coming that for most workloads sqlite is more than good enough and at the same time also has a lot of operational benefits to offer. I never could believe all the hoops you have to jump through to get a postgres/mysql to run.\nhttps://fly.io/blog/all-in-on-sqlite-litestream/\n","date":"May 14, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16803/","section":"Posts","summary":"It has been a while coming that for most workloads sqlite is more than good enough and at the same time also has a lot of operational benefits to offer. I never could believe all the hoops you have to jump through to get a postgres/mysql to run.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"“People have 250 percent more meetings every day than they did before the pandemic,”\nhttps://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/04/triple-peak-day-work-from-home/629457/\nLots of people default to meetings for everything they want to get done which leads to the negative effects listed in the article but is also a severe indictment of their competence and flexibility.\n","date":"May 14, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16801/","section":"Posts","summary":"“People have 250 percent more meetings every day than they did before the pandemic,”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"That\u0026rsquo;s nothing short of an amazing list of time management techniques geared specifically towards helping engineers achieve maximum impact.\nDefend your time Pay yourself first Defend others\u0026rsquo; time Clearly designate interrupt-driven work Clearly designate low-leverage work Communicate with candor Prioritize ruthlessly Become good at these and there are no limits to what you can achieve.\nhttps://github.com/readme/guides/time-management-software-engineers\n","date":"April 17, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16799/","section":"Posts","summary":"That’s nothing short of an amazing list of time management techniques geared specifically towards helping engineers achieve maximum impact.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Lots of examples here by Intercom about how to enable teams to ship as fast as possible and at the same time also as safely as possible.\nBe available after shipping Ship instrumentation first Use feature flags Ship to a small subset of traffic Ship the \u0026ldquo;read\u0026rdquo; path first Document and share your plan and actions https://www.intercom.com/blog/ship-fast-safe-learn-from-production/\n","date":"April 17, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16795/","section":"Posts","summary":"Lots of examples here by Intercom about how to enable teams to ship as fast as possible and at the same time also as safely as possible.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Lots of good bits about learning to write in this despite the weird formatting in Substack.\nhttps://sahilbloom.substack.com/p/the-power-business-writing-guide?s=r\n","date":"April 16, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16793/","section":"Posts","summary":"Lots of good bits about learning to write in this despite the weird formatting in Substack.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Momentum definitely is magic and I\u0026rsquo;d add that you get it by focusing on tempo.\nhttps://evanm.website/2022/02/momentum/\n","date":"April 16, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16791/","section":"Posts","summary":"Momentum definitely is magic and I’d add that you get it by focusing on tempo.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"\u0026ldquo;Declaring a feature that’s in customers’ hands “done,”without monitoring, or with flaky tests, or tons of highly redundant code, or other obvious pending work, doesn’t magically get that work done. That work will always be there. It’ll just show up as surprises in your Maintenance Roadmap at an unknown date, when your team has mentally moved on and stopped thinking about the feature.\u0026rdquo;\nFinish things, do them properly. Make problems go away.\nhttps://alexturek.com/2022-03-07-How-to-do-less/\n","date":"April 13, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16789/","section":"Posts","summary":"“Declaring a feature that’s in customers’ hands “done,”without monitoring, or with flaky tests, or tons of highly redundant code, or other obvious pending work, doesn’t magically get that work done. That work will always be there. It’ll just show up as surprises in your Maintenance Roadmap at an unknown date, when your team has mentally moved on and stopped thinking about the feature.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I totally agree with Dan Luu that the willingness to look stupid brings with it more benefits than can be counted.\nhttps://danluu.com/look-stupid/\n","date":"April 13, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16787/","section":"Posts","summary":"I totally agree with Dan Luu that the willingness to look stupid brings with it more benefits than can be counted.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Lots of hours put in over the past year to achieve this and the only thing it means is that I get to put lots more hours in. Let\u0026rsquo;s go!\nhttps://techcrunch.com/2022/04/11/choco-unicorn-food-waste-supply-chain/amp/?guccounter=1\n","date":"April 13, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16785/","section":"Posts","summary":"Lots of hours put in over the past year to achieve this and the only thing it means is that I get to put lots more hours in. Let’s go!\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Who knows… maybe I\u0026rsquo;ll go back to engineering at some point. There\u0026rsquo;s lots of good reasons to go back and forth a bit between the two for a while.\nhttps://charity.wtf/2022/03/24/twin-anxieties-of-the-engineer-manager-pendulum/\n","date":"April 13, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16783/","section":"Posts","summary":"Who knows… maybe I’ll go back to engineering at some point. There’s lots of good reasons to go back and forth a bit between the two for a while.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Life is too short to use bad tools (Teams, Jira) and It\u0026rsquo;s good to see more and more people screening companies based on this criterium.\nhttps://www.protocol.com/workplace/slack-teams-workplace-tools-jobs\n","date":"April 13, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16777/","section":"Posts","summary":"Life is too short to use bad tools (Teams, Jira) and It’s good to see more and more people screening companies based on this criterium.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"https://medium.com/@Martin_Jordan/moving-countries-moving-governments-9e2b04bf06f8\nMartin Jordan moving to DigitalService4Germany is a move that\u0026rsquo;s good to see. There have been rumblings about this organization for a while now and looking at the links and websites he posts in the article, they have been busy setting something up. For a consumer of German government websites nothing material has changed yet of course and likely will not for a while.\nLet\u0026rsquo;s not get our GDS expectations up in Germany. Many things are similar across high level government but Germany has its own unique cultural ballast and a history of entrenched failure when it comes to anything innovative in this domain.\nStaffing # Looking at the roster of the organization of LinkedIn, what\u0026rsquo;s immediately obvious is that they are a developer-light, design-heavy organization. I don\u0026rsquo;t feel like that setup will enable the significant (infrastructural) development necessary to overhaul any large scale government web property.\nI could be wrong of course, but that\u0026rsquo;s also exactly what they\u0026rsquo;re (not) doing. Their signature project seems to be a pension calculator which is very small in both scope and relevance.\nThe talent wars have intensified immensely so the question is whether hiring a significant roster of developers is a game that can even be won anymore, even with a GmbH that\u0026rsquo;s been specifically setup to circumvent public service procurement and employment rules. Using such a vehicle and getting the best talent available to work on generous freelance contracts has been proven to work but I\u0026rsquo;m not sure whether that is an option in Germany politically.\nWithout a significant development capability of its own and a serious commitment to insourcing, an operation like this won\u0026rsquo;t be much more than a designerly front and justification for the large scale consulting outfits that have provided software development services to government and will likely continue to do so. If that is the plan, I commend them for the ingenuity. Those consultancies definitely need a new gloss and validation given their track record of consistent failure and grift.\nRealism # Anyway, Martin\u0026rsquo;s commitment to transparency is laudable and I\u0026rsquo;ll be dipping in and out of his public updates to see what\u0026rsquo;s happening but my interest in this area has become tempered with realism and much diminished.\nMy working hypothesis for Germany is that it can\u0026rsquo;t do digital. That\u0026rsquo;s sad for somebody living here, but for somebody in my line of work it offers job security decades into the future. Many of the problems that have been solved elsewhere persist here and likely won\u0026rsquo;t be solved any time soon—if at all.\n","date":"April 13, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16760/","section":"Posts","summary":"https://medium.com/@Martin_Jordan/moving-countries-moving-governments-9e2b04bf06f8\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"HBR asking Seinfeld if McKinsey could have helped them write comedy. Terminal case of brain worms.\nhttps://twitter.com/buccocapital/status/1510249981789282304\n","date":"April 13, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16779/","section":"Posts","summary":"HBR asking Seinfeld if McKinsey could have helped them write comedy. Terminal case of brain worms.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Lovely bit about the broodje kroket and about Dutch colonial history.\nhttps://theswordandthesandwich.substack.com/p/notable-sandwiches-22-broodje-kroket?s=w\n","date":"April 9, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16775/","section":"Posts","summary":"Lovely bit about the broodje kroket and about Dutch colonial history.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A list by Andreas Klinger about how you should manage people that will be more useful to you than most management books.\nhttps://klinger.io/posts/managing-people-%F0%9F%A4%AF\n","date":"April 9, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16773/","section":"Posts","summary":"A list by Andreas Klinger about how you should manage people that will be more useful to you than most management books.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Oh Beirut, it seems nothing has changed since the last time I was there. Things have pretty much only gotten predictably worse.\nhttps://palladiummag.com/2021/12/09/the-long-fall-of-beirut/\n","date":"April 9, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16771/","section":"Posts","summary":"Oh Beirut, it seems nothing has changed since the last time I was there. Things have pretty much only gotten predictably worse.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A bit ostensibly about a rice cooker but in fact much more about post-war architecture and social relations in Japan.\nhttps://artreview.com/work-of-the-week-toshiba-rice-cooker/\n","date":"April 9, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16769/","section":"Posts","summary":"A bit ostensibly about a rice cooker but in fact much more about post-war architecture and social relations in Japan.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"On old but interesting article about a study that indicates that people will use their cars a lot more once we get fully autonomous vehicles.\nhttps://jalopnik.com/zombie-miles-and-napa-weekends-how-a-week-with-chauffe-1839648416\n","date":"April 9, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16767/","section":"Posts","summary":"On old but interesting article about a study that indicates that people will use their cars a lot more once we get fully autonomous vehicles.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"For example, there cannot be two parallel flows with mutable access to a value. Nor can there be a flow that borrows a value while there is no flow that owns the value.\nFreeing the memory twice could have catastrophic consequences.\nIf you just want to leave some valid value behind, std::mem::take 2 is a good candidate. It is equivalent to std::mem::replace(\u0026amp;mut value, Default::default()); it moves value out from behind the mutable reference but leaves a new, default value for the type in its place.\nbut as we dive deeper into the more complex parts of Rust, you will need a more rigorous mental model to work with.\nThe aim of this chapter has been to establish a solid, shared foundation that we can build on in the chapters to come.\nFalse sharing occurs when two different CPUs access different values that happen to share a cache line; while they can theoretically operate in parallel, they both end up contending to update the same single entry in the cache.\nSimply stated, the orphan rule says that you can implement a trait for a type only if the trait or the type is local to your crate.\nFor example, consider a type like SshConnection, which may or may not have been authenticated yet. You could add a generic type argument to SshConnection and then create two marker types: Unauthenticated and Authenticated. When the user first connects, they get SshConnection. In its impl block, you provide only a single method: connect. The connect method returns a SshConnection, and it’s only in that impl block that you provide the remaining methods for running commands and such.\nyou can see the building blocks in the RawWakerVTable type in the standard library.\nIn a way, unsafe is misleading as a keyword when it is used to allow unsafe operations through unsafe {}; it’s not that the contained code is unsafe, it’s that the code is allowed to perform otherwise unsafe operations because in this particular context, those operations are safe.\nIn practice, the safety and performance trade-off for unchecked methods is rarely worth it. As always with performance optimization, measure first, then optimize.\nand then document them rigorously.\nNot all code is written in Rust. It’s shocking, I know.\nInstead, as shown in Listing 3-2, we can introduce a generic parameter on Rocket, Stage, and use it to restrict what methods are available when.\nRust Fuzz Book (https://rust-fuzz.github.io/book/)\nRust Cookbook (https://rust-lang-nursery.github.io/rust-cookbook/), which suggests idiomatic so\nthe Tokio project has published mini-redis (https://github.com/tokio-rs/mini-redis/), an incomplete but idiomatic implementation of a Redis client and server that’s extr\nPhilipp Oppermann’s Writing an OS in Rust (https://os.phil-opp.com/) goes through the whole operating system stack in great detail while teaching you good Rust patterns in the process. I also highly recommend Amos’s collection of articles (https://fasterthanli.me/tags/rust/) if you want a wide sampling of interesting deep dives written in a conversational styl\n","date":"March 11, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-rust-for-rustaceans/","section":"Posts","summary":"For example, there cannot be two parallel flows with mutable access to a value. Nor can there be a flow that borrows a value while there is no flow that owns the value.\n","title":"Highlights for Rust for Rustaceans","type":"posts"},{"content":"I might not have heard the word ‘feminism’ yet, but I knew that the way women and girls were treated in Saudi Arabia was wrong and that this was not the Islam I was taught, nor did it represent the home I was raised in.\nI am Indian. Yoga runs through my blood, it’s as natural to me as my vitamin D deficiency.\nAnd yet I was surrounded by a community that disapproved of this sort of independence. Any attempt to challenge the traditional roles was met with disapproval that quickly spread through gossip and manifested as social control.\nIdeally the hijab mitigates instances where a woman is valued solely on her appearance and sexuality — though whether it successfully does that in such hyper-sexualized societies is a whole different discussion — rather it aims to place worth on her intellect, her actions, her character, and so forth.\nhijab was and is supposed to be an expression of faith and Muslim identity — that’s where it began, and that is where it was supposed to end.\nWe find ourselves trying to categorize our decision by placing it in a framework that negates the idea of Islam entirely — a framework that believes religion to be contingent, merely a set of historical practices and rituals, that believes in a complete separation of religion governing our affairs; the idea we stick to because our religion dictates our way of life.\nBut no, I am just the frumpy hijabi on the tube, supposedly beaten into covering myself in this sweltering heat, a mute with no voice and no brain, indoctrinated by an extremist ideology and with no opinion of my own.\nIt was only after that appointment, once I had a name for what I was going through, that I started researching Islamic ways to cope with my emotions. But when I looked online, on social media and Muslim forums, I was struck by the overwhelming prevalence of one single idea: that you could not be Muslim and depressed, because a true Muslim would be content with what God had planned for them.\nTherefore, when a Muslim whose mental health issues are tied up with one of these turns to the community, they often find nothing but judgement, when what they seek is the relief promised by the Islamic principles of mercy and forgiveness.\nMuslims are constantly being reminded that we are all one ummah — that we are of one body, and when any limb aches, the whole body reacts with sleeplessness and fever.\nBut when other Muslims see that you are not praying, regardless of the reason, they can be extremely judgemental.\nBut there is a problem. This perspective disapproves of the hijab, the burqa, modest culture and other key elements of the Muslim female identity.\nMainstream feminism suggests that my choices and values can’t exist within its framework — if I make the decision to dress for my faith then I must be oppressed or submissive.\nI grew up in a Muslim community whose cultural understanding of Islam denied equality of the sexes and rarely left room for female voices, let alone female empowerment.\nThey can’t entirely explain or point to the oppressor.\nI don’t know a single woman who will tell their male manager that it’s period cramps that are hampering their work, and women who need to borrow a paracetamol or a sanitary towel hardly shout it across the office.\nI think my father thought that this sudden determination to wear a hijab was down to religious zeal. I can’t really remember. I only knew that wearing it meant that you belonged.\nHijab has served me well. At times, it has covered my scars, allowing me to wear long-sleeved tops without anyone questioning what was hidden underneath. Other times, it has served to cover my earphones while I avoided listening to teachers drone on in class. Sometimes, very rarely, it has kept my head warm during cold winters.\nMy hijab gave me a way to act, a code of conduct: smile courteously at strangers, open doors for people, help the elderly carry their shopping, and politely decline drugs/alcohol/male interaction as they are ‘not allowed in Islam’. My hijab was my armour, something for me to fiddle with when people asked me uncomfortable questions. It would allow me to look down and cover the acne growing on my forehead when someone attractive walked by. At times when I was tired or frustrated, I would untie and retie my hijab. Now, I do so with my hair. It’s not the same.\nThe fact is, shame is one of the biggest drivers of toxic masculinity within South Asian culture and especially amongst Muslim men.\nand until we stop mollycoddling Muslim men there won’t be any substantial change.\nThere is a difference between guilt and shame. Guilt comes from recognizing one’s own mistake. Shame is heaped upon us by others. And there is a place for shame in society. It should be heaped upon the patriarchal cultures that subjugate women. It should be felt by the women who allow it to continue, both through their silence and their actions. It should be placed upon the men who stand by and allow their mothers, their sisters, their wives and their aunts to oppress women in the name of Islam, men who benefit from their privilege. And it also belongs to the men who abandon us to its effects, simply because they are too afraid to speak up.\nMy husband told me later that his father had an aversion to skirts and saw my wearing one as a personal affront. He had an aversion to and an opinion on many things, it would turn out.\nThe actual granting of my divorce was as simple as that, because Islam makes it that easy. It was culture and its contradictions that made my life complicated.\nAfter my second divorce my father told my mother: ‘You will never stop my daughters doing what they want again.’ Having raised us as equals with our brother, he had had enough of his girls being maligned. After this, we stopped pandering to the community. Outwardly, I merged my eastern and western wardrobes, mixing kurtas with jeans and shawls. Inwardly, I stopped giving a damn about gossip. The worst had happened. I was the talk of the town and there was nothing more to lose.\nMy mother, of course, was still concerned. What decent man would marry me, especially now I was on TV? Nice Pakistani girls did not appear on screen.\nThe mindset that a woman might do the unthinkable and refuse a man, or that she could even kill a man through the shameful use of her sexuality, means that men believe women need to be controlled, and this theory is conveniently backed up by supposed theology, providing a safety blanket for a wider community that is polluted by chauvinism and fragile male pride.\nI wonder if I would have been protected from the heartbreak and pain that came as a result of trying to please a community that demanded I live by their rules only.\nBecause women in such unregistered marriages cannot get a legal divorce, if the husband refuses to give an Islamic divorce, they are referred to as ‘chained women’.\nImams told me repeatedly that they were under pressure from their congregation not to register marriages as it would lead to women having legal rights.\nPeople are surprised to learn that it is harder nowadays to get out of a UK mobile phone contract than it is to leave an Islamic marriage.\nWhen Muslim women choose to take a stand and vocalize our opinions, there are always consequences to our dissent — especially because it flips the orientalist caricature of a passive, repressed woman being held hostage by the men in her community.\nTimothy Mitchell, in Colonising Egypt, explains how colonial officers drew ‘a link between the country’s “moral inferiority”and the status of its women’. He explains that they regularly came back to the argument that ‘the retarded development of the nation corresponded [ . . .] to the retarded development of the Egyptian woman’.\n","date":"March 11, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-its-not-about-the-burqa/","section":"Posts","summary":"I might not have heard the word ‘feminism’ yet, but I knew that the way women and girls were treated in Saudi Arabia was wrong and that this was not the Islam I was taught, nor did it represent the home I was raised in.\n","title":"Highlights for It's Not About the Burqa","type":"posts"},{"content":"We witnessed something very interesting: the United States had a quota for imported tuna. Once Peru’s quota had been filled, a biological miracle occurred right there on the canning line. What had been tuna was now pilchard, a member of the herring family, on which there was no quota.\nThe Adamsons were land-rich but cash-poor; they lacked the funds to develop the magnificent property. They were having to sell off pieces for far less than they potentially were worth.\nThe convenience store business is 90 percent real estate, 10 percent all other (merchandising, personnel, etc.). In real estate, it’s the tenant’s balance sheet that counts.\nThe question was never on the employment application forms, and it’s probably verboten to ask these days. But dyslexia lurks in the brain of every left-hander, which means, we see the world differently, sometimes profitably. That’s why, when I interview people, I try to get them to write something. At one point I was accused of running a cabal of left-handers at Trader Joe’s.\nToday it would be fought over by the vulture capitalists, but neither ventures nor vultures were common in those days.\nIf all the facts could be known, idiots could make the decisions.\n—Tex Thornton\nTrying to find an optimum solution in business is a waste of time: the factors in the equation are changing all the time.\nThis is the most important single business decision I ever made: to pay people well.\nWe really didn’t pay more per hour than union scale, but we gave people hours. Because union scale is so high, the supermarkets are very stingy with hours and will do anything to avoid paying overtime.\nTime and again I am asked why no one has successfully replicated Trader Joe’s. The answer is that no one has been willing to pay the wages and benefits, and thereby attract—and keep—the quality of people who work at Trader Joe’s.\nMuch as I would like to pose as an altruistic visionary, my policy was grounded partly by the desire to stay un-organized by the Retail Clerks Union, which under the direction of the legendary Joe DeSilva terrorized the market industry of those days.\nThe problem with unions is not their pay scales; it’s their work rules and seniority rules.\nIn fairness, however, those work rules did not spring from the ground like dung beetles working it over. They came from inexcusable employer practices.\nThe buyers at the supermarket chains knew nothing about what they sold, and they don’t want to know. What they did know all about was extorting slotting allowances, cooperative ad revenue, failure allowances, and back-haul concessions from the manufacturers.\nBut the Byzantine management atmosphere at first Rexall and then Hughes Aircraft had convinced me that the only real security lies in having your own business, and this left-hander was well ahead of the curve on that one.\nAlso, I was convinced that I was on a holy mission in preserving a company owned significantly by its employees. My hope was that someday it would be 100 percent owned by them. On that one I proved to be wrong.\nThat’s why, throughout my career, my policy has been full disclosure to employees about the true state of our affairs, almost to the point of imprudence. I took a cue from General Patton, who thought that the greatest danger was not that the enemy would learn his plans, but that his own troops would not.\nIt absolutely addressed our prime market, the overeducated and underpaid people of California.\nBeing king of the low-price, high-value wine trade in California was one of the greatest satisfactions of my career.\nBut bran is a low-value product. They couldn’t afford to deliver it. Since they also packaged nuts and dried fruits, however, we somewhat reluctantly added them to the order. And that’s how Trader Joe’s became the largest retailer of nuts and dried fruits in California!\nIn the Insider’s Wine Report we gave the results of the wine tastings that we were holding with increasing frequency, as we tried to gain product knowledge. This growing knowledge impressed me with how little we knew about food, so in 1969, we launched a parallel series of blind tastings of branded foods: mayonnaise, canned tuna, hot dogs, peanut butter, and so on.\nIt’s the problems that create the opportunities. If a business is easy, every simple bastard would enter it.\nFor forty years supermarkets in California had operated on a simple formula: run weekend ads, promoting Best Foods Mayonnaise and Folgers coffee below cost to get the people in the door, and sell them full-profit milk and alcohol.\nThe progress of the internet and electronic interfaces is demanding new levels of trust between the retailer and the supplier. Under these new interfaces, the supplier automatically resupplies the retailer on the basis of scanning data, which goes online to the supplier without batch-by-batch purchase orders. Individual internet buying must also operate on severe rules of trust.\nIn 1982, we employed an Apple II to do most of the number crunching. That was a big help, but it didn’t solve the problem of the nightly communication to the bakers. Young Joe rigged up one of the first voice-activated computer systems in the U.S. to take the orders from the stores. It was daring and full of bugs, but it began to teach us about electronic ordering.\ncreated an electronic ordering system on the Macs that fed into Guy Lundberg’s computer service. This was an enormous breakthrough.\nYou need to understand that we were outsourcing not just the mainframe number crunching but the printing of the documents that it generated. High-speed printers were a big choke point. They had to spew out “picking”documents for the warehouses, “receiving”documents for the stores, and summaries for our Accounting Department.\nLook at any supermarket ad. You’ll learn precious little about the provenance of any product in it; you’ll see only name, size, and price. Partly this is because the grocers themselves don’t know anything about the provenance of what they sell, and they don’t want to bring up the subject of individual differences.\nA distinction between full-time and part-time is a false dichotomy, when it comes to productivity.\nThe real limit on what range of products we could carry was our product knowledge. I believe that the greatest advantage of a limited-SKU retailer is that the employees at all levels can become truly knowledgeable about what they sell\nGiving discounts to people over sixty is, to borrow a phrase from Charlie Munger, “a type of dementia I can’t even classify.”Here you have the fastest-growing, most affluent part of the population, and you give them a discount? If anyone should get a discount, it’s the shrinking workforce, which subsidizes the old folks through their income and social security taxes.\nAll members of Central Management, including myself, worked in the stores those days as a matter of morale for the troops.\nThe same mentality that doesn’t want to rock the boat also tends to hold onto its job. You’ll encounter those guys again and again! Try to help them do a good job; make them feel important; and make them feel that you’re Playing the Game, not trying to abolish it.\nBelieve me, you have a system for everything that has to happen in your business—you just may not be conscious of it. And you probably have still other systems that are not needed. That’s why The Winning Performance calls for a “constitutional contempt for business as usual.”To practice “constitutional contempt,”you have to arrive at work every day with the attitude, “Why do we do such-and-such that way? Better yet, why do we do it at all?”\nWhy Did I Want to Get Rid of This “Free”Labor?\nSome of those guys steal. They steal by doing “fast counts”with your receiving clerk (some of those route men should be dealing blackjack in Vegas). That’s one big reason why the supermarkets went to “electronic receiving.”They also steal by putting high-value items in the “empty”cases they take back to the trucks. That was one reason I welcomed L’Eggs in its egg-shaped containers in the late 1960s: it was harder to hide L’Eggs in an empty soft drink case than flat-pack hosiery. Ask any grocer about this.\nThe bread and cupcake guys are under heavy penalties if they bring too much “stale”back to the bakery. So they pick up out-of-code product from one store and “roll”it into the next.\nAs the drug culture developed in the wake of Vietnam, route men evolved into natural distributors of the stuff.\nYou never know when they’re going to arrive at the store: this makes labor scheduling difficult. Related to this . . .\nThey always show up in your parking lot when it’s jammed. Or have you never been blocked from a parking space by a beer truck?\nBecause of internal theft, one of the most important non-merchandise suppliers may be a detective agency. It is very hard to find effective agencies. The nature of the work tends to attract unstable people.\nAnd with eleven years of Stanford education between us, we could never be poor, just temporarily impecunious at times.\nNot until months after Dan arrived did Thrifty Drug begin to have even the most basic financial reports needed to operate a $1.8 billion business.\nThis is one of the most important things I can impart: in any troubled company the people at lower levels know what ought to be done in terms of day-to-day operations. If you just ask them, you can find answers.\n","date":"March 11, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-becoming-trader-joe/","section":"Posts","summary":"We witnessed something very interesting: the United States had a quota for imported tuna. Once Peru’s quota had been filled, a biological miracle occurred right there on the canning line. What had been tuna was now pilchard, a member of the herring family, on which there was no quota.\n","title":"Highlights for Becoming Trader Joe","type":"posts"},{"content":"Not verified but an interesting data point in how German civil servants don\u0026rsquo;t have that attractive a position and can get better deals working indirectly for the people \u0026lsquo;at the engines of the global economy\u0026rsquo;.\nThat makes you wonder why the engines of the global economy are not here or if they are why it\u0026rsquo;s not possible to pay civil servants competitive both in compensation and in job satisfaction. To be able to get the best talent and create the kind of state capacity that justifies having a state, the best people working in the civil service should be paid competitively with the top of society.\nhttps://twitter.com/patio11/status/1487990797517484033\n","date":"March 7, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16739/","section":"Posts","summary":"Not verified but an interesting data point in how German civil servants don’t have that attractive a position and can get better deals working indirectly for the people ‘at the engines of the global economy’.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"https://parisinstitute.org/the-real-academy-in-exile/#ref1\nBack when I read this exposé in November it struck me as gripping but also as something that could become messy. Turns out that\u0026rsquo;s true since the piece now has the mark \u0026ldquo;Censored\u0026rdquo; and some choice parts of text have been blanked out. I did a quick search but can\u0026rsquo;t find any updates what might have happened. If I find time later, I\u0026rsquo;ll look in the Wayback Machine to see what pieces of text disappeared.\nThe kind of property deals that are described in the article are par for the course in any up and coming city. Recently there was a piece about resistance to the city giving away one of its largest buildings to a private art gallery: https://www.freitag.de/autoren/der-freitag/portraet-wut-motiviert-mich\nThe academic backroom dealings should also be considered to be normal especially in small subfields such as Turkey studies. Academics are playing funding games more than they research and the web of foundations that float around are ways to creatively bookkeep and move money around. None of this is really surprising.\n","date":"March 7, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16736/","section":"Posts","summary":"https://parisinstitute.org/the-real-academy-in-exile/#ref1\n","title":"Property dealings in Berlin","type":"posts"},{"content":"An interesting article about displacement, colonialism and identity placed on the axis between Ukraine, Taiwan and Korea.\nhttps://ampleroad.substack.com/p/ukraine-is-not-giving-up-on-the-hope\n","date":"March 7, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16734/","section":"Posts","summary":"An interesting article about displacement, colonialism and identity placed on the axis between Ukraine, Taiwan and Korea.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"https://www.newyorker.com/culture/infinite-scroll/how-tumblr-became-popular-for-being-obsolete\nI dusted off my account. I guess it\u0026rsquo;s back to Tumblr for real.\n","date":"March 6, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16720/","section":"Posts","summary":"https://www.newyorker.com/culture/infinite-scroll/how-tumblr-became-popular-for-being-obsolete\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I was on a Dutch podcast about working in Germany: FSG podcast over de Duitse digitale achterstand with Derk Marseille and Ruurd van der Weide.\nhttps://app.springcast.fm/14601/fsg-podcast-over-de-duitse-digitale-achterstand\n","date":"March 6, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16718/","section":"Posts","summary":"I was on a Dutch podcast about working in Germany: FSG podcast over de Duitse digitale achterstand with Derk Marseille and Ruurd van der Weide.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Wat is geweld? vroeg hij haar. Is het besmeuren van gebouwen gewelddadiger dan het blijven verbranden van kolen, terwijl we weten dat de broeikasgassen die daardoor in de atmosfeer terechtkomen een hoop leed veroorzaken, niet alleen voor toekomstige generaties, maar ook voor de minder gefortuneerde mensen die vandaag leven?\nGood article about Malm. The answer to the question above should be: \u0026ldquo;All climate action is self-defense.\u0026rdquo;\nIt\u0026rsquo;s possible to draw a straight line from Malm\u0026rsquo;s book to the climate protests happening right now in Berlin where people block the city ring road, which makes him quite effective.\n","date":"March 6, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16715/","section":"Posts","summary":"Wat is geweld? vroeg hij haar. Is het besmeuren van gebouwen gewelddadiger dan het blijven verbranden van kolen, terwijl we weten dat de broeikasgassen die daardoor in de atmosfeer terechtkomen een hoop leed veroorzaken, niet alleen voor toekomstige generaties, maar ook voor de minder gefortuneerde mensen die vandaag leven?\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"This is why recent developments in fields such as Afrofuturism and Black horror are so crucial. They provide a critical alternative to the alt-right’s exterminationist fantasy of an all-white future. Just as importantly, they offer readers other ways of thinking about time that do not fall in line with the fascist dream of a history that unfolds step-by-step along the lines of the Aryan dictator’s master plan.\nhttps://lareviewofbooks.org/article/race-consciousness-fascism-and-frank-herberts-dune/\n","date":"March 6, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16713/","section":"Posts","summary":"This is why recent developments in fields such as Afrofuturism and Black horror are so crucial. They provide a critical alternative to the alt-right’s exterminationist fantasy of an all-white future. Just as importantly, they offer readers other ways of thinking about time that do not fall in line with the fascist dream of a history that unfolds step-by-step along the lines of the Aryan dictator’s master plan.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"So I had some code very similar to the following that wouldn\u0026rsquo;t compile and me with my old Python head was a bit surprised why this was the case. It was a bit more complicated to figure it out in my example but this simplified version makes it pretty clear.\ntrait SomeTrait {} impl SomeTrait for u8 {} impl SomeTrait for u16 {} fn function() -\u0026gt; impl SomeTrait { if true { 0u8 } else { 0u16 } } Why did I think it would work? Because both types implement the same trait, it\u0026rsquo;ll come down to the same thing in the end and that should be fine, right? I think that\u0026rsquo;s Python talking.\nThe Rust compiler needs to know how much space every function\u0026rsquo;s return type requires.\nhttps://doc.rust-lang.org/rust-by-example/trait/dyn.html\nLet\u0026rsquo;s think about it from a Rust perspective which means think about the memory layout of this. We\u0026rsquo;re on the stack here and in this case it may only be a difference of a byte, it\u0026rsquo;s very possible to have two vastly different types implement the same trait. That can\u0026rsquo;t possibly work.\nThe answer then of course is to:\n1. Move things into the heap with `Box. That doesn\u0026rsquo;t fully solve it because then both arms have a different type Box\u0026lt;u8\u0026gt; and Box\u0026lt;u16\u0026gt; respectively. But crucially now they\u0026rsquo;re always the same size.\n2. Change the return type to a trait object that both types conform to with dyn.\ntrait SomeTrait {} impl SomeTrait for u8 {} impl SomeTrait for u16 {} fn function() -\u0026gt; Box\u0026lt;dyn SomeTrait\u0026gt; { if true { Box::new(0u8) } else { Box::new(0u16) } } This works and is dispatched dynamically.\nThanks by the way to the people in the Tokio Discord for being extremely patient with me.\n","date":"February 19, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/learning-about-rust-types-and-dynamic-dispatch/","section":"Posts","summary":"So I had some code very similar to the following that wouldn’t compile and me with my old Python head was a bit surprised why this was the case. It was a bit more complicated to figure it out in my example but this simplified version makes it pretty clear.\n","title":"Learning about Rust types and dynamic dispatch","type":"posts"},{"content":"Working in the Spotify organizational structure can be a bit tiresome but I\u0026rsquo;m glad we\u0026rsquo;re getting the important stuff from their product development culture, listed here by Jason Yip, right as well: aligned autonomy, trust and decoupling. Without those the structure indeed does not matter.\nhttps://jchyip.medium.com/the-top-3-points-you-should-have-paid-attention-to-in-the-spotify-engineering-culture-videos-that-f936a512fb3b\n","date":"February 7, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16705/","section":"Posts","summary":"Working in the Spotify organizational structure can be a bit tiresome but I’m glad we’re getting the important stuff from their product development culture, listed here by Jason Yip, right as well: aligned autonomy, trust and decoupling. Without those the structure indeed does not matter.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"People leaving your team have a cost that is far far larger than what you can directly see (and we know what a challenge directing stuff that you can\u0026rsquo;t see is). These visualizations\nby Benji Weber put forth a strong argument especially against people working as isolated individuals on things.\nhttps://benjiweber.co.uk/blog/2022/01/12/cost-of-attrition/\n","date":"February 7, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16703/","section":"Posts","summary":"People leaving your team have a cost that is far far larger than what you can directly see (and we know what a challenge directing stuff that you can’t see is). These visualizations\nby Benji Weber put forth a strong argument especially against people working as isolated individuals on things.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I agree with this take by Jacob Kaplan-Moss that you should be able to estimate very accurately and then just not do it most of the time. Learning how to estimate is a non-negotiable part of building an intuition for software engineering. It\u0026rsquo;s not the estimation that we need, it\u0026rsquo;s the intuition.\nThe other reason why we wouldn\u0026rsquo;t do it all the time is because estimation (AND tracking, oftentimes people estimate without a tracking mechanism) has a real cost attached to it both to the team doing the estimations and to the org as a whole. Relying on estimations makes the entire organization less agile.\nThe follow-up post has a bunch of ways how you can estimate better but it doesn\u0026rsquo;t reference my preferred one: critical chain\nhttps://jacobian.org/2021/may/20/estimation/\n","date":"January 30, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16699/","section":"Posts","summary":"I agree with this take by Jacob Kaplan-Moss that you should be able to estimate very accurately and then just not do it most of the time. Learning how to estimate is a non-negotiable part of building an intuition for software engineering. It’s not the estimation that we need, it’s the intuition.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Improving the way we do posts is something I\u0026rsquo;ll be spending a bunch of attention on in the next months and here is an excellent guide of how to improve that part of the incident process.\nhttps://www.jeli.io/howie-the-post-incident-guide/\n","date":"January 30, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16697/","section":"Posts","summary":"Improving the way we do posts is something I’ll be spending a bunch of attention on in the next months and here is an excellent guide of how to improve that part of the incident process.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"That\u0026rsquo;s a very astute observation of the state and culture of the Go programming language. I got out of Go way before I hit anything like this (though the Channel Axioms are something everybody is going to deal with). For me Go is a not very interesting intermediary language between Python and Rust.\nIn particular the crude simplicity is something that I always found suspect. It\u0026rsquo;s the same you would hear from PHP programmers, \u0026ldquo;It works, doesn\u0026rsquo;t it?\u0026rdquo; If getting something to work is such a feat that you can\u0026rsquo;t or won\u0026rsquo;t consider anything more than that, that\u0026rsquo;s not an environment I want to work in.\nhttps://fasterthanli.me/articles/i-want-off-mr-golangs-wild-ride\n","date":"January 30, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16693/","section":"Posts","summary":"That’s a very astute observation of the state and culture of the Go programming language. I got out of Go way before I hit anything like this (though the Channel Axioms are something everybody is going to deal with). For me Go is a not very interesting intermediary language between Python and Rust.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"An in-depth study of the links between Nazism and Anthroposophy by Peter Staudenmaier at the Institute for Social Ecology with a lot of interesting bits in there.\nIn fact Weleda supplied naturopathic materials for ‘medical experiments’ (i.e. torture) on prisoners at Dachau.\nJazz and popular music are often scorned at European Waldorf schools, and recorded music in general is frowned upon; these phenomena are considered to harbor demonic forces. Instead students read fairy tales, a staple of Waldorf education. Some sports, too, are forbidden, and art instruction often rigidly follows Steiner’s eccentric theories of color and form. Taken together with the pervasive anti-technological and anti-scientific bias, the suspicion toward rational thought, and the occasional outbreaks of racist gibberish, these factors indicate that Waldorf schooling is as questionable as the other aspects of the anthroposophist enterprise.\nAnd if you choose to follow the wikipedia trail lots more weird things, such as this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentin_Tomberg\nAnd lots of nazis and fellow travelers or intellectual precursors in there, like this guy:\nKarutz war ein deutscher HNO-Arzt und Ethnologe\nThat combination of professions is extremely sketchy. German Wikipedia neglects to mention this particular bit (weird how that keeps happening):\nKarutz was more openly antisemitic than many of his anthroposophist colleagues. He denounced the “spirit of Jewry,”which he described as “cliquish, petty, narrow-minded, rigidly tied to the past, devoted to dead conceptual knowledge and hungry for world power.”\nWell worth a read and not so long as you would think. A lot of the page consists of notes and comments.\nhttps://social-ecology.org/wp/2009/01/anthroposophy-and-ecofascism-2/\n","date":"January 30, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/anthroposophy-and-ecofascism/","section":"Posts","summary":"An in-depth study of the links between Nazism and Anthroposophy by Peter Staudenmaier at the Institute for Social Ecology with a lot of interesting bits in there.\n","title":"Anthroposophy and Ecofascism","type":"posts"},{"content":"The days are long but the years are short.\nOne more year over and these are starting to look like a blur, so here\u0026rsquo;s what changed.\nWork # I gave notice between Christmas and New Year 2020 and spent the first three months of the year in a weird in-between state mostly done with the old job, waiting for the new one to start, in between daycare closures and being sick.\nThen the new job started and I fell into a blur of work that has continued for most of the rest of the year. It\u0026rsquo;s been a nice change but also very intense. Details are on LinkedIn.\nTravel # I haven\u0026rsquo;t been anywhere in 2021 except to an island in Croatia last September with work which definitely was a highlight.\nWill I travel again and why? I have no idea.\nLearning # I finished Turkish. I now prefer it over German again especially for writing.\nI gave up on Chinese and couldn\u0026rsquo;t motivate myself or figure out how to book the HSK2. I did learn a couple hundred characters which seem to mean the same thing as in Japanese.\nI started learning Japanese which is a lot more enjoyable and for basic conversation seems a lot easier. There also has been some strengthening on the claim for a relationship between Turkish and Japanese so let\u0026rsquo;s see how it goes.\nI should have started this way earlier and not listened to anybody who ever said something is difficult. What they mean is that something was difficult for them. Depending on their intelligence, many things may in fact be difficult for them. It shouldn\u0026rsquo;t matter to me or anybody else.\nKids # The daycare was closed at the start of the year until March or Easter, not sure anymore. Most of the rest of the year things were up and running.\nWe had a nasty burn wound on one kid that cut the summer break short and gave us several weeks of grief but in the end all turned out well.\nThen at the end of the year we gave notice. We are leaving one very esteemed Kindergarten for another which I didn\u0026rsquo;t think would be possible with two kids in the middle of the year, but it is. We even had several more places willing to take our kids.\nThe kids are doing really well. After a brief bout of gymnastics which they enjoyed a lot, COVID made us switch to outdoor ice skating for now.\nSports # I finally killed my old fixie or to be more correct it nearly killed me. With it gone, I could finally shop for a real road bike.\nThanks to a ship blocking the Suez Canal and all the other supply chain difficulties in the world, there was a tremendous bike shortage most of the summer (who knows, maybe it\u0026rsquo;s still going on?) and I got any random bike I could get my hands on in the €1000 price range.\nI also got most of the tools and kit that you would need for cycling. It\u0026rsquo;s the clichéed guy midlife hobby. The local Rapha store is more convenient and also cheaper than many of the cycling apparel you can buy dropshipped over Instagram.\nI seem to have ridden 1231km on it and looking forward to doing many times that in the coming year. The details are on Strava.\nI picked up bouldering again which when in a rhythm (every 4-5 days) I\u0026rsquo;m finding pretty enjoyable.\nHealth # I got boosted randomly on November 17th which was a lot earlier than I expected and before almost everybody I know. I am now AZ/Comirnaty/Comirnaty.\nWe survived another year. That\u0026rsquo;s it. That\u0026rsquo;s the year note.\n","date":"January 10, 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/year-note-2021/","section":"Posts","summary":"The days are long but the years are short.\n","title":"Year Note 2021","type":"posts"},{"content":"I had no idea that most of Tesla\u0026rsquo;s FSD videos were fake. Huh.\nhttps://blog.piekniewski.info/2021/12/18/farcical-self-delusion/\n","date":"December 31, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16682/","section":"Posts","summary":"I had no idea that most of Tesla’s FSD videos were fake. Huh.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"We\u0026rsquo;ve worked remotely like this ten years ago with Hubbub and had to come up with a lot of these tactics and tricks just to be able to get work done. In the meantime, it seems the tools have come a long way (imagine the things we could have done if we had a tool like this back then!) but people\u0026rsquo;s thinking is still stuck in the past.\nhttps://miro.com/blog/hybrid-collaboration-field-guide/\n","date":"December 31, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16679/","section":"Posts","summary":"We’ve worked remotely like this ten years ago with Hubbub and had to come up with a lot of these tactics and tricks just to be able to get work done. In the meantime, it seems the tools have come a long way (imagine the things we could have done if we had a tool like this back then!) but people’s thinking is still stuck in the past.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"An entire article about speed vs. velocity vs. tempo that can be summarized as: \u0026ldquo;Orientation is the Schwerpunkt.\u0026rdquo; How much does your team invest into orienting themselves before they take on new work?\nhttps://kevlinhenney.medium.com/agility-speed-96057078fe40\n","date":"December 31, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16677/","section":"Posts","summary":"An entire article about speed vs. velocity vs. tempo that can be summarized as: “Orientation is the Schwerpunkt.” How much does your team invest into orienting themselves before they take on new work?\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"One of the things I have to fight the most for and that I think is what allows me to work well: \u0026ldquo;Regularly get in your team\u0026rsquo;s shoes\u0026rdquo;. Call it Genba, or Fingerspitzengefühl but the most important thing is to stay in touch with your team\u0026rsquo;s day to day reality.\nhttps://www.okayhq.com/blog/status-quo-is-so-hard-to-change-in-engineering-teams\n","date":"December 31, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16675/","section":"Posts","summary":"One of the things I have to fight the most for and that I think is what allows me to work well: “Regularly get in your team’s shoes”. Call it Genba, or Fingerspitzengefühl but the most important thing is to stay in touch with your team’s day to day reality.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I noticed [concrete observation]. Is everything ok?\nI noticed [concrete observation] happened a few times now. What’s the pattern here?\n[non-personal topic] has been on my mind. Could we have a quick chat to figure it out?\nMay we spend a bit of time going through your progress on [initiative]?\nDo you have a few minutes to dive into [initiative] with me?\nHolding people accountable and being held accountable do not seem like fun until you consider the alternatives (which are really bad). Do yourself and others a favor and learn how to do this.\nhttps://medium.dave-bailey.com/a-manager-guide-to-holding-your-team-accountable-a05aac67294c\n","date":"December 31, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16673/","section":"Posts","summary":"I noticed [concrete observation]. Is everything ok?\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"\u0026ldquo;I see operationally-minded engineers working cross-functionally with software development teams to help them grow in a few key areas: making outsourcing successful, speeding up time to value, and up-leveling their production chops.\u0026rdquo;\nThis is great and true. The more of our operations and infra we outsource, the more time we have to do interesting work and help our product teams create business value.\nhttps://thenewstack.io/the-future-of-ops-careers/\n","date":"December 31, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16671/","section":"Posts","summary":"“I see operationally-minded engineers working cross-functionally with software development teams to help them grow in a few key areas: making outsourcing successful, speeding up time to value, and up-leveling their production chops.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A lot of the stuff here is our common sense when running projects and also our unique problem as a platform team trying to get stuff done with/for other teams. One thing that engineers tend to forget is how much agency they have: \u0026ldquo;Although you can’t control what other teams can do, you can influence them.\u0026rdquo;\nhttps://www.rubick.com/independent-executor-model/\n","date":"December 31, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16669/","section":"Posts","summary":"A lot of the stuff here is our common sense when running projects and also our unique problem as a platform team trying to get stuff done with/for other teams. One thing that engineers tend to forget is how much agency they have: “Although you can’t control what other teams can do, you can influence them.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A couple of years ago I learned Haskell and to do that I read a book that is universally recommended for beginners and used to be available free online called \u0026ldquo;Learn you a Haskell for Great Good\u0026rdquo;.\nThe website seems to be gone at the moment: https://www.learnyouahaskell.com/\nI didn\u0026rsquo;t think too much about it when I read it but after some other people were asking what they should use to learn Haskell I remembered these weird \u0026lsquo;jokes\u0026rsquo; that are in the book to make the code a bit livelier.\nJudging from the reviews online not that many people (in this case almost only men) have picked up on this. To be clear, it\u0026rsquo;s in extremely poor judgement to have picked these slurs in the first place and maybe you could get away with this stuff 5-10 years ago, that\u0026rsquo;s no longer the case.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve screenshotted the examples below. There must be better books to learn Haskell with by now. I quickly switched to Clojure quickly for a bunch of reasons and you might do well not to take the detour that I did.\nThere could be more but I think you get the point.\n","date":"December 28, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/learn-you-a-haskell-is-problematic/","section":"Posts","summary":"A couple of years ago I learned Haskell and to do that I read a book that is universally recommended for beginners and used to be available free online called “Learn you a Haskell for Great Good”.\n","title":"Learn You a Haskell is Problematic","type":"posts"},{"content":"The construction site next to our house is still spewing forth noise and fumes at all hours. The city is unable to do anything here it seems and calling the people at the construction site we are met with nothing but deflection and lies.\nThey have built a housing around the heater which has maybe reduced the noise by 5dB and we are still left with a value that is far above what is allowed here.\nPicture of the housing forthcoming.\n","date":"December 21, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/update-on-the-construction-site/","section":"Posts","summary":"The construction site next to our house is still spewing forth noise and fumes at all hours. The city is unable to do anything here it seems and calling the people at the construction site we are met with nothing but deflection and lies.\n","title":"Update on the construction site","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;ve discovered a hilarious new Turkish comedy show called \u0026ldquo;Gibi\u0026rdquo; (translated to As If). The episodes revolve around a group of friends who get embroiled in absurdist situations and have very nasty but eloquent arguments with each other.\nTo me this gives off a very Seinfeld-like feeling with nasty people living in a nasty city talking about nasty things with each other. Not the touchy feely stuff that you see in normal sitcoms. You don\u0026rsquo;t really quite get why these people hang out with each other but they do.\nBelow is the first episode in its entirety on YouTube where both main characters find themselves pressured to open a kebab shop. The rest of the series on Exxen has passable English subs for anybody who would be interested.\nhttps://youtu.be/OwwMrpW1m5g\nI\u0026rsquo;m always a sucker for performances where people argue/fight with each other. The more fierce and physical the better. Carnage is an old favourite of mine and the fight scene I witnessed in \u0026lsquo;Langs de Grote Weg\u0026rsquo; remains with me as one of the highlights of visiting Frascati.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve watched a couple more episodes and I think I can say that the theme of the show is the weird social conformities that people in Turkey impose on each other. Hell is other people, especially over there.\nExxen # To be able to watch the full series I took a month\u0026rsquo;s subscription to Exxen. This seems to be one of a bunch of bespoke streaming platforms. Another one I was aware of through social media has been Gain (a self-described \u0026rsquo;next generation content platform\u0026rsquo;).\nThe Exxen website is kinda broken and the boss of the site has been quoted saying \u0026rsquo;they are competing with Netflix.\u0026rsquo; That may be right, but Netflix is probably not competing with them. Still, with the 80M people living in Turkey, the substantial diaspora as well as people from other countries who consider Turkish culture and media to be aspirational (a lot more of those out there than you would think living in Europe), they probably can get by.\nOne weird déja-vu has been seeing many of the Turkish social media stars that I used to listen to on Clubhouse (Chaby, Enis, Zeynep) make an appearance in weird and zany television formats exclusive to the platform. Most amazingly, those formats are also pretty professionally executed with high production values.\n","date":"December 21, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/as-if/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’ve discovered a hilarious new Turkish comedy show called “Gibi” (translated to As If). The episodes revolve around a group of friends who get embroiled in absurdist situations and have very nasty but eloquent arguments with each other.\n","title":"As If","type":"posts"},{"content":"\u0026ldquo;If quantitative metrics are inescapable, we suggest focusing on Service Level Objectives (SLOs) and cost of coordination data.\u0026rdquo;\nhttps://www.verica.io/blog/mttr-is-a-misleading-metric-now-what/\nFaced with exactly the same problem, I came up with the same solution: instead of focusing on number of incidents (which is much more problematic than MTTR), we should be focussing on SLO transgressions. SLOs are set by the org itself and can also be adjusted which means that that is an ongoing conversation the org can and needs to have with itself around reliability.\nSecondary, if you need to report on incidents to the business, I think you can\u0026rsquo;t go wrong with attaching a justified cost at the order of magnitude to an incident: this incident cost us thousands, ten thousands, millions etc. and how we calculated that number. It won\u0026rsquo;t be immensely accurate, but again the point is not accuracy but to build numerical muscle throughout the organization.\n","date":"December 13, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16651/","section":"Posts","summary":"“If quantitative metrics are inescapable, we suggest focusing on Service Level Objectives (SLOs) and cost of coordination data.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"An amazing article about COBOL and how deep our investment is in legacy technologies that work really well but are also a dead-end. It also seems that if you know any one of those technologies you can find work up until the moment that you die.\nhttps://www.wealthsimple.com/en-ca/magazine/cobol-controls-your-money\n","date":"November 29, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16646/","section":"Posts","summary":"An amazing article about COBOL and how deep our investment is in legacy technologies that work really well but are also a dead-end. It also seems that if you know any one of those technologies you can find work up until the moment that you die.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The long rumored link between Turkish and Japanese is getting some validation. I\u0026rsquo;m now also looking into learning Japanese (Chinese wasn\u0026rsquo;t really doing it for me).\nhttps://www.newscientist.com/article/2296962-origins-of-japanese-and-turkish-language-family-traced-back-9000-years/\n","date":"November 29, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16644/","section":"Posts","summary":"The long rumored link between Turkish and Japanese is getting some validation. I’m now also looking into learning Japanese (Chinese wasn’t really doing it for me).\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A list of learnings from writing a production database by Mahesh Balakrishnan that can easily be applied to any other part of software engineering as well but of course not one-to-one, like: \u0026ldquo;Socialize estimates of task difficulty repeatedly\u0026rdquo;\nhttps://maheshba.bitbucket.io/blog/2021/10/19/42Things.html\n","date":"November 29, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16642/","section":"Posts","summary":"A list of learnings from writing a production database by Mahesh Balakrishnan that can easily be applied to any other part of software engineering as well but of course not one-to-one, like: “Socialize estimates of task difficulty repeatedly”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A field report from doing incident management by John Allspaw that I can very much relate to with lots of learnings that need to be disseminated: \u0026ldquo;Focus less on incident metrics and more on signals that people are learning\u0026rdquo;\nhttps://speakerdeck.com/jallspaw/findings-from-the-field-devops-enterprise-london-2020?slide=21\n","date":"November 29, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16640/","section":"Posts","summary":"A field report from doing incident management by John Allspaw that I can very much relate to with lots of learnings that need to be disseminated: “Focus less on incident metrics and more on signals that people are learning”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"One of the biggest limiting factors for people working in technology is that they like to forget that everything around them is a socio-technical system. The world just isn\u0026rsquo;t that simple.\nhttps://paulosman.me/2021/10/02/sociotechnical-lenses-into-software-systems/\n","date":"November 29, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16638/","section":"Posts","summary":"One of the biggest limiting factors for people working in technology is that they like to forget that everything around them is a socio-technical system. The world just isn’t that simple.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The construction site that surrounds our house has started a bunch of space heaters this week. The devices had been there for a while but only started being annoying now that they\u0026rsquo;re turned on. These things run day and night, they make a ridiculous amount of noise (some 60 dB at our window) and because they burns diesel oil they also pollute and stink up the entire courtyard.\nWe are used to some noise and annoyance during the day time with this construction site. Some of the noise we went through was truly unbelievable and for some periods we have received a reduction in our rent. We thought that with most external construction being done, we would finally be able to get some peace but now these things are running and will probably run all winter.\nThe effect they have is to force us to keep our windows closed on one side of the house. You can hear a faint droning even with the windows closed and having the windows open is extremely unpleasant.\nThe Site # I went to the construction office first. There a man told me he would look into it. After returning from work in the evening of course the heaters were still running and the man had not done anything. When pressed, he said they were allowed to do this (not true) and these would run all winter.\nOur Landlord # First point of contact in these is of course our landlord who is our point of contact for the construction site. We\u0026rsquo;ll see what they will do for us when they take a look at this issue in the coming week. Maybe things will resolve themselves.\nThe city # Not wanting to leave things to chance, we also wanted to have the city check this out and resolve this issue. We are measuring 60 dB and we have a source that says only 40 dB is allowed at night (which would make sense).\nLet\u0026rsquo;s go over the steps you can take in such a case and whether the local government can do anything for you in such a case.\nThe first step in such a case would be to call the Ordnungsamt. The Berlin service number can connect you with them but they will tell you that it\u0026rsquo;s not their deal and refer you to the Umweltamt. This is the first time I heard that this Amt exists.\nFinding somebody to talk to at the Umweltamt was a bit of a challenge. Both of the contacts given to me did not pick up their phone (nobody in the city government seems to pick up their phone) but their central desk also told me to get lost and referred me to the Senate for UVK just like the Berlin service number did.\nSenUVK has a special entry point for noise from construction sites with a phone number, e-mail address and web form. The webform seems to be broken because after submitting it twice both times it shows an error and does not e-mail me a confirmation of my complaint. The phone number is supposedly open between 9-11 every day to accept complaints but calling that I could reach nobody there. Both of the people given to me as a contact by the Umweltamt were of course not reachable by phone.\nThis being 9 in the morning as per the phone number opening times, I thought I might as well drop by there to see what\u0026rsquo;s going on. I only live a ten minute bike ride away.\nI knew the SenUVK office at Am Köllnischen Park but I was told to go to Brückenstraße 6 around the corner. There I went into one building and could not find anything other than generic offices. I was going to give up but I walked up the street towards Jannowitzbrück and found another number 6 entrance to what seems to be known as the Jannowitz Center.\nThe ground floor of that building was a construction site. Next to the elevator it did find a plan of the SenUVK offices that listed Baulärm on the fifth floor. I took the elevator to the fifth floor only to find another construction site. Then I went down and asked the construction workers whether the entire building was a construction site. They said, nah, floors 7 and so and so are not. So I went up to the 7th floor and found the Pförtner there who referred me to room 191 on the 2nd floor 1.\nOn the second floor I found a very long office corridor where everything seemed to be more or less operational. I walked all the way to the end and after some turns found the office numbered 191 which of course was closed. Not to be dissuaded that easily, I started knocking and opening the doors in that corridor which were labelled Immissionsschutz.\nThen some schmuck came to me and asked me what I was doing. I told him the reason and he said he couldn\u0026rsquo;t help me and that he found it unangenehm that I just walked in like that. I told him that I found it unangenehm that the web form was broken and nobody here was picking up the telephone. The guy clearly didn\u0026rsquo;t bargain for any of this and made away quickly before I could show him the true meaning of the word unangenehm.\nThen a man arrived to work at the 191 office who was actually helpful and filed my complaint. It turns out that space heaters for construction sites only get a permit when there is a pressing technical need for them which is extremely rare. This construction has already taken very long and we would really want to finish it, is not enough reason it seems. The waterpump that we could hear pumping and hissing at regular intervals at night we could probably also complain against. We\u0026rsquo;ll see next week what comes from this complaint.\nHe confirmed also that they were having issues with the phone line and that they are not the people maintaining the web form.\nIf this person is to be believed, this construction site is doing whatever it wants because the act of following up on these breaches is so incredibly difficult and time consuming. He said they can press on this complaint and check the permits but in the end there\u0026rsquo;s only so much they can do as well.\nLocal Government IT # After the broken web form I also was kinda intrigued what kind of systems they would have there at the Senate\u0026rsquo;s offices. The guy filled in the complaint details into the editable fields of a MS Word template. That\u0026rsquo;s it. That\u0026rsquo;s about the level of where we are at when it comes to local government automation.\nI know these problems up close and they are difficult to solve even if you have access to best in class tools. But with those kind of tools at least you have a fighting chance. If you work in government without in-house IT, where you can\u0026rsquo;t procure anything useful, you don\u0026rsquo;t have credit cards and even if you found something useful you couldn\u0026rsquo;t use it because of fears around Datenschutz, there is no way you are going to get anything done.\nMost of these problems could be solved by deploying Airtable and Zendesk, but they of course won\u0026rsquo;t be allowed to do that. I don\u0026rsquo;t have to mention that local government being ineffective benefits companies doing construction without following any of the rules.\nThis room numbering scheme is insane.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"November 14, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/chasing-down-noise-complaints-for-the-construction-site-next-to-our-house/","section":"Posts","summary":"The construction site that surrounds our house has started a bunch of space heaters this week. The devices had been there for a while but only started being annoying now that they’re turned on. These things run day and night, they make a ridiculous amount of noise (some 60 dB at our window) and because they burns diesel oil they also pollute and stink up the entire courtyard.\n","title":"Chasing down noise complaints for the construction site next to our house","type":"posts"},{"content":"I was amazed at how closely this article about product development at Facebook tracks with how I approach it: \u0026ldquo;PMs are 100% accountable for the results of your team.\u0026rdquo;\nI\u0026rsquo;m doubling as EM/PM for a bit and engineers in my team fully own some of our projects. This is a combination of high demand and high trust that I think is working out well.\nhttps://productlife.to/p/-execution-at-facebook\n","date":"October 28, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16626/","section":"Posts","summary":"I was amazed at how closely this article about product development at Facebook tracks with how I approach it: “PMs are 100% accountable for the results of your team.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Any chance I get I also dispense with Pull Requests because I like my projects and teams to be happy and productive and blazingly fast. From my experience both approaches are about equally safe and with proper guidance you don\u0026rsquo;t even need a team of only seniors to make it work.\nhttps://betterprogramming.pub/are-pull-requests-holding-back-your-team-e8aec48986c2\n","date":"October 28, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16624/","section":"Posts","summary":"Any chance I get I also dispense with Pull Requests because I like my projects and teams to be happy and productive and blazingly fast. From my experience both approaches are about equally safe and with proper guidance you don’t even need a team of only seniors to make it work.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The Pulp game editor is hugely impressive and at the same time making something like this is well within the potential of any small talented group of people who have a bit of time and vision.\nhttps://www.gamedeveloper.com/console/playdate-pulp-zero-to-video-game-in-60-seconds\n","date":"October 28, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16622/","section":"Posts","summary":"The Pulp game editor is hugely impressive and at the same time making something like this is well within the potential of any small talented group of people who have a bit of time and vision.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"There is a lot of truth to this Economist article about German humour and I refer back to it a lot.\nShortly after moving back to Germany in 2012 after decades of absence, mainly in Anglo-Saxon countries, I took my kids to the Berlin zoo. The children were two, four and seven at the time, and had already developed a keen sense of irony — or at least they understood that dad doesn’t always mean things literally, because, you know, it’s funny. So we queued for our tickets, trading silly jokes. Like me, the kids are dual citizens of America and Germany, though at that time, fresh from California, we still felt more American and more at ease in English. But we deliberately spoke German, to help us acclimatise to our new home. In a mood of levity, we approached the ticket window.\nThe lady behind it informed me that the price for the elder two was such-and-such and the littl’un was free. “What if I pay you a bit extra and you keep them?”I suggested. The kids chortled and started naming prices that might clear the market.\nThe lady stared back, horrified. Then, slowly, she leaned forward to look at my children, who stiffened. “Your dad does not really mean that,”she said. “He does not really want to sell you.”\nThat pretty much killed the mood for all four of us until somewhere between the giraffes and the polar bears. “Why did she say that?”my daughter asked, in English, as though out of an instinct for cultural self-preservation. As I pondered the question, I couldn’t help but think there was something peculiarly German about the lady’s reaction. First, Germans really, really struggle to grasp non-literal meanings. Second, Germans really, really can’t help but say when they think you’re wrong.\n(contd.)\nThis opening story on literalism is great but there are more points in there, like the need to correct people and how isolating and grating this is for foreigners.\nThe point I take from it which also relates to the fact that street slang is segregated in Germany (as opposed to France). Educated Germans will not use words from the street register in normal conversation for fear of looking uneducated. You can see this for instance in the criticism Rezo gets for his use of mixed language in his serious videos. ‘Wrong’ use of language is used as an excuse to put people down. This happens to me as well every time I make a mistake.\nThe counterpoint is that anything said in High German is considered to be true or at least intended to be a statement of fact. The literalism is the baseline for all interactions at that level. They are literally incapable of feigning.\nYou can imagine the problems this creates and how unfixable they are because they are so deeply embedded in the culture. The only way out is through. The Rezo generation needs to create a new culture and the old needs to die off.\n","date":"October 24, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16617/","section":"Posts","summary":"There is a lot of truth to this Economist article about German humour and I refer back to it a lot.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Most of the time, elites do what they want, influenced by their own ideological commitments and powerful lobby groups. In times of crisis, when people do pay attention, they can be manipulated pretty easily by the media or other partisan sources.\nYou don’t add much to your understanding of the world by finding those with low IQs who can’t do cost-benefit analysis and adding them to the conversation.\nhttps://richardhanania.substack.com/p/tetlock-and-the-taliban\n","date":"October 21, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16614/","section":"Posts","summary":"Most of the time, elites do what they want, influenced by their own ideological commitments and powerful lobby groups. In times of crisis, when people do pay attention, they can be manipulated pretty easily by the media or other partisan sources.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I often get surprised reactions when I say that we don\u0026rsquo;t do Scrum. After reading about how other technology companies run their projects, it seems that Scrum—which is wasteful and does not fit reality—is on the way out.\nhttps://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/project-management-at-big-tech/\n","date":"October 21, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16612/","section":"Posts","summary":"I often get surprised reactions when I say that we don’t do Scrum. After reading about how other technology companies run their projects, it seems that Scrum—which is wasteful and does not fit reality—is on the way out.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A quick overview of the importance of communication in software engineering, some guidelines and the many work situations where you will be able to apply this particular skill.\nAll in all, you should think of your communication skills as one of the most important skills you can develop over your career.\nhttps://chadxz.dev/communication/\n","date":"October 21, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16610/","section":"Posts","summary":"A quick overview of the importance of communication in software engineering, some guidelines and the many work situations where you will be able to apply this particular skill.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I keep referring back to this distinction which though coarse remains extremely useful. The barrel-like qualities of Understand, Ideate, Take Initiative, Recruit Others, Deliver Results can definitely be nurtured in people.\nBarrels take initiative. They don\u0026rsquo;t wait for approval or consensus.\nBarrels ship high-quality work. They constantly looking for ways to improve.\nBarrels value speed. They get the proof of concept out the door quickly and iterate on it.\nBarrels take accountability. They are not only willing but excited to own the plan and the outcome.\nBarrels are seen as a resource. Teammates frequently seek them out for help and advice.\nBarrels work well with others. They know how to motivate teams and individuals alike.\nBarrels can handle adversity. They push through friction and obstacles.\nhttps://www.conordewey.com/blog/barrels-and-ammunition/\n","date":"October 21, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/barrels-and-ammunition/","section":"Posts","summary":"I keep referring back to this distinction which though coarse remains extremely useful. The barrel-like qualities of Understand, Ideate, Take Initiative, Recruit Others, Deliver Results can definitely be nurtured in people.\n","title":"Barrels and Ammunition","type":"posts"},{"content":"Of course it still makes sense to defend yourself, but if you have any idea how software functions, it should be obvious that the number of known and unknown vulnerabilities in our devices number in the thousands and a lot of them are and remain exploited by all kinds of organizations.\nWhy would any device that you own not be fully infiltrated if a mid to high level service had an interest in it?\nhttps://twitter.com/annalist/status/1420158699373580289?s=11\n","date":"October 21, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16606/","section":"Posts","summary":"Of course it still makes sense to defend yourself, but if you have any idea how software functions, it should be obvious that the number of known and unknown vulnerabilities in our devices number in the thousands and a lot of them are and remain exploited by all kinds of organizations.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Carbon tax, land value tax to pay for for UBI and high quality public housing.\nhttps://twitter.com/TribTowerViews/status/1437656286636625925\n","date":"October 21, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/lee-jae-myung/","section":"Posts","summary":"Carbon tax, land value tax to pay for for UBI and high quality public housing.\n","title":"Lee Jae-myung","type":"posts"},{"content":"A huge post demystifying DevRel and how to measure activity in this space.\nhttps://www.swyx.io/measuring-devrel/\n","date":"October 21, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16602/","section":"Posts","summary":"A huge post demystifying DevRel and how to measure activity in this space.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;ve had a number of amazing and unforgettable experiences with Couchsurfing mostly staying in Berlin way back in the day. This history of the site\u0026rsquo;s rise and fall fills in what happened after I lost track.\nhttps://www.inputmag.com/features/rise-and-ruin-of-couchsurfing\n","date":"October 17, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16599/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’ve had a number of amazing and unforgettable experiences with Couchsurfing mostly staying in Berlin way back in the day. This history of the site’s rise and fall fills in what happened after I lost track.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"If you are looking around during the great resignation, I can tell you that things like 4-day work weeks, mission driven companies and excellent colleagues are out there to be found. For instance where I\u0026rsquo;m working now.\nhttps://leaddev.com/personal-development/great-resignation-how-leverage-moment-your-job-search\n","date":"October 17, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16596/","section":"Posts","summary":"If you are looking around during the great resignation, I can tell you that things like 4-day work weeks, mission driven companies and excellent colleagues are out there to be found. For instance where I’m working now.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"We\u0026rsquo;re picking up some of these large scale iOS development practices ourselves. Getting rid of those pesky conflicts in pbxproj files alone would be more than worth it.\nhttps://medium.com/airbnb-engineering/designing-for-productivity-in-a-large-scale-ios-application-9376a430a0bf\n","date":"October 17, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16594/","section":"Posts","summary":"We’re picking up some of these large scale iOS development practices ourselves. Getting rid of those pesky conflicts in pbxproj files alone would be more than worth it.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;m not a huge fan of the financial metaphor for tech debt but this pries apart the core of the problem well from an optionality lens (or as you could also say \u0026ldquo;rich moves\u0026rdquo;).\nhttps://petabridge.com/blog/high-optionality-programming-pt1/\n","date":"October 17, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16592/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’m not a huge fan of the financial metaphor for tech debt but this pries apart the core of the problem well from an optionality lens (or as you could also say “rich moves”).\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Hanging out on Clubhouse from the beginning made me realize how lacking my Turkish was. I got on the app when Germany came online and I think Turkey launched shortly after that and only then did it kick off in the Netherlands.\nThat particular sequencing gave me an interesting perspective on how different cultures adopted the service. Germans went into panel hell. Most of the sessions were dominated by journalists and politicos and therefore were extremely boring. Turkey got online in no time and was dominated by influencers who launched all kinds of funky repeating formats and casual chatrooms where people were going until deep into the night (I would listen until 1-2 at night which in Turkey would be 2 hours later still). The Netherlands went into a marketing fervor with a strong showing of douchebags.\nClubhouse had its moment and fizzled, but tuning into the app again recently, I can say that it\u0026rsquo;s still there and with all the klout and hype chasers gone, things are again weird. Weird is good.\nLexicography # In the Turkish rooms I would hear words that I didn\u0026rsquo;t know every other sentence, sometimes entire concepts like kadının beyanı esastır. Finally, I had a situation where I was exposed to a high level of Turkish and I had the motivation to improve this.\nI started noting these words down in Anki, which I had bought previously to study the HSK. Adding a word to my deck here and there was slow: switch to dictionary (now I use the official one), switch to Anki and write the card, switch back.\nFor some extra speed, I dug up a master word list I had made more than a decade ago. Back then I had read most of Orhan Pamuk\u0026rsquo;s then bibliography (Yeni Hayat, Sessiz Ev, Kara Kitap, Kar, Benim Adım Kırmızı) and then too found lots of words I didn\u0026rsquo;t know. I passed over them and wrote them down on a piece of paper. I transcribed these papers into a list and looked up some of the meanings. But this being before Anki, I had no real way to systematically learn these words and get better at Turkish. If I had, I would have improved steadily with each book I read and everything would have been great.\nI went through this old word list letter by letter and over the course of a month made cards for all of the words in that list. The result of that effort is the 1000-word deck I have made available online now.\nAnd now, after months of revising daily (life during the pandemic has been very exciting, why do you ask?) and also continuing to add words as I go—the recent events in Afghanistan made me add the half-Arab half-Farsi ridiculous Turkish word for charge d\u0026rsquo;affaires—I finally am out of \u0026ldquo;New\u0026rdquo; words. From now on it will just be polishing the lexicography of the deck, adding a word here and there and continuing to revise.\nThis also means I have capacity again to go back to studying HSK3. Or I might switch back to learning Japanese after all. Watching some anime recently and seeing Japanese speaking gaijin on Tiktok have revived this itch.\nA feeling for Turkish (and Arabic) # So now what? I am a lot more confident when it comes to my Turkish after having learned a bunch of the words commonly in use in the higher echelons of society. I can now look for and find complicated words much more easily. My usage will likely be incorrect often, but I should be able to get by with my sizeable intuition for what remains the first language I learned (and learnd to read in). I can also consume complex material far more easily than I used to.\nI now realize how many loan words from Arabic Turkey has. The exact numbers are obscure, but almost every uncommon word either is of Arabic origin or has an Arabic equivalent. This also explains why after being in Syria for a while I understood what people were saying without knowing Arabic.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve also been amazed by how overloaded the language is for certain concepts like disaster (afet, badire, facia, buhran), sorrow (ıstırap, üzüntü, matem, yas, kahır, hicran, gam, tasa, keder, nedamet, teessür) and many others. Also all of those words are Arabic in origin except if I had to guess by word shape: üzüntü (I guessed right!).\nWhite Turks # Delving into this part of the language and the people who use it, I came across the concept of White Turks. The division between white and black Turks underlies a lot of the dynamics of the Turkey of the past decades.\nThe people who I was listening to and whose language I am now emulating are usually white Turks. Me and my family originally are black Turks.\nI\u0026rsquo;m sure I\u0026rsquo;ll never pass as white, though I\u0026rsquo;m now in a socio-economically better position than most white Turks in Turkey and most black Turks in Europe. Language is a key aspect of this division and when people clash it is usually the first weapon that they resort to. Now that I have levelled up, I don\u0026rsquo;t have to be exclusively on the receiving end of that weapon anymore.\n","date":"September 12, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/leveled-up-in-turkish/","section":"Posts","summary":"Hanging out on Clubhouse from the beginning made me realize how lacking my Turkish was. I got on the app when Germany came online and I think Turkey launched shortly after that and only then did it kick off in the Netherlands.\n","title":"Leveled up in Turkish","type":"posts"},{"content":"Looking at this map of expansions we may have a tram line in front of our house in the near future.\nhttps://twitter.com/regineguenther/status/1430834098910674946?s=11\n","date":"August 28, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/tram-lines/","section":"Posts","summary":"Looking at this map of expansions we may have a tram line in front of our house in the near future.\n","title":"Tram lines","type":"posts"},{"content":"Traditional operations teams and their counterparts in product development thus often end up in conflict, most visibly over how quickly software can be released to production. At their core, the development teams want to launch new features and see them adopted by users. At their core, the ops teams want to make sure the service doesn’t break while they are holding the pager. Because most outages are caused by some kind of change—a new configuration, a new feature launch, or a new type of user traffic—the two teams’ goals are fundamentally in tension.\nSRE is what happens when you ask a software engineer to design an operations team.\nThe use of an error budget resolves the structural conflict of incentives between development and SRE. SRE’s goal is no longer “zero outages”; rather, SREs and product developers aim to spend the error budget getting maximum feature velocity. This change makes all the difference. An outage is no longer a “bad”thing—it is an expected part of the process of innovation, and an occurrence that both development and SRE teams manage rather than fear.\nWhen humans are necessary, we have found that thinking through and recording the best practices ahead of time in a “playbook”produces roughly a 3x improvement in MTTR as compared to the strategy of “winging it.”The hero jack-of-all-trades on-call engineer does work, but the practiced on-call engineer armed with a playbook works much better.\nHowever, some systems should be instrumented with client-side collection, because not measuring behavior at the client can miss a range of problems that affect users but don’t affect server-side metrics.\nToil is the kind of work tied to running a production service that tends to be manual, repetitive, automatable, tactical, devoid of enduring value, and that scales linearly as a service grows.\nAt least 50% of each SRE’s time should be spent on engineering project work that will either reduce future toil or add service features. Feature development typically focuses on improving reliability, performance, or utilization, which often reduces toil as a second-order effect.\nA product’s feature velocity will slow if the SRE team is too busy with manual work and firefighting to roll out new features promptly.\nThis kind of tension is common within a team, and often reflects an underlying mistrust of the team’s self-discipline: while some team members want to implement a “hack”to allow time for a proper fix, others worry that a hack will be forgotten or that the proper fix will be deprioritized indefinitely. This concern is credible, as it’s easy to build layers of unmaintainable technical debt by patching over problems instead of making real fixes. Managers and technical leaders play a key role in implementing true, long-term fixes by supporting and prioritizing potentially time-consuming long-term fixes even when the initial “pain”of paging subsides.\nIt’s easy to overlook the fact that once you have encapsulated some task in automation, anyone can execute the task. Therefore, the time savings apply across anyone who would plausibly use the automation. Decoupling operator from operation is very powerful.\nThe main upshot of this new automation was that we had a lot more free time to spend on improving other parts of the infrastructure. Such improvements had a cascading effect: the more time we saved, the more time we were able to spend on optimizing and automating other tedious work.\n“Why don’t we gate the code with a flag instead of deleting it?”\nIf we release 100 unrelated changes to a system at the same time and performance gets worse, understanding which changes impacted performance, and how they did so, will take considerable effort or additional instrumentation. If the release is performed in smaller batches, we can move faster with more confidence because each code change can be understood in isolation in the larger system.\nThere are many ways to simplify and speed troubleshooting. Perhaps the most fundamental are:\nBuilding observability—with both white-box metrics and structured logs—into each component from the ground up.\nDesigning systems with well-understood and observable interfaces between components.\nSome on-call engineers simultaneously experienced what they believed to be a failure of the corporate network and relocated to dedicated secure rooms (panic rooms) with backup access to the production environment.\nGoogle relies upon our own tools. Much of the software stack that we use for troubleshooting and communicating lies behind jobs that were crash-looping. Had this outage lasted any longer, debugging would have been severely hindered.\nDe facto, the commander holds all positions that they have not delegated.\nIt is important to define postmortem criteria before an incident occurs so that everyone knows when a postmortem is necessary. In addition to these objective triggers, any stakeholder may request a postmortem for an event.\nWriting a postmortem also involves formal review and publication. In practice, teams share the first postmortem draft internally and solicit a group of senior engineers to assess the draft for completeness. Review criteria might include:\nWas key incident data collected for posterity?\nAre the impact assessments complete?\nWas the root cause sufficiently deep?\nIs the action plan appropriate and are resulting bug fixes at appropriate priority?\nDid we share the outcome with relevant stakeholders?\nMake sure that writing effective postmortems is a rewarded and celebrated practice, both publicly through the social methods mentioned earlier, and through individual and team performance management.\none of SRE’s guiding principles is that “team size should not scale directly with service growth.”\nPerformance Data describes how a service scales: for every unit of demand X in cluster Y, how many units of dependency Z are used? This scaling data may be derived in a number of ways depending on the maturity of the service in question. Some services are load tested, while others infer their scaling based upon past performance.\nWhen deploying approximation to help speed development, it’s important to undertake the work in a way that allows the team to make future enhancements and revisit approximation.\nBy working one-on-one with early users, you can address those fears personally, and demonstrate that rather than owning the toil of performing a tedious task manually, the team instead owns the configurations, processes, and ultimate results of their technical work.\nLoad test components until they break. As load increases, a component typically handles requests successfully until it reaches a point at which it can’t handle more requests.\nIf you believe your system has proper protections against being overloaded, consider performing failure tests in a small slice of production to find the point at which the components in your system fail under real traffic\nIts authors point out [Bur06] that providing consensus primitives as a service rather than as libraries that engineers build into their applications frees application maintainers of having to deploy their systems in a way compatible with a highly available consensus service (running the right number of replicas, dealing with group membership, dealing with performance, etc.).\nRegardless of the source of the “thundering herd”problem, nothing is harder on cluster infrastructure and the SREs responsible for a cluster’s various services than a buggy 10,000 worker pipeline job.\nWe don’t make teams “practice”their backups, instead:\nTeams define service level objectives (SLOs) for data availability in a variety of failure modes.\nA team practices and demonstrates their ability to meet those SLOs.\nGoogle has also found that the most devastating acute data deletion cases are caused by application developers unfamiliar with existing code but working on deletion-related code, especially batch processing pipelines\nThe most important principle in this layer is that backups don’t matter; what matters is recovery.\nWas the ability to formulate such an estimate luck? No—our success was the fruit of planning, adherence to best practices, hard work, and cooperation, and we were glad to see our investment in each of these elements pay off as well as it did.\nIn short, we always knew that adherence to best practices is important, and it was good to see that maxim proven true.\nAt first, this race condition may occur for a tiny fraction of data. But as the volume of data increases, a larger and larger fraction of the data is at risk for triggering a race condition. Such a scenario is probabilistic—the pipeline works correctly for the vast majority of data and for most of the time. When such race conditions occur in a data deletion pipeline, the wrong data can be deleted nondeterministically.\nThe Google Search SRE team structures this learning through a document called the “on-call learning checklist.”\nWhen standard operating procedures break down, they’ll need to be able to improvise fully.\nBecause of the rapid change of production systems, it is important that your team welcome any chance to refamiliarize themselves with a system, including by learning from the newest, rather than oldest, members of the team.\nAt some point, if you can’t get the attention you need to fix the root cause of the problems causing interrupts, perhaps the component you’re supporting isn’t that important.\nOnce embedded in a team, the SRE focuses on improving the team’s practices instead of simply helping the team empty the ticket queue. The SRE observes the team’s daily routine and makes recommendations to improve their practices.\nA default to ops mode usually happens in response to an overwhelming pressure, real or imagined.\nAny serving-critical component for which the existing SREs respond to questions by saying, “We don’t know anything about that; the devs own it”\nTo give acceptable on-call support for a component, you should at least know the consequences when it breaks and the urgency needed to fix problems.\nUsually, the SRE team establishes and maintains a PRR checklist explicitly for the Analysis phase.\nFor example, SRE might help implement a “dark launch”setup, in which part of the traffic from existing users is sent to the new service in addition to being sent to the live production service. The responses from the new service are “dark”since they are thrown away and not actually shown to users.\nWhat happened\nThe effectiveness of the response\nWhat we would do differently next time\nWhat actions will be taken to make sure a particular incident doesn’t happen again\n","date":"August 22, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-site-reliability-engineering/","section":"Posts","summary":"Traditional operations teams and their counterparts in product development thus often end up in conflict, most visibly over how quickly software can be released to production. At their core, the development teams want to launch new features and see them adopted by users. At their core, the ops teams want to make sure the service doesn’t break while they are holding the pager. Because most outages are caused by some kind of change—a new configuration, a new feature launch, or a new type of user traffic—the two teams’ goals are fundamentally in tension.\n","title":"Highlights for Site Reliability Engineering","type":"posts"},{"content":"Private property would become public to a significant extent and the possessions of those around you would, in a sense, become partly yours.\nAlthough at first blush you might assume that the auction would allow the rich to buy up everything of value, reflect for a moment. What do you mean by “the rich”? People who own lots of businesses, land, and so forth. But, if everything were up for auction all the time, no person would own such assets.\nGeorge was more concerned about inequality than were the conservative followers of Smith, and he recognized that private property could stand in the way of truly free markets.\nThat paper was published in 1961. Its title, “Counterspeculation, Auctions, and Competitive Sealed Tenders,”\nWe were promised economic dynamism in exchange for inequality. We got the inequality, but dynamism is actually declining.\nBecause of these limitations, moral economies can feel constraining and antiquated when confronted with large-scale market societies. Unable to account for the needs of those far away, they may become hostile to outsiders and intolerant of internal diversity, fearing it will erode group values.\nThe economic wisdom of left and right did not cut to the core of the tensions in the basic structure of capitalism and democracy. Private property inherently conferred market power, a problem that ballooned along with inequality and that constantly mutated in ways that frustrated efforts by governments to solve it. One-person-one-vote gave majorities the power to tyrannize minorities. Checks, balances, and judicial intervention limited such tyranny, but did so by handing power to elites and special interest groups. In international relations, efforts to enhance cooperation and cross-border economic activity empowered an international capitalist elite that disproportionately benefited from international cooperation and faced nationalist backlash from the working class.\nJoan Robinson\nBeatrice Webb\nthe common ownership self-assessed tax\nThat is why governments often take the lead, using the power of eminent domain to create new commercial or residential districts. But eminent domain is often unfair and always politically controversial.\nThe wealthy were rewarded for doing nothing. Poor people who needed land had to pay vast prices to obtain it or else starve. Critics attacked these circumstances as perverse, and portrayed the rich, in fiction and nonfiction alike, as parasites (sometimes literally, as in Bram Stoker’s Dracula).\nWalras believed that land should be owned by the state and the rents it generated should be returned to the public as a “social dividend,”either directly or through the provision of public goods.\nSocialists agreed on only one point: that traditional private property and the inequality of its ownership posed significant challenges to prosperity, well-being, and political order.\nIn 1942, the prominent conservative economist Joseph Schumpeter predicted that socialism would ultimately replace capitalism.21 His view was that most economic activity in capitalist economies took place in corporations and that a corporation is just a bureaucracy in which “management”at the center issues orders to various workers. From this vantage point, it was a small step to an economy in which each industry was dominated by one or two gigantic corporations, with government regulation to ensure that they do not abuse their monopoly power, an outcome not much different from the central planning of socialism.\nMost mainstream economists even today continue to assume that bargaining eliminates the monopoly problem.\nMost of us think of the liturgy as the words chanted by members of a religious community. But the term originated in ancient Athens where it meant roughly “public works”and referred to the responsibility of the roughly 1,000 wealthiest citizens to fund the operations of the state, particularly the army and navy. How did the Athenians determine which citizens were the wealthiest? According to Demosthenes, any member of the liturgical class could challenge any other citizen he believed was wealthier to antidosis or “exchange.”36 The person being challenged would have to either assume the liturgical responsibility or exchange all possessions with the challenger. The system gives everyone an incentive to be honest despite the burdens of the liturgy. If you falsely claimed to be poorer than the top 1,000 so as to avoid the liturgical burdens, then you could end up being forced to exchange your possessions with someone who is poorer than you are.\nFurthermore, control of everything would be radically decentralized; a COST thus combines extreme decentralization of power with partial socialization of ownership, showing that they are, perhaps surprisingly, two sides of the same coin.\nAs previously noted, our proposal would redistribute roughly one-third of the return on capital and thus would reduce the income share of the top 1% by 4 percentage points, or roughly half the difference between recent levels and the low points in the 1970s.\nOne cannot develop an attachment to a car that one uses for a few hours, and no one seems the worse for this. Fetishistic attachment to a privately owned automobile—an extremely expensive durable asset, which even enthusiasts seldom drive for more than an hour or two per day—is, thankfully, becoming a thing of the past.\nAs the economy grows, the revenues generated by the COST would be redistributed back to citizens, just as employees who own stock in their employers benefit when the employer’s profits increase. From Friedrich Engels to George W. Bush, commentators and politicians have argued that owning a share in the national capital stock, usually through the stock market or a home, could help stabilize politics and enhance support for policies that raise the value of the capital stock, a position supported by some research.\nBuilding on Samuelson’s ideas, economist and political scientist Mancur Olson argued that small groups of well-organized special interests can use expenditures, lobbying, and other forms of political action to persuade the government to act in their interest rather than for the\npublic good.29 Much of the public ignores complex issues, like bank regulation, while the banks who can profit from government fund lobbying organizations that control the agenda. Many economists are cynical about collective decision-making because it seems so easy to manipulate.\nBut not all of them view it this way. Again, enter our hero\nFirst, a passionate minority can outvote an indifferent majority, solving the problem of the tyranny of the majority. Second, the outcome of the vote should maximize the well-being of the entire group, not the well-being of one subset at the expense of that of another.\nDespite centuries of progress, markets for public goods are hopelessly deficient. If we are right about QV, then it should bring markets for public goods in line with markets for private goods, with incalculable benefits for all citizens.\nQV would offer citizens the chance to feel their voice had been more fully heard, both helping them win on the issue most important to them and reconciling them to the losses they suffer. These features are much like the social effects of market economies for private goods. Because citizens tend to resent and feel coerced by rationing in planned economies, they experience the abandonment of planning as a blossoming of freedom, as was so clear with the collapse of communism in the 1980s and 1990s. When people have the freedom to choose what to spend their money on, they are afforded a sense of dignity and responsibility for the things they have and choose to forgo. A political culture based on such a market mentality could give people a stronger sense of dignity and responsibility in politics.\nYet such large-scale services at present are either provided by monopolistic corporations or by dysfunctional public authorities. Fear of the failures of these providers often leads us to wastefully retreat from public life behind the walls of our homes, our gated communities, our private servers, and our individual cars.\nWealthy countries, by definition, have a greater relative abundance of capital as compared to labor than do poor countries. It is thus natural that trade and migration should both benefit capitalists in wealthy countries and laborers in poor countries at the expense of laborers in wealthy countries and capitalists in poor countries.\nOften it is in the rural and economically depressed regions where few migrants reside that opposition to migration is strongest.28 Workers in such areas see migration adding to economic vibrancy in other communities, but not in their own. They gain none of the ancillary social and cultural benefits that dynamic city-dwellers gain from migration, of increased variety in food, color in urban life, or exposure to other cultures that can expand career opportunities. Instead, they see the rest of their country moving in directions that distance it from their experience in ways that increase their isolation and consignment to the cultural periphery.\nWhile migration offers enormous advantages to the migrants themselves and their families back home, to employers and owners of capital, and to the high-skilled workers who they complement and live among, migration offers few benefits to and imposes some costs on most workers in wealthy countries, who are already left behind by the forces of trade, automation, and the rising power of concentrated finance.\nA political backlash against massive migration is not inevitable. Even in closed societies, migration receives political support as long as its benefits are widely distributed in a visible way.\nMany of the sophisticated cultural elites most likely to object to this sort of unequal relationship should contemplate their own relationships to migrants. In our experience, most people living in wealthy cities who consider themselves sympathetic to the plight of migrants know little or nothing of the language, cultures, aspirations, and values of those they claim to sympathize with. They benefit greatly from the cheap services these migrants offer and rarely concern themselves with the poverty in which they live. The solidarity of such cosmopolitan elites is thus skin deep. But it is better than the open hostility many ordinary citizens of wealthy countries feel toward migrants.\nYet economic research suggests that diversified institutional investors have harmed a wide range of industries, raising prices for consumers, reducing investment and innovation, and potentially lowering wages.\nA law firm that sued institutional investors, on the other hand, would be bringing a case against capital as a class.\nThe primary difference between the scenario we describe above and present practice, other than some advances in chat capacities, is that in the world we imagine, Facebook is open and honest about how it uses data and pays for the value it receives with money. The user’s role as a vital cog in the information economy—as data producer and seller—is highlighted.\nThe inability to earn money in these environments undercuts the possibility of developing skills or careers around digital contributions, as technoserfs know any investment they make will be expropriated by the platforms.\nHowever, they have attracted only a few users with an ideological attachment to the idea. Most users prefer a network that is used by most of their friends and that offers higher quality services.\nUnlike traditional unions, they combine labor stoppages and consumer boycotts—because, as noted, data laborers are simultaneously consumers. During a strike, Facebook would lose not only access to data (on the labor side) but access to ad revenues (on the consumer side). It’s as if autoworkers could pressure GM or Ford not only by stopping production but also by refusing to purchase cars. Also unlike traditional unions, which must struggle to maintain solidarity during strikes, the data unions could enforce the “picket line”electronically.\nShe realized, too, that in many ways her new cause, fighting to get her old life back, had given her more meaning and not just greater wealth than the past she idealized. She started to wonder what else might supply that meaning and whether her whole movement was not ultimately some sort of self-serving charade.\nA COST on human capital might turn out to be politically popular because it penalizes the highly resented educated class and lazy people of all types, while rewarding ordinary workers for their labor.\nIt would be a mistake, however, to think that the current system is not coercive. In our current system, there is a wide gulf between educated elites whose native or acquired talents are highly marketable and those who have been left behind by changes sweeping the economy. The talented enjoy a kind of freedom, as they can select from among a variety of appealing jobs. These jobs allow them to quickly accumulate capital that they can depend on as they age, if they do not like the jobs that are available, or pick and choose among different levels of labor (part-time, enjoyable or rewarding but low-paying jobs in the nonprofit sector, etc.). Those with fewer marketable skills are given a stark choice: undergo harsh labor conditions for low pay, starve, or submit to the many indignities of life on welfare. Yet the waste of social resources when a talented person fails to realize her potential are far greater, and arguably their failure to work should be punished more harshly.\nBy giving every citizen a share of national wealth, a COST could make voters attend to the consequences of policies for a nation’s wealth and create a more cooperative spirit across class lines.\nMoreover, some scholars have argued that by encouraging selfishness, markets undermine the trust that is necessary for markets to function.\nShalizi considers an estimate by Soviet planners that, at the height of Soviet economic power in the 1950s, there were about 12 million commodities tracked in Soviet economic plans. To make matters worse, this figure does not even account for the fact that a ripe banana in Moscow is not the same as a ripe banana in Leningrad, and moving it from one place to the other must also be part of the plan. But even were there “merely”12 million commodities, the most efficient known algorithms for optimization, running on the most efficient computers available today, would take roughly a thousand years to solve such a problem exactly once. It can even be proven that a modern computer could not achieve even a reasonably “approximate”solution\nBut if robots can drive cars, they can also make purchase orders, accept deliveries, gauge consumer sentiment, plan economic operations, and coordinate this activity at the level of the economy. At this macro level, the role of artificial intelligence in reshaping social organization has—bizarrely—received little attention.\n","date":"August 22, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-radical-markets/","section":"Posts","summary":"Private property would become public to a significant extent and the possessions of those around you would, in a sense, become partly yours.\n","title":"Highlights for Radical Markets","type":"posts"},{"content":"One, they must build psychological safety to spur learning and avoid preventable failures; two, they must set high standards and inspire and enable people to reach them.\nLeaders in a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world, who understand that today’s work requires continuous learning to figure out when and how to change course, must consciously reframe how they think, from the default frames that we all bring to work unconsciously to a more productive reframe. Framing the work is not something that leaders do once, and then it’s done. Frequently calling attention to levels of uncertainty or interdependence helps people remember that they must be alert and candid to perform well.\nhttps://www.strategy-business.com/article/How-Fearless-Organizations-Succeed\n","date":"August 22, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16577/","section":"Posts","summary":"One, they must build psychological safety to spur learning and avoid preventable failures; two, they must set high standards and inspire and enable people to reach them.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Stripe runs on written long-form documents in a way that I haven’t seen before. So that means somebody can go deep, like all the way down, and then distill it back out to everybody else. So you don’t have to do all of that work yourself. It does require a lot of reading for sure, but the benefit is great clarity of thought on complex topics.\nQuick-thinking, quick-acting people do really well here.\nOne of our operating principles is “really, really care.”\nhttps://newsletter.bringthedonuts.com/p/building-products-at-stripe\n","date":"August 22, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16575/","section":"Posts","summary":"Stripe runs on written long-form documents in a way that I haven’t seen before. So that means somebody can go deep, like all the way down, and then distill it back out to everybody else. So you don’t have to do all of that work yourself. It does require a lot of reading for sure, but the benefit is great clarity of thought on complex topics.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A culture of celebrating shipping, versus celebrating measurable progress and learnings\nA nice story of how organizations slowly adopt data and all the struggles a data team has to deal with.\nhttps://erikbern.com/2021/07/07/the-data-team-a-short-story.html\n","date":"August 22, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16572/","section":"Posts","summary":"A culture of celebrating shipping, versus celebrating measurable progress and learnings\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A good counter-point by Camille Fournier about how being a hands-off manager can turn into being an absent manager. Making sure these kind of meetings are held is the most important leverage you have as senior leadership.\nhttps://skamille.medium.com/guiding-critical-projects-without-micromanaging-2391ba83f955\n","date":"August 22, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16570/","section":"Posts","summary":"A good counter-point by Camille Fournier about how being a hands-off manager can turn into being an absent manager. Making sure these kind of meetings are held is the most important leverage you have as senior leadership.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"‘Whomsoever is possessed of magisterial strength is courted; while whomsoever has inferior strength pays court to others. It is for this reason that the shrewd ruler strives for might.’\nhttps://chinaheritage.net/journal/chinas-heart-of-darkness-prince-han-fei-chairman-xi-jinping-part-ii/\n","date":"August 22, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16568/","section":"Posts","summary":"‘Whomsoever is possessed of magisterial strength is courted; while whomsoever has inferior strength pays court to others. It is for this reason that the shrewd ruler strives for might.’\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Enter prebuilds: pools of codespaces, fully cloned and bootstrapped, waiting to be connected with a developer who wants to get to work. The engineering investment we’ve made in prebuilds has returned its value many times over: we can now create reliable, preconfigured codespaces, primed and ready for GitHub.com development in 10 seconds.\nI have done and seen a bunch of work in the space of local development environments looking at what Github has done: the problem is very hard and making the end user experience this good looks like it has taken an inordinate amount of effort.\nhttps://github.blog/2021-08-11-githubs-engineering-team-moved-codespaces/\n","date":"August 20, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16565/","section":"Posts","summary":"Enter prebuilds: pools of codespaces, fully cloned and bootstrapped, waiting to be connected with a developer who wants to get to work. The engineering investment we’ve made in prebuilds has returned its value many times over: we can now create reliable, preconfigured codespaces, primed and ready for GitHub.com development in 10 seconds.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"We improve at this process by becoming more creative, having more slack, being more equanimous, and pruning more efficiently.\nhttps://brianlui.dog/2020/05/10/beware-of-tight-feedback-loops/\n","date":"August 20, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16563/","section":"Posts","summary":"We improve at this process by becoming more creative, having more slack, being more equanimous, and pruning more efficiently.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I need to keep track of how our bet on AWS AppSync is doing which is so small that it doesn\u0026rsquo;t show up in Stack Overflow\u0026rsquo;s official tags chart but here\u0026rsquo;s an off-label website that will give it to us.\n","date":"August 15, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16560/","section":"Posts","summary":"I need to keep track of how our bet on AWS AppSync is doing which is so small that it doesn’t show up in Stack Overflow’s official tags chart but here’s an off-label website that will give it to us.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"It\u0026rsquo;s a bit counterintuitive but I think it\u0026rsquo;s a good point that all the efforts to more and better coordination are harmful. We should have less coordination which will inevitably lead to more work between teams, but that is work you should be doing anyway. I think teams are in general very heavily underfacilitated.\nWhen we change the system later, strong boundaries make those changes faster. Deep coordination makes those changes harder: the tight coupling still exists but the armies have moved on, the armies of project managers who heroically held together that initial release.\nhttps://jessitron.com/2021/08/02/better-coordination-or-better-software/\n","date":"August 15, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16558/","section":"Posts","summary":"It’s a bit counterintuitive but I think it’s a good point that all the efforts to more and better coordination are harmful. We should have less coordination which will inevitably lead to more work between teams, but that is work you should be doing anyway. I think teams are in general very heavily underfacilitated.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"An extremely damning account of the way Vice and also the NYT have treated Naomi Wu with some choice bad behaviour from people like Doctorow in part 2 as well.\nI get that she got into it a bit naive like many people do when it comes to esteemed publications like the Times. I\u0026rsquo;ve been at the backstage of an event once where there were people from the NYT and everybody there is ass kissing them all the time because they want to either 1. be covered positively in the \u0026lsquo;paper of record\u0026rsquo; or 2. get a job there since it\u0026rsquo;s one of the last places paying journalists well. In such an environment, it\u0026rsquo;s hard not to believe that you are better than others.\nhttps://medium.com/@therealsexycyborg/shenzhen-tech-girl-naomi-wu-my-experience-with-sarah-jeong-jason-koebler-and-vice-magazine-3f4a32fda9b5\n","date":"August 15, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16556/","section":"Posts","summary":"An extremely damning account of the way Vice and also the NYT have treated Naomi Wu with some choice bad behaviour from people like Doctorow in part 2 as well.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The truth about cryptocurrencies.\nhttps://twitter.com/ummjackson/status/1415353985406406658\n","date":"August 15, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16554/","section":"Posts","summary":"The truth about cryptocurrencies.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;m glad reality is catching up with the design fiction proposals we came up back in the day, like here the combination of video conferencing and Snapchat face filters.\nhttps://twitter.com/Zoom/status/1423323906643877895\n","date":"August 8, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16551/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’m glad reality is catching up with the design fiction proposals we came up back in the day, like here the combination of video conferencing and Snapchat face filters.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A nice deep dive into some low level memory details of Rust as compared to more dynamic languages.\nhttps://fasterthanli.me/articles/whats-in-the-box\n","date":"August 8, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16549/","section":"Posts","summary":"A nice deep dive into some low level memory details of Rust as compared to more dynamic languages.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;m following the model here where I\u0026rsquo;m growing a team to 10 people or so after which I\u0026rsquo;m hoping to find a natural point to split things up again.\nhttps://jchyip.medium.com/why-its-difficult-to-build-teams-in-high-growth-organisations-e1aee8446337\n","date":"August 8, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16546/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’m following the model here where I’m growing a team to 10 people or so after which I’m hoping to find a natural point to split things up again.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Een absurd maar nog schrijnender verslag uit de rechtbank van de processen die gevoerd werden tegen de avondklok-relschoppers.\nArjen van Veelen is ook de enige schrijver van de Correspondent die ik lees.\nhttps://decorrespondent.nl/12487/komt-een-relschopper-voor-de-rechter/1331277917057-2c2a324f\n","date":"July 3, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16542/","section":"Posts","summary":"Een absurd maar nog schrijnender verslag uit de rechtbank van de processen die gevoerd werden tegen de avondklok-relschoppers.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"\u0026ldquo;Helicopter Story\u0026rdquo; was one of the best pieces of sci-fi I\u0026rsquo;ve read in a while. All the more galling that it was ripped apart in a culture war free-for-all.\nI have a special amount of hate especially for those people who feel like they\u0026rsquo;re on the good side but have an understanding of literature that is too shallow to contain something like this. I blame MCU, games and Disney for letting these people believe that what happens there is what\u0026rsquo;s possible and allowed in fiction.\nhttps://www.vox.com/the-highlight/22543858/isabel-fall-attack-helicopter\n","date":"July 3, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16540/","section":"Posts","summary":"“Helicopter Story” was one of the best pieces of sci-fi I’ve read in a while. All the more galling that it was ripped apart in a culture war free-for-all.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"\u0026ldquo;dass deutsche Behörden und bürokratische Prozesse mitverantwortlich sind am Scheitern des Start-ups.\u0026rdquo;\nA kind of magical thinking that would rely on collaborating with German government institutions for your startup. The only way that is going to work is if you have a very special (paid for) in into the CDU. Also otherwise a hilarious story about the weird world of cyber.\nhttps://www.br.de/nachrichten/netzwelt/cyberwaffen-made-in-berlin,Sbzq3WP\n","date":"July 3, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16538/","section":"Posts","summary":"“dass deutsche Behörden und bürokratische Prozesse mitverantwortlich sind am Scheitern des Start-ups.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Foursquare is responsible for an inordinate amount of good times I\u0026rsquo;ve had, it still powers @cuppings and I\u0026rsquo;m still pleased that we got it to launch in Amsterdam as its first international city.\nhttps://twitter.com/dens/status/1409506346391719941\n","date":"July 3, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16536/","section":"Posts","summary":"Foursquare is responsible for an inordinate amount of good times I’ve had, it still powers @cuppings and I’m still pleased that we got it to launch in Amsterdam as its first international city.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":" The character relations turned into a bit of a tangle so I fired up Miro and quickly charted them out. In the end it wasn\u0026rsquo;t that complicated but the worlds of Meryem and Peri are very clearly separate.\nThere are lots of movies where a cast of characters roams a town and occasionally intersects in a couple of dramatic moments. What comes to mind for me most immediately is Amores Perros. Of course a Netflix serial doesn\u0026rsquo;t hit the cinematic height or dramatic depth of that movie despite having more runtime to play with. What it does manage is to set a mood for the weird tangled up modern Turkey.\nThe most interesting and dramatic events in Bir Başkadır happen on the road (Mesude\u0026rsquo;s death under the bridge, the family dance off on the way to the village). Along with some of the commuting sequences and the continuous questions of what bus stops where and how to get somewhere in time, that is an essential part of Istanbul. The city is so vast and spread out that people are always underway, an apt metaphor for character development—interrupted or otherwise—if ever there was one.\n","date":"June 13, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/bir-baskadir-ethos-character-network-chart/","section":"Posts","summary":" The character relations turned into a bit of a tangle so I fired up Miro and quickly charted them out. In the end it wasn’t that complicated but the worlds of Meryem and Peri are very clearly separate.\n","title":"Bir BaÅŸkadır (Ethos) Character Network Chart","type":"posts"},{"content":"A summary of the agile development holy grail of continuous integration and deployment that is so hard to attain but very much worth it.\nhttps://kevcodez.de/inside-agile-product-development-series/11-continuous-integration-deployment/\n","date":"May 13, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16525/","section":"Posts","summary":"A summary of the agile development holy grail of continuous integration and deployment that is so hard to attain but very much worth it.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I feel this list by Dan Na of what it means to switch to the management track and this point in particular is more or less what my days consist of (intensity, attention, feeling): \u0026ldquo;Management forces you to care more about everything.\u0026rdquo;\nI am the ultimate person who has to care, who has to pay attention and who has to bring the intensity to drive things forward.\nhttps://blog.danielna.com/choosing-the-management-track/\n","date":"May 13, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16521/","section":"Posts","summary":"I feel this list by Dan Na of what it means to switch to the management track and this point in particular is more or less what my days consist of (intensity, attention, feeling): “Management forces you to care more about everything.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I think this is a leveling definition that I can live with: \u0026ldquo;Managers are paid to drive results with some support. Directors are paid to drive results with little or no supervision (\u0026lsquo;set and forget\u0026rsquo;). VPs are paid to make the plan.\u0026rdquo;\nOr if I would paraphrase this: Directors are barrels (not bullets). VPs need to create the circumstances where you are \u0026lsquo;certain to win\u0026rsquo;.\nhttps://kellblog.com/2015/03/08/career-development-what-it-really-means-to-be-a-manager-director-or-vp/\n","date":"May 13, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16519/","section":"Posts","summary":"I think this is a leveling definition that I can live with: “Managers are paid to drive results with some support. Directors are paid to drive results with little or no supervision (‘set and forget’). VPs are paid to make the plan.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;ve been thinking along these lines and a DNA type meeting as an informal place of leadership and sparring sound great. In our case, I think I\u0026rsquo;ll call it \u0026ldquo;Debt and Architecture\u0026rdquo;.\nhttps://randsinrepose.com/archives/dna/\n","date":"May 1, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16517/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’ve been thinking along these lines and a DNA type meeting as an informal place of leadership and sparring sound great. In our case, I think I’ll call it “Debt and Architecture”.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Given all of the mistakes we could have made picking out Turkish names when you read this article, I think we did pretty well.\nhttps://newlinesmag.com/reportage/whats-in-a-name/\n","date":"May 1, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16515/","section":"Posts","summary":"Given all of the mistakes we could have made picking out Turkish names when you read this article, I think we did pretty well.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A fun profile on Annalena Bärbock (initials ACAB) the leader of the Greens who could become Germany\u0026rsquo;s next chancellor.\nhttps://www.newstatesman.com/international/places/2021/04/annalena-baerbock-woman-who-could-become-germanys-first-green\n","date":"April 29, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16512/","section":"Posts","summary":"A fun profile on Annalena Bärbock (initials ACAB) the leader of the Greens who could become Germany’s next chancellor.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A good list of skills that you will need when you want to level up, but if you have to choose one, pick \u0026ldquo;Clear Written Communication\u0026rdquo; and knock that one out of the park.\nhttps://developer.squareup.com/blog/how-to-be-a-more-influential-engineer/\n","date":"April 29, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16508/","section":"Posts","summary":"A good list of skills that you will need when you want to level up, but if you have to choose one, pick “Clear Written Communication” and knock that one out of the park.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Slack has an interesting S-Curve based approach to adopting new technologies where they mention that getting through the trough of adoption is more like product-work than anything else.\nhttps://slack.engineering/how-big-technical-changes-happen-at-slack/\n","date":"April 29, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16506/","section":"Posts","summary":"Slack has an interesting S-Curve based approach to adopting new technologies where they mention that getting through the trough of adoption is more like product-work than anything else.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I started a new job and thought I\u0026rsquo;d try out OmniFocus for a change after using Things very intensively at the last job. Things felt a bit constricting and I thought I\u0026rsquo;d try out the alternative app for a change.\nTurns out this was a huge mistake.\nDon\u0026rsquo;t learn a new productivity application while starting a new job. This was a lot more annoying than I expected it to be. In part also because… OmniFocus is extremely unpolished. I don\u0026rsquo;t know what they are doing with the monthly subscription pricing that they cash but developing the applications is not it. The tool is extremely bare and missing huge swaths of basic functionality out of some kind of misguided principle. Their quick add window looks and works terribly and is a bad parody of the one that Things has. The interface design looks like something I could also have whipped up (and I consider myself largely design blind). OmniFocus is also very old and has gone through a bunch of version updates which makes all of the user guides and documentation hard to sift through. I\u0026rsquo;ve more than once been reading about stuff that didn\u0026rsquo;t exist anymore in the current app. I will be switching back to Things as soon as I can find out how to purchase it in the correct way. And because both of these tools are fairly popular there\u0026rsquo;s an exporter/importer so I don\u0026rsquo;t have to type everything over manually.\n","date":"April 29, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/moving-away-from-omnifocus/","section":"Posts","summary":"I started a new job and thought I’d try out OmniFocus for a change after using Things very intensively at the last job. Things felt a bit constricting and I thought I’d try out the alternative app for a change.\n","title":"Moving away from Omnifocus","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;m not sure whether this will make any sales at all but Turkish Clubhouse made me brush up on my language and I loaded some old vocabulary I had lying around into an Anki deck and workflow. I thought I\u0026rsquo;d might as well productize it since high quality Anki decks for advanced learners are hard to find.\nhttps://gum.co/phNoa\n","date":"April 18, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16497/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’m not sure whether this will make any sales at all but Turkish Clubhouse made me brush up on my language and I loaded some old vocabulary I had lying around into an Anki deck and workflow. I thought I’d might as well productize it since high quality Anki decks for advanced learners are hard to find.\n","title":"Advanced Turkish Anki Deck","type":"posts"},{"content":"Agile is setup as a bit of a straw man in this piece about scaling product delivery, but it is true that following the existing methods too rigidly will not get you where you want to be. I\u0026rsquo;d rephrase it to say that mature teams need to be able to reflect and create their own systems as they go.\nhttps://www.reforge.com/blog/scaling-product-delivery\n","date":"April 4, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16494/","section":"Posts","summary":"Agile is setup as a bit of a straw man in this piece about scaling product delivery, but it is true that following the existing methods too rigidly will not get you where you want to be. I’d rephrase it to say that mature teams need to be able to reflect and create their own systems as they go.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"There are a bunch of wrong ways to install Python 3 on your Mac unfortunately. Follow this guide and you\u0026rsquo;ll save yourself a bunch of pain.\nhttps://opensource.com/article/19/5/python-3-default-mac\n","date":"April 4, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16492/","section":"Posts","summary":"There are a bunch of wrong ways to install Python 3 on your Mac unfortunately. Follow this guide and you’ll save yourself a bunch of pain.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Figuring out how to onboard yourself in a remote world is something that\u0026rsquo;s directly pertinent to me since I\u0026rsquo;m starting a new job right now. The content is very much the same but it\u0026rsquo;s still quite a different experience.\nhttps://leaddev.com/professional-development/owning-your-onboarding-remote-world\n","date":"April 4, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16490/","section":"Posts","summary":"Figuring out how to onboard yourself in a remote world is something that’s directly pertinent to me since I’m starting a new job right now. The content is very much the same but it’s still quite a different experience.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The correct sequence is to start with a business goal, translate that into a technical strategy and have architectural initiatives follow from that.\nhttps://blog.thepete.net/blog/2019/12/09/delivering-on-an-architecture-strategy/\n","date":"April 4, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16488/","section":"Posts","summary":"The correct sequence is to start with a business goal, translate that into a technical strategy and have architectural initiatives follow from that.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"This point by Charity Majors is well worth repeating: you should not take on additional responsibilities if you\u0026rsquo;re not delivering at and excelling in your core job. All of the other stuff seems like it matters a lot, but it really doesn\u0026rsquo;t.\nhttps://charity.wtf/2021/03/07/know-your-one-job-and-do-it-first/\n","date":"April 4, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16486/","section":"Posts","summary":"This point by Charity Majors is well worth repeating: you should not take on additional responsibilities if you’re not delivering at and excelling in your core job. All of the other stuff seems like it matters a lot, but it really doesn’t.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A write-up how Dropbox rearchitected and broke up their monolith into pragmatic components. Nice to read that their base was a large Python code base, a bit similar to Instagram which is still running a branch of Django underneath.\nhttps://dropbox.tech/infrastructure/atlas\u0026ndash;our-journey-from-a-python-monolith-to-a-managed-platform\n","date":"April 4, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16484/","section":"Posts","summary":"A write-up how Dropbox rearchitected and broke up their monolith into pragmatic components. Nice to read that their base was a large Python code base, a bit similar to Instagram which is still running a branch of Django underneath.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I see lots of people still struggle with the German adjectives and especially the fact that there are three tables, one for each of definite articles, indefinite articles and when there\u0026rsquo;s no article, for 48 separate inflections.\nImage It looks pretty intimidating and back in school my brain refused to do learn this. I crammed it for a test, immediately forgot it after and German classes turned into agony.\nThere are various mnemonics going around to make the table easier but I\u0026rsquo;m not in favor of rote memorization if there\u0026rsquo;s also a logic behind something. As with all language, the entire thing is based on the principle of energy conversation while maintaining essential information and harmony. That\u0026rsquo;s my non-linguist intuition. Linguists feel free to chime in.\nThe entire table can be boiled down to five rules.\nDefinite nom./acc. singular: all -e (because a definite article has all the information and is leading, so no further decoration or information required on the adjective) except for masc. acc. which is -en (because acc always has -en and it sounds weird without it) Indefinite nom./acc. singular: all congruent with the article: einer gut er Mann, für ein en gut en Mann, ein e gut e Frau, für ein e gut e Frau etc. (because the article still has all the information but it is weaker/indefinite so the adjective helps out) Definite and indefinite gen./dat. singular: all -en (all the information is in the article so no need to repeat it but good to have some differentiation from the nom./acc. cases) Definite and indefinite plural: all -en (because it’s plural) No article: the adjectives take the endings that would normally have been carried by the article (because there is no article and otherwise the case information would not be there) except for masc./neut. gen. where the -s is on the noun That\u0026rsquo;s it. I hope this adds some logic to something that otherwise feels totally random for German learners.\nWith practice you can look these inflections up in your head and with even more practice, anytime somebody uses the wrong inflection, it starts to sound wrong (that lack of harmony), just like it would to a native speaker.\n","date":"March 25, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/german-adjective-inflections-demystified/","section":"Posts","summary":"I see lots of people still struggle with the German adjectives and especially the fact that there are three tables, one for each of definite articles, indefinite articles and when there’s no article, for 48 separate inflections.\n","title":"German adjective inflections demystified","type":"posts"},{"content":"Marijn Bolhuis sums up the devastating effects that a decade of Rutte government has in the Netherlands but people keep electing him. It follows from this that Dutch people are a bunch of piggies.\nhttps://twitter.com/MarynBolhuis/status/1372290075342606339\n","date":"March 24, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16469/","section":"Posts","summary":"Marijn Bolhuis sums up the devastating effects that a decade of Rutte government has in the Netherlands but people keep electing him. It follows from this that Dutch people are a bunch of piggies.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Tiny cars are a huge thing and will be a much bigger deal than anything that Tesla is planning.\nhttps://restofworld.org/2021/tesla-vs-tiny-cars/\n","date":"March 24, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16467/","section":"Posts","summary":"Tiny cars are a huge thing and will be a much bigger deal than anything that Tesla is planning.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Taken from the title of Chinese sci-fi writer Liu Cixin’s 2008 book, “the dark forest”region of the web is becoming increasingly important as a space of online communication for users of all ages and political persuasions. In part, this is because it is less sociologically stressful than the clearnet zone, where one is subject to peer, employer, and state exposure. It also now includes Discord servers, paid newsletters (e.g., Substack), encrypted group messaging (via Telegram, etc.), gaming communities, podcasts, and other off-clearnet message board forums and social media. One forages for content or shares in what others in the community have retrieved rather than accepting whatever the platform algorithms happen to match to your data profile.\nAdditionally, dark forest spaces are both minimally and straightforwardly commercial. There is typically a small charge for entry, but once you are in, you are free to act and speak without the platform nudging your behavior or extracting further value. It is also interesting to keep in mind that the dark forest shares the same cables and satellite arrays as clearnet channels, is accessed via the same devices, and essentially all of its denizens continue to simultaneously participate in clearnet spaces (as contemporary professional protocol demands). It is therefore not analogous to legacy countercultural notions of going off-grid or “dropping out.”\nhttps://www.documentjournal.com/2021/01/the-internet-didnt-kill-counterculture-you-just-wont-find-it-on-instagram/\n","date":"March 17, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16465/","section":"Posts","summary":"Taken from the title of Chinese sci-fi writer Liu Cixin’s 2008 book, “the dark forest”region of the web is becoming increasingly important as a space of online communication for users of all ages and political persuasions. In part, this is because it is less sociologically stressful than the clearnet zone, where one is subject to peer, employer, and state exposure. It also now includes Discord servers, paid newsletters (e.g., Substack), encrypted group messaging (via Telegram, etc.), gaming communities, podcasts, and other off-clearnet message board forums and social media. One forages for content or shares in what others in the community have retrieved rather than accepting whatever the platform algorithms happen to match to your data profile.\nAdditionally, dark forest spaces are both minimally and straightforwardly commercial. There is typically a small charge for entry, but once you are in, you are free to act and speak without the platform nudging your behavior or extracting further value. It is also interesting to keep in mind that the dark forest shares the same cables and satellite arrays as clearnet channels, is accessed via the same devices, and essentially all of its denizens continue to simultaneously participate in clearnet spaces (as contemporary professional protocol demands). It is therefore not analogous to legacy countercultural notions of going off-grid or “dropping out.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A strong hint about the real future of virtual reality and a callback to the MUD era which I had a lot of trouble understanding. Seeing it on Tiktok makes it a lot more tangible in a bunch of ways.\nhttps://i-d.vice.com/en_uk/article/y3z8vm/what-is-reality-shifting-and-why-is-it-taking-over-tiktok\n","date":"March 17, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16463/","section":"Posts","summary":"A strong hint about the real future of virtual reality and a callback to the MUD era which I had a lot of trouble understanding. Seeing it on Tiktok makes it a lot more tangible in a bunch of ways.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Another big volley towards more tenants’ rights in Berlin that if won will provoke a vast shift in thinking around housing politics both locally and globally.\n","date":"March 17, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16461/","section":"Posts","summary":"Another big volley towards more tenants’ rights in Berlin that if won will provoke a vast shift in thinking around housing politics both locally and globally.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A strong overview of the various considerations around going back to the office that will help a lot of companies who stand to make this decision right now. Particularly interesting how the German lagging context will deal with it and what consequences it will have on the commercial property markets.\nhttp://blog.eladgil.com/2021/03/back-to-office.html\n","date":"March 17, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16459/","section":"Posts","summary":"A strong overview of the various considerations around going back to the office that will help a lot of companies who stand to make this decision right now. Particularly interesting how the German lagging context will deal with it and what consequences it will have on the commercial property markets.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"An economic analysis of witch hunts in Germany that show it to be a pre-modern corrective for people who climbed out of their social position.\nhttps://aeon.co/essays/how-economic-behaviour-drove-witch-hunts-in-pre-modern-germany\n","date":"March 17, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16457/","section":"Posts","summary":"An economic analysis of witch hunts in Germany that show it to be a pre-modern corrective for people who climbed out of their social position.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The organizational debt listed here is more the norm than the exception and a lot of management is dealing with unnecessarily suboptimal circumstances.\nhttps://medium.com/swlh/how-to-tell-when-your-startup-needs-engineering-managers-565c364231e6\n","date":"March 17, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16455/","section":"Posts","summary":"The organizational debt listed here is more the norm than the exception and a lot of management is dealing with unnecessarily suboptimal circumstances.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"But on the other hand, it becomes a society where all the assets are in the hands of one group of people. And that group of people transmits these assets to the next generation. So I think it becomes a very interesting question, to ask whether current trends might not lead to an even more segmented and stratified society than the one we have now.\nhttps://jacobinmag.com/2021/02/global-capitalism-inequality-branko-milanovic-interview\n","date":"March 17, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16453/","section":"Posts","summary":"But on the other hand, it becomes a society where all the assets are in the hands of one group of people. And that group of people transmits these assets to the next generation. So I think it becomes a very interesting question, to ask whether current trends might not lead to an even more segmented and stratified society than the one we have now.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"De organisatiestructuur is sowieso een kwetsbaarheid van Nederland crisisland, verzucht Arjen Boin. Allereerst is het probleem dat onze ministeries niet meer de capaciteiten in huis hebben om zelf het heft in handen te nemen. Den Haag heeft steeds meer een monitorende en coördinerende functie gekregen. Ambtenaren zijn in veel gevallen geen specialisten meer op de dossiers die ze beheren — hun specialiteit is vergaderen en managen en ze rouleren door de organisatie.Grofweg kun je als bestuur in tijden van crisis twee dingen doen: optie één is overschakelen op een crisisstructuur, zegt Boin. Daarbij centraliseer je de macht en breng je het aantal mensen dat mag meepraten terug. Dan kiezen we de mensen die namens ons de belangrijkste beslissingen nemen. Na afloop rekenen we af. Een crisisorganisatie is georganiseerd in een trechter. Aan het eind van die trechter zit de persoon die zich goed laat adviseren en op een gegeven moment zegt: ‘We gaan naar links of naar rechts.’\nUiteindelijk komt het bij de aanpak van zo’n crisis voor een groot deel aan op het politiek leiderschap\nhttps://www.groene.nl/artikel/we-moeten-een-coronageneraal-hebben\n","date":"March 17, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16451/","section":"Posts","summary":"De organisatiestructuur is sowieso een kwetsbaarheid van Nederland crisisland, verzucht Arjen Boin. Allereerst is het probleem dat onze ministeries niet meer de capaciteiten in huis hebben om zelf het heft in handen te nemen. Den Haag heeft steeds meer een monitorende en coördinerende functie gekregen. Ambtenaren zijn in veel gevallen geen specialisten meer op de dossiers die ze beheren — hun specialiteit is vergaderen en managen en ze rouleren door de organisatie.Grofweg kun je als bestuur in tijden van crisis twee dingen doen: optie één is overschakelen op een crisisstructuur, zegt Boin. Daarbij centraliseer je de macht en breng je het aantal mensen dat mag meepraten terug. Dan kiezen we de mensen die namens ons de belangrijkste beslissingen nemen. Na afloop rekenen we af. Een crisisorganisatie is georganiseerd in een trechter. Aan het eind van die trechter zit de persoon die zich goed laat adviseren en op een gegeven moment zegt: ‘We gaan naar links of naar rechts.’\nUiteindelijk komt het bij de aanpak van zo’n crisis voor een groot deel aan op het politiek leiderschap\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Elon Musk proving that he’s a peddler of garbage and global destruction once again.\nhttps://amycastor.com/2021/02/08/tesla-spent-1-5b-in-clean-car-credits-on-bitcoin-the-filthiest-asset-imaginable/\n","date":"March 17, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16449/","section":"Posts","summary":"Elon Musk proving that he’s a peddler of garbage and global destruction once again.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The trimodal salary distribution for Amsterdam (and likely other cities as well) as displayed here is very useful information and will hopefully help push compensation (and innovation) in Europe closer to American levels.\nhttps://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/software-engineering-salaries-in-the-netherlands-and-europe/\n","date":"March 17, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16447/","section":"Posts","summary":"The trimodal salary distribution for Amsterdam (and likely other cities as well) as displayed here is very useful information and will hopefully help push compensation (and innovation) in Europe closer to American levels.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The more experience you have, the more implicit authority you will have. It can be tough to understand that when you propose a silly idea over lunch when you have 5 years of experience has a very different impact than when you have 15 years of experience — someone might actually listen to you and go make it!Really, this is a great thing, a sort of influential power you gain. It needs love, care and maintenance though — always work on getting better, learning from your mistakes and improving on your experience. There’s nothing more dangerous for an organization than a person with terrible ideas whom everyone admires professionally.\nhttps://staff.design/rasmus-andersson\n","date":"March 17, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16445/","section":"Posts","summary":"The more experience you have, the more implicit authority you will have. It can be tough to understand that when you propose a silly idea over lunch when you have 5 years of experience has a very different impact than when you have 15 years of experience — someone might actually listen to you and go make it!Really, this is a great thing, a sort of influential power you gain. It needs love, care and maintenance though — always work on getting better, learning from your mistakes and improving on your experience. There’s nothing more dangerous for an organization than a person with terrible ideas whom everyone admires professionally.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"[Cryptoart is] a crime against humanity.\nI’m horrified to see this willingly traded for an opportunity to reproduce the worst parts of the existing physical art market, where “the original”is useful foremost as a rare thing- a unique thing- that, in its scarcity, is an asset.\nMany would call me unrealistic and naïve for this, unwilling to make compromises in the world we are living now because of an idealistic vision of a tomorrow; and to them I would like to say that we literally invented an extra-sovereign monetary system that within 10 years has generated trillions of dollars of worth and is held up with the power consumption of a small country.\nhttps://everestpipkin.medium.com/but-the-environmental-issues-with-cryptoart-1128ef72e6a3\n","date":"March 17, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16443/","section":"Posts","summary":"[Cryptoart is] a crime against humanity.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"https://hynek.me/articles/semver-will-not-save-you/\nI have long been skeptical of semver and especially of the dogmatic adherence to it by both producers and consumers.\n","date":"March 17, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16441/","section":"Posts","summary":"https://hynek.me/articles/semver-will-not-save-you/\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"This is an interesting Instagram scam.\nThe account is pumped up to a large number of followers with actual content which I guess is what makes its messages enter my primary inbox. When they send this message, the avatar of the account is changed to the official instagram logo, which makes it look real if you don\u0026rsquo;t read the username.\nI didn\u0026rsquo;t reply and the next day the avatar has been reverted. The account continues its life as a ghost fan account. I wonder whether I\u0026rsquo;ll catch it again with its avatar changed.\nI reported this chat and account to Instagram as a scam but nothing has happened.\n","date":"February 26, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/instagram-scam-attempt/","section":"Posts","summary":"This is an interesting Instagram scam.\n","title":"Instagram scam attempt","type":"posts"},{"content":"He believed that the ‘blood sacrifice’ of a few would regenerate the national consciousness and lead, by force of Irish arms, to the eventual withdrawal of Britain from Ireland.\nMacSwiney took his place in history not just because of his sacrifice but because of his portentous words. ‘It is not those who can inflict the most,’ he warned, ‘but those who can suffer the most who will conquer.’\nEight months earlier, Lloyd George had likened the prospect of meeting Collins to that of meeting a murderer and had described the IRA as ‘a small body of assassins, a real murder gang, dominating the country and terrorizing it’. Now he described its commander as ‘one of the most courageous leaders ever produced by a valiant race’.\nAn armed struggle on its own was getting nowhere unless you had the political support of the population.\nweeks. There were twenty-seven of us at the beginning. The recruiting officer was very resolute and he put the fear of God into you. He told you that if you’re joining the IRA, it was a total and absolute commitment. It required sacrifice and it required dedication and it required honour above all. He told us everything that was bad about joining: imprisonment, death, very little money in your pocket, very few friends; it was going to be a hard slog, and a long hard road ahead of us. So gradually people st\nIt’s a situation somewhat analogous to Israel’s West Bank. We’re part of a state which we never wanted to be part of.\nThe ultimate aim of the Irish nation will never emerge from the political or constitutional platform. Indeed one is now expected to be more conversant with the teaching of Chairman Mao than those of our dead patriots.\nYou’re all asking me to get the army in?’ And they all said yes. So I picked up the phone and rang him. I said, ‘I’m pleading with you, Jim. Send in the army.’ And I’ll never forget his reply. ‘Gerry,’ he says, ‘I can get the army in but it’s going to be a devil of a job to get it out.’\nSeeing British soldiers on the street, I got this sense that there’s someone there now to protect us, to defend us against these incursions into our area.\nhe had never fully embraced Goulding’s policy of taking the IRA ‘into the never-never land of theoretical Marxism and parliamentary politics’.\nWe realized that the Dublin crowd and the Dublin leadership were nothing other than con-men. They were only using the North as a base, a springboard to help them in their left-wing political field.\nAlthough republicans could stand in elections to the parliaments at Westminster, Stormont and Dublin, no successful candidate ever took his or her seat since to do so would be to recognize the legitimacy of these institutions. The IRA’s whole existence and self-styled legitimacy rested on its refusal to recognize these parliaments which, to republicans, had no moral or legal authority.\nBut the people who defended the street stood their ground. The following morning there was just sheer elation and relief that the IRA were there to deal with that situation.\nThe army had done exactly as the Unionists’ Security Committee had demanded four days earlier — it had got tough. The result was summed up by Gerry Adams. ‘Thousands of people who had never been republicans now gave their active support to the IRA; others, who had never had any time for physical force now accepted it as a practical necessity.’\nThey are terrorists and that’s the end of the story. No rank, no glamour. They are terrorists. What did we do in Kenya? We didn’t call them Colonels or Majors or Brigadiers. We called them terrorists and they were hung. Same thing in Palestine. Terrorists there were caught and they were executed. No glory. Nobody cries over a dead body too long. A couple of days and they forget all about it.\nIf any young men had previously held back because they felt morally uncomfortable about killing, ‘Bloody Sunday’ removed any lingering restraint.\nEvery day they passed the office as they passed by in a black taxi [the ‘People’s Taxis’ that provided cheap transport] up and down the Falls Road and people would say, ‘there’s the Sinn Fein office’. The incident centres gave the party a physical presence.\nScant progress was being made. The British were offering the release of more prisoners but this did not ‘begin to meet the minimum of requirements’.\nBut the Provisionals were not interested in public relations. They wanted to talk about the declaration of intent which, to them, was the whole point of the truce. Allan and ‘HM’ said the Government could not now give this for three reasons: the Convention ‘must be given a chance publicly’; the Government was waiting for ‘a consensus of opinion to emerge in Britain’; and there was the danger of ‘a Congo-type situation resulting’.\nHow they fight is a matter of tactics and conditions, but fight they must. There can be no question of that. The enemy allows us no choice. It is an armed struggle because the enemy is armed. Because he establishes and protects his vested interests by force of arms. The cabinet ministers, the politicians, the warlords, the business interests, the profit makers — the Establishment — have all agreed on their objects and the course they will follow. They are armed mercenaries. We must be armed revolutionaries. We must be Active Republicans.\nThe warning, it said, ‘proved totally inadequate given the disastrous consequences. We accept condemnation and criticism from only two sources: from the relatives and friends of those who were accidentally killed, and from our supporters who have rightly and severely criticized us.’\nIf you could, you saved a bit of margarine or butter from your breakfast that morning and took it with you when you were brought out of the cell. They took you up to a small room at the top of the wing and all the uniforms were lined up there. As soon as you got the trousers on, you ripped the bottom off them to expose your back-end. Before you went out to the visit, you rubbed a bit of the margarine or butter on your rear-end. So when you got the parcel on the visit, you had to get your hand in between your legs and pass the thing up your rear-end. That’s how most things came in. Radios came in that way. Everything came in that way. It took a wee bit of skill and sleight of hand to do it. And you had to be quick.\nThe hatred prison officers and prisoners felt for each other was mutual and lasting. Nothing brought it home to me more forcefully than a production of Bobby Sands’ epic ‘The Crime of Castlereagh’ which I watched in a parochial hall in West Belfast. It was staged by former prisoners and prisoners out on parole or home leave. One scene depicted a prisoner being turned upside down whilst a prison officer with rubber gloves gloatingly searched his anus. As the officer was walking off stage, a shot rang out and he fell down dead. It was a dramatic piece of theatre. The packed audience, among whom were many of the Republican Movement’s most prominent figures, including members of the leadership, broke out in spontaneous applause and cheering. It was a chilling moment.\nFurthermore, by the mid-eighties, the intelligence on which such interceptions and ambushes were mounted was far more precise, with sophisticated electronic surveillance supplementing the information supplied by agents and informers within the IRA’s ranks.\nSuch operations were, on the whole, difficult to carry out in urban areas like Belfast and Derry because of the risk to civilians and extremely difficult in South Armagh where the locals knew every suspicious-looking hedge, barn and ditch. Under the right circumstances rural areas like Tyrone offered a perfect killing field.\nThe IRA took hostage the family of Patsy Gillespie, strapped him into a car loaded with a thousand pounds of explosives and told him to drive to the checkpoint. The IRA told his family he would be released when he had carried out their orders. Patsy Gillespie became a ‘human bomb’ and when he arrived at the checkpoint the IRA detonated the explosives by remote control, killing him and five soldiers.\nBecause I totally distrust the British Government. I’ve had too many experiences in the past to be so naive as to trust the British Government.\nThe final solution is union. It is going to happen anyway. The historical train — Europe — determines that. We are committed to Europe. Unionists will have to change. This island will be as one.\n","date":"February 17, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-the-provos/","section":"Posts","summary":"He believed that the ‘blood sacrifice’ of a few would regenerate the national consciousness and lead, by force of Irish arms, to the eventual withdrawal of Britain from Ireland.\n","title":"Highlights for The Provos","type":"posts"},{"content":"And from that point on she micromanaged me, and I realized that she was fear-based, both in how she thought of her bosses and in terms of how she ran her team.\nThe good news in all this for you, the team leader, is that what people care most about at work is within your control.\nThe big thing is that only on a team can we express our individuality at work and put it to highest use.\nperformance:\n1. I am really enthusiastic about the mission of my company.\n2. At work, I clearly understand what is expected of me.\n3. In my team, I am surrounded by people who share my values.\n4. I have the chance to use my strengths every day at work.\n5. My teammates have my back.\n6. I know I will be recognized for excellent work.\n7. I have great confidence in my company’s future.\n8. In my work, I am always challenged to grow.\nThe amounts of time and energy it takes to make a plan this thorough and detailed are the very things that doom it to obsolescence. The thing we call planning doesn’t tell you where to go; it just helps you understand where you are. Or rather, were. Recently. We aren’t planning for the future, we’re planning for the near-term past.\nTheir underlying assumption is that people are wise, and that if you can present them with accurate, real-time, reliable data about the real world in front of them, they’ll invariably make smart decisions.\nPlanning systems take the interpretation of the data away from those on the front lines, and hand it off to a select few, who analyze it and decipher its patterns, and then construct and communicate the plan. Intelligence systems do precisely the opposite—because the “intelligence”in an intelligence system lies not in the select few, but instead in the emergent interpretive powers of all front-line team members.\nEach check-in, then, is a chance to offer a tip, or an idea that can help the team member overcome a real-world obstacle, or a suggestion for how to refine a particular skill.\nAnd their shared insight, across the span of sixty years, is that it is far more powerful for a leader to free the most information and the most decision-making power than it is for that leader to craft the perfect plan.\nSelf-evaluation of goals isn’t really about evaluating your work, in other words: it’s a careful exercise in self-promotion and political positioning, in figuring out how much to reveal honestly and how much to couch carefully.\nThe company has asked you to evaluate yourself against a list of abstract goals that were irrelevant a couple of weeks after you wrote them down.\nThese leaders strive instead to bring to life for their people the meaning and purpose of their work, the missions and contributions and methods that truly matter. These leaders know that in a team infused with such meaning, each person will be smart enough and driven enough to set goals voluntarily that manifest that meaning.\nA strength, on the other hand, is an “activity that makes you feel strong.”\nThe simplest answer is that, though we are deeply aware that each of us is unique, and that no amount of training or badgering will remove that uniqueness, it is still quite overwhelming for a busy team leader to allow himself to come face-to-face with the fact that each of his team members thinks differently, is motivated by different things, responds to relationship cues differently, and gets a kick out of different sorts of praise.\nthat leaders can’t be in the control business and must be in the intelligence, meaning, and empowerment business—the outcomes business.\nAs the author and speaker Simon Sinek said recently in his spot as guest editor for Virgin’s workplace blog, “So here’s a way you can fulfill your potential in the workplace: negative feedback . . . Negative feedback is where it’s at . . . After every project or anything that I do, I always ask somebody, ‘What sucks? What can I do better? Where is there room for improvement?’ I’m now to the point where I crave it. That’s what you want. You want to get to the point where you crave negative feedback.”\nThe truth, then, is that people need attention—and when you give it to us in a safe and nonjudgmental environment, we will come and stay and play and work.\nPeople don’t need feedback. They need attention, and moreover, attention to what they do the best. And they become more engaged and therefore more productive when we give it to them.\nFor a team member, nothing is more believable, and thus more powerful, than your sharing what you saw from her and how it made you feel. Or what it made you think. Or what it caused you to realize. Or how and where you will now rely on her. These are your reactions, and when you share them with specificity and with detail, you aren’t judging her or rating her or fixing her. You are simply reflecting to her the unique “dent”she just made in the world, as seen through one person’s eyes—yours. And precisely because it isn’t a judgment or a rating, but is instead a simple reaction, it is authoritative and beyond question.\nIf you see somebody doing something that really works, stopping them and replaying it to them isn’t only a high-priority interrupt, it is arguably your highest-priority interrupt. Get into this habit and you’ll be far more likely to lead a high-performing team.\nWe tend to think that subjectivity in data is a bug, and that the feature we’re after is objectivity. Actually, however, when it comes to measurement, the pursuit of objectivity is the bug, and reliable subjectivity the feature.\nOnly certain people have “potential”; everyone has momentum. One team member’s might be more powerful than another’s, or speedier than another’s, or pointed in a different direction, but everyone has some. The question isn’t whether you inherently possess a lot of it or not. Instead, when it comes to momentum, the question is how much of it you have at this very moment, right now.\nnamely, that the speed and trajectory of her momentum at this very moment are a) knowable, b) changeable, and c) within her control.\nAnd if we then institutionalize this thinking through our people-management processes and systems in the name of bringing predictability and control to our organization, we find that we have sacrificed common sense and humanity at the altar of corporate uniformity, and we shouldn’t be very surprised if our people chafe at the result.\nObviously, triage can be necessary in life, but it surely is not enough—it keeps things at bay, but it takes us away from ourselves. And in the end, balance is an unachievable goal anyway, because it asks us to aim for momentary stasis in a world that is ever changing. Supposing we ever get things just exactly in balance, we know for sure that something will come along and unbalance them and that we’ll be back to pushing our balance rock up the hill again.\nYou—and your organization—get them only if you create them, and you create them only through love.\nOrganizations are not powerless, but their power (and their name) comes from their ability to organize what is already there in plain view. Your organization, if it is careless, can crush your spirit, can diminish or ignore your daimon. But only you can animate it. Only you can bring love into your world at work.\nThis person didn’t find this work—she didn’t happen upon it, fully-formed and waiting for her. Instead, she made it. She took a generic job, with a generic job description, and then, within that job, she took her loves seriously, and gradually, little by little and a lot over time, she turned the best of her job into most of her job. Not the entirety of it, maybe, but certainly an awful lot of it, until it became a manifestation of who she is. She tweaked and tweaked the role until, in all the most important ways, it came to resemble her—it became an expression of her.\nThe same is true for you, of course. You have a unique relationship with the world, a relationship that reveals to you things that only you can see. It offers thread-weaving opportunities all the time, but the only person who knows if those threads are red is you. The world won’t do your weaving for you—it doesn’t care about your red threads. The only person who can stop and be attentive enough to identify these threads, and weave them intelligently into the fabric of your work, is you.\nBallet, as you know, is an unremittingly technical and demanding craft, but if you build technical craft on a loveless foundation, you net only burnout, because technical mastery absent love always equals burnout. Burnout isn’t the absence of balance but the absence of love.\nIf the people coming to work on your team could feel more like this, if you could help them take their red threads this seriously—not to make your people feel good about themselves, although that helps, but so they could share more with the world—what a beautiful and lasting contribution you and your team would make.\nAnd yet these characteristics are curiously circumscribed: authenticity is important, right up until the point when the leader, authentically, says that he has no idea what to do, which then fractures his vision. Likewise, vulnerability is important until the moment when the leader’s comfort with her own flaws causes us to doubt her, and to question whether she is sufficiently inspirational. Apparently, we require authentic sureness and reassuring vulnerability, however contradictory those things may be.\nIf leading were easy, there would be more good leaders. If there were more good leaders, we might be just a little less focused on it.\nThe only determinant of whether anyone is leading is whether anyone else is following.\nMore specifically, we follow leaders who connect us to a mission we believe in, who clarify what’s expected of us, who surround us with people who define excellence the same way we do, who value us for our strengths, who show us that our teammates will always be there for us, who diligently replay our winning plays, who challenge us to keep getting better, and who give us confidence in the future.\nYour ability to create the outcomes you want in your followers is tied directly to how seriously and intelligently you cultivate your own idiosyncrasy, and to what end. The deeper and more extreme your idiosyncrasy becomes, the more passionately your followers follow—and while this is frustrating to us when we happen to disagree with the ends of a particular leader, it is so nonetheless.\nAs a leader, you can’t be dismissive of this fear. You can’t tell your people to “embrace change”and to “get comfortable with ambiguity.”\nWe follow people who are really good at something that matters to us. We follow the spikes.\nThe truth that no two leaders do the same job in the same way.\nThe truth that as much as we follow the spikes, they can also antagonize us.\nThe truth that no leader is perfect—and that the best of them have learned how to work around their imperfections.\nThe truth that leaders are frustrating—they don’t have all the abilities we’d like them to have.\nThe truth that following is in part an act of forgiveness—it is to give our attention and efforts to someone despite what we can see of their flaws.\nThe truth that not everyone should be, or wants to be, a leader—the world needs followers, and great followers at that.\nThe truth that a person who might be a great leader for me might not be a great leader for you.\nThe truth that a person who might be a great leader for one team, or team of teams, or company, might not be a great leader for another.\nThe truth that leaders are not necessarily a force for good in the world—they are simply people with followers. They aren’t saints, and sometimes their having followers leads to hubris and arrogance, or worse.\nThe truth that leaders are not good or bad—they are just people who have figured out how to be their most defined selves in the world, and who do so in such a way that they inspire genuine confidence in their followers. This isn’t necessarily good or bad. It just is.\nThe truth that leading isn’t a set of characteristics but a series of experiences seen through the eyes of the followers.\nThe truth that, despite all this, we reserve a special place in our world for those who make our experience of it better and more hopeful.\nAnd the truth that, through it all, we follow your spikes.\nWhen we feel a fresh rush of energy after talking with someone, we need to stop and ask why. When we feel, in response to another human being, that mysterious attraction tugging on us—like a fish on a line, or like a needle twitching in a compass, an attraction that says Here, something is happening, something true and visceral and substantial, something that will change, however slightly, the arc of our future—we need to stop and ask why.\nRather, there was a clarion vision—“let freedom ring”—and then an unswerving commitment to intervene whenever and wherever progress toward that vision could be made, and to do so regardless of the personal or physical risks that any such action entailed. His approach was contingent, opportunistic, and incremental. It focused on imagined change, not on predictable execution.\nLeading and following are not abstractions. They are human interactions; human relationships. And their currency is the currency of all human relationships—the currency of emotional bonds, of trust, and of love. If you, as a leader, forget these things, and yet master everything that theory world tells you matters, you will find yourself alone. But if you understand who you are, at your core, and hone that understanding into a few special abilities, each of which refracts and magnifies your intent, your essence, and your humanity, then, in the real world, we will see you.\nAnd we will follow.\n","date":"February 17, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-nine-lies-about-work/","section":"Posts","summary":"And from that point on she micromanaged me, and I realized that she was fear-based, both in how she thought of her bosses and in terms of how she ran her team.\n","title":"Highlights for Nine Lies About Work","type":"posts"},{"content":"\u0026ldquo;The interesting thing about interactive media is that it allows the players to engage with a problem, conjure a solution, try out that solution, and then experience the results. Then they can go back to the thinking stage and start to plan out their next move. This process of trial and error builds the interactive world in their minds. This is the true canvas on which we design—not the screen. That’s something I always keep in mind when designing games.\u0026rdquo;\nShigeru Miyamoto who perfectly gets it in an interview.\nhttps://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/shigeru-miyamoto-wants-to-create-a-kinder-world?goal=0_87ad4d4f13-38db8b0e1f-242738325\u0026amp;mc_cid=38db8b0e1f\u0026amp;mc_eid=a3e0af2d0a\n","date":"February 7, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16428/","section":"Posts","summary":"“The interesting thing about interactive media is that it allows the players to engage with a problem, conjure a solution, try out that solution, and then experience the results. Then they can go back to the thinking stage and start to plan out their next move. This process of trial and error builds the interactive world in their minds. This is the true canvas on which we design—not the screen. That’s something I always keep in mind when designing games.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"This article on the Huawei corporate culture is one of the worst possible ways to treat employees I\u0026rsquo;ve ever seen.\nhttps://netzpolitik.org/2021/wolf-culture-how-huawei-controls-its-employees-in-europe/\n","date":"February 7, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16426/","section":"Posts","summary":"This article on the Huawei corporate culture is one of the worst possible ways to treat employees I’ve ever seen.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"https://buriti.ca/6-lessons-i-learned-while-implementing-technical-rfcs-as-a-management-tool-34687dbf46cb\nI\u0026rsquo;m a big fan of the idea of RFCs to spread out and improve decision making in technical teams.\n","date":"February 7, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16424/","section":"Posts","summary":"https://buriti.ca/6-lessons-i-learned-while-implementing-technical-rfcs-as-a-management-tool-34687dbf46cb\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"There\u0026rsquo;s going to be a need for operations in companies however much of their infrastructure they outsource and it\u0026rsquo;s going to be increasingly interesting and valuable work.\n\u0026ldquo;I see operationally-minded engineers working cross-functionally with software development teams to help them grow in a few key areas: making outsourcing successful, speeding up time to value, and up-leveling their production chops.\u0026rdquo;\nhttps://thenewstack.io/the-future-of-ops-careers/\n","date":"February 7, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16422/","section":"Posts","summary":"There’s going to be a need for operations in companies however much of their infrastructure they outsource and it’s going to be increasingly interesting and valuable work.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I immediately understand it but I\u0026rsquo;ve never seen it articulated as explicitly as here by the Singapore Civil Service College: \u0026ldquo;The main value in software is not the code produced, but the knowledge accumulated by the people who produced it.\u0026rdquo;\nhttps://www.csc.gov.sg/articles/how-to-build-good-software\n","date":"February 4, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16420/","section":"Posts","summary":"I immediately understand it but I’ve never seen it articulated as explicitly as here by the Singapore Civil Service College: “The main value in software is not the code produced, but the knowledge accumulated by the people who produced it.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"When it comes to software development most of these are good opinions and you can take them as yours without spending the six years Chris Kiehl needed (or the many more I did).\nhttps://chriskiehl.com/article/thoughts-after-6-years\n","date":"February 2, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16418/","section":"Posts","summary":"When it comes to software development most of these are good opinions and you can take them as yours without spending the six years Chris Kiehl needed (or the many more I did).\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A very concrete framework with an example of how to give feedback at work.\nhttps://www.usehaystack.io/blog/5-steps-for-giving-developer-feedback\n","date":"February 2, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16416/","section":"Posts","summary":"A very concrete framework with an example of how to give feedback at work.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Talking about tech debt is so unspecific and confusing that maybe it\u0026rsquo;s better not to use the term at all and instead talk about it in these terms (specific goals, business outcomes, incremental delivery).\nhttps://leaddev.com/legacy-technical-debt-migrations/building-realistic-roadmaps-tech-debt-cleanup\n","date":"February 2, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16414/","section":"Posts","summary":"Talking about tech debt is so unspecific and confusing that maybe it’s better not to use the term at all and instead talk about it in these terms (specific goals, business outcomes, incremental delivery).\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A useful perspective on the leadership career path and what skills you need to keep leveling up.\nhttps://theskip.substack.com/p/three-crucial-skills-that-leaders\n","date":"February 2, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16412/","section":"Posts","summary":"A useful perspective on the leadership career path and what skills you need to keep leveling up.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"but I like working with PMs who went into it through channels other than the official ones, and are motivated out of their passion for building things and solving problems. Not because they feel it’s something they’re supposed to do, or because they think it’s prestigious, or because it is the default path from whatever elite school they went to.\nThat is an excellent and very opinionated list of criteria of how to gauge a product organization. I\u0026rsquo;m not sure whether I\u0026rsquo;ve seen any that hit all or even many of these. If you know of one, let me know.\nhttp://dangrover.com/blog/2020/01/20/a-sanity-test-for-large-groups-of-pms.html\n","date":"February 2, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16410/","section":"Posts","summary":"but I like working with PMs who went into it through channels other than the official ones, and are motivated out of their passion for building things and solving problems. Not because they feel it’s something they’re supposed to do, or because they think it’s prestigious, or because it is the default path from whatever elite school they went to.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"What is weird is that organizations that purport to be against risk will often do their projects exactly in this very risky way. Within an institutional logic, it often seems like there is no alternative but that is up to a few people to change.\nhttps://leaddev.com/agile-other-ways-working/assign-problems-not-work-your-teams-build-extraordinary-products\n","date":"February 2, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16408/","section":"Posts","summary":"What is weird is that organizations that purport to be against risk will often do their projects exactly in this very risky way. Within an institutional logic, it often seems like there is no alternative but that is up to a few people to change.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Emine is erg slim en dit moet dus een van de sterkere argumenten voor het dragen van een hoofddoek zijn. Ik vind het niet bijzonder overtuigend maar dat terzijde.\nhttps://twitter.com/overlistener/status/1337417528067436544\n","date":"January 25, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16405/","section":"Posts","summary":"Emine is erg slim en dit moet dus een van de sterkere argumenten voor het dragen van een hoofddoek zijn. Ik vind het niet bijzonder overtuigend maar dat terzijde.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Het gedoe waar ze probeerden mee te profiteren van de Toeslagenaffaire en ook nog eens dit lekker anti-woke doen om het doen. Het lijkt erop dat de Correspondent wat altijd al lastig was en beetje de weg kwijt is.\nhttps://twitter.com/laurahazardowen/status/1337077374794534920\nhttps://twitter.com/Kishakishi/status/1334412863503470592\nhttps://twitter.com/sanderphilipse/status/1337321746693840896\n","date":"January 25, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16403/","section":"Posts","summary":"Het gedoe waar ze probeerden mee te profiteren van de Toeslagenaffaire en ook nog eens dit lekker anti-woke doen om het doen. Het lijkt erop dat de Correspondent wat altijd al lastig was en beetje de weg kwijt is.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Een mooi en erg herkenbaar kerstverhaal van Rasit Elibol.\nhttps://www.groene.nl/artikel/het-uitzicht-leek-eindeloos\n","date":"January 25, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16401/","section":"Posts","summary":"Een mooi en erg herkenbaar kerstverhaal van Rasit Elibol.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"It\u0026rsquo;s nice that these startups guys take a public schooling so well. It would be nice if we could see more of that on Clubhouse instead of the endless rows of bad panels.\nhttps://www.newcomer.co/p/founders-fund-duo-outmatched-by-sf\n","date":"January 25, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16399/","section":"Posts","summary":"It’s nice that these startups guys take a public schooling so well. It would be nice if we could see more of that on Clubhouse instead of the endless rows of bad panels.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"When I still did photography, I read everything I could find about how cameras work and this is the mental model I built up back then.\nThe lovely thing about this webpage is that it makes each of the mechanics interactive so you can play with them and see what happens.\nhttps://ciechanow.ski/cameras-and-lenses/\n","date":"January 25, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16397/","section":"Posts","summary":"When I still did photography, I read everything I could find about how cameras work and this is the mental model I built up back then.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"World 2.0 — “There are decades where nothing happens, and weeks where decades happen”\nWorld 1.0World 2.0110 successive months of job growth10 million jobless claims in 2 weeks10 year bull market across sectorsWinners and losers with extreme outcome inequalityFull employment30% unemploymentBase rate thinkingFirst principles thinkingPhysicalDigitalOffice by defaultRemote by defaultOffice for workOffice for connection, community, ecosystem, makerspacesSuit, tie, wristwatch, business cardGood lighting, microphone, webcam, home office backgroundCommute + traffic jamsHome + familyLast mileOnly mileRestaurantsGroceries + delivery$4 toastSourdough starterWalkscoreSpeedtestCitiesInternet$100k for collegeNot paying $100k for a webinarCityCountrysideYIMBYNIMBYInternal issuesExogenous shockLots of little problemsOne big problemStupid bullshitActual issuesToo much technologyToo little technologyComplacencyActionYearsDaysPolicyCapacityIdeologyCompetenceAssume some government competenceAssume zero government competenceInstitutionsGhost shipsWHOWho?Trusted institutionsTrusted peopleGlobalizationDecouplingJust-in-timeStockpileTail risk is kookyTail risk is mainstreamNATOAsiaBoomers most powerfulBoomers most vulnerableProductivity growth collapseEconomic collapseSocial services DemocratUBI CommunistPropagandaPropagandaDeficit hawksMMTCorporate debtGovernment debtTechlashTech a pillar of civilization and lifeline to billionsBreak up AmazonDon’t break up Amazon!!!Avoiding social issuesAvoiding layoffsSportsEsportsPhone is a cigarettePhone is oxygenResource depletion$20 oil, $0.75 watt solar, \u0026lt;$100/kwh batteriesStasisChangeLow volatilityHigh volatilityDesignLogisticsExtrovertIntrovertOpenClosed20th century21st century\n","date":"January 25, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16395/","section":"Posts","summary":"World 2.0 — “There are decades where nothing happens, and weeks where decades happen”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Er valt heel veel te zeggen over de Toeslagen-affaire.\nHier bijvoorbeeld hoe de ratten in de cie Financien de waarheidsvinding opzettelijk geblokkeerd hebben.\nhttps://twitter.com/pieterkleinrtl/status/1338968138709340161\n","date":"January 25, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16392/","section":"Posts","summary":"Er valt heel veel te zeggen over de Toeslagen-affaire.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"\u0026gt; Perhaps this was one of those things which would have been better off left to legal professionals, rather than being put to trial-by-Clubhouse.\n\u0026gt; both peddling books which really should have been tweets\n\u0026gt; While both women make passing references to social movements, neither are particularly interested in the terrain of collective struggle.\n\u0026gt; reparations isn’t an individual white person giving money to an individual Black or brown person (apart from when I personally am broke and want a cocktail, in which case it’s very much that)\n\u0026gt; Rather it has intensified their consumption of political content — particularly material which equates white guilt with anti-racist solidarity.\u0026gt; The influencers have invented intersectional Thatcherism.\nhttps://novaramedia.com/2021/01/20/the-slumflower-beef-has-exposed-the-limits-of-influencer-activism/\nZinger after zinger in this important piece by Ash Sarkar where she rightfully asks what white people can do in the anti-racist struggle other than watch White Fragility and feel bad about themselves.\n","date":"January 23, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16390/","section":"Posts","summary":"\u003e Perhaps this was one of those things which would have been better off left to legal professionals, rather than being put to trial-by-Clubhouse.\n\u003e both peddling books which really should have been tweets\n\u003e While both women make passing references to social movements, neither are particularly interested in the terrain of collective struggle.\n\u003e reparations isn’t an individual white person giving money to an individual Black or brown person (apart from when I personally am broke and want a cocktail, in which case it’s very much that)\n\u003e Rather it has intensified their consumption of political content — particularly material which equates white guilt with anti-racist solidarity.\u003e The influencers have invented intersectional Thatcherism.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"\u0026ldquo;This is all to say that Paul Graham is an effective marketer and practitioner, but a profoundly unserious public intellectual. His attempts to grapple with the major issues of the present, especially as they intersect with his personal legacy, are so mired in intuition and incuriosity that they’re at best a distraction, and worst a real obstacle to understanding our paths forward.\u0026rdquo;\nhttps://ideolalia.com/essays/thought-leaders-and-chicken-sexers.html\nAn utter and total indictment of Paul Graham who of course is impervious to such things.\n","date":"January 23, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16388/","section":"Posts","summary":"“This is all to say that Paul Graham is an effective marketer and practitioner, but a profoundly unserious public intellectual. His attempts to grapple with the major issues of the present, especially as they intersect with his personal legacy, are so mired in intuition and incuriosity that they’re at best a distraction, and worst a real obstacle to understanding our paths forward.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;m just thinking of moving away from Chrome but for somebody who\u0026rsquo;s as heavy a tab user as I am, this looks useful and also scarily confronting.\nhttps://omar.website/tabfs/\n","date":"January 23, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16386/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’m just thinking of moving away from Chrome but for somebody who’s as heavy a tab user as I am, this looks useful and also scarily confronting.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"It\u0026rsquo;s by no means easy to find let alone hire a good PM but if you want to try, here\u0026rsquo;s a good guide of how to interview for one.\nhttps://jackiebo.medium.com/how-to-hire-great-product-managers-f07a3c9337ea\n","date":"January 23, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16384/","section":"Posts","summary":"It’s by no means easy to find let alone hire a good PM but if you want to try, here’s a good guide of how to interview for one.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"https://www.conordewey.com/blog/barrels-and-ammunition/\nBarrels take initiative. They don\u0026rsquo;t wait for approval or consensus.\nBarrels ship high-quality work. They constantly looking for ways to improve.\nBarrels value speed. They get the proof of concept out the door quickly and iterate on it.\nBarrels take accountability. They are not only willing but excited to own the plan and the outcome.\nBarrels are seen as a resource. Teammates frequently seek them out for help and advice.\nBarrels work well with others. They know how to motivate teams and individuals alike.\nBarrels can handle adversity. They push through friction and obstacles.\nI keep thinking of this model that contrasts between barrels—“someone who can take an idea from conception to live and it’s almost perfect”—and ammunition.\nTry to become a barrel. It\u0026rsquo;s a lot more fun.\n","date":"January 9, 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16381/","section":"Posts","summary":"https://www.conordewey.com/blog/barrels-and-ammunition/\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Hugely thought provoking charts of how much time fathers and mothers have spent with their children in various countries.\nhttps://twitter.com/_HannahRitchie/status/1338465169874313220\n","date":"December 26, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16379/","section":"Posts","summary":"Hugely thought provoking charts of how much time fathers and mothers have spent with their children in various countries.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I am immensely happy to see two friends launch Branch, a magazine about creating a sustainable internet. The way they put the magazine together mirrors the best practices of the future we should live in right now.\nhttps://branch.climateaction.tech/2020/10/21/letter-from-the-editors/\n","date":"December 26, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16377/","section":"Posts","summary":"I am immensely happy to see two friends launch Branch, a magazine about creating a sustainable internet. The way they put the magazine together mirrors the best practices of the future we should live in right now.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"De Toeslagenaffaire laat zien dat de Belastingdienst en grote delen van de Nederlandse politiek (en hier ook het journaille, specifiek de Correspondent) verrot zijn.\nhttps://twitter.com/stephanvierkant/status/1328292214108270593\nhttps://twitter.com/apleijter/status/1327992337117700097\n","date":"December 26, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16375/","section":"Posts","summary":"De Toeslagenaffaire laat zien dat de Belastingdienst en grote delen van de Nederlandse politiek (en hier ook het journaille, specifiek de Correspondent) verrot zijn.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I welcome all of these Quotenfrauen and many more like them. We are all missing out with the way businesses are run currently.\nhttps://www.stern.de/politik/quotenfrauen/\n","date":"December 26, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16373/","section":"Posts","summary":"I welcome all of these Quotenfrauen and many more like them. We are all missing out with the way businesses are run currently.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"It sounds like a great idea here by Albert Wenger to force all major web properties to provide full read and write access to their APIs and in doing so promote the much needed competition.\nA Twitter, Instagram or Whatsapp with full-featured commercializable third-party clients would be much better than what we have now.\nhttps://continuations.com/post/619477235088457728/the-social-media-triangle\n","date":"December 26, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16371/","section":"Posts","summary":"It sounds like a great idea here by Albert Wenger to force all major web properties to provide full read and write access to their APIs and in doing so promote the much needed competition.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A lovely interview about the magic bus and the hippie period in Istanbul revolving around the Lale Pudding Shop which is still in business.\nhttps://twitter.com/kenan_sharpe/status/1333719308585857024\n","date":"December 26, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16369/","section":"Posts","summary":"A lovely interview about the magic bus and the hippie period in Istanbul revolving around the Lale Pudding Shop which is still in business.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"\u0026ldquo;So if, as a product leader/CEO, you think your team isn’t 1 working on things that truly matter, or 2 achieving results that justify the investment, it is first ON YOU to figure out which of the 4 strategy problems you have, and fix them.\u0026rdquo;\nhttps://twitter.com/shreyas/status/1320105221570228224\nA very solid thread on product as we are used to get from Shreyas.\n","date":"November 17, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16364/","section":"Posts","summary":"“So if, as a product leader/CEO, you think your team isn’t 1 working on things that truly matter, or 2 achieving results that justify the investment, it is first ON YOU to figure out which of the 4 strategy problems you have, and fix them.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Apple is not a company where general managers oversee managers; rather, it is a company where experts lead experts. The assumption is that it’s easier to train an expert to manage well than to train a manager to be an expert.\nIn a 1984 interview [Jobs] said, “We went through that stage in Apple where we went out and thought, Oh, we’re gonna be a big company, let’s hire professional management. We went out and hired a bunch of professional management. It didn’t work at all….They knew how to manage, but they didn’t know how to do anything. If you’re a great person, why do you want to work for somebody you can’t learn anything from? And you know what’s interesting? You know who the best managers are? They are the great individual contributors who never, ever want to be a manager but decide they have to be…because no one else is going to…do as good a job.”\nhttps://hbr.org/2020/11/how-apple-is-organized-for-innovation\n","date":"October 25, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16360/","section":"Posts","summary":"Apple is not a company where general managers oversee managers; rather, it is a company where experts lead experts. The assumption is that it’s easier to train an expert to manage well than to train a manager to be an expert.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Drastically lowering the voting age as Germany is considering here would solve a huge amount of problems (which is why it will of course not happen).\nDavid Runciman has argued along similar lines that rejuvenating democracy usually happens by expanding the franchise, in this case to children.\nhttps://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/abgeordnete-wollen-wahlalter-auf-null-jahre-senken-kinder-an-die-macht-kolumne-a-00000000-0002-0001-0000-000171168297\n","date":"October 25, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16357/","section":"Posts","summary":"Drastically lowering the voting age as Germany is considering here would solve a huge amount of problems (which is why it will of course not happen).\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A Django API server in a single file of 70 lines is quite a statement.\nhttps://adamj.eu/tech/2020/10/15/a-single-file-rest-api-in-django/\n","date":"October 24, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16355/","section":"Posts","summary":"A Django API server in a single file of 70 lines is quite a statement.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Als ik het verhaal over witwassen in de Amsterdamse binnenstad hier lees, denk ik dat het hier in Berlijn zonder overdrijven tien keer zo erg is (decennia armoede, corruptie en geen enkele prioriteit bij de lokale overheid).\nhttps://www.groene.nl/artikel/ze-zijn-hier-zo-lekker-aan-het-witwassen\n","date":"October 24, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16353/","section":"Posts","summary":"Als ik het verhaal over witwassen in de Amsterdamse binnenstad hier lees, denk ik dat het hier in Berlijn zonder overdrijven tien keer zo erg is (decennia armoede, corruptie en geen enkele prioriteit bij de lokale overheid).\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"How Taiwan’s Unlikely Digital Minister Hacked the Pandemic\nA review of Taiwan\u0026rsquo;s digital and democratic culture focusing on Audrey Tang.\nhttps://www.wired.com/story/how-taiwans-unlikely-digital-minister-hacked-the-pandemic/\n","date":"October 24, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16351/","section":"Posts","summary":"How Taiwan’s Unlikely Digital Minister Hacked the Pandemic\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"An explanation of how it\u0026rsquo;s possible to program withoutusing your hands using eye-tracking and voice recognition.\nhttps://joshwcomeau.com/accessibility/hands-free-coding/\n","date":"October 23, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16349/","section":"Posts","summary":"An explanation of how it’s possible to program withoutusing your hands using eye-tracking and voice recognition.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The problem isn’t just that infections have risen, it’s that the authorities’ response is increasingly muddled.\nA thorough reflection by Ben Coates on the failure of the Netherlands to control Corona.\nhttps://ben-coates.com/2020/10/09/the-new-brazil/\n","date":"October 23, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16346/","section":"Posts","summary":"The problem isn’t just that infections have risen, it’s that the authorities’ response is increasingly muddled.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"https://www.hpdetijd.nl/2020-10-14/twee-eeuwen-oranjebitter/\nEen heerlijk artikel over het reilen en zeilen van de Oranjes en hoe het instituut niet veel meer dan een vehikel is voor zelfverrijking en slecht gedrag.\n","date":"October 23, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16344/","section":"Posts","summary":"https://www.hpdetijd.nl/2020-10-14/twee-eeuwen-oranjebitter/\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"“The right people, the right time, the right context.”\nGenerally the action item in meetings such as this one should be writing it down for later deliberation. Being overly biased to action too often means being overly biased.\nhttps://medium.com/@deiwin/the-problem-with-action-items-3e3fce9558ba\n","date":"October 23, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16342/","section":"Posts","summary":"“The right people, the right time, the right context.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A fair part of my childhood was spent in gecekondu buildings exactly as the ones depicted here.\nhttps://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-10-14/gecekondu-homes-form-building-blocks-of-modern-istanbul\n","date":"October 23, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16340/","section":"Posts","summary":"A fair part of my childhood was spent in gecekondu buildings exactly as the ones depicted here.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A crucial part of effective teams is introducing slack like in this case removing the entire concept of a hand-off (which causes misalignment at best).\nhttps://twitter.com/PavelASamsonov/status/1310636516310474752\n","date":"October 8, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16336/","section":"Posts","summary":"A crucial part of effective teams is introducing slack like in this case removing the entire concept of a hand-off (which causes misalignment at best).\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"\u0026ldquo;Ultimately the truly great product manager ensures that everyone in their organization feels connected to the business, and shares an equal level of urgency and commitment to the customer’s needs.\u0026rdquo;\nhttps://medium.com/@cmcluck/effective-product-management-8021831a184\n","date":"October 8, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16334/","section":"Posts","summary":"“Ultimately the truly great product manager ensures that everyone in their organization feels connected to the business, and shares an equal level of urgency and commitment to the customer’s needs.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A fractal treatment of the various level of engineering management.\nhttps://medium.com/@rvprabhu/levels-of-abstraction-in-engineering-management-6bac9410e89a\n","date":"October 8, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16332/","section":"Posts","summary":"A fractal treatment of the various level of engineering management.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Something I have to keep reminding people of: \u0026ldquo;Once you reach a certain level, all problems are solved by people. There is no such thing as a purely technical problem.\u0026rdquo;\nhttps://leaddev.com/reality-being-principal-engineer\n","date":"October 8, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16330/","section":"Posts","summary":"Something I have to keep reminding people of: “Once you reach a certain level, all problems are solved by people. There is no such thing as a purely technical problem.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The nice part of working on open source is I can finally share some of the amazing work my team has been doing. Here\u0026rsquo;s some forthcoming Suricata contributions by Sascha and Frank with more on the way.\n","date":"October 6, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16325/","section":"Posts","summary":"The nice part of working on open source is I can finally share some of the amazing work my team has been doing. Here’s some forthcoming Suricata contributions by Sascha and Frank with more on the way.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The San Diego Loyal got a lot of additional fans with this move. A great example too for European clubs in a lot of ways.\nhttps://twitter.com/SportsCenter/status/1311645624727670792\n","date":"October 4, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16323/","section":"Posts","summary":"The San Diego Loyal got a lot of additional fans with this move. A great example too for European clubs in a lot of ways.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"After having been locked out of my Instagram account for months because of wrongful reports, I have just gotten back access to the account for a week or so and I already get the first people reporting me again.\nAnd how do I know that they\u0026rsquo;re doing this? They are in my messages and telling me that they are doing it. This is extremely brazen.\nI don\u0026rsquo;t know what they are thinking but let\u0026rsquo;s hope that Instagram has tweaked some of their abuse processes or that my additional protection will pay off.\nAnd that is definitely not the only one. Though the other attempt (below) to retrieve my handle is so delusional that it\u0026rsquo;s almost cute.\n","date":"September 30, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/here-come-the-scammers/","section":"Posts","summary":"After having been locked out of my Instagram account for months because of wrongful reports, I have just gotten back access to the account for a week or so and I already get the first people reporting me again.\n","title":"Here come the scammers","type":"posts"},{"content":"I thought I had problems with my Instagram account. Turns out it can be a lot worse than that.\nhttps://twitter.com/dannyjhall/status/1310231730591346689\nI found out that there is a large secondary market where Facebook employees sell support and verification status to whoever can pay, but being able to commission an account to be stolen straight up is pretty extreme.\nTurns out this guy got so much attention for his case that he got his account returned promptly but in the thread there are a bunch more people who are facing similar issues.\nAnother @firstname person losing theirs and then getting it back.\nAnother person being continuously hit by impersonation reports.\n","date":"September 30, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16317/","section":"Posts","summary":"I thought I had problems with my Instagram account. Turns out it can be a lot worse than that.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"So the Instagram handle that I thought I had lost was returned to me suddenly last week (thanks to a friend). Not sure whether I\u0026rsquo;ll get to keep it this time round, but let\u0026rsquo;s try.\nAt least this time I\u0026rsquo;ve copied most of my follows to my backup account and I\u0026rsquo;ll see if I can make a data backup at one point or another.\n","date":"September 30, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/getting-firstname-back/","section":"Posts","summary":"So the Instagram handle that I thought I had lost was returned to me suddenly last week (thanks to a friend). Not sure whether I’ll get to keep it this time round, but let’s try.\n","title":"Getting @firstname back","type":"posts"},{"content":"Once we expect leadership to come from everybody at work, engineers don\u0026rsquo;t have to switch to management anymore to be able to lead and be rewarded for it.\nhttps://leaddev.com/not-all-engineering-leaders-are-engineering-managers\n","date":"September 27, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16312/","section":"Posts","summary":"Once we expect leadership to come from everybody at work, engineers don’t have to switch to management anymore to be able to lead and be rewarded for it.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The government has made it clear that its main purpose is not to save lives or protect the vulnerable. It exists to ensure that assets never depreciate and that wealth is never redistributed downward. Capital has never seemed so fictitious.\nhttps://rhizome.org/editorial/2020/apr/22/notes-from-quar-daniel-keller/\n","date":"September 27, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16310/","section":"Posts","summary":"The government has made it clear that its main purpose is not to save lives or protect the vulnerable. It exists to ensure that assets never depreciate and that wealth is never redistributed downward. Capital has never seemed so fictitious.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Canada and Russia are the big winners when it comes to climate change as can be seen in this piece about Climate Migration by Pro Publica.\nhttps://projects.propublica.org/climate-migration/\n","date":"September 27, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16307/","section":"Posts","summary":"Canada and Russia are the big winners when it comes to climate change as can be seen in this piece about Climate Migration by Pro Publica.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A guide to designing an interviewing process tailored specifically to the staff engineer level.\nhttps://staffeng.com/guides/staff-plus-interview-process\n","date":"September 27, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16305/","section":"Posts","summary":"A guide to designing an interviewing process tailored specifically to the staff engineer level.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A simple solution to this: how about you don\u0026rsquo;t lie to your kids?\nhttps://www.esquire.com/news-politics/amp33379355/parenting-coronavirus-lying-to-kids/?__twitter_impression=true\n","date":"September 27, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16303/","section":"Posts","summary":"A simple solution to this: how about you don’t lie to your kids?\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"\u0026ldquo;I am successful if I’m saying the right “No”s to my manager. If the ICs that report to my manager end up feeling like “I told you so”or “We knew this was a bad idea”and that wasn’t surfaced for a discussion, that’s on me.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;I confidently trade on my manager’s authority in ways my teammates may struggle with. Because of my time and my deeper involvement in the technical details being discussed, it is my responsibility to step in and deescalate if a technical conversation is starting to circle the drain.\u0026rdquo;\nI really like this explanation of the variety of things that a staff engineer can do (and does).\nhttps://amyunger.com/blog/2020/09/10/staff-engineer-at-heroku.html\n","date":"September 27, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16301/","section":"Posts","summary":"“I am successful if I’m saying the right “No”s to my manager. If the ICs that report to my manager end up feeling like “I told you so”or “We knew this was a bad idea”and that wasn’t surfaced for a discussion, that’s on me.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"It sounds very familiar here that the mark of a senior is to have continuous pressure against getting anything done and then still getting stuff done.\nOne part of it is that if you\u0026rsquo;re capable in a platform, you should be able to get out the same amount of code in a fraction of the time.\nI\u0026rsquo;d add glibly: if you\u0026rsquo;re getting stuff done, maybe you\u0026rsquo;re not a senior?\nhttps://swizec.com/blog/why-senior-engineers-get-nothing-done/\n","date":"September 27, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16298/","section":"Posts","summary":"It sounds very familiar here that the mark of a senior is to have continuous pressure against getting anything done and then still getting stuff done.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"An introduction on how to measure and improve your engineering organization\u0026rsquo;s performance using delivery metrics.\nhttps://leaddev.com/primer-engineering-delivery-metrics\n","date":"September 27, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16296/","section":"Posts","summary":"An introduction on how to measure and improve your engineering organization’s performance using delivery metrics.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Something to remember when embarking on a journey to improve large and complex systems of humans and technology: small changes can make big a difference and afterwards nobody will really remember how bad things were.\nhttps://medium.com/@skamille/the-management-flywheel-c076f398969b\n","date":"September 27, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16294/","section":"Posts","summary":"Something to remember when embarking on a journey to improve large and complex systems of humans and technology: small changes can make big a difference and afterwards nobody will really remember how bad things were.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A nice interview with Gergely Orosz about building engineering teams.\nhttps://evolutionarymanager.com/building-great-engineering-teams-gergely-orosz/\n","date":"September 27, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16292/","section":"Posts","summary":"A nice interview with Gergely Orosz about building engineering teams.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A super thorough and correct guide how to manage senior engineers which is more or less how I would like to be managed.\nhttps://leadingwithspoons.com/2020/08/27/leading-senior-engineers-lessons-learned/\n","date":"September 22, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16277/","section":"Posts","summary":"A super thorough and correct guide how to manage senior engineers which is more or less how I would like to be managed.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Looking at some Discord first organizations this describes how they could play out and how much potential is there if you want to put some effort in it.\nhttps://buff.ly/2THEtQ3\n","date":"September 17, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16288/","section":"Posts","summary":"Looking at some Discord first organizations this describes how they could play out and how much potential is there if you want to put some effort in it.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"“The technology is not the hard part. It’s already invented, but we have to pay ourselves to install it fast. So, again, that’s an economic question, and it doesn’t work in capitalism. We have the means right now to arrange for everybody alive today to have adequate food, water, shelter, clothing, education, and healthcare, within the biosphere’s carrying capacity.”\nA market of some sort may always exist, because we need to trade, but it could be so sharply regulated that it could exist on what economists call the margin, suitable for the toys, but not for the necessities of life, which should all be public utilities and part of a job guarantee and a living wage.\nKSR talking about the fight ahead.\nhttps://bioneers.org/great-american-sci-fi-utopia-or-dystopia-zmbz2007/\n","date":"September 17, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16286/","section":"Posts","summary":"“The technology is not the hard part. It’s already invented, but we have to pay ourselves to install it fast. So, again, that’s an economic question, and it doesn’t work in capitalism. We have the means right now to arrange for everybody alive today to have adequate food, water, shelter, clothing, education, and healthcare, within the biosphere’s carrying capacity.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Once you\u0026rsquo;ve worked with post-commit reviews, I promise you will not want to go back to the PR way of working again.\nhttps://medium.com/@copyconstruct/post-commit-reviews-b4cc2163ac7a\n","date":"September 6, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16283/","section":"Posts","summary":"Once you’ve worked with post-commit reviews, I promise you will not want to go back to the PR way of working again.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I had some people from the Greens explain to me how the SUV was not so bad after all (as my intuition told me). Turns out my intuition was right.\nhttps://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/01/suv-conquered-america-climate-change-emissions\n","date":"September 6, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16281/","section":"Posts","summary":"I had some people from the Greens explain to me how the SUV was not so bad after all (as my intuition told me). Turns out my intuition was right.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Most of my discussions with data scientists have revolved around exactly this point (usually to serious pushback): that they need to be end-to-end to deliver value in an organization.\nhttps://eugeneyan.com/writing/end-to-end-data-science/\n","date":"September 6, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16279/","section":"Posts","summary":"Most of my discussions with data scientists have revolved around exactly this point (usually to serious pushback): that they need to be end-to-end to deliver value in an organization.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"It looks like Cards Against Humanity is over and I can\u0026rsquo;t say that I\u0026rsquo;m sad about that.\nhttps://medium.com/@anitasarkeesian/ending-my-relationship-with-cards-against-humanity-and-max-temkin-2f25108dfeb4\nhttps://medium.com/@nicolas.j.carter/how-to-know-youre-not-insane-and-how-a-cards-against-humanity-staff-writer-was-fired-40fe07fbbfe4\n","date":"September 6, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16275/","section":"Posts","summary":"It looks like Cards Against Humanity is over and I can’t say that I’m sad about that.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"An interesting story about the interaction between loving the outdoors and Instagram culture.\nhttps://www.outsideonline.com/2415324/instagram-social-media-geotagging-outdoors-oversharing\n","date":"September 6, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16273/","section":"Posts","summary":"An interesting story about the interaction between loving the outdoors and Instagram culture.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"You may find yourself suddenly leading a project as an IC and if that is the case, please take this guide by Gergely Orosz with you. It will prove very helpful.\nhttps://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/how-to-lead-a-project-in-software-development/\n","date":"September 5, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16271/","section":"Posts","summary":"You may find yourself suddenly leading a project as an IC and if that is the case, please take this guide by Gergely Orosz with you. It will prove very helpful.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A funny German interview with Ben Hammersley on the surface about laziness and productivity but what is a much more current strand to pull on is the ability to systematize large parts of our quotidian life and work.\nhttps://www.brandeins.de/magazine/brand-eins-wirtschaftsmagazin/2015/faulheit/strategisch-ausspannen\n","date":"September 5, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16269/","section":"Posts","summary":"A funny German interview with Ben Hammersley on the surface about laziness and productivity but what is a much more current strand to pull on is the ability to systematize large parts of our quotidian life and work.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"An uncannily thorough treatment of why DARPA works and how you might go about replicating it. Maybe people at the European policy level should read this instead of trying all these initiatives where everything good dies in a committee.\nhttps://benjaminreinhardt.com/wddw\n","date":"September 5, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16267/","section":"Posts","summary":"An uncannily thorough treatment of why DARPA works and how you might go about replicating it. Maybe people at the European policy level should read this instead of trying all these initiatives where everything good dies in a committee.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Foul things fled, fierce things tame; discord turned to harmony! For how could there be greed where all had enough? How could the vice, the crime, the ignorance, the brutality, that spring from poverty and the fear of poverty, exist where poverty had vanished? Who should crouch where all were freemen; who oppress where all were peers?\nWhere the conditions to which material progress everywhere tends are most fully realized—that is to say, where population is densest, wealth greatest, and the machinery of production and exchange most highly developed—we find the deepest poverty, the sharpest struggle for existence, and the most of enforced idleness.\nThis fact—the great fact that poverty and all its concomitants show themselves in communities just as they develop into the conditions toward which material progress tends—proves that the social difficulties existing wherever a certain stage of progress has been reached, do not arise from local circumstances, but are, in some way or another, engendered by progress itself.\nThe new forces, elevating in their nature though they be, do not act upon the social fabric from underneath, as was for a long time hoped and believed, but strike it at a point intermediate between top and bottom. It is as though an immense wedge were being forced, not underneath society, but through society. Those who are above the point of separation are elevated, but those who are below are crushed down.\nThe miner who, two thousand feet under ground in the heart of the Comstock, is digging out silver ore, is, in effect, by virtue of a thousand exchanges, harvesting crops in valleys five thousand feet nearer the earth’s center; chasing the whale through Arctic icefields; plucking tobacco leaves in Virginia; picking coffee berries in Honduras; cutting sugar cane on the Hawaiian Islands; gathering cotton in Georgia or weaving it in Manchester or Lowell; making quaint wooden toys for his children in the Hartz Mountains; or plucking amid the green and gold of Los Angeles orchards the oranges which, when his shift is relieved, he will take home to his sick wife. The wages which he receives on Saturday night at the mouth of the shaft, what are they but the certificate to all the world that he has done these things—the primary exchange in the long series which transmutes his labor into the things he has really been laboring for?\nIncrease in the amount of bonds, mortgages, notes, or bank bills cannot increase the wealth of the community that includes as well those who promise to pay as those who are entitled to receive. The enslavement of a part of their number could not increase the wealth of a people, for what the enslavers gained the enslaved would lose. Increase in land values does not represent increase in the common wealth, for what land owners gain by higher prices, the tenants or purchasers who must pay them will lose. And all this relative wealth, which, in common thought and speech, in legislation and law, is undistinguished from actual wealth, could, without the destruction or consumption of anything more than a few drops of ink and a piece of paper, be utterly annihilated.\nThus wealth, as alone the term can be used in political economy, consists of natural products that have been secured, moved, combined, separated, or in other ways modified by human exertion, so as to fit them for the gratification of human desires.\nCapital is only a part of wealth—that part, namely, which is devoted to the aid of production.\nFor labor always precedes wages. This is as universally true of wages received by the laborer from an employer as it is of wages taken directly by the laborer who is his own employer.\nFor the creation of value does not depend upon the finishing of the product; it takes place at every stage of the process of production, as the immediate result of the application of labor, and hence, no matter how long the process in which it is engaged, labor always adds to capital by its exertion before it takes from capital in its wages.\nIt is never as an employer of labor that any producer needs capital; when he does need capital, it is because he is not only an employer of labor, but a merchant or speculator in, or an accumulator of, the products of labor.\nNor what Malthus failed to show has any one since him shown. The globe may be surveyed and history may be reviewed in vain for any instance of a considerable country20 in which poverty and want can be fairly attributed to the pressure of an increasing population. Whatever be the possible dangers involved in the power of human increase, they have never yet appeared. Whatever may some time be, this never yet has been the evil that has afflicted mankind.\nThe millions of India have bowed their necks beneath the yokes of many conquerors, but worst of all is the steady, grinding weight of English domination—a weight which is literally crushing millions out of existence, and, as shown by English writers, is inevitably tending to a most frightful and widespread catastrophe.\nThe real cause of want in India has been, and yet is, the rapacity of man, not the niggardliness of nature.\nLabor was thus applied in the most inefficient and wasteful manner, and labor was dissipated in aimless idleness that, with any security for its fruits, would have been applied unremittingly.\nI know of nothing better calculated to make the blood boil than the cold accounts of the grasping, grinding tyranny to which the Irish people have been subjected, and to which, and not to any inability of the land to support its population, Irish pauperism and Irish famine are to be attributed; and were it not for the enervating effect which the history of the world proves to be everywhere the result of abject poverty, it would be difficult to resist something like a feeling of contempt for a race who, stung by such wrongs, have only occasionally murdered a landlord!\nI assert that, other things being equal, the greater the population, the greater the comfort which an equitable distribution of wealth would give to each individual. I assert that in a state of equality the natural increase of population would constantly tend to make every individual richer instead of poorer.\nStop labor in any community, and wealth would vanish almost as the jet of a fountain vanishes when the flow of water is shut off. Let labor again exert itself, and wealth will almost as immediately reappear.\nLand, labor, and capital are the factors of production. The term land includes all natural opportunities or forces; the term labor, all human exertion; and the term capital, all wealth used to produce more wealth.\nThe natural order is land, labor, capital; and, instead of starting from capital as our initial point, we should start from land.\nRent, in short, is the price of monopoly, arising from the reduction to individual ownership of natural elements which human exertion can neither produce nor increase.\nThus interest springs from the power of increase which the reproductive forces of nature, and the in effect analogous capacity for exchange, give to capital. It is not an arbitrary, but a natural thing; it is not the result of a particular social organization, but of laws of the universe which underlie society. It is, therefore, just.\nNothing can be capital, let it always be remembered, that is not wealth—that is to say, nothing can be capital that does not consist of actual, tangible things, not the spontaneous offerings of nature, which have in themselves, and not by proxy, the power of directly or indirectly ministering to human desire.\nEvery one knows the tyranny and rapacity with which capital when concentrated in large amounts is frequently wielded to corrupt, to rob, and to destroy.\nFor labor and capital are but different forms of the same thing—human exertion. Capital is produced by labor; it is, in fact, but labor impressed upon matter—labor stored up in matter, to be released again as needed, as the heat of the sun stored up in coal is released in the furnace. The use of capital in production is, therefore, but a mode of labor.\nOne man will not work for another for less than his labor will really yield, when he can go upon the next quarter section and take up a farm for himself. It is only as land becomes monopolized and these natural opportunities are shut off from labor, that laborers are obliged to compete with each other for employment, and it becomes possible for the farmer to hire hands to do his work while he maintains himself on the difference between what their labor produces and what he pays them for it.\nWages depend upon the margin of production, or upon the produce which labor can obtain at the highest point of natural productiveness open to it without the payment of rent.\nThree things unite to production—labor, capital, and land.\nThree parties divide the produce—the laborer, the capitalist, and the land owner.\nIf, with an increase of production the laborer gets no more and the capitalist no more it is a necessary inference that the land owner reaps the whole gain.\nAnd, hence, that the increase of productive power does not increase wages, is because it does increase the value of land. Rent swallows up the whole gain and pauperism accompanies progress.\nThe changes which constitute or contribute to material progress are three: (1) increase in population; (2) improvements in the arts of production and exchange; and (3) improvements in knowledge, education, government, police, manners, and morals, so far as they increase the power of producing wealth.\nUnder such circumstances, though nature is prolific, the man is poor. It is an easy matter for him to get enough to eat; but beyond this, his labor will suffice to satisfy only the simplest wants in the rudest way.\nFor, if labor-saving inventions went on until perfection was attained, and the necessity of labor in the production of wealth was entirely done away with, then everything that the earth could yield could be obtained without labor, and the margin of cultivation would be extended to zero. Wages would be nothing, and interest would be nothing, while rent would take everything. For the owners of the land, being enabled without labor to obtain all the wealth that could be procured from nature, there would be no use for either labor or capital, and no possible way in which either could compel any share of the wealth produced. And no matter how small population might be, if anybody but the land owners continued to exist, it would be at the whim or by the mercy of the land owners—they would be maintained either for the amusement of the land owners, or, as paupers, by their bounty.\nThe steam plow and the reaping machine are creating in the modern world latifundia of the same kind that the influx of slaves from foreign wars created in ancient Italy. And to many a poor fellow as he is shoved out of his accustomed place and forced to move on—as the Roman farmers were forced to join the proletariat of the great city, or sell their blood for bread in the ranks of the legions—it seems as though these labor-saving inventions were in themselves a curse, and we hear men talking of work, as though the wearying strain of the muscles were, in itself, a thing to be desired.\nFree trade has enormously increased the wealth of Great Britain, without lessening pauperism. It has simply increased rent. And if the corrupt governments of our great American cities were to be made models of purity and economy, the effect would simply be to increase the value of land, not to raise either wages or interest.\nPeriods of industrial activity always culminate in a speculative advance of land values, followed by symptoms of checked production, generally shown at first by cessation of demand from the newer countries, where the advance in land values has been greatest.\nTake the case of any one of these vast masses of unemployed men, to whom, though he never heard of Malthus, it to-day seems that there are too many people in the world. In his own wants, in the needs of his anxious wife, in the demands of his half-cared-for, perhaps even hungry and shivering children, there is demand enough for labor, Heaven knows! In his own willing hands is the supply. Put him on a solitary island, and though cut off from all the enormous advantages which the co-operation, combination, and machinery of a civilized community give to the productive powers of man, yet his two hands can fill the mouths and keep warm the backs that depend upon them. Yet where productive power is as its highest development they cannot. Why? Is it not because in the one case he has access to the material and forces of nature, and in the other this access is denied?\nThe proximate cause of enforced idleness with one set of men may be the cessation of demand on the part of other men for the particular things they produce, but trace this cause from point to point, from occupation to occupation, and you will find that enforced idleness in one trade is caused by enforced idleness in another, and that the paralysis which produces dullness in all trades cannot be said to spring from too great a supply of labor or too small a demand for labor, but must proceed from the fact that supply cannot meet demand by producing the things which satisfy want and are the object of labor.\nWhen we speak of labor creating wealth, we speak metaphorically. Man creates nothing. The whole human race, were they to labor forever, could not create the tiniest mote that floats in a sunbeam—could not make this rolling sphere one atom heavier or one atom lighter. In producing wealth, labor, with the aid of natural forces, but works up, into the forms desired, pre-existing matter, and, to produce wealth, must, therefore, have access to this matter and to these forces—that is to say, to land. The land is the source of all wealth.\nThe reason why, in spite of the increase of productive power, wages constantly tend to a minimum which will give but a bare living, is that, with increase in productive power, rent tends to even greater increase, thus producing a constant tendency to the forcing down of wages.\nLand being necessary to labor, and being reduced to private ownership, every increase in the productive power of labor but increases rent—the price that labor must pay for the opportunity to utilize its powers; and thus all the advantages gained by the march of progress go to the owners of land, and wages do not increase.\nThat as land is necessary to the exertion of labor in the production of wealth, to command the land which is necessary to labor, is to command all the fruits of labor save enough to enable labor to exist.\nNo increase of the effective power of labor can increase general wages, so long as rent swallows up all the gain.\nWherever the material condition of the laboring classes has been improved, improvement in their personal qualities has followed, and wherever their material condition has been depressed, deterioration in these qualities has been the result;\nTo make people industrious, prudent, skillful, and intelligent, they must be relieved from want.\nCapital not only ceases to earn anything when not used, but it goes to waste—for in nearly all its forms it can be maintained only by constant reproduction. But land will not starve like laborers or go to waste like capital—its owners can wait. They may be inconvenienced, it is true, but what is inconvenience to them, is destruction to capital and starvation to labor.\nThe advantage but adds to rent.\nWe have passed out of the socialism of the tribal state, and cannot re-enter it again except by a retrogression that would involve anarchy and perhaps barbarism.\nTo affirm that a man can rightfully claim exclusive ownership in his own labor when embodied in material things, is to deny that any one can rightfully claim exclusive ownership in land.\nThe equal right of all men to the use of land is as clear as their equal right to breathe the air—it is a right proclaimed by the fact of their existence. For we cannot suppose that some men have a right to be in this world and others no right.\nThe wide-spreading social evils which everywhere oppress men amid an advancing civilization spring from a great primary wrong—the appropriation, as the exclusive property of some men, of the land on which and from which all must live. From this fundamental injustice flow all the injustices which distort and endanger modern development, which condemn the producer of wealth to poverty and pamper the non-producer in luxury, which rear the tenement house with the palace, plant the brothel behind the church, and compel us to build prisons as we open new schools.\nIf chattel slavery be unjust, then is private property in land unjust.\nThere is nothing strange in the fact that, in spite of the enormous increase in productive power which this century has witnessed, and which is still going on, the wages of labor in the lower and wider strata of industry should everywhere tend to the wages of slavery—just enough to keep the laborer in working condition. For the ownership of the land on which and from which a man must live is virtually the ownership of the man himself, and in acknowledging the right of some individuals to the exclusive use and enjoyment of the earth, we condemn other individuals to slavery as fully and as completely as though we had formally made them chattels.\nThe ownership of land is the basis of aristocracy. It was not nobility that gave land, but the possession of land that gave nobility.\nWhatever be the increase of productive power, rent steadily tends to swallow up the gain, and more than the gain.\nThe direct responsibility of master to slave, a responsibility which exercises a softening influence upon the great majority of men, does not arise; it is not one human being who seems to drive another to unremitting and ill-requited toil, but “the inevitable laws of supply and demand,”for which no one in particular is responsible.\nBecause I was robbed yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that, is it any reason that I should suffer myself to be robbed to-day and to-morrow? any reason that I should conclude that the robber has acquired a vested right to rob me?\nThe primary and persistent perceptions of mankind are that all have an equal right to land, and the opinion that private property in land is necessary to society is but an offspring of ignorance that cannot look beyond its immediate surroundings—an idea of comparatively modern growth, as artificial and as baseless as that of the right divine of kings.\nThe child of the people, as he grows to manhood in Europe, finds all the best seats at the banquet of life marked “taken,”and must struggle with his fellows for the crumbs that fall, without one chance in a thousand of forcing or sneaking his way to a seat.\nIt is not that there is any real scarcity of land in California—for, an empire in herself, California will some day maintain a population as large as that of France—but appropriation has got ahead of the settler and manages to keep just ahead of him.\nE. R. Taylor.\nWhat is necessary for the use of land is not its private ownership, but the security of improvements.\nIt is not necessary to say to a man, “this land is yours,”in order to induce him to cultivate or improve it. It is only necessary to say to him, “whatever your labor or capital produces on this land shall be yours.”\nGive a man security that he may reap, and he will sow; assure him of the possession of the house he wants to build, and he will build it. These are the natural rewards of labor. It is for the sake of the reaping that men sow; it is for the sake of possessing houses that men build. The ownership of land has nothing to do with it.\nThe complete recognition of common rights to land need in no way interfere with the complete recognition of individual right to improvements or produce.\nIf the best use of land be the test, then private property in land is condemned, as it is condemned by every other consideration.\nA great wrong always dies hard, and the great wrong which in every civilized country condemns the masses of men to poverty and want, will not die without a bitter struggle.\nThat is to say, while the value of a railroad or telegraph line, the price of gas or of a patent medicine, may express the price of monopoly, it also expresses the exertion of labor and capital; but the value of land, or economic rent, as we have seen, is in no part made up from these factors, and expresses nothing but the advantage of appropriation.\nThe employers of labor would not have merely to bid against other employers, all feeling the stimulus of greater trade and increased profits, but against the ability of laborers to become their own employers upon the natural opportunities freely opened to them by the tax which prevented monopolization.\nAll fear of great fortunes might be dismissed, for when every one gets what he fairly earns, no one can get more than he fairly earns. How many men are there who fairly earn a million dollars?\nWe should reach the ideal of the socialist, but not through governmental repression. Government would change its character, and would become the administration of a great co-operative society. It would become merely the agency by which the common property was administered for the common benefit.\nAnd so in society, as at present constituted, men are greedy of wealth because the conditions of distribution are so unjust that instead of each being sure of enough, many are certain to be condemned to want. It is the “devil catch the hindmost”of present social adjustments that causes the race and scramble for wealth, in which all considerations of justice, mercy, religion, and sentiment are trampled under foot; in which men forget their own souls, and struggle to the very verge of the grave for what they cannot take beyond. But an equitable distribution of wealth, that would exempt all from the fear of want, would destroy the greed of wealth, just as in polite society the greed of food has been destroyed.\nWant might be banished, but desire would remain. Man is the unsatisfied animal. He has but begun to explore, and the universe lies before him. Each step that he takes opens new vistas and kindles new desires. He is the constructive animal; he builds, he improves, he invents, and puts together, and the greater the thing he does, the greater the thing he wants to do. He is more than an animal. Whatever be the intelligence that breathes through nature, it is in that likeness that man is made.\nThere is no such thing as the pursuit of pleasure for the sake of pleasure. Our very amusements amuse only as they are, or simulate, the learning or the doing of something. The moment they cease to appeal either to our inquisitive or to our constructive powers, they cease to amuse.\nAnd it shows how prolific is our human nature. As the common worker is on need transformed into queen bee, so, when circumstances favor his development, what might otherwise pass for a common man rises into a hero or leader, discoverer or teacher, sage or saint.\nConsider these things and then say whether the change I propose would not be for the benefit of every one—even the greatest land holder? Would he not be safer of the future of his children in leaving them penniless in such a state of society than in leaving them the largest fortune in this? Did such a state of society anywhere exist, would he not buy entrance to it cheaply by giving up all his possessions?\nThat each society, small or great, necessarily weaves for itself a web of knowledge, beliefs, customs, language, tastes, institutions, and laws. Into this web, woven by each society, or rather, into these webs, for each community above the simplest is made up of minor societies, which overlap and interlace each other, the individual is received at birth and continues until his death. This is the matrix in which mind unfolds and from which it takes its stamp. This is the way in which customs, and religions, and prejudices, and tastes, and languages, grow up and are perpetuated. This is the way that skill is transmitted and knowledge is stored up, and the discoveries of one time made the common stock and stepping stone of the next. Though it is this that often offers the most serious obstacles to progress, it is this that makes progress possible. It is this that enables any schoolboy in our time to learn in a few hours more of the universe than Ptolemy knew; that places the most humdrum scientist far above the level reached by the giant mind of Aristotle. This is to the race what memory is to the individual. Our wonderful arts, our far-reaching science, our marvelous inventions—they have come through this.\nThe incentives to progress are the desires inherent in human nature—the desire to gratify the wants of the animal nature, the wants of the intellectual nature, and the wants of the sympathetic nature; the desire to be, to know, and to do—desires that short of infinity can never be satisfied, as they grow by what they feed on.\nand this unequal distribution of the wealth and power gained as society advances tends to produce greater inequality, since aggression grows by what it feeds on, and the idea of justice is blurred by the habitual toleration of injustice.\nA community divided into a class that rules and a class that is ruled—into the very rich and the very poor, may “build like giants and finish like jewelers;”but it will be monuments of ruthless pride and barren vanity, or of a religion turned from its office of elevating man into an instrument for keeping him down.\nIt is in this way that petrifaction succeeds progress. The advance of inequality necessarily brings improvement to a halt, and as it still persists or provokes unavailing reactions, draws even upon the mental power necessary for maintenance, and retrogression begins.\nPolitical economy and social science cannot teach any lessons that are not embraced in the simple truths that were taught to poor fishermen and Jewish peasants by One who eighteen hundred years ago was crucified—the simple truths which, beneath the warpings of selfishness and the distortions of superstition, seem to underlie every religion that has ever striven to formulate the spiritual yearnings of man.\nWhat has destroyed every previous civilization has been the tendency to the unequal distribution of wealth and power.\nThat our legislative bodies are steadily deteriorating in standard; that men of the highest ability and character are compelled to eschew politics, and the arts of the jobber count for more than the reputation of the statesman; that voting is done more recklessly and the power of money is increasing; that it is harder to arouse the people to the necessity of reforms and more difficult to carry them out; that political differences are ceasing to be differences of principle, and abstract ideas are losing their power; that parties are passing into the control of what in general government would be oligarchies and dictatorships; are all evidences of political decline.\nThere is a vague but general feeling of disappointment; an increased bitterness among the working classes; a widespread feeling of unrest and brooding revolution. If this were accompanied by a definite idea of how relief is to be obtained, it would be a hopeful sign; but it is not.\nThis is the truth that we have ignored. And so there come beggars in our streets and tramps on our roads; and poverty enslaves men whom we boast are political sovereigns; and want breeds ignorance that our schools cannot enlighten; and citizens vote as their masters dictate; and the demagogue usurps the part of the statesman; and gold weighs in the scales of justice; and in high places sit those who do not pay to civic virtue even the compliment of hypocrisy; and the pillars of the republic that we thought so strong already bend under an increasing strain.\nFor the man who, seeing the want and misery, the ignorance and brutishness caused by unjust social institutions, sets himself, in so far as he has strength, to right them, there is disappointment and bitterness. So it has been of old time. So is it even now. But the bitterest thought—and it sometimes comes to the best and bravest—is that of the hopelessness of the effort, the futility of the sacrifice. To how few of those who sow the seed is it given to see it grow, or even with certainty to know that it will grow.\n","date":"September 1, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-progress-and-poverty/","section":"Posts","summary":"Foul things fled, fierce things tame; discord turned to harmony! For how could there be greed where all had enough? How could the vice, the crime, the ignorance, the brutality, that spring from poverty and the fear of poverty, exist where poverty had vanished? Who should crouch where all were freemen; who oppress where all were peers?\n","title":"Highlights for Progress and Poverty","type":"posts"},{"content":"Fuck Manhattan. This (Jackson Heights) is the real New York: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/08/27/arts/design/jackson-heights-queens-virtual-walk-tour.html?smid=tw-nytimes\u0026smtyp=cur\n","date":"August 31, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16262/","section":"Posts","summary":"Fuck Manhattan. This (Jackson Heights) is the real New York: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/08/27/arts/design/jackson-heights-queens-virtual-walk-tour.html?smid=tw-nytimes\u0026smtyp=cur\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"\u0026ldquo;Viele Unternehmen sehen zu viele theoretische Risiken statt einfach zu vertrauen, dass Menschen grundsätzlich mit Freiheiten verantwortungsvoll umgehen.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Das Managen von Mitarbeiterwünschen wie Elternzeit oder Urlaub gehört zu generischen Aufgaben einer Führungskraft. Wenn das jemand zu viel ist, sollte man der Person vielleicht nahelegen, etwas anderes zu machen.\u0026rdquo;\nA very pragmatic and modern approach to management and employees coming from the head of HR Cawa Younosi.\nhttps://www.haufe.de/personal/hr-management/wertewandel-bei-der-arbeitszeit-interview-mit-cawa-younosi_80_503324.html\n","date":"August 31, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16260/","section":"Posts","summary":"“Viele Unternehmen sehen zu viele theoretische Risiken statt einfach zu vertrauen, dass Menschen grundsätzlich mit Freiheiten verantwortungsvoll umgehen.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Talking with people about their career and professional development options is one of my active areas of improvement at the moment. If I\u0026rsquo;m generous I\u0026rsquo;d say I\u0026rsquo;m at level 2.\nhttps://managingdev.com/career-conversation-levels/\n","date":"August 25, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16257/","section":"Posts","summary":"Talking with people about their career and professional development options is one of my active areas of improvement at the moment. If I’m generous I’d say I’m at level 2.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":" Caring Gardening Engendering Resurgence Nurture Contingency Knots Assemblages Terrestrial Interdependence Precarity The Dithering https://twitter.com/anabjain/status/1230150599007756289\n“You cannot buy the revolution. You cannot make the revolution. You can only be the revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere.”\n― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed\nPhilosopher Isabelle Stengers writes how such a state of impasse is actively produced by the managers of the status quo — or the ‘Guardians’: When choices are presented by Guardians, they are infernal alternatives — a series of non-choices presented as choices to their various ‘publics’; the choice between doing nothing about climate change or geoengineering the climate; the choice to do nothing about deforestation or the choice to trade forests as commodities in order to preserve their ‘value’. This production of two bad alternatives, where one is ‘less bad’ than the other, is a means by which Guardians make problems inaccessible to anyone other than themselves. And so, a “cold panic”and an impotent fear of the future sets in, functionally demobilising people.”\n","date":"August 25, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/more-than-human/","section":"Posts","summary":" Caring Gardening Engendering Resurgence Nurture Contingency Knots Assemblages Terrestrial Interdependence Precarity The Dithering https://twitter.com/anabjain/status/1230150599007756289\n","title":"More-Than-Human","type":"posts"},{"content":"https://twitter.com/AntonJaegermm/status/1270410350278643714\nIllustration for \u0026lsquo;King Leopold\u0026rsquo;s Soliloquy\u0026rsquo; by Mark Twain, exposing the Congolese gulags in 1905.\n","date":"August 23, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16248/","section":"Posts","summary":"https://twitter.com/AntonJaegermm/status/1270410350278643714\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"This look into QAnon by a game designer goes deeper and is a lot more disturbing.\nhttps://medium.com/@registrarproject17/qanon-is-an-enormous-alternate-reality-game-arg-run-by-malevolent-puppetmasters-27e6b098ce9b\n","date":"August 23, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16245/","section":"Posts","summary":"This look into QAnon by a game designer goes deeper and is a lot more disturbing.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I love the examples in this bit about great engineering cultures: teamwork as default, quality is personal, results driven meetings \u0026amp; retrospectives are fun\nhttps://avivbenyosef.com/the-traits-of-a-great-engineering-culture/\n","date":"August 23, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16243/","section":"Posts","summary":"I love the examples in this bit about great engineering cultures: teamwork as default, quality is personal, results driven meetings \u0026 retrospectives are fun\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"We\u0026rsquo;ve also switched to somewhat more durable teams prompted in large part by Will Larson\u0026rsquo;s book. Here Anna Shipman lists the benefits of doing so.\nhttps://medium.com/ft-product-technology/unlocking-value-with-durable-teams-a70efb435a19\n","date":"August 23, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16241/","section":"Posts","summary":"We’ve also switched to somewhat more durable teams prompted in large part by Will Larson’s book. Here Anna Shipman lists the benefits of doing so.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;m no stranger to ARGs but still I learned a lot from this reading of QAnon as one.\nhttps://mssv.net/2020/08/02/what-args-can-teach-us-about-qanon/\n","date":"August 23, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16239/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’m no stranger to ARGs but still I learned a lot from this reading of QAnon as one.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"“Ist es extrem, leben zu wollen? Ist der Wunsch extrem, deinem Kind nicht dabei zusehen zu müssen, wie es von Polizisten erschossen wird? Oder, nicht mehr jeden Cent zweimal umdrehen zu müssen? Nein. Die Ansicht, dass das extrem sei, ist extrem. Und zwar extrem menschenfeindlich.”\nSibel not pulling any punches here with a snappy take on the Cancel Culture debate.\nhttps://missy-magazine.de/blog/2020/08/11/cancel-culture-my-ass/\n","date":"August 23, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16237/","section":"Posts","summary":"“Ist es extrem, leben zu wollen? Ist der Wunsch extrem, deinem Kind nicht dabei zusehen zu müssen, wie es von Polizisten erschossen wird? Oder, nicht mehr jeden Cent zweimal umdrehen zu müssen? Nein. Die Ansicht, dass das extrem sei, ist extrem. Und zwar extrem menschenfeindlich.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I thought I knew how big a deal TikTok was a year ago already but I feel sorry for not diving in back then because it is much bigger a deal than I had thought.\nhttps://turner.substack.com/p/the-rise-of-tiktok-and-understanding\n","date":"August 16, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16234/","section":"Posts","summary":"I thought I knew how big a deal TikTok was a year ago already but I feel sorry for not diving in back then because it is much bigger a deal than I had thought.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"\u0026ldquo;The second thing is that there’s almost no watchable esport for a normal person. The real issue is that no one has actually made [an esport] that people like to play, that is fun to play, that is also remotely tolerable to watch for a normal person. They’re all baffling. I dare anyone to turn on Overwatch in front of a person and even explain what’s going on to them. The closest we’ve gotten [to something watchable] is Rocket League, because it’s just soccer.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;I think there’s a possibility that augmented reality and physical controllers could produce an interesting future direction for esports. Like if you look up contemporary Olympic fencing, it’s weirdly cool-looking. It looks like a future sport. The players are wired up, electronically connected. There is a sense in which Olympic fencing is already an esport of a kind.\u0026rdquo;\nhttps://supernyx.com/articles/where-do-we-go-from-here-game-scholars-discuss-future-esports\n","date":"August 16, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16232/","section":"Posts","summary":"“The second thing is that there’s almost no watchable esport for a normal person. The real issue is that no one has actually made [an esport] that people like to play, that is fun to play, that is also remotely tolerable to watch for a normal person. They’re all baffling. I dare anyone to turn on Overwatch in front of a person and even explain what’s going on to them. The closest we’ve gotten [to something watchable] is Rocket League, because it’s just soccer.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Reading this account by the former COO Francoise Brougher, I\u0026rsquo;m disappointed to learn how badly Pinterest failed at Diversity and Inclusion.\nhttps://medium.com/@francoise_93266/the-pinterest-paradox-cupcakes-and-toxicity-57ed6bd76960\n","date":"August 16, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16230/","section":"Posts","summary":"Reading this account by the former COO Francoise Brougher, I’m disappointed to learn how badly Pinterest failed at Diversity and Inclusion.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The JIRA team does not use JIRA and of course why would they if anybody gave them the choice. Also, JIRA is often not used for software engineering anymore but it fits the bill for large scale workflows and compliance trails.\nhttps://twitter.com/isislovecruft/status/1292331568330022913\n","date":"August 16, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16228/","section":"Posts","summary":"The JIRA team does not use JIRA and of course why would they if anybody gave them the choice. Also, JIRA is often not used for software engineering anymore but it fits the bill for large scale workflows and compliance trails.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"https://twitter.com/aaronzlewis/status/1291889682788253696\nI too did not realize how far we\u0026rsquo;ve come. It feels good to have been right about this trend of full permeation of games and play becoming a default mode five years ago with Hubbub.\nhttps://twitter.com/aaronzlewis/status/1291889695102656513\nThis graphic about Western vs. Eastern conceptions of playing from \u0026lsquo;The Future of Ritual\u0026rsquo;\n","date":"August 16, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16224/","section":"Posts","summary":"https://twitter.com/aaronzlewis/status/1291889682788253696\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"There are the leaders that — like samurai — embrace death. They see their role as protecting and empowering the people below them who do the real work and it’s an honor to serve the team’s interests even if things do not go well for them personally.\nBut some people don’t process risk in that way. Those leaders get drawn into trying to outrun death, which is as impossible metaphorically as it would be literally. You can’t avoid taking responsibility forever. Eventually there will be some disappointment or mistake that you will be called on to answer for.\nThe leaders who have a low tolerance for risk — and I say leaders instead of managers because on engineering teams these concepts also apply to Staff and Principal engineers — will respond to risk by either avoiding it outright or figuring out how to spin the situation so that it is Not Their Fault(TM)\nThese leaders ultimately become bureaucrats. The perfect job is the job with the glamorous title and the big paycheck where no decisions and no risks need to be taken. These leaders end up in startups more often than you might expect. That’s because continuing down a career where you’re running from death all the time does real damage to you psychologically. It’s important to understand that even though it seems like these people don’t care they are still human and they still have the same basic needs and feelings as anyone else. Fleeing death doesn’t just hurt the people they throw under the bus, it also hurts them. They want to be respected by their employees and often know they are not. They want to be admired and often know they are not. They also feel guilty screwing people over to survive.\nIt starts out weird but this is an amazing article about leaders\u0026rsquo; appetites for risk and how that plays out within companies.\nhttps://medium.com/@bellmar/why-is-this-idiot-running-my-engineering-org-c6e815790cdb\n","date":"August 14, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16220/","section":"Posts","summary":"There are the leaders that — like samurai — embrace death. They see their role as protecting and empowering the people below them who do the real work and it’s an honor to serve the team’s interests even if things do not go well for them personally.\n","title":"Risk appetites of different leaders","type":"posts"},{"content":"I think there was another study about psychopathy in high status car drivers but for now this is good enough.\nThe answers were unambiguous: self-centred men who are argumentative, stubborn, disagreeable and unempathetic are much more likely to own a high-status car such as an Audi, BMW or Mercedes.\nhttps://www.helsinki.fi/en/news/nordic-welfare-news/the-fast-and-the-furious-research-shows-that-owners-of-high-status-cars-are-on-a-collision-course-with-traffic\n","date":"August 8, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16218/","section":"Posts","summary":"I think there was another study about psychopathy in high status car drivers but for now this is good enough.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I have my first name as my user name in a bunch of places. I\u0026rsquo;ve had my Twitter account (Twitter.com/alper) for a very long time but my Instagram account (Instagram.com/alper) got a lot more attention after Instagram got really big. A couple of weeks ago I lost that account.\nI didn’t suspect that this time it would be permanent. It happened before that Instagram would lock me out of my account because they claimed I had infringed a not-specified guideline. I would open a support request, they would have me jump through some hoops and then re-enable my account.\nNot this time.\nNow why does this happen in the first place? A first name account like mine is considered OG (see this episode of Reply All). Lots of people—mostly from Turkey—would really love to have it. I know this because I get messages from them all the time. I ignore these messages. I also get lots of password resets from people trying to break into my account. I have the account secured.\nWhat they then most likely try is to claim that I’m impersonating somebody. I don\u0026rsquo;t think I can impersonate myself but let’s just go with it. Instagram does not do any due diligence and if they get the right kind or right amount of reports, they just suspend my account. I guess that is the first step in a process through which the attacker believes they can get me kicked off the account permanently and then maybe later acquire the username.\nNormally support would give me back my account in a couple of days. This time all my support requests have been black holed.\nInstagram support is very well hidden but if you search around you can find three web forms in the support portal for a situation such as this one. I filled those in multiple times. I got in touch with people who work at Instagram through various channels. This dude followed me so I asked him about my account (no reply). I even had people open Facebook internal support tickets which still remain open. A support agent replied to me once but then ghosted me.\nSpeculation # If they would usually give me back my account, why don\u0026rsquo;t they do it this time?\nOne theory is that Instagram support is overwhelmed because of COVID. They seem to have difficulty even normally with the number of support requests so it could be possible that if things get worse, stuff just gets ignored. I don\u0026rsquo;t really buy this but it\u0026rsquo;s possible.\nMy theory is that somebody with some actual clout has put a hold on my username. People and agencies with access to Instagram sell services such as support or verified status illicitly. Maybe somebody is selling access to my username or they are using my username to trade for something more valuable. Facebook is under a lot of pressure to make advertising targets at the moment.\nResolution # By now I don’t think I will get my account back anymore. I’m waiting to see if it gets recycled and who will be using it after me.\nIt’s a weird feeling losing something that other people think carries significant monetary value.\nBut it\u0026rsquo;s a lot more annoying to lose your identity and sense of place. I’ve started a new account but without access to the old one, getting it to the same place has been a very slow and arduous process. I’m still cut-off from several hundred people who I would communicate with over Instagram, for some of whom this was the only communication channel.\nOf course I knew that none of this was mine to start with and it could be taken away with the press of a button. I just ignored it. Don’t make the same mistake I did.\nUpdate # I thought I would do a round of submissions of all the support forms again but it turns out they are broken. They request you to login to Instagram before you fill them in which is impossible if your account is suspended.\nr/Instagram - How can I confirm it\u0026rsquo;s me? Let\u0026rsquo;s see how this develops but it looks like this is deliberate stonewalling.\n","date":"August 5, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/losing-firstname-on-instagram/","section":"Posts","summary":"I have my first name as my user name in a bunch of places. I’ve had my Twitter account (Twitter.com/alper) for a very long time but my Instagram account (Instagram.com/alper) got a lot more attention after Instagram got really big. A couple of weeks ago I lost that account.\n","title":"Losing @firstname on Instagram","type":"posts"},{"content":"I thought this was a great interview with Kim Stanley Robinson but it turns out the Corona virus has not rewritten our imaginations enough, not enough at all.\nhttps://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-inquiry/the-coronavirus-and-our-future\n","date":"August 2, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16210/","section":"Posts","summary":"I thought this was a great interview with Kim Stanley Robinson but it turns out the Corona virus has not rewritten our imaginations enough, not enough at all.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The opinions of \u0026lsquo;Uncle Bob\u0026rsquo; have always been harmful both when it comes to code as well as non-code. It\u0026rsquo;s a bit shameful for us as an industry that it took so long for people to wisen up to this.\nhttps://medium.com/@BradleyHolt/what-uncle-bob-gets-wrong-c01d85c52163\n","date":"August 2, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16208/","section":"Posts","summary":"The opinions of ‘Uncle Bob’ have always been harmful both when it comes to code as well as non-code. It’s a bit shameful for us as an industry that it took so long for people to wisen up to this.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A lovely and long history of Nespresso a coffee I\u0026rsquo;ve hated to drink but it\u0026rsquo;s still been better than many alternatives.\nhttps://www.theguardian.com/food/2020/jul/14/nespresso-coffee-capsule-pods-branding-clooney-nestle-recycling-environment\n","date":"August 2, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16206/","section":"Posts","summary":"A lovely and long history of Nespresso a coffee I’ve hated to drink but it’s still been better than many alternatives.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The types of resistance available to women are particularly interesting: They themselves understand their daily tasks — the upkeep of their homes and the care of their families — as a form of steadfast resistance.\nAn interesting point how the women in Gaza play a big part in the resistance with these ‘weapons of the weak’ that they have.\nhttp://www.warscapes.com/retrospectives/food/kitchen-anthropology-gaza\n","date":"July 31, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16204/","section":"Posts","summary":"The types of resistance available to women are particularly interesting: They themselves understand their daily tasks — the upkeep of their homes and the care of their families — as a form of steadfast resistance.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Crucially, at street scale, on-street parking is not allowed, which opens up the streetscape for people, on foot and on bike, for conversation and activities, and yes, for moving goods and people around but as a secondary ‘enabling’ activity to the life of the street itself.\nhttps://medium.com/slowdown-papers/18-from-lockdown-to-slowdown-tokyo-as-slowdown-city-822dc0b6f3cc\n","date":"July 27, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/tokyo-as-slowdown-city/","section":"Posts","summary":"Crucially, at street scale, on-street parking is not allowed, which opens up the streetscape for people, on foot and on bike, for conversation and activities, and yes, for moving goods and people around but as a secondary ‘enabling’ activity to the life of the street itself.\n","title":"Tokyo as slowdown city","type":"posts"},{"content":"Remember that in any organisation, people make decisions — decisions are about trade-offs, and decisions can be influenced, overturned, and changed. More importantly, organisations evolve— the way decisions were made yesterday might not be the way they get made tomorrow!\nAn uncommonly sophisticated piece of how to think about technical debt and how to tackle it organizationally. It already starts off right by not using a debt-is-money comparison.\nhttps://medium.com/humans-of-xero/technical-debt-f5158cc9ca07\n","date":"July 24, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16200/","section":"Posts","summary":"Remember that in any organisation, people make decisions — decisions are about trade-offs, and decisions can be influenced, overturned, and changed. More importantly, organisations evolve— the way decisions were made yesterday might not be the way they get made tomorrow!\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Stripe joins the list of companies that have tried out remote working and are now doubling down on it.\nhttps://stripe.com/blog/remote-hub-one-year\n","date":"July 24, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16198/","section":"Posts","summary":"Stripe joins the list of companies that have tried out remote working and are now doubling down on it.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;ve been very pleasantly surprised with the FT\u0026rsquo;s reporting, diversity, tech-savvy and also the travel specials.\nhttps://www.vogue.co.uk/arts-and-lifestyle/article/roula-khalaf-interview\n","date":"July 24, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16196/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’ve been very pleasantly surprised with the FT’s reporting, diversity, tech-savvy and also the travel specials.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The Zendesk story of how they built a globally distributed company is quite amazing, but there are many more like this by now.\nhttps://medium.com/zendesk-engineering/10-tips-for-growing-a-globally-distributed-engineering-team-21d5435b732a\n","date":"July 24, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16194/","section":"Posts","summary":"The Zendesk story of how they built a globally distributed company is quite amazing, but there are many more like this by now.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Desert Golfing is een game over golfen in de woestijn. In een twee-dimensionaal pastelkleurig woestijnlandschap moet je een bal de hole in schieten. Je vinger bepaalt de kracht en de hoek van je slag en als je loslaat vliegt de bal weg. Hoe ver je bal komt, hoe vaak hij stuitert en hoe lang hij doorrolt voelen perfect, eigenlijk precies alsof je echt golf speelt in een woestijn. Alleen ben je hier na 18 holes niet klaar. We weten nu dat er duizenden willekeurig gegenereerde woestijnlandschappen—de een moeilijker dan de andere—wachten om gespeeld te worden en er is nog geen einde in zicht. De combinatie van eenvoud en oneindigheid maken dat je Desert Golfing lang kunt blijven spelen. Het is een fijn tussendoortje voor onderweg en tegelijkertijd een meditatie op hoeveel er met heel weinig mogelijk is.\n5/5\niOS App Store €0,89\n","date":"July 20, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/nrc-next-game-recensie-desert-golfing/","section":"Posts","summary":"Desert Golfing is een game over golfen in de woestijn. In een twee-dimensionaal pastelkleurig woestijnlandschap moet je een bal de hole in schieten. Je vinger bepaalt de kracht en de hoek van je slag en als je loslaat vliegt de bal weg. Hoe ver je bal komt, hoe vaak hij stuitert en hoe lang hij doorrolt voelen perfect, eigenlijk precies alsof je echt golf speelt in een woestijn. Alleen ben je hier na 18 holes niet klaar. We weten nu dat er duizenden willekeurig gegenereerde woestijnlandschappen—de een moeilijker dan de andere—wachten om gespeeld te worden en er is nog geen einde in zicht. De combinatie van eenvoud en oneindigheid maken dat je Desert Golfing lang kunt blijven spelen. Het is een fijn tussendoortje voor onderweg en tegelijkertijd een meditatie op hoeveel er met heel weinig mogelijk is.\n","title":"nrc.next game-recensie: Desert Golfing","type":"posts"},{"content":" ","date":"July 20, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/nrc-next-game-recensie-prison-architect/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"nrc.next game-recensie: Prison Architect","type":"posts"},{"content":"Je kon hem al spelen, maar Proteus van Ed Key is nu eindelijk officieel uit. Proteus is de naam van het willekeurig gegenereerde eiland wat je bezoekt. Aangekomen op het strand zie je op het eerste gezicht alleen wat bomen maar als je verder loopt kom je gaandeweg dieren en ook andere objecten tegen. Door rond te lopen beïnvloed je het eiland. Dat zie je niet alleen, je hoort het vooral in de muziek (gecomponeerd door David Kanaga) en de geluiden die allebei reageren op wat je doet.\nProteus bevat geen echte doelen. Er is geen prestatiedruk en je hoeft je niet bezig te houden met wat je nu ook alweer moet doen zoals in andere spellen. Je loopt over het eiland en laat de ervaringen op je af komen.\nDat zijn er meer dan je op het eerste gezicht zou denken. Keer op keer ondernam ik een tocht die ik halverwege afbrak omdat ik een groepje dieren wilde achtervolgen of naar een adembenemend uitzicht ging zitten kijken. En elke keer als er een dag of een seizoen voorbij is, verandert Proteus en zijn er weer nieuwe dingen te zien en te doen.\nDe doelloosheid en eindeloze variëteit van Proteus maken dat je niet uitgekeken raakt. Je kunt er keer op keer terug blijven komen. Proteus is dan ook niet zozeer een spel als wel een plek die altijd op je wacht.\nWindows/Mac $10\n(4/5)\n","date":"July 20, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/nrc-next-game-recensie-proteus/","section":"Posts","summary":"Je kon hem al spelen, maar Proteus van Ed Key is nu eindelijk officieel uit. Proteus is de naam van het willekeurig gegenereerde eiland wat je bezoekt. Aangekomen op het strand zie je op het eerste gezicht alleen wat bomen maar als je verder loopt kom je gaandeweg dieren en ook andere objecten tegen. Door rond te lopen beïnvloed je het eiland. Dat zie je niet alleen, je hoort het vooral in de muziek (gecomponeerd door David Kanaga) en de geluiden die allebei reageren op wat je doet.\n","title":"nrc.next game-recensie: Proteus","type":"posts"},{"content":"Het langverwachte “Botanicula”van Amanita Design is uit en het is nog mooier dan de vorige spellen (Samorost, Machinarium etc.) van deze studio. De jaren werk die erin zitten zijn af te zien en te horen aan dit spel dat verbaast door zijn pure schoonheid.\nIn Botanicula speel je vijf botanische wezens die de boom waar ze leven moeten redden van duistere spinnen die alles dood maken. Dit loopt uiteindelijk —natuurlijk— goed af.\nHet flinterdunne verhaal is een excuus om mooie dingen te laten zien. Elk scherm is een botanische aquarel waarin van alles dwarrelt, deint of iets anders schattigs doet als reactie op jou. Amanita meet zich hiermee met de groten uit de animatiewereld en brengt het daar goed vanaf.\nZo prachtig als het is uitgevoerd, zo simpel is het spel. Je verzamelt zaadjes en klikt dieren aan op de boom om weer andere wezens te helpen die je verder brengen. Niet heel ingewikkeld maar makkelijker gezegd dan gedaan. Soms is ook na zoeken de bedoeling niet helemaal duidelijk en er zitten minigames in die in verhouding met de rest van het spel te moeilijk zijn.\nDit maakt dat het spel niet heel diepgaand is maar een paar uur plezier heb je er zeker wel van. Botanicula is zo’n kinderboek dat je als volwassene ook kunt kopen en wie ermee aan de slag gaat maakt dan ook niet zoveel meer uit.\n(4/5)\nWindows / Mac / Linux\n€7,99\nNRC_20120620_1_015_article3-1 Download\n","date":"July 20, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/nrc-next-game-recensie-botanicula/","section":"Posts","summary":"Het langverwachte “Botanicula”van Amanita Design is uit en het is nog mooier dan de vorige spellen (Samorost, Machinarium etc.) van deze studio. De jaren werk die erin zitten zijn af te zien en te horen aan dit spel dat verbaast door zijn pure schoonheid.\n","title":"nrc.next game-recensie: Botanicula","type":"posts"},{"content":"“Where is my Heart?”is een platform-puzzelspel van Deense sensatie Die Gute Fabrik. Je bestuurt om beurten een van drie ontheemde monsters die een tocht door het bos maken om de weg naar huis te vinden. De monsters zijn erg charmant geanimeerd, de niveau\u0026rsquo;s in het bos zijn getekend in pixelart van een toverachtige schoonheid en de soundtrack bestaat uit stemmige 8-bit muziek die zich tijdens het spel mee ontwikkelt. De uitvoering is perfect, maar die is niet zo belangrijk.\nWat dit spel bijzonder maakt is hoe je het moet spelen. Elk niveau is opgedeeld in kaders zoals een strip, maar deze kaders zijn uit hun verband gerukt. Loop je het ene kader uit, dan hoef je niet in het kader ernaast te verschijnen, maar kun je totaal ergens anders op het scherm uitkomen. Door die chaos zie je niet direct wat je moet doen. Alles aan elkaar puzzelen schiet ook niet echt op. De beste manier om een niveau af te ronden is door al spelende je hersenen te dwingen te leren waar de verbindingen liggen en wat je moet doen.\nBat King en Antler Ancestor hebben aardige speciale vaardigheden (dubbel springen, objecten in een schemerwereld gebruiken) maar Rainbow Spirit steelt de show. Hij kan de kaders van een niveau herschikken en kiezen in welke hij weer landt. Die mogelijkheid zet alles op zijn kop en leidt tot grote hoofdbrekers.\n“Where is my Heart?”is een zeldzaam moeilijk spel maar de beloningen zijn ook groot. Een paar dingen die niet lukken worden eentonig, maar de sublieme uitvoering trekt je er doorheen. Uiteindelijk duurt het niet heel lang voor de monsters weer thuis zijn en jij thuis met een voldaan gevoel naar de aftiteling kijkt.\n(5/5)\n€5\nPS3 en PSP minis\n","date":"July 20, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/nrc-next-game-recensie-where-is-my-heart/","section":"Posts","summary":"“Where is my Heart?”is een platform-puzzelspel van Deense sensatie Die Gute Fabrik. Je bestuurt om beurten een van drie ontheemde monsters die een tocht door het bos maken om de weg naar huis te vinden. De monsters zijn erg charmant geanimeerd, de niveau’s in het bos zijn getekend in pixelart van een toverachtige schoonheid en de soundtrack bestaat uit stemmige 8-bit muziek die zich tijdens het spel mee ontwikkelt. De uitvoering is perfect, maar die is niet zo belangrijk.\n","title":"nrc.next game-recensie: Where is my Heart?","type":"posts"},{"content":"In ‘The Binding of Isaac’ wil Isaacs godsdienstwaanzinnige moeder hem opofferen zoals in het gelijknamige bijbelverhaal. Jij moet Isaac helpen ontsnappen in een hellegang onder zijn eigen huis. Een apart thema en off-beat humor zoals we eerder ook zagen in Super Meat Boy van dezelfde maker.\nJe loopt met Isaac van kamer naar kamer, tranen schietend op duivelse vliegen, bewegend vlees en andere monsters. Zodra alles dood is kun je door met de buit die je verzamelt. Ga je zelf dood, dan begin je opnieuw. Behendig spelen en de juiste keuzes maken zijn zaak om te winnen van Isaacs demonen. De niveau’s zijn elke keer anders en symboliseren de afdaling in Isaacs nachtmerries.\nHet is een spel van extreme contrasten. De tekenstijl is kinderlijk maar druipt van het bloed. De verwijzingen naar de bijbel worden afgewisseld met referenties naar games. Dat ligt wat zwaar op de hand voor een spel dat blijft steken bij hele simpele satire. Toch is ‘The Binding of Isaac’ wél erg leuk. Er valt veel te verkennen, de moeilijkheid neemt subtiel toe en de drempel om nog een keer te spelen ligt lekker laag.\n(4/5) Steam (Mac/PC)\n","date":"July 20, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/nrc-next-game-recensie-the-binding-of-isaac/","section":"Posts","summary":"In ‘The Binding of Isaac’ wil Isaacs godsdienstwaanzinnige moeder hem opofferen zoals in het gelijknamige bijbelverhaal. Jij moet Isaac helpen ontsnappen in een hellegang onder zijn eigen huis. Een apart thema en off-beat humor zoals we eerder ook zagen in Super Meat Boy van dezelfde maker.\n","title":"nrc.next game-recensie: The Binding of Isaac","type":"posts"},{"content":"Kinderen dwingen om erts te verzamelen, zelfmoordende fabrieksarbeiders opvangen, gadgets werpen naar blind rennende consumenten zijn niet de dingen die je in een game verwacht. Het kon bij de censoren van Apple ook niet door de beugel. Het spel Phone Story waarin dit allemaal gebeurt heeft een paar uur in de App Store gestaan voor Apple het verwijderde.\nPhone Story van Molleindustria, doet wat de titel zegt: het vertelt het verhaal van de herkomst, fabricage, marketing en het afdanken van de gadgets waar we zo graag mee spelen. De gameplay is uitdagend genoeg, het spel bevat een voice-over die toelicht hoe je telefoon gemaakt is en wat bijtende details. Een leuk spelletje als kritiek op dezelfde iPhone waar je het op speelt.\nDat Apple het censureerde is wrang en benadrukt het punt dat Molleindustria wilde maken. De redenen van verwijdering (het weergeven van verwerpelijke handelingen) zijn willekeurig en zonder die beelden zou het spel niet waarheidsgetrouw zijn. Een waarheid die als het aan Apple ligt liever niet bekend wordt.\n(4/5)\nPlatform: Nu wél beschikbaar voor Android\nPrijs: €0,73\n","date":"July 20, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/nrc-next-game-recensie-phone-story/","section":"Posts","summary":"Kinderen dwingen om erts te verzamelen, zelfmoordende fabrieksarbeiders opvangen, gadgets werpen naar blind rennende consumenten zijn niet de dingen die je in een game verwacht. Het kon bij de censoren van Apple ook niet door de beugel. Het spel Phone Story waarin dit allemaal gebeurt heeft een paar uur in de App Store gestaan voor Apple het verwijderde.\n","title":"nrc.next game-recensie: Phone Story","type":"posts"},{"content":"Op 5 maart 1967 overlijdt Dr. Mohammad Mossadeq na een gevecht met keelkanker. Hij had daarvoor jarenlang in de gevangenis en onder huisarrest gezeten omdat hij als premier van Iran zijn volk wilde bevrijden van de Engelse koloniale invloed. De Engels-Amerikaanse staatsgreep die hem afzette heeft een grote invloed gehad op de wereldgeschiedenis maar dit inspirerende en historisch belangrijke verhaal is nauwelijks bekend in het Westen.\n‘The Cat and the Coup’ is een spel dat begint op het moment van Mossadeqs overlijden. Je speelt zijn kat en moet in die gedaante de voormalig premier terug in de tijd leiden langs de gebeurtenissen die leidden tot zijn val. Je stuurt Mossadeq van kamer naar kamer in een enorme collage van Perzische miniaturen, karikaturen en andere elementen die bij elkaar voor een overweldigend effect zorgen.\nDe makers wilden met dit documentaire-spel de aandacht vestigen op dit onderbelichte stuk geschiedenis. De vele prijzen die het spel gewonnen heeft geven aan dat ze daarin op een bijzondere manier geslaagd zijn.\nHet spel zelf is eenvoudig en kort en wil je op geen enkele manier een compleet beeld geven. De indruk die het achterlaat is er niet minder om. De visuele rijkdom waarbinnen alles zich afspeelt naast de historische feiten, zorgen ervoor dat je bijna vanzelf details ontdekt, verbanden legt en er achter wilt komen wat er nu precies gebeurd is toen.\n(PC, Mac) (4/5)\n","date":"July 20, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/nrc-next-game-recensie-the-cat-and-the-coup/","section":"Posts","summary":"Op 5 maart 1967 overlijdt Dr. Mohammad Mossadeq na een gevecht met keelkanker. Hij had daarvoor jarenlang in de gevangenis en onder huisarrest gezeten omdat hij als premier van Iran zijn volk wilde bevrijden van de Engelse koloniale invloed. De Engels-Amerikaanse staatsgreep die hem afzette heeft een grote invloed gehad op de wereldgeschiedenis maar dit inspirerende en historisch belangrijke verhaal is nauwelijks bekend in het Westen.\n","title":"nrc.next game-recensie: The Cat and the Coup","type":"posts"},{"content":"Het lijkt een leuke variant van Space Invaders maar Inside a Star-filled Sky heeft oneindig veel meer te bieden.\nIn dit schietspel speel je een monster, dat andere monsters neerschiet op zoek naar de uitgang. Heb je die gevonden, dan verander je in het monster waarvan blijkt dat je daar net in zat en zo blijft dat doorgaan. Onderweg pik je wapens op die je volgende ik helpen om te overleven. Als dat niet lukt en je dood gaat, mag je het opnieuw proberen, of kun je zijsprongen maken door in monsters, power-ups of jezelf te gaan en dat pad te volgen.\nJason Rohrer, de maker, gaf eerder met veel succes verhaal gebaseerde spellen uit. Van verhaal is hier geen sprake. Alles in dit spel is automatisch gegenereerd van de levels tot en met de graphics en het geluid aan toe. Hierdoor en door alle combinaties en vertakkingen die het bewegen tussen niveau’s oplevert, kun je blijven spelen zonder twee keer hetzelfde te zien. Het is net als de veel-werelden-interpretatie uit de kwantummechanica. Elke mogelijke wereld bestaat, alleen onze acties bepalen welk pad we volgen.\nHet spel heeft best een steile leercurve, maar zodra het begint te lopen en je vloeiend van niveau naar niveau gaat, wordt het boeiend. Oneindigheid kan saai zijn, maar hier is dat abstracte concept briljant vertaald in een simpel schietspelletje.\nhttp://insideastarfilledsky.net/\n$12, voor Windows, Mac en Linux\n","date":"July 20, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/nrc-next-game-recensie-inside-a-star-filled-sky/","section":"Posts","summary":"Het lijkt een leuke variant van Space Invaders maar Inside a Star-filled Sky heeft oneindig veel meer te bieden.\n","title":"nrc.next game-recensie: Inside a Star-filled Sky","type":"posts"},{"content":"\u0026ldquo;There must be agreement on a coalition between labor and capital, whose interests are aligned in seeking taxation from landowners rather than workers or productive activity.\u0026rdquo;\nFixing the housing problem will require radical new coalitions to break existing deadlocks.\nhttps://gravitylobby.club/knot.html\n","date":"July 14, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16161/","section":"Posts","summary":"“There must be agreement on a coalition between labor and capital, whose interests are aligned in seeking taxation from landowners rather than workers or productive activity.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Edge C2 is a nice ideal position to move towards in this article about military agility that contains a bunch of useful elements including an interlinked OODA loop and a visualization of the Trust Equation.\nhttps://thearmyleader.co.uk/future-of-command-and-control/\n","date":"July 14, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16157/","section":"Posts","summary":"Edge C2 is a nice ideal position to move towards in this article about military agility that contains a bunch of useful elements including an interlinked OODA loop and a visualization of the Trust Equation.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"“It is not quantity of his audience that matters so much as the nature of it, however. And the neoreactionaries do seem to be influencing the drift of Silicon Valley libertarianism, which is no small force today.”\nA nice chaser to the article about SSC is this profile on some of the most repugnant people in Silicon Valley.\nhttps://thebaffler.com/latest/mouthbreathing-machiavellis\n","date":"July 13, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16155/","section":"Posts","summary":"“It is not quantity of his audience that matters so much as the nature of it, however. And the neoreactionaries do seem to be influencing the drift of Silicon Valley libertarianism, which is no small force today.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"An excellent overview of the issues around Slate Star Codex without having to read a single word of the blog yourself. That\u0026rsquo;s an excellent service.\nhttps://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-inquiry/slate-star-codex-and-silicon-valleys-war-against-the-media\n","date":"July 13, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/slate-star-codex-and-silicon-valleys-war-against-the-media/","section":"Posts","summary":"An excellent overview of the issues around Slate Star Codex without having to read a single word of the blog yourself. That’s an excellent service.\n","title":"Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media","type":"posts"},{"content":"Scaling up successful government bureaucracies is something I\u0026rsquo;ve considered as well and which has lots of benefits over privatization (and could be a real solution for the fragmented administration that Germany has for instance).\nhttps://gravitylobby.club/administrationmarkets.html\n","date":"July 13, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16151/","section":"Posts","summary":"Scaling up successful government bureaucracies is something I’ve considered as well and which has lots of benefits over privatization (and could be a real solution for the fragmented administration that Germany has for instance).\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"\u0026ldquo;This gets at the heart of what’s deeply wrong with this perspective: it prioritizes currently non-existent, possibly never-existent, hypothetical future possible people over living, breathing people today, because the former could possibly, maybe, perhaps far outnumber the latter.\u0026rdquo;\nAn argument by Phil Torres of how the Effective Altruism movement is an ideological front for white supremacy and eventual genocide.\nhttps://outline.com/r7wrPY\n","date":"July 12, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16147/","section":"Posts","summary":"“This gets at the heart of what’s deeply wrong with this perspective: it prioritizes currently non-existent, possibly never-existent, hypothetical future possible people over living, breathing people today, because the former could possibly, maybe, perhaps far outnumber the latter.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Some friends of ours have started a coworking space in Berlin hat includes childcare. The space looks great and I think that flexible solutions like this could alleviate a lot of the burden on parents right now.\nhttps://littlevillage.berlin/\n","date":"July 12, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16145/","section":"Posts","summary":"Some friends of ours have started a coworking space in Berlin hat includes childcare. The space looks great and I think that flexible solutions like this could alleviate a lot of the burden on parents right now.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"As a bystander you can observe a retrospective and hope to see some of these symptoms listed by Adrian Howard of a good one. But keep in mind that you should be happy to hit some of these and getting all of them right probably means you have reached the summum of team work.\nhttps://adrianhoward.com/posts/good-retros/\n","date":"July 12, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16143/","section":"Posts","summary":"As a bystander you can observe a retrospective and hope to see some of these symptoms listed by Adrian Howard of a good one. But keep in mind that you should be happy to hit some of these and getting all of them right probably means you have reached the summum of team work.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I can\u0026rsquo;t say I\u0026rsquo;ve read a lot of Beyond the Beyond nor been much of a happy Wired consumer in any case, but it\u0026rsquo;s passing still marks the end of an era. I remember Bruce Sterling\u0026rsquo;s closing speeches at SxSWi as one of the highlights of the conference (me being too late an arrival to attend his house parties).\nhttps://www.wired.com/beyond-the-beyond/2020/05/farewell-beyond-beyond/\n","date":"July 12, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16141/","section":"Posts","summary":"I can’t say I’ve read a lot of Beyond the Beyond nor been much of a happy Wired consumer in any case, but it’s passing still marks the end of an era. I remember Bruce Sterling’s closing speeches at SxSWi as one of the highlights of the conference (me being too late an arrival to attend his house parties).\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Despite the popular idea that we need to “express”our anger so that it doesn’t eat away at us, research shows that expressing anger while we are angry actually makes us more angry. This in turn makes the other person hurt, afraid, or angry, and causes a rift in the relationship. Rehashing the situation in our mind always proves to us that we’re right and the other person is wrong, which again makes us more angry as we stew. What works is to calm down, and then find a constructive way to address whatever is making us angry so that the situation is resolved, and our anger stops being triggered.\nThe real job is keeping your cup full so you have plenty of joy and presence to share with your child.\nParenting is about nurturing your child, which means noticing what she needs and trying to make sure she gets it. You are, after all, the grown-up. But we can be peaceful parents only to the degree that we “parent”ourselves.\nChildren freely, even enthusiastically, cooperate when they believe that we’re on their side. When they don’t have that belief deep in their bones, our standards of behavior seem unfair, contradicting what they perceive as their own best interests, whether that’s taking the biggest piece of cake or lying to us.\nThe happy news is that as you come to terms with your own childhood story, you subtly change your emotional availability to your child, and your child blossoms accordingly, whether she’s an infant or a nine-year-old.\nIn relationships, without quantity, there’s no quality. You can’t expect a good relationship with your daughter if you spend all your time at work and she spends all her time with friends, screens, or the sitter. So as hard as it is with the pressures of jobs and daily life, if we want a better relationship with our children, we have to free up the time—daily—to make closeness happen.\nEvery child benefits from Special Time to reconnect with each parent often, if possible every day. Think of it as preventive maintenance to keep things on track in your family. And if you’re having issues with your\nEvery difficulty is an opportunity to get closer, as you extend understanding and your child feels truly seen, heard, and accepted.\nChildren need to know deep in their bones that their parents adore them and take delight in their company.\nRemember, getting dressed is your priority, not his. Your presence is what motivates him.\nTo parents, bedtime is the time they finally get to separate from their children and have a little time to themselves. To children, bedtime is the time they’re forced to separate from their parents and lie in the dark by themselves. On top of that, children are exhausted and wound up, and parents are exhausted and fed up.\nThis isn’t about you right now, and your being upset won’t help. In fact, no matter what your child is talking about, you can process it later.\nIt may seem impossible, but if we feel the slightest glimmer of desire to turn things around, we can grab it. We don’t even have to know how. We can just choose love. We can always find a way to reach out to our child and reconnect. We can always find a way to heal things, even when we’re in a cycle of negativity that’s gone too far.\nBy contrast, when we think of ourselves as coaches, we know that all we have is influence—so we work hard to stay respected and connected, so our child wants to “follow”us.\nWhat Empathy Isn’t\nBut before you can correct, you have to connect.\nTo know that their parents adore them, love to care for them, and care about their happiness. (Worthiness, security, self-esteem)\nTo feel truly seen, known, accepted, and appreciated—even the “shameful”parts like anger, jealousy, pettiness, and greed. (Unconditional love)\nTo stay connected with each parent through regular relaxed, playful, unstructured, affirming time together. (Intimacy, belonging)\nTo work through challenging daily emotions. (Emotional wholeness, self-acceptance)\nTo master new skills. (Mastery, independence, confidence)\nTo act from one’s own motivations to impact the world. (Self-determination, power)\nTo make a contribution. (Value, meaning)\nAcknowledge your child’s perspective and empathize.\nAllow expression of emotion, even while limiting actions.\nRespond to the needs and feelings behind problem behavior.\nWhen a desire can’t be granted, acknowledge it and grant it through “wish fulfillment.”\nTell the story so your child understands his emotional experience.\nTeach problem solving.\nPlay it out.\nLook him in the eye. Stay calm. He will either go blank (numbing himself), look away in shame, or look straight at you in defiance. Regardless, reach out for him.\nWe’ve absorbed the misguided view that children will be disobedient and manipulative unless we force them to “behave.”\nAuthoritarian parenting keeps children in a state of stress, worried about the next punishment (which may explain why kids who are spanked have lower IQs5).\nBut it does mean that babyproofing is better than trying to teach limits at this age.\nUntil your child has a chance to be heard, those feelings will be looking to spill out, disconnecting her, driving misbehavior and keeping her from being her usual sunny self. That’s why the single best thing you can do for your preschooler is to prioritize reconnecting with her when you’re reunited at the end of the day.\nThis parenting approach tends to raise kids who are self-centered, anxious, and not very resilient.\nAuthoritative. The final parenting style is the one that Baumrind’s research showed raises the best-adjusted kids. Her authoritative—as opposed to authoritarian—parents offer their children lots of love and support, like the permissive parents. But they also hold high expectations, like the authoritarian parents. Age-appropriate expectations, of course—they aren’t expecting a three-year-old to clean up her room by herself. But they may well be working with that three-year-old to help her clean up, over and over and over, so that by six she really can clean up her room herself. These parents are involved—even demanding. They expect family dinners, lots of discussion straight through high school, good grades, responsible behavior. But they also offer their children complete support to learn how to achieve these expectations. Importantly, these parents aren’t controlling like the authoritarian parents. They listen to the child’s side of things, they make compromises, and they cede control where possible. Their kids, not surprisingly, stay close to them—they often describe one of their parents as the person they would most trust to talk to about a problem. These kids usually do well in school, and they’re also the ones that teachers describe as responsible and well liked, simply nice kids who are a pleasure to have around.\nEvery child who has a sibling needs daily private time to bond with each parent.\nWe’re inviting him in, so that he’s part of the solution. He may have done a monstrous thing, but we’re communicating to him that he isn’t a monster. This is the foundation of his being able to face that he did something that crossed a line—and to forgive himself. It starts with our forgiving him.\nMastery isn’t a one-time feeling. It’s a way of approaching experience that through repetition becomes an acquired trait, a way of living life. It describes a person who loves to explore, learn, grow, apply himself, practice, master something, take joy in the whole creative process whether he “succeeds”or “fails”in the eyes of others, and move on to his next goal.\nEvery child is born with latent talent. Any child who enjoys the process of mastery has the internal motivation to polish his natural abilities to achieve—as long as the achievement he’s aiming for matters to him.\nWhat might we say?\n“You really like doing that puzzle. . . . It’s the first one you took out again today.”(Empathize with his feelings.)\n“You’re trying all the different pieces to see what fits in that spot.”(Notice what he’s doing, which helps him feel seen and valued. In this case, we’re also articulating the strategy we see him using, which helps him be more conscious of what he’s doing, so he can evaluate whether this particular strategy is effective.)\n“I love doing puzzles with you!”(Communicate your enjoyment of sharing a task or project with him.)\n“It’s frustrating, isn’t it? But you’ve almost got it!”(Effective encouragement. By contrast, if we show him, we imply that he can’t figure it out for himself, which lessens his self-confidence.)\n“You did it! You got all the pieces to fit! You must be so proud of yourself!”(We’re mirroring his joy in his accomplishment, but notice we’re not telling him we’re proud of him, which implies that pride in him is something we can also withhold. Instead, we empower him by acknowledging that pride in himself is his, something he can take action to create.)\nBlame is simply anger looking for a target, and it never helps us toward a solution.\nThe truth is, we always have more responsibility than we’d like to admit. And the more responsibility you take, the less defensive your child feels, so the more responsibility she’s likely to take in her own mind and, eventually, aloud.\n","date":"July 7, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-peaceful-parent-happy-kids/","section":"Posts","summary":"Despite the popular idea that we need to “express”our anger so that it doesn’t eat away at us, research shows that expressing anger while we are angry actually makes us more angry. This in turn makes the other person hurt, afraid, or angry, and causes a rift in the relationship. Rehashing the situation in our mind always proves to us that we’re right and the other person is wrong, which again makes us more angry as we stew. What works is to calm down, and then find a constructive way to address whatever is making us angry so that the situation is resolved, and our anger stops being triggered.\n","title":"Highlights for Peaceful Parent Happy Kids","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ages ago we also made a game that:\nWas conversational multiple-choice Played through a diegetic phone control Was set in a dystopia Had a distinctive art style https://neocabgame.com/\nSo yeah, I\u0026rsquo;m always glad if our ideas are proven years after the fact. Something that happened quite regularly.\n","date":"July 6, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/neo-cab/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ages ago we also made a game that:\n","title":"Neo Cab","type":"posts"},{"content":"Not just one thing that every dev should know but a bag full of hard won non-technical multipliers that will improve all of your interactions in this podcast episode with Jesica Kerr.\nhttps://changelog.com/podcast/398\n","date":"July 5, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16136/","section":"Posts","summary":"Not just one thing that every dev should know but a bag full of hard won non-technical multipliers that will improve all of your interactions in this podcast episode with Jesica Kerr.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A good definition of product judgement which is absolutely essential for project success. I\u0026rsquo;ve seen groups without this head off in the wrong direction too often to count and have usually had to jump in myself.\nThe recipe of how to acquire this skill is also not the only way to get it but it will reliably get you there.\nhttps://www.intercom.com/blog/product-judgment/\n","date":"July 5, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16134/","section":"Posts","summary":"A good definition of product judgement which is absolutely essential for project success. I’ve seen groups without this head off in the wrong direction too often to count and have usually had to jump in myself.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The Yak Collective is a great idea coupled with great execution judging from this incredibly strong deck about the New Old Home, changes to living during the pandemic.\nhttps://www.yakcollective.org/projects/the-new-old-home\n","date":"June 24, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16131/","section":"Posts","summary":"The Yak Collective is a great idea coupled with great execution judging from this incredibly strong deck about the New Old Home, changes to living during the pandemic.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Not every day I find a great blog with interviews about leadership, and even rarer to find one that is this good and in German.\nhttps://www.lookingatleadership.com/\n","date":"June 24, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16129/","section":"Posts","summary":"Not every day I find a great blog with interviews about leadership, and even rarer to find one that is this good and in German.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I want to echo this and add that once you realize what the git `master` refers to, it is unconscionable that we reproduce it so often and so callously every day of our working lives. (Disclosure: Alicia reports to me.)\nhttps://buff.ly/2Cqx94K\n","date":"June 23, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16127/","section":"Posts","summary":"I want to echo this and add that once you realize what the git `master` refers to, it is unconscionable that we reproduce it so often and so callously every day of our working lives. (Disclosure: Alicia reports to me.)\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;ve always felt that programming is more similar to languages than to mathematics. The number of hard maths problems that we solve as part of this work are really limited, the number of language problems on the other hand is immense.\nhttps://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-60661-8\n","date":"June 21, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16125/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’ve always felt that programming is more similar to languages than to mathematics. The number of hard maths problems that we solve as part of this work are really limited, the number of language problems on the other hand is immense.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A revealing tale about structural racism from Ramesh A Nagarajah who by his own admission is the token black friend.\nhttps://humanparts.medium.com/reflections-from-a-token-black-friend-2f1ea522d42d\n","date":"June 21, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16123/","section":"Posts","summary":"A revealing tale about structural racism from Ramesh A Nagarajah who by his own admission is the token black friend.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Frédéric Lordon tries to own Piketty but comes around at the end anyway because as he says: the data is there, the timing is there and Piketty is a decent guy.\nhttps://www.versobooks.com/blogs/4683-why-are-you-acting-the-marxist-frederic-lordon-on-thomas-piketty-s-capital-and-ideology\n","date":"June 21, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16121/","section":"Posts","summary":"Frédéric Lordon tries to own Piketty but comes around at the end anyway because as he says: the data is there, the timing is there and Piketty is a decent guy.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"This interview with Marc Andreessen is mostly interesting for the talk about productivity and operations.\nhttps://www.theobservereffect.org/marc.html\n","date":"June 21, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16119/","section":"Posts","summary":"This interview with Marc Andreessen is mostly interesting for the talk about productivity and operations.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"We have to build these ultra rapid trains anyway, so let\u0026rsquo;s start on it tomorrow.\nhttps://twitter.com/heimbergecon/status/1273531610932170752\n","date":"June 21, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16117/","section":"Posts","summary":"We have to build these ultra rapid trains anyway, so let’s start on it tomorrow.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A very long but quite inspired series of conceptual visual spatializations of the internet.\nhttps://louisedrulhe.fr/internet-atlas/\n","date":"June 21, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16115/","section":"Posts","summary":"A very long but quite inspired series of conceptual visual spatializations of the internet.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Challengers are great if they carry both sets of qualities: both questioning and delivering.\nhttps://shripriya.com/blog/2020/06/09/seek-the-challengers/\n","date":"June 21, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16113/","section":"Posts","summary":"Challengers are great if they carry both sets of qualities: both questioning and delivering.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A useful overview of engineering manager archetypes to reflect and contrast the various responsibilities that managers can take on.\nhttps://www.patkua.com/blog/5-engineering-manager-archetypes/\n","date":"June 21, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16111/","section":"Posts","summary":"A useful overview of engineering manager archetypes to reflect and contrast the various responsibilities that managers can take on.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"An interesting argument that uses Scott\u0026rsquo;s critique of high modernism to cast doubt on how beneficial machine learning will be for authoritarian regimes. Also a bit reminiscent of Weyl\u0026rsquo;s critique of technocracy.\nLet\u0026rsquo;s hope it\u0026rsquo;s true.\nhttps://crookedtimber.org/2019/11/25/seeing-like-a-finite-state-machine/\n","date":"June 12, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16108/","section":"Posts","summary":"An interesting argument that uses Scott’s critique of high modernism to cast doubt on how beneficial machine learning will be for authoritarian regimes. Also a bit reminiscent of Weyl’s critique of technocracy.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A grand treatment by Arundhati Roy of the situation that India is in now.\nhttps://www.thenation.com/article/archive/arundhati-roy-assam-modi/\n","date":"June 12, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16106/","section":"Posts","summary":"A grand treatment by Arundhati Roy of the situation that India is in now.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I was saddened by reading that Iepe, a Dutch fixture here in Berlin, had passed away suddenly and far too young.\nhttps://www.rtlnieuws.nl/columns/column/5125346/iepe-rubingh-overleden-berlijn-column-jeroen-akkermans\n","date":"June 12, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16104/","section":"Posts","summary":"I was saddened by reading that Iepe, a Dutch fixture here in Berlin, had passed away suddenly and far too young.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"It\u0026rsquo;s common for angry people to be dismissed but it is also a fully wrong and unjust attitude.\nhttps://sz-magazin.sueddeutsche.de/freie-radikale-die-ideenkolumne/wut-feminismus-88440\n","date":"June 12, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16102/","section":"Posts","summary":"It’s common for angry people to be dismissed but it is also a fully wrong and unjust attitude.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A very thorough treatment of how \u0026ldquo;Good Intent\u0026rdquo; is harmful to diversity and inclusion.\nhttps://thebias.com/2017/09/26/how-good-intent-undermines-diversity-and-inclusion/\n","date":"June 12, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16100/","section":"Posts","summary":"A very thorough treatment of how “Good Intent” is harmful to diversity and inclusion.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A very thorough overview of William Gibson\u0026rsquo;s life and work which touches on a lot of familiar points. It reminds me that I should read Agency and makes me want to dive back and read the previous trilogies again.\nhttps://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/12/16/how-william-gibson-keeps-his-science-fiction-real\n","date":"May 10, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16093/","section":"Posts","summary":"A very thorough overview of William Gibson’s life and work which touches on a lot of familiar points. It reminds me that I should read Agency and makes me want to dive back and read the previous trilogies again.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"“Tell them the contours of patriarchy closed in, but haven’t crushed me. I’m the same person I’ve always been, broke but stronger.\nTell whoever asks, that I’m still right here, and I — by which I mean we, us, women voices, mine and others — we’re not going away. We’re speaking up, erasing patriarchal privilege by calling it out.”\nA striking story of a woman who writes against all odds.\nhttps://longreads.com/2020/01/15/whatever-happened-to-______/\n","date":"May 10, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16091/","section":"Posts","summary":"“Tell them the contours of patriarchy closed in, but haven’t crushed me. I’m the same person I’ve always been, broke but stronger.\nTell whoever asks, that I’m still right here, and I — by which I mean we, us, women voices, mine and others — we’re not going away. We’re speaking up, erasing patriarchal privilege by calling it out.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I had put the Ray Dalio book on my do-not-read pile even before knowing exactly how evil it is.\nhttps://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/06/how-to-make-everyone-in-your-vicinity-secretly-fear-and-despise-you\n","date":"May 10, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16089/","section":"Posts","summary":"I had put the Ray Dalio book on my do-not-read pile even before knowing exactly how evil it is.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A lovely set of easter eggs hidden in Switzerland\u0026rsquo;s official maps.\nhttps://eyeondesign.aiga.org/for-decades-cartographers-have-been-hiding-covert-illustrations-inside-of-switzerlands-official-maps/\n","date":"May 10, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16087/","section":"Posts","summary":"A lovely set of easter eggs hidden in Switzerland’s official maps.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A striking reconstruction by Jaap Stronks tracking the Netherlands\u0026rsquo; faulty COVID strategy and the efforts of a group of activists (with whom I\u0026rsquo;m loosely associated) to bring to light the discrepancies.\nhttps://medium.com/@jaapstronks/het-coronakruispunt-e6810aecf0e5\n","date":"May 10, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16085/","section":"Posts","summary":"A striking reconstruction by Jaap Stronks tracking the Netherlands’ faulty COVID strategy and the efforts of a group of activists (with whom I’m loosely associated) to bring to light the discrepancies.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"An overview of the philosophical and technical revolutions that are necessary to be able to develop in production. It\u0026rsquo;s a long way but I believe even the journey to get there is worth it.\nhttps://tersesystems.com/blog/2020/01/22/developing-in-production/\n","date":"May 8, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16083/","section":"Posts","summary":"An overview of the philosophical and technical revolutions that are necessary to be able to develop in production. It’s a long way but I believe even the journey to get there is worth it.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Eerst praten we over van alles en niets.\nDan schenk ik thee. Doe er nog wat koekjes bij.\nIk had geld geleend van mijn moeder waarmee ik een goed gevulde tafel dek.\nJe zegt ‘ik ben op dieet’ en eet niet, ik eet, dat geeft niet.\nDan praten we over ditjes en datjes.\nDan hebben we het over mij.\nOok al wil ik dat helemaal niet.\nJe neemt me mijn fouten kwalijk.\nWe bekritiseren mij dunnetjes en praten over hoe jij alle kansen in het leven gegrepen hebt.\n‘Begrijp me niet verkeerd, ik zeg dit omdat ik van je hou’, zeg je, waarom zou ik, mijn hart zet alles wat ik verkeerd opvat toch wel recht. ‘Het geeft niet’ zeg ik. ‘Of ik niet weet hoe close ze zijn.’ Ik lieg. Ik weet niet hoe close ze zijn.\nAls je even je mond houdt, praat ik mezelf moed in.\nNet als ik het kwijt wil, kijk jij op Instagram.\nJe laat me het badpak zien wat je voor deze zomer gaat kopen. Ik zeg dat het heel mooi is.\nWe zijn twee jaar geleden voor het laatst naar zee geweest zeg ik. Ah nee dat kan toch niet als ik niet zwem dan stérf ik zeg je.\nIk zeg niet dat je niet doodgaat van zwemgebrek.\nDat er ander leed is waar mensen aan sterven, bijvoorbeeld een gebroken hart, weet je dat het echt mogelijk is dat een hart breekt, wetenschappers hebben dat bewezen zeg ik maar niet.\nWe drinken thee tot we erbij neervallen.\nDe tafel wordt afgeruimd, de asbakken raken vol.\nIk sta af en toe op, leeg de asbakken, schenk thee in.\nSorry voor de moeite zeg je.\nJe zou de keuken kunnen opruimen maar omdat onze keuken klein is word je daar onwel, de muren komen op je af zeg je. Geeft niet.\nBlijf zitten, ik ruim wel op.\nAls je moet plassen vind je onze badkamer misschien wel leuk. Ik heb een nieuw douchegordijn gekocht op de markt.\nAls je die leuk vindt zeg ik dat jij nog veel betere verdient en er valt een stilte. ‘Dank je schat\u0026rsquo; zeg je.\nKom langs, we zullen op hetzelfde bankstel de volslagen leegte zijn.\nEn als je komt, neem dan dat geluk mee dat jou te klein is, misschien past het mij.\nhttps://elif-key.com/bize-gelsene-4b39ceee6911\n","date":"May 6, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/kom-eens-langs/","section":"Posts","summary":"Eerst praten we over van alles en niets.\n","title":"(kom eens langs)","type":"posts"},{"content":"People think they don\u0026rsquo;t have the time to write so they\u0026rsquo;ll have a meeting instead which is probably the worst thing they could do, but it\u0026rsquo;s easy.\nEven then trying to teach people how to write better does not seem to be a very successful manoeuvre. I\u0026rsquo;m still trying to figure out what making them yearn for the sea is in this context.\nhttp://www.timcasasola.com/blog/writing\n","date":"May 5, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16074/","section":"Posts","summary":"People think they don’t have the time to write so they’ll have a meeting instead which is probably the worst thing they could do, but it’s easy.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ming-era génocidaire Zhang Xian-zhong\nHEAVEN BESTOWS A HUNDRED GRAINS UPON MANKIND. / MAN OFFERS NOT A SINGLE GOOD DEED TO RECOMPENSE HEAVEN. / KILL. KILL. KILL. KILL. KILL. KILL. KILL.\nhttps://twitter.com/wayne_chambliss/status/1255155521683771393\n","date":"May 3, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16072/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ming-era génocidaire Zhang Xian-zhong\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Remember that most of the adults who seem like they\u0026rsquo;re doing okay are actually just treading water; the rest have generational wealth and family money the likes of which you will never have.\nEssential cross section of the experience of debt in the USA.\nhttps://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/annehelenpetersen/paying-off-debt-millennials-student-loans\n","date":"May 3, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16070/","section":"Posts","summary":"Remember that most of the adults who seem like they’re doing okay are actually just treading water; the rest have generational wealth and family money the likes of which you will never have.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"so people never settle … they simply won’t stop tweaking their tools, instead of focusing on the actual work.\nAnother piece of a company that has a broken culture (he is literally writing it) and is blaming that on the tool that they use.\nTo be fair, I think that these kind of open tools probably don\u0026rsquo;t scale past 10 people. It sure would be nice but you just can\u0026rsquo;t expect everybody to be a superstar power user of the tool your company is using. People have lives and they probably don\u0026rsquo;t care about this as much as you do. Tools need to accommodate that.\nhttps://medium.com/diesdas-direct/notion-encourages-busy-work-and-im-tired-of-it-b1e049edb663\n","date":"May 3, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16068/","section":"Posts","summary":"so people never settle … they simply won’t stop tweaking their tools, instead of focusing on the actual work.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The Spotify model wasn\u0026rsquo;t even a silver bullet for Spotify and it definitely wasn\u0026rsquo;t one for all the organizations that simply copied it.\nhttps://www.jeremiahlee.com/posts/failed-squad-goals/\n","date":"April 24, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16065/","section":"Posts","summary":"The Spotify model wasn’t even a silver bullet for Spotify and it definitely wasn’t one for all the organizations that simply copied it.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A useful article that slices the valuable insights in High Output Management for non-managers (tech leads, seniors, etc.).\nhttps://www.g9labs.com/2020/01/04/high-output-management-for-non-managing-tech-leads/\n","date":"April 19, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16062/","section":"Posts","summary":"A useful article that slices the valuable insights in High Output Management for non-managers (tech leads, seniors, etc.).\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Companies insisting on long hours is probably only one thing holding women back, but this article goes deep on that one question and uncovers a panoply of assumptions and attitudes.\nResearch shows that a 24/7 culture creates discontent for women and men alike and that the “accommodations”solution, ironically, tends to derail the careers of highly qualified women, leaving companies’ senior ranks depleted of some of their brightest female stars. Studies show an additional irony: Long hours don’t raise productivity. In fact, they have been associated with decreases in performance and increases in sick-leave costs.\nhttps://hbr.org/2020/03/whats-really-holding-women-back\n","date":"April 19, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16059/","section":"Posts","summary":"Companies insisting on long hours is probably only one thing holding women back, but this article goes deep on that one question and uncovers a panoply of assumptions and attitudes.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"\u0026ldquo;When people say that telecommuting isn’t as efficient or as effective as working co-located, it’s probably because they don’t know how to do it well, not because it’s not doable. The thing is, it’s all learnable if people want to learn it. And I’d say it’s important to learn. Even before coronavirus, I’ve always felt that knowing how to manage well remotely was a competitive advantage.\u0026rdquo;\nhttps://firstround.com/review/struggling-to-thrive-as-a-large-team-working-remotely-this-exec-has-the-field-guide-you-need/\n","date":"April 19, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16057/","section":"Posts","summary":"“When people say that telecommuting isn’t as efficient or as effective as working co-located, it’s probably because they don’t know how to do it well, not because it’s not doable. The thing is, it’s all learnable if people want to learn it. And I’d say it’s important to learn. Even before coronavirus, I’ve always felt that knowing how to manage well remotely was a competitive advantage.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Daar heeft iemand het hondje geblaft.\n","date":"April 18, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/vertaling-somebody-screwed-the-pooch/","section":"Posts","summary":"Daar heeft iemand het hondje geblaft.\n","title":"Vertaling: Somebody Screwed the Pooch","type":"posts"},{"content":"The Cantillon effect has been menioned regularly as part of the government bailouts but it is important to read this explanation of what it is and how money is not neutral.\nhttps://mattstoller.substack.com/p/the-cantillon-effect-why-wall-street\n","date":"April 11, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16051/","section":"Posts","summary":"The Cantillon effect has been menioned regularly as part of the government bailouts but it is important to read this explanation of what it is and how money is not neutral.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The Netherlands is going to get Anand-pilled this Sunday.\n","date":"April 11, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16049/","section":"Posts","summary":"The Netherlands is going to get Anand-pilled this Sunday.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"“Wie kann es sein, dass die aufwändig erarbeiteten und austarierten Betreuungs- und Versorgungsnetze aus Kita, Schule, Hort, Babysitter*in, Großeltern, Tagesmutter-/vater und weiteren Mitbetreuenden, von Verpflegung in Einrichtungen und haushaltsnahen Dienstleistungen von heute auf morgen von behördlicher Seite gestrichen werden, ohne dass gleichzeitig Aussichten auf Kompensations- und Unterstützungsangebote gemacht werden?”\nI had just accepted this like everybody else, but the question is more than justified.\nhttps://equalcareday.de/private-sorgearbeit-systemrelevant-und-trotzdem-weiterhin-unsichtbar/\n","date":"April 10, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16047/","section":"Posts","summary":"“Wie kann es sein, dass die aufwändig erarbeiteten und austarierten Betreuungs- und Versorgungsnetze aus Kita, Schule, Hort, Babysitter*in, Großeltern, Tagesmutter-/vater und weiteren Mitbetreuenden, von Verpflegung in Einrichtungen und haushaltsnahen Dienstleistungen von heute auf morgen von behördlicher Seite gestrichen werden, ohne dass gleichzeitig Aussichten auf Kompensations- und Unterstützungsangebote gemacht werden?”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The first lesson Amiga learnt when she started to kill was how easy it is, and how utterly horrifying that can be.\nAll the homes here are assembled from huge 3D-printed parts and brightly coloured, though it’s hard to see in the meagre lighting. The brainchild of a design genie called Liberty, printed homes have become ubiquitous amongst under-mono communities, transforming them from shantytowns to neat, albeit crowded plastic villages. Everything modernizes eventually.\nHaving the right parts, being able to bear living inside himself, was more important.\nCan’t entertain anything like that, even if he knows it could be true. Shock survives like this: focus on Sendai; forget everything else.\nShe’s not sure if she’s lying. But saying it makes it real, whether it’s truth or not.\nShoving emotion down should not feel this dangerous, she’s been doing it for years.\nThat’s why this is his family. People who allow you to be who you are, who’ll await your growth and change patiently, aware that everything happens in good time, they’re hard to come by.\nAs I said, we are fucked to a monumental degree.\nShe seemed different though. Less frosty, more like a human being. Odd quirk for a Cleaner. He wonders if it was new. She didn’t seem to know what to do with it. With herself. Only looked certain when she was killing.\nShe’s what was made of her, and so is he. And both of them want to change it. That’s why they’re here.\n“Well, I’m a pragmatist. I say maybe things happen for a reason, maybe they don’t, but when you reach a point where you can take chance and turn it into intent, you don’t walk away. You act.”\nYour problem, Amiga, is that you only see people in terms of yourself, and we all fail to match up, whether we could or not. I get it. I get the difference between what you do and what we’ve done.\nAm I never going to stop feeling like an absolute shit around you?\nNot if you continue to be one.\n","date":"April 8, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-escapology/","section":"Posts","summary":"The first lesson Amiga learnt when she started to kill was how easy it is, and how utterly horrifying that can be.\n","title":"Highlights for Escapology","type":"posts"},{"content":"Reading this reminds me what a pleasure it is to work with good product managers and how rare they are.\nhttps://blog.coinbase.com/a-letter-to-a-new-product-manager-d5d96c228bf4\n","date":"March 19, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16042/","section":"Posts","summary":"Reading this reminds me what a pleasure it is to work with good product managers and how rare they are.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The newcomer was somehow never at a loss and showed himself to be an experienced man of the world. Whatever the conversation, he always knew how to keep up his end: if the talk was of horse breeding, he spoke about horse breeding; if they were speaking of fine dogs, here, too, he made very sensible observations; if the discussion touched upon an investigation conducted by the treasury—he showed that he was not uninformed about legal wiles; if there were some argument about the game of billiards—in the game of billiards, too, he would not go amiss; if they spoke of virtue, on virtue, too, he reasoned very well, tears even came to his eyes; if on the distilling of spirits, then on the distilling of spirits he also knew his stuff; if on customs supervisors and officials, of them, too, he could judge as if he himself had been both an official and a supervisor.\nAlthough, of course, they are not such notable characters, and are what is known as secondary or even tertiary, although the main lines and springs of the poem do not rest on them, and perhaps only occasionally touch and graze them lightly—still, the author is extremely fond of being circumstantial in all things, and in this respect, despite his being a Russian man, he wishes to be as precise as a German.\nAnd in boarding schools, as we know, three main subjects constitute the foundation of human virtue: the French language, indispensable for a happy family life; the pianoforte, to afford a husband agreeable moments; and, finally, the managerial part proper: the crocheting of purses and other surprises.\nBut Selifan simply could not recall whether he had passed two or three turns. Thinking back and recalling the road somewhat, he realized that there had been many turns, all of which he had skipped. Since a Russian man in a critical moment finds what to do without going into further reasonings, he shouted, after turning right at the next crossroads: “Hup, my honored friends!”and started off at a gallop, thinking little of where the road he had taken would lead him.\nA Russian driver has good instinct in place of eyes; as a result, he sometimes goes pumping along at full speed, eyes shut, and always gets somewhere or other.\nHe is among us everywhere, and is perhaps only wearing a different caftan; but people are light-mindedly unperceptive, and a man in a different caftan seems to them a different man.\nEverything is desolate, and the stilled surface of the unresponding element is all the more terrible and deserted after that.\nTo such worthlessness, pettiness, vileness a man can descend! So changed he can become! Does this resemble the truth? Everything resembles the truth, everything can happen to a man. The now ardent youth would jump back in horror if he were shown his own portrait in old age. So take with you on your way, as you pass from youth’s tender years into stern, hardening manhood, take with you every humane impulse, do not leave them by the wayside, you will not pick them up later! Terrible, dreadful old age looms ahead, and nothing does it give back again!\nAnd so your little shop fell into neglect, and you took to drinking and lying about in the streets, saying all the while: ‘No, it’s a bad world! There’s no life for a Russian man, the Germans keep getting in the way.’\nOur ranks and estates are so irritated these days that they take personally whatever appears in printed books: such, evidently, is the mood in the air. It is enough simply to say that there is a stupid man in a certain town, and it already becomes personal; suddenly a gentleman of respectable appearance pops up and shouts: “But I, too, am a man, which means that I, too, am stupid”—in short, he instantly grasps the situation.\na new governor-general had been appointed to the province—an event known to put officials into a state of alarm: there would be reshuffling, reprimanding, lambasting, and all the official belly-wash to which a superior treats his subordinates.\nDuring that time he had the pleasure of experiencing those agreeable moments, familiar to every traveler, when the trunk is all packed and only strings, scraps of paper, and various litter are strewn about the room, when a man belongs neither to the road nor to sitting in place,\nbut he came out just as the saying goes: ‘Not like mother, not like father, but like Roger the lodger.’\nIf you please your superior, then even if you don’t succeed in your studies and God has given you no talent, you will still do well and get ahead of everybody.\nDon’t keep company with your schoolmates, they won’t teach you any good; but if you do, then keep company with the richer ones, on the chance that they may be useful to you. Do not regale or treat anyone, but rather behave in such a way that they treat you, and above all keep and save your kopeck: it is the most reliable thing in the world. A comrade or companion will cheat you and be the first to betray you in trouble; but a kopeck will never betray you, whatever trouble you get into. You can do everything and break through everything with a kopeck.\nwithout gaining favor beforehand, as we all know, even the simplest document or certificate cannot be obtained; a bottle of Madeira must at least be poured down every gullet\nBut there are passions that it is not for man to choose. They are born with him at the moment of his birth into this world, and he is not granted the power to refuse them. They are guided by a higher destiny, and they have in them something eternally calling, never ceasing throughout one’s life.\nChichikov just smiled, jouncing slightly on his leather cushion, for he loved fast driving. And what Russian does not love fast driving? How can his soul, which yearns to get into a whirl, to carouse, to say sometimes: “Devil take it all!”—how can his soul not love it? Not love it when something ecstatically wondrous is felt in it?\nHe began to find myriads of faults in him, and came to hate him for having such a sugary expression when talking to a superior, and straightaway becoming all vinegar when addressing a subordinate.\nWhere is he who, in the native tongue of our Russian soul, could speak to us this all-powerful word: forward? who, knowing all the forces and qualities, and all the depths of our nature, could, by one magic gesture, point the Russian man towards a lofty life? With what words, with what love the grateful Russian man would repay him! But century follows century, half a million loafers, sluggards, and sloths lie in deep slumber, and rarely is a man born in Russia who is capable of uttering it, this all-powerful word.\nOur Pavel Ivanovich showed an extraordinary flexibility in adapting to everything. He approved of the philosophical unhurriedness of his host, saying that it promised a hundred-year life. About solitude he expressed himself rather felicitously—namely, that it nursed great thoughts in a man. Having looked at the library and spoken with great praise of books in general, he observed that they save a man from idleness. In short, he let fall few words, but significant.\n“Ah!”the colonel said with a smile, “there’s the benefit of paperwork! It will indeed take longer, but nothing will escape: every little detail will be in view.”\nThe commission for divers petitions existed only on a signboard. Its chairman, a former valet, had been transferred to the newly formed village construction committee. He had been replaced by the clerk Timoshka, who had been dispatched on an investigation—to sort things out between the drunken steward and the village headman, a crook and a cheat. No official anywhere.\n“Now, what could be clearer? You have peasants, so you should foster them in their peasant way of life. What is this way of life? What is the peasant’s occupation? Ploughing? Then see to it that he’s a good ploughman. Clear? No, clever fellows turn up who say: ‘He should be taken out of this condition. The life he leads is too crude and simple: he must be made acquainted with the objects of luxury.’ They themselves, owing to this luxury, have become rags instead of people, and got infested with devil knows what diseases,\nI say to the muzhik: ‘Whoever you work for, whether me, or yourself, or a neighbor, just work. If you’re active, I’ll be your first helper. You have no livestock, here’s a horse for you, here’s a cow, here’s a cart … Whatever you need, I’m ready to supply you with, only work. It kills me if your management is not well set up, and I see disorder and poverty there. I won’t suffer idleness. I am set over you so that you should work.’\n“He who was born with thousands, who was brought up on thousands, will acquire no more: he already has his whims and whatnot! One ought to begin from the beginning, not from the middle. From below, one ought to begin from below. Only then do you get to know well the people and life amidst which you’ll have to make shift afterwards. Once you’ve suffered this or that on your own hide, and have learned that every kopeck is nailed down with a three-kopeck nail, and have gone through every torment, then you’ll grow so wise and well schooled that you won’t blunder or go amiss in any undertaking.\nI often think, in fact: ‘Now, why is so much intelligence given to one head? Now, if only one little drop of it could get into my foolish pate, if only so that I could keep my house! I don’t know how to do anything, I can’t do anything!’ Ah, Pavel Ivanovich, take it into your care! Most of all I pity the poor muzhiks. I feel that I was never able to be …* what do you want me to do, I can’t be exacting and strict. And how could I get them accustomed to order if I myself am disorderly! I’d set them free right now, but the Russian man is somehow so arranged, he somehow can’t do without being prodded … He’ll just fall asleep, he’ll just get moldy.\nWe were educated, and how do we live? I went to the university and listened to lectures in all fields, yet not only did I not learn the art and order of living, but it seems I learned best the art of spending more money on various new refinements and comforts, and became better acquainted with the objects for which one needs money.\n“One needs a supply of reasonableness,”said Chichikov, “one must consult one’s reasonableness every moment, conduct a friendly conversation with it.”\nHe still did not know that in Russia, in Moscow and other cities, there are such wizards to be found, whose life is an inexplicable riddle. He seems to have spent everything, is up to his ears in debt, has no resources anywhere, and the dinner that is being given promises to be the last; and the diners think that by the next day the host will be dragged off to prison. Ten years pass after that—the wizard is still holding out in the world, is up to his ears in debt more than ever, and still gives a dinner in the same way, and everybody thinks it will be the last, and everybody is sure that the next day the host will be dragged off to prison.\n","date":"March 19, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-dead-souls/","section":"Posts","summary":"The newcomer was somehow never at a loss and showed himself to be an experienced man of the world. Whatever the conversation, he always knew how to keep up his end: if the talk was of horse breeding, he spoke about horse breeding; if they were speaking of fine dogs, here, too, he made very sensible observations; if the discussion touched upon an investigation conducted by the treasury—he showed that he was not uninformed about legal wiles; if there were some argument about the game of billiards—in the game of billiards, too, he would not go amiss; if they spoke of virtue, on virtue, too, he reasoned very well, tears even came to his eyes; if on the distilling of spirits, then on the distilling of spirits he also knew his stuff; if on customs supervisors and officials, of them, too, he could judge as if he himself had been both an official and a supervisor.\n","title":"Highlights for Dead Souls","type":"posts"},{"content":"As it turns out, you don’t have to choose between being honest and being effective. You don’t have to choose between candor and your career. People who routinely hold crucial conversations and hold them well are able to express controversial and even risky opinions in a way that gets heard. Their bosses, peers, and direct reports listen without becoming defensive or angry.\nWhen two or more of us enter crucial conversations, by definition we don’t share the same pool. Our opinions differ. I believe one thing; you another. I have one history; you another.\nwhen people feel comfortable speaking up and meaning does flow freely, the shared pool can dramatically increase a group’s ability to make better decisions.\nPeople who believe they need to start with themselves do just that. As they work on themselves, they also become the most skilled at dialogue. So here’s the irony. It’s the most talented, not the least talented, who are continually trying to improve their dialogue skills. As is often the case, the rich get richer.\nPut succinctly, when you name the game, you can stop playing it.\nAsking questions about what we really want serves two important purposes. First, it reminds us of our goal. Second, it juices up our brain in a way that helps us keep focused.\nThird, present your brain with a more complex problem. Finally, combine the two into an and question that forces you to search for more creative and productive options than silence and violence.\nOn the other hand, if you make it safe enough, you can talk about almost anything and people will listen.\nWhen you don’t feel safe, even well-intended comments are suspect.\nif you don’t feel safe, you can’t take any feedback.\nSo instead of taking their attack as a sign that safety is at risk, you take it at its face—as an attack. “I’m under attack!”you think. Then the dumb part of your brain kicks in and you respond in kind. Or maybe you try to escape.\nSilence consists of any act to purposefully withhold information from the pool of meaning. It’s almost always done as a means of avoiding potential problems, and it always restricts the flow of meaning.\nViolence consists of any verbal strategy that attempts to convince, control, or compel others to your point of view. It violates safety by trying to force meaning into the pool.\nThe best don’t play games. Period. They know that in order to solve their problem, they’ll need to talk about their problem—with no pretending, sugarcoating, or faking. So they do something completely different. They step out of the content of the conversation, make it safe, and then step back in. Once safety is restored, they can talk about nearly anything.\nMutual Purpose means that others perceive that you’re working toward a common outcome in the conversation, that you care about their goals, interests, and values. And vice versa. You believe they care about yours.\nBefore you begin, examine your motives. Ask yourself the Start with Heart questions:\n• What do I want for me? • What do I want for others? • What do I want for the relationship?\nMutual Respect is the continuance condition of dialogue. As people perceive that others don’t respect them, the conversation immediately becomes unsafe and dialogue comes to a screeching halt.\nAsk the following question to determine when Mutual Respect is at risk:\n• Do others believe I respect them?\nWe Start with Heart by committing to stay in the conversation until we invent a solution that serves a purpose we both share.\nWe also have to be willing to verbalize this commitment even when our partner seems committed to winning. We act on faith that our partner is stuck in silence or violence because he or she feels unsafe.\nJust after we observe what others do and just before we feel some emotion about it, we tell ourselves a story. We add meaning to the action we observed. We make a guess at the motive driving the behavior. Why were they doing that? We also add judgment—is that good or bad? And then, based on these thoughts or stories, our body responds with an emotion.\nPeople who excel at dialogue are able to influence their emotions during crucial conversations. They recognize that while it’s true that at first we are in control of the stories we tell—after all, we do make them up of our own accord—once they’re told, the stories control us.\nQuestion your feelings and stories. Once you’ve identified what you’re feeling, you have to stop and ask, given the circumstances, is it the right feeling?\nDon’t confuse stories with facts. Sometimes you fail to question your stories because you see them as immutable facts.\nEither our stories are completely accurate and propel us in healthy directions, or they’re quite inaccurate but justify our current behavior—making us feel good about ourselves and calling for no need to change.\nThese five tools can be easily remembered with the acronym STATE. It stands for:\n• Share your facts • Tell your story • Ask for others’ paths • Talk tentatively • Encourage testing\nTo make matters worse, this strategy creates still another self-fulfilling prophecy. We’re so anxious to blurt out our unflattering conclusions that we say things in extremely ineffective ways. Then, when we get bad results (and we are going to get bad results), we tell ourselves that we just can’t share risky views without creating problems. So the next time we’ve got something sticky to say, we’re even more reluctant to say it. We hold it inside where the story builds up steam, and when we do eventually share our horrific story, we do so with a vengeance. The cycle starts all over again.\nOne of the ironies of dialogue is that, when talking with those holding opposing opinions, the more convinced and forceful you act, the more resistant others become. Speaking in absolute and overstated terms does not increase your influence, it decreases it. The converse is also true—the more tentatively you speak, the more open people become to your opinions.\nYou should never pretend to be less confident than you are. But likewise, you should not pretend to be more confident than your limited capacity allows. Our observations could be faulty. Our stories—well, they’re only educated guesses.\nBy tentatively sharing a story rather than attacking, name-calling, and threatening, the worried spouse averted a huge battle, and the couple’s relationship was strengthened at a time when it could easily have been damaged.\nYou simply have to win. There’s too much at risk and only you have the right ideas. Left to their own devices, others will mess things up. So when you care a great deal and are sure of your views, you don’t merely speak—you try to force your opinions into the pool of meaning. You know, drown people in the truth. Quite naturally, others resist. You in turn push even harder.\nOpen yourself up to the belief that others might have something to say, and better still, they might even hold a piece of the puzzle—and then ask them for their views.\nBy holding people accountable, not only do you increase their motivation and ability to deliver on promises, but you create a culture of integrity.\nIf others don’t want to talk about tough issues, it’s because they believe that it won’t do any good. Either they aren’t good at dialogue, or you aren’t, or you both aren’t—or so they think.\nEvery time you become aggressive or insulting, you give your spouse additional evidence that crucial conversations do nothing but cause harm.\nMake it perfectly clear that once you’ve given an assignment, there are only two acceptable paths. Employees need to complete the assignment as planned, or if they run into a problem, they need to immediately inform you. No surprises. Similarly, if they decide that another job needs to be done instead, they call you. No surprises.\nThat is, people who improve their dialogue skills continually ask themselves whether they’re in or out of dialogue.\nThe other person has the ability to choose how to respond to your efforts. These skills are not techniques for controlling others; they are not tools for manipulating behavior or eliminating others’ agency. These skills have limits and do not guarantee that other people will behave in exactly the way you desire.\nIf yse these skills exactly the way we tell you to and the other person doesn’t want to dialogue, you won’t get to dialogue. However, if you persist over time, refusing to take offense, making your motive genuine, showing respect, and constantly searching for Mutual Purpose, then the other person will almost always join you in dialogue.\n","date":"March 8, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-crucial-conversations/","section":"Posts","summary":"As it turns out, you don’t have to choose between being honest and being effective. You don’t have to choose between candor and your career. People who routinely hold crucial conversations and hold them well are able to express controversial and even risky opinions in a way that gets heard. Their bosses, peers, and direct reports listen without becoming defensive or angry.\n","title":"Highlights for Crucial Conversations","type":"posts"},{"content":"One of the points in this list by Paul Osman that I recently stumbled on is that things like “staging”are indeed mostly useless however much people want to keep using them.\nhttps://paulosman.me/2019/12/30/production-oriented-development.html\n","date":"March 1, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16032/","section":"Posts","summary":"One of the points in this list by Paul Osman that I recently stumbled on is that things like “staging”are indeed mostly useless however much people want to keep using them.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"“The piece of advice that I give to new managers—and this sounds simple but it’s really hard—is you have to really listen to your people. They are telling you what they want, and you have to hear it. At the end of the day, it’s not about you. It’s what this human is telling you.”\nhttps://www.welcometothejungle.com/en/articles/btc-michael-lopp-interview-management\n","date":"February 21, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16026/","section":"Posts","summary":"“The piece of advice that I give to new managers—and this sounds simple but it’s really hard—is you have to really listen to your people. They are telling you what they want, and you have to hear it. At the end of the day, it’s not about you. It’s what this human is telling you.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Not surprising that the entire concept of ‘ethical AI’ is another scam perpetuated by the MIT Media Lab. At this point I would assume any project coming out of that institution to be compromised unless proven otherwise.\nhttps://theintercept.com/2019/12/20/mit-ethical-ai-artificial-intelligence/\n","date":"February 21, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16024/","section":"Posts","summary":"Not surprising that the entire concept of ‘ethical AI’ is another scam perpetuated by the MIT Media Lab. At this point I would assume any project coming out of that institution to be compromised unless proven otherwise.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"“The best engineers can toggle back and forth between manager and IC roles. Make sure your technical foundation and fundamental skills are solid enough to pull that off.”\nRaylene Yung drops a massive list of career trips for engineers and engineering managers.\nhttps://firstround.com/review/the-engineers-guide-to-career-growth-advice-from-my-time-at-stripe-and-facebook/\n","date":"February 21, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16022/","section":"Posts","summary":"“The best engineers can toggle back and forth between manager and IC roles. Make sure your technical foundation and fundamental skills are solid enough to pull that off.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I know more about TikTok than almost everybody around me and still I hardly know anything about TikTok.\nhttps://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/01/how-meme-accounts-surface-the-meanest-parts-of-tiktok.html\n","date":"February 21, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16020/","section":"Posts","summary":"I know more about TikTok than almost everybody around me and still I hardly know anything about TikTok.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"It\u0026rsquo;s not that often that you see a guide how to hire engineering managers, let alone people at the DirEng/VPE level. That makes this guide by Rushab Doshi rare and useful.\nhttps://rushabhdoshi.com/2019/11/04/hiring-engineering-leaders.html\n","date":"February 21, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16018/","section":"Posts","summary":"It’s not that often that you see a guide how to hire engineering managers, let alone people at the DirEng/VPE level. That makes this guide by Rushab Doshi rare and useful.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Translated diary excerpts of a soldier involved in the Dersim Massacre describe a normal kind of horror.\nhttps://twitter.com/Nick_Ashdown/status/1223255644809170944\n","date":"February 20, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16016/","section":"Posts","summary":"Translated diary excerpts of a soldier involved in the Dersim Massacre describe a normal kind of horror.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A wild ride of an article that draws the essential but often overlooked connections between neoliberalism and fascism.\n“If “star salaries”can’t be explained by contribution to the productive enterprise, high managerial compensation would appear to be what economists call “rent”— essentially, profit extraction.”\n“The most plausible explanation is that supermanagers are paid for governance where the state has been redeployed elsewhere or, even, effectively dissolved.”\n“Anyone who takes seriously the threat of the newly empowered reactionary right, must take seriously the role neoliberalism has played in laying out the red carpet for its arrival.”\nhttps://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-supermanagerial-reich/\n","date":"February 20, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16014/","section":"Posts","summary":"A wild ride of an article that draws the essential but often overlooked connections between neoliberalism and fascism.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Every place that turns car free like the city center of Ghent here is incredibly well received by the residents. The people who seem to be against it don\u0026rsquo;t live there, they just want to drive through.\nhttps://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jan/20/the-streets-are-more-alive-ghent-readers-on-a-car-free-city-centre?CMP=twt_a-environment_b-gdneco\n","date":"February 18, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16012/","section":"Posts","summary":"Every place that turns car free like the city center of Ghent here is incredibly well received by the residents. The people who seem to be against it don’t live there, they just want to drive through.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"You are indeed probably not communicating enough. My advice is to just communicate more. If you are communicating too much (highly unlikely that you would reach that point), people will let you know.\nhttps://blog.glowforge.com/you-arent-communicating-nearly-enough/\n","date":"February 18, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16010/","section":"Posts","summary":"You are indeed probably not communicating enough. My advice is to just communicate more. If you are communicating too much (highly unlikely that you would reach that point), people will let you know.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Wild that even a mild cycling habit at the population level can strongly reduce obesity rates.\nhttps://twitter.com/ThijsNiks/status/1222008902918856704\n","date":"February 18, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16008/","section":"Posts","summary":"Wild that even a mild cycling habit at the population level can strongly reduce obesity rates.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Een bijzonder goed stuk van Yael van der Wouden over wat het betekent om Nederlander te zijn en wat het betekent om dat niet te zijn.\nNederlanders hebben sorry gezegd. Dat is de context van een wit lichaam dat het wil hebben over Joden, dat een grapje wil maken over een gaskamer: het mag toch wel weer eens weer een keertje? En als de context wegvalt, wanneer het ‘witte’ of het ‘Nederlandse’ wegvalt, dan is de taal het enige wat er overblijft. Een kutjood is niet meer zo grappig als iemand niet eerst sorry voor de oorlog heeft gezegd.\nhttps://www.dipsaus.org/exclusives-posts/nederlandershebbensorrygezegd\n","date":"February 18, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16006/","section":"Posts","summary":"Een bijzonder goed stuk van Yael van der Wouden over wat het betekent om Nederlander te zijn en wat het betekent om dat niet te zijn.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A fairly definitive article about why SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework) should not be used. Mostly because it is the antithesis of every kind of agility.\nhttps://medium.com/@seandexter1/beware-safe-the-scaled-agile-framework-for-enterprise-an-unholy-incarnation-of-darkness-bf6819f6943f\n","date":"February 18, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16004/","section":"Posts","summary":"A fairly definitive article about why SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework) should not be used. Mostly because it is the antithesis of every kind of agility.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Away is a good example of how Slack can get totally out of hand if your company culture is toxic.\nhttps://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2019/12/5/20995453/away-luggage-ceo-steph-korey-toxic-work-environment-travel-inclusion\n","date":"February 18, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16002/","section":"Posts","summary":"Away is a good example of how Slack can get totally out of hand if your company culture is toxic.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I usually get a lot of resistance when I suggest using monorepos but this article explains really well what cultural benefits that choice entails.\nhttps://medium.com/@adamhjk/monorepo-please-do-3657e08a4b70\n","date":"February 18, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/16000/","section":"Posts","summary":"I usually get a lot of resistance when I suggest using monorepos but this article explains really well what cultural benefits that choice entails.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ian Bogost remarks on the eery flattening of place and the retreat of people into the domestic cozy, since home can be any place you want it to be thanks to digital technology.\nhttps://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/01/smartphone-has-ruined-space/605077/\n","date":"February 8, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15997/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ian Bogost remarks on the eery flattening of place and the retreat of people into the domestic cozy, since home can be any place you want it to be thanks to digital technology.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Reading back on Fallen London I spent altogether too much time on it in the beginning but don\u0026rsquo;t have the heart to go back, that is if the city would even take me back at this point.\nhttps://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2020/01/14/failbetter-games-on-the-unlikely-success-and-10-year-anniversary-of-fallen-london/\n","date":"February 8, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15995/","section":"Posts","summary":"Reading back on Fallen London I spent altogether too much time on it in the beginning but don’t have the heart to go back, that is if the city would even take me back at this point.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"That is a fully comprehensive and excellent list of guidelines to unlearn toxic behaviour in code reviews by Sandya Sankarram.\nhttps://medium.com/@sandya.sankarram/unlearning-toxic-behaviors-in-a-code-review-culture-b7c295452a3c\n","date":"February 8, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15993/","section":"Posts","summary":"That is a fully comprehensive and excellent list of guidelines to unlearn toxic behaviour in code reviews by Sandya Sankarram.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Anybody who\u0026rsquo;s ever seen a SUV driver knows this, but the car industry themselves have verified that the people who buy those cars are assholes.\nWho has been buying SUVs since automakers turned them into family vehicles? They tend to be people who are insecure and vain. They are frequently nervous about their marriages and uncomfortable about parenthood. They often lack confidence in their driving skills. Above all, they are apt to be self-centered and self-absorbed, with little interest in their neighbors or communities.\nhttps://twitter.com/A_W_Gordon/status/1224385645839253506\n","date":"February 8, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15991/","section":"Posts","summary":"Anybody who’s ever seen a SUV driver knows this, but the car industry themselves have verified that the people who buy those cars are assholes.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Germany is deeply entrenched in coal as this utterly backward and destructive position by Siemens underlines.\nhttps://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-01-14/siemens-ceo-joe-kaeser-s-odd-defense-of-carmichael-coal-project\n","date":"February 8, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15989/","section":"Posts","summary":"Germany is deeply entrenched in coal as this utterly backward and destructive position by Siemens underlines.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A long piece on The Daily which reveals a lot about its inner workings and the all-consuming scale with which something like that operates.\nhttps://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/01/michael-barbaro-the-daily-podcast-new-york-times.html\n","date":"February 8, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15987/","section":"Posts","summary":"A long piece on The Daily which reveals a lot about its inner workings and the all-consuming scale with which something like that operates.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik kijk heel erg uit om dingen op het vernieuwde OneWorld te lezen.\nhttps://www.oneworld.nl/anders/achtergrond/dit-is-het-vernieuwde-oneworld/\n","date":"February 8, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15984/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik kijk heel erg uit om dingen op het vernieuwde OneWorld te lezen.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A broad treatment of what the essential quality of Fingerspitzengefühl means.\nhttps://taylorpearson.me/fingerspitzengefuhl/\n","date":"February 8, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15982/","section":"Posts","summary":"A broad treatment of what the essential quality of Fingerspitzengefühl means.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Venkat keeps churning out these legendary and broadly valid pieces. This one is about why everything online is on fire all the time. Strap in.\nhttps://www.ribbonfarm.com/2020/01/16/the-internet-of-beefs/\n","date":"February 2, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15980/","section":"Posts","summary":"Venkat keeps churning out these legendary and broadly valid pieces. This one is about why everything online is on fire all the time. Strap in.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A long treatment of how to scale work as organizations grow with some helpful guidelines: “Keep the work parallel, the groups small, and the resources local.”\nhttps://codahale.com/work-is-work/\n","date":"February 2, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15978/","section":"Posts","summary":"A long treatment of how to scale work as organizations grow with some helpful guidelines: “Keep the work parallel, the groups small, and the resources local.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Pizza toast and all kinds of toasties are a staple here with small kids which seems to imply that an odyssey through Japan like Craig Mod undertakes here could be a great idea.\nhttps://www.eater.com/2019/12/16/21003452/japan-kissaten-traditional-cafes-pizza-toast-travel\n","date":"February 2, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15976/","section":"Posts","summary":"Pizza toast and all kinds of toasties are a staple here with small kids which seems to imply that an odyssey through Japan like Craig Mod undertakes here could be a great idea.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;m glad that this takedown of Clean Code by Dan Abramov got so much traction. I have no problem with clean code (lowercase), but inevitably the process of getting there and the things people do as a consequence make the entire endeavor an anti-pattern.\n“Obsessing with “clean code”and removing duplication is a phase many of us go through. When we don’t feel confident in our code, it is tempting to attach our sense of self-worth and professional pride to something that can be measured. A set of strict lint rules, a naming schema, a file structure, a lack of duplication.”\nAs always, people get too attached to the parts that are the most obvious and the least important.\nhttps://overreacted.io/goodbye-clean-code/\n","date":"February 2, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15972/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’m glad that this takedown of Clean Code by Dan Abramov got so much traction. I have no problem with clean code (lowercase), but inevitably the process of getting there and the things people do as a consequence make the entire endeavor an anti-pattern.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"“The privilege I have — how? No, genuinely, how?”\nWell, I say, in terms of wealth, class, education — that kind of privilege, in knowing how to decode the rules in certain spaces. As a caveat, I add that both of us have privilege, and it’s not a criticism; I was simply curious to know what she thought. Things take an awkward turn.\n“Well no, because, no… ”There is a very long and tense pause, before she insists that, actually, there is little difference between her experience and that of her co-star John Boyega, who grew up in south London to British Nigerian immigrant parents. “John grew up on a council estate in Peckham and I think me and him are similar enough that… no\u0026hellip; Also, I went to a boarding school for performing arts, which was different.”\nDaisy Ridley has no idea that she is privileged.\nhttps://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/dec/07/daisy-ridley-jj-abrams-star-wars-a-religion\n","date":"February 2, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15970/","section":"Posts","summary":"“The privilege I have — how? No, genuinely, how?”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Een verslag van Marijn Kruk over de bijzonder grimmige politieke situatie in Frankrijk.\nhttps://www.groene.nl/artikel/hoofddoeken-bij-de-fontein\n","date":"February 2, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15968/","section":"Posts","summary":"Een verslag van Marijn Kruk over de bijzonder grimmige politieke situatie in Frankrijk.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"“If I have learned anything from the experience I’ve just described, it’s that the desire to shape, bait, surf, defy, find meaning in, or otherwise control and draw sharp lines between myself and the haters puts me on risky psychic territory. It’s dangerous. My provisional conclusion? That the best path for me, should hating on my person ever recur at scale, is to deploy, to the best of my ability, relentless sincerity, credulity, wit, and yes, shamelessness, but, crucially, shameability, too—openness to being justly shamed. If I become unshameable, after all, what good is my shamelessness? If I start assuming in advance, deep down, that no one whom I’ve upset with my words has valid points to make, what will I have become? I found it least harmful, actually, to keep my eyes and ears open throughout the dogpiles, experiencing them as reminders that the revolution will not be content-moderated; that I am fighting for things that make people hate me and that that’s sort of okay, I can respect it (plus, hey, it’s mutual).”\nhttps://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/hello-to-my-haters-tucker-carlsons-mob-and-me\n","date":"February 2, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15966/","section":"Posts","summary":"“If I have learned anything from the experience I’ve just described, it’s that the desire to shape, bait, surf, defy, find meaning in, or otherwise control and draw sharp lines between myself and the haters puts me on risky psychic territory. It’s dangerous. My provisional conclusion? That the best path for me, should hating on my person ever recur at scale, is to deploy, to the best of my ability, relentless sincerity, credulity, wit, and yes, shamelessness, but, crucially, shameability, too—openness to being justly shamed. If I become unshameable, after all, what good is my shamelessness? If I start assuming in advance, deep down, that no one whom I’ve upset with my words has valid points to make, what will I have become? I found it least harmful, actually, to keep my eyes and ears open throughout the dogpiles, experiencing them as reminders that the revolution will not be content-moderated; that I am fighting for things that make people hate me and that that’s sort of okay, I can respect it (plus, hey, it’s mutual).”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"This is good advice for a Director of UX by Adrian Howard that generalizes well to any other kind of Director.\nhttps://adrianhoward.com/posts/first-steps-director-of-ux/\n","date":"January 29, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15962/","section":"Posts","summary":"This is good advice for a Director of UX by Adrian Howard that generalizes well to any other kind of Director.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A long article by Robert Arkwright that uses react server-side rendering as a hook to discuss various scalability issues.\nhttps://arkwright.github.io/scaling-react-server-side-rendering.html\n","date":"January 29, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15960/","section":"Posts","summary":"A long article by Robert Arkwright that uses react server-side rendering as a hook to discuss various scalability issues.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"An incredibly sad and beautiful story of a father\u0026rsquo;s last days.\nhttps://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/dec/14/saying-goodbye-to-family-motor-neurone-disease-reflecting-on-end-of-life\n","date":"January 29, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15958/","section":"Posts","summary":"An incredibly sad and beautiful story of a father’s last days.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A bit of near-future fiction about crypto as a subsistence work enterprise.\nhttps://logicmag.io/bodies/the-crypto-family-farm/\n","date":"January 29, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15956/","section":"Posts","summary":"A bit of near-future fiction about crypto as a subsistence work enterprise.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A nice write-up of how Gitlab diagnosed and fixed an outage before it could even happen.\nhttps://about.gitlab.com/blog/2019/11/08/the-consul-outage-that-never-happened/\n","date":"January 29, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15954/","section":"Posts","summary":"A nice write-up of how Gitlab diagnosed and fixed an outage before it could even happen.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Een lang en grondig interview met Cody Hochstenbach over de wooncrisis in Nederland. Studio Tegengif is een favoriete podcast wat een soort Nederlandse versie van The Weeds lijkt te worden.\nhttps://soundcloud.com/studio-tegengif/49-cody-hochstenbach-over-de-wooncrisis-en-hoe-deze-te-fiksen\nDaar ook genoemd dit gênante bericht over hoe in Nederland de dakloosheid blijft stijgen, een door en door door de politiek gecreëerd probleem.\nhttps://www.rtlnieuws.nl/onderzoek/artikel/4775611/economisch-dakloos-thuisloos-werkenden-zonder-huis-opvang\n","date":"January 29, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15952/","section":"Posts","summary":"Een lang en grondig interview met Cody Hochstenbach over de wooncrisis in Nederland. Studio Tegengif is een favoriete podcast wat een soort Nederlandse versie van The Weeds lijkt te worden.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Pijnlijk dat het enige kritische interview van FvD in de Gelderlander moet plaatsvinden.\nhttps://www.gelderlander.nl/home/armita-taheri-is-de-nieuwe-troef-van-baudet-thierry-zei-pak-ons-bij-de-ballen~a5061ee0/\n","date":"January 29, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15950/","section":"Posts","summary":"Pijnlijk dat het enige kritische interview van FvD in de Gelderlander moet plaatsvinden.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Lekha is a former collaborator who now has this lovely site of her own. Her sense of systems and many skills have always made it a joy to work with her.\nhttp://houseoflekha.com/\n","date":"January 29, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15948/","section":"Posts","summary":"Lekha is a former collaborator who now has this lovely site of her own. Her sense of systems and many skills have always made it a joy to work with her.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I used to know Wytze and the foresight and innovation that he put into the Urban Arrow back in the day (2010) which is still going strong is nothing short of mind-boggling.\nhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=240\u0026v=pye09heBqfY\n","date":"January 29, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15946/","section":"Posts","summary":"I used to know Wytze and the foresight and innovation that he put into the Urban Arrow back in the day (2010) which is still going strong is nothing short of mind-boggling.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"January 29, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/delft/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Delft","type":"categories"},{"content":"“Slack eliminates hierarchy time and space.”\n","date":"January 25, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15944/","section":"Posts","summary":"“Slack eliminates hierarchy time and space.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I read this science-fiction short story which is reminiscent of Ann Leckie\u0026rsquo;s books in how it plays with gender and militarism, but I think this is better.\nhttps://twitter.com/atomicthumbs/status/1215170599045103617\n","date":"January 10, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15940/","section":"Posts","summary":"I read this science-fiction short story which is reminiscent of Ann Leckie’s books in how it plays with gender and militarism, but I think this is better.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I listened to the writer of this book explain how the people in the Obama administration thought things would work the same way as they did in The West Wing. Properly hilarious stuff with very serious consequences.\nhttps://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/the-obamanauts\n","date":"January 10, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15938/","section":"Posts","summary":"I listened to the writer of this book explain how the people in the Obama administration thought things would work the same way as they did in The West Wing. Properly hilarious stuff with very serious consequences.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I have nothing but immense respect for these people who built a Slack client for Windows 3.1, turning retro computing into retro programming.\nhttp://yeokhengmeng.com/2019/12/building-a-new-win-3-1-app-in-2019-part-1-slack-client/\n","date":"January 10, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/building-a-new-win-3-1-app-in-2019-part-1-slack-client/","section":"Posts","summary":"I have nothing but immense respect for these people who built a Slack client for Windows 3.1, turning retro computing into retro programming.\n","title":"BUILDING A NEW WIN 3.1 APP IN 2019 PART 1: SLACK CLIENT","type":"posts"},{"content":"A breathtaking background story of how the top of Mount Everest turned into a tourist destination.\nhttps://www.gq.com/story/mount-everest-chaos-at-the-top-of-the-world\n","date":"January 10, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15933/","section":"Posts","summary":"A breathtaking background story of how the top of Mount Everest turned into a tourist destination.\n","title":"Chaos at the Top of the World","type":"posts"},{"content":"This profile on C.C. Myers is a good example of leading from the front but even more than that it shows that speed begets speed.\nhttps://www.comstocksmag.com/longreads/cover-worlds-fastest-man\n","date":"January 10, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15931/","section":"Posts","summary":"This profile on C.C. Myers is a good example of leading from the front but even more than that it shows that speed begets speed.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Will I get tired reading these kind of paeans on Finland (in this case their culture of media literacy)? Probably not.\nhttps://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2019/05/europe/finland-fake-news-intl/\n","date":"January 10, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15929/","section":"Posts","summary":"Will I get tired reading these kind of paeans on Finland (in this case their culture of media literacy)? Probably not.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A quick rundown by Github of how to develop quickly on production using feature flags and what benefits that brings.\nhttps://dev.to/mscccc/how-we-use-ship-small-to-rapidly-build-new-features-at-github-5cl9\n","date":"January 10, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15927/","section":"Posts","summary":"A quick rundown by Github of how to develop quickly on production using feature flags and what benefits that brings.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;m not that negative about the Dominic Cummings job ad, because:\nUnlike a lot of people in governments everywhere, he seems to have a clue what he is doing. That a person who\u0026rsquo;s winning would quote Boyd is not a coincidence. Using a blog in this way (or Trump tweeting like he does) is the direct e-government that everybody has always been asking for. Not so fun now that we have it, is it? Governments and institutions are breaking or already are broken in this age. They do need large scale overhaul.\nThis is even worse in Germany where the institutions are bigger and the ahistorical denial of reality is immense. It\u0026rsquo;s going to be really ugly when they go down. A city like Berlin, that can\u0026rsquo;t get anything done to save its life, would probably be massively improved by this approach. Our local government here can’t find its own asshole without help from McKinsey. Please somebody do this for Berlin. https://dominiccummings.com/2020/01/02/two-hands-are-a-lot-were-hiring-data-scientists-project-managers-policy-experts-assorted-weirdos/\n","date":"January 2, 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/a-government-thats-certain-to-win/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’m not that negative about the Dominic Cummings job ad, because:\n","title":"A government that's certain to win","type":"posts"},{"content":"The disappearance of Page and Brin is one of the weirder and more foreboding things. You have to wonder whether we will ever hear from them or anybody similarly rich ever again.\nWhen, in their famous 1998 grad-school paper “The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine,”they introduced Google to the world, they warned that if the search engine were ever to leave the “academic realm”and become a business, it would be corrupted. It would become “a black art”and “be advertising oriented.”\nhttp://www.roughtype.com/?p=8661\n","date":"December 24, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15918/","section":"Posts","summary":"The disappearance of Page and Brin is one of the weirder and more foreboding things. You have to wonder whether we will ever hear from them or anybody similarly rich ever again.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Not surprisingly I agree with these reasons to do give management a try. It can be a very rewarding thing for the right person at the right place/time.\nhttps://www.davidbrunelle.com/2019-09-12-reasons-to-try-management/\n","date":"December 20, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15915/","section":"Posts","summary":"Not surprisingly I agree with these reasons to do give management a try. It can be a very rewarding thing for the right person at the right place/time.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I will never do this but I very much love this phenomenon of writing on vintage computers.\nhttps://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/06/why-30-year-old-macintosh-works-better-todays/591154/\n","date":"December 20, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15913/","section":"Posts","summary":"I will never do this but I very much love this phenomenon of writing on vintage computers.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I too love taking notes just like Tanya Reilly here and I wish more people would take better notes.\nhttps://noidea.dog/blog/can-somebody-take-notes\n","date":"December 20, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15911/","section":"Posts","summary":"I too love taking notes just like Tanya Reilly here and I wish more people would take better notes.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A bunch of very relevant guidelines of how to setup a product team at various stages of a company from the CPO of Credit Karma.\nhttps://firstround.com/review/how-to-craft-your-product-team-at-every-stage-from-pre-product-market-fit-to-hypergrowth/\n","date":"December 17, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15909/","section":"Posts","summary":"A bunch of very relevant guidelines of how to setup a product team at various stages of a company from the CPO of Credit Karma.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A nice holistic mapping way to look at alliances.\nhttps://tasshin.com/blog/the-art-of-alliances/\n","date":"December 17, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15907/","section":"Posts","summary":"A nice holistic mapping way to look at alliances.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"This summary of Robert Kegan is more than a bit illuminating. And maybe I\u0026rsquo;m only aspiring when I say this, but come join me at Stage 5. It\u0026rsquo;s nice here.\nhttps://vividness.live/2015/10/12/developing-ethical-social-and-cognitive-competence/#fnref-1768-contradstag\n","date":"November 29, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15902/","section":"Posts","summary":"This summary of Robert Kegan is more than a bit illuminating. And maybe I’m only aspiring when I say this, but come join me at Stage 5. It’s nice here.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"“In the new city of the supertalls, man is born free but everywhere is in salad chains. The people are being made skinny to fit the skinniness of the buildings to come.”\n“Whether the art that comes out of The Shed will be any good, or just social media-ready kitsch delivered in unnourishing experiential baggies for the ’gram, we don’t yet know.”\nEvery city worth a damn will be colonized and sterilized.\nhttps://thebaffler.com/outbursts/needles-and-the-damage-done-timms\n","date":"November 29, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15900/","section":"Posts","summary":"“In the new city of the supertalls, man is born free but everywhere is in salad chains. The people are being made skinny to fit the skinniness of the buildings to come.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Read this post by Dan Hill if only to see the highway cutting through Enskede (I had to gasp) which if you consider it is a criminal act in the form of urban planning.\nhttps://medium.com/butwhatwasthequestion/cities-captured-by-cars-part-1-of-and-you-may-find-yourself-behind-the-wheel-of-a-large-949cc00dd2bd\n","date":"November 29, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15898/","section":"Posts","summary":"Read this post by Dan Hill if only to see the highway cutting through Enskede (I had to gasp) which if you consider it is a criminal act in the form of urban planning.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"German publications fail cyclists in all of the ways described here.\nhttps://www.bicycling.com/news/a29993123/failing-cyclists-with-words/\n","date":"November 29, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15896/","section":"Posts","summary":"German publications fail cyclists in all of the ways described here.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"An investigative journalism report of Amazon\u0026rsquo;s injury rates that is incredibly grim.\nMaybe we should cancel that Prime membership if ever we manage to break through those dark patterns.\nhttps://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/11/amazon-warehouse-reports-show-worker-injuries/602530/\n","date":"November 29, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15893/","section":"Posts","summary":"An investigative journalism report of Amazon’s injury rates that is incredibly grim.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The difference between peacetime and wartime productivity is when things are so explosive and all your systems break down and when you get out the other side everything is changed. It\u0026rsquo;s an essential and very educational mode.\nhttps://tasshin.com/blog/peacetime-productivity-wartime-productivity/\n","date":"November 29, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15891/","section":"Posts","summary":"The difference between peacetime and wartime productivity is when things are so explosive and all your systems break down and when you get out the other side everything is changed. It’s an essential and very educational mode.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Instead, the system—in America and around the world—has been organized to siphon the gains from innovation upward, such that the fortunes of the world’s billionaires now grow at more than double the pace of everyone else’s, and the top 10 percent of humanity have come to hold 90 percent of the planet’s wealth.\nHow can there be anything wrong with trying to do good? The answer may be: when the good is an accomplice to even greater, if more invisible, harm.\nFor when elites assume leadership of social change, they are able to reshape what social change is—above all, to present it as something that should never threaten winners.\nThe only thing better than controlling money and power is to control the efforts to question the distribution of money and power.\nThey were supposed to make democracy more vital and effective for ordinary people, but preferably without challenging their fellow winners too much. They were to grow the public’s trust in institutions without digging too far into why the people leading those institutions were mistrusted.\nSuch an undertaking would be conflictual; it would name names of offending financial institutions; it would pick fights with people who might one day be useful to you.\nyou might conclude that you should do something to repair the systems that are working to keep Jacobs poor. But if those problems were solved, you wouldn’t have much of a win-win business to grow.\nVCs and entrepreneurs are considered by many to be thinkers these days, their commercial utterances treated like ideas, and these ideas are often in the future tense: claims about the next world, forged by adding up the theses of their portfolio companies or extrapolating from their own start-up’s mission statement. That people listened to their ideas gave them a chance to launder their self-interested hopes into more selfless-sounding predictions about the world.\nThis power gave them great responsibility and exposed them to the possibility of resentment—unless they convinced people that the future they were fighting for would unfold automatically, would be the fruit of forces rather than their choices, of providence rather than power.\nIf you want to be a thought leader and not dismissed as a critic, your job is to help the public see problems as personal and individual dramas rather than collective and systemic ones.\nThe money can liberate the top thought leaders from the institutions and colleagues that might otherwise provide some kind of intellectual check on them, while sometimes turning their ideas into advertisements rather than self-contained work.\n“Conversation with a Tax Collector About Poetry,”by Vladimir Mayakovsky\nScaling back her critique of the system had allowed her to be wildly popular with MarketWorld elites and more easily digested by the world at large; and so she became famous, which drew the system of sexism into her life as never before and heightened her awareness of it; and its ferocity convinced her not to take on that system but to conclude that it might never change; and this acquiescence made her turn from uprooting sexism to helping women survive it.\nFor the aspiring thought leader, it is less important to have an undergirding of scholarly research than it is to be your idea—to perform and hawk it relentlessly.\nWhen a thought leader strips politics and perpetrators from a problem, she often gains access to a bigger platform to influence change-makers—but she also adds to the vast pile of stories promoted by MarketWorld that tell us that change is easy, is a win-win, and doesn’t require sacrifice.\nThe kinds of changes favored by the public in an age of inequality, as reflected from time to time in some electoral platforms, are usually unacceptable to elites. Simple rejection of those types of changes can only invite greater hostility toward the elites. It is more useful for the elites to be seen as favoring change—their kind of change, of course.\nIt wasn’t as though you had no choice but to compromise. You could easily develop your ideas and promote them through what he labeled “marginal magazines”and “militant conferences.”\nThe question of building more inclusive economies would be atomized into endless subcategories, until the human reality all but vanished.\nWhat if these winners didn’t know everything? What if those outsiders who weren’t in the room knew a thing or two?\nInstead of listening, absorbing, trying to decipher slowly and respectfully the dynamics of the space one had entered, the high-flying, high-priced consultant was expected to jump in and know things.\nConsultants first find the “business need,”or the basic problem, based on evaluating the company and its industry. Then they “analyze.”This step requires “framing the problem: defining the boundaries of the problem and breaking it down into its component elements to allow the problem-solving team to come up with an initial hypothesis as to the solution.”This is the insta-certitude at work—hypothesis-making comes early. Then the consultants must “design the analysis”and “gather the data”to prove the hypothesis, and must decide, based on the results, whether their theory of the solution is right. If it is, the next step is “presenting”in a crisp, clear, convincing way that can win over clients understandably wary of fancy outsiders’ big ideas. At last, the solution comes to the “implementation”phase, through “iteration that leads to continual improvement.”\nThe protocols and those who employed them did have a lot to offer the world of social problems: rigor, logic, data, an ability to make decisions swiftly. As they spread into the work of battling disease or reforming education, they could do a great deal of good and allow people’s money and time to go further than they could have without it. But there was always a price, and part of that price was that problems reformatted according to the protocols were recast in the light of a winner’s gaze. After all, the definition of a problem is done by the problem-solver and crowds out other ways of seeing it.\nInspire the rich to do more good, but never, ever tell them to do less harm; inspire them to give back, but never, ever tell them to take less; inspire them to join the solution, but never, ever accuse them of being part of the problem.\nLeave us alone in the competitive marketplace, and we will tend to you after the winnings are won. The money will be spent more wisely on you than it would be by you. You will have your chance to enjoy our wealth, in the way we think you should enjoy it.\nGenerosity entitles the winners to exemption from questions like these.\nKing had argued that the circumstances of economic injustice, when examined, had something to do with the people in power, and that true generosity might mean restrained taking, not just the belated shedding of some of what had been taken.\nThere Bill Clinton would stand beside you and read your commitment to the room and praise you. This moment would become, among the doing-well-by-doing-good set, the coveted capstone to a career: People who were influential and/or rich but relatively unknown would bask in the celebrity-like glow.\nThen there was a flurry of business-speak: “In order to reach the world that we want by 2030, collaboration and co-design are key.”\nWhen private actors move into the solution of public problems, it becomes less and less of the public’s business.\nThe “they”were the rootless cosmopolitans’ less-rarefied fellow citizens, who in one place after another were gravitating to nationalism, demagogy, and resentful exclusion—and rejecting some of the elites’ most cherished beliefs: borderlessness, market cures for all diseases, inevitable technological progress, benign technocratic stewardship.\nIt is a way of doing good that allows them to ignore the fact that their democracies aren’t working well. Or, even more simply, it allows them to avoid the duty they might otherwise feel to interact with their fellow citizens across divides, to learn about the problems facing their own communities, which might implicate them, their choices, and their privileges—as opposed to universal challenges like climate change or the woes of faraway places like Rwandan coffee plantations.\n“Probably people who get together in these congregations don’t think of what they’re doing as politics,”Rodrik said. “But of course it’s politics. It’s just a politics that has a different locus and has a different view of who matters and how you can change things, and has a different theory of change and who the agents of change are.”\nBut the same elite help, backed by the same noble intentions, can instead “disrupt”democracy when it “replaces the public sphere with all manner of private initiatives for special public purposes.”These latter works don’t simply do what government cannot do. They “crowd out the public sector, further reducing both its legitimacy and its efficacy, and replace civic goals with narrower concerns about efficiency and markets.”\nThe seasoned and astute private world-changer seeks to alter “the public conversation about which social issues matter, sets an agenda for how they matter, and specifies who is the preferred provider of services to address these issues without any engagement with the deliberative processes of civil society.”\n“So it’s not just the right thing to do,”Verveer said. “It’s the business-smart thing to do.”This was the highest praise a cause could receive.\nThe only problem-solving approach that worked in the modern world, according to Clinton, was one that made the people an afterthought, to be helped but not truly heard.\nOne’s American plutocrat friends didn’t necessarily have a problem with more energetic government in Africa. But they preferred win-win solutions in their own backyard, where energetic government sounded like it could end up being expensive.\nEconomistic reasoning dominates our age, and we may be tempted to focus on the first half of each of the above sentences—a marginal contribution you can see and touch—and to ignore the second half, involving a vaguer thing called complicity.\nHer claim, rather, is that citizens of a democracy are collectively responsible for what their society foreseeably and persistently allows; that they have a special duty toward those it systematically fails; and that this burden falls most heavily on those most amply rewarded by the same, ultimately arbitrary set of arrangements.\nTo live in a society without laws and shared institutions that applied equally to all would be, Cordelli says, to live “dependent on the arbitrary will of another. It would be like a form of servitude.”\nShe says you are worth nothing without society because there can be no hedge fund managers, nor violinists, nor technology entrepreneurs, in the absence of a civilizational infrastructure that we take for granted.\nThen there is the fact that absent a political system of shared institutions, anyone could dominate anyone. Every person with anything precious to protect would be at constant risk of plunder by everybody else.\n“When it comes to effecting change in a way that makes them feel good—when it comes to building a business, lobbying for certain things, effectively helping some people through philanthropy, then they are agents,”Cordelli said. “They powerfully and intentionally can exercise change.”However, she went on, “When it comes to paying more taxes, when it comes to trying to advocate for more just institutions, when it comes to actually trying to prevent injustices that are systemic or trying to advocate for less inequality and more redistribution, then they’re paralyzed. There is nothing they can do.\n","date":"November 28, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-winners-take-all/","section":"Posts","summary":"Instead, the system—in America and around the world—has been organized to siphon the gains from innovation upward, such that the fortunes of the world’s billionaires now grow at more than double the pace of everyone else’s, and the top 10 percent of humanity have come to hold 90 percent of the planet’s wealth.\n","title":"Highlights for Winners Take All","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;ve been meaning to finish reading up on German history. If I read the five books below, I should be in a great place.\nHeart of Europe: A History of the Holy Roman Empire Iron Kingdom, the Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947 History of Germany 1780-1918: The Long Nineteenth Century Weimar Germany: Promise and Tragedy Hitler: Ascent 1889-1939 ","date":"November 28, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/german-history-reading-list/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’ve been meaning to finish reading up on German history. If I read the five books below, I should be in a great place.\n","title":"German history reading list","type":"posts"},{"content":"A short and clear argument for a degrowth economic model based on the British wartime effort: rationing and government control of production goals.\nhttps://taz.de/Abschied-vom-Wachstum/!5629125/\n","date":"November 28, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15884/","section":"Posts","summary":"A short and clear argument for a degrowth economic model based on the British wartime effort: rationing and government control of production goals.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I started reading this article on WeChat which turned into a convincing takedown of design thinking\u0026rsquo;s incrementalism and lack of vision.\nhttps://hbr.org/2019/10/the-kind-of-creative-thinking-that-fueled-wechats-success\n","date":"November 27, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15882/","section":"Posts","summary":"I started reading this article on WeChat which turned into a convincing takedown of design thinking’s incrementalism and lack of vision.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A good summary of Grove\u0026rsquo;s High Output Management and a strong argument to read it: “To paraphrase the book, the job of an executive is: to define and enforce culture and values for their whole organization, and to ratify good decisions.”\nhttps://apenwarr.ca/log/20190926\n","date":"November 27, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15880/","section":"Posts","summary":"A good summary of Grove’s High Output Management and a strong argument to read it: “To paraphrase the book, the job of an executive is: to define and enforce culture and values for their whole organization, and to ratify good decisions.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Both Http calls will happen instantly and renderPage will be called when both are resolved.\nNo idea why this is the case that ap makes the calls happen instantly and it is not explained. A paragraph later it is explained, the initial function is curried and is waiting for both of its parameters to arrive before it can run. What ap does is immediately execute whatever needs to be done to get such a parameter.\nliftA2(add, Maybe.of(2), Maybe.of(3));\nThat is rather incredible.\n","date":"November 27, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/types-and-functions-6-applicative/","section":"Posts","summary":"Both Http calls will happen instantly and renderPage will be called when both are resolved.\n","title":"Types and Functions 6: Applicative","type":"posts"},{"content":"Functor is simply an interface with a contract. We could have just as easily named it Mappable, but now, where\u0026rsquo;s the fun in that?\nIt would have been nice if the name was easy and logical but at least now I finally know what a Functor is. None of the other guides or tutorials really managed to explain that.\nAt the time of calling, a function can be surrounded by map, which transforms it from a non-functory function to a functory one, in informal terms. We call this process lifting. Functions tend to be better off working with normal data types rather than container types, then lifted into the right container as deemed necessary.\nA decent explanation of lifting is also nice to have though without too many examples I don\u0026rsquo;t think this will stick.\nThe rest of the chapter including the introduction of IO is just one big: “Why would you do this?”\n","date":"November 27, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/types-and-functions-4-containers/","section":"Posts","summary":"Functor is simply an interface with a contract. We could have just as easily named it Mappable, but now, where’s the fun in that?\n","title":"Types and Functions 4: Containers","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;m looking forward to this chapter. When they taught us Haskell as an undergrad they made sure to stop well short of Monads. At the time I was happy about that but by now I wish we had pushed on.\nMonads are pointed functors that can flatten\nI get this definition by now but it is exactly the kind of stuff that I wasn\u0026rsquo;t going for. But maybe an ELI5 introduction to functional programming is too much to ask for?\nMind you, we have not thrown out purity, but merely removed one layer of excess shrink wrap.\nWhat is good here is that this tutorial does not gloss over this necessity with a bunch of jargon but in excruciating detail builds up the explanation.\nIf you\u0026rsquo;ve read about monads previously, you might have seen chain called \u0026gt;\u0026gt;= (pronounced bind) or flatMap which are all aliases for the same concept.\nThis ridiculous aliasing into tons of different names in large part explains my confusion. Chain, bind and flatMap ar all the same thing.\nOne question that I\u0026rsquo;m left with then is how much of this do you need to be able to use functional programming at an application level and how much do you need to be able to write functional libraries yourself.\nThe exercises in this chapter are hopeless. The tiny IDE does not help at all and it feels like the only way to do them is to poke at it with map and chain until it sticks. That may very well be the essence of functional programming for all I know.\nAgain, the thing is that I know what I want to do and that it theoretically should fit together but the various functions feel like broken legos. If they were physical legos with affordances, things would be a lot easier.\n","date":"November 27, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/types-and-function-5-monads/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’m looking forward to this chapter. When they taught us Haskell as an undergrad they made sure to stop well short of Monads. At the time I was happy about that but by now I wish we had pushed on.\n","title":"Types and Function 5: Monads","type":"posts"},{"content":"A concretized framework for making better product decisions by Laura Klein that comes down to: get together, write things down, review things, course correct when required.\nhttps://www.usersknow.com/blog/2019/10/2/make-better-product-decisions\n","date":"November 27, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15875/","section":"Posts","summary":"A concretized framework for making better product decisions by Laura Klein that comes down to: get together, write things down, review things, course correct when required.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A bunch of incredibly grim stories of people whose lives were destroyed in the DDR.\nhttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/06/ive-been-shafted-twice-stasi-victims-and-their-quest-for-compensation?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other\n","date":"November 27, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15873/","section":"Posts","summary":"A bunch of incredibly grim stories of people whose lives were destroyed in the DDR.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Turns out large parts of science and popular science are all contaminated by Epstein. Evgeny Morozov reveals his part and extricates himself.\nhttps://newrepublic.com/article/154826/jeffrey-epsteins-intellectual-enabler\n","date":"November 27, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15871/","section":"Posts","summary":"Turns out large parts of science and popular science are all contaminated by Epstein. Evgeny Morozov reveals his part and extricates himself.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"“Ja. Als het aan mij ligt wordt Shell morgen genationaliseerd en worden rijken onteigend. Dat is trouwens ook in hun belang.”\nGo on king!\n“D66 is ook in niets fundamenteel verschillend van extreemrechts. En GroenLinks is dat ook. Zij verdedigen de bestaande orde, die gebaseerd is op bezit en grenzen, en dus op geweld en destructie van de aarde. Ze verdedigen in die zin een extreemrechtse politiek.”\nAnaloog zou ik willen zeggen dat de meeste groene partijen op de wereld klimaatontkenners zijn, want als ze de klimaatverandering écht serieus zouden nemen, dan zouden ze een totaal andere politiek en aanpak kiezen.\nhttps://dekanttekening.nl/interview/socioloog-willem-schinkel-d66-en-groenlinks-verschillen-niet-fundamenteel-van-extreemrechts/\n","date":"November 27, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15869/","section":"Posts","summary":"“Ja. Als het aan mij ligt wordt Shell morgen genationaliseerd en worden rijken onteigend. Dat is trouwens ook in hun belang.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"“Drinking has to be against the rules for taking a drink to be breaking the rules. Only a Muslim can know how good that tastes.”\nAn amazing dive into the popularity of Johnny Walker Black in the Muslim world.\nI remember the penchant of a certain kind of man to whiskey when I was a kid and how it would be used as an (expensive) present or bribe. I bet that in most of those cases it was also Black Label that they were going for.\nhttps://theoutline.com/post/8280/how-johnnie-walker-black-became-the-house-liquor-of-the-muslim-world?zd=1\u0026amp;zi=dnzv3qcl\n","date":"November 25, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15861/","section":"Posts","summary":"“Drinking has to be against the rules for taking a drink to be breaking the rules. Only a Muslim can know how good that tastes.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Then we get at Chapter 05: Composing and I really don\u0026rsquo;t understand the need to faff around so much when it comes to such a mathematically simple subject.\nComposing is really easy, it\u0026rsquo;s just that programming languages make it hard. Especially if you look at this:\nconst compose = (...fns) =\u0026gt; (...args) =\u0026gt; fns.reduceRight((res, fn) =\u0026gt; [fn.call(null, ...res)], args)[0]; That curried function is left unexplained and I\u0026rsquo;m still not sure I can read it.\nI\u0026rsquo;m documenting this because every chapter is spawning off one too many bunny trails for my taste. That also makes it clear how learning functional programming is a reclusive undergrad\u0026rsquo;s game.\n","date":"November 25, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/types-and-functions-3-composing/","section":"Posts","summary":"Then we get at Chapter 05: Composing and I really don’t understand the need to faff around so much when it comes to such a mathematically simple subject.\n","title":"Types and Functions 3: Composing","type":"posts"},{"content":"It goes wrong fairly quickly when it comes to Chapter 04: Currying. It is unclear why you would want to do this 1 and how the code really works.\nAn additional problem is that many function definitions after this are written in curried form, like so:\n// join :: String -\u0026gt; [String] -\u0026gt; String\nIt would have been nice if it was mentioned how to read these. To be fair it is in a way in the same Chapter 07 where I found the above signature: “Without fully understanding the details, you could always just view the last type as the return value.”\nDigging through a bunch of mostly unhelpful documents, I figured out that you can take everything around the arrows as function arguments except for the last one.\nSo the join above is a function that takes a String and an array of Strings and returns a String.\nAddendum: This also makes it easier to read the Ramda type signatures.\nI suspect that that will be a recurring theme.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"November 25, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/types-and-functions-2-currying/","section":"Posts","summary":"It goes wrong fairly quickly when it comes to Chapter 04: Currying. It is unclear why you would want to do this 1 and how the code really works.\n","title":"Types and Functions 2: Currying","type":"posts"},{"content":"I got sick of it and I want to learn the weirder stuff of functional programming seriously now.\nI\u0026rsquo;m under the impression that these are fundamentally very simple things that people overcomplicate either because they don\u0026rsquo;t really understand them or because they are poor communicators.\nI think it should be possible to explain the concepts and their use without any jargon, so I asked for sources:\nThe Mostly Adequate Guide to Functional Programming Functional Programming in Javascript Learn You a Haskell for Great Good I\u0026rsquo;m now working with the Mostly Adequate Guide which starts of really good but at some point also dives off into mathematical weirdness. Let\u0026rsquo;s see how far I get.\n","date":"November 25, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/types-and-functions-1-introduction/","section":"Posts","summary":"I got sick of it and I want to learn the weirder stuff of functional programming seriously now.\n","title":"Types and Functions 1: Introduction","type":"posts"},{"content":"Nice to find some more socially conscious and also quality rap in Germany.\nhttp://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20191025-og-keemo-the-german-rapper-taking-aim-at-entrenched-racism\n","date":"November 25, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15851/","section":"Posts","summary":"Nice to find some more socially conscious and also quality rap in Germany.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Truly, if you don\u0026rsquo;t throw hundreds of millions into the trash fire that is the big consultancies, there is no limit to what you can get done.\nhttps://twitter.com/Philip_Salter/status/1191412809340530690\n","date":"November 25, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15849/","section":"Posts","summary":"Truly, if you don’t throw hundreds of millions into the trash fire that is the big consultancies, there is no limit to what you can get done.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I usually say that application development (mobile and otherwise) is a solved problem but once you go to any kind of scale, you run into all of these operational issues which keep things interesting.\nBy a solved problem, I mean that figuring out what to build and building it is by now, for an experienced team, a linear endeavor. Aligning the rest of the organization to be able to do this, however, not so much.\nhttps://twitter.com/GergelyOrosz/status/1195993293949194240\n","date":"November 25, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15847/","section":"Posts","summary":"I usually say that application development (mobile and otherwise) is a solved problem but once you go to any kind of scale, you run into all of these operational issues which keep things interesting.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A thorough and very useful teardown by Lara Hogan of management at the various levels of indirection.\n‘IC work: hahaha’ indeed; I haven\u0026rsquo;t written a line of production code in a while now.\nhttps://larahogan.me/blog/manager-levels-redux/\n","date":"November 25, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15845/","section":"Posts","summary":"A thorough and very useful teardown by Lara Hogan of management at the various levels of indirection.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"English language critique of Turkish rap produced in my backyard here in Berlin. That\u0026rsquo;s the way I like it.\nhttps://twitter.com/kenan_sharpe/status/1195723219430342657\n","date":"November 25, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15843/","section":"Posts","summary":"English language critique of Turkish rap produced in my backyard here in Berlin. That’s the way I like it.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;ve been a part of the Berlin Dad\u0026rsquo;s Slack for a while now which is proving to be an essential resource for dads who want to live a balanced life.\nI would very much suggest you join if you\u0026rsquo;re a dad as well.\nhttps://papiberlin.de/pages/slack\n","date":"November 25, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15839/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’ve been a part of the Berlin Dad’s Slack for a while now which is proving to be an essential resource for dads who want to live a balanced life.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A Turkish guy in a van turns the corner tight enough to almost run us over. He then stops and pulls down the window: \u0026ldquo;Möchtest du mir etwas sagen?\u0026rdquo;\nTo which I better don\u0026rsquo;t reply: \u0026ldquo;Ja, \u0026lsquo;senin ananı babanı sikeyim.\u0026rsquo;\u0026rdquo;\nThese guys are so easily triggered. Once I did say this and the dude followed me through half of Schöneberg in his car.\n","date":"November 16, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/my-easily-incensed-people/","section":"Posts","summary":"A Turkish guy in a van turns the corner tight enough to almost run us over. He then stops and pulls down the window: “Möchtest du mir etwas sagen?”\n","title":"My easily incensed people","type":"posts"},{"content":"Such a well-written and cogent argument by Dave Mangot about how it definitely does matter whether you choose to deploy on Fridays or not and also that that choice is fully your own.\nhttps://hackernoon.com/deploy-on-fridays-or-dont-qg2y32jk\n","date":"November 10, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15835/","section":"Posts","summary":"Such a well-written and cogent argument by Dave Mangot about how it definitely does matter whether you choose to deploy on Fridays or not and also that that choice is fully your own.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"“75 jaar vrijheid, en wat krijg je? De lichtgevende lul van Daan Roosegaarde.”\nhttps://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2019/11/02/als-twee-mensen-hetzelfde-doen-a3978941\nNot very fair but overdue for somebody who\u0026rsquo;s bought into his own hype and believes (as do most Dutch creatives) that all of their ideas are original.\nI checked the concept and the video and it is indeed very reminiscent of the Stolpersteine without a mention and the presentation is as flat as we\u0026rsquo;re used to from Roosegaarde.\n","date":"November 10, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15832/","section":"Posts","summary":"“75 jaar vrijheid, en wat krijg je? De lichtgevende lul van Daan Roosegaarde.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;m doing all of this instinctively but it\u0026rsquo;s nice to have written out what you could do as part of leadership development within your organization.\nhttps://humaans.io/blog/how-to-turn-individual-contributors-into-leaders/\n","date":"November 10, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15830/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’m doing all of this instinctively but it’s nice to have written out what you could do as part of leadership development within your organization.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Okay, pause for a moment. If you are Pete Buttigieg, at this point in your life you have the ability to take almost any job you want. These schools open doors, and you pick which one you go through. (Ask yourself: If I could do anything I wanted for a living, what would I do?) Pete Buttigieg looked inside himself and decided he belonged at… the world’s most sinister and amoral management consulting company.\nFair enough.\nhttps://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/03/all-about-pete\n","date":"November 10, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15828/","section":"Posts","summary":"Okay, pause for a moment. If you are Pete Buttigieg, at this point in your life you have the ability to take almost any job you want. These schools open doors, and you pick which one you go through. (Ask yourself: If I could do anything I wanted for a living, what would I do?) Pete Buttigieg looked inside himself and decided he belonged at… the world’s most sinister and amoral management consulting company.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"SUVs do not have any business in cities and the fact that they\u0026rsquo;re allowed in there is criminal.\nhttps://medium.com/@15kwhm2a/electric-cars-are-not-enough-its-time-to-get-serious-about-banning-suvs-82722386f093\n","date":"November 10, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15825/","section":"Posts","summary":"SUVs do not have any business in cities and the fact that they’re allowed in there is criminal.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Figma\u0026rsquo;s multiplayer support is fantastic and something similar should be a part of every creative application. Now they\u0026rsquo;ve also written a very understandable high-level overview of their implementation (with CRDTs).\nhttps://www.figma.com/blog/how-figmas-multiplayer-technology-works/\n","date":"November 10, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15823/","section":"Posts","summary":"Figma’s multiplayer support is fantastic and something similar should be a part of every creative application. Now they’ve also written a very understandable high-level overview of their implementation (with CRDTs).\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Always nice to read a positive career history from somebody, like this one by Alicia Hickey, but especially nice if you\u0026rsquo;re in it named as the team lead who made a crucial suggestion.\nhttps://medium.com/@lonelypeanut/finding-out-what-sticks-1f124bda0c19\n","date":"November 10, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15821/","section":"Posts","summary":"Always nice to read a positive career history from somebody, like this one by Alicia Hickey, but especially nice if you’re in it named as the team lead who made a crucial suggestion.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The story about Dutch national cyber scammer Rian van Rijbroek written up in full like is done here is amazing and priceless.\nhttps://www.tubantia.nl/regio/hoe-rian-van-rijbroek-de-twentse-miljonair-gerard-sanderink-voor-zich-won~a01c6483/?referrer=https://pinboard.in/u:alper/unread/\n","date":"November 10, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15818/","section":"Posts","summary":"The story about Dutch national cyber scammer Rian van Rijbroek written up in full like is done here is amazing and priceless.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I remember some very early conversations about the Basslet (now Lofelt) and its creative possibilities. Building their own design tools for this medium is a key move and I look forward to trying it out.\nhttps://lofelt.com/blog/lofelt-composer-designing-audio-haptic-experiences-for-ios\n","date":"November 10, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15816/","section":"Posts","summary":"I remember some very early conversations about the Basslet (now Lofelt) and its creative possibilities. Building their own design tools for this medium is a key move and I look forward to trying it out.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"An accessible and highly educational overview of the most important lines of code ever written.\nhttps://slate.com/technology/2019/10/consequential-computer-code-software-history.html\n","date":"November 6, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15808/","section":"Posts","summary":"An accessible and highly educational overview of the most important lines of code ever written.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Not very surprisingly Airbnb these days is a willing platform for criminal behavior.\nhttps://www.vice.com/en_us/article/43k7z3/nationwide-fake-host-scam-on-airbnb\n","date":"November 6, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15806/","section":"Posts","summary":"Not very surprisingly Airbnb these days is a willing platform for criminal behavior.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Some stuff about meditation and work by Chiara Cokieng that I find repeatedly useful so I\u0026rsquo;m putting it here for reference.\nPeople work because they crave. “Without craving, without attachment, how can anybody work?”Goenka’s students ask all the time.\nOh because you have not learned how to work in a detached way.\nOh.\nWhen you’re attached, you’re so tense inside, you’re so self-centered. I’m working for me. For me. For me. And once you become detached, all tension goes away. Now you work.\nOh. Is that how you do it? Work? To do it in a detached way, not because you have to do something you desire or hate, but because you decided the work is worth doing? If I can do that, will I be able to do anything I say I will do, without any angst? Is that possible?\nI think I get it… If only barely.\nI still believe you shouldn’t spend your life slaving on something you hate. But I do believe in training, writing this article, waking up in the morning and being a good human being\n","date":"October 31, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/work-in-a-detached-way/","section":"Posts","summary":"Some stuff about meditation and work by Chiara Cokieng that I find repeatedly useful so I’m putting it here for reference.\n","title":"Work in a detached way","type":"posts"},{"content":"Found this on Reddit and made my own.\nPicked the countries where 50% of the people speak a language where I have at least B level of skill.\n","date":"October 27, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/languages-spoken/","section":"Posts","summary":"Found this on Reddit and made my own.\n","title":"Languages spoken","type":"posts"},{"content":"“the resilience of a system corresponds to its adaptive capacity tuned to the future.”\nhttps://lorinhochstein.wordpress.com/2019/08/20/tuning-to-the-future/\n“While counterfactual reasoning helps restore our feeling that the world makes sense, the problem with it is that it doesn’t help us get better at avoiding or dealing with future incidents. The reason it doesn’t help is that counterfactual reasoning gives us an excuse to avoid the messy problem of understanding how we missed those obvious-in-retrospect actions and signals in the first place.”\nhttps://lorinhochstein.wordpress.com/2019/08/22/the-problem-with-counterfactuals/\nThe writings of Lorin Hochstein about resilience engineering are immensely valuable and illuminating. It\u0026rsquo;s nice to be able to read the thinking of people who are current with the cutting edge of a profession.\n","date":"October 20, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15794/","section":"Posts","summary":"“the resilience of a system corresponds to its adaptive capacity tuned to the future.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"https://twitter.com/GergelyOrosz/status/1183001025155944448\nOne of the biggest regrets I have is that we couldn\u0026rsquo;t arrange it so that I had parental leave by myself. In large part, this was because you don\u0026rsquo;t get twice the duration (28 months) when you birth twice the kids and I could only take three full months.\n","date":"October 20, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/parental-leave/","section":"Posts","summary":"https://twitter.com/GergelyOrosz/status/1183001025155944448\n","title":"Parental leave","type":"posts"},{"content":"https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/1180283203052961792\nThe American libertarian view on privacy is so tiresome and so ridiculously irrelevant and I wish we would stop hearing about it so much.\n","date":"October 20, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15788/","section":"Posts","summary":"https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/1180283203052961792\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The rise of astrology apps is a kinda grim symptom of our current times.\nhttps://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2019/10/4/20879631/co-star-astrology-app-zodiac-signs\n","date":"October 20, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15785/","section":"Posts","summary":"The rise of astrology apps is a kinda grim symptom of our current times.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"“As I flick off the power switch on the back of the Macintosh, the whine retreats in a gentle diminuendo, until it finally gives way to silence. I have accomplished a feat that is no longer possible: My computing session has ended.”\nI love how many things come together in this piece about how to write on vintage Apple computers.\nhttps://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/06/why-30-year-old-macintosh-works-better-todays/591154/\n","date":"October 20, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15783/","section":"Posts","summary":"“As I flick off the power switch on the back of the Macintosh, the whine retreats in a gentle diminuendo, until it finally gives way to silence. I have accomplished a feat that is no longer possible: My computing session has ended.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Tax agencies don\u0026rsquo;t have the resources to audit rich people, so they only make sure that poor people stay within the lines.\nhttps://www.propublica.org/article/irs-sorry-but-its-just-easier-and-cheaper-to-audit-the-poor#168476\n","date":"October 19, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15779/","section":"Posts","summary":"Tax agencies don’t have the resources to audit rich people, so they only make sure that poor people stay within the lines.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"https://www.groene.nl/artikel/broer-ik-heb-mijn-9mm-helemaal-geleegd\nA very revealing article about the liquidation wave in the Netherlands of the past years. Some of the interesting points:\nThings started going off after the police decided not to spend too much attention on victimless crimes (drugs) anymore. This allowed the drug trade (mostly cocaine) to get out of hand without too many people noticing it. A lot of kids are at risk to roll into this world because they have a bad start, problems at home and at school and they want the fast money that crime offers. The people you see driving around the big cars or on Instagram have probably never had a regular job in their life. One way for a kid to make headway into the organization (and also financially) is by doing a hit which nets around €50-60k. ","date":"October 19, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15777/","section":"Posts","summary":"https://www.groene.nl/artikel/broer-ik-heb-mijn-9mm-helemaal-geleegd\n","title":"Lifestyle Liquidations","type":"posts"},{"content":"Wir üben keinen Druck auf unsere Mieter aus. Kein Mieter wird bei uns verdrängt. Das würde gegen unsere Werte verstoßen.\nA quote by Ralf Spann the boss of Akelius, a private housing corporation in Berlin, who are known to intentionally shut down hot water and other amenities to get people to vacate their apartments.\nAkelius is one of the corporations that is on the chopping block to be expropriated.\nhttps://taz.de/Mietendeckel-in-Berlin/!5628554/\n","date":"October 19, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15775/","section":"Posts","summary":"Wir üben keinen Druck auf unsere Mieter aus. Kein Mieter wird bei uns verdrängt. Das würde gegen unsere Werte verstoßen.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":" STATE My Path: 2 Explore Others\u0026rsquo; Paths: 3 Move To Action: 1 Start With Heart: 0 Learn To Look: 2 Make It Safe: 3 Master My Stories: 3 Zero to three, higher is better.\n","date":"October 15, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/crucial-conversations-score/","section":"Posts","summary":" STATE My Path: 2 Explore Others’ Paths: 3 Move To Action: 1 Start With Heart: 0 Learn To Look: 2 Make It Safe: 3 Master My Stories: 3 Zero to three, higher is better.\n","title":"Crucial Conversations Score","type":"posts"},{"content":"“But we don’t need a secret police to turn us into atomized, isolated souls. All it takes is for us to stand by while unbridled capitalism rips apart the temporal preserves that used to let us cultivate the seeds of civil society and nurture the sadly fragile shoots of affection, affinity, and solidarity.”\nA roaring end to a lament on the fragmentation of work hours and as such also of society as it took place in America.\nGermany still resists this trend by for instance not allowing shops to open on Sundays. I found this tremendously annoying, but I\u0026rsquo;m now starting to see the use and charm of quiet Sundays. (And now that I have kids, I manage to buy our groceries on Saturday.)\nhttps://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/11/why-dont-i-see-you-anymore/598336/\n","date":"October 13, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15769/","section":"Posts","summary":"“But we don’t need a secret police to turn us into atomized, isolated souls. All it takes is for us to stand by while unbridled capitalism rips apart the temporal preserves that used to let us cultivate the seeds of civil society and nurture the sadly fragile shoots of affection, affinity, and solidarity.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;m very impressed by this design research blog by Maike Klip about the digitalization of Dutch government services and how to maintain a human connection.\nhttps://klipklaar.nl/about/het-verhaal-van-de-digitale-overheid/\n","date":"October 13, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15767/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’m very impressed by this design research blog by Maike Klip about the digitalization of Dutch government services and how to maintain a human connection.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"This indictment of WeWork en passant paraphrases the Innovator\u0026rsquo;s Dilemma:\n“If you can counterfeit something for cheap, the counterfeit will eventually take over the entire market and drive out the real commodity.”\nhttps://mattstoller.substack.com/p/wework-and-counterfeit-capitalism?utm_campaign=post\u0026amp;utm_medium=web\u0026amp;utm_source=copy\n","date":"October 13, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15765/","section":"Posts","summary":"This indictment of WeWork en passant paraphrases the Innovator’s Dilemma:\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Long overdue to take down Clayton Christensen a couple of notches (but then again any theory so widespread can\u0026rsquo;t be anything other than wrong).\nhttps://alexdanco.com/2019/10/03/disruption-theory-is-real-but-wrong/\n","date":"October 13, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15763/","section":"Posts","summary":"Long overdue to take down Clayton Christensen a couple of notches (but then again any theory so widespread can’t be anything other than wrong).\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Will Larson (whose new book is lying on my desk at work) writes a welcome long view on the technology career, something we will increasingly need to think about and come to terms with.\nhttps://lethain.com/forty-year-career/\n","date":"October 13, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15761/","section":"Posts","summary":"Will Larson (whose new book is lying on my desk at work) writes a welcome long view on the technology career, something we will increasingly need to think about and come to terms with.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Having gone through these myself, it\u0026rsquo;s good to see this planning framework that is at the same time high level and immediately deployable.\n“You want to leverage the full creativity of the team while also making sure you’re all heading in the same direction.”\nhttps://firstround.com/review/the-secret-to-a-great-planning-process-lessons-from-airbnb-and-eventbrite/\n","date":"October 10, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15759/","section":"Posts","summary":"Having gone through these myself, it’s good to see this planning framework that is at the same time high level and immediately deployable.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"We can talk about agile strategy all we want but “Doing over Planning”is a more than sufficient summary for anybody who wants to get started.\nhttps://www.madebymany.com/stories/a-manifesto-for-agile-strategy-oxymoron-or-innovation\n","date":"September 28, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15756/","section":"Posts","summary":"We can talk about agile strategy all we want but “Doing over Planning”is a more than sufficient summary for anybody who wants to get started.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"An incisive profile on the life of an Instagram influencer.\nhttps://www.thecut.com/2019/09/who-would-tavi-gevinson-be-without-instagram.html\n","date":"September 28, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15754/","section":"Posts","summary":"An incisive profile on the life of an Instagram influencer.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"As good a confession as could have been written on the Medialab by danah boyd.\nhttps://onezero.medium.com/facing-the-great-reckoning-head-on-8fe434e10630\n","date":"September 28, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15752/","section":"Posts","summary":"As good a confession as could have been written on the Medialab by danah boyd.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The necessity of physical fitness to create peak mental performance has been a well-known fact in esports. Useful to see the documented effects of pushing yourself cognitively within the chess world.\nThe 1984 World Chess Championship was called off after five months and 48 games because defending champion Anatoly Karpov had lost 22 pounds. \u0026ldquo;He looked like death,\u0026rdquo; grandmaster and commentator Maurice Ashley recalls.\nhttps://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/id/27593253/why-grandmasters-magnus-carlsen-fabiano-caruana-lose-weight-playing-chess\n","date":"September 28, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15750/","section":"Posts","summary":"The necessity of physical fitness to create peak mental performance has been a well-known fact in esports. Useful to see the documented effects of pushing yourself cognitively within the chess world.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Good on people to opt-out of imposed citizenship and engage on their own piece of statecraft.\nhttps://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/13/world/australia/indigenous-walubara-yidinji.html\n","date":"September 28, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15748/","section":"Posts","summary":"Good on people to opt-out of imposed citizenship and engage on their own piece of statecraft.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;ll trust Artefact Cards when they say they have something that\u0026rsquo;s better than the Sharpie.\nhttps://artefactshop.com/blogs/news/staedtlervssharpie\n","date":"September 28, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15745/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’ll trust Artefact Cards when they say they have something that’s better than the Sharpie.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I found this excellent summary of John Boyd\u0026rsquo;s concepts as they relate to agile.\nhttps://ryansydnor.com/blog/certain-to-win/\n","date":"September 27, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15743/","section":"Posts","summary":"I found this excellent summary of John Boyd’s concepts as they relate to agile.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;ve always been a product-minded software engineer as is described here (just curious about everything).\nI agree that product thinking is a focusing and bridging quality that makes a crucial difference in a team.\nhttps://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/the-product-minded-engineer/\n","date":"September 27, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15741/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’ve always been a product-minded software engineer as is described here (just curious about everything).\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"All online metrics are a fraud.\nhttps://www.theverge.com/2019/9/24/20882240/comscore-sec-serge-matta-financial-fraud-charges-settlement\n","date":"September 27, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15739/","section":"Posts","summary":"All online metrics are a fraud.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A couple of years ago, I remember seeing at IST airport advertisements for connecting flights to Erbil (أربيل). The city seems to have continued growing and by now developed a vibrant nightlife.\nhttps://www.playboy.com/read/nightlife-erbil-kurdistan\n","date":"September 27, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15737/","section":"Posts","summary":"A couple of years ago, I remember seeing at IST airport advertisements for connecting flights to Erbil (أربيل). The city seems to have continued growing and by now developed a vibrant nightlife.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"My colleague Jiro Minier is featured in the Dahrendorf Foresight Project on European Security with a scenario that is both dystopian and scarily prescient. I read it as a call for more European collaboration and investment.\nhttps://www.dahrendorf-forum.eu/research-2017-2019-governance-institutions-and-policy-foresight-project/\n","date":"September 25, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15735/","section":"Posts","summary":"My colleague Jiro Minier is featured in the Dahrendorf Foresight Project on European Security with a scenario that is both dystopian and scarily prescient. I read it as a call for more European collaboration and investment.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"As your perspective of the world increases not only is the pain it inflicts on you less but also its meaning. Understanding the world requires you to take a certain distance from it. Things that are too small to see with the naked eye, such as molecules and atoms, we magnify. Things that are too large, such as cloud formations, river deltas, constellations, we reduce. At length we bring it within the scope of our senses and we stabilize it with fixer. When it has been fixed we call it knowledge. Throughout our childhood and teenage years, we strive to attain the correct distance to objects and phenomena. We read, we learn, we experience, we make adjustments. Then one day we reach the point where all the necessary distances have been set, all the necessary systems have been put in place. That is when time begins to pick up speed. It no longer meets any obstacles, everything is set, time races through our lives, the days pass by in a flash and before we know what is happening we are forty, fifty, sixty . . .\nI do not want anyone to get close to me, I do not want anyone to see me, and this is the way things have developed: no one gets close and no one sees me.\nThey even squeeze out the most recent past: ask me what I did three days ago and I can’t remember.\nHere I have to find other goals and come to terms with them. The art of living is what I am talking about.\nI have always had a great need for solitude. I require huge swathes of loneliness and when I do not have it, which has been the case for the last five years, my frustration can sometimes become almost panicked, or aggressive.\nWhen Vanja was around eight months old she began to have violent outbursts, like fits at times, and for a while it was impossible to reach her, she just screamed and screamed. All we could do was hold her until it had subsided. It is not easy to say what caused it, but it often occurred when she had had a great many impressions to absorb, such as when we had driven to her grandmother’s in the country outside Stockholm, when she had spent too much time with other children, or we had been in town all day. Then, inconsolable and completely beside herself, she could scream at the top of her voice. Sensitivity and strength of will are not a simple combination.\nPerhaps even, at certain moments, joy. And isn’t that enough? Isn’t it enough? Yes, if joy had been the goal it would have been enough. But joy is not my goal, never has been, what good is joy to me? The family is not my goal either. If it had been, and I could have devoted all my energy to it, we would have had a fantastic time, of that I am sure.\nI know I can change all this, I know we too can become that kind of family, but then I would have to want it and in which case life would have to revolve around nothing else. And that is not what I want. I do everything I have to do for the family; that is my duty. The only thing I have learned from life is to endure it, never to question it, and to burn up the longing generated by this in writing.\nThat does not mean I do not love them, because I do, with all my heart, it simply means that the meaning they produce is not sufficient to fulfill a whole life.\nShe had a liberating, gentle smile that I admired and found endlessly appealing, both because it did not embrace me or others like me, it belonged to the very essence of her being, to which only she herself and her friends had recourse, and also because her top lip was slightly twisted.\nWe were utterly hopeless, completely out of our depth, there was not a snowball’s chance in hell of anything coming of this, we wouldn’t even be good enough to perform at a school party, but although this was the reality we never experienced it as such. On the contrary, this was what gave our lives meaning.\nBut my pleasure was partly due to my father always perking up for such events. He became more friendly towards me, took me into his confidence, so to speak, and regarded me as someone to be considered, but this was not the most important thing, for this friendliness he showed to his son was merely one aspect of a greater magnanimity that infused him on such occasions: he became charming, witty, knowledgeable, and entertaining, which in a way justified the fact that I had such mixed emotions about him and was so preoccupied with them.\nI was not exactly invulnerable, my weaknesses were there for all to see and exploit, and the fact that they didn’t, because they didn’t have enough insight to be able to see them, was surely not my problem.\nThey had been drinking before I arrived, and although he was kindness itself, it was threatening nonetheless; not directly, of course, because, sitting there, I didn’t fear him, but indirectly because I could no longer read him. It was as if all the knowledge I had acquired about him through my childhood, and which enabled me to prepare for any eventuality, was, in one fell swoop, invalid. So what was valid?\nI could remember all the places I had been, all the rooms I had been in. Just not what happened there.\nYou know too little and it doesn’t exist. You know too much and it doesn’t exist. Writing is drawing the essence of what we know out of the shadows. That is what writing is about. Not what happens there, not what actions are played out there, but the there itself.\nWhat I ought to do was affirm what existed, affirm the state of things as they are, in other words, revel in the world outside instead of searching for a way out, for in that way I would undoubtedly have a better life, but I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t, something had congealed inside me, a conviction was rooted inside me, and although it was essentialist, that is, outmoded and, furthermore, romantic, I could not get past it, for the simple reason that it had not only been thought but also experienced, in these sudden states of clearsightedness that everyone must know, where for a few seconds you catch sight of another world from the one you were in only a moment earlier, where the world seems to step forward and show itself for a brief glimpse before reverting and leaving everything as before . . .\nThe box of Kleenex was a sign that here weeping and death had undergone inflation.\nThe zone that had come into existence when we first left the undertaker’s, and that seemed to make everything around me dead, or meaningless, had grown in size and strength.\nWe laughed, Tonje ran inside for her camera, and when she came out she put one arm around me and took a photo with the other hand outstretched.\nWe were two children.\nThe fact that he could be more malicious to me than anyone else changed nothing, it was part and parcel of it, and in the context we lived, the hatred I felt for him was no more than a brook is to an ocean, a lamp to the night.\nThe sole difference, which is the difference between a child’s reality and an adult’s, was that they were no longer laden with meaning.\nI didn’t care anymore anyway. But there had been days when I had cared, days when I had been on the outside and had suffered. Now I was only on the outside.\nMy father was an idiot, I wanted nothing to do with him, and it cost me nothing to keep well away from him. It wasn’t a question of keeping away from something, it was a question of the something not existing; nothing about him touched me.\n","date":"September 22, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-my-struggle/","section":"Posts","summary":"As your perspective of the world increases not only is the pain it inflicts on you less but also its meaning. Understanding the world requires you to take a certain distance from it. Things that are too small to see with the naked eye, such as molecules and atoms, we magnify. Things that are too large, such as cloud formations, river deltas, constellations, we reduce. At length we bring it within the scope of our senses and we stabilize it with fixer. When it has been fixed we call it knowledge. Throughout our childhood and teenage years, we strive to attain the correct distance to objects and phenomena. We read, we learn, we experience, we make adjustments. Then one day we reach the point where all the necessary distances have been set, all the necessary systems have been put in place. That is when time begins to pick up speed. It no longer meets any obstacles, everything is set, time races through our lives, the days pass by in a flash and before we know what is happening we are forty, fifty, sixty . . .\n","title":"Highlights for My Struggle","type":"posts"},{"content":"“Sometimes when he walks, I swear I can hear it, the depression. It’s a liquid sound. I can hear the cortisol sloshing around in his veins. I can hear the adrenaline drip-drip-dripping down the twisted cord of his spine.”\nI\u0026rsquo;m afraid this piece has disappeared behind the Medium paywall, but The Weather by Aubrey Hirsch is one of the rare things I have ever read about post-partum depression in men and it is written like a punch in the gut.\nhttps://gay.medium.com/the-weather-a0ee3b988ed5\n","date":"September 22, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15730/","section":"Posts","summary":"“Sometimes when he walks, I swear I can hear it, the depression. It’s a liquid sound. I can hear the cortisol sloshing around in his veins. I can hear the adrenaline drip-drip-dripping down the twisted cord of his spine.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Piketty is back with a new book but his policy proposals are already there and should be implemented immediately and in full. The only reason we will have to fight for them to pass is because our governments do not work for the people.\nhttps://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-12/piketty-is-back-with-1-200-page-guide-to-abolishing-billionaires\n","date":"September 22, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15728/","section":"Posts","summary":"Piketty is back with a new book but his policy proposals are already there and should be implemented immediately and in full. The only reason we will have to fight for them to pass is because our governments do not work for the people.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"It is true that Goodreads is a deeply broken website but right now it is the only place that we have that has a critical mass of readers on it.\nhttps://onezero.medium.com/almost-everything-about-goodreads-is-broken-662e424244d5\n","date":"September 22, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15726/","section":"Posts","summary":"It is true that Goodreads is a deeply broken website but right now it is the only place that we have that has a critical mass of readers on it.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Not surprising that those things at the MIT Media Lab that looked too good to be true, were in fact fake.\nhttps://gizmodo.com/mit-built-a-theranos-for-plants-1837968240\n","date":"September 22, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15724/","section":"Posts","summary":"Not surprising that those things at the MIT Media Lab that looked too good to be true, were in fact fake.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The men issue of Contrapoints is mostly correct as always.\n\u0026amp;feature=push-sd\u0026amp;attr_tag=6VfvuAYdOJbxjQTy%3A6\n","date":"September 22, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15722/","section":"Posts","summary":"The men issue of Contrapoints is mostly correct as always.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I had kinda forgotten about Soigneur, but then I ran into this amazing set of photos of racing bikes in the city. That new race bike seems to be getting closer and closer.\nhttps://galleries.soigneur.nl/bike-racing-in-new-york-city\n","date":"September 22, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15720/","section":"Posts","summary":"I had kinda forgotten about Soigneur, but then I ran into this amazing set of photos of racing bikes in the city. That new race bike seems to be getting closer and closer.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I don\u0026rsquo;t really know why we have this debate, but the following is a thorough and definitive argument against technocracy by Glen Weyl: “Technocracy divorced from the need for public communication and accountability is thus a dangerous ideology that distracts technical experts from the valuable role they can play by tempting them to assume undue, independent power and influence.”\nhttps://radicalxchange.org/blog/posts/2019-08-19-bv61r6/\n","date":"September 18, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15717/","section":"Posts","summary":"I don’t really know why we have this debate, but the following is a thorough and definitive argument against technocracy by Glen Weyl: “Technocracy divorced from the need for public communication and accountability is thus a dangerous ideology that distracts technical experts from the valuable role they can play by tempting them to assume undue, independent power and influence.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;m finding that I really enjoy the role of management for the reasons listed in this piece below and some more even.\nhttps://www.davidbrunelle.com/2019-09-12-reasons-to-try-management/\n","date":"September 18, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15715/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’m finding that I really enjoy the role of management for the reasons listed in this piece below and some more even.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"This piece by Arthur C. Brooks about professional decline, touching on Hinduism, Buddhism and many many more things is quite something.\nhttps://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/07/work-peak-professional-decline/590650/\n","date":"September 18, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15713/","section":"Posts","summary":"This piece by Arthur C. Brooks about professional decline, touching on Hinduism, Buddhism and many many more things is quite something.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Slack says that letting people do a code review as a take-home gives a similar or maybe even better signal when hiring.\n“[…] we also wanted to know that these folks were good teammates — that they were concerned with maintainability and documentation, and that they could express themselves with empathy and a mindset towards collective learning.”\nhttps://slack.engineering/refactoring-backend-engineering-hiring-at-slack-b53b1e0e7a3c\n","date":"September 18, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15711/","section":"Posts","summary":"Slack says that letting people do a code review as a take-home gives a similar or maybe even better signal when hiring.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"An interesting reversal here where I once said that any application could be delivered through the chat medium, now Kevin Kwok signals a tendency for one chat platform to permeate all applications.\nhttps://kwokchain.com/2019/08/16/the-arc-of-collaboration/\n","date":"September 14, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15709/","section":"Posts","summary":"An interesting reversal here where I once said that any application could be delivered through the chat medium, now Kevin Kwok signals a tendency for one chat platform to permeate all applications.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"An amazing and inspiring play-by-play of how Clio doubled their representation of women by improving their hiring game and setting a quota.\nhttps://labs.clio.com/how-we-doubled-the-representation-of-women-in-engineering-at-clio-2d9a4a1a0282\n","date":"September 14, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15707/","section":"Posts","summary":"An amazing and inspiring play-by-play of how Clio doubled their representation of women by improving their hiring game and setting a quota.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I think everybody (myself included) can and should get better at managing up. This guide by Claire Lew has some helpful tips that mostly boil down to: “context”.\nhttps://knowyourteam.com/blog/2019/08/15/how-to-manage-up-effectively/\n","date":"September 14, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15705/","section":"Posts","summary":"I think everybody (myself included) can and should get better at managing up. This guide by Claire Lew has some helpful tips that mostly boil down to: “context”.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Teams just like so many Microsoft products is so bad that people have to be forced to use it.\nhttps://medium.com/@joshuamkite/the-horror-of-microsoft-teams-c18360712361\n","date":"September 14, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15703/","section":"Posts","summary":"Teams just like so many Microsoft products is so bad that people have to be forced to use it.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"An interesting bit of news did the rounds last week but I\u0026rsquo;ve personally heard of multiple cases where people leaving online reviews have been faced with legal action.\nGermany has a lot of lawyers and judges and the system finds work for them.\nhttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/06/german-tourist-sued-complaints-hotel-nazi-portraits-austria?CMP=share_btn_tw\n","date":"September 14, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15701/","section":"Posts","summary":"An interesting bit of news did the rounds last week but I’ve personally heard of multiple cases where people leaving online reviews have been faced with legal action.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"https://twitter.com/alper/status/1124042550053150723?s=11\nAs an occasional listener to the various Asymco podcasts and somebody very much interested in new forms of mobility, I was taken more than a bit aback by this.\nDediu revealed himself as a founder in Bond which is the same company as Smide. I remembered him having somebody from Smide on in one of the first episodes of the Micromobility podcast but there was never any disclosure then or after about Dediu\u0026rsquo;s connections there.\nA lapse in disclosure and some backroom action is not a big deal and nothing much seems to have come from this, but it is a good reminder that everything you see online (not just the posts on Instagram) is fake.\n","date":"September 14, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/unsubscribing-from-micromobility/","section":"Posts","summary":"https://twitter.com/alper/status/1124042550053150723?s=11\n","title":"Unsubscribing from Micromobility","type":"posts"},{"content":"I love TikTok but it is a very large application with very little checks.\nhttps://www.wired.co.uk/article/tiktok-india-hate-speech-caste\n","date":"September 9, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15696/","section":"Posts","summary":"I love TikTok but it is a very large application with very little checks.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Twenty-four survival tips for women by Patricia Aas that I wholeheartedly support but wish were not necessary.\nhttps://patricia.no/2018/09/06/survival_tips_for_women_in_tech.html\n","date":"September 9, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15694/","section":"Posts","summary":"Twenty-four survival tips for women by Patricia Aas that I wholeheartedly support but wish were not necessary.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Working in organizations, it\u0026rsquo;s essential to be able to differentiate between things that are under your purview, and things that you should let fall on the floor. Camille Fournier writes a guide here about how to decide what to fix and how to fix that.\nhttps://medium.com/@skamille/opp-other-peoples-problems-d7eb174724ee\n","date":"September 9, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15692/","section":"Posts","summary":"Working in organizations, it’s essential to be able to differentiate between things that are under your purview, and things that you should let fall on the floor. Camille Fournier writes a guide here about how to decide what to fix and how to fix that.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"De PvdA is om en wil weer een basisbeurs voor studenten. De partij maakt een draai van 180 graden en trekt de handen af van het leenstelsel, dat het zelf nota bene heeft ingevoerd.\nHet is ongelofelijk hoe nutteloos de PvdA is en blijft.\nhttps://www.ad.nl/politiek/pvda-is-om-meerderheid-kamer-wil-basisbeurs-voor-studenten-terug~acbd233f/?referrer=https://pinboard.in/u:alper/unread/\n","date":"September 9, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15690/","section":"Posts","summary":"De PvdA is om en wil weer een basisbeurs voor studenten. De partij maakt een draai van 180 graden en trekt de handen af van het leenstelsel, dat het zelf nota bene heeft ingevoerd.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Berlin is finally thinking of fixing its totally and utterly broken website. That\u0026rsquo;s good news but a shame that we have had to use this monstrosity for the past ten years.\nhttps://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/kommunales-klickmonster-senat-verhandelt-ueber-zukunft-von-berlin-de/24940368.html\n","date":"September 9, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15688/","section":"Posts","summary":"Berlin is finally thinking of fixing its totally and utterly broken website. That’s good news but a shame that we have had to use this monstrosity for the past ten years.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Oatley is by far our favorite plant based milk and I\u0026rsquo;m glad to read that they are seeing explosive growth (also animal milk consumption in the Netherlands has already dropped 14%).\nhttps://www.nu.nl/economie/5989059/koffie-met-melk-explosieve-vraag-naar-haver-door-havermelktrend.html?fbclid=IwAR1TMyuk6HDEsbfwoCNBQ-zcZCoBW4kjPB8HOrQBzDC9XMTk-xQHquTdBJw\n","date":"September 7, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15685/","section":"Posts","summary":"Oatley is by far our favorite plant based milk and I’m glad to read that they are seeing explosive growth (also animal milk consumption in the Netherlands has already dropped 14%).\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Maybe after this New Yorker exposé, Joi Ito will finally resign?\nhttps://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/how-an-elite-university-research-center-concealed-its-relationship-with-jeffrey-epstein\nFull disclosure: Joi Ito once paid for my lunch in a café in Beirut when I was traveling there with some tech people.\nMy exposure to the inner machinations of Ito\u0026rsquo;s clique didn\u0026rsquo;t leave me too enthusiastic. It also became clear that underneath the glamorous surface there was very little of interest or value.\nI\u0026rsquo;m glad the only thing he paid for me was a lunch otherwise I would also be rather embarrassed right now.\nUpdate: He just did. But judging from comments by Negroponte, “Nicholas Negroponte, a founder of the lab, said he had told Mr. Ito to take the money and would do it again.”, there is more wrong with the institution than just the one person.\n","date":"September 7, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/elite-universities-and-their-donors/","section":"Posts","summary":"Maybe after this New Yorker exposé, Joi Ito will finally resign?\n","title":"Élite Universities and Their Donors","type":"posts"},{"content":"BMW thinks it\u0026rsquo;s a funny marketing gimmick to paint one of their worst cars in Vantablack. Dark coloured cars have been proven to be more likely to cause accidents. Black cars should be forbidden to participate in traffic, that should be what people are talking about here.\nhttps://www.bmw.com/de/design/der-bmw-X6-in-vantablack.amp.html?__twitter_impression=true\n","date":"September 7, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15679/","section":"Posts","summary":"BMW thinks it’s a funny marketing gimmick to paint one of their worst cars in Vantablack. Dark coloured cars have been proven to be more likely to cause accidents. Black cars should be forbidden to participate in traffic, that should be what people are talking about here.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Marty Cagan\u0026rsquo;s piece on product vs. feature teams yielded more than enough stuff to reflect on and discuss. I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t mind having a ‘true‘ product manager. Where do you get one of those?\nhttps://svpg.com/product-vs-feature-teams/\n","date":"September 6, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15677/","section":"Posts","summary":"Marty Cagan’s piece on product vs. feature teams yielded more than enough stuff to reflect on and discuss. I wouldn’t mind having a ‘true‘ product manager. Where do you get one of those?\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ten principles for how to grow as an engineer that are as true as the day they were written.\nhttps://medium.com/@daniel.heller/ten-principles-for-growth-69015e08c35b\n","date":"September 6, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15674/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ten principles for how to grow as an engineer that are as true as the day they were written.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;ve heard “if you\u0026rsquo;re so smart, then why aren\u0026rsquo;t you rich”more than a couple of times in my life. The answer it turns out is: unluckiness.\nhttps://www.technologyreview.com/s/610395/if-youre-so-smart-why-arent-you-rich-turns-out-its-just-chance/\n","date":"September 2, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15672/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’ve heard “if you’re so smart, then why aren’t you rich”more than a couple of times in my life. The answer it turns out is: unluckiness.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A thorough and humane treatment of alt-right memetic history and 8chan with its associated chans.\nhttps://medium.com/@DaleBeran/why-does-8chan-exist-at-all-33a8942dbeb2\n","date":"September 2, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15670/","section":"Posts","summary":"A thorough and humane treatment of alt-right memetic history and 8chan with its associated chans.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;d say a lot of this criticism of React is fair but because all frameworks have jumped onto components, I don\u0026rsquo;t really see a realistic workable alternative either.\nhttps://www.sonniesedge.net/posts/react/\n","date":"September 2, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15668/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’d say a lot of this criticism of React is fair but because all frameworks have jumped onto components, I don’t really see a realistic workable alternative either.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Design thinking is finally officially over, even Ideo admits it now.\nhttps://www.fastcompany.com/90257718/ideo-breaks-its-silence-on-design-thinkings-critics\n","date":"September 2, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15666/","section":"Posts","summary":"Design thinking is finally officially over, even Ideo admits it now.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"This lament on SF does not sound that far off from where Berlin is. The city is a lot bigger and less boring, but without measures, it could go the same way when it comes to property prices and hollowing out of public services.\nhttps://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/jul/01/san-francisco-big-tech-workers-industry\n","date":"September 2, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15664/","section":"Posts","summary":"This lament on SF does not sound that far off from where Berlin is. The city is a lot bigger and less boring, but without measures, it could go the same way when it comes to property prices and hollowing out of public services.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"An excellent short piece by Emily Nakashima about the various ways that power bends reality. It is well worth keeping in mind even especially if you are the person who has power.\nhttps://honkathon.com/2019-08-18-power-bends-light/\n","date":"September 1, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15661/","section":"Posts","summary":"An excellent short piece by Emily Nakashima about the various ways that power bends reality. It is well worth keeping in mind even especially if you are the person who has power.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"We were represented at PM Camp last week and here\u0026rsquo;s a blog post (in German) by Alicia, one of my team members about the way we work.\nhttps://berlin.pm-camp.org/2019/08/22/der-wind-in-unseren-segeln/\n","date":"September 1, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15659/","section":"Posts","summary":"We were represented at PM Camp last week and here’s a blog post (in German) by Alicia, one of my team members about the way we work.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"“The role of the middle-aged white man is to put out the rubbish and if he is the rubbish then he should put himself out.”\nhttps://storgy.com/2019/08/16/exclusive-the-role-of-the-middle-aged-white-man-by-benjamin-myers/\n","date":"September 1, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/the-role-of-the-middle-aged-white-man/","section":"Posts","summary":"“The role of the middle-aged white man is to put out the rubbish and if he is the rubbish then he should put himself out.”\n","title":"The Role of the Middle-Aged White Man","type":"posts"},{"content":"Berlin is instituting a rent cap which honestly is the only way the city will remain liveable for the majority of its inhabitants.\nhttps://www.morgenpost.de/berlin/article226873469/Mietendeckel-in-Berlin-Mueller-distanziert-sich-von-Bausenatorin-Lompscher.html\n","date":"September 1, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15655/","section":"Posts","summary":"Berlin is instituting a rent cap which honestly is the only way the city will remain liveable for the majority of its inhabitants.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"After this piece, I\u0026rsquo;m totally sold on the benefits of mentoring (and registered myself on Coding Coach). I would be open to mentor a couple of people on engineering/product management/leadership.\nhttps://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/developers-mentoring-other-developers/\n","date":"September 1, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15653/","section":"Posts","summary":"After this piece, I’m totally sold on the benefits of mentoring (and registered myself on Coding Coach). I would be open to mentor a couple of people on engineering/product management/leadership.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Fisher says there is brain evidence that when women are under stress (say, a new baby has colic), they are inclined to “tend and befriend”(become more empathetic and social), while men under stress are apt to withdraw.\nA study of heterosexual couples led by Shiri Cohen, a couples therapist and psychology instructor at Harvard Medical School, revealed that women reported feeling much happier when their male partners understood that they were angry or upset. “This research bore out what I see every day with couples,”Cohen tells me. “When the man can register his wife’s negative feelings, and communicate that on some level, the wife feels better, because she knows that ‘Oh, he gets how I’m feeling.’”She points out that, conversely, men do not derive the same satisfaction in knowing that their wives are upset. “Research shows that men tend to retreat from what feels like conflict to them, because they tend to physiologically get much more negatively aroused,”she said, “so conflict feels way more intense for them.”\nso women have better memory and social cognition skills, making them better equipped for multitasking and creating solutions that can work within a group.\nBrené Brown calls this tendency to project a motive onto someone without actually knowing the facts “the story I’m making up.”\nNo surprise there—but the mind-boiling part is that men’s stress levels fell if they kicked back with some sort of leisure activity—but only if their wives kept busy doing household tasks at the same time\nmeanwhile, found that married couples’ wounds actually healed more slowly when they had hostile arguments compared with so-called low-hostile couples. The stress from a fallout, they discovered, drove up blood levels of hormones that interfere with the delivery of proteins called cytokines, which aid the immune system during injuries.\n“Tom, what you’re not getting, and this is true for most men I see, is that it is in your interest to move beyond your knee-jerk selfishness and entitlement and to take good care of your wife, so she isn’t such a raving lunatic all the time.”\n“But the idea that you can haul off and be abusive to your partner and somehow get a pass, that you can’t control it, or whatever you tell yourself to rationalize it, is nuts. Also, your whole ‘angry victim’ role is going to get worse. You are extremely comfortable with your self-righteous indignation.”\nWe construct a plan for his phone to issue a spate of reminders before all school pickups.\nA week later, Tom’s crisis negotiation skills are required yet again. It is a school morning, and he is sleeping in after a late night of binge-watching a Swedish crime series. I am up at 6 a.m. with our daughter, making her breakfast and lunch, supervising her homework, ordering a replacement water bottle after she somehow lost hers at school, filling out a form for a class trip, and baking carrot muffins for Tom.\n“Men often do best if they know exactly what to do.”Do not use moralistic or shaming language, he continues, which only brings on defensiveness.\nTell your spouse that changing his behavior will directly benefit him because you will be happier and more relaxed.\nI’ve learned to be protective of my time, just as my husband is.\n“Both boys and girls learn that mothers have needs, too, which is also very important if they have children of their own,”\nThose drained respondents negotiated their responsibilities anew every day, starting from scratch—as Tom and I had been doing. This cracked system trapped the participants in an exhausting cycle of “requests and avoidance of these requests.”Conversely, spouses who knew exactly what to do around the house didn’t spend as much time negotiating responsibilities and didn’t tend to monitor and criticize each other. Not surprisingly, “their daily lives seemed to flow more smoothly.”\n“So my question to you is, if he waits that long, what does it cost you, other than your obsessive need to not have it pile up? What’s it actually costing you?”\nPlease, snorts couples therapist Esther Perel. “One important intervention for my clients who are mothers that overmanage—who are overwrought not by difficult life circumstances but by the culture of perfection that has captured parenthood—is that I tell them to go away for the weekend,”she says. I admit to her that I am that over-managing mother. “Then go away alone, go with your friends, go away with someone you haven’t seen in ages!”she says.\nThe Gottmans categorize couples as masters and disasters. Masters look purposefully for things they can appreciate and respect about their partner; disasters monitor their mates for what they are doing wrong so they can criticize them. Intent on being a relationship master, I order a stack of their books.\nThis means voicing what the Gottmans call the “three As”: affection, appreciation, and admiration.\nWhen Tom is reading the paper, for example, he occasionally comments, “Hmm, that’s interesting.”This is a “bid,”a sometimes-subtle appeal for attention. If I reply, “Oh, what are you reading?”this response is what Gottman calls “turning toward”my partner—I have given him the encouragement he’s seeking. If I ignore his bid, I am “turning away”from Tom.\nMy friend Jenny, mother of two, tells her husband that saying “thank you”is the ultimate cheap buy-in. “The average mom does a hell of a lot,”she says. “And unlike at work or school, at home, rarely is anyone saying, ‘Good job.’\nOf course, I am still “household manager,”constantly reminding Tom to do fundamental things such as feed the kid breakfast—but he does it.\nSometimes he even says, “Need a hand?”\nOh, that must feel bad. I can see why you feel like that. What can I say or do right now to make you feel better? It’s calculated, but who cares?\nOne girl mentioned that every morning when she left for school, her father would say, “You go, tiger—you go get them.”\nFather-initiated playdates are fairly rare, but they’re important, particularly for daughters.\nResearch shows that doing chores makes children thrive in countless ways, and is a proven predictor of success,\nShe found that having children take an active role in the household, starting at age three or four, directly influenced their ability to become well-adjusted young adults.\nThose who began chores at three or four were more likely to have solid relationships with their families and friends, to be self-sufficient, and to achieve academic and early professional success.\nthree-quarters of the garages they studied were so crammed with junk, the homeowners couldn’t store cars\nHe laughs and says he understands. He explains that he isn’t suggesting that women should pump up the male ego—rather, that the need to feel appreciated is universal. Who among us does not love praise and kindness?\nad for Ariel India, a Procter \u0026amp; Gamble laundry detergent brand\nWhen she was unhappy about making the lengthy commute to her daughter Jennifer’s preschool, her husband, then the chief executive of Microsoft, said he would drive Jennifer two days a week.\nIf a fight is brewing, start with “I”statements.\nSay “Thank you,”and say it often.\nAll of those gestures—and I’m aware they were mostly gestures—took a total of a few hours, but she was thrilled, it deepened their relationship, and the goodwill he received from me lasted for weeks.\nEspecially, I would add here, if you can find a therapist who yells at your husband, “Stop with your entitled attitude, get off your ass, and help her out!”\nThe FBI’s methods of paraphrasing and emotion labeling are remarkably effective.\n","date":"September 1, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-how-not-to-hate-your-husband-after-kids/","section":"Posts","summary":"Fisher says there is brain evidence that when women are under stress (say, a new baby has colic), they are inclined to “tend and befriend”(become more empathetic and social), while men under stress are apt to withdraw.\n","title":"Highlights for How not to hate your husband after kids","type":"posts"},{"content":"I can\u0026rsquo;t get enough of these literary exposés, this one about how Benjamin Moser treats female collaborators and appropriates their work.\nhttps://lareviewofbooks.org/article/benjamin-moser-and-the-smallest-woman-in-the-world/\n","date":"September 1, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15649/","section":"Posts","summary":"I can’t get enough of these literary exposés, this one about how Benjamin Moser treats female collaborators and appropriates their work.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"September 1, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/portuguese/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Portuguese","type":"categories"},{"content":"I also love this proposed government based on sortition and ostracism. It seems like it could be a lot better than what we have right now.\nhttps://twitter.com/adrianhon/status/1160998571023446016\nhttps://www.metafilter.com/182510/Make-America-A-Democracy#7762457\n","date":"September 1, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15647/","section":"Posts","summary":"I also love this proposed government based on sortition and ostracism. It seems like it could be a lot better than what we have right now.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Finally a proper English language profile of Turkish star rapper Ezhel.\nhttps://www.ozy.com/rising-stars/can-turkeys-rebel-rapper-stay-out-of-prison/96150\n","date":"September 1, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15645/","section":"Posts","summary":"Finally a proper English language profile of Turkish star rapper Ezhel.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Some of the Medialab faculty seem to be outraged because its current head Joi Ito took money from Jeffrey Epstein. Those that can are leaving. Power to them.\nThe outrage though seems to stem from a fundamental misunderstanding of what the Medialab is. Higher education institutions of that scale and stature in our current world do not exist without a vast pool of dark money behind it. Take any such institution\u0026rsquo;s investments, endowments and funding streams, dig a little and there\u0026rsquo;s no telling what you\u0026rsquo;ll turn up. Epstein money is particularly egregious but at this scale, there is no clean currency.\nIto\u0026rsquo;s role there is mostly to be a frontman and channel those money streams in a way that benefits the institution and himself while offering plausible deniability to those who work under him. By all accounts that seems exactly what he has been doing.\nThe man knows his job. It would be good if others did as well (some already do).\nhttps://medium.com/@EthanZ/on-me-and-the-media-lab-715bfc707f6f\n","date":"September 1, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/medialab-fallout/","section":"Posts","summary":"Some of the Medialab faculty seem to be outraged because its current head Joi Ito took money from Jeffrey Epstein. Those that can are leaving. Power to them.\n","title":"Medialab fallout","type":"posts"},{"content":"Not enough popcorn in the world to read this exposé on Booking.com.\nLet\u0026rsquo;s just say that if almost everybody tells you not to write your website in Perl and you still insist on it, then you deserve all of the consequences of that decision.\nBut they seem to be making so much money than most of the dysfunctionality in the article does not really affect the company.\nhttps://www.volkskrant.nl/kijkverder/v/2019/oud-werknemers-over-booking.com-het-is-een-grote-chaos/?referer=https%3A%2F%2Fpinboard.in%2Fu%3Aalper%2Funread%2F\n","date":"August 21, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15639/","section":"Posts","summary":"Not enough popcorn in the world to read this exposé on Booking.com.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"One of the most well-known examples of code reuse between Android and iOS, Dropbox, is giving up on it because it\u0026rsquo;s too difficult to find people who can/want to write C++ code.\nhttps://blogs.dropbox.com/tech/2019/08/the-not-so-hidden-cost-of-sharing-code-between-ios-and-android/\n","date":"August 21, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15637/","section":"Posts","summary":"One of the most well-known examples of code reuse between Android and iOS, Dropbox, is giving up on it because it’s too difficult to find people who can/want to write C++ code.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Don’t wait for the perfect time, tool or training course to get started. Just do something.\nLean as a methodology prioritises the principle cycle of “Build”→ “Measure”→ “Learn”.\nMany security professionals have a hard time adapting their existing practices to a world where requirements can change every few weeks, or where they are never written down at all. Where design and risk management decisions are made by the team just in time, instead of being planned out and directed from top down. And where manual testing and compliance checking cannot possibly keep up with the speed of delivery.\nAgile practitioners argue that while this rule is broadly speaking true, catching a defect later is more expensive than catching one earlier, the solution is not to attempt the impossible task of catching all defects earlier, but instead to focus on reducing the cost of fixing defects by making change safer and easier.\ninstead you need to be thinking about secure service design, trust modeling, and secure architecture patterns.\nThe design team should have access to security training or security expertise to ensure that the service they are designing enables security through the user experience.\nSecurity teams should be providing tooling, processes and guidance that helps product managers, architects and developers follow good security practice while designing a new system.\nSecurity checks that happen at this stage need to be automatable, reliable, repeatable and understandable in order for a team to adopt them.\nThe security team should do everything that they can to ensure that the easiest way to build something inside the organisation is the safe and secure way, by providing teams with secure headers, hardened run-time configuration recipes and playbooks, and vetted third party libraries and images that are free from vulnerabilities which teams can grab and use right away.\nWhen security stops being the team that says no, and becomes the team that enables reliable code to ship, then that’s true agile security.\nTruly agile security teams measure themselves on what they can enable to happen, rather than the security issues they have blocked from going out of the door.\nor they could be taken care of by training the team in secure coding so that they know know how to do things properly from the start.\nAnother way to include security in requirements is through attacker stories or misuse cases (instead of use cases). In these stories the team spends some time thinking through how a feature could be misused by an attacker or by another malicious - or even a careless - user.\nWe’ve had experience in at least one company where the attack trees are stored electronically in a wiki, and all of the controls are linked to the digital story cards, so the status of each story is recorded in a live view. This shows the security team the current state of the threat tree, any planned work that might affect it, and allows compliance officers to trace back from a work order to find out why it was requested and when it was completed.\nthis kind of interlinking is very valuable for high performing and fast moving teams to give them situational awareness to help in making decisions.\nAs we’ve seen throughout this book, the speed of agile development creates new security risks and problems. But this speed and efficiency can also offer an important edge against attackers, a way to close vulnerability windows much faster.\nSecurity should be about enabling the organisation to carry out its goals in the most safe and secure manner possible. This means that an effective risk management process should be about enabling people in the organisation to take appropriate risks in an informed manner. The key here being informed: risk management is not all about avoidance but the mindful understanding, reduction, sharing and acceptance of risk as appropriate.\nBut with an agile team continuously changing the system in response to new information, the context in which a risk is accepted can change dramatically in a fairly short time.\nCommon change control practices, such as specified by ITIL or COBIT, are designed to deal with waterfall projects that push large change sets a handful of times per year, and cannot possibly keep up with Continuous Delivery or Continuous Deployment approaches.\nThis means that unlike in some more traditional software engineering shops, Agile teams may resist or avoid review boards, design authorities and other control mechanisms imposed from outside if they believe that these outside forces will get in the way of delivery. This is a problem for security professionals who are used to working with architecture review boards and other central authorities to set guiding principles and rules to ensure the security of all systems.\nIn a traditional software development lifecycle, risk assessment is done based on the system requirements and design specifications and models created up front. A risk analyst uses those documents to identify the risks that will reside in the system, and puts together a plan to monitor and mitigate these risks. Then audits are done to ensure that the system built matches the documented design specifications and that the risk management plan is still valid.\nNation state attack teams looking to steal data or IP, or conducting reconnaissance or sabotage for cyber warfare (for a vast majority of situations these will be well outside of your threat model and would not be something you would likely be able to discover or prevent).\nThere are different sources of information about threats to help you understand threat actors and the risks that they pose to your organization. While this is an area of the security industry that is widely considered to be over-hyped and to have not returned on the promises of value that have been made (See Threaty Threats boxout), it can still have a place in your security program.\nSome platforms for reporting, detecting, collecting and aggregating threat intelligence include:\nOpen Threat Exchange (https://www.alienvault.com/open-threat-exchange)\nOpen TPX (https://www.opentpx.org/)\nPassive Total (https://www.passivetotal.org/)\nCritical Stack (https://intel.criticalstack.com/)\nFacebook’s Threat Exchange (https://www.facebook.com/threatexchange)\nDoes a change fundamentally change the architecture or alter a tryst boundary? These types of changes should trigger a risk review (in design or code or both) and possibly some kind of compliance checks.\nQuick and dirty threat modelling done often is much better than no threat modelling at all.\nEach time that you come back again to look at the design and how it has been changed, you’ll have a new focus, new information and more experience, which means that you may ask new questions and find problems that you didn’t see before.\nBecause the attack surface is continuously changing, you need to do threat modeling on a continuous basis. Threat modeling has to be done a lightweight, incremental and iterative way.\nPeople (including attackers) are like water when it comes to protective controls that get in their way. They will work around them and come up with pragamtic solutions to get themselves moving again.\nYou can’t secure what you don’t understand\nBruce Schneier\nA clean architecture with well-defined interfaces and a minimal feature set is not the same as a simplistic and incomplete design that focuses only on implementing features quickly, without dealing with data safety and confidentiality, or providing defense against run-time failures and attacks.\nIn many environments, enforcing code reviews upfront is the only way to ensure that reviews get done at all: it can be difficult to convince developers to make code changes after they have already checked code in and moved on to another piece of work.\nProbably the best reference for a security code review checklist is OWASP’s ASVS project.\nAcceptance tests may also be done manually, in demos with the customer, especially where the tests are expensive or inconvenient to automate.\nThe advantages to an agile development team of being able to self-provision development and test environments like this are obvious. They get control over how their environments are set up and when it gets done. They don’t have to wait days or weeks to hear back from ops.\nBefore adding security testing into your pipeline, make sure that the pipeline is set up correctly, and that the team is using it correctly and consistently.\nall changes are checked into the code repository\nteam members check in frequently\nautomated tests run consistently and quickly\nwhen tests fail, the team stops and fix problems imemdiately before making more changes\nBut instead of treating pen testing as a gate, think of it more as a validation and a valuable learning experience for the entire team.\nOpenSCAP (https://www.open-scap.org/) scans specific Linux platforms and other software against hardening policies based on PCI DSS, STIG, and USGCB and helps with automatically correcting any deficiencies that are found.\nLynis (https://cisofy.com/lynis/) is an open source scanner for Linux and Unix systems that will check configurations against CIS, NIST and NSA hardening specs, as well as vendor-supplied guidelines and general best practices.\nOne of the best examples is Dev-Sec (https://github.com/dev-sec), a set of open source hardening templates originally created at Deutsche Telekom, and now maintained by contributors from many organizations.\nSecurity Monkey (https://github.com/Netflix/security_monkey) automatically checks for insecure policies, and records the history of policy changes\nConformity Monkey (https://github.com/Netflix/SimianArmy/wiki/Conformity-Home) automatically checks configuration of a run-time instance against pre-defined rules and alerts the owner (and security team) of any violations\nbuild chains can become highly customized and fragile over time.\n6.5 train the development team in secure coding at least annually, and provide them with secure coding guidelines.\nMany of the ideas about automating compliance in this chapter are based on the DevOps Audit Defense Toolkit, a free, community-built process framework written by compliance and IT governance experts James DeLuccia IV, Jeff Gallimore, Gene Kim, and Byron Miller.\nReviewers follow checklists to ensure that all code meets the team’s standards and guidelines, and to watch out for unsafe coding practices. Management periodically audits to make sure that reviews are done consistently, and that engineers aren’t rubber stamping each other’s work.\nWhile ITIL change management is designed to deal with infrequent, high-risk “big bang”changes, most changes by Agile and DevOps teams are small and low-risk, and can flow under the bar. They can be treated as standard or routine changes that have been preapproved by management, and that don’t require a heavyweight change review meeting.\nAuditors like this a lot. Look at all of the clear, documented hand offs and reviews and approvals, all of the double checks and opportunities to catch mistakes and malfeasance.\nBut look at all the unnecessary delays and overhead costs, and the many chances for misunderstandings and miscommunication. This is why almost nobody builds and delivers systems this way any more.\nFor teams, compliance should - and has to - build on top of the team’s commitment to doing things right and delivering working software. Teams that are already working towards zero defect tolerance, and teams that are following good technical practices including Continuous Integration should be more successful in meeting compliance.\n\u0026lsquo;Effective security teams should measure themselves by what they enable,\nnot by what they block\u0026rsquo;\nLazy security teams default to No as it is a get out of jail free card for any future negative impact that may come from the project they opposed. Ineffective security teams want the risk profile of a company to stay the same so that they do not have to make hard choices between security and innovation.\nA security team who can default to openness and only restrict as the exception will do a far better job at spreading knowledge about what they do, and most importantly, why they are doing it.\n","date":"August 21, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-agile-application-security/","section":"Posts","summary":"Don’t wait for the perfect time, tool or training course to get started. Just do something.\n","title":"Highlights for Agile Application Security","type":"posts"},{"content":"It\u0026rsquo;s 2019 and uploading an application to Apple is still a nightmare-ish pursuit. I am so glad to be done with Apple\u0026rsquo;s bullshit.\n","date":"August 10, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15632/","section":"Posts","summary":"It’s 2019 and uploading an application to Apple is still a nightmare-ish pursuit. I am so glad to be done with Apple’s bullshit.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Mid to large size teams can accrue dependencies like a katamari and then they\u0026rsquo;ll be wondering why their node_modules has become unworkably big. That is only one reason to adopt a quick RFC process for engineering decisions that have the potential to affect a bunch of people.\nhttps://opensource.com/article/17/9/6-lessons-rfcs\n","date":"August 10, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15630/","section":"Posts","summary":"Mid to large size teams can accrue dependencies like a katamari and then they’ll be wondering why their node_modules has become unworkably big. That is only one reason to adopt a quick RFC process for engineering decisions that have the potential to affect a bunch of people.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Dear Mr. Alper Cugun,\nThank you for your request.\nA good coverage with medical services and an adequate access for all population groups belong to the central intentions of Health Policy. The question how many doctors will be needed for a suitable supply of the people and how an adequate distribution of doctors can be reached is as nearly as old as the statutory health insurance itself. The GKV-Spitzenverband is a member of the \u0026ldquo;Gemeinsamer Bundesausschuss (G-BA)\u0026rdquo;, a committee that decides on legal norms on a federal level, including the \u0026ldquo;Bedarfsplanungs-Richtlinie\u0026rdquo;. That is the fundamental basis of the planning policy for outpatient doctors in the regions. Actually, the G-BA decided to change some of the norms and to increase the number of paediatricians by approximately 400.\nBerlin as a metropole has altogether a very high level of doctors in the outpatient care. That includes also the number of paediatricians. In this respect, we have no shortage of paediatricians in general. Nevertheless, as in many other regions we have partially problems with a good distribution of these doctors.\nFor Information about concrete measures to improve the supply situation, please contact the KV Berlin. If you have problems to find a paediatrician, you can try the online search engine of the KV Berlin. There you will find nearly 400 paediatricians in Berlin (https://www.kvberlin.de/61arztsuche_en/index.html). You also can call or contact the \u0026ldquo;Terminservicestelle\u0026rdquo; of the KV Berlin. That is a special service center of the KV, that arranges appointments with doctors for you, if you can´t find a doctor on your own.\nI hope this information will be helpful for you.\nKind Regards\nKathleen Lehmann Referat 2140 — Bedarfsplanung, Psychotherapie, neue Versorgungsformen\nI think they told me to go fuck myself. But in any case our problem finding a pediatrician has been solved through other means.\n","date":"August 10, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/answer-gkv-spitzenverband/","section":"Posts","summary":"Dear Mr. Alper Cugun,\n","title":"Answer GKV Spitzenverband","type":"posts"},{"content":"“I offer this: literature can save a life. Just one life at a time.”\nTeju Cole is a treasure.\nhttps://www.nybooks.com/daily/2019/07/05/carrying-a-single-life-on-literature-translation/\n","date":"August 7, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15627/","section":"Posts","summary":"“I offer this: literature can save a life. Just one life at a time.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"With some minor adjustments, this entire piece about the systematic advantaging of the automobile is applicable to Germany as well.\nParents driving their kids to school endanger kids who walk to school which gives parents a justification not to let their kids walk to school and thus drive them.\nhttps://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/car-crashes-arent-always-unavoidable/592447/\n","date":"August 6, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15625/","section":"Posts","summary":"With some minor adjustments, this entire piece about the systematic advantaging of the automobile is applicable to Germany as well.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"An impressive application of the strangle vine pattern to rewrite the Slack desktop client which everybody loved to hate. The write-up reads rather matter-of-fact but the process to get there most likely was not.\nhttps://slack.engineering/rebuilding-slack-on-the-desktop-308d6fe94ae4\n","date":"August 6, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15623/","section":"Posts","summary":"An impressive application of the strangle vine pattern to rewrite the Slack desktop client which everybody loved to hate. The write-up reads rather matter-of-fact but the process to get there most likely was not.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Pollution from internal combustion engines is killing everybody slowly and here we are in a country that can\u0026rsquo;t be bothered to regulate diesel engines into oblivion.\nhttps://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jul/12/billions-of-air-pollution-particles-found-in-hearts-of-city-dwellers\n","date":"August 6, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15621/","section":"Posts","summary":"Pollution from internal combustion engines is killing everybody slowly and here we are in a country that can’t be bothered to regulate diesel engines into oblivion.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Reading Shopify\u0026rsquo;s approach to keeping their merchant\u0026rsquo;s secure at their humongous scale seems to come down to the radical standardization of everything. People think this is boring (it isn\u0026rsquo;t) but it has tons of benefits beyond just security.\nhttps://engineering.shopify.com/blogs/engineering/building-shopify-application-security-program\n","date":"August 4, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15618/","section":"Posts","summary":"Reading Shopify’s approach to keeping their merchant’s secure at their humongous scale seems to come down to the radical standardization of everything. People think this is boring (it isn’t) but it has tons of benefits beyond just security.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"One good example with an open sourced tool over at Slack of how they\u0026rsquo;ve implemented their Security Development Lifecycle to enable their developers to move forward confidently.\nhttps://slack.engineering/moving-fast-and-securing-things-540e6c5ae58a\n","date":"August 4, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15616/","section":"Posts","summary":"One good example with an open sourced tool over at Slack of how they’ve implemented their Security Development Lifecycle to enable their developers to move forward confidently.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"For most managers these responses should come naturally, but still good to reflect on how to deal positively with employees giving notice.\nhttps://shawnprice.com/2019/07/31/saying-goodbye/\n","date":"August 4, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15614/","section":"Posts","summary":"For most managers these responses should come naturally, but still good to reflect on how to deal positively with employees giving notice.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"First I hear about Mauerkrankheit—and I\u0026rsquo;m not the only one—but a politically triggered rise in mental health problems would explain many things both past and present.\nhttps://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2019/jul/31/philip-pocock-best-photograph-miriam-berlin-punk-and-her-rat-bestia\n","date":"August 4, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15612/","section":"Posts","summary":"First I hear about Mauerkrankheit—and I’m not the only one—but a politically triggered rise in mental health problems would explain many things both past and present.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"We do our own flavor of attachment parenting and this is still one of my favorite pieces about motherhood.\nhttps://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/01/31/baby-book-bathwater/\n","date":"August 4, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15610/","section":"Posts","summary":"We do our own flavor of attachment parenting and this is still one of my favorite pieces about motherhood.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Farmers are forced to be taught in a “reeducation camp”to use their mobile phones to monitor the status in the greenhouse including CO2, light strength, soil temperature, etc.\nA monster post about how China feeds itself which I hope isn\u0026rsquo;t totally made up.\nhttps://www.quora.com/How-is-China-able-to-provide-enough-food-to-feed-its-population-of-over-1-billion-people-Do-they-import-food-or-are-they-self-sustainable\n","date":"August 3, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15608/","section":"Posts","summary":"Farmers are forced to be taught in a “reeducation camp”to use their mobile phones to monitor the status in the greenhouse including CO2, light strength, soil temperature, etc.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The dropping arises from the combination of the laissez-faire attitude of Dutch parents along with the incredible safety of the Netherlands. I have been dropped as a child and I never considered that this was a uniquely local experience.\nhttps://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/21/world/europe/netherlands-dropping-children.html?smid=tw-nytimesworld\u0026smtyp=cur\n","date":"August 3, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15606/","section":"Posts","summary":"The dropping arises from the combination of the laissez-faire attitude of Dutch parents along with the incredible safety of the Netherlands. I have been dropped as a child and I never considered that this was a uniquely local experience.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Europe will need its own cloud, but talking will not make it so.\nhttps://www.golem.de/news/digitale-souveraenitaet-bundesregierung-treibt-den-aufbau-einer-europa-cloud-voran-1907-142706.html\n","date":"August 3, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15604/","section":"Posts","summary":"Europe will need its own cloud, but talking will not make it so.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A more than useful read of how the CEO of Ogilvy tries to worm out of the fact that they are doing work selling concentration camps.\nhttps://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/lamvo/ogilvy-transcript-meeting-customs-border-seifert-immigration\n","date":"August 3, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15602/","section":"Posts","summary":"A more than useful read of how the CEO of Ogilvy tries to worm out of the fact that they are doing work selling concentration camps.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"An incredible treatment of moving to New York that manages to make SF more than a bit lame in comparison.\nhttps://paulstamatiou.com/new-york/\n","date":"August 3, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15600/","section":"Posts","summary":"An incredible treatment of moving to New York that manages to make SF more than a bit lame in comparison.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Berlin right now is the frontline for transportation applications with 4 scooter services alone. I\u0026rsquo;m glad that Jon has made a comprehensive overview of multi-modal transportation apps because I sure as hell wasn\u0026rsquo;t going to have the time for it.\nhttps://jonworth.eu/the-definitive-guide-to-berlin-multi-mode-mobility-apps/\n","date":"August 3, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15598/","section":"Posts","summary":"Berlin right now is the frontline for transportation applications with 4 scooter services alone. I’m glad that Jon has made a comprehensive overview of multi-modal transportation apps because I sure as hell wasn’t going to have the time for it.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Instead of giving up, let\u0026rsquo;s hope that climate despair pushes people towards increasingly radical action.\nhttps://www.vice.com/en_us/article/j5w374/climate-despair-is-making-people-give-up-on-life?utm_Source=vicetwitterus\n","date":"August 3, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15596/","section":"Posts","summary":"Instead of giving up, let’s hope that climate despair pushes people towards increasingly radical action.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The manifesto to choose boring technology in order to be able to solve interesting problems is something to (re-)read regularly until you\u0026rsquo;ve internalized it.\nhttp://boringtechnology.club/\n","date":"July 31, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15594/","section":"Posts","summary":"The manifesto to choose boring technology in order to be able to solve interesting problems is something to (re-)read regularly until you’ve internalized it.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A nice rundown of Good Strategy/Bad Strategy as recounted by Russell Davies to Anna Schipman.\nhttps://www.annashipman.co.uk/jfdi/russells-strategy-advice.html\n","date":"July 31, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15592/","section":"Posts","summary":"A nice rundown of Good Strategy/Bad Strategy as recounted by Russell Davies to Anna Schipman.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Cloudflare is setting a high bar for post-mortem writing but if you want to get started with this, the only parts you really need are: What went wrong \u0026amp; What are we doing about it.\nhttps://blog.cloudflare.com/details-of-the-cloudflare-outage-on-july-2-2019/\n","date":"July 31, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15590/","section":"Posts","summary":"Cloudflare is setting a high bar for post-mortem writing but if you want to get started with this, the only parts you really need are: What went wrong \u0026 What are we doing about it.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"OV-Fiets is the bike share avant-la-lettre, but it\u0026rsquo;s so locally Dutch that it always has been a bit hard to explain. The popularity of OV-Fiets has increased, now coinciding nicely with the international boom in mobility.\nhttps://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2019/07/24/no-limits-to-the-success-of-the-public-transport-bicycle/\n","date":"July 31, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15588/","section":"Posts","summary":"OV-Fiets is the bike share avant-la-lettre, but it’s so locally Dutch that it always has been a bit hard to explain. The popularity of OV-Fiets has increased, now coinciding nicely with the international boom in mobility.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Opvallend is dat ze vaak een groot gevoel voor uiterlijke schoonheid hebben.\nIntens: enthousiast, uitbundig, gepassioneerd, diepzinnig, levendig, hartstochtelijk, innig, fanatiek\n(in plaats van hysterisch, overdreven, driftig, wild, luidruchtig, ongeremd)\nGevoelig: inlevend, empathisch, openstaand, zachtaardig, teder, toegankelijk\n(in plaats van sentimenteel, kwetsbaar, prikkelbaar, overgevoelig, slap)\nOpmerkzaam: oog voor detail, scherpzinnig, oplettend, alert, aandachtig, waakzaam, kritisch, geconcentreerd, oplettend\n(in plaats van pietluttig, lastig, kieskeurig, snel afgeleid)\nSterke wil: vastberaden, doelgericht, eigenzinnig, onverstoorbaar, krachtig, aanhoudend, standvastig\n(in plaats van koppig, halsstarrig, onhandelbaar, opstandig, dwars, hardnekkig, eigenwijs)\nOok als je je kind op school ophaalt bijvoorbeeld, helpt het als je even op ooghoogte van je kind komt en zegt: ‘Hé lieverd, fijn dat je er bent’.\nLaat je kind vaak weten dat je blij bent dat hij er is. ‘Wat bof ik toch dat ik jouw mama mag zijn’ of ‘Wat gezellig om samen met jou een boekje te lezen’ laten je kind voelen dat hij er mag zijn zonder dat hij daar iets speciaals voor hoeft te doen.\nHoe beter jij door hebt waar hij last van heeft, hoe beter je het voor hem kunt benoemen. ‘Dat was schrikken, hé?’ of ‘Vind je die koffie vies ruiken of is het dat gekookte ei op mijn boterham?’\nPuur en alleen al het idee dat ze moeten doen wat een ander bepaalt kan zorgen voor heel veel verzet, zelfs als datgene wat ze moeten doen in feite helemaal niet zo erg is.\nDe gebiedende wijs doet het vaak erg slecht bij kinderen met een erg sterke wil.\nZe wil dus echt wel rekening houden met wat ik nodig heb, maar ik moet daar dan wel duidelijk over zijn.\nHoud gezinsvergaderingen\nPlan vergaderingen in om met elkaar te bespreken hoe het allemaal loopt. Is iedereen nog tevreden over de gemaakte afspraken, zijn er nieuwe nodig, lukt het iedereen om zich eraan te houden?\nZolang de afspraak geldt, moet iedereen zich eraan houden. Dus ook als je kind er eens geen zin in heeft, zal hij zich aan zijn deel van de afspraak moeten houden. Als je het er gewoon bij laat zitten omdat je geen zin hebt in gezeur, kom je natuurlijk nergens. Afspraak is afspraak. Zeg dit ook tegen je kind.\nZo leer je hem dat hij zelf ergens voor verantwoordelijk blijft en dat hij, ook al kan hij niet waarmaken wat hij heeft toegezegd, het er dan niet zomaar bij kan laten zitten. Vertel hem dat er helemaal niets mis mee is om in gezamenlijk overleg af te wijken van afspraken, maar dat het heel lastig is als iemand zonder enig overleg zijn deel van de afspraak niet nakomt.\nMisschien denk je nu wel dat dit allemaal heel tijdrovend is. Deels is dit ook zo. Je moet echt de tijd nemen om met je kind in gesprek te gaan. Toch duren deze gesprekjes in de praktijk vaak maar een paar minuutjes. Deze tijd win je vaak direct daarna al weer terug omdat hij geen weerstand meer heeft tegen wat er moet gebeuren.\nAls het dus al lukt om je kind zich goed te laten gedragen door middel van straffen (en die kans is klein bij temperamentvolle kinderen), dan komt dat doordat je zijn wil gebroken hebt. Dat is erg zonde. Je wilt je kind graag in zijn kracht zetten en niet die kracht juist om zeep helpen.\nVrijwel alle ouders geven aan dat, juist als ze hun kind de ruimte geven om zich echt te ontladen, de intensiteit van die ontlading op den duur ontzettend afneemt.\nZet jezelf en je eigen overtuigingen even aan de kant. Hij doet dit niet om jou dwars te zitten of omdat hij niet wéét hoe hij zich moet gedragen, hij kán het nu gewoon niet. En als iemand iets niet kan, heeft hij hulp nodig, geen preek.\nOok wanneer je kind steeds bewust gedrag vertoont waarvan hij heel goed weet dat jij daar last van hebt of wanneer hij de hele tijd zonder duidelijke aanleiding zijn broertje of zusje loopt te treiteren, kan dit betekenen dat hij zich moet ontladen.\nSommige ouders voelen zich aan het einde van de dag vooral rot over wat er allemaal niet goed ging. Als je dat doet, doe je jezelf daarmee enorm tekort.\nBedenk dat je kind minstens één iemand nodig heeft die onvoorwaardelijk achter hem staat, hem altijd volledig accepteert en steeds het beste in hem ziet. Iemand die in hem blijft geloven als hij er een potje van maakt en hem steeds een nieuwe kans geeft.\nBoos worden op een temperamentvol kind werkt ontzettend averechts. Hij raakt er alleen maar meer overprikkeld van, waardoor de situatie nog verder escaleert. Wat hij nodig heeft, is een liefdevolle ouder die op een natuurlijke manier leiding neemt als dat nodig is, die zijn eigen grenzen op een rustige manier aangeeft en die een baken van rust is op het moment dat zijn kind volledig overmand wordt door emoties.\nStress ontstaat ook doordat je ergens bent, terwijl je eigenlijk ergens anders wilt zijn.\nLaat hem eventueel wat water drinken. Hierdoor gaan zijn darmen namelijk werken en daardoor wordt zijn lichaam ook wakkerder.\n‘Ik word gek van de rotzooi’ is voor de meeste kinderen namelijk geen legitieme reden.\nAlle frustraties, overprikkeling of emoties die hij onder schooltijd even parkeert, gooit hij jou thuis juist voor je voeten. Hoe irritant dat misschien ook is, het is eigenlijk een goed teken. Bij jou voelt hij zich zo veilig dat hij alles eruit durft te gooien.\nVraag hem in dat laatste geval wat er precies besproken moet worden en wat hij graag zou willen veranderen. Op die manier kun je er wel voor hem zijn en hem helpen, maar neem je het toch niet allemaal uit handen.\n","date":"July 27, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-temperamentvolle-kinderen/","section":"Posts","summary":"Opvallend is dat ze vaak een groot gevoel voor uiterlijke schoonheid hebben.\n","title":"Highlights for Temperamentvolle Kinderen","type":"posts"},{"content":"For the more abstract work, it makes it a lot easier for other people to ‘read your mind’ and for you to delegate if you share as much context as possible as Anna Shipman describes here.\nhttps://www.annashipman.co.uk/jfdi/delegating-to-a-team.html\n","date":"July 14, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15582/","section":"Posts","summary":"For the more abstract work, it makes it a lot easier for other people to ‘read your mind’ and for you to delegate if you share as much context as possible as Anna Shipman describes here.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Something that bears pointing out regularly: “Plus, contrary to popular belief, agile practices were not invented by the Agile movement. They predate it by many decades.”\nhttps://medium.com/columbus-egg/dear-agile-im-tired-of-pretending-d39ab6a12003\n","date":"July 14, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15580/","section":"Posts","summary":"Something that bears pointing out regularly: “Plus, contrary to popular belief, agile practices were not invented by the Agile movement. They predate it by many decades.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Cath writes some very salient points about growing into leadership that on the one hand should be more widespread, but on the other hand, everybody will likely have to find out for themselves.\nAlso nice to see this local group of people taking the next steps in their careers if even only witnessed from afar like this.\nhttps://medium.com/@ohrworm/what-ive-learnt-about-leadership-3ff83b06a1de\n","date":"July 14, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15577/","section":"Posts","summary":"Cath writes some very salient points about growing into leadership that on the one hand should be more widespread, but on the other hand, everybody will likely have to find out for themselves.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A very recognizable story of an engineering organization finding itself and one person\u0026rsquo;s journey into leadership and back.\nThe step to leadership should definitely not be a one-way door. People can\u0026rsquo;t really know beforehand that they want to do this and even if they rollback, everybody will be much better off for having tried it.\nhttps://medium.com/@FlippEng/from-engineer-to-manager-and-back-again-64e796d45945\n","date":"July 14, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15575/","section":"Posts","summary":"A very recognizable story of an engineering organization finding itself and one person’s journey into leadership and back.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"My foray into local politics showed me that more than anything the Grüne are a party of yuppies without much or any social face behind it.\nhttps://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/24/german-greens-rise-nation-divided\n","date":"July 7, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15572/","section":"Posts","summary":"My foray into local politics showed me that more than anything the Grüne are a party of yuppies without much or any social face behind it.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I haven\u0026rsquo;t read this profile of the Sacklers. I\u0026rsquo;ll only read one when it is profiling them because they will be executed for their crimes.\nhttps://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/06/david-sackler-pleads-his-case-on-the-opioid-epidemic\n","date":"July 7, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15570/","section":"Posts","summary":"I haven’t read this profile of the Sacklers. I’ll only read one when it is profiling them because they will be executed for their crimes.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;ve never exactly followed any framework but instead, I played it by ear and mixed and matched what worked best from wherever I could find it. That\u0026rsquo;s always a bit bothersome (but easily solved) when people want to work with the exact definition of something.\nFormalizing that approach as SWARMing (Scaling Without A Religious Methodology) is an interesting twist indeed.\nhttps://dannorth.net/2018/01/26/in-praise-of-swarming/\n","date":"July 7, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15568/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’ve never exactly followed any framework but instead, I played it by ear and mixed and matched what worked best from wherever I could find it. That’s always a bit bothersome (but easily solved) when people want to work with the exact definition of something.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Whenever our kids are dismayed by somebody else, they come to us and say that there was either a human (ein Mensch!) or a kid (ein Kind!). No genders, no nothing.\n","date":"July 7, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15566/","section":"Posts","summary":"Whenever our kids are dismayed by somebody else, they come to us and say that there was either a human (ein Mensch!) or a kid (ein Kind!). No genders, no nothing.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Leaving this here because I\u0026rsquo;m going to need it more often:\nThe ‘smart’ in smart city is not smart as in intelligent, it is smart as in upscale.\nhttps://www.citylab.com/design/2019/06/smart-city-photos-technology-marketing-branding-jibberjabber/592123/\n","date":"July 7, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15563/","section":"Posts","summary":"Leaving this here because I’m going to need it more often:\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Any programming language once it gets big enough will face pressure to turn into Java. PHP succumbed to it, let\u0026rsquo;s see where Go goes. Try isn\u0026rsquo;t that big of an issue but it is a path that eventually may lead to… generics and other stuff.\nhttps://www.ardanlabs.com/blog/2019/07/an-open-letter-to-the-go-team-about-try.html\n","date":"July 7, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15561/","section":"Posts","summary":"Any programming language once it gets big enough will face pressure to turn into Java. PHP succumbed to it, let’s see where Go goes. Try isn’t that big of an issue but it is a path that eventually may lead to… generics and other stuff.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Not to put too fine a point on it, but the media will go to any lengths to ignore Bernie.\nhttps://www.politico.com/story/2019/07/03/harris-warren-2020-dems-poll-1396656\n","date":"July 6, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15559/","section":"Posts","summary":"Not to put too fine a point on it, but the media will go to any lengths to ignore Bernie.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Too aggravating to even read this entire thing. I\u0026rsquo;ll have to get it together soon to delete my facebook account. Though I\u0026rsquo;ll still be locked into Instagram and Whatsapp then, so I think it would be best indeed if those services would be broken up.\nhttps://www.theverge.com/2019/6/19/18681845/facebook-moderator-interviews-video-trauma-ptsd-cognizant-tampa\n","date":"June 25, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15551/","section":"Posts","summary":"Too aggravating to even read this entire thing. I’ll have to get it together soon to delete my facebook account. Though I’ll still be locked into Instagram and Whatsapp then, so I think it would be best indeed if those services would be broken up.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ende Gelände is the radical environmentalist movement against climate change and here they are blocking a strip mine.\nhttps://twitter.com/Ende__Gelaende/status/1142462960587223042\nProtesting is a core German competence. There is deep institutional knowledge of how and why to do this. At the drop of a hat and with a lot of organizing infrastructure, it is possible to get thousands of people to join something like this.\n","date":"June 22, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15549/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ende Gelände is the radical environmentalist movement against climate change and here they are blocking a strip mine.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"AOC is correct. America is running concentration camps filled with kids.\nIf you\u0026rsquo;re American or working in America by the way, I think you\u0026rsquo;re somewhat complicit in this.\nhttps://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/21/us/migrant-children-border-soap.html\n","date":"June 22, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15546/","section":"Posts","summary":"AOC is correct. America is running concentration camps filled with kids.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Are people paying the Medium article ransom?\n","date":"June 21, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15544/","section":"Posts","summary":"Are people paying the Medium article ransom?\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Exceedingly rare to find a talk about programming that draws on both Christopher Alexander and James C. Scott, two authors that I keep coming back to myself.\nEven better that it uses them to explain why the Design Patterns failed, something that I also felt but couldn\u0026rsquo;t really put my finger on—I always thought this is just a silly thing that Java people do—and how they could be better.\nhttps://vimeo.com/248214009\nhttps://www.deconstructconf.com/2017/brian-marick-patterns-failed-why-should-we-care\n","date":"June 21, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/patterns-failed/","section":"Posts","summary":"Exceedingly rare to find a talk about programming that draws on both Christopher Alexander and James C. Scott, two authors that I keep coming back to myself.\n","title":"Patterns failed","type":"posts"},{"content":"Leaving this here for when the UBER thing finally comes crashing down.\nIt will probably be similar to AirBnB and any ‘sharing startup’ that first destroys and remakes a large part of the world for the worse and then goes out of business.\nhttps://americanaffairsjournal.org/2019/05/ubers-path-of-destruction/\n","date":"June 21, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15540/","section":"Posts","summary":"Leaving this here for when the UBER thing finally comes crashing down.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"This Jez Humble talk about Continuous Delivery is one of my all-time favorites. As a bonus at the end he also totally demolishes the Google Guy.\nhttps://vimeo.com/229954108\n","date":"June 21, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/jez-humble-continuous-delivery-in-agile/","section":"Posts","summary":"This Jez Humble talk about Continuous Delivery is one of my all-time favorites. As a bonus at the end he also totally demolishes the Google Guy.\n","title":"Jez Humble - Continuous Delivery in Agile","type":"posts"},{"content":"Just like almost every public service in Berlin the pediatrician situation is absolute squalor. It\u0026rsquo;s impossible to find one who picks up the phone or takes on new patients 1.\nWe\u0026rsquo;ve had some bad incidents in the past with sketchy doctors because of this and now I\u0026rsquo;m trying to figure out why this is the way it is.\nCall my lead for a pediatrician\n“We\u0026rsquo;re very sorry but we can\u0026rsquo;t take any new patients.” Call the Kassenärztliche Verein\n“It\u0026rsquo;s not us who do this.”\nI am told to call the Dachverband der Krankenkassen Call the Spitzenverband\n“We do not determine how many pediatricians can settle in a given area.”\nThe telephone person says they are a temp and do not have any channel up to their leadership. I\u0026rsquo;m told to call my own Krankenkasse. Call Techniker Kankenkasse\n‘Wir sind nicht dafür zuständig.’\nThe person says they have the same problem on a personal level in Hamburg but can\u0026rsquo;t really do anything for me professionally. I am told to call the Kassenärztliche Verein Call KV (again)\nReception says that I can get a peds appointment sometime in the future from a different number of theirs (not what I want). I called this number before and they will not give me a pediatrician and that is if they bother to pick up the telephone. Every instance says “Dafür sind wir nicht zuständig.”and sends me on until I\u0026rsquo;ve closed the loop.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s not the first time that this happens. I\u0026rsquo;ve previously spent half an hour being sent in a loop between Polizei and Ordnungsamt. This is the way that Germany functions: nobody is responsible for anything and everybody in between can get fucked.\nCorollary: if it is impossible to figure out why something is the way it is, it is also impossible to fix it.\nDon\u0026rsquo;t bother tipping me a pediatrician unless you\u0026rsquo;re sure they take new patients.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"June 21, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/finding-a-pediatrician-in-berlin/","section":"Posts","summary":"Just like almost every public service in Berlin the pediatrician situation is absolute squalor. It’s impossible to find one who picks up the phone or takes on new patients 1.\n","title":"Figuring out why there is a shortage of pediatricians","type":"posts"},{"content":"Lovely to see the Twisted community take the lead in moving Python forward and I fully support this idea of giving the standard library the Konmari treatment.\nhttps://glyph.twistedmatrix.com/2019/06/kernel-python.html\n","date":"June 15, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15526/","section":"Posts","summary":"Lovely to see the Twisted community take the lead in moving Python forward and I fully support this idea of giving the standard library the Konmari treatment.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"There is another dirty secret behind the German switch to alcohol-free beers: German beers just aren\u0026rsquo;t that good. I prefer any major foreign beer (Heineken, Carlsberg, 1664, etc.) over most beers you can buy here.\nhttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/14/germans-thirsty-for-alcohol-free-beer-as-brewers-boost-taste\n","date":"June 15, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15524/","section":"Posts","summary":"There is another dirty secret behind the German switch to alcohol-free beers: German beers just aren’t that good. I prefer any major foreign beer (Heineken, Carlsberg, 1664, etc.) over most beers you can buy here.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Reading about Amsterdam canceling 10'000 parking spaces, does make me feel as if I\u0026rsquo;m living in an idiot\u0026rsquo;s city.\nhttps://www.citylab.com/transportation/2019/06/amsterdam-parking-spots-removal-cars-bikes-parks-playground/591067/\n","date":"June 15, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15522/","section":"Posts","summary":"Reading about Amsterdam canceling 10'000 parking spaces, does make me feel as if I’m living in an idiot’s city.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;ve stopped using Instapaper for a long time now, but I\u0026rsquo;m still reading longreads. Let me explain how.\nI go through my links in Chrome on my desktop. I close and read whatever I can and anything that\u0026rsquo;s too long stays in an open tab and floats slowly to the left.\nOn Chrome on my phone whenever I\u0026rsquo;m in transit or when I want to read something longer that isn\u0026rsquo;t a book, I go to the “Recent tabs”screen. Besides those you can also find synced open tabs from all your other Chrome browsers. I then pick something that I want to read.\nNow, ideally it would allow me to close the tab on my desktop from my phone but understandably that\u0026rsquo;s not a feature. So I read a couple of articles, remember those and close the tabs manually next time I\u0026rsquo;m back on my desktop.\nThis works surprisingly well. Except for LRB articles. I have no clue what to do about those.\n","date":"June 15, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/a-poor-mans-instapaper/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’ve stopped using Instapaper for a long time now, but I’m still reading longreads. Let me explain how.\n","title":"A poor man's instapaper","type":"posts"},{"content":"Amazon RedShift is a hosted version of ParAccel. More recently, a plethora of open source SQL-on-Hadoop projects have emerged; they are young but aiming to compete with commercial data warehouse systems. These include Apache Hive, Spark SQL, Cloudera Impala, Facebook Presto, Apache Tajo, and Apache Drill [52, 53].\nIn these situations, as long as people agree on what the format is, it often doesn’t matter how pretty or efficient the format is. The difficulty of getting different organizations to agree on anything outweighs most other concerns.\nTherefore, to maintain backward compatibility, every field you add after the initial deployment of the schema must be optional or have a default value.\nThat means you can only remove a field that is optional (a required field can never be removed), and you can never use the same tag number again (because you may still have data written somewhere that includes the old tag number, and that field must be ignored by new code).\nIf you are using a system with multi-leader replication, it is worth being aware of these issues, carefully reading the documentation, and thoroughly testing your database to ensure that it really does provide the guarantees you believe it to have.\nToday, most data systems are not able to automatically compensate for such a highly skewed workload, so it’s the responsibility of the application to reduce the skew.\nUnfortunately, these tools don’t directly translate to distributed systems, because a distributed system has no shared memory—only messages sent over an unreliable network.\nSafety is often informally defined as nothing bad happens, and liveness as something good eventually happens.\nA much better solution is to build a brand-new database inside the batch job and write it as files to the job’s output directory in the distributed filesystem, just like the search indexes in the last section. Those data files are then immutable once written, and can be loaded in bulk into servers that handle read-only queries. Various key-value stores support building database files in MapReduce jobs, including Voldemort [46], Terrapin [47], ElephantDB [48], and HBase bulk loading [49].\nA complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that works. The inverse proposition also appears to be true: A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be made to work.\nJohn Gall, Systemantics (1975)\nWhen copies of the same data need to be maintained in several storage systems in order to satisfy different access patterns, you need to be very clear about the inputs and outputs: where is data written first, and which representations are derived from which sources? How do you get data into all the right places, in the right formats?\nIt would be very natural to extend this programming model to also allow a server to push state-change events into this client-side event pipeline. Thus, state changes could flow through an end-to-end write path: from the interaction on one device that triggers a state change, via event logs and through several derived data systems and stream processors, all the way to the user interface of a person observing the state on another device.\nBut this choice is not free either: if a service is so popular that it is “regarded by most people as essential for basic social participation”[99], then it is not reasonable to expect people to opt out of this service—using it is de facto mandatory.\n","date":"June 13, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-designing-data-intensive-applications/","section":"Posts","summary":"Amazon RedShift is a hosted version of ParAccel. More recently, a plethora of open source SQL-on-Hadoop projects have emerged; they are young but aiming to compete with commercial data warehouse systems. These include Apache Hive, Spark SQL, Cloudera Impala, Facebook Presto, Apache Tajo, and Apache Drill [52, 53].\n","title":"Highlights for Designing Data-Intensive Applications","type":"posts"},{"content":"A frankly amazing piece by Monica Lent using her experience to debunk seven commonly held truths about programming with verve. Programming consists of folklore and beliefs are often just beliefs. That indeed makes most learning in this field a question of unlearning.\nhttps://monicalent.com/blog/2019/06/03/absolute-truths-unlearned-as-junior-developer/\n","date":"June 11, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15512/","section":"Posts","summary":"A frankly amazing piece by Monica Lent using her experience to debunk seven commonly held truths about programming with verve. Programming consists of folklore and beliefs are often just beliefs. That indeed makes most learning in this field a question of unlearning.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A case for becoming good at writing for software engineers that frankly holds up for anybody in a growing organization.\nhttps://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/on-writing-well/\n","date":"June 11, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15510/","section":"Posts","summary":"A case for becoming good at writing for software engineers that frankly holds up for anybody in a growing organization.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"As the blisters develop and his feet start to bleed, Walton asks the right questions. What are the human and environmental costs of Singapore’s success, and are they sustainable?\nHis conclusions are more nuanced than either Singapore’s detractors or its cheerleaders would like. The island’s vaunted meritocracy is imperfect, especially seen from the perspective of its Malay and Indian minorities; and the pressures on citizens to perform and conform are so intense that those who do not fit in sometimes opt for voluntary exile.\nNot having walked the length of the island (which sounds amazing) but talking about Singapore from afar, I came to many of the same conclusions. Still a fascinating place in so so many ways.\nhttps://www.ft.com/content/fbbb28d2-885c-11e9-97ea-05ac2431f453\n","date":"June 11, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15508/","section":"Posts","summary":"As the blisters develop and his feet start to bleed, Walton asks the right questions. What are the human and environmental costs of Singapore’s success, and are they sustainable?\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A nicely put explanation for why I too pick my environments to be maximally productive with minimal configuration. In many cases, I just make do to the disgust of those who\u0026rsquo;ve learned all the shortcuts and applied all the customizations, but to them I\u0026rsquo;d say: marginal returns and opportunity cost.\nhttp://sstephenson.us/posts/on-configuration\n","date":"June 10, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15504/","section":"Posts","summary":"A nicely put explanation for why I too pick my environments to be maximally productive with minimal configuration. In many cases, I just make do to the disgust of those who’ve learned all the shortcuts and applied all the customizations, but to them I’d say: marginal returns and opportunity cost.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;d dare say that with the waning of the iPhone as a platform (both for development and for business), Apple\u0026rsquo;s closed plays will be increasingly lackluster. I\u0026rsquo;ve been rooting for Swift but it\u0026rsquo;s a horse running in the wrong race.\nhttps://onezero.medium.com/to-revive-the-mac-apple-wants-to-kill-electron-154873336e78\n","date":"June 10, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15502/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’d dare say that with the waning of the iPhone as a platform (both for development and for business), Apple’s closed plays will be increasingly lackluster. I’ve been rooting for Swift but it’s a horse running in the wrong race.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"“It’s no coincidence that co-living start-ups have gravitated to cities like Berlin, San Francisco, London and New York. Ostensibly ‘winning’ the battle for capital and talent, they are urban testing-grounds, where rootless and cashed-up tech workers, heated real estate markets, and rising housing pressures add up to a recipe for experimentation.”\nAn interesting look at co-living but please let\u0026rsquo;s not change the entire city into this nonsense.\nhttps://assemblepapers.com.au/2019/05/20/redesigning-renting-housing-as-a-service/\n","date":"June 6, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15499/","section":"Posts","summary":"“It’s no coincidence that co-living start-ups have gravitated to cities like Berlin, San Francisco, London and New York. Ostensibly ‘winning’ the battle for capital and talent, they are urban testing-grounds, where rootless and cashed-up tech workers, heated real estate markets, and rising housing pressures add up to a recipe for experimentation.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"About password managers:\n“But I never found a way to get people onto 1password in a single training session. The setup process has a lot of moving parts, involving the desktop app, browser plugin, online service, mobile app, and app store. It requires repeatedly typing a long master passphrase.”\nPeople do not like to hear it but password managers are BAD. Even the best of them is so bad that I struggle to use it. (I do because I have no alternative.)\nhttps://idlewords.com/2019/05/what_i_learned_trying_to_secure_congressional_campaigns.htm\n","date":"June 5, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15497/","section":"Posts","summary":"About password managers:\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Tooling has become so good and so empowering that like in this tweet, many commerce ‘startups’ that are really struggling to hire and retain dev teams (and then utilize them to their potential) would be much better served using Airtable, Zapier and Pipedrive until they break.\nMore likely in any case that the startup will go out of business or be acquired than it hitting the limits of those kinds of tools.\nhttps://twitter.com/calebhicks/status/1133517102181040128\n","date":"June 5, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15485/","section":"Posts","summary":"Tooling has become so good and so empowering that like in this tweet, many commerce ‘startups’ that are really struggling to hire and retain dev teams (and then utilize them to their potential) would be much better served using Airtable, Zapier and Pipedrive until they break.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I was arguing against Systems Theory today (a necessary evil when you live in Germany) which prompted the thought of searching for the conjunction of Bruno Latour and Niklas Luhmann. That led me to this gem.\nIt turns out that they met each other for a debate in 1996 in Bielefeld and Latour DESTROYED his opponent (full article).\nLuhmann, as expected, failed to engage with the theme of the conference, Science and Technology Studies and didn\u0026rsquo;t come out of his bubble. The same bubble that he has managed to trap most of the German humanities in.\n[Luhmann] only managed to address the theme of the conference—science and its sociological study—with half a sentence where he curtly asserted that science is an autopoietic subsystem of modern society.\nAn autopoietic subsystem, my ass. Latour quickly riposted into a frontal assault at the entirety of Luhmann-ism.\nNo, according to Latour, this theory didn\u0026rsquo;t have anything to offer to him and neither he concluded any of those gathered there. A quick perusal of the conference program should have sufficed to ascertain that the empirically obsessed STSers could not recover their objects in this theory. This may be bemoaned from the high vantage point of the Theory of Society as poor, theoretically \u0026ldquo;flat\u0026rdquo; sociology, nonetheless, Latour replied, this empirical Zoology of STS gives an account of this society as it is and not how it may appear from the distance of the chilling heights of systems theory. Latour clarified that fundamentally, systems theory represents everything that he and his colleagues in science studies have been battling for 20 years—yes, really battle and not just criticize. The purification of science, the simplification of the social by a demarcation with its environment, Luhmann\u0026rsquo;s work as the embodiment of the \u0026ldquo;cognitive turn\u0026rdquo; in epistemology—for Latour these were the old buzzwords that had to miss what\u0026rsquo;s special about science: its materiality. And in doing so of course also what\u0026rsquo;s specific for modern society, the large technological networks.\nLatour battling ‘the purification of science [and] the simplification of the social’, a true hero of science and society.\n","date":"June 5, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/the-theory-of-society/","section":"Posts","summary":"I was arguing against Systems Theory today (a necessary evil when you live in Germany) which prompted the thought of searching for the conjunction of Bruno Latour and Niklas Luhmann. That led me to this gem.\n","title":"The Theory of Society","type":"posts"},{"content":"From a thread about whether it is possible or not to live in Berlin without a car (gasp!). This is what a normal odd day of mine looks like.\nThe car isn\u0026rsquo;t the problem or more like: having a car would be a problem. During those rush hours, doing the same journeys by car would take at least twice as long.\n07:00 aufstehen, Kinder anziehen, KiTa brot machen 07:45 Lastenrad holen, noch was anziehen usw., Kinder überzeugen einzusteigen 08:10 Abfahrt zum Kita (andere Seite von Kreuzberg, 2.8km) 08:25 Kita Ankunft 08:40 Idealfall Abfahrt Kita zur Arbeit (Schöneberg, 7.7km) 09:10 Sitze auf dem Arbeitsplatz 16:30 Abfahrt Arbeit (weil ich sie gebracht habe muss ich sie jetzt nicht abholen, kann auch 16:00 sein oder 17:00) 16:45 Biomarkt wenn wir noch einkaufen brauchen 17:10 Abfahrt Biomarkt 17:25 spätestens wieder zu Hause Den nächsten Tag tue ich das gleiche andersrum mit dem Zwilingsrad und hole die um 15:30 ab beim Kita. Ich fahre ungefähr 15km Rad pro Tag.\nIch arbeite 30 Stunden aber das ist nicht wegen des Autos oder so sondern weil ich meine Kinder auch ab und zu noch sehen möchte.\nMit Auto wären wir nicht schneller (eher viel langsamer weil Stau + Parkplatzsuche usw.) also das macht für unsere Stunden gar keinen Unterschied.\n","date":"June 2, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/living-without-a-car-in-berlin/","section":"Posts","summary":"From a thread about whether it is possible or not to live in Berlin without a car (gasp!). This is what a normal odd day of mine looks like.\n","title":"Living without a car in Berlin","type":"posts"},{"content":"Leave it to the Netherlands to have a Green party that is right-wing just like every other party. Their leader, Jesse Klaver, styled himself after Trudeau during his campaign but after that, the result has been a bit lackluster without a seat in government.\nBelow is the story how they backstabbed our boy—or more wayward son—Zihni Özdil because he didn\u0026rsquo;t kowtow to the great leader.\nhttps://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2019/05/30/opkomst-en-ondergang-van-een-bevlogen-kamerlid-a3962131\n","date":"May 31, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15477/","section":"Posts","summary":"Leave it to the Netherlands to have a Green party that is right-wing just like every other party. Their leader, Jesse Klaver, styled himself after Trudeau during his campaign but after that, the result has been a bit lackluster without a seat in government.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Fijn zo\u0026rsquo;n land onder de zeespiegel dat wordt beheerst door klimaatontkenners. En gezien het Nederlandse asielbeleid is het niet heel waarschijnlijk dat klimaatvluchtelingen elders op een warm welkom zullen kunnen rekenen.\nhttps://twitter.com/Jamrat_/status/1132546604366475264\n","date":"May 27, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15475/","section":"Posts","summary":"Fijn zo’n land onder de zeespiegel dat wordt beheerst door klimaatontkenners. En gezien het Nederlandse asielbeleid is het niet heel waarschijnlijk dat klimaatvluchtelingen elders op een warm welkom zullen kunnen rekenen.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Gitlab\u0026rsquo;s CEO Shadow Program is a testament to their deep and deliberate thinking about organizational development. I\u0026rsquo;m curious whether more companies do this.\nhttps://about.gitlab.com/handbook/ceo/shadow/\n","date":"May 27, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15470/","section":"Posts","summary":"Gitlab’s CEO Shadow Program is a testament to their deep and deliberate thinking about organizational development. I’m curious whether more companies do this.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I had no idea but it seems Berlin has a booming Chinese art scene.\nhttps://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/05/why-chinas-expat-artists-move-berlin/589951/?utm_source=twitter\u0026amp;utm_medium=social\u0026amp;utm_campaign=share\n","date":"May 27, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15468/","section":"Posts","summary":"I had no idea but it seems Berlin has a booming Chinese art scene.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Cities like Barcelona are starting to fight back against AirBnB and tourism.\nhttps://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/04/29/the-airbnb-invasion-of-barcelona\nI recently refused to help some local tourists to call the bike share hotline in German. We were legitimately in a hurry but my flat out refusal was not appreciated. Next time I\u0026rsquo;ll tell them I won\u0026rsquo;t be helping them because I do not support tourism.\n","date":"May 27, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15466/","section":"Posts","summary":"Cities like Barcelona are starting to fight back against AirBnB and tourism.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik dacht dat Arjen van Veelen één van de beste schrijvers op de Correspondent was. Dat is hij misschien nog steeds, maar dan shrijft hij wel dit soort onzin.\nhttps://twitter.com/GijsbertPols/status/1133034973437599744\n","date":"May 27, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15464/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik dacht dat Arjen van Veelen één van de beste schrijvers op de Correspondent was. Dat is hij misschien nog steeds, maar dan shrijft hij wel dit soort onzin.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Set aside all of the obvious outcry, I haven\u0026rsquo;t seen a single argument yet that explains how encrypted communications are compatible with state power.\nhttps://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/netzpolitik/horst-seehofer-will-messengerdienste-zum-entschluesseln-zwingen-a-1269121.html\nI listened to this and didn\u0026rsquo;t hear that explanation nor did I find many of the arguments against very convincing.\nhttps://logbuch-netzpolitik.de/lnp302-wir-wollen-euch-nur-ein-bisschen-abkuehlen\n","date":"May 26, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15460/","section":"Posts","summary":"Set aside all of the obvious outcry, I haven’t seen a single argument yet that explains how encrypted communications are compatible with state power.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Swisher is doing good work here on Facebook/Fakebook but her handling of the worst of technology is still astonishingly softball given what is happening.\nhttps://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/26/opinion/nancy-pelosi-facebook-video.html\n","date":"May 26, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15458/","section":"Posts","summary":"Swisher is doing good work here on Facebook/Fakebook but her handling of the worst of technology is still astonishingly softball given what is happening.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A huge deep dive into how Stripe invests in technical infrastructure that contains too many good things to list.\nPrioritize as much work into the future as possible, shedding \u0026ldquo;forced\u0026rdquo; work.\nTo start digging out, sometimes you can get creative, finding more leveraged approach, push on the constraints a few times to make sure you\u0026rsquo;re not being rigid. The goal here is to find work that addresses \u0026ldquo;forced\u0026rdquo; work that also reduces future \u0026ldquo;forced\u0026rdquo; work.\nConsider getting product managers into your infrastructure organization. Not every team needs them all the time, but having even a few who can help navigate the transition from firefighting to innovating is super helpful.\nIf your team is doing forced, short-term work, then dig out by investing into your operational excellence.\nIf your team is just starting to experience the thrills of discretionary, long-term work, then invest into your product management skills.\nIf you have discretionary budget, but still find yourself running from one problem, then identify the principles to balance your approach, and set baselines for each principle.\nhttps://lethain.com/how-to-invest-technical-infrastructure/\n","date":"May 26, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15456/","section":"Posts","summary":"A huge deep dive into how Stripe invests in technical infrastructure that contains too many good things to list.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I am hard out at three 2/3 days a week to pick up my children and stayed at home last Friday to take care of a sick kid, so I am doing my best to parent very much out in the open in my workplace. It helps that my grandboss is also very explicit about this but I still find it difficult.\nhttps://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/05/normalize-parenthood-workplace-dont-hide-it/589822/\n","date":"May 26, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15454/","section":"Posts","summary":"I am hard out at three 2/3 days a week to pick up my children and stayed at home last Friday to take care of a sick kid, so I am doing my best to parent very much out in the open in my workplace. It helps that my grandboss is also very explicit about this but I still find it difficult.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"“code is just a high precision design medium”\nhttps://twitter.com/PavelASamsonov/status/1127207381673418752\nFrom an interesting discussion of the nuances between product and design strategy a notable tidbit that sheds a lot of light.\nAlso while we are discussing the ever-shifting definition of design, here\u0026rsquo;s another interesting tweet.\nhttps://twitter.com/MargoDunlap/status/1094073270910046209\nYou see this a lot with design wanting ‘a seat at the table’ but more often than not at those tables (which are inexplicably always at the highest echelons of power either in companies or government), most designers will not have the first clue what to contribute.\n","date":"May 26, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15450/","section":"Posts","summary":"“code is just a high precision design medium”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The play: SPD goes populist-nationalist to catch all of the right-wing worker votes and nibble off from AfD/CDU. They leave the open society social-democratic policies to the Greens.\nI\u0026rsquo;m not sure whether in that constellation Green and SPD would be able to work together anymore. In Denmark the labour party has taken a hard right like that and it\u0026rsquo;s a bit difficult to stomach. Still, I\u0026rsquo;d prefer those votes to go to classical labour parties instead of going to fascists.\n","date":"May 26, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15447/","section":"Posts","summary":"The play: SPD goes populist-nationalist to catch all of the right-wing worker votes and nibble off from AfD/CDU. They leave the open society social-democratic policies to the Greens.\n","title":"The future of social democracy","type":"posts"},{"content":"After their long nap, I took both out for a round of recycling cardboard, pumping some tires and buying some coffee beans 1.\nBoth of them put on their helmets of their own accord and jumped into the Christiania as soon as we got there. It was clear that they had a destination in mind. They then tried to describe to me which playground they wanted to go to and how to get there lacking most of the vocabulary to do so. Extremely adorable and no doubt in my mind that they\u0026rsquo;ll be able to describe their wishes here pretty soon as well.\nOn the way back both kids were singing something in the cargobike while I in the back was trying to vocalize a rendition of Lemon Tree from very distant memory. We should definitely install a sound system in the bike.\nJohann \u0026amp; Nyström at Chapter One\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"May 26, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/to-christiania/","section":"Posts","summary":"After their long nap, I took both out for a round of recycling cardboard, pumping some tires and buying some coffee beans 1.\n","title":"To Christiania!","type":"posts"},{"content":"In her estimation, I knew, I was assured a safe life, an easy life, a fine education, every opportunity. I would never have to eat rationed food, or obey curfews, or watch riots from my rooftop, or hide neighbors in water tanks to prevent them from being shot, as she and my father had.\nIn my son\u0026rsquo;s eyes I see the ambition that had first hurled me across the world. In a few years he will graduate and pave his way, alone and unprotected. But I remind myself that he has a father who is still living, a mother who is happy and strong. Whenever he is discouraged I tell him that if I can survive on three continents then there is no obstacle he cannot conquer.\n","date":"May 26, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-interpreter-of-maladies/","section":"Posts","summary":"In her estimation, I knew, I was assured a safe life, an easy life, a fine education, every opportunity. I would never have to eat rationed food, or obey curfews, or watch riots from my rooftop, or hide neighbors in water tanks to prevent them from being shot, as she and my father had.\n","title":"Highlights for Interpreter of Maladies","type":"posts"},{"content":"What risks are acceptable is often not documented, and when they are, they are stated in soft, unquantified terms that cannot be used clearly in a calculation to determine if a given expenditure is justified or not.\nMeasurement: A quantitatively expressed reduction of uncertainty based on one or more observations.\nIf a decision maker or analyst engages in what they believe to be measurement activities, but their estimates and decisions actually get worse or don’t at least improve, then they are not actually reducing their error and are not conducting a measurement according to the stated definition.\nWhat you want to know is whether you have less uncertainty after considering some source of data and whether that reduction in uncertainty warrants some change in actions.\nWe can measure the value of art, free time, or reducing risk to your life by assessing how much people actually pay for these things.\nIf your concern is that upper management won’t understand this, we can say we have not observed this—even when we’ve been told that management wouldn’t understand it. In fact, upper management seems to understand having to determine which risks are acceptable at least as well as anyone in cybersecurity.\nSince we know at least one (if not both) must be wrong, then we know qualifications and expertise in cybersecurity alone are not sufficient to determine if a given opinion on this topic is correct.\nMore fundamentally, does it even matter whether risk analysis works? And by “works,”do we really just mean whether it succeeds in putting on a show for compliance, or should we mean it actually improves the identification and management of risks?\nThey are all based in part on the idea that not knowing exact quantities is the same as knowing nothing of any value.\nAll of the operations just described require some source of an input. In this example, we will be using the calibrated estimates of the CISO. Since the CISO is using his previous experience and his calibrated probability-assessment skill to generate the inputs, we call them an “informative prior.”\nPractically speaking, there are only so many models that can be run and maintained at any given time.\n","date":"May 26, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-how-to-measure-anything-in-cybersecurity-risk/","section":"Posts","summary":"What risks are acceptable is often not documented, and when they are, they are stated in soft, unquantified terms that cannot be used clearly in a calculation to determine if a given expenditure is justified or not.\n","title":"Highlights for How to Measure Anything in Cybersecurity Risk","type":"posts"},{"content":"Berlin will also regularly call on McKinsey to ‘fix’ its problems. As this description of them giving Puerto Rico the Greece-treatment shows, where they come nothing good will follow.\nhttp://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/04/mckinsey-in-puerto-rico.html\n","date":"May 26, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15437/","section":"Posts","summary":"Berlin will also regularly call on McKinsey to ‘fix’ its problems. As this description of them giving Puerto Rico the Greece-treatment shows, where they come nothing good will follow.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"With my background in behavior change, I\u0026rsquo;m very pleasantly surprised to find this quote in what is a connoisseur\u0026rsquo;s treatment of the nuances of agile/agility: “There is only one way to create business value, and that’s to change someone’s behavior.”\nhttps://medium.com/columbus-egg/iterating-pivoting-agile-agility-940bcb1a0895\n","date":"May 26, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15435/","section":"Posts","summary":"With my background in behavior change, I’m very pleasantly surprised to find this quote in what is a connoisseur’s treatment of the nuances of agile/agility: “There is only one way to create business value, and that’s to change someone’s behavior.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"“Admittedly, this neat combination of worshipping totems while pursuing practical benefits is quintessentially Chinese.”\nA critical but hopeful treatment of Chinese and wider tech culture as seen through the radical lens of Burning Man.\nhttps://logicmag.io/07-the-chinese-burner/\n","date":"May 26, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15432/","section":"Posts","summary":"“Admittedly, this neat combination of worshipping totems while pursuing practical benefits is quintessentially Chinese.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A lot of very salient thinking on books, metacognition, double-loop learning and the deliberate design of new forms by Andy Matuschak in “Why Books Don\u0026rsquo;t Work”.\nI acknowledged earlier that of course, some people do absorb knowledge from books. Indeed, those are the people who really do think about what they’re reading. The process is often invisible. These readers’ inner monologues have sounds like: “This idea reminds me of…,”“This point conflicts with…,”“I don’t really understand how…,”etc. If they take some notes, they’re not simply transcribing the author’s words: they’re summarizing, synthesizing, analyzing.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve been thinking of doing a talk about how to get the most out of your reading both quantitatively and qualitatively. Many people do not even know how much is possible, let alone that they would have an inkling of how to get there. I think anybody can easily get to at least a doubling of reading quantity and conceptual retention.\nReaders must decide which exercises to do and when. Readers must run their own feedback loops: did they clearly understand the ideas involved in the exercise? If not, what should they do next? What should students do if they’re completely stuck? Some issues are subtler. For example, textbook exercises are often designed to yield both a solution to that specific problem and also broader insights about the subject. Will readers notice if they solved a problem but missed the insights it was supposed to reveal?\nWork in new aesthetic and educational forms along with opening up systems to allow people to make their own rules for going through them, is all of the stuff we had been occupied with in Hubbub as well.\n","date":"May 26, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15431/","section":"Posts","summary":"A lot of very salient thinking on books, metacognition, double-loop learning and the deliberate design of new forms by Andy Matuschak in “Why Books Don’t Work”.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Of de Nederlandse omroepen en kranten nou extreem-rechts zijn of niet, het effect is hetzelfde. Ze ondersteunen systematisch politiek en politici die rechts of heel rechts zijn.\nhttps://www.human.nl/medialogica/lees/Hoe-een-ultrarechts-campagnespotje-op-de-publieke-omroep-kon-worden-uitgezonden.html\n","date":"May 25, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15429/","section":"Posts","summary":"Of de Nederlandse omroepen en kranten nou extreem-rechts zijn of niet, het effect is hetzelfde. Ze ondersteunen systematisch politiek en politici die rechts of heel rechts zijn.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A collective of the largest German YouTubers have just before the European elections launched a campaign against the CDU and it\u0026rsquo;s a joy to see.\nThe CDU which is usually fully ignorant when it comes to digital issues has taken this broadside seriously. That by itself was a huge mistake. Most serious institutions would and should brush off something coming from new media.\nWhether this will have an effect is hugely unclear. The core CDU audience is disconnected and apathetic but they do get a lot of votes from other segments as well and there they could be slightly vulnerable. In any case, the series of fumbles that the CDU has embarked upon while trying to address this has only served to give the boycott movement wings.\nWhat\u0026rsquo;s interesting about the YouTubers is that they break with the German institutional consensus which is white, male and old. That group of people has a certain set of opinions and interests which has made sure that Germany has become increasingly backward. The YouTubers are young, (judging by their names and handles) diverse and not all male. And most importantly they have reach and fewer entrenched interests.\nhttps://www.tagesspiegel.de/politik/neues-video-von-rezo-mehr-als-70-youtube-stars-rufen-zum-boykott-von-cdu-und-spd-auf/24379566.html?fbclid=IwAR2jbOBkIBldbxKy6HN45qqt9N8CotfCYP-4h1mBosolneeTcknxFxgTjCY\n","date":"May 25, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/youtube-hatchet-job-on-the-cdu/","section":"Posts","summary":"A collective of the largest German YouTubers have just before the European elections launched a campaign against the CDU and it’s a joy to see.\n","title":"YouTube hatchet job on the CDU","type":"posts"},{"content":"“The key to building this aura is to become increasingly detail oriented, to be more prepared than anyone else, and to have a higher bar than those around you.”\nI\u0026rsquo;ve always dabbled heavily in product but reading something like this really gets me hyped up to consider switching into Product Management.\nhttps://hackernoon.com/how-to-get-into-product-management-78c58bd9c8cf?sk=4acbf6fd7e8d2d9887bde3605ad2584f\n","date":"May 21, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15421/","section":"Posts","summary":"“The key to building this aura is to become increasingly detail oriented, to be more prepared than anyone else, and to have a higher bar than those around you.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The issue around the Python standard library finally comes to a head thanks to a Twisted contributor. The standard library has felt stale for a very long time now. It\u0026rsquo;s nice that it\u0026rsquo;s there but nobody can really program anything in Python without external packages. There really is no debate here and core Python should support actual programmers.\nhttps://pyfound.blogspot.com/2019/05/amber-brown-batteries-included-but.html\n","date":"May 21, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15419/","section":"Posts","summary":"The issue around the Python standard library finally comes to a head thanks to a Twisted contributor. The standard library has felt stale for a very long time now. It’s nice that it’s there but nobody can really program anything in Python without external packages. There really is no debate here and core Python should support actual programmers.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"“Changes to one team’s service may be implemented by another team who needs the enhanced capability by what is called an Away Team. This team works on the Home Team’s code to add what it needs according to established engineering standards and then leaves that code in good order to be maintained by the Home Team who owns the service, with help when needed.”\nFully embedding your team in another team\u0026rsquo;s context to get something done, seems to me a very interesting compromise between autonomy and collaboration. Every team is an island, but it is ok to travel to another island and if that\u0026rsquo;s not possible, you can still build your own.\nAlso more than disorienting to see an in-depth piece about engineering organizations like this appear on The Register.\nPutting an entire team in another team\u0026rsquo;s context is something I have considered for all the collaboration, delivery, culture etc. benefits that it will most likely yield in exchange for a minor hit in delivery.\nhttps://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/05/14/amazons_away_teams/\n","date":"May 19, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15417/","section":"Posts","summary":"“Changes to one team’s service may be implemented by another team who needs the enhanced capability by what is called an Away Team. This team works on the Home Team’s code to add what it needs according to established engineering standards and then leaves that code in good order to be maintained by the Home Team who owns the service, with help when needed.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Venkat\u0026rsquo;s newsletter “Life Spirit Distillation”has a nice argument against personal growth and instead in favor of life intensification reframing the question into:\nW hat do you do with the unexpected person you find you\u0026rsquo;ve turned into?\n","date":"May 16, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/personal-growth/","section":"Posts","summary":"Venkat’s newsletter “Life Spirit Distillation”has a nice argument against personal growth and instead in favor of life intensification reframing the question into:\n","title":"Personal Growth","type":"posts"},{"content":"https://twitter.com/TheOnion/status/1128726771942219781\nGermany has a lot to improve as well when it comes to pro choice, but it is nowhere near as dire as the USA. If you have money to give, The Yellowhammer Fund seems to be a good place to donate to.\nhttps://yellowhammerfund.org/\n","date":"May 15, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15415/","section":"Posts","summary":"https://twitter.com/TheOnion/status/1128726771942219781\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Many years ago I suggested building in async facilities into Django. I got ridiculed for that both for technical feasibility (rightly) and necessity (short-sightedly). Now finally we have a proposal to build those features into the framework that demonstrates the same need and that can be implemented.\nhttps://github.com/andrewgodwin/deps/blob/async/draft/0009-async.rst\n","date":"May 12, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15410/","section":"Posts","summary":"Many years ago I suggested building in async facilities into Django. I got ridiculed for that both for technical feasibility (rightly) and necessity (short-sightedly). Now finally we have a proposal to build those features into the framework that demonstrates the same need and that can be implemented.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"This article about forecasting dovetails nicely with the book about measuring risk that I just read. It makes the case for foxlike thinking, something of which I don\u0026rsquo;t need to be persuaded.\nAmong those, they identified a small group of the foxiest forecasters—bright people with extremely wide-ranging interests and unusually expansive reading habits, but no particular relevant background—and weighted team forecasts toward their predictions. They destroyed the competition.\nTetlock and Mellers found that not only were the best forecasters foxy as individuals, but they tended to have qualities that made them particularly effective collaborators. They were “curious about, well, really everything,”as one of the top forecasters told me. They crossed disciplines, and viewed their teammates as sources for learning, rather than peers to be convinced. When those foxes were later grouped into much smaller teams—12 members each—they became even more accurate. They outperformed—by a lot—a group of experienced intelligence analysts with access to classified data.\nhttps://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/06/how-to-predict-the-future/588040/\n","date":"May 12, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15408/","section":"Posts","summary":"This article about forecasting dovetails nicely with the book about measuring risk that I just read. It makes the case for foxlike thinking, something of which I don’t need to be persuaded.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"It\u0026rsquo;s exciting to see the Emirates government put design front and center. Unfortunately though in a closed context such as that, it is more than likely that design will be instrumentalized and deployed only for material gain.\nhttps://design.gov.ae/\n","date":"May 12, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15406/","section":"Posts","summary":"It’s exciting to see the Emirates government put design front and center. Unfortunately though in a closed context such as that, it is more than likely that design will be instrumentalized and deployed only for material gain.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A book and an overview of how career opportunities are closed off to those without the right background and how to be cognizant of this and correct for it.\nhttps://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2019/02/class-ceiling-laurison-friedman-elite-jobs/582175/\n","date":"May 12, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15404/","section":"Posts","summary":"A book and an overview of how career opportunities are closed off to those without the right background and how to be cognizant of this and correct for it.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Usually it\u0026rsquo;s not for a good reason but still, it\u0026rsquo;s nice to see my grand-boss Dror on television regularly explaining cybersecurity to the German public.\nhttps://www.daserste.de/information/wirtschaft-boerse/plusminus/videos/daten-gefahr-unternehmen-video-100.html\n","date":"May 12, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15402/","section":"Posts","summary":"Usually it’s not for a good reason but still, it’s nice to see my grand-boss Dror on television regularly explaining cybersecurity to the German public.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Not a word wrong in this piece, landlords are the original rent-seeking leeches.\nhttps://www.huckmag.com/perspectives/opinion-perspectives/there-is-no-such-thing-as-a-good-landlord/\n","date":"May 8, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15398/","section":"Posts","summary":"Not a word wrong in this piece, landlords are the original rent-seeking leeches.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Innisfil, Ontario\u0026rsquo;s troubles filling in their public transit with Uber is a great example of how governments should not outsource things to private contractors whose unit economics do not make sense.\nhttps://www.citylab.com/transportation/2019/04/innisfil-transit-ride-hailing-bus-public-transportation-uber/588154/\n","date":"May 5, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15395/","section":"Posts","summary":"Innisfil, Ontario’s troubles filling in their public transit with Uber is a great example of how governments should not outsource things to private contractors whose unit economics do not make sense.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Deze Nederlandstalige app van Juf Jannie belooft puzzels voor kinderen vanaf 2 jaar aan te bieden maar de interactie en gebruiksvriendelijkheid zijn erbarmelijk slecht.\nIk heb mijn geld terug gevraagd en ik raad aan andere mensen dat ook te doen bij apps die onder de maat zijn.\n","date":"May 5, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/puzzels-kinderen-van-juf-jannie/","section":"Posts","summary":"Deze Nederlandstalige app van Juf Jannie belooft puzzels voor kinderen vanaf 2 jaar aan te bieden maar de interactie en gebruiksvriendelijkheid zijn erbarmelijk slecht.\n","title":"Puzzels kinderen van Juf Jannie","type":"posts"},{"content":"Even given that this is an amazing job description, you don\u0026rsquo;t often see companies describing themselves as a ‘socio-technical system’. This is a great way to show off both your care and your depth of thinking.\nhttps://jobs.netflix.com/jobs/869465\n","date":"May 4, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15392/","section":"Posts","summary":"Even given that this is an amazing job description, you don’t often see companies describing themselves as a ‘socio-technical system’. This is a great way to show off both your care and your depth of thinking.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Fascinating to read about the care with which Slack designs their workplaces.\nhttps://www.fastcompany.com/90341688/slacks-head-of-workplace-design-thinks-open-floor-plans-suuuck\n","date":"May 4, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15390/","section":"Posts","summary":"Fascinating to read about the care with which Slack designs their workplaces.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A paean for canteens something of which Berlin has ample for a variety of historic reasons.\nhttps://dinnerdocument.com/2019/04/30/i-dream-of-canteens/\n","date":"May 4, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15388/","section":"Posts","summary":"A paean for canteens something of which Berlin has ample for a variety of historic reasons.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I can confirm most of the best practices from this guide of Stack Overflow\u0026rsquo;s remote first design culture.\nhttp://www.tedgoas.com/blog/distributed-design\n","date":"May 4, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15385/","section":"Posts","summary":"I can confirm most of the best practices from this guide of Stack Overflow’s remote first design culture.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"https://www.niemanlab.org/2019/05/what-will-the-correspondent-publish-in-english-a-look-at-the-dutch-site-offers-some-clues/\nAmericans feel ripped off by the Corres\u0026rsquo;s bait and switch and it seems now we\u0026rsquo;re going to seeing a free for all where they will mercilessly rip the site.\nIt was disappointing to realize — to actually see in the numbers — that while The Correspondent raised $2.6 million in part by stressing diversity and inclusivity, tapping ambassadors like DeRay Mckesson and Baratunde Thurston, the Dutch site is not a model of that diversity.\nThere is a lot of criticism and hate in the Netherlands as well but it\u0026rsquo;s not so pronounced because:\nThe site has its provenance in the Netherlands. It\u0026rsquo;s a small country and you never know who you\u0026rsquo;ll need again in the future (“the media in The Netherlands is more tight-knit, insular, and male than it is in the U.S.”). The USA is not bothered by either of those and that creates a more honest environment because frankly a lot of the criticism is valid.\n","date":"May 2, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15382/","section":"Posts","summary":"https://www.niemanlab.org/2019/05/what-will-the-correspondent-publish-in-english-a-look-at-the-dutch-site-offers-some-clues/\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A Mac app that turns any website into a handy application, another wild app exploration by Morten Just.\nhttps://flotato.lpages.co/\n","date":"May 2, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15380/","section":"Posts","summary":"A Mac app that turns any website into a handy application, another wild app exploration by Morten Just.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Zählen für die Kleinsten 123 heb ik gekocht omdat er een Nederlandse versie van is (inclusief de audio). Helaas is de kwaliteit te slecht om dat vaker aan te horen en de interactiviteit laat veel te wensen over.\n","date":"May 1, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/toddler-counting-123/","section":"Posts","summary":"Zählen für die Kleinsten 123 heb ik gekocht omdat er een Nederlandse versie van is (inclusief de audio). Helaas is de kwaliteit te slecht om dat vaker aan te horen en de interactiviteit laat veel te wensen over.\n","title":"Toddler Counting 123","type":"posts"},{"content":"Dikkie Dik spelletjes is een officiele app van de uitgever Gottmer. Het is een rijke verzameling spelletjes maar over het algemeen matig bruikbaar en ongeschikt voor kinderen van 2 jaar oud.\n","date":"May 1, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/dikkie-dik-spelletjes/","section":"Posts","summary":"Dikkie Dik spelletjes is een officiele app van de uitgever Gottmer. Het is een rijke verzameling spelletjes maar over het algemeen matig bruikbaar en ongeschikt voor kinderen van 2 jaar oud.\n","title":"Dikkie Dik spelletjes","type":"posts"},{"content":"“The economic costs Airbnb imposes likely outweigh the benefits.”\nI don\u0026rsquo;t think anybody will be surprised by this study whose conclusions are that AirBnB is a drain on society and should be taxed and regulated mercilessly.\nhttps://www.epi.org/publication/the-economic-costs-and-benefits-of-airbnb-no-reason-for-local-policymakers-to-let-airbnb-bypass-tax-or-regulatory-obligations/\n","date":"April 28, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15363/","section":"Posts","summary":"“The economic costs Airbnb imposes likely outweigh the benefits.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Something that sounds so basic and is so very important but that can be very difficult to achieve when you\u0026rsquo;re in the thick of it: “Work on the business, not in the business.”\nhttps://knowyourteam.com/blog/2019/04/24/work-on-the-business-and-not-in-the-business-as-leaders/\n","date":"April 28, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15361/","section":"Posts","summary":"Something that sounds so basic and is so very important but that can be very difficult to achieve when you’re in the thick of it: “Work on the business, not in the business.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"As you’ll see, everything is slightly approximate, slightly exaggerated — so that each step in the argument takes you further from what you’re prepared to agree to.\nIt turns out Harari\u0026rsquo;s books only go downhill after Sapiens.\nhttp://www.thewhitereview.org/reviews/yuval-noah-harari/\n","date":"April 28, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15358/","section":"Posts","summary":"As you’ll see, everything is slightly approximate, slightly exaggerated — so that each step in the argument takes you further from what you’re prepared to agree to.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A worth-while apology for Design Thinking:\n“This is why I advise executives study design. If culture is driven by leadership behavior, then culture change is primarily driven by leadership behavior change. Design has a lot of techniques to offer.”\nhttps://medium.com/columbus-egg/design-thinking-as-decision-framing-7d6795542421\n","date":"April 28, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15356/","section":"Posts","summary":"A worth-while apology for Design Thinking:\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The newsworthy thing about the Accenture/Hertz story is not that they failed to deliver but how badly they failed and that they are getting sued for it. Getting something that\u0026rsquo;s not very good for far too much money is an accepted part of doing business with consultancies of that size.\nhttps://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/04/23/hertz_accenture_lawsuit/\n","date":"April 28, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15354/","section":"Posts","summary":"The newsworthy thing about the Accenture/Hertz story is not that they failed to deliver but how badly they failed and that they are getting sued for it. Getting something that’s not very good for far too much money is an accepted part of doing business with consultancies of that size.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"“Everyone else, money manager big or small, met with him virtually, over Zoom. When Yuan flew to New York for the IPO, it was just his eighth work trip in five years.”\nZoom is the real deal and the story behind its success is immensely inspiring.\nhttps://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2019/04/19/zoom-zoom-zoom-the-exclusive-inside-story-of-the-new-billionaire-behind-techs-hottest-ipo/#4e292eaa4af1\n","date":"April 28, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15352/","section":"Posts","summary":"“Everyone else, money manager big or small, met with him virtually, over Zoom. When Yuan flew to New York for the IPO, it was just his eighth work trip in five years.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"“They’re really good at the PR thing, and it really feels like gaslighting.”\nThe Correspondent miscommunicated the goals of their extremely well-funded crowdfunding campaign and now their first employee speaks out on their shady practices. Not to mention that a lot of what the Correspondent writes is unreadable and/or compromised.\nhttps://www.niemanlab.org/2019/04/i-felt-like-it-was-a-betrayal-and-we-had-raised-funds-on-false-pretense-the-correspondents-first-u-s-employee-speaks-out/\n","date":"April 26, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15349/","section":"Posts","summary":"“They’re really good at the PR thing, and it really feels like gaslighting.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Given their track record, I can\u0026rsquo;t blame people everywhere NIMBYing Google out of their neighborhoods.\nhttps://www.fastcompany.com/90336151/sidewalk-labss-smart-city-plans-face-legal-challenge\n","date":"April 26, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15347/","section":"Posts","summary":"Given their track record, I can’t blame people everywhere NIMBYing Google out of their neighborhoods.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Fuck you a million times.\nClear words for the liberal Dutch audience from Mona Eltahawi who cancelled her talk at De Balie because of their platforming of far right speakers.\nhttps://art19.com/shows/dipsaus/episodes/5c118e7a-9cd1-48c9-a647-b83951357a7e/embed?theme=light-custom\n","date":"April 26, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15344/","section":"Posts","summary":"Fuck you a million times.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The men I work with are not the geniuses of Menlo Park, the ones who retreated to garages and emerged with hardware that changed the world. They’re ensemble actors in an industry that favors singular greatness. They have not made fortunes or founded startups but have benefited from their proximity and physical resemblance to those who have.\nhttps://www.artpractical.com/column/the-metrics-of-backpacks/\n","date":"April 22, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15341/","section":"Posts","summary":"The men I work with are not the geniuses of Menlo Park, the ones who retreated to garages and emerged with hardware that changed the world. They’re ensemble actors in an industry that favors singular greatness. They have not made fortunes or founded startups but have benefited from their proximity and physical resemblance to those who have.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A handy checklist of what you need to take into account when you do (remote) mob programming. Every time we\u0026rsquo;ve used mobbing as an approach it has paid off thusfar so I\u0026rsquo;m very interested in deepening the practice.\nhttps://www.remotemobprogramming.org/\n","date":"April 19, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15338/","section":"Posts","summary":"A handy checklist of what you need to take into account when you do (remote) mob programming. Every time we’ve used mobbing as an approach it has paid off thusfar so I’m very interested in deepening the practice.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A clear write-up of how GOV.UK kept things running smoothly while their petitions website suffered an immense rush of signatures.\nhttps://technology.blog.gov.uk/2016/08/16/scaling-the-petitions-service-following-the-eu-referendum/\n","date":"April 19, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15336/","section":"Posts","summary":"A clear write-up of how GOV.UK kept things running smoothly while their petitions website suffered an immense rush of signatures.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Zoom is an excellent video-conferencing app which turns out to be built on some technical excellence of its own (running WASM encoders and decoders in the browser).\nhttps://webrtchacks.com/zoom-avoids-using-webrtc/\n","date":"April 19, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15334/","section":"Posts","summary":"Zoom is an excellent video-conferencing app which turns out to be built on some technical excellence of its own (running WASM encoders and decoders in the browser).\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I can\u0026rsquo;t really get enough of Haidt takedowns like this one in the Guardian.\nThe core irony of The Coddling of the American Mind is that, by opposing identity politics, its authors try to consolidate an identity that does not have to see itself as such. Enjoying the luxury of living free from discrimination and domination, they therefore insist that the crises moving young people to action are all in their heads.\nIn their safe space of TED talks and thinktanks and think pieces, the genteel crusaders against “political correctness”create their own speech codes. As their constituency shrinks, their cant of progress starts to sound hysterical. The minds they coddle just may be their own.\nhttps://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/sep/20/the-coddling-of-the-american-mind-review\n","date":"April 19, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15332/","section":"Posts","summary":"I can’t really get enough of Haidt takedowns like this one in the Guardian.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Kim Kardashian West is active in prison reform and studying law. There are no limits to what anybody can do.\nhttps://www.vogue.com/article/kim-kardashian-west-cover-may-2019\n","date":"April 17, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15329/","section":"Posts","summary":"Kim Kardashian West is active in prison reform and studying law. There are no limits to what anybody can do.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"That was a very good episode of The Cultures with an especially interesting treatment of community (by Naomi I guess) “as a framework of how and why to get on with people that you don\u0026rsquo;t like.”contrasting it with the current digital culture where everybody has to cultivate a likable persona.\nhttps://mssv.net/2019/04/14/the-cultures-ep-292-whats-a-hobby/\n","date":"April 17, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15327/","section":"Posts","summary":"That was a very good episode of The Cultures with an especially interesting treatment of community (by Naomi I guess) “as a framework of how and why to get on with people that you don’t like.”contrasting it with the current digital culture where everybody has to cultivate a likable persona.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Looking forward to the Micromobility Summit coming to Berlin this year. I hope we manage to have some serious progress on infrastructure and street legal scooters by then.\nhttp://tickets.micromobility.io/\n","date":"April 15, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15325/","section":"Posts","summary":"Looking forward to the Micromobility Summit coming to Berlin this year. I hope we manage to have some serious progress on infrastructure and street legal scooters by then.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Some amazing work by Morten Just turning a phone into a 3D mouse using all the sensors that it has embedded in it. This is mindblowing and hints at all the things that are already possible using the technology we have.\nhttps://medium.com/rotato/the-3d-mouse-in-your-pocket-b3984c5c3b3a\n","date":"April 15, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15323/","section":"Posts","summary":"Some amazing work by Morten Just turning a phone into a 3D mouse using all the sensors that it has embedded in it. This is mindblowing and hints at all the things that are already possible using the technology we have.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Barcelona is implementing a traffic transition we here in Berlin can only dream of.\nhttps://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2019/4/11/18273896/barcelona-spain-politics-superblocks\n","date":"April 15, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15321/","section":"Posts","summary":"Barcelona is implementing a traffic transition we here in Berlin can only dream of.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"“Really, though, it was the same liberal fantasy, where everyone could laugh together because they were all on the right side of history.”\nDespite all the recommendations, I\u0026rsquo;ve always managed to resist watching Parks and Recreations. I have no time or patience for hopepunk.\nhttps://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/already-great\n","date":"April 15, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15319/","section":"Posts","summary":"“Really, though, it was the same liberal fantasy, where everyone could laugh together because they were all on the right side of history.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Berlin opens its first mobility hub and makes it look about as shabby as the average parking lot in Kreuzberg (which is what it is).\nhttps://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/abschied-vom-auto-erster-mobilitaets-hub-in-berlin-eroeffnet/24212946.html\n","date":"April 15, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15317/","section":"Posts","summary":"Berlin opens its first mobility hub and makes it look about as shabby as the average parking lot in Kreuzberg (which is what it is).\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Nice to see some positive urban development coming from Turkey for a change.\nhttps://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/04/urban-transformations-the-reinvention-of-eskisehir-turkey-from-dump-to-destination\n","date":"April 15, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15315/","section":"Posts","summary":"Nice to see some positive urban development coming from Turkey for a change.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"If Berlin votes to expropriate Deutsche Wohnen, it will be a welcome step towards decommodification of housing. Not to mention the long overdue correction that it will give the local housing market.\nhttp://www.taz.de/!5587292/\n","date":"April 15, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15313/","section":"Posts","summary":"If Berlin votes to expropriate Deutsche Wohnen, it will be a welcome step towards decommodification of housing. Not to mention the long overdue correction that it will give the local housing market.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Here is the sad recounting how the Dutch media fueled the rise of a white nationalist politician to the point where he\u0026rsquo;s polling as the second largest party now.\nhttps://foreignpolicy.com/2019/03/28/the-new-face-of-the-dutch-far-right-fvd-thierry-baudet-netherlands-pvv-geert-wilders/\n","date":"April 9, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15310/","section":"Posts","summary":"Here is the sad recounting how the Dutch media fueled the rise of a white nationalist politician to the point where he’s polling as the second largest party now.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;ve got a Patagonia down jacket and I\u0026rsquo;m glad that they are taking a stand against the appropriation of the brand by finance bros.\nhttps://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katienotopoulos/patagonia-power-vest-policy-change\n","date":"April 9, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15308/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’ve got a Patagonia down jacket and I’m glad that they are taking a stand against the appropriation of the brand by finance bros.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Most of my programming career has been focused on keeping things simple and eschewing premature abstractions summarized aptly by: “duplication is far cheaper than the wrong abstraction”\nExisting code exerts a powerful influence. Its very presence argues that it is both correct and necessary. We know that code represents effort expended, and we are very motivated to preserve the value of this effort. And, unfortunately, the sad truth is that the more complicated and incomprehensible the code, i.e. the deeper the investment in creating it, the more we feel pressure to retain it (the \u0026quot; sunk cost fallacy\u0026quot;). It\u0026rsquo;s as if our unconscious tell us \u0026ldquo;Goodness, that\u0026rsquo;s so confusing, it must have taken ages to get right. Surely it\u0026rsquo;s really, really important. It would be a sin to let all that effort go to waste.\u0026rdquo;\nhttps://www.sandimetz.com/blog/2016/1/20/the-wrong-abstraction\n","date":"April 8, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15306/","section":"Posts","summary":"Most of my programming career has been focused on keeping things simple and eschewing premature abstractions summarized aptly by: “duplication is far cheaper than the wrong abstraction”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"An elaboration on High Output Management split into “Running yourself”and “Running your team”by Keith Rabois.\nhttp://delian.io/lessons-3\n","date":"April 8, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15304/","section":"Posts","summary":"An elaboration on High Output Management split into “Running yourself”and “Running your team”by Keith Rabois.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The best thing about ContraPoints is that she gives the most charitable possible treatment to in this case Gender Critical people (the other time it was Incels) and then still rips them for all that they are.\n\u0026amp;feature=youtu.be\n","date":"April 1, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15302/","section":"Posts","summary":"The best thing about ContraPoints is that she gives the most charitable possible treatment to in this case Gender Critical people (the other time it was Incels) and then still rips them for all that they are.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;ll be proud to live in Berlin when the home owner expropriations are passed and the real estate madness is curtailed.\nArticle 15 of the Country’s Basic Law states that “land, natural resources and means of production may, for the purpose of nationalization, be transferred to public ownership or other forms of public enterprise by a law that determines the nature and extent of compensation.”\nhttps://www.thenation.com/article/berlin-housing-gentrification-referendum/\n","date":"March 31, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15300/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’ll be proud to live in Berlin when the home owner expropriations are passed and the real estate madness is curtailed.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I was supposed to see this play six years ago. Let\u0026rsquo;s say better late than never. Seen Wednesday, March 20th at the Maxim Gorki Theater.\nIt starts off very chaotically with everybody shouting. It is very hard to understand what anybody says. This gets better later on but I still had to peek at the surtitles regularly. I guess I\u0026rsquo;ve been spoiled by Dutch theaters where they strap microphones to their actors.\nThe premise is clever and the scene surprisingly light-weight. What follows is a bit too drawn out. The physical acting does not impress and you can only threaten to shoot somebody so many times before you actually have to shoot them. If you don\u0026rsquo;t, things get a bit dull.\nThe play itself is badly dated and the various debates have far moved on mostly to become irrelevant. The bits of Schiller that they play have held up much better over the past two centuries than Verrücktes Blut has over the past decade. Schiller also lets the actors in this play show their skills.\nThere is some Islam-criticism that is supposed to be edgy but misses the point. Additionally, we hit the obligatory ethno-clichés, many of which made me laugh during the wrong moments. Neither manages to be actually cutting. The social engagement on display is there for entertainment only.\nThe troubles with the kids in the play have only worsened and a new generation is now forced to make their rounds through Germany\u0026rsquo;s broken school system. Nothing about the systemic reasons behind the problems the kids are facing is even mentioned in the play. The situation is unfixable and there is nothing to be done other than ‘acting dumb’.\nThe actors can\u0026rsquo;t help the fact that this theater will have to play their break-out hit until the end of days. Especially if it keeps on filling the house. But at some point, it might be good to call the curtains.\n","date":"March 28, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/late-arrival-to-verrucktes-blut/","section":"Posts","summary":"I was supposed to see this play six years ago. Let’s say better late than never. Seen Wednesday, March 20th at the Maxim Gorki Theater.\n","title":"Late arrival to Verrücktes Blut","type":"posts"},{"content":"Nice to see a talk by my colleague Alicia and grand-boss Dror featured in the local IT news.\nhttps://www.golem.de/news/hacking-schutz-wie-findet-man-den-besten-threat-intelligence-provider-1903-140301.html\n","date":"March 28, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15294/","section":"Posts","summary":"Nice to see a talk by my colleague Alicia and grand-boss Dror featured in the local IT news.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Some nice parenting tips from the Inuit.\nFor example, how do you teach kids to stay away from the ocean, where they could easily drown? Instead of yelling, \u0026ldquo;Don\u0026rsquo;t go near the water!\u0026rdquo; Jaw says Inuit parents take a pre-emptive approach and tell kids a special story about what\u0026rsquo;s inside the water. \u0026ldquo;It\u0026rsquo;s the sea monster,\u0026rdquo; Jaw says, with a giant pouch on its back just for little kids.\n\u0026ldquo;If a child walks too close to the water, the monster will put you in his pouch, drag you down to the ocean and adopt you out to another family,\u0026rdquo; Jaw says.\n\u0026ldquo;Then we don\u0026rsquo;t need to yell at a child,\u0026rdquo; Jaw says, \u0026ldquo;because she is already getting the message.\u0026rdquo;\nhttps://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/03/13/685533353/a-playful-way-to-teach-kids-to-control-their-anger?t=1552778810967\n","date":"March 28, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15292/","section":"Posts","summary":"Some nice parenting tips from the Inuit.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"by a huge, active, buoyantly thriving German Department which its Head, Dr. Hagen, smugly called (pronouncing every syllable very distinctly) “a university within a university.”\nPnin, despite his many shortcomings, had about him a disarming, old-fashioned charm which Dr. Hagen, his staunch protector, insisted before morose trustees was a delicate imported article worth paying for in domestic cash.\ndesuetude\nlozenges\nIt was the world that was absent-minded and it was Pnin whose business it was to set it straight. His life was a constant war with insensate objects that fell apart, or attacked him, or refused to function, or viciously got themselves lost as soon as they entered the sphere of his existence.\nshadowgraph\nTherefore he preferred reading his lectures, his gaze glued to his text, in a slow, monotonous baritone that seemed to climb one of those interminable flights of stairs used by people who dread elevators.\ncerebration\nanent\nHe never attempted to sleep on his left side, even in those dismal hours of the night when the insomniac longs for a third side after trying the two he has.\nStill more oppressive was his tussle with the wallpaper. He had always been able to see that in the vertical plane a combination made up of three different clusters of purple flowers and seven different oak leaves was repeated a number of times with soothing exactitude; but now he was bothered by the undismissable fact that he could not find what system of inclusion and circumscription governed the horizontal recurrence of the pattern;\nThe evolution of sense is, in a sense, the evolution of nonsense.\nsurds\namphoric\ncanthus\nWhatever eyes Liza Pnin, now Wind, had, they seemed to reveal their essence, their precious-stone water, only when you evoked them in thought, and then a blank, blind, moist aquamarine blaze shivered and stared as if a spatter of sun and sea had got between your own eyelids.\npharmacopoeial\novipositing\nvernalization\nvagitus\n“Why not leave their private sorrows to people? Is sorrow not, one asks, the only thing in the world people really possess?”\njocose\nOnly another Russian could understand the reactionary and Sovietophile blend presented by the pseudo-colorful Komarovs, for whom an ideal Russia consisted of the Red Army, an anointed monarch, collective farms, anthroposophy, the Russian Church and the Hydro-Electric Dam.\nKopffüsslers\ncupule\ndistemper\nslattern\n“Pity Vladimir Vladimirovich is not here,”remarked Chateau. “He would have told us all about these enchanting insects.”\nLiterary departments still labored under the impression that Stendhal, Galsworthy, Dreiser, and Mann were great writers.\nThis did not prevent him from traveling tremendous distances to attend Modern Language conventions, at which he would flaunt his ineptitude as if it were some majestic whim, and parry with great thrusts of healthy lodge humor any attempt to inveigle him into the subtleties of the parley-voo.\npoetasters\nadumbrations\nconnubial\ncalvity\none of those informal gatherings where old-fashioned terrorists, heroic nuns, gifted hedonists, liberals, adventurous young poets, elderly novelists and artists, publishers and publicists, free-minded philosophers and scholars would represent a kind of special knighthood\n","date":"March 28, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-pnin/","section":"Posts","summary":"by a huge, active, buoyantly thriving German Department which its Head, Dr. Hagen, smugly called (pronouncing every syllable very distinctly) “a university within a university.”\n","title":"Highlights for Pnin","type":"posts"},{"content":"I loved this summary of Julie Zhuo\u0026rsquo;s new book “The Making of a Manager”(excellent points in there about one-on-ones, self-awareness, delegation and growth) and I can\u0026rsquo;t wait to read the entire thing.\n“The perspective you have changes everything. With a fixed mindset, your actions are governed by fear — fear of failure, fear of judgement, fear of being found out as an imposter,”says Zhuo. With a growth mindset, you’re motivated to seek out the truth and ask for feedback because you know it’s the fastest path to get you where you want to go.”\nhttps://www.fellow.app/blog/2019/julie-zhuo-the-making-of-a-manager/\n","date":"March 26, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15286/","section":"Posts","summary":"I loved this summary of Julie Zhuo’s new book “The Making of a Manager”(excellent points in there about one-on-ones, self-awareness, delegation and growth) and I can’t wait to read the entire thing.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Theranos employees are suffering some adverse consequences for participating in that scam (and rightly so).\nhttps://edition.cnn.com/2019/03/14/tech/theranos-employees/index.html\n","date":"March 26, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15284/","section":"Posts","summary":"Theranos employees are suffering some adverse consequences for participating in that scam (and rightly so).\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A basic lesson in design and the importance of non-functional characteristics from Jony Ive: “What we tend to focus on are those attributes that are easy to talk about, and just because we talk about them doesn\u0026rsquo;t mean that they\u0026rsquo;re the important attributes. All that means is they\u0026rsquo;re the ones that are easy to talk about.”\nhttps://www.gq.com/story/apple-airpods-everywhere\n","date":"March 26, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15282/","section":"Posts","summary":"A basic lesson in design and the importance of non-functional characteristics from Jony Ive: “What we tend to focus on are those attributes that are easy to talk about, and just because we talk about them doesn’t mean that they’re the important attributes. All that means is they’re the ones that are easy to talk about.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Eggboy speaks: “This egg has united people.”\nhttps://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/25/world/australia/egg-boy-interview-christchurch.html\n","date":"March 26, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15279/","section":"Posts","summary":"Eggboy speaks: “This egg has united people.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"De Nederlandse huizenmarkt is kapot (net zoals de huizenmarkt bijna overal) en de mensen blijven maar VVD stemmen. Wat klopt hier niet?\nhttps://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2019/03/21/woningstress-a3953958\n","date":"March 26, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15277/","section":"Posts","summary":"De Nederlandse huizenmarkt is kapot (net zoals de huizenmarkt bijna overal) en de mensen blijven maar VVD stemmen. Wat klopt hier niet?\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I love Jacinda Ardern showing true leadership after the Christchurch tragedy.\n\u0026ldquo;He sought many things from his act of terror, but one was notoriety—that is why you will never hear me mention his name. That\u0026rsquo;s something that we can absolutely deny him.\u0026rdquo;\nhttps://www.newsweek.com/jacinda-ardern-speak-names-those-who-were-lost-rather-name-man-who-took-them-1367350\n","date":"March 26, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15275/","section":"Posts","summary":"I love Jacinda Ardern showing true leadership after the Christchurch tragedy.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;ve been trying to figure out what makes for the best kind of professional working relationships. Sometimes things work, sometimes they don\u0026rsquo;t and sometimes they really take off.\nI\u0026rsquo;d not been able to figure it out until I read The Failure of Us where Roy Rapoport says:\nFrom a relationship and communication perspective, I think it comes down to striving to consistently lower the bar to communication and \u0026ndash; stay with me, this may be a bit confusing for a moment \u0026ndash; being ever-vigilant about the trivial little annoyances the people we work with create, and developing an ever-decreasing tolerance of them.\n“An ever-decreasing tolerance”, which is so counter-intuitive and so spot on at the same time. That is probably one of the things that inadvertently have gone right in some cases and wrong in others. So if you\u0026rsquo;re looking for me, I\u0026rsquo;ll be here cultivating an ever-decreasing tolerance.\n","date":"March 26, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15273/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’ve been trying to figure out what makes for the best kind of professional working relationships. Sometimes things work, sometimes they don’t and sometimes they really take off.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I didn\u0026rsquo;t think I\u0026rsquo;d live to hear one, but WIDI is a German language podcast (by Igor and a different Johannes) about technology that adds a unique perspective and a more systemic approach to the mix. If they manage to keep it niche, this will be a must listen for a German language audience.\nhttps://anchor.fm/warum-ist-das-interessant\n","date":"March 26, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15271/","section":"Posts","summary":"I didn’t think I’d live to hear one, but WIDI is a German language podcast (by Igor and a different Johannes) about technology that adds a unique perspective and a more systemic approach to the mix. If they manage to keep it niche, this will be a must listen for a German language audience.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I think it\u0026rsquo;s lovely that you can do stuff like this these days in Jira (Cloud at least) but given the choice I still would pick more or less anything else.\nhttps://blog.kevingoldsmith.com/2019/02/04/agile-at-astrumu-a-case-study/\n","date":"March 25, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15172/","section":"Posts","summary":"I think it’s lovely that you can do stuff like this these days in Jira (Cloud at least) but given the choice I still would pick more or less anything else.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"AOC deserves every bit of support for the amazing work that she is doing and for the huge job that she has taken upon herself.\nhttps://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/03/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-interview\n","date":"March 18, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15268/","section":"Posts","summary":"AOC deserves every bit of support for the amazing work that she is doing and for the huge job that she has taken upon herself.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Confiscatory fines for people who abuse the housing market like here in Barcelona are the way to go.\nhttps://www.citylab.com/equity/2019/03/barcelona-affordable-housing-spain-apartment-rental-fines/584902/\n","date":"March 18, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15266/","section":"Posts","summary":"Confiscatory fines for people who abuse the housing market like here in Barcelona are the way to go.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Bernard-Henri Lévy gets rekt by Isaac Chotiner who has got all of his receipts.\n“[Long pause] Yeah. [Long pause]”\nhttps://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/bernard-henri-levy-on-the-rights-of-women-and-of-the-accused\n","date":"March 18, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15264/","section":"Posts","summary":"Bernard-Henri Lévy gets rekt by Isaac Chotiner who has got all of his receipts.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I found this picture on twitter this morning.\nhttps://twitter.com/EstherSchapira/status/1106548312222638080\nI submitted it to Reddit with the source attached in the comments.\nhttps://www.reddit.com/r/germany/comments/b1q9bg/fridays_for_future/\nThat is now at 15k upvotes and still counting.\n","date":"March 17, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/fridays-for-future/","section":"Posts","summary":"I found this picture on twitter this morning.\n","title":"Fridays for Future","type":"posts"},{"content":"Unexpected but more than welcome that The Verge would bring the story of Ramsey Orta, the person who filmed the killing of Eric Garner by NYPD and is now facing prison time and harassment for it.\nNever forget: Police are bad.\nhttps://www.theverge.com/2019/3/13/18253848/eric-garner-footage-ramsey-orta-police-brutality-killing-safety\n","date":"March 17, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15260/","section":"Posts","summary":"Unexpected but more than welcome that The Verge would bring the story of Ramsey Orta, the person who filmed the killing of Eric Garner by NYPD and is now facing prison time and harassment for it.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":" Scooters are not legal in Germany yet but in select locations like here in Berlin you can try them out on private land.\nThis was my first ride and they are an immense pleasure to use once you get your feet positioned properly. I\u0026rsquo;m not sure yet what happens if you fall off one but I\u0026rsquo;m pretty sure it will be bad.\nThe law allowing these on the road has supposedly been signed but still has to work its way through some German institutions. What will happen when these are legal is obvious:\nPeople will adopt them en masse because scooters are amazing. Chaos will ensue everywhere because cities like Berlin have near zero infrastructure to facilitate these vehicles and are unable to adapt at the speed required. There will be some accidents which will be blown up by the media. A huge backlash will ensue as has already happened in many other places. The German attitude towards risk and the ever-present machinations of the car lobby will get scooters banned. I hope I\u0026rsquo;m proven wrong but it\u0026rsquo;s hard to see how it would go any other way.\n","date":"March 15, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/scooters-in-berlin/","section":"Posts","summary":" Scooters are not legal in Germany yet but in select locations like here in Berlin you can try them out on private land.\n","title":"Scooters in Berlin","type":"posts"},{"content":"A thorough and hugely insightful breakdown of six software rewrites with the conclusion that you can always create something new without throwing away the value you already have.\nhttps://medium.com/@herbcaudill/lessons-from-6-software-rewrite-stories-635e4c8f7c22\n","date":"March 12, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15253/","section":"Posts","summary":"A thorough and hugely insightful breakdown of six software rewrites with the conclusion that you can always create something new without throwing away the value you already have.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"An excruciating story about the necessary choices during a genetically fraught pregnancy.\nhttps://www.thecut.com/2019/03/i-have-a-son-with-a-genetic-disease-and-im-pregnant.html\n","date":"March 12, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15251/","section":"Posts","summary":"An excruciating story about the necessary choices during a genetically fraught pregnancy.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I choked and turned tail, fled once again, fled faced with myself; I left at a run; there are things that can’t be fixed. Actually, nothing can be fixed.\nMen are dogs who rub against each other in solitude\nSometimes we sense the situation is escaping us, that things are getting out of hand; we become afraid and instead of calmly looking, trying to understand, we react like a dog caught in barbed wire, thrashing about madly until it slices open its throat.\nAll I want is to be free to travel, to earn money, to walk around quietly with my girlfriend, to fuck if I want to, to pray if I want to, to sin if I want to, and to read detective novels if I feel like it without anyone finding anything to object to aside from God Himself.\nYou say, oh, seventeen, that’s not so much, tell me about a thousand, two thousand, three thousand stiffs, but seventeen, seventeen isn’t anything extraordinary, and yet, and yet, it’s an enormous quantity of vanished life, dead meat, it’s cumbersome, in memory as well as in the cold-storage room, it’s seventeen faces and over a ton of flesh and bone, tens of thousands of hours of existence, billions of memories gone, hundreds of people touched by mourning, between Tangier and Mombasa.\nand I said to myself that tourism was a curse, like gasoline, a trap, which brought false wealth, corruption and violence;\nI have made use of the world. Life consumes everything—\n","date":"March 12, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-street-of-thieves/","section":"Posts","summary":"I choked and turned tail, fled once again, fled faced with myself; I left at a run; there are things that can’t be fixed. Actually, nothing can be fixed.\n","title":"Highlights for Street of Thieves","type":"posts"},{"content":"But other foxes say that in that brief second the man realizes that physical life is a stupid and shameful mistake. And the first thing he tries to do is to thank the fox who has opened his eyes. And after that he corrects the error of his own existence.\nBut this boom doesn’t have much to do with the economy. It’s just that the money from all over Russia flows into Moscow and moistens life here a bit before it departs for off-shore hyperspace.\n‘All those French parrots who invented discourse were high on amphetamines all the time. In the evening they take barbiturates to get to sleep, and they start off the morning with amphetamines so they can generate as much discourse as possible before they start taking barbiturates to get back to sleep again. That’s all there is to discourse. Didn’t you know that?’\nThe greatest of books have few readers, because reading them requires an effort. But it’s precisely that effort that gives rise to the aesthetic effect. Literary junk-food will never give you anything of the kind.\nUntil I learned from my own experience what love is, I thought of it as a specific kind of pleasure that tailless monkeys can derive from being together, in addition to sex.\nChekhov was right: a woman’s soul is essentially an empty vessel that is filled by the sorrows and joys of her beloved.\nTwo lonely hearts met among the pale blossoms of the Moscow spring. One told the other she was older than the city around, the other confessed that he had claws on his dick.\nThey always see me as their last chance. Grown men, and they don’t understand that they themselves are their last chance. But then, they aren’t even aware what kind of chance it is.\n","date":"March 12, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-the-sacred-book-of-the-werewolf/","section":"Posts","summary":"But other foxes say that in that brief second the man realizes that physical life is a stupid and shameful mistake. And the first thing he tries to do is to thank the fox who has opened his eyes. And after that he corrects the error of his own existence.\n","title":"Highlights for The Sacred Book of the Werewolf","type":"posts"},{"content":"Facebook did a half-hearted push towards a more messaging focused experience during the conversational boom, but didn\u0026rsquo;t manage to make any inroads and abandoned the effort. Whatsapp could have been the beachhead but with the original leadership and vision gone, nothing interesting will happen there. Instagram (also without original leadership) is slowly being turned into sludge by whatever PMs Facebook has left.\nThere is room for something new to kill Facebook, that is if they don\u0026rsquo;t buy or copy it in time.\nhttps://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/07/technology/facebook-zuckerberg-wechat.html\n","date":"March 10, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15244/","section":"Posts","summary":"Facebook did a half-hearted push towards a more messaging focused experience during the conversational boom, but didn’t manage to make any inroads and abandoned the effort. Whatsapp could have been the beachhead but with the original leadership and vision gone, nothing interesting will happen there. Instagram (also without original leadership) is slowly being turned into sludge by whatever PMs Facebook has left.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Everybody can thank Facebook for the techlash that is happening now. Elizabeth Warren: “I’m sick of freeloading billionaires.”\nhttps://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/08/us/politics/elizabeth-warren-amazon.html\n","date":"March 10, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15242/","section":"Posts","summary":"Everybody can thank Facebook for the techlash that is happening now. Elizabeth Warren: “I’m sick of freeloading billionaires.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ilhan Omar is maybe even better than AOC. She definitely is more fearless.\nOmar says the “hope and change”offered by Barack Obama was a mirage. Recalling the “caging of kids”at the U.S.-Mexico border and the “droning of countries around the world”on Obama’s watch, she argues that the Democratic president operated within the same fundamentally broken framework as his Republican successor.\nhttps://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/03/08/ilhan-omar-dean-phillips-minnesota-democratic-party-225696\n","date":"March 10, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15239/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ilhan Omar is maybe even better than AOC. She definitely is more fearless.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A good argument that agile leadership is about delegating and divesting decision making power as far down as possible into the informal network.\n“[Informal authority] is emergent, opt-in, always-on, and ever-informed by the collective knowledge of the group in an Agile way that formal authority can never match.”\nhttps://medium.com/columbus-egg/agiles-ethical-dilemma-decision-distribution-and-the-trojan-war-36306b178fee\n","date":"March 10, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15237/","section":"Posts","summary":"A good argument that agile leadership is about delegating and divesting decision making power as far down as possible into the informal network.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"In this comprehensive list of matureness in engineers, John Allspaw elaborates on many of the non-technical skills that constitute seniority.\nhttps://www.kitchensoap.com/2012/10/25/on-being-a-senior-engineer/\n","date":"March 8, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15235/","section":"Posts","summary":"In this comprehensive list of matureness in engineers, John Allspaw elaborates on many of the non-technical skills that constitute seniority.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Circumstances here on the continent are of course nowhere near as dystopian as in the USA but nevertheless a lot in this bleak and harsh piece about midlife crises rings true.\nhttp://www.oprah.com/sp/new-midlife-crisis.html\n","date":"March 8, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15233/","section":"Posts","summary":"Circumstances here on the continent are of course nowhere near as dystopian as in the USA but nevertheless a lot in this bleak and harsh piece about midlife crises rings true.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"The things that will actually allow you to hire great engineers are things that are very hard to quantify, as listed in this article:\nPermission and encouragement to do my job right Working with and for smart people Making a good career investment https://www.codewithjason.com/make-organization-attractive-engineering-talent/\n","date":"March 8, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15231/","section":"Posts","summary":"The things that will actually allow you to hire great engineers are things that are very hard to quantify, as listed in this article:\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;m swapping out Lage der Nation whose popularity has led them to lose focus and believe in their own hype for FAZ Einspruch.\nEinspruch is solely focused on legal issues which is what I listened to Lage mostly anyway. In Lage I had to skip the regurgitation of international issues for a German audience (much better covered elsewhere), the explanation of very basic facts (like where Venezuela is located) and the incessant mansplaining. After a while not that much was left.\n","date":"March 8, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/german-podcast-update/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’m swapping out Lage der Nation whose popularity has led them to lose focus and believe in their own hype for FAZ Einspruch.\n","title":"German podcast update","type":"posts"},{"content":"The origin story of Notion is pretty wild but all of the recipes in it for deep collaboration and radical iteration make a lot of sense. When I briefly tried out Notion, I was struck very much by how tight both its vision and its execution were.\nhttps://www.figma.com/blog/design-on-a-deadline-how-notion-pulled-itself-back-from-the-brink-of-failure/\n","date":"March 7, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15226/","section":"Posts","summary":"The origin story of Notion is pretty wild but all of the recipes in it for deep collaboration and radical iteration make a lot of sense. When I briefly tried out Notion, I was struck very much by how tight both its vision and its execution were.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A lot of sense and clear rules about tool usage in this article about remote native organizations by Pablo Carranza. It makes me itch to go back to working remote however much I\u0026rsquo;m enjoying my current office setup.\nMeasure the health of your team or organization through the number of meetings: the more meetings and synchronous communications required, the worse the health is and the more reactive you are.\nhttps://medium.com/cabify-product/on-site-friendly-fba1f9ba69dc\n","date":"March 6, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15223/","section":"Posts","summary":"A lot of sense and clear rules about tool usage in this article about remote native organizations by Pablo Carranza. It makes me itch to go back to working remote however much I’m enjoying my current office setup.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A well written defense by Markthalle IX in Berlin that sounds good but still paints a much more rosy picture of reality than is justified. Let\u0026rsquo;s be totally clear: removing the ALDI will advance the area\u0026rsquo;s socio-economic cleansing.\nhttps://markthalleneun.de/news/ein-brief-an-alle-nachbarn-kunden-und-gaeste-der-m\n","date":"March 6, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15219/","section":"Posts","summary":"A well written defense by Markthalle IX in Berlin that sounds good but still paints a much more rosy picture of reality than is justified. Let’s be totally clear: removing the ALDI will advance the area’s socio-economic cleansing.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Reality captured in photos by Istanbul cab driver Sevket Sahintas. There\u0026rsquo;s an equivalent series here in Berlin that is not being captured as far as I know.\nhttps://www.middleeasteye.net/gallery/photos-istanbul-taxi-driver-sevket-sahintas-captures-raw-night-life-refugees-homeless\n","date":"March 6, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15217/","section":"Posts","summary":"Reality captured in photos by Istanbul cab driver Sevket Sahintas. There’s an equivalent series here in Berlin that is not being captured as far as I know.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"As soon as AOC got the nomination I already had a strong hunch that she was the real deal. Turns out I had no idea how much of a deal she was going to be.\nhttps://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-congress-interview-797214/\n","date":"March 6, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15215/","section":"Posts","summary":"As soon as AOC got the nomination I already had a strong hunch that she was the real deal. Turns out I had no idea how much of a deal she was going to be.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;ve seen tons of people whose lives were made significantly easier because of parental credit lines which is good for them, but to be fair:\nPeople should disclose what they are receiving. There should be far more progressive taxation. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/02/style/financial-independence-30s.html\n","date":"March 4, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15213/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’ve seen tons of people whose lives were made significantly easier because of parental credit lines which is good for them, but to be fair:\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Looked up Game of Thrones bastard names and I have to conclude that the surname for a bastard in Germany would have to be Wurst, like Hans Wurst.\n","date":"March 4, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15210/","section":"Posts","summary":"Looked up Game of Thrones bastard names and I have to conclude that the surname for a bastard in Germany would have to be Wurst, like Hans Wurst.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"It will be increasingly amazing to visit SF (or SanSan as it should be known) and witness how dystopian they can make it with their NIMBY-ism.\nhttps://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-san-bernardino-solar-renewable-energy-20190228-story.html\n","date":"March 3, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15206/","section":"Posts","summary":"It will be increasingly amazing to visit SF (or SanSan as it should be known) and witness how dystopian they can make it with their NIMBY-ism.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"An article about micromobility has finally reached German media, now let\u0026rsquo;s just wait for these devices to become street legal here.\nhttp://www.spiegel.de/auto/aktuell/elektro-roller-der-e-scooter-ist-das-iphone-der-mobilitaet-a-1233559.html\n","date":"March 3, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15204/","section":"Posts","summary":"An article about micromobility has finally reached German media, now let’s just wait for these devices to become street legal here.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Watching this level of conflict photography always gives me the itch (and there are tons and tons of stories not being caught still even in this age of ubiquitous digital) to start shooting again. RIP Yannis Behrakis.\nhttps://widerimage.reuters.com/story/yannis-behrakis-award-winning-reuters-photographer-dies-aged-58\n","date":"March 3, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15202/","section":"Posts","summary":"Watching this level of conflict photography always gives me the itch (and there are tons and tons of stories not being caught still even in this age of ubiquitous digital) to start shooting again. RIP Yannis Behrakis.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"After listening to this very enjoyable episode of @ tech_done_right, I\u0026rsquo;m left wondering which companies here on the continent implement the hiring best practices (standardization, diverse panels, take-home alternatives) mentioned in it.\nhttps://www.techdoneright.io/56\n","date":"March 2, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15200/","section":"Posts","summary":"After listening to this very enjoyable episode of @ tech_done_right, I’m left wondering which companies here on the continent implement the hiring best practices (standardization, diverse panels, take-home alternatives) mentioned in it.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;ve changed my monthly contribution from the Guardian to the Taz.\nThe Guardian is a bit weird and was not doing that much for me anymore. It\u0026rsquo;s not clear what they\u0026rsquo;re about and I\u0026rsquo;m mostly disappointed in their roster of writers.\nTaz, I only read occasionally but they\u0026rsquo;re local (with an office that is practically next to my house) and they\u0026rsquo;re a lot more left-wing than the Guardian is.\nI haven\u0026rsquo;t found many good alternative newspapers other than the FT which is ridiculously expensive.\n","date":"February 28, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15195/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’ve changed my monthly contribution from the Guardian to the Taz.\n","title":"Changing my media diet","type":"posts"},{"content":"I didn\u0026rsquo;t think I would be working with MISP, a threat intelligence platform written in PHP but now I am and here you can read a bit more about the various things we\u0026rsquo;re doing with it.\nhttps://blog.dcso.de/part-1-misp-in-a-box/\n","date":"February 28, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15193/","section":"Posts","summary":"I didn’t think I would be working with MISP, a threat intelligence platform written in PHP but now I am and here you can read a bit more about the various things we’re doing with it.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"An excellent talk by Tanya Reilly about the career impacts of technical and glue (non-technical) work especially for underrepresented groups: “Being promoted is diversity work.”\n","date":"February 28, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15190/","section":"Posts","summary":"An excellent talk by Tanya Reilly about the career impacts of technical and glue (non-technical) work especially for underrepresented groups: “Being promoted is diversity work.”\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;m not a data scientist but I\u0026rsquo;ve been trained for it (as part of my computer science degree) and I\u0026rsquo;ve worked in a bunch of related fields. I wholly endorse this take by Vicki Boykis on the state of data science and what you need to be successful at it.\n1. Learn SQL\n2. Learn a programming language extremely well and learn programming concepts\n3. Learn how to work in the cloud\nhttps://veekaybee.github.io/2019/02/13/data-science-is-different/\n","date":"February 27, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15187/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’m not a data scientist but I’ve been trained for it (as part of my computer science degree) and I’ve worked in a bunch of related fields. I wholly endorse this take by Vicki Boykis on the state of data science and what you need to be successful at it.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"I really like this way of looking at team success, but I\u0026rsquo;d clarify that success means that a team not only holds each other accountable but me as well.\nFor me, the answer is both simple and complex. Simply, I’ve achieved success when the teams I manage hold themselves accountable.\nhttps://www.programmersparadox.com/2019/02/25/what-does-success-look-like-as-a-manager/\n","date":"February 27, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15185/","section":"Posts","summary":"I really like this way of looking at team success, but I’d clarify that success means that a team not only holds each other accountable but me as well.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A very necessary housing revolution is underway in Berlin that has the potential to halt market forces that are running amok. After Barcelona, now Berlin. Who\u0026rsquo;s next?\nhttps://www.citylab.com/equity/2019/02/berlin-germany-housing-rent-how-much-price-landlord-policies/582898/\n","date":"February 27, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15183/","section":"Posts","summary":"A very necessary housing revolution is underway in Berlin that has the potential to halt market forces that are running amok. After Barcelona, now Berlin. Who’s next?\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"This piece about Stephen Wolfram\u0026rsquo;s productivity system is too much but also too fascinating to stop reading.\nhttps://blog.stephenwolfram.com/2019/02/seeking-the-productive-life-some-details-of-my-personal-infrastructure/\n","date":"February 27, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15180/","section":"Posts","summary":"This piece about Stephen Wolfram’s productivity system is too much but also too fascinating to stop reading.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"This description of the Goldsmith MA Design Expanded Practice is more or less also how I prefer to work whether in my own practice or anywhere else. An exposition of how to redesign design education that is well worth reading.\nWe wanted to build a new form of post-disciplinary practice that utilised some deep material skills (from their UG degrees and professional practices) and theoretical skills (from a diversity of disciplinary backgrounds), but evolving them through team work and collaboration. We didn’t want to reduce design to a set of methods or ‘design thinking’ processes, we wanted to give students the space to develop and evolve a truly expanded practice.\nhttps://medium.com/@matthewward/on-reflection-rethinking-masters-design-education-cd9cd8ad71c8\n","date":"February 27, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15176/","section":"Posts","summary":"This description of the Goldsmith MA Design Expanded Practice is more or less also how I prefer to work whether in my own practice or anywhere else. An exposition of how to redesign design education that is well worth reading.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"A comprehensive list of the challenges for agile development in enterprise environments with the solutions included for immediate implementation.\nhttps://medium.com/startup-patterns/why-enterprise-agile-teams-fail-4ae64f7852d6\n","date":"February 23, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/15168/","section":"Posts","summary":"A comprehensive list of the challenges for agile development in enterprise environments with the solutions included for immediate implementation.\n","title":"","type":"posts"},{"content":"Analogies always deceive more than they reveal; I am no fan of analogies, I do not use them. Even metaphor, that mental operation we use with almost every word we speak, is slippery and deceptive. I always speak as plainly as I can.\n“Oh, nothing. I wish I knew what was going on.”\nShe shook her head, stared at the wall. “It’s China,”she said. “Give up on that.”\nHe watched his mom fondly. How many times he had heard this story. Even inside the device, the weight of the world was still crushing him.\nBikes with trailers still doddering along right in the middle of the crazy mash of vehicles. Amazing to see such foolhardy recklessness. No doubt whole lifetimes had been spent in that danger. No different from a sailor going out to sea. Dangerous, yes, but not automatically fatal. A mode of being. Suddenly he saw they were all like those bicyclists, all the time. Someday every one of them would get run over.\nAnd maybe it didn’t differ that much; prospectors were after money, which made them close students of the moon’s information; scientists were after the moon’s information, which if found would turn into a good living for them. So money and information were fungible and kept turning into each other. But in the end it was being on the hunt that mattered.\n","date":"February 9, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-red-moon/","section":"Posts","summary":"Analogies always deceive more than they reveal; I am no fan of analogies, I do not use them. Even metaphor, that mental operation we use with almost every word we speak, is slippery and deceptive. I always speak as plainly as I can.\n","title":"Highlights for Red Moon","type":"posts"},{"content":"First, they spent most of their efforts building strong relationships between Griffin’s tribal members—its employees, volunteers, and patients. Second, instead of telling people what to do, they engineered experiences (such as the retreats) in which staff members would look at the same issues they were dealing with, so that strategy became everyone’s problem. Third, they got out of the way and let people contribute in their own way to the emerging tribal goals.\nWithout the leaders building the tribe, a culture of mediocrity will prevail. Without an inspired tribe, leaders are impotent.\nThe entire tribe shifts from resisting leadership to seeking it out.\nOrganizational learning becomes effortless, with the tribe actively teaching its members the latest thinking and practices.\nLife sucks, so there’s no point to values, vision, or morality. In fact, these seem like con games designed to make us miss the obvious truth of life, which is that it isn’t fair, it’s a vile place, and we all die. Sure, life would be better if everyone followed the game, but at its core, life sucks, so it’s both better and easier to give in to the reality of the situation.\nOne of the pitfalls we caution company leaders to avoid is to identify values and then make decisions based on expediency, as if the values didn’t exist. Such behavior depresses a culture, often all the way down to Stage Two, and creates a perception that values are created for the employees while executives are above the law.\nThe single most important takeaway from Stage Four is that Tribal Leaders follow the core values of the tribe no matter what the cost.\nA noble cause is a pronouncement of a future state that a tribe will bring about through its coordinated action. It is bigger than what one person can do alone, no matter how many people are offering technical support; it requires people’s best efforts and passions. It should arouse so much excitement in a tribe that even if people fail, the noble cause was worth the effort.\nIf you have a similar group, then ask people to write down their version of the noble cause—a statement that expresses their highest aspirations for the tribe.\nAs we watched Tribal Leaders do their work, we noted that they tended to ask, “What’s working well?”“What’s not working?”“What can we do to make the things that aren’t working, work?”and “Is there anything else?”\nWhen you use triads to solve problems, remind people of shared values.\nSome people resist building triads because they think they’ll lose control. Their thought is that this technique may encourage people to undercut them. However, the opposite is true. The rule of reciprocity implies, “Whatever you give out, you’ll get back.”\nEffective triading requires a word that we heard people use again and again to describe real Tribal Leaders: “authenticity.”\nWe’re often asked by people at Stage Two how they can triad with people who won’t even return their calls. The answer is that they first have to go through Stage Three and become great at something,\nThere’s no shortcut for knowing who is in your tribe, what’s important to them, and what they’re doing.\nThe objective is for the tribe (not just the leader) to set outcomes so compelling that people will want to form and maintain a Stage Four culture to accomplish them.\nIt’s not that competitors don’t exist; it’s that they don’t matter.\n","date":"January 27, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-tribal-leadership/","section":"Posts","summary":"First, they spent most of their efforts building strong relationships between Griffin’s tribal members—its employees, volunteers, and patients. Second, instead of telling people what to do, they engineered experiences (such as the retreats) in which staff members would look at the same issues they were dealing with, so that strategy became everyone’s problem. Third, they got out of the way and let people contribute in their own way to the emerging tribal goals.\n","title":"Highlights for Tribal Leadership","type":"posts"},{"content":"I grabbed the code I had lying around for last year and without too much trouble ran the same analysis for the books. The graph is not that dramatic this time though for some reason I did not read much during summer.\nPage-wise this year with 13398 pages was a bit weaker than last year (15049 pages).\nBy some miracle, I managed to post my top ten recommendations to twitter on the 31st.\nhttps://twitter.com/alper/status/1079851386911768576\nNow as to the categories in which I read books and what I thought stood out.\nLeadership # Not as many books as last year, but some very good ones and an area where I will read more. Rumelt has written one of the best books on strategy I’ve seen. Marquet’s highly recommended book I think will bear fruit on future re-reading. Scott’s book contains a fairly complete operating system for a modern tech company.\nThe cracking books are ok and did helped me crack a PM interview but still had nothing to do with the job I started working at last month.\nGood Strategy / Bad Strategy, Richard Rumelt Turn the Ship Around, David Marquet Radical Candor, Kim Malone Scott Cracking the Tech Career The First 90 Days Cracking the PM Interview Diversity (non-white/non-male): 3/6\nI don’t have an Engineering category this year (I abandoned The Rust Book and consulted but did not finish the App Architecture book). I am reading topical things for my new job so this year will be better.\nNon-Fiction # I’m pleasantly surprised how much I’ve managed to read. Mishra’s book is one of the few really mainstream non-white perspectives on a very important part of our history and I keep enjoying seeing him take names in the LRB and the Guardian. Bluets is a beautiful introspective trip just like The Argonauts was. Sandifer is a critical tour de force of with an ideology and temperament I don’t see anywhere else. I’ve always been fond of Machiavelli but with Erica Benner’s rehabilitation of him I don’t have to be embarrassed about that anymore. Runciman’s book about the alternatives to democracy is like a protracted and focused episode of the podcast.\nI don’t have a Fiction category or Sapiens would be there instead of here.\nFrom the Ruins of Empire, Pankaj Mishra Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari Ecology without Nature, Timothy Morton A Contest of Ideas, Nelson Lichtenstein Bluets, Maggie Nelson Neoreaction a Basilisk, Elizabeth Sandifer No Name in the Street, James Baldwin Why We Sleep, Matthew Walker Be Like the Fox, Erica Benner The Chapo Guide to Revolution The Hall of Uselessness, Simon Leys Surveillance Valley, Yasha Levine How Democracy Ends, David Runciman Diversity (non-white/non-male): 5/13\nGenre Fiction # I have been very light on genre fiction and I’m not sure whether SF will continue to be a thing I read much of in the future. The genre is bigger than ever but there is so little serious stuff coming out.\nI am glad to have re-read Le Guin this year. Majestic.\nAkata Witch, Nnedi Okorafor Altered Carbon, Richard Morgan The Fifth Season, N.K. Jemisin The Obelisk Gate, N.K. Jemisin The Stone Sky, N.K. Jemisin Broken Angels, Richard Morgan Woken Furies, Richard Morgan The Planet on the Table, Kim Stanley Robinson The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula Le Guin Diversity (non-white/non-male): 5/9\nLiterature # I find it easier to read non-fiction because I can’t parallelize literature very well and whenever I read a dud (here’s looking at you Elif) they block the queue for everything else. Makumbi’s Ugandan family saga has opened up my perspective on the country like a good local novel can do. Hamid’s rumination on refugees is short and sharp like a blade. Shanbhag’s book is a quick family tale of rags to riches where everything becomes entangled.\nTerug naar Oegstgeest, Jan Wolkers Kintu, Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi Dorsvloer vol confetti, Franca Treur Voyage to the End of the Night, Louis-Ferdinand Céline Exit West, Mohsin Hamid Ghachar Ghochar, Vivek Shanbhag The Idiot, Elif Batuman Diversity (non-white/non-male): 5/7\nKids # I read so many (34!) kids books this year and this number will probably only increase since we have only just started visiting the library. We live close to the Amerika Gedenkbibilothek which has a fairly sized kids department.\nFranchises that did well with us this year were Kikker and the newly discovered Pip \u0026amp; Posy. We finished the seasonal Wimmelbücher (of which Fall was the highlight and Winter a disappointment). Let’s see whether these see renewed play next year.\nThe kids books do inflate my reading number a lot but that is not taking into account that I have had to read most of these books dozens of times. So there’s that.\nSo Müde und Hellwach Welcher Po passt auf dieses Klo? Mama kwijt De dieren van Fiep Kikker en Eend Kikker is jarig, Max Velthuijs Was willst du Baby? Piep piep met Fiep Brown Bear, Brown Bear So leicht so schwer Der kleine Hase Das kleine Lamm Badetag für Hasekind Sommer-Wimmelbuch Frühlings-Wimmelbuch Kaatje zegt nee Pip en Posy en het nieuwe vriendje, Axel Scheffler Das kleine Schwein The Pony Twins Sommer Het vrolijke voorleesboek van Kikker Winter-Wimmelbuch Beestje, kom je op mijn feestje? Hörst du die klassische Musik? Het carnaval der dieren Ssst! De tijger slaapt Ik zou wel een kindje lusten No Bad Kids Oh Crap! Potty Training Ein kleines Krokodil mit ziemlich viel Gefühl Pip en Posy en de kerstboom Herbst-Wimmelbuch, Rotraut Susanne Berner Aki und Kon, der Fuchs Die Wildnis ist unser Zuhause Spirituality # Two solid books on this slow but steady path.\nThe Parent’s Tao te Ching Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior Previously in 2017 \u0026amp; 2016\n","date":"January 3, 2019","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/reading-2018/","section":"Posts","summary":"I grabbed the code I had lying around for last year and without too much trouble ran the same analysis for the books. The graph is not that dramatic this time though for some reason I did not read much during summer.\n","title":"Reading 2018","type":"posts"},{"content":"We hope only that we have not obstructed or weakened the power of these teachings. May they help to liberate all beings from the warring evils of the setting sun.\nShambhala vision teaches that, in the face of the world’s great problems, we can be heroic and kind at the same time.\nWhat is lacking is a sense of humor. Humor here does not mean telling jokes or being comical or criticizing others and laughing at them. A genuine sense of humor is having a light touch: not beating reality into the ground but appreciating reality with a light touch.\nThe essence of warriorship, or the essence of human bravery, is refusing to give up on anyone or anything. We can never say that we are simply falling to pieces or that anyone else is, and we can never say that about the world either.\nThe point of warriorship is to work personally with our situation now, as it is.\nWe should feel that it is wonderful to be in this world.\nSo through the practice of sitting still and following your breath as it goes out and dissolves, you are connecting with your heart. By simply letting yourself be, as you are, you develop genuine sympathy towards yourself.\nReal fearlessness is the product of tenderness. It comes from letting the world tickle your heart, your raw and beautiful heart. You are willing to open up, without resistance or shyness, and face the world. You are willing to share your heart with others.\nEverything is compartmentalized, so you can never experience things completely. We are not talking purely about food; we are talking about everything that goes on in the setting-sun world: packaged food, packaged vacations, package deals of all kinds. There is no room to experience doubtlessness in that world; there is no room to be gentle; there is no room to experience reality fully and properly.\nIn fact, tenderness and sadness, as well as gentleness, actually produce a sense of interest. You are so vulnerable that you cannot help being touched by your world.\nA warrior doesn’t need color television or video games. A warrior doesn’t need to read comic books to entertain himself or to be cheerful.\nFor the true warrior, there is no warfare. This is the idea of being all-victorious. When you are all-victorious, there is nothing to conquer, no fundamental problem or obstacle to overcome.\nBut if you look back and trace back through your life—who you are, what you are, and why you are in this world—if you look through that step-bystep, you won’t find any fundamental problems.\nIn meditation, when your thoughts go up, you don’t go up, and you don’t go down when your thoughts go down; you just watch as thoughts go up and thoughts go down. Whether your thoughts are good or bad, exciting or boring, blissful or miserable, you let them be. You don’t accept some and reject others. You have a sense of greater space that encompasses any thought that may arise.\nAlthough the warrior’s life is dedicated to helping others, he realizes that he will never be able to completely share his experience with others. The fullness of his experience is his own, and he must live with his own truth. Yet he is more and more in love with the world. That combination of love affair and loneliness is what enables the warrior to constantly reach out to help others.\nWhy are you always joyful? Because you have witnessed your basic goodness, because you have nothing to hang on to, and because you have experienced the sense of renunciation that we discussed earlier. Therefore, your mind and body are continually synchronized and always joyful.\nIf you tell the truth to others, then they can also be open with you—maybe not immediately, but you are giving them the opportunity to express themselves honestly as well. When you do not say what you feel, you generate confusion for yourself and confusion for others.\nIt is like falling in love. When you are in love, being with your lover is both delightful and very painful. You feel both joy and sorrow. That is not a problem; in fact, it is wonderful. It is the ideal human emotion.\nThe most practical and immediate way to begin sharing with others and working for their benefit is to work with your own domestic situation and to expand from there. So an important step in becoming a warrior is to become a family person, someone who respects his or her everyday domestic life and is committed to uplifting that situation.\nWhen we draw down the power and depth of vastness into a single perception, then we are discovering and invoking magic. By magic we do not mean unnatural power over the phenomenal world, but rather the discovery of innate or primordial wisdom in the world as it is.\nHowever, for the warrior, gentleness is not just politeness. Gentleness is consideration: showing concern for others, all the time. A Shambhala gentlewoman or gentleman is a decent person, a genuine person. He or she is very gentle to himself and to others. The purpose of any protocol, or manners, or discipline that we are taught is to have concern for others.\nWhen the environment is stuffy and full of arrogant, self-styled men and women, the dralas are repelled. But then, what happens if a warrior, someone who embodies nonaggression, freedom from arrogance, and humbleness, walks into that room? When such a person enters an intense situation full of arrogance and pollution, quite possibly the occupants of the room begin to feel funny. They feel that they can’t have any fun and games anymore, because someone who won’t collaborate in their deception has walked in.\nThe world is very interesting wherever you go, wherever you look.\nHabitual patterns allow you to look no further than three steps ahead of you. You are always looking at the ground, and you never look up at the bright blue sky or the mountain peaks.\nSo you can’t be a warrior in the office and a tudro at home.\nThe former Secretary General of the United Nations, U Thant of Burma\nYou are not being blind to the setting-sun or degraded aspects of existence. In fact, you see them very precisely, because you are so alert. But you also see that every aspect of life has the potential of being upgraded, that there is the potential for sacredness in every situation. So you begin to view the universe as a sacred world.\nThen there is the man principle, which is connected with simplicity, or living in harmony with heaven and earth. When human beings combine the freedom of heaven with the practicality of earth, they can live in a good human society with one another.\nThe challenge of warriorship is to live fully in the world as it is and to find within this world, with all its paradoxes, the essence of nowness. If we open our eyes, if we open our minds, if we open our hearts, we will find that this world is a magical place. It is not magical because it tricks us or changes unexpectedly into something else, but it is magical because it can be so vividly, so brilliantly.\nWe cannot change the way the world is, but by opening ourselves to the world as it is, we may find that gentleness, decency, and bravery are available—not only to us, but to all human beings.\nThat is the basic wisdom of Shambhala: that in this world, as it is, we can find a good and meaningful human life that will also serve others.\nBut if you do not start at home, then you have no hope of helping the world. So the first step in learning how to rule is learning to rule your household, your immediate world. There is no doubt that, if you do so, then the next step will come naturally. If you fail to do so, then your contribution to this world will be further chaos.\nRaising windhorse is a way to cast out depression and doubt on the spot. It is not a form of exorcism but a cheering-up process. That is to say, raising windhorse invokes and actualizes the living aspect of fearlessness and bravery. It is a magical practice for transcending doubt and hesitation in order to invoke tremendous wakefulness in your state of mind.\nThe four dignities are meek, perky, outrageous, and inscrutable.\nJust as the snow lion enjoys the refreshing air, the warrior of perky is constantly disciplined and continuously enjoys discipline. For him, discipline is not a demand but a pleasure.\nModesty here means feeling true and genuine. Therefore the warrior feels self-contained, with no need for external reference points to confirm him.\nFor the warrior of meek, confidence is a natural state of awareness and mindfulness in the way he conducts his affairs.\nRather, vastness comes from seeing the greatness of your own spot, your own particular place.\nLike the tiger in the jungle, you are both relaxed and energized. You are constantly inquisitive but your awareness is also disciplined, so you accomplish every activity without difficulty, and you inspire those around you to do the same.\nThe first one is experiencing an uplifted and joyful mind. In this case, uplifted mind means a continual state of delight that is not caused by anything.\nThis warrior is always aware and never confused as to what to accept and what to reject.\nThe warrior of perky is never caught in the trap of doubt and is always joyful and artful.\nOutrageousness is based on the achievement of fearlessness, which means going completely beyond fear. In order to overcome fear, it is also necessary to overcome hope. When you hope for something in your life, if it doesn’t happen, you are disappointed or upset. If it does happen, then you become elated and excited. You are constantly riding a roller coaster up and down.\nThe analogy for this is a good, self-existing sword—desire to sharpen it will make it dull. If you try to apply a competitive or comparative logic to the experience of vast mind, by trying to measure how much space you have fathomed, how much is left to fathom, or how much someone else has fathomed, you are just dulling your sword. It is futile and counterproductive. In contrast to that approach, outrageousness is accomplishment without a sense of accomplisher, without reference point.\nInscrutability is also the state of settling down in your confidence—remaining solid and relaxed at once. You are open and fearless, free from longing and doubt, but at the same time, you are very interested in the movements of the world.\nThe main point is being somewhat noncommittal, but at the same time seeing a project through to its end.\nThere is a need for discipline, and that discipline comes from realizing that such a world as this was created for you, that people expended energy to bring you up, that in your weak moments you were helped, and that, when you were ready for inspiration, you were inspired. So the discipline of genuinely working for others comes from appreciating hierarchy.\n","date":"December 31, 2018","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-shambhala/","section":"Posts","summary":"We hope only that we have not obstructed or weakened the power of these teachings. May they help to liberate all beings from the warring evils of the setting sun.\n","title":"Highlights for Shambhala","type":"posts"},{"content":"One year of one child using disposable diapers uses two full grown trees.\nWhat’s worse is very few people dispose of the poop in the toilet before throwing away the diaper—did you even know you’re supposed to do that?\nMost moms, probably including you, are reading this book because you know deep in your heart that your child is ready.\nThere will be a power struggle and for the first time ever, your child will literally be holding all the power, in the form of pee and poop. You will not win.\nSome men are superlinear thinkers and don’t really connect with the chaos of the toddler mind. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen a situation like this: Mom’s been working her butt off to potty train the kid during the day. She leaves the child in her husband’s care for twenty minutes. The child has an accident. Mom asks Dad what happened, and he says, “I told him to go and he said no.”I think dads really expect that you only have to tell your child that he needs to pee in the potty one time and the child should fully comprehend and comply.\nHe’s vital to this process, just as you are, so let’s involve him right from the beginning. And let’s understand and validate how he truly feels about this process, yeah?\nKids can smell fear a mile away, and it will either make them fearful or they will eat you for breakfast.\nOnline news, the ability to Like and Share, blogs . . . all these things combine to make for a fast-paced world. We as moms, in particular, are subject to an onslaught of not only frightening news (kidnappings, etc.) but also parenting media drama, like the infamous Time magazine and the breast-feeding cover. All this media just serves to confuse us and wound our intuition. It also makes us feel anxious, which our children pick up on.\nBottom line: we are moving too fast. We are exposing our children to too much, too soon.\nI’ve seen kids learn to meter out pee and poop to get more rewards, and I’ve seen candy create bigger power struggles during potty training.\nLogistically speaking, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a preschool or kindergarten that will accept an untrained child.\nDay cares are essentially screwing you, especially if you are a full-time working mom or dad. (Though I’m sure you’re used to getting screwed by everything at this point, eh?)\nWearing underwear is simply too confusing for your child in the beginning. The snugness creates a muscle memory of a diaper, and the covering suggests privacy. I can almost bet you that your child will have more accidents if you put undies on her too soon.\nSimplicity Parenting by Kim John Payne a couple of times. Mr. Payne was a Waldorf teacher and is so brilliant and eloquent on this topic, I can’t recommend this book highly enough. He says that raising children is like building a pyramid. The widest part at the bottom is the foundation. That is made up of “governing,”and takes place roughly from birth to age six. Next is the middle of the pyramid, made up of a “gardening”phase that takes place from roughly six to twelve years. And last, at the top, is the “guiding”phase, which is the way he recommends parenting children ages twelve to eighteen.\nmaybe nobody told you this, but one kid plus one kid = like five kids.\nYour partner is going to go cuckoo. I promise she’ll return to normal very soon. Get her drunk. It’s okay.\nYour role in this is just as vital as Mom’s is. Maybe more. Everyone knows that Dad is a little magic.\n","date":"December 31, 2018","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-oh-crap/","section":"Posts","summary":"One year of one child using disposable diapers uses two full grown trees.\n","title":"Highlights for Oh Crap","type":"posts"},{"content":"When setting limits, the emotional state of the parent almost always dictates the child’s reaction. If we lack clarity and confidence, lose our temper or are unsure, tense, frazzled, or frustrated — this will unsettle our kids and very likely lead to more undesirable behavior.\nWhy would our sweet darling throw her toy at us when we’ve just asked her not to, and then add insult to injury by smirking? Is she evil? Does she have a pressing need to practice throwing skills? Maybe she just hates us…\nWhen parents say more than a sentence or two about the limit-pushing behavior, even while remaining calm, they risk creating a tale about a child with a problem (perhaps he hugs his baby sister too forcefully), which then causes the child to identify with this as his story and problem, when it was just an impulsive, momentary behavior he tried out a couple of times.\nIf the comfort and validation of our attention has been in short supply, or if there have been compelling mini-stories and dramas created around our child’s limit-pushing behavior, she might end up repeating them to seek this negative attention.\nFor example, if we snatch toys away from our child, she may persistently snatch from friends\nDeciding between two options is usually all a toddler needs, as long as the question is an easy one.\nThe sooner a caregiver can establish those limits, the easier it will be for the child to relinquish ‘testing’ and return to playing. Parents sometimes fear they will crush a child’s spirit if they are firm and consistent about rules. Truthfully, it is the other way around. A child does not feel free unless boundaries are clearly established.\nChildren raised without firm, consistent boundaries are insecure and world-weary. Burdened with too many decisions and too much power, they miss out on the joyful freedom every child deserves.\nA toddler also acts out when there is a blatant failure to draw clear boundaries at home. Sometimes, the child is exposed to adults or older children who do not respect the toddler’s boundaries; they grab and tickle him, for example, depriving him of a sense of secure space. When a young child is overpowered and assaulted in this way, he becomes confused about physical boundaries with other people.\nI asked Wendy if anything was different at home, and she mentioned that she was frustrated while getting Henry to sit in his car seat when it was time to go somewhere. She was allowing Henry to do it in his own time, waiting while he played around inside the car. Wendy said she finally became impatient, and after telling him what she would do, she placed him in his seat. She could not believe that Henry cried anyway, even after she had tried to be respectful, giving him so much time to sit in the seat himself!\nI advised Wendy to give Henry the option of climbing into his seat by himself, but if he did not climb in right away, she should place him in his seat, even if he cried.\nRespect your child’s play and other chosen activities. Don’t interrupt unless absolutely necessary.\nChildren need our undivided attention during these cooperative activities. Pay attention, connect, and encourage children to do the same.\nUnfortunately, this perspective makes it next to impossible to stay unruffled with toddlers, who (as I explained above) need to disagree with us and feel safe expressing their strong emotions.\nOccasionally, though it’s pretty rare, my superhero perspective even allows me to recognize the romance in these moments. I’m able to time travel at hyper-speed into the future, look back, and realize that this was prime time together. It didn’t look pretty, but we were close. I’ll remember how hard it was to love my child when she was at her very worst and feel super proud that I did it anyway.\nHelp fulfill her healthy needs for autonomy, competence, and participation by asking for her assistance with the baby (and anything else) whenever possible.\n","date":"December 31, 2018","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-no-bad-kids/","section":"Posts","summary":"When setting limits, the emotional state of the parent almost always dictates the child’s reaction. If we lack clarity and confidence, lose our temper or are unsure, tense, frazzled, or frustrated — this will unsettle our kids and very likely lead to more undesirable behavior.\n","title":"Highlights for No Bad Kids","type":"posts"},{"content":" Photograph by Antony Sojka.\nBio # Alper Çuğun-Gscheidel M.Sc. is an engineer working on the leading edge of software, leadership and strategy.\nAlper graduated with a Master of Sciences in Media and Knowledge Engineering from Delft University of Technology with a minor in Management of Technology.\nHe\u0026rsquo;s worked as a startup founder, open government program director, board member, agency principal, game developer, iOS engineer, security expert, director of engineering and design consultant.\nBased on experiences building chat applications, in 2016 he wrote and published the book “Designing Conversational Interfaces” about the conception and creation of chatbots. He called chat the “UI for AI” which became true 10 years later.\nAlper is currently based in Berlin and employed as a platform engineering manager.\nLinkedIn profile\n","date":"December 21, 2018","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/about-alper/","section":"Pages","summary":" ","title":"About Alper","type":"pages"},{"content":"To transition effectively, first identify the risks you face as you move into your new role using the Transition Risk Assessment.\nNo matter where you land, the keys to effective delegation remain much the same: you build a team of competent people whom you trust, you establish goals and metrics to monitor their progress, you translate higher-level goals into specific responsibilities for your direct reports, and you reinforce them through process.\nThey attribute the high failure rate of outside hires to several barriers, notably the following:\nLeaders from outside the company are not familiar with informal networks of information and communication.\nOutside hires are not familiar with the corporate culture and therefore have greater difficulty navigating.\nNew people are unknown to the organization and therefore do not have the same credibility as someone who is promoted from within.\nA long tradition of hiring from within makes it difficult for some organizations to accept outsiders.\nTransitioning leaders should use this checklist to help them figure out how things really work in the organizations they’re joining.\nInfluence. How do people get support for critical initiatives? Is it more important to have the support of a patron within the senior team, or affirmation from your peers and direct reports that your idea is a good one?\nMeetings. Are meetings filled with dialogue on hard issues, or are they simply forums for publicly ratifying agreements that have been reached in private?\nExecution. When it comes time to get things done, which matters more—a deep understanding of processes or knowing the right people?\nConflict. Can people talk openly about difficult issues without fear of retribution? Or do they avoid conflict—or, even worse, push it to lower levels, where it can wreak havoc?\nRecognition. Does the company promote stars, rewarding those who visibly and vocally drive business initiatives? Or does it encourage team players, rewarding those who lead authoritatively but quietly and collaboratively?\nEnds versus means. Are there any restrictions on how you achieve results? Does the organization have a well-defined, well-communicated set of values that is reinforced through positive and negative incentives?\nTable 1-2 is a simple tool for assessing your preferences for different kinds of business problems. Fill in each cell by assessing your intrinsic interest in solving problems in the domain in question.\nLike many new leaders, he failed to focus on learning about his new organization and so made some bad decisions that undercut his credibility.\nAsk them essentially the same five questions:\nWhat are the biggest challenges the organization is facing (or will face in the near future)?\nWhy is the organization facing (or going to face) these challenges?\nWhat are the most promising unexploited opportunities for growth?\nWhat would need to happen for the organization to exploit the potential of these opportunities?\nIf you were me, what would you focus attention on?\nSpecifically, you must establish priorities, define strategic intent, identify where you can secure early wins, build the right leadership team, and create supporting alliances.\nThe performance of people put in charge of start-ups and turnarounds is easiest to evaluate, because you can focus on measurable outcomes relative to a clear prior baseline.\nEvaluating success and failure in realignment and sustaining-success situations is much more problematic.\nNegotiating success means proactively engaging with your new boss to shape the game so that you have a fighting chance of achieving desired goals. Many new leaders just play the game, reactively taking their situation as given—and failing as a result. The alternative is to shape the game by negotiating with your boss to establish realistic expectations, reach consensus, and secure sufficient resources.\nYou might simply say that you expect to notice differences in how the two of you approach certain issues or decisions but that you’re committed to achieving the results to which you have both agreed.\nBy the end of the first few months, you want your boss, your peers, and your subordinates to feel that something new, something good, is happening.\nkeep in mind that your early wins must do double duty: they must help you build momentum in the short term and lay a foundation for achieving your longer-term business goals.\nYou cannot hope to achieve results in more than a couple of areas during your transition. Thus, it’s essential to identify the most promising opportunities and then focus relentlessly on translating them into wins.\nAddressing problems that your boss cares about will go a long way toward building credibility and cementing your access to resources.\nClose personal relationships are rarely compatible with effective supervisory ones.\nEffective leaders get people to make realistic commitments and then hold them responsible for achieving results. But if you’re never satisfied, you’ll sap people’s motivation. Know when to celebrate success and when to push for more.\nAccessible but not too familiar.\nEarly in your transition, you want to project decisiveness but defer some decisions until you know enough to make the right calls.\nEffective new leaders establish authority by zeroing in on issues but consulting others and encouraging input. They also know when to give people the flexibility to achieve results in their own ways.\nIt’s never a bad thing to be seen as genuinely committed to understanding your new organization.\nSimply blowing up the existing culture and starting over is rarely the right answer. People—and organizations—have limits on the change they can absorb all at once. And organizational cultures invariably have virtues as well as faults; they provide predictability and can be sources of pride. If you send the message that there is nothing good about the existing organization and its culture, you will rob people of a key source of stability in times of change. You also will deprive yourself of a potential wellspring of energy you could tap to improve performance.\nStrive, where possible, for clear lines of accountability. Simplify the structure to the greatest degree possible without compromising core goals.\nThe most important decisions you make in your first 90 days will probably be about people. If you succeed in creating a high-performance team, you can exert tremendous leverage in value creation. If not, you will face severe difficulties, for no leader can hope to achieve much alone.\nWho defers to whom when certain topics are being discussed? When an issue is raised, where do people’s eyes track?\nYou will also begin to recognize the power coalitions: groups of people who explicitly or implicitly cooperate over the long term to pursue certain goals or protect certain privileges.\nOver time, the patterns of influence will become clearer, and you’ll be able to identify those vital individuals—the opinion leaders—who exert disproportionate influence because of their informal authority, expertise, or sheer force of personality.\nThe work you’ve done to map influence networks in your organization can also help you pinpoint potential supporters, opponents, and persuadables.\nKeep in mind, too, that success in winning over adversaries can have a powerful, symbolic impact. “The enemy who is converted to the ally”is a powerful story that will resonate with others in the organization. (Another example is the story of redemption—for example, helping a person who has been marginalized or labeled as ineffective prove himself.)\nPeople are motivated by various things, such as a need for recognition, for control, for power, for affiliation through relationships with colleagues, and for personal growth.\nThe power of active listening as a persuasive technique is vastly underrated. It can not only promote acceptance of difficult decisions but also channel people’s thinking and frame choices.\nThe art of effective communication is to repeat and elaborate core themes without sounding like a parrot.\nPeople asked to engage in behavior inconsistent with their values or beliefs experience internal psychological dissonance.\nDecision-making processes are like rivers: big decisions draw on preliminary tributary processes that define the problem, identify alternatives, and establish criteria for evaluating costs and benefits. By the time the problem and the options have been defined, the actual choice may be a foregone conclusion.\nYou do this by setting up action-forcing events—events that induce people to make commitments or take actions. Meetings, review sessions, teleconferences, and deadlines can all help create and sustain momentum: regular meetings to review progress, and tough questioning of those who fail to reach agreed-to goals, increase the psychological pressure to follow through.\n","date":"December 3, 2018","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-the-first-90-days/","section":"Posts","summary":"To transition effectively, first identify the risks you face as you move into your new role using the Transition Risk Assessment.\n","title":"Highlights for The First 90 Days","type":"posts"},{"content":"When democracy ends, we are likely to be surprised by the form it takes. We may not even notice that it is happening because we are looking in the wrong places.\nAll can continue to function as they ought while failing to deliver what they should.\nThe future will be different from the past. The past is longer than we think. America is not the whole world.\nThe resemblance to a scene in a Batman movie — the Joker addressing the cowed citizens of Gotham — was so strong it seemed like a cliché.\nNo matter how much firepower the supporters of the aggrieved loser might have at their disposal, the state always has more. If it doesn’t, it is no longer a functioning state. The ‘people with guns’ in the minimal definition of democracy refers to the politicians who control the armed forces. Democracy fails when elected officials who have the authority to tell the generals what to do refuse to give it up. Or when the generals refuse to listen.\nWhichever way you slice and dice the different types of coup, there is one fundamental distinction between them: some coups need to make clear that democracy is over in order to succeed; and some coups need to pretend that democracy is still intact.\nThe more democracy is taken for granted, the more chance there is to subvert it without having to overthrow it.\nIn any democracy there will be winners and losers. In the words of two American political scientists, Joe Parent and Joe Uscinski, ‘conspiracy theories are for loser\nA calamity that wipes out the property and lives of the rich as effectively as those of the poor will make for a more equal society. It will also be hell on earth.\nMinor progress is possible. Big progress is elusive, and always liable to be derailed by the backlash small progress provokes. We may be stuck.\nDemocracies have two big advantages in dealing with environmental dangers. One is the effective power of pressure groups, which can raise inconvenient truths. The second is market economies, which can experiment with alternative solutions.\nIf no one is trying to strike a deal, no one has anything to lose by digging in. Democratic politics is always damaged by the attempt to get round it.\nIn the rarefied atmosphere of existential risk, politics barely gets discussed at all. Instead, putative solutions focus on technical fixes — like building off switches that can’t be tampered with. Meaningful choices for human beings get reduced to the decisions of the few people who understand how the technology works — they are the ones who need to do the right thing. Only those with the capacity to build these machines have the capacity to stop them. Everyone else is a bystander.\nDemocracy cannot control existential risk. The most it can hope for is to be spared by it. This is how democracy gets treated by the existential risk-management industry: with kid gloves, like some precious object of historic value that might yet turn out to have an incidental use. No one wants to dismiss democracy out of hand. It would be terrible to see it disappear, just as it would be terrible to imagine the Louvre going up in a puff of smoke. So it gets brought along for the existential ride.\nSeen from the perspective of game theory, democratic decision-making is often idiotic. But it can be a useful idiot.\nThe lesson of the Cold War and beyond is that democracy can co-exist with existential risk, but not on terms that make sense to either side. Thinking about the end of the world is too much for democracy to cope with, but not enough to kill it off. Democracy persists, unhappily joined to a partner it cannot really tolerate.\nSleepwalking and tightrope walking are both features of contemporary democracy. It is what gives our politics its peculiar double quality of attentiveness and carelessness.\nBecause this is politics, both parties were driven by contingencies they struggled to control. There was no real conspiracy on either side. Yet politicians who appear to be in a trance-like state provide the fuel for conspiracy theories. The creature is asleep but it moves purposefully. Someone must be pulling the strings.\nContemporary democracy is haunted by a sense of what it has lost. Some of the loss is the capacity for genuine self-expression. We do not walk the tightrope. It is done for us, by functionaries who are motivated by their anxious desire not to fall. The noise of the crowd is not an integral part of the performance. It is another hazard to be faced in the attempt to keep upright and moving forwards. No one reaches the other side and then turns to come back just for the hell of it. The purpose of the performance is simply to keep aloft.\nJust as democracy will end at some point, so too will intelligent machines arrive eventually, and perhaps even suddenly. But we are not there yet.\nWaiting for the AI revolution that never comes can be a giant displacement activity. While we are worrying about the dawn of intelligent machines, unintelligent machines are already doing much of the work. Computers may not have learned how to think for themselves. But we have learned how to let them think for us. A machine does not have to be intelligent to perform tasks that traditionally fall within the ambit of human intelligence. All it takes is for the humans to franchise the work out to the machine, having first told the machine what to do.\nThe danger of unintelligent machines is that, as they grow in power and usefulness, they lure intelligent human beings into relying on them for too much.\nThe same could hold for politics. The machine solves the problem; the politician helps us to understand what the solution means. Democracy might get better.\nTechnology by itself does not determine our future. But it will if we let it.\nCorporations spew out further corporations — shells within shells — simply to make it hard for ordinary human beings to understand what they are up to. One of the nightmare scenarios for our robot future is what would happen if the robots could self-replicate. We already have some idea of what that would be like — it’s the corporate world.\nBut it is not impossible. It takes political will. The complex machinery of the modern state often obscures the presence of political will. We can’t seem to find the ghost in the machine when we need it. None the less, it is in there somewhere.\nLook again at Hobbes’s picture of the state. Suitably updated, it could be a picture of Facebook. Just put Zuckerberg’s head at the top. He is no emperor. He is the sovereign of a vast corporate machine, whose component parts are made from the input of huge numbers of individual human beings. These people provide Facebook with its power, but they share very little of that power themselves. What they get in return is the freedom to do their own thing. That was the promise of Hobbes’s state, too. Hobbes didn’t offer the citizens control over the monster they had created. What he offered them instead was control over their own lives in exchange for giving life to an artificial creature that could underpin their shared existence. He traded them personal freedom for political control.\nThe state provides us with services. Facebook helps us curate our lives. The state can make us feel secure. Facebook can make us feel loved.\nThe long history of modern representative democracy has been a largely successful attempt to tame these wilder impulses. We don’t lynch any more. We don’t tar and feather. We don’t ostracise. Except on Twitter.\nTwitter is sometimes described as being like the Wild West. But really it is the closest thing we have to the democracy of the ancient world: fickle, violent, empowering.\nWe all want trustworthy politicians. Knowing what politicians are up to at all times might look like a way for us to trust them completely. But that is not trust. It is oversight, which is the opposite of trust. Once we know everything that is going on, trust becomes meaningless. We have no need to trust people who can never betray us: they might as well be machines. The precondition for trust is the possibility that we will be disappointed. To rule out disappointment is to give up on trusting anyone. It is self-defeating.\nRepresentative democracy has always been a watching game. We watch them, to make sure they don’t take advantage of the power we have given them. They watch us, to make sure we don’t take advantage of the freedom they have given us.\nWho watches the watchers is the question to which representative democracy has no good answer once watching becomes too much like hard work.\nAgain, it is a question of incentives, time and human resources. Even corrupt and inefficient states tend to have more of each of these than their opponents, who are limited by their need to improvise. To this point the internet has not proved to be an autocracy-busting machine. It has turned into another useful tool of power.\nThere is every reason to believe Zuckerberg when he says that he wants to make the manipulation stop. He didn’t intend for it to happen. That’s the problem: no one did. It is just a side effect of being in the advertising business.\nPoliticians are not like doctors or other professionals. We do not simply look to them for guidance and help. We look for them to reflect who we are. Superior forms of knowledge get in the way of that.\nThe most radical critics of contemporary democracy offer solutions that sound more like symptoms of what has gone wrong than any possible cure. Both Land and Yarvin are conspiracy theorists on a gargantuan scale. Their contempt for everything they dislike outweighs their capacity to describe anything plausible that might replace it. The political world they conjure up is a caricature, populated with incredible heroes and villains, which makes it impossible to believe in. This is true of many people who have given up on democracy. Their loathing for it leaves them unable to think about how it might turn into something else. They just want to get to the next stage as quickly as possible.\nWidespread contemporary disgust with democratic politics is unmatched by any agreement about what would be better. Most of the alternatives sound a lot worse.\nThere is little difference between thinking that there is no alternative and believing that the only alternatives are the outrageous ones.\nContemporary authoritarians have tried to learn the lessons of the twentieth century like everyone else. They offer the other half of what democracy can provide, but not the whole. In place of personal dignity plus collective benefits, they promise personal benefits plus collective dignity.\nMaybe it is not a trade-off. Maybe it is a straightforward choice. If we insist that every voice counts, then we shouldn’t be surprised that politics turns into a cacophonous mess. If we want the best results, perhaps we should limit political input to the people who know best how to achieve them.\nEven highly qualified economists often haven’t a clue what’s best to do. What they know is how to operate a complex system they have been instrumental in building, so long as it behaves the way it is meant to.\nFor now, technology is fraying us more than it is liberating us.\nContemporary democracy is no exception. Macro events and micro experiences squeeze out the room for reasonable compromise. When people look for the institutions that might facilitate such compromise, they find that they have been hollowed out by the pull of political fears and frustrations that are either too big or too small to fit them.\n","date":"November 27, 2018","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-how-democracy-ends/","section":"Posts","summary":"When democracy ends, we are likely to be surprised by the form it takes. We may not even notice that it is happening because we are looking in the wrong places.\n","title":"Highlights for How Democracy Ends","type":"posts"},{"content":"The people gathered at city hall that night saw Oakland’s DAC as an extension of the tech-fueled gentrification that was pushing poorer longtime residents out of the city.\nthe Internet was developed as a weapon and remains a weapon today. American military interests continue to dominate all parts of the network, even those that supposedly stand in opposition.\nAn even more disturbing dimension of the AIR’s pacification work in Thailand was that it was supposed to serve as a model for counterinsurgency operations elsewhere in the world—including against black people living in American inner cities, where race riots were breaking out at the time.\nHe began to see that in a society mediated by computer and information systems those who controlled the infrastructure wielded ultimate power.\nWhere Wiener saw danger, Lick saw opportunity. He had no qualms about putting this technology in the service of US corporate and military power.\nIndeed, intelligence agencies were among the first users of the tools ARPA’s command and control program produced just a few years later.\nLike many upper-class Americans of his day, North worried that the massive influx of immigrants from Europe was destroying the fabric of American society, causing social and political unrest, and threatening the nation’s racial purity.47 This fear of immigration would become intertwined with anticommunist hysteria, leading to repression of workers and labor unions across the country. North saw statisticians like himself as technocratic soldiers: America’s last line of defense against a foreign corrupting influence. And he saw the tabulator machine as their most powerful weapon.\nDeemphasizing ARPA’s military purpose had the benefit of boosting morale among computer scientists, who were more eager to work on the technology if they believed it wasn’t going to be used to bomb people.\nFliers posted on both campuses railed against “computerized people-manipulation”and “the blatant prostitution of social science for the aims of the war machine.”\nPool saw computers as more than just apparatuses that could speed up social research. His work was infused with a utopian belief in the power of cybernetic systems to manage societies. He was among a group of Cold War technocrats who envisioned computer technology and networked systems deployed in a way that directly intervened in people’s lives, creating a kind of safety net that spanned the world and helped run societies in a harmonious manner, managing strife and conflict out of existence.\nThe language of Licklider’s proposal—talk about propaganda and monitoring political movements—was so direct and so obvious that it could not be ignored. It confirmed students’ and activists’ fears about computers and computer networks and gave them a glimpse into how military planners wanted to use these technologies as tools for surveillance and social control.\nToday, people still think that surveillance is something foreign to the Internet—something imposed on it from the outside by paranoid government agencies. Rowan’s reporting from forty years ago tells a different story. It shows how military and intelligence agencies used the network technology to spy on Americans in the first version of the Internet. Surveillance was baked in from the very beginning.\nIndeed, the army referred to activists and protesters as if they were organized enemy combatants embedded with the indigenous population.\nIn the 1990s the country was ablaze with sweeping religious proclamations about the Internet. People talked of a great leveling—an unstoppable wildfire that would rip through the world, consuming bureaucracies, corrupt governments, coddled business elites, and stodgy ideologies, clearing the way for a new global society that was more prosperous and freer in every possible way.\nKevin Kelly, a bearded evangelical Christian and Wired editor, agreed with his boss: “No one can escape the transforming fire of machines. Technology, which once progressed at the periphery of culture, now engulfs our minds as well as our lives. As each realm is overtaken by complex techniques, the usual order is inverted, and new rules established. The mighty tumble, the once confident are left desperate for guidance, and the nimble are given a chance to prevail.”\nBrand disagreed.\nIn a long article he filed for Rolling Stone, he set out to convince the magazine’s young and trend-setting readership that ARPA was not some big bureaucratic bummer connected to America’s war machine but instead was part of an “astonishingly enlightened research program”that just happened to be run by the Pentagon.\nBrand was deeply embedded in California’s counterculture and appeared as a major character in Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Yet there he was, acting as a pitch man for ARPA, a military agency that had in its short existence already racked up a bloody reputation—from chemical warfare to counterinsurgency and surveillance. It didn’t seem to make any sense.\nBrand took a different path. He belonged to the libertarian wing of the counterculture, which tended to look down on traditional political activism and viewed all politics with skepticism and scorn.\nNeuromancer coined the term cyberspace. It also launched the cyberpunk movement, which responded to Gibson’s political critique in a cardinally different manner: it cheered the coming of this cyber dystopia.\nLeverage is a good word for Kelly’s sudden religious inspiration. His faith in God matched his faith in the power of technological progress, which he saw as a part of God’s divine plan for the world. Over the years, he developed the belief that the growth of the Internet, the gadgetization and computerization of everything around us, the ultimate melding of flesh and computers, and the uploading of human beings into a virtual computer world were all part of a process that would merge people with God and allow us to become gods as well, creating and ruling over our own digital and robotic worlds just like our maker.\nAt Wired, Kelly injected this theology into every part of the magazine, infusing the text with an unquestioning belief in the ultimate goodness and rightness of markets and decentralized computer technology, no matter how it was used.\nIt seemed more a networking hub and marketing vehicle for the industry, a booster intended to create a brand around the cult of technology and the people who made and sold it, and then repackage it for the mainstream culture. It was continuing a tradition that Stewart Brand had started, overlaying an increasingly powerful computer industry with images of the counterculture to give it a hip and grassroots revolutionary edge.\nWired’s impact was not just cultural but also political. The magazine’s embrace of a privatized digital world made it a natural ally of the powerful business interests pushing to deregulate and privatize American telecommunications infrastructure.\nJohn Malone, the billionaire cable monopolist at the head of TCI and one of the largest landowners in the United States, made the cut as well. Wired put him on the cover as a punk counterculture rebel for his fight against the Federal Communications Commission, which was putting the brakes on his cable company’s multi-billion-dollar merger with Bell Atlantic, a telephone giant. He is pictured walking down an empty rural highway with a dog by his side, wearing a tattered leather jacket and holding a shotgun. The reference is clear: he was Mel Gibson of Road Warrior, fighting to protect his town from being overrun by a savage band of misfits, which, to extend the metaphor, was the FCC regulators. The reason this billionaire was so cool? He had the guts to say that he’d shoot the head of the FCC if the man didn’t approve his merger fast enough.\nThat’s where Wired’s real cultural power lay: using cybernetic ideals of the counterculture to sell corporate politics as a revolutionary act.\nBrand saw computers as a path toward a utopian world order where the individual wielded the ultimate power. Everything that came before—militaries, governments, big oppressive corporations—would melt away and an egalitarian system would spontaneously emerge.\nPeople treated the search box as an impartial oracle that accepted questions, spat out answers, and moved on. Few realized it recorded everything typed into it,\nThe book demonstrates that Page and Brin understood early on that Google’s success depended on grabbing and maintaining proprietary control over the behavioral data they captured through their services. This was the company’s biggest asset.\nOne thing was certain in the wake of the AOL release: search logs provided an unadulterated look into the details of people’s inner lives, with all the strangeness, embarrassing quirks, and personal anguish those details divulged. And Google owned it all.\nTaken together, these technical documents revealed that the company was developing a platform that attempted to track and profile everyone who came in touch with a Google product. It was, in essence, an elaborate system of private surveillance.\nThe language in the patent filings—descriptions of using “psychographic information,”“personality characteristics,”and “education levels”to profile and predict people’s interests—bore eerie resemblance to the early data-driven counterinsurgency initiatives funded by ARPA in the 1960s and 1970s.\nThere was only one difference: instead of preventing political insurgencies, Google wanted the data to sell people products and services with targeted ads. One was military, the other commercial. But at their core, both systems were dedicated to profiling and prediction. The type of data plugged into them was irrelevant.\nThe truth is that the Internet came out of a Pentagon project to develop modern communication and information systems that would allow the United States to get the drop on its enemies, both at home and abroad.\nAll these CIA-backed companies paid Facebook, Google, and Twitter for special access to social media data—adding another lucrative revenue stream to Silicon Valley.\nFrom their inception, Internet companies banked heavily on the utopian promise of a networked world. Even as they pursued contracts with the military and their founders joined the ranks of the richest people on the planet, they wanted the world to see them not just as the same old plutocrats out to maximize shareholder value and their own power but also as progressive agents leading the way into a bright techno-utopia.\nSnowden’s views on private surveillance were simplistic, but they seemed to be in line with his politics. He was a libertarian and believed the utopian promise of computer networks. He believed that the Internet was an inherently liberating technology that, if left alone, would evolve into a force of good in the world. The problem wasn’t Silicon Valley; it was government power.\nThe cypherpunk vision of the future was an inverted version of the military’s cybernetic dream pursued by the Pentagon and Silicon Valley: instead of leveraging global computer systems to make the world transparent and predictable, cypherpunks wanted to use computers and cryptography to make the world opaque and untrackable. It was a counterforce, a cybernetic weapon of individual privacy and freedom against a cybernetic weapon of government surveillance and control.\nI was puzzled, but at least I understood why Tor had backing from Silicon Valley: it offered a false sense of privacy, while not posing a threat to the industry’s underlying surveillance business model.\nWhile couched in lofty language about fighting censorship, promoting democracy, and safeguarding “freedom of expression,”these policies were rooted in big power politics: the fight to open markets to American companies and expand America’s dominance in the age of the Internet.51 Internet Freedom was enthusiastically backed by American businesses, especially budding Internet giants like Yahoo!, Amazon, eBay, Google, and later Facebook and Twitter. They saw foreign control of the Internet, first in China but also in Iran and later Vietnam, Russia, and Myanmar, as an illegitimate check on their ability to expand into new global markets, and ultimately as a threat to their businesses.\nChina saw Internet Freedom as a threat, an illegitimate attempt to undermine the country’s sovereignty through “network warfare,”and began building a sophisticated system of Internet censorship and control, which grew into the infamous Great Firewall of China.\nThe correspondence left little room for doubt. The Tor Project was not a radical indie organization fighting The Man. For all intents and purposes, it was The Man. Or, at least, The Man’s right hand.\nDespite Tor’s public insistence it would never put in any backdoors that gave the US government secret privileged access to Tor’s network, the correspondence shows that in at least one instance in 2007, Tor revealed a security vulnerability to its federal backer before alerting the public, potentially giving the government an opportunity to exploit the weakness to unmask Tor users before it was fixed.\nFrom a higher vantage point, the Tor Project was a wild success. It had matured into a powerful foreign policy tool—a soft-power cyber weapon with multiple uses and benefits. It hid spies and military agents on the Internet, enabling them to carry out their missions without leaving a trace. It was used by the US government as a persuasive regime-change weapon, a digital crowbar that prevented countries from exercising sovereign control over their own Internet infrastructure. Counterintuitively, Tor also emerged as a focal point for antigovernment privacy activists and organizations, a huge cultural success that made Tor that much more effective for its government backers by drawing fans and helping shield the project from scrutiny.\nMost people involved in privacy activism do not know about the US government’s ongoing efforts to weaponize the privacy movement, nor do they appreciate Silicon Valley’s motives in this fight. Without that knowledge, it is impossible to makes sense of it all.\nIn 2015, when I first read these statements from the Tor Project, I was shocked. This was nothing less than a veiled admission that Tor was useless at guaranteeing anonymity and that it required attackers to behave “ethically”in order for it to remain secure.\nThe old cypherpunk dream, the idea that regular people could use grassroots encryption tools to carve out cyber islands free of government control, was proving to be just that, a dream.\nSilicon Valley fears a political solution to privacy. Internet Freedom and crypto offer an acceptable alternative. Tools like Signal and Tor provide a false solution to the privacy problem, focusing people’s attention on government surveillance and distracting them from the private spying carried out by the Internet companies they use every day. All the while, crypto tools give people a sense that they’re doing something to protect themselves, a feeling of personal empowerment and control. And all those crypto radicals? Well, they just enhance the illusion, heightening the impression of risk and danger. With Signal or Tor installed, using an iPhone or Android suddenly becomes edgy and radical. So instead of pushing for political and democratic solutions to surveillance, we outsource our privacy politics to crypto apps—software made by the very same powerful entities that these apps are supposed to protect us from.\nSo instead of pushing for political and democratic solutions to surveillance, we outsource our privacy politics to crypto apps—software made by the very same powerful entities that these apps are supposed to protect us from.\nThe IBM machines themselves did not kill people, but they made the Nazi death machine run faster and more efficiently, scouring the population and tracking down victims in ways that would never have been possible without them.\nBut not all control is equal. Not all surveillance is bad. Without them, there can be no democratic oversight of society.\nBy pretending that the Internet transcends politics and culture, we leave the most malevolent and powerful forces in charge of its built-in potential for surveillance and control. The more we understand and democratize the Internet, the more we can deploy its power in the service of democratic and humanistic values, making it work for the many, not the few.\n","date":"November 9, 2018","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-surveillance-valley/","section":"Posts","summary":"The people gathered at city hall that night saw Oakland’s DAC as an extension of the tech-fueled gentrification that was pushing poorer longtime residents out of the city.\n","title":"Highlights for Surveillance Valley","type":"posts"},{"content":"The tactics employed during the Blitzkrieg are those of highly agile manoeuvre warfare. They are:\nEinheit Fingerspitzengefühl Auftragstaktik Schwerpunkt For an English audience or one that doesn\u0026rsquo;t have a stomach for this bit of history you can use:\nUnity Feeling Trust Mission Focus ","date":"November 1, 2018","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/blitzkrieg-tactics-translated/","section":"Posts","summary":"The tactics employed during the Blitzkrieg are those of highly agile manoeuvre warfare. They are:\n","title":"Blitzkrieg Tactics Translated","type":"posts"},{"content":"Were Germans supposed to be particularly ordered and machinelike? Was it possible that Germans really were ordered and machinelike?\nThere was no way to go through life, in Turkish or any other language, making only factual statements about direct observations. You were forced to use -miş, just by the human condition—just by existing in relation to other people.\nI liked Spanish—I liked how the donkey had a place in the national literature\nHow would I get anywhere in life? How could anyone ever be interested in me?\nBut I couldn’t stop thinking about á and à—about Europe, where even the alphabet emitted exuberant sparks—about Ivan’s mother’s Mazda, and how you were always sad when you left Rome.\n“You really like this boy,”she said, sounding so sad and affectionate that tears came to my eyes.\n“I feel like a kid.”\n“Like a little girl, huh? It must be really terrible for you.”\n“I learned Turkish when I was three, so I don’t know enough words. I can’t talk about anything,”I said.\n“Of course he will. Womanizers always call back. That’s their best quality.”\n“Stuff like that can really bring out the sadist in you,”he said. “I’m standing there thinking of all the different ways I’ll rip out this guy’s guts.”\nAnd still no waking moment went by that I didn’t think of him—he was in the background of everything I thought. My own perceptions were no longer enough to constitute the physical world for me. Every sound, every syllable that reached me, I wanted to filter through his consciousness. At a word from him I would have followed him anywhere, right off the so-called Prudential Center.\n“In Turkey? You wouldn’t have a nervous breakdown. You’d give them a nervous breakdown.”I forgave him for a lot when he said that. I forgave him for almost everything.\nA less beautiful girl wouldn’t have said that, I thought. Beautiful people lived in a different world, had different relations with people. From the beginning they were raised for love.\n","date":"October 16, 2018","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-the-idiot/","section":"Posts","summary":"Were Germans supposed to be particularly ordered and machinelike? Was it possible that Germans really were ordered and machinelike?\n","title":"Highlights for The Idiot","type":"posts"},{"content":"One has the feeling that these critics do not really like literature—they do not enjoy reading. Worse even, if they were actually to enjoy a book, they would suspect it to be frivolous. In their eyes, something that is amusing cannot be important or serious.\nThough, as a wise doctor once remarked, between two doctors whose medical qualifications are otherwise equal, we should trust the one who reads Chekhov.\nThe closer a book comes to being a genuine work of art, a true creation with a life of its own, the less likely it is that the author had full control over and a clear understanding of what he wrote.\nwhat led them to their mysticism was simply the perception of “an intolerable disparity between the hugeness of their desire and the smallness of reality.”\nStill, the notion that it is generally unwise to make pronouncements in areas that lie outside one’s expertise remains a sound principle. I only wish that Mr. Hitchens himself would abide by it.\nThis weird belief that a dead man called Jesus is still alive should command all the deeds and all the thoughts of a Christian.\n“But if someone does not do it, how will good be done?”questioned the old gentleman in a voice full of perplexity.\n“Live so,”replied the Master in a voice suddenly stern, “live so that by the sanctity of thy life all good will be performed involuntarily.”\nI was writing in a café; I had been sitting there for a couple of hours already, comfortably settled at a table with my books and papers. Like many lazy people, I enjoy a measure of hustle and bustle around me while I am supposed to work—it gives me an illusion of activity—and thus the surrounding din of conversations and calls did not disturb me in the least.\ntrue Philistines are not people who are incapable of recognising beauty; they recognise it all too well; they detect its presence anywhere, immediately, and with a flair as infallible as that of the most sensitive aesthete—but for them, it is in order to be able better to pounce upon it at once and to destroy it before it can gain a foothold in their universal empire of ugliness.\nAnd Claudel commented: “This mental process is identical to that of poetical writing . . . The impelling motion is the same. Which shows that the primary source of scientific thought is not reasoning, but the precise verification of an association originally supplied by the imagination.”\nThe fact is, these two arts—history writing and fiction writing—originating both in poetry, involve similar activities and mobilise the same faculties: memory and imagination; and this is why it could rightly be said that the novelist is the historian of the present and the historian the novelist of the past. Both must invent the truth.\nHe clearly felt that, together with the rest of the country, he was being progressively sucked into a poisonous swamp. To ensure a reasonably smooth and trouble-free existence, small compromises were constantly required—nothing difficult nor particularly dramatic; everyone else, to a various extent, was similarly involved. Yet the sum total of these fairly banal, daily surrenders eroded the integrity of each individual.\nHis short (unfinished), clear-sighted and sober memoir raises one terrifying question: all that Haffner knew at the time, many millions of people around him knew equally well. Why was there only one Haffner?\nHowever, beware! Whenever people wonder “What is the truth?”usually it is because the truth is just under their noses—but it would be very inconvenient to acknowledge it.\n“I do not care for scholars unless they are scholars without wishing to be or without knowing it. There is nothing easier than becoming a scholar. To acquire learning, it suffices to lock oneself up in one’s house for six months. It is far better to have a good imagination than a good memory.”\nThe brutalities of boarding school can routinely maim sensitive children for life; occasionally they may also breed a genius.\n“Genius,”Baudelaire said, “is childhood recalled at will.”\nThere is no escaping the radical difference between the capacity for conception and that for execution: imagination and action are often at opposite poles. That is why novelists usually do not become millionaires, whereas millionaires do not even read novels.\nHalf of the misery in this world is caused by people whose only talent is to worm their way into positions for which they otherwise have no competence.\nAt the remotest end of Europe, Tolstoy secured without delay a copy of the book and was overwhelmed. One may say without exaggeration that Les Misérables triggered War and Peace. Giants breed giants.\nNor must we overlook the essential: he benefited from what only the warm affection of a united family can supply, a happy childhood, which arms one to face life and, once adult, to eliminate the risk of losing time in some fatuous and vain quest for happiness.\nFor the gift of the poet (which is also the gift of the child) is the ability to connect with the real world, to look at things with rapt attention. Both the poet and the child are blessed with what Chesterton called “the mystical minimum”: the awareness that things are—full stop. “If a thing is nothing else, that is good; it is—and that is good.”\nNone of the activities that really matter can be pursued in a merely professional capacity;\nThus he made the point that the man must be, to a certain extent, a specialist—out of necessity, he finds himself confined in a narrow professional pursuit, since he must do one thing well enough to earn the daily bread—whereas the woman is the true universalist: she must do a hundred things for the safe-guarding and management of the home.\nHe realised it was a status he could easily have achieved, had he agreed to pay the usual price—which is to isolate and emphasise only one side of the truth. This is always an easy recipe for achieving popularity and for gathering crowds of disciples; but to secure this sort of demagogic success one must mutilate a complex reality.\nGenerally speaking, literary people are exceedingly self-centred and vain—on the whole they are not a very attractive breed—but Chesterton did not belong to that species.\nHere, Gide seems to be unwittingly joining Claudel, who held that the key metaphor with which to interpret the diverse manifestations of German culture was the sausage.\nConclusion: if one had to go out to sea in a small boat, one would not choose Orwell for skipper. But when meeting with shipwreck, disaster or other catastrophe, one could not dream of better company.\nFor all his gluttony and drunkenness, his passionate attachment to all things of beauty, his selfishness, his impatience, his unkindness and anger (a close friend once asked how he could reconcile his generally beastly behaviour and his Christianity; Waugh replied: “You have no idea how much nastier I would be if I was not a Catholic. Without supernatural aid, I would hardly be a human being”), what he derived from his Catholicism was a fundamental ability not to take this world too seriously.\nThe latter exacted from him such an intense, nervous effort that sometimes, before starting to write, he would suffer fits of vomiting. Each time, he had to assume imaginatively the persona of his main protagonist—to become him—and then to see with the mind’s eye the world his pen was conjuring as it followed an inner dictation.\nThis phenomenon reached such an intensity that there were times when it scared Simenon, times when he felt drawn towards an uncertain border where his very sanity might founder.\nEvery life leaves behind an accumulation of broken odds and ends—bizarre and sometimes smelly. Rummaging there, one can always unearth enough evidence to establish that the deceased was both monstrous and mediocre. Such a combination is quite common—whoever doubts it needs only look at himself in a mirror.\nIn the eighteenth century, French was the common language of the leading minds of continental Europe; twentieth-century French intellectuals hardly noticed that times had changed in this respect; they retained the dangerous belief that whatever was not expressed in French could hardly matter.\nRevel’s attempt at entering into active politics was short-lived, but the experience gave him an invaluable insight into the essential intellectual dishonesty that is unavoidably attached to partisan politicking.\nMitterrand was the purest type of political animal: he had no politics at all. He had a brilliant intelligence, but for him ideas were neither right nor wrong, they were only useful or useless in the pursuit of power. The object of power was not a possibility to enact certain policies; the object of all policies was simply to attain and retain power.\nIn other words, people who do not read fiction or poetry are in permanent danger of crashing against facts and being crushed by reality.\nConfucius often said that if only a ruler could employ him, in one year he would achieve a lot, and in three years he would succeed. One day a disciple asked him, “If a king were to entrust you with a territory which you could govern according to your ideas, what would you do first?”Confucius replied, “My first task would certainly be to rectify the names.”On hearing this, the disciple was puzzled. “Rectify the names? And that would be your first priority? Is this a joke?”(Chesterton or Orwell, however, would have immediately understood and approved the idea.) Confucius had to explain: “If the names are not correct, if they do not match realities, language has no object. If language is without an object, action becomes impossible—and therefore, all human affairs disintegrate and their management becomes pointless and impossible. Hence, the very first task of a true statesman is to rectify the names.”\nZhou Zuoren (1885—1968), summarised in one pithy sentence this living tradition of which he himself was a product: “All that can be spelled out is without importance.”\nAesthetic criteria are functional: does the work do what it does efficiently, does it nourish the vital energy of the artist, does it succeed in capturing the spirit that informs mountains and rivers, does it establish harmony between the metamorphoses of forms and the metamorphoses of the world?\nOrientalism could obviously have been written by no one but a Palestinian scholar with a huge chip on his shoulder and a very dim understanding of the European academic tradition (here perceived through the distorted prism of a certain type of American university, with its brutish hyper-specialisation, non-humanistic approach, and close, unhealthy links with government).\nHe dispatched the affairs of the state with the supreme efficiency of an old Daoist ruler who knows that one should govern a large empire the way one cooks a little fish.\nHis unique skills made him forever indispensable, while simultaneously he cultivated a quality of utter elusiveness; no one could pin him down to a specific political line, nor could one associate him with any particular faction. He never expressed personal ideas or indulged in penning his own theoretical views. Where did he really stand? What did he actually believe? Apparently he had no other policies but those of the leader of the moment, and nourished no other ambitions but to serve him with total dedication. Yet the brilliance of his mind, the sharpness of his intelligence, the electrifying quality of his personal magnetism, eloquence and authority constantly belied the kind of bland selflessness that he so studiously displayed in the performance of his public duties; Zhou’s enigma lay in the paradox that, with all his exceptional talents, he should also present a sort of disconcerting and essential hollowness.\nTwenty-three hundred years ago, Zhuang Zi, in giving advice to a king, made him observe that when a small boat drifts in the way of a huge barge, the crew of the barge will immediately shout abuse at the stray craft; however, coming closer, if they discover that the little boat is empty, they will simply shut up and quietly steer clear of it. He concluded that a ruler who has to sail the turbulent waters of politics should first and foremost learn how to become an empty boat.\nTo reconcile such paradoxes, one must either learn the mental acrobatics of a very sophisticated game played by the enlightened vanguard and called “dialectics,”or, more vulgarly, face the fact that rather than being the prophet-philosopher as described by his worshippers, Mao was essentially always and foremost a practical politician for whom what mattered above everything was power—how to obtain it, how to retain it, how to regain it. In order to secure power, no sacrifice was ever too big—and least of all the sacrifice of principles. It is only in this light that it becomes possible to understand his alternations between compromise and ruthlessness, benevolence and ferocity, suppleness and brutality, and all his abrupt volte-faces: none of these were ever arbitrary.\nWithout an ability to decipher non-existent inscriptions written in invisible ink on blank pages, no one should ever dream of analysing the nature and reality of Chinese communism.\nFor Truth, by its very nature, is ugly, savage and cruel; it disturbs, it frightens, it hurts and it kills. If, in some extreme situations, it is to be used at all, it must be taken only in small doses, in strict isolation, and with the most rigorous prophylactic precautions. Whoever would be willing to spread it wildly, or to unload it in large quantities, just as it comes, is a dangerous and irresponsible person who should be restrained in the interest of his own safety, as well as for the protection of social harmony.\nKazimierz Brandys summed it up neatly (with the clear-sightedness that characterises so many Polish intellectuals, who on this subject have acquired a bitter expertise): “Contemporary history teaches us that all you need is one mentally sick individual, two ideologues and three hundred murderous thugs in order to take power and gag millions of people.”\nDemocracy is the only acceptable political system; yet it pertains to politics exclusively, and has no application in any other domain. When applied anywhere else, it is death—for truth is not democratic, intelligence and talent are not democratic, nor is beauty, nor love—nor God’s grace.\nI am of course referring to the time before independence; for today, even if there should still be any enterprising Greek merchants around, I doubt very much that they would find passable tracks to reach these distant hamlets.\nThe most depressing thing is to watch these crowds of tourists, who paid a not inconsiderable amount to come here and secure for themselves eight days of happiness. In the motley uniforms of holiday convicts, they patrol lugubriously this huge Luna Park while trying hard to persuade themselves that they are getting their money’s worth of fun.\nLiterary scholars are particularly adept at cultivating this sort of nonsense: they seem permanently drunk on the psychedelic milk they keep sucking from the twin mammelles of Freud and Marx.\n","date":"October 15, 2018","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-the-hall-of-uselessness/","section":"Posts","summary":"One has the feeling that these critics do not really like literature—they do not enjoy reading. Worse even, if they were actually to enjoy a book, they would suspect it to be frivolous. In their eyes, something that is amusing cannot be important or serious.\n","title":"Highlights for The Hall of Uselessness","type":"posts"},{"content":"You find yourself in the dumbest of all possible worlds, clowns to the left of you, Re-thug-licans to the right.\nOfficial state religion is Shia Scientology.\nWe’ll focus entirely on liquidating the “legitimate news”part of the media, along with its revolting acolytes, known as “journalists.”\nOur rival Nazi Germany had collapsed after it overleveraged risky investments in Eastern European “living space,”while Japan—once an aggressive competitor to America—was defeated due to a certain killer app developed in a cutting-edge incubator in Los Alamos, New Mexico.\nDespite that, the European Central Bank responded to the ’08 crisis with a Wahhabist-style neoliberal austerity that even the moderate consensus-makers in Washington didn’t have the stomach for.\nHow much safer would both America and the rest of the world be right now if our government’s response to 9/11 was to pretend it didn’t happen and do absolutely nothing?\nThe War on Terror is the bathtub our empire lies in, surveying a sunset over a wheat field in the Cialis commercial that is our twenty-first-century international statecraft.\nConservative pundits love to compare America to Rome, mainly because they want to be allowed to drape sheets around their asses and bring back slavery and man-boy love. But that doesn’t mean it’s not a useful analogy. Like Rome, we’re a deluded and decadent empire in terminal decline.\nRepublican voters were offered everything they had ever wanted—a new era of brutality and the repudiation of the symbol of Obama—while Democrats were served up four more years of morally incoherent and procedurally feckless liberalism. It was the logical conclusion, and the facts sure as shit didn’t care about anyone’s feelings.\nFact-checked, focus-grouped, data-driven Clinton lost to the most deranged presidential candidate ever: a clown, a fraud, a sexual predator, an inveterate liar who has faked every single thing he’s ever done—a giant cube of flesh who embodies all our vilest instincts and our ludicrous celebrity culture.\nThey do get something tangible from this deal: resistance against bathroom sickos, the petty privilege of being white, and the cathartic sadism of American military conquest and warfare.\nFor a long time they masterfully triangulated racial and class resentments to enrich the upper classes while the Democrats gave up trying to offer alternatives.\nHoppe correctly realized that the total abolition of the state in favor of a strict regime of private property and laissez-faire economics would involve the brutal curtailment of the freedoms of speech, movement, and bodily autonomy for the vast majority of people, and that was a good thing.\nBut for both Ezra and Matt, supporting the Iraq War was never a moral failing on their part but an analytical one.\nAs J. Galt, Megan cultivated a unique blogging style that perfectly matched being stupid with thinking your readers are stupid.\nGawker was a genuine example of an independent media company that skewered basically all the right assholes sucking off the political and media establishment.\nIt was embraced by middle-class hippies whose demands were not material and collective but aesthetic and individualist—which, once you smooth off the edges, is just libertarianism.\nThat’s because capital has no problem assimilating pop-cultural rebellion and antiauthoritarian imagery. In fact, that stuff creates all kinds of new markets, new consumers, new suckers.\nIt may make you feel better to watch a show that’s calling out Trump, or oppression, or our podcast—but if you stop there, you’re demobilized as a political actor.\nthe contemporary American right-winger is congenitally incapable of being funny, entertaining, or interesting in any of the ways art demands, relying instead on ham-fisted sentimentality and self-abasing ressentiment.\nfirst, we realized that the way things worked on The West Wing wasn’t the way they worked in the real world; then we realized things had never worked that way; then finally we realized things should not work that way.\nThe premise of this cant was to assure people that they didn’t have to bother with challenging literature or indie cinema; television could provide all their cultural vitamins and minerals without their having to strain their eyes or leave their houses.\nand there is no faker friend than your boss, no faker crew than your workplace.\nYou’re doing something very noble, and that’s why your boss cashed out to the tune of a few hundred million and you have to sublet your closet.\nthe scholarly professions are now all about getting tenure, doing safe spaces, and getting triggered by logic.\nContent—be it a think piece, a call-out tweet, or something really degenerate, like a podcast—is one of the only real, tangible products we make anymore. But its creation also puts more physical and mental demands on workers than the most grizzled military operators have to endure.\nIn a sense, content makers are more troop-like than troops themselves, as information is the battlefield of the twenty-first century.\nLefties are again at the tip of the spear against a desperate capitalist system that’s readying a blood-soaked, militarized response to climate and economic catastrophes.\nSpending every single moment thinking about politics (particularly on the Internet) will turn you cynical, hysterical, and probably reactionary. Let’s avoid that.\n","date":"September 23, 2018","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-the-chapo-guide-to-revolution/","section":"Posts","summary":"You find yourself in the dumbest of all possible worlds, clowns to the left of you, Re-thug-licans to the right.\n","title":"Highlights for The Chapo Guide to Revolution","type":"posts"},{"content":"Call birth, “birth,”and death, “death,”without seeing one as good and the other as evil and your children will be at home with life.\nIf you teach them to achieve they will never be content.\nIf you teach them contentment, they will naturally achieve everything.\nYou do not live your life through your children.\nTherefore they are free to find their own true fulfillment.\nIf you overly protect your children they will fear failure and avoid pain.\nBut failure and pain are twin teachers of important lessons.\nUnless your children fully experience both how will they know they have nothing to fear?\nParents who hide failure, deny loss, and berate themselves for weakness, have nothing to teach their children.\nBut parents who reveal themselves, in all of their humanness, become heroes.\nFor children look to these parents and learn to love themselves.\nWhatever they are doing, they are learning.\nAnd it is, for them, pure joy.\nAll of your “God”words will not teach your children as much as will your nurture, and your love, and your cherishing.\nHelp them instead to find the wonder and the marvel of an ordinary life.\nAnd make the ordinary come alive for them. The extraordinary will take care of itself.\nDon’t make parenting harder than it needs to be. It only requires focus.\nWorry is not focus.\nAttempting to control is not focus.\nDistracting yourself is not focus.\nRelaxed, non-fretful, attention to what is in front of you right now, is focus.\nIf you take the bait the battle rages.\nInstead step back, breathe deeply, relax, and stay at your center.\nBattles require two parties.\nOne fighting alone soon tires.\nA problem is not an interruption to a serene and happy life.\nA problem is an ordinary part of such a life.\nYou do not have to make your children into wonderful people.\nYou only have to remind them that they are wonderful people.\nBut the Tao teaches that games are for fun, that business is for the common good, that no one wins at war, and that love endures for all.\nEvery moment is a death of all that has gone before, and a birth of all that is to come.\n","date":"September 16, 2018","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-the-parents-tao-te-ching/","section":"Posts","summary":"Call birth, “birth,”and death, “death,”without seeing one as good and the other as evil and your children will be at home with life.\n","title":"Highlights for The Parent's Tao Te Ching","type":"posts"},{"content":"The woman had not abused us. She had not come here to pick a fight. We were thrown off balance by her love for one of us, and so we tore into her with such vengeance that she collapsed to the ground, sobbing.\nIt’s true what they say — it’s not we who control money, it’s the money that controls us. When there’s only a little, it behaves meekly; when it grows, it becomes brash and has its way with us.\nI’ve longed often for a comparable experience, but there seems to be none. That sense of strangeness, surrender, dependence, compassion, entitlement and a hundred other sentiments bundled together cannot possibly be relived.\n","date":"August 27, 2018","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-ghachar-ghochar/","section":"Posts","summary":"The woman had not abused us. She had not come here to pick a fight. We were thrown off balance by her love for one of us, and so we tore into her with such vengeance that she collapsed to the ground, sobbing.\n","title":"Highlights for Ghachar Ghochar","type":"posts"},{"content":"The best product managers, the best marketers, and the best developers have something in common: they each understand the others\u0026rsquo; roles.\nFor example, if you founded a club that accomplished some concrete goals and led your school\u0026rsquo;s shift to electronic course review, you might make this a Leadership Experience section.\nWhile you must always include education on your resume, this section should get shorter with more work experience. Many candidates with even two or three years of experience list just their major and degree.\nThis section should list any software, programming languages, foreign languages, or other specific skills you know.\nYour summary should read much more like key accomplishments—so much so, in fact, that these sections are often called Summary and Key Accomplishments.\nIn this paragraph, you explain what your background is, making sure to touch on the key points of your background. If all you do is restate your resume in written format, that will put you in the solidly mediocre bucket. It\u0026rsquo;s what most applicants do.\nWhen you write this paragraph, select two or three key skills, attributes, or accomplishments that you want to make sure the reader knows. Is it that you are great with design? Is it your surprisingly deep technical skills? It might even be a company or school you are associated with, if it\u0026rsquo;s an elite company/school.\nThe first paragraph introduces why you are interested in the company.\nFinally, you connect yourself with the position. Why do you want it? Why specifically are you a good fit?\nAdditionally, you should address the letter to the individual, if you know his or her name. If you do not know the recipient\u0026rsquo;s name, never assume a gender.\nRecruiting is expensive, and companies want to know that you\u0026rsquo;re excited about the job. The more excited you are about the job, the more likely you are to accept it, the more likely you are to work hard, and the more likely you are to stay at the company for a while.\n“Whatever you\u0026rsquo;re asked, you\u0026rsquo;re always answering the question ‘Why should we hire you?’ It is the thesis of your interview.”\nWhere possible, try to hit a diversity of aspects. For example, you could select one personal attribute (persistence, etc.), one skill (sales experience), and one culture/position match.\nWhat Are Your Strengths?\nWhen delivering your weaknesses, it\u0026rsquo;s common to do either of the following:\nDiscuss how you\u0026rsquo;re mitigating the issue.\nMention the silver lining of the issue.\nOffer a crisp and concise answer. Don\u0026rsquo;t play the blame game. Don\u0026rsquo;t bad-mouth your former employer. And don\u0026rsquo;t lie.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s why it\u0026rsquo;s so important to create a preparation grid.\nOnce your preparation grid is complete, you now need to select about five stories to really master.\nTell Me About a Time When You Gave a Presentation to a Group of People Who Disagreed with You\nTell Me About the Biggest Mistake You Made on a Past Project\n3. Tell Me About a Time When You Had to Deal with a Teammate Who Was Underperforming\nTell Me About a Time When You had to Make a Controversial Decision\nCan you transition to other teams within the company? What is the process to do that?\nTo position yourself in the best possible way, look for teams that will give you responsibilities beyond your actual job description, and even beyond your level of responsibility. If you want to be a manager one day, find teams that will let you mentor or manage someone—even if it\u0026rsquo;s just an intern.\nKeeping a smile on your face and being positive about changes in the team or company will make people want to be around you. Plus, no one will really want to bad-mouth the guy who\u0026rsquo;s nice to everyone.\nWhen you transition roles within one firm, you have already built trust, and the firm understands your relevant skills at a great depth. Trying to change your role when moving to a new firm is much harder.\n","date":"August 19, 2018","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-cracking-the-tech-career/","section":"Posts","summary":"The best product managers, the best marketers, and the best developers have something in common: they each understand the others’ roles.\n","title":"Highlights for Cracking the Tech Career","type":"posts"},{"content":"I want to coin a German translation for the dirtbag left neologism failson. I propose Scheitersohn which I think has a nice ring to it.\n","date":"August 16, 2018","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/german-translation-scheitersohn/","section":"Posts","summary":"I want to coin a German translation for the dirtbag left neologism failson. I propose Scheitersohn which I think has a nice ring to it.\n","title":"German translation: Scheitersohn","type":"posts"},{"content":"That, of course, doesn\u0026rsquo;t apply to Envoys. We just used to go silently, crush the odd planetary uprising, topple the odd regime, and then plug in something UN-compliant that worked. Slaughter and suppression across the stars, for the greater good — naturally — of a unified Protectorate.\nThe Envoys came and they tore your world apart. It wasn\u0026rsquo;t that simple, of course; the truth was far more complex, and ultimately far more scary. But who in this universe wants the truth?\n\u0026lsquo;Well, Quell looked back at this black-clad man and as she stared into his hot jet eyes she knew that he spoke the truth, that he was a man of his word. So she looked at the revolver in her hand and then back at the man. And she said then you are a fanatic and cannot learn, and she shot him in the face.\u0026rsquo;\nThe Quellists meanwhile simply slipped away, disappeared, abandoned the struggle and got on with living their lives as Nadia Makita had always argued they should be prepared to do. Technology has given us access to timescales of life our ancestors could only dream of, we must be prepared to use that timescale, to live on that timescale, if we are to realise our own dreams.\nJust reminding you, is all. This life is like the sea. There\u0026rsquo;s a three-moon tidal slop running out there and if you let it, it\u0026rsquo;ll tear you apart from everyone and everything you ever cared about.'\n\u0026lsquo;So maybe some other time,\u0026rsquo; he said quietly. \u0026lsquo;When you\u0026rsquo;re not carrying so much.\u0026rsquo;\n\u0026lsquo;Yeah. Maybe.\u0026rsquo; It wasn\u0026rsquo;t any other time I could usefully imagine, unless he was talking about the past, and I couldn\u0026rsquo;t see any way to get back there.\nThe Harlanites recognise it as well as we do, and they have already made their move. It only remains for us to make ours. If in the end I have to fight and die for the ghost and memory of Quellcrist Falconer and not the woman herself, then that will be better than not fighting at all.\u0026rsquo;\nBut in one of her less passionate moments, Quell herself once offered an escape clause for situations such as these. If the facts are against you, she said, but you cannot bear to cease believing — then at least suspend judgment. Wait and see.\u0026rsquo;\nIt was a confirmation that the time had come, that the political pot was boiling over. Of course it was going to spill, of course it was all going to fall in the same direction, onto the floor. Where else could it go?\nWho ever gets a second shot at these things? Sooner or later, we all get in up to our necks. Then it s just a question of keeping your face out of the swamp, one stumbling step at a time.\n\u0026lsquo;I think she might be some kind of weapon, Sylvie.\u0026rsquo;\n\u0026lsquo;So? Aren\u0026rsquo;t we all?\u0026rsquo;\nI\u0026rsquo;d felt twinges of the same thing after, the fresh growth of comradeship and united purpose — and I\u0026rsquo;d ripped it up by the roots every time. That shit will get you killed. Get you used.\nEveryone scrabbling for cash. Oligarchical caretakers. Piss-easy control system.\n","date":"August 15, 2018","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-woken-furies/","section":"Posts","summary":"That, of course, doesn’t apply to Envoys. We just used to go silently, crush the odd planetary uprising, topple the odd regime, and then plug in something UN-compliant that worked. Slaughter and suppression across the stars, for the greater good — naturally — of a unified Protectorate.\n","title":"Highlights for Woken Furies","type":"posts"},{"content":"Short sleeping increases the likelihood of your coronary arteries becoming blocked and brittle, setting you on a path toward cardiovascular disease, stroke, and congestive heart failure.\nScientists such as myself have even started lobbying doctors to start “prescribing”sleep.\nSociety’s apathy toward sleep has, in part, been caused by the historic failure of science to explain why we need it.\nsuprachiasmatic (pronounced soo-pra-kai-as-MAT-ik)\nWe require more supple work schedules that better adapt to all chronotypes, and not just one in its extreme.\nCaffeine—which is not only prevalent in coffee, certain teas, and many energy drinks, but also foods such as dark chocolate and ice cream, as well as drugs such as weight-loss pills and pain relievers—is one of the most common culprits that keep people from falling asleep easily and sleeping soundly thereafter, typically masquerading as insomnia, an actual medical condition.\nTheir scientists exposed spiders to different drugs and then observed the webs that they constructed.X Those drugs included LSD, speed (amphetamine), marijuana, and caffeine.\nCaffeine is also the only addictive substance that we readily give to our children and teens—the consequences of which we will return to later in the book.\nSecond, can you function optimally without caffeine before noon? If the answer is “no,”then you are most likely self-medicating your state of chronic sleep deprivation.\nBefore bed, you diligently set your alarm for 6:00 a.m. Miraculously, however, you woke up at 5:58 a.m., unassisted, right before the alarm.\nHave you ever taken a long road trip in your car and noticed that at some point in the journey, the FM radio stations you’ve been listening to begin dropping out in signal strength?\nWhen it comes to information processing, think of the wake state principally as reception (experiencing and constantly learning the world around you), NREM sleep as reflection (storing and strengthening those raw ingredients of new facts and skills), and REM sleep as integration (interconnecting these raw ingredients with each other, with all past experiences, and, in doing so, building an ever more accurate model of how the world works, including innovative insights and problem-solving abilities).\nThe steady, slow, synchronous waves that sweep across the brain during deep sleep open up communication possibilities between distant regions of the brain, allowing them to collaboratively send and receive their different repositories of stored experience.\nThe mystery deepens when we consider pinnipeds (one of my all-time favorite words, from the Latin derivatives: pinna “fin”and pedis “foot”), such as fur seals.\nI believe a similar story of atypical, but nevertheless present, REM sleep will ultimately be observed in dolphins and whales and seals when in the ocean. After all, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.\nSleep with both sides of the brain, or sleep with just one side and then switch. Both are possible, but sleep you must. Sleep is non-negotiable.\nBoth you and the meeting attendees are falling prey to an evolutionarily imprinted lull in wakefulness that favors an afternoon nap, called the post-prandial alertness dip (from the Latin prandium, “meal”).\nApparent from this remarkable study is this fact: when we are cleaved from the innate practice of biphasic sleep, our lives are shortened.\nFrom these clues, I offer a theorem: the tree-to-ground reengineering of sleep was a key trigger that rocketed Homo sapiens to the top of evolution’s lofty pyramid.\nNow we can appreciate what I believe to be a classic, self-fulfilling positive cycle of evolution. Our shift from tree to ground sleeping instigated an ever more bountiful amount of relative REM sleep compared with other primates, and from this bounty emerged a steep increase in cognitive creativity, emotional intelligence, and thus social complexity. This, alongside our increasingly dense, interconnected brains, led to improved daily (and nightly) survival strategies. In turn, the harder we worked those increasingly developed emotional and creative circuits of the brain during the day, the greater was our need to service and recalibrate these ever-demanding neural systems at night with more REM sleep.\nThis phase of development, which infuses the brain with masses of neural connections, is called synaptogenesis, as it involves the creation of millions of wiring links, or synapses, between neurons. By deliberate design, it is an overenthusiastic first pass at setting up the mainframe of a brain. There is a great deal of redundancy, offering many, many possible circuit configurations to emerge within the infant’s brain once born.\nAs a result of this mismatch, the fetus brain still generates formidable motor commands during REM sleep, except there is no paralysis to hold them back. Without restraint, those commands are freely translated into frenetic body movements, felt by the mother as acrobatic kicks and featherweight punches.\nNewborns will normally transition straight into REM sleep after a feeding. Many mothers already know this: almost as soon as suckling stops, and sometimes even before, the infant’s eyelids will close, and underneath, the eyes will begin darting left-right, indicating that their baby is now being nourished by REM sleep.\nSleep accomplishes this by using meaningful tags that have been hung onto those memories during initial learning, or potentially identified during sleep itself.\nSleep powerfully, yet very selectively, boosted the retention of those words previously tagged for “remembering,”yet actively avoided the strengthening of those memories tagged for “forgetting.”\nNot without putting too fine a point on it, if you don’t snooze, you lose.\nAs a result, car crashes caused by drowsiness tend to be far more deadly than those caused by alcohol or drugs. Said crassly, when you fall asleep at the wheel of your car on a freeway, there is now a one-ton missile traveling at 65 miles per hour, and no one is in control.\nApproximately 80 percent of truck drivers in the US are overweight, and 50 percent are clinically obese.\nOne of my true loves is teaching a large undergraduate class on the science of sleep at the University of California, Berkeley.\nOne night of modest sleep reduction—even just one or two hours—will promptly speed the contracting rate of a person’s heart, hour upon hour, and significantly increase the systolic blood pressure within their vasculature.\nMaking matters worse, growth hormone—a great healer of the body—which normally surges at night, is shut off by the state of sleep deprivation.\nIn the Northern Hemisphere, the switch to daylight savings time in March results in most people losing an hour of sleep opportunity. Should you tabulate millions of daily hospital records, as researchers have done, you discover that this seemingly trivial sleep reduction comes with a frightening spike in heart attacks the following day.\nThe experimental results support the finding that men suffering from sleep disorders, especially sleep apnea associated with snoring, have significantly lower levels of testosterone than those of similar age and backgrounds but who do not suffer from a sleep condition.\nIndeed, journaling your waking thoughts, feelings, and concerns has a proven mental health benefit, and the same appears true of your dreams. A meaningful, psychologically healthy life is an examined one, as Socrates so often declared.\nIt is sleep that builds connections between distantly related informational elements that are not obvious in the light of the waking day. Our participants went to bed with disparate pieces of the jigsaw and woke up with the puzzle complete.\nIt is possible that lucid dreamers represent the next iteration in Homo sapiens’ evolution.\nIf alarming your heart, quite literally, were not bad enough, using the snooze feature means that you will repeatedly inflict that cardiovascular assault again and again within a short span of time.\nSleep deprivation degrades many of the key faculties required for most forms of employment.\nBut insufficient sleep—another harmful, potentially deadly factor—is commonly tolerated and even woefully encouraged. This mentality has persisted, in part, because certain business leaders mistakenly believe that time on-task equates with task completion and productivity. Even in the industrial era of rote factory work, this was untrue.\nThe irony that employees miss is that when you are not getting enough sleep, you work less productively and thus need to work longer to accomplish a goal.\nOf note to those in business, many of these studies report deleterious effects on business outcomes on the basis of only very modest reductions in sleep amount within an individual, perhaps twenty- to sixty-minute differences between an employee who is honest, creative, innovate, collaborative, and productive and one who is not.\nOne in twenty residents will kill a patient due to a lack of sleep.\nwhat if we moved from a stance of analytics (i.e., here is your past and/or current sleep and here is your past and/or current body weight) to that of forward-looking predictalytics?\nEven if this software solution decreases flu infection rates by just a small percentage, it will save hundreds of millions of dollars by way of improved immunization efficiency\nRather, this method of routine sleep tracking would help them identify this issue, and cognitive behavioral therapy could be provided through their smartphones.\nAs a result, the decimation of sleep throughout industrialized nations is having a catastrophic impact on our health, our life expectancy, our safety, our productivity, and the education of our children.\n","date":"August 14, 2018","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-why-we-sleep/","section":"Posts","summary":"Short sleeping increases the likelihood of your coronary arteries becoming blocked and brittle, setting you on a path toward cardiovascular disease, stroke, and congestive heart failure.\n","title":"Highlights for Why We Sleep","type":"posts"},{"content":"Events of the past months have sharply brought into focus the need for passable borders. I\u0026rsquo;m not coming out for fully open borders. That still seems somewhat extreme and too dismissive of borders (which contrary to some people’s opinions definitely are not arbitrary). I just think that keeping borders hermetically closed will exact a moral cost from us that nobody should be willing to pay.\nThere are tons of arguments in favor of cross-border movement of people. I want to focus on two which are directly applicable to recent crises in the USA and Europe.\nInternationalism # Open borders are a stopgap so that we might have international relations that are just. People trapped in a country that offers no prospects should have the option to vote with their feet. Whether they move as war, political or economic refugees, they do so because they really have to.\nThe flows of these people are an indication of global injustice and at the same time an incentive to do something about it 1. The people moving about would likely prefer not to have to leave their homes to go to another place where they may or may not be wanted.\nWe could have done something about the countries these people come from decades ago. Unfortunately most foreign policy and development aid revolves around short-term national interests and the propping up of dictators 2. Closing borders would remove this final incentive to work towards globally positive outcomes.\nVirtue Ethics # Open borders provide everybody an opportunity to become better people. Like we have seen they also provide people an opportunity to become worse people. If you work for an organization that is a modern day equivalent of the Gestapo, like ICE is, then you have lost everything.\nBecoming a better person is the ultimate goal in life and as such every opportunity to do so is a welcome one.\nThis is not just a demand on the people in the receiving countries, it is also a demand on the people migrating. Whatever the reason, their country was and probably still is backwards and broken—otherwise they would not have moved here. Let’s welcome them and transform them into the best person they can be 3.\nMost migrants are already focused on this because they want to work, to educate themselves and to raise their kids in safety. We could make that social contract explicit and truly live it, providing vast and equal opportunities to everybody willing to live by our principles.\nIn the best possible case, Europe can be a life raft for the world and Europeanness can be an inclusive and expanding idea. Welcome aboard. Here\u0026rsquo;s an oar. Start paddling.\nI’m thinking that any country sending flows of people out is also broadcasting a desire for external interference in their affairs. Clearly things are not going well in a country where people do not want to be and we should do something.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nDictators are a lot cheaper to deal with than democracies.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nSomething I’ve in the past half-jokingly have called the Europhany.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"August 11, 2018","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/a-case-for-permeable-borders/","section":"Posts","summary":"Events of the past months have sharply brought into focus the need for passable borders. I’m not coming out for fully open borders. That still seems somewhat extreme and too dismissive of borders (which contrary to some people’s opinions definitely are not arbitrary). I just think that keeping borders hermetically closed will exact a moral cost from us that nobody should be willing to pay.\n","title":"A Case for Permeable Borders","type":"posts"},{"content":"His design ‘was to write for a tyrant those things that are pleasing to tyrants, bringing about in this way, if he could, the tyrant’s self-willed and swift downfall’.\nPole warned; beware of this two-faced writer. ‘For it is the aim of his doctrine to act like a drug that causes princes to go mad,’ making them attack their own people with ‘the savagery of the lion and the wiles of the fox’.\nThey become characters on a stage where he, Niccolò Machiavelli, probes their minds, sizes them up, tries to conceal his misgivings, or holds back his irritation for diplomacy’s sake.\nWhen someone’s game is rotten, Niccolò often suggests — even if it looks like the main one in town, the only one where real men can prove that they are winners — don’t let them force you to play it. Better to make and play by your own rules.\nWhoever seeks to act according to others, he later tells his more convention-bound friend Francesco Vettori, will accomplish nothing, because no two men who think alike can be found.\nThe ideal Medici leader had to seem born to rule while also seeming to think of himself as one of the people. His every move needed to project a double illusion: of natural superiority to every other citizen and a total, easy-going unawareness of that superiority.\nSoderini, who was among the first citizens of Florence and by far superior to the others, a man whose prudence and authority were known not only in Florence but among all the princes of Italy, responds: What you call a great victory looks to me like a loss. If you’d won over Volterra by treaty and agreement, you would have had advantage and security from it. But since you have to hold it by force, in adverse times it will bring you weakness and trouble, and in peaceful times, loss and expense.\nPlots to overthrow governments, Niccolò often observes, are almost always betrayed by one of the plotters.\nAnd don’t rush to proclaim any policy a great success, for often gain is seen and widely praised in policies at first — especially when they appear bold, surprising, risky — even though there is the ruin of the republic concealed underneath.\nThe struggle to overcome great difficulties teaches people self-discipline and self-knowledge, not least knowledge of their own resources of mind and spirit, which might go untapped if they had it easy. This makes them tougher than those who have too many hereditary advantages: they are thicker-skinned against those who try to pull them down, more tolerant of the setbacks that face everyone at some time or another.\nWhatever the quality of their brains, advisers live in constant fear of saying too much or too little, or the wrong things at the wrong time.\nThe Machiavelli family win the case, proving on a small scale a point Niccolò will make over and over in his writings: weak families, individuals, cities and peoples should never shy away from fighting those who put them down or take what is theirs.9 Even if they lose some battles, their efforts do them proud, and make life harder for their oppressors.\nIf you want to maintain your state over time, the only sure way is to arm your own people and keep them satisfied; it’s always safer to found yourself not upon fortresses but upon the benevolence of men.\nFor when one foresees from afar, one can easily find a remedy for future troubles. But when you wait until they come close to you, the medicine is not in time, because the disease has become incurable.\nNiccolò speaks from very personal knowledge when he says that freedom, one knows, is often restored in a city by those who have never tasted it but who loved it only through the memories of it left to them by their fathers. And thus, he continues, once recovered, they preserve it with all obstinacy and at any peril.\nFounders of new institutions should assume that a large part of human nature inclines most people to behave badly, at least now and then: to take more than their share of power or wealth, to profit from other people’s weaknesses, to cheat, lie, betray promises. Inclinations like these can’t be rooted out of our species; human nature itself cannot be reformed so that more and more people become reliably angelic.\nSheltered by his patrician family name, Agostino can afford not to take seriously men like della Valle, with their popular or recent peasant origins; social rank trumps official rank. While Ser Antonio’s tantrums make Biagio cringe behind the heap of portfolios on his desk, Agostino merely stares at their office superior as if he were a stray farm animal that has somehow wandered into the city and, stumbling into the refined halls of government, panicked and run amuck.\nthe two essential, unwritten rules of Florentine diplomacy. One: give them words, good words, be a veritable fountain bubbling over with sweet words; but use every industry to avoid offering them deeds. Two: have at the tip of your tongue a ready arsenal of excuses for not spending money.\nBut the surest way to win esteem, Niccolò writes in the Prince, is to be a true friend and a true enemy.\nNonetheless, it was hardly a civil thing to violate the laws. For if ignoring legal procedures may do good in one particular case, nonetheless the example does ill. And if one sets up a habit of breaking the [legal and political] orders for the sake of good, then later, under that colouring, they are broken for ill.\nThe French are more eager for money than for blood.\nIn adversity they are abject, and in prosperity insolent. If you can resist the fury of their first onslaught, you will find them depressed and so entirely discouraged, that they become cowardly like women.\nThe cardinal has grown indulgent towards this odd young Florentine, who has no air of inherited greatness yet speaks boldly, with the confidence of sound judgement rather than of birth or rank.\nHe would later advise envoys to princely courts that they should observe the nature of the man: whether he rules for himself or lets himself be ruled; whether he is stingy or liberal; whether he loves war or peace; whether desire for glory or any other passion moves him, whether the people love him.\nThis matter is very important; there are men who, through being clever and two-faced, have so completely lost the trust of a prince that they have never afterwards been able to negotiate with him.\nOne needs to be a fox to recognize snares, and a lion to frighten the wolves.\nThis, for Machiavelli, is the real test of any statesman’s quality: his virtue. And while good fortune can help you conquer states, virtù is what lets you hold them securely.\nThose who become princes solely by fortune have it much easier at first, rising to power with little trouble. But when the time comes to consolidate their newfound power, then all the difficulties arise, since these impetuous high-flyers seldom take the time to build up solid foundations for their state. Because of this, princes of fortune tend to be moody, fickle in their policies, even manic — now acting as if nothing could stop them, then losing all confidence at the first failure, as if failure weren’t a normal part of life. Virtuous leaders are far steadier, more trustworthy. They refuse to become arrogant with success or dejected with failure and, if their luck changes for better or for worse, they do not vary but always keep their spirit firm, showing that fortune does not have power over them.\nThat’s another thing about fortune-dependent types: they tend to think that they’re the only shrewd operators in the room. They can easily deceive others, but never be deceived.\nFor Niccolò, virtù can mean spiritedness, especially in battle. But the highest-quality virtù includes an aptitude for organization, industry, and far-sighted prudence. It further includes an unclouded knowledge of one’s own limits, the wisdom and self-discipline not to overreach them, and the ingenuity to use whatever opportunities and resources one has, however scarce they might be. Virtù doesn’t need good luck, or even much freedom, to work wonders. On the contrary, it is most admirable, even most effective, where there are obstacles to overcome.\nGive men secure work that allows them to feed their families and win public respect, in employments that are the nerve and life of the city, and they’ll become its stoutest defenders.\nthe knowledge that whatever defects you find in a particular set of men, or in human nature generally, well-designed laws and institutions can hold their defects in check and cultivate virtues you — and perhaps they — didn’t know they had.\nEveryone wants to be coddled and esteemed, so that is what someone who finds himself where you are has to do.\nA statesman needs to know when to use clemency and when severity.\nHe did not know, Machiavelli would later write, that one cannot wait for the time, goodness is not enough, fortune varies, and malignity does not find a gift that appeases it.\nThey committed one of the commonest, most devastating mistakes made in politics and war: when peoples do not know how to put limits to their hopes and measure their own capabilities, they are ruined. In this way, the insolence that victory or the false hope of victory arouses makes men lose the opportunity of having a certain good through hoping to have an uncertain better.\nA man’s mind, he muses in The Ass, can’t easily be turned against his nature or habits. Though his brain might warn him of the dangers in honest criticism, his nature forces him to see — and point out — human errors in hopes of correcting them. And in the present age so grudging and evil, one always sees bad more quickly than good.\nWe lie to each other and start believing our own lies. The ones who come out best are the noisiest babblers and flatterers. They spout platitudes and say nothing. For the herd and their herd-masters only hear what is easy to hear, what they think they already know, keep repeating the same badly reasoned blandness to flatter themselves and their herd-chiefs.\nFor it is not enough to say: ‘I do not care for anything; I do not desire honours or useful things; I wish to live quietly and without quarrel!’ These excuses won’t be believed if they come from a man notable for his quality, even when such men choose the quiet life truly and without any ambition.\nNeither money nor sheer numbers of men make strong armies, he tells his readers, but only people who are motivated to fight to the death. And they’ll be motivated only when they have a real stake in the government they’re expected to defend: when they can make a decent living, feel that they’re treated with public respect, perhaps even take part in politics.\nIn any city, ancient or modern, one finds an enmity between the great, whatever they call themselves — nobles, patricians, the rich — and the people. This arises because the great everywhere want to dominate, while the people want not to be dominated. The people’s desire is more reasonable than the desire of a few to dominate the many. It follows that governments that seek to satisfy the popular desire are firmer and last longer than those that let a few command the rest.\nMoreover, to cure the illness of excessive ambition among the people words are enough ; while for curing the prince’s, steel is needed.\nSo they should indeed never give up. They have always to hope and, since they hope, not to give up in whatever fortune and whatever travail they may find themselves.\nLook at the Germans and the Swiss: they live more simply than we do, and are free and well-armed. Our rich Italians live lavishly and aspire to live even more lavishly, but what freedom we have is constantly threatened by unrest from the poor.\nDon’t push your luck when you’re clutching at your last desperate hopes, compromise to cut your losses, save what you can; what you lose now you can recover later.\nI’ve had a letter from you that has given me the greatest pleasure. If God grants you and me life, I believe that I may make you a man of good standing, if you are willing to do your share. But you must study hard and take pains to learn letters and music — for you know how much distinction is given me for what little ability I possess. Thus, my son, if you want to please me and to bring profit and honour to yourself, study, do well, and learn, because everyone will help you if you help yourself.\nInstead of attacking Florence, imperial forces rapidly move to Rome. On 6 May, they sack the Holy City, the bloodiest attack in living memory, with famished German troops shouting, ‘Vivat Luther Papa!’ as they smash sacred relics and plunder houses, shops, banks.\n","date":"July 11, 2018","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-be-like-the-fox/","section":"Posts","summary":"His design ‘was to write for a tyrant those things that are pleasing to tyrants, bringing about in this way, if he could, the tyrant’s self-willed and swift downfall’.\n","title":"Highlights for Be Like the Fox","type":"posts"},{"content":"As you probably know, for every piece of subpar work you accept, for every missed deadline you let slip, you begin to feel resentment and then anger. You no longer just think the work is bad: you think the person is bad. This makes it harder to have an even-keeled conversation. You start to avoid talking to the person at all.\nThe only reason it was OK for me to talk to Jared that way was because of the relationship we’d formed over the years.\nThe point is, rather, that if you are someone who is most comfortable communicating in that way, you have to build relationships of trust that can support it, and you have to hire people who can adapt to your style.\nTwenty years ago, management skills were neither taught nor rewarded in Silicon Valley, but today its companies are obsessed with it.\nThey achieve these results not by doing all the work themselves but by guiding the people on their teams. Bosses guide a team to achieve results.\n“Radical Candor”is what happens when you put “Care Personally”and “Challenge Directly”together.\nMy humanity was an attribute, not a liability, to being effective.\nA good rule of thumb for any relationship is to leave three unimportant things unsaid each day.\nThe secret to winning, he said, is to point out to great players what they could have done better, even when they have just won a game.\nThey know they’ve done some things wrong, but they’re not sure what, exactly. Their direct reports never know where they stand, and they aren’t being given an opportunity to learn or grow; they often stall or get fired. Not such a great way to build a relationship.\nStart by getting feedback, in other words, not by dishing it out. Then when you do start giving it, start with praise, not criticism.\nWell, stop repressing your innate ability to care personally. Give a damn!\nGenerally, an ambition or a commitment outside of work enhances a person’s value to the team—that means you get, say, a great artist as your graphic designer, as long as you don’t insist that the artist get on the fast track at work.\nWhat I am saying is we all have periods in our lives when our professional growth speeds up or slows down. Recreation is essential for creation.\nKick-ass bosses never judge people doing great work as having “capped out.”Instead, they treat them with the honor that they are due and retain the individuals who will keep their team stable, cohesive, and productive.\nI once had a colleague who’d planned carefully so that when he had his first baby he was in a job that he’d mastered and thus could get home to be with his newborn.\nAllowing transfers is important because it prevents bosses from blackballing employees who want to move on, and allows for the fact that sometimes two people just don’t work that well together.\nIn many ways, your job as the boss is to set and uphold a quality bar. That can feel harsh in the short term, but in the long run the only thing that is meaner is lowering the bar.\nThe fact is that poor performers often create as much extra work for others as they accomplish themselves, because they leave parts of their job undone or do other parts sloppily or behave unprofessionally in ways that others must compensate for.\nWhen a highly successful person takes a job with a new company and the “fit”isn’t right, it can be painful for everyone. If neither the culture nor the individual can change, it’s best to part ways. You generally can’t fix a cultural-fit issue.\nThe truth is, people really do change. Somebody who’s been on a gradual growth trajectory may suddenly become restless and yearn for a new challenge at work. Or, a person who’s been on a steep growth trajectory for years may be craving a period of stability. This is another reason why you have to manage. Being a great boss involves constantly adjusting to the new reality of the day or week or year as it unfolds.\nToo many bosses think their role is to turn it off—to avoid all the friction by simply making a decision and sparing the team the pain of debate. It’s not. Debate takes time and requires emotional energy. But lack of debate saps a team of more time and emotional energy in the long run.\nThat is why kick-ass bosses often do not decide themselves, but rather create a clear decision-making process that empowers people closest to the facts to make as many decisions as possible. Not only does that result in better decisions, it results in better morale.\nThe essence of leadership is not getting overwhelmed by circumstances.\nThe time you spend at work can be an expression of who you are as a human being, an enormous enrichment to your life, and a boon to your friends and family.\nYou can guide your team to get results if you’ve built a trusting relationship with each person reporting to you, and there can only be real trust when people feel free at work. The first rule of building the kind of relationship with the people that will make them feel free at work is to relinquish unilateral authority.\nYou already spend a lot of hours every day with your colleagues and direct reports. Use that time to build relationships. For the most part, it’s better to use the time after work to keep yourself centered than to socialize with work colleagues.\nToo many managers fear that public challenge will undermine their authority. It’s natural to want to repress dissent, but a good reaction to public criticism can be the very thing that establishes your credibility as a strong leader, and will help you build a culture of guidance.\n“Is there anything I could do or stop doing that would make it easier to work with me?”\nDon’t let the fact that you can’t offer a solution make you reluctant to offer guidance. Think about times that guidance has been most helpful to you, and offer it in that spirit.\nSo let me reiterate: impromptu guidance really, truly is something you can squeeze in between meetings in three minutes or less. If you give it right away in between meetings, you will not only save yourself a subsequent meeting but also deliver the guidance in less time than it would take you to schedule the subsequent meeting. And the quality of your guidance will be much better.\nOften the reason why you’ll be tempted not to deliver guidance in person is that you are trying to avoid seeing the other person’s emotional reaction. This is natural. But the quality of your guidance will improve if you’re present for these feelings.\nOnce people got to know him well, they realized he wasn’t a jerk, he was just super intense; in fact, he cared as deeply about his colleagues as he did about the quality of the work they did together.\nPart of your job as a boss (and as a human being) is to acknowledge and deal with emotional responses, not to dismiss or avoid them.\nIf you find you cannot be Radically Candid with your boss, I recommend that you consider finding a new job with a new boss.\nAndy Grove had a mantra at Intel that we borrowed to describe leadership at Apple: Listen, Challenge, Commit. A strong leader has the humility to listen, the confidence to challenge, and the wisdom to know when to quit arguing and to get on board.\nWe must stop gender politics.\nAnd even if the ratings aren’t lower, selection for promotion and leadership roles depend heavily on “likeability.”\nThat wasted people’s time (a cardinal sin for a boss)\nIn these meetings, which need to happen only once a year to be effective, you will meet with the people who work for your direct reports, without your direct reports in the room, and ask what they could do or stop doing to be better bosses.\nThe more visible the change, the better. Review these changes in a follow-up to the skip level meeting, and encourage the team to tell you whether or not they made a difference. If people feel that no changes were made, or that the meeting didn’t make a difference, treat this very seriously.\nThe first conversation is designed to learn what motivates each person who reports directly to you.\nThe second conversation moves from understanding what motivates people to understanding the person’s dreams—what they want to achieve at the apex of their career, how they imagine life at its best to feel.\nOnce people were clear on what they wanted to learn next, it was much easier for managers to identify opportunities at work that would help them develop skills in the next six to eighteen months that would take them in the direction of at least one of their dreams.\nAll hiring is flawed and subjective, and these drawbacks cannot be fixed; they can only be managed.\nFiring people is not easy, either emotionally or legally. At companies where it’s too easy to fire people, bad/unfair firing decisions get made, with the result that even people who are great at their jobs start to get spooked. When people feel that kind of fear, they start to avoid taking risks. They learn less, they grow less, they innovate less, they become less than they could be.\nThe importance of the simplest things, like thank-yous, are most often forgotten by bosses—even good bosses.\nHere’s the agenda that I’ve found to be most effective:\nâ– Learn: review key metrics (twenty minutes)\nâ– Listen: put updates in a shared document (fifteen minutes)\nâ– Clarify: identify key decisions \u0026amp; debates (thirty minutes)\nMost people hate to be excluded from decisions relevant to them, but they hate attending meetings that are irrelevant to them even more. With a little transparency, it all sorts itself out.\nMeasuring activities and visualizing workflows will push you and your team to make sure you really understand how what you all do drives success—or doesn’t.\nNotice the things you don’t notice when you’re buried in work at your desk or racing, head down, from one meeting to the next. Ask people who catch your attention—ideally, people you haven’t talked to in a while—what they’re working on. Find some small problems and treat them like “the universe through a grain of sand.”\n","date":"June 25, 2018","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-radical-candor/","section":"Posts","summary":"As you probably know, for every piece of subpar work you accept, for every missed deadline you let slip, you begin to feel resentment and then anger. You no longer just think the work is bad: you think the person is bad. This makes it harder to have an even-keeled conversation. You start to avoid talking to the person at all.\n","title":"Highlights for Radical Candor","type":"posts"},{"content":"Incontestably, alas, most people are not, in action, worth very much; and yet, every human being is an unprecedented miracle. One tries to treat them as the miracles they are, while trying to protect oneself against the disasters they’ve become.\nI was not the same, but they were, as though they had been trapped, preserved, in that moment in time.\nThey should have known me better, or at least enough, to have known that I meant what I said. But the general reaction to famous people who hold difficult opinions is that they can’t really mean it. It’s considered, generally, to be merely an astute way of attracting public attention, a way of making oneself interesting: one marches in Montgomery, for example, merely (in my own case) to sell one’s books.\nThis means that one must accept one’s nakedness. And nakedness has no color: this can come as news only to those who have never covered, or been covered by, another naked human being.\nThis is the way people react to the loss of empire—for the loss of an empire also implies a radical revision of the individual identity—and I was to see this over and over again, not only in France.\nThus, the exploitation of the colony’s resources was done for the good of the natives; and so vocal could the French become as concerns what they had brought into their colonies that it would have been the height of bad manners to have asked what they had brought out.\nNot without warning, and not without precedent: but only poets, since they must excavate and recreate history, have ever learned anything from it.\nFor, intellectual activity, according to me, is, and must be, disinterested—the truth is a two-edged sword—and if one is not willing to be pierced by that sword, even to the extreme of dying on it, then all of one’s intellectual activity is a masturbatory delusion and a wicked and dangerous fraud.\nNevertheless, this learned, civilized, intellectual-liberal debate cheerfully raged in its vacuum, while every hour brought more distress and confusion—and dishonor—to the country they claimed to love.\nBut they had no right not to know that; if they did not know that, they knew nothing and had no right to speak as though they were responsible actors in their society;\nI may have been romantic about London—because of Charles Dickens—but the romance lasted for exactly as long as it took me to carry my bags out of Victoria Station.\nFour hundred years in the West had certainly turned me into a Westerner—there was no way around that. But four hundred years in the West had also failed to bleach me—there was no way around that, either\nIt is power, not justice, which keeps rearranging the map, and the Algerians were not fighting the French for justice (of which, indeed, they must have had their fill by that time) but for the power to determine their own destinies.\nOne may see that the history, which is now indivisible from oneself, has been full of errors and excesses; but this is not the same thing as seeing that, for millions of people, this history—oneself—has been nothing but an intolerable yoke, a stinking prison, a shrieking grave. It is not so easy to see that, for millions of people, life itself depends on the speediest possible demolition of this history, even if this means the leveling, or the destruction of its heirs.\nEverybody else was paying their dues, and it was time I went home and paid mine.\nI was old enough to recognize how deep and strangling were my fears, how manifold and mighty my limits: but no one can demand more of life than that life do him the honor to demand that he learn to live with his fears, and learn to live, every day, both within his limits and beyond them.\nBut I have always been struck, in America, by an emotional poverty so bottomless, and a terror of human life, of human touch, so deep, that virtually no American appears able to achieve any viable, organic connection between his public stance and his private life.\nIt was as though he were wrestling with the mighty fact that the danger in which he stood was as nothing compared to the spiritual horror which drove those who were trying to destroy him. They endangered him, but they doomed themselves.\nEvery Southern city seemed to me to have been but lately rescued from the swamps, which were patiently waiting to reclaim it. The people all seemed to remember their time under water, and to be both dreading and anticipating their return to that freedom from responsibility.\nEvery white face turned to stone: the arrival of the messenger of death could not have had a more devastating effect than the appearance in the restaurant doorway of a small, unarmed, utterly astounded black man. I had realized my error as soon as I opened the door: but the absolute terror on all these white faces—I swear that not a soul moved—paralyzed me. They stared at me, I stared at them.\nOne has only to remember that American investments cannot be considered safe wherever the population cannot be considered tractable; with this in mind, consider the American reaction to the Jew who boasts of sending arms to Israel, and the probable fate of an American black who wishes to stage a rally for the purpose of sending arms to black South Africa.\nForce does not work the way its advocates seem to think it does. It does not, for example, reveal to the victim the strength of his adversary. On the contrary, it reveals the weakness, even the panic of his adversary, and this revelation invests the victim with patience. Furthermore, it is ultimately fatal to create too many victims. The victor can do nothing with these victims, for they do not belong to him, but—to the victims.\nMalcolm considered himself to be the spiritual property of the people who produced him. He did not consider himself to be their saviour, he was far too modest for that, and gave that role to another; but he considered himself to be their servant and in order not to betray that trust, he was willing to die, and died.\nShe was far safer walking the streets alone than when walking with me—a brutal and humiliating fact which thoroughly destroyed whatever relationship this girl and I might have been able to achieve. This happens all the time in America, but Americans have yet to realize what a sinister fact this is, and what it says about them.\nI am astonished until today that I have both my eyes and most of my teeth and functioning kidneys and my sexual equipment: but small black boys have the advantage of being able to curl themselves into knots, and roll with the kicks and the punches.\nBut everything that might have charmed me merely reminded me of how many were excluded, how many were suffering and groaning and dying, not far from a paradise which was itself but another circle of hell\nIn the village, as in the ghetto, those who were not dangerous before the search-and-destroy operation assuredly become so afterward, for the inhabitants of the village, like the inhabitants of the ghetto, realize that they are identified, judged, menaced, murdered, solely because of the color of their skin.\nThe prison is overcrowded, the calendars full, the judges busy, the lawyers ambitious, and the cops zealous. What does it matter if someone gets trapped here for a year or two, gets ruined here, goes mad here, commits murder or suicide here? It’s too bad, but that’s the way the cookie crumbles sometimes.\nBilly spoke the truth, but it’s hard to shame the devil.\nWhite America remains unable to believe that black America’s grievances are real; they are unable to believe this because they cannot face what this fact says about themselves and their country; and the effect of this massive and hostile incomprehension is to increase the danger in which all black people live here, especially the young.\nThis unhappy failing will prove to be especially aggravated in the case of the American rulers, who have never heard of history and who have never read it, who do not know what the passion of a people can withstand or what it can accomplish, or how fatal is the moment, for the kingdom, when the passion is driven underground.\nTo study the economic structure of this country, to know which hands control the wealth, and to which end, seems an academic exercise—and yet it is necessary, all of it is necessary, for discipline, for knowledge, and for power.\nI know what I would do if I had a gun and someone had a gun pointed at my brother, and I would not count ten to do it and there would be no hatred in it, nor any remorse. People who treat other people as less than human must not be surprised when the bread they have cast on the waters comes floating back to them, poisoned.\n","date":"June 7, 2018","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-no-name-in-the-street/","section":"Posts","summary":"Incontestably, alas, most people are not, in action, worth very much; and yet, every human being is an unprecedented miracle. One tries to treat them as the miracles they are, while trying to protect oneself against the disasters they’ve become.\n","title":"Highlights for No Name in the Street","type":"posts"},{"content":"Angela Nagle’s appalling Kill All Normies, which takes the jaw-droppingly foolish methodology of simply reporting all of the alt-right’s self-justifications as self-evident truths so as to conclude that the real reason neo-nazis have been sweeping into power is because we’re too tolerant of trans people.\nThis brings us to our second relatively uninteresting question, which is what to do about the alt-right. In this case the answer is even easier and more obvious than the first: you smash their bases of power, with violent resistance if necessary. If you want a more general solution that also takes care of the factors that led to a bunch of idiot racists being emboldened in the first place you drag all the billionaires out of their houses and put their heads on spikes.\nThe lethal meme, known as Roko’s Basilisk, used the peculiarities of Yudkowskian thought to posit a future AI that would condemn to eternal torture everyone from the present who had ever imagined it if they subsequently failed to do whatever they could to bring about its existence.\nI want to be clear, with all possible sincerity, that I love the braggadocio here. I want what he is selling. Yes, Mencius, savagely tear away the veil of lies with which I cope with the abject horror that is reality and reveal to me the awful, agonizing truth of being. Give me the red pill. The problem is, once we get our golf ball-sized reality distortion pill home, put on some Laibach, and settle in for an epic bout of Thanatosian psychedelia, we discover the unfortunate truth: we’re actually just huffing paint in an unhygienic gas station bathroom. Jesus, this isn’t even bat country.\nBy “crap,”of course, I do not mean “wrong.”Rather, I mean obvious, in the sense of sounding like the guy at the bar watching the news (probably Fox) and muttering about how “they’re all a bunch of crooks.”Liberal democracy a hopelessly inadequate and doomed system preserved by a system of continual indoctrination? You don’t say.\nAnd this really is stunningly weird in the context of all his red pill rhetoric about the corrupt horrors of liberal democracy. Because while there are a great many obvious critiques of contemporary society, “there’s just not enough respect for profit”really doesn’t feel like one of them.\nWith this, we have a genuinely tricky moment, simply because of the sheer and unbridled number of unexamined assumptions going on here.\nBut all the same, if you’re going to talk about suppressed ideologies that oppose the interests of entrenched power, you’ve really got to talk about the original red pill: Marxism.\nIt is tempting to suggest that Moldbug is a failed Marxist in the sense that Jupiter is a failed star, its mass falling tantalizingly short of the tipping point whereby nuclear fusion begins. Over and over again, Moldbug asks questions much like those that Marx asked, and his answers begin with many of the same initial observations. But inevitably, a few steps in, he makes some ridiculously broad generalization or fails to consider some obvious alternative possibility, and the train of thought fizzles into characteristic idiocy.\nThis sort of “the world can be saved if only everyone listens to me”narcissism belongs in the genre of fiction, where it can accomplish something, and not in the visionary manifesto, where it only reveals its own impotence.\nThat is not to say they can get away with being wrong, at least not straightforwardly so, but it is to reiterate that the key problem with Moldbug, Yudkowsky, and Land is that they are in key regards uninteresting—that they offer dull and unsatisfying answers to their most compelling questions, of which “hang out with a bunch of racist nerdbros”is merely the worst.\nTerence McKenna’s suggestion that DMT is an alien intelligence’s attempt to communicate directly with the human brain\nThat’s the whole point of the right to exit—a final and decisive rescue of individual liberty at all costs. But exiting requires that people stay behind; if we all go, we’ll just have to storm out again. The entire point of the project is to separate the wheat from the chaff.\nHe posits that in this situation the “absolute limit to our ability to adequately understand the world at all”becomes increasingly relevant, and observes that this is a frequent theme of both philosophy and horror.\nThe truth is that, despite Land’s evident fascination with them, the bulk of neoreactionaries are not people one would want to have a beer with, and there’s not a great case for reading their books either.\nYudkowsky isn’t just running from error; he’s running from the idea of authority. The real horror of the Basilisk is that the AI at the end of the universe is just another third grade teacher who doesn’t care if you understand the material, just if you apply the rote method being taught.\nHauntology comes from within us; the Weird from outside.\nThe red pill, pwnage, and for that matter the horror reading, monstrous offspring, and Satanic inversions all follow the same basic pattern—a sort of conceptual infiltration of someone’s thought in which their own methods and systems are used against them.\nIt is, after all, the great one-liner critique of Mencius Moldbug: he’s exactly what you’d expect to happen if you asked a software engineer to redesign political philosophy. And crucially, Moldbug basically agrees with it—he just also genuinely believes that the Silicon Valley “disruptor”crowd would be capable of running the world with no problems if only people would let them.\nWhich is to say, Satan opens by negging Eve, accusing her of looking at him “with disdain, Displeas’d that I approach thee thus, and gaze Insatiate, I thus single, nor have feard Thy awful brow,”112 which may be the earliest instance of telling someone they have resting bitch face.\nIn the face of an ecologically brutal planet, the guys with guns and tribal loyalties are a depressingly compelling bet to stick around.\nWith Moldbug the sense is overwhelmingly that empathy just never crossed his mind as something to factor into his design. He flat out didn’t think of it. Yudkowsky, on the other hand, thinks about it a lot and cares very deeply about it; he’s just incompetent at it.\nThe result of this approach is that Yudkowsky, without really meaning to, tends to look at everyone else in the world as inefficient Eliezer Yudkowskys instead of people as such.\nMoldbug, Yudkowsky, and Land don’t just “do poorly”with empathy—they represent the most visible and explicit edge of a Cathedral-scaled system of values that casts the desire to listen and try to understand people who are different from you as anathema to reason itself.\nThis forces us to consider white culture as a set of perpetual ruins—as something that has always been lost, and that can only be apprehended as a tenuous and incomplete reconstruction.\nNo, what’s really notable here is Moldbug’s doe-eyed certainty that such a thing as an absolute truth service could be built; that there is a general plan of action so self-evidently compelling that if he only expressed it properly everyone would immediately flock to his side. In short, after thousands of words railing against the Cathedral for secretly being a religion, he’s accidentally reinvented religion. And then lost the holy text. You couldn’t parody it better.\nThey have that marvelous feature of the best gods: perfectly answering a question you didn’t know you had.\nAnd a few, such as Ahania, are genuinely breathtaking in their scope: a pleasure goddess representing intellectual curiosity who is bound in a Persephone-like structure of death and rebirth is a metaphysical/literary construct to rival Milton’s Satan, and one Blake barely scratches the surface of.\nAnd it’s hard not to suggest that the world would be a better place if Yudkowsky had stuck to children’s literature for adult geeks as opposed to starting a weird AI cult that derails efforts to curtail malaria.\nAnd while Gamergate usually doesn’t have a product to sell in quite the same literal way, it’s worth noting how, for instance, two doors down from them is someone like Stefan Molyneux, whose output amounts to 30-60 minute PowerPoint presentations consisting of a by-now familiar sort of low-content dissembling, and whose business endgame is literally a cult.\nThe Gamergate narrative has always required a vast quasi-conspiracy to function, some story whereby feminists or SJWs or cultural Marxists exercise near-complete control over video games and video game journalism.\nNot even a monoculture then—an anticulture, with Vivian James ironically its perfect representation. It’s a desire to befit their worldview, its adamance dwarfed only by its fundamental emptiness. There’s nothing there. There’s never been anything there.\nAnd Gamergate as a whole is scarcely better. It’s always been notable for its near-complete lack of actual discussion of videogames.\nMore interesting is where his basic inclination towards racial stereotyping originates from: the material realities of New York real estate, its patterns of historical ethnic migrations geologically stratified across the city’s expansion.\nHe might have had a name. But then he literally built a six-hundred-and-sixty-six foot tower to which he offered up that name, sacrificing it upon its black altar such that the building became a titanic sigil of the sixteenth Major Arcana of the Tarot of the Golden Dawn, symbolizing destruction and ruin, with only the remnants of the man whose name it ate living within the rotting heart of its penthouse.\nHe sold his name, yes, but what did he get out of the deal? The answer, simply put, is what he would hereafter treat as his most valuable asset: his brand. In short, he became a creature of pure image.\nBut it also includes the raw allostatic load of living under his rule; the basic psychological wear and tear of waking up every morning in a post-fact world dominated by a bullying narcissist. The act of living in a world where the basic validity of your identity is contingent and perpetually imperiled, where the very definition of “fact”is in dispute, and where a brutish logic of dominance and humiliation pervades the entire social order.\nIndividuals can act all they want. They won’t make the end of the world go away, any more than their freedom to quit work can make them free to not starve\nIt helps that one can be against today’s racist wars—though not on the grounds of anti-racism, except of the most specious variety—while quietly accepting and utilising the racial inequities inherited from the racist imperialism of the past. As usual, reactionary thinking is dependant upon amnesia.\nIt admits that value is a mental construct, but one that is ‘real’ because it has a real social basis and real social effects. Value, for Marx, is neither a thing nor an essence, neither quality nor spirit. It is a social reality because of what humans actually do.\nTheoretically detached from the objective and the material, and connected to business as a client, mainstream economics has become—to a large extent—an ideological discourse.\nThis is how Moldbug and Thiel’s view that democracy is incompatible with liberty arises. A democracy is a society in which the mass of the population—who are, by definition, mostly without property—can shape policy so that it curtails the freedom of the propertied to make their choices. In a free society—by their definition—the capitalists get to make their choices unfettered.\nFor the Austrians, democracy is to blame for capitalism going into crisis. Democracy breeds special claims by people who are not really concerned with making the choices that regulate the economy. The people without a big stake—the masses—thus destabilise the system.\nThis is the so-called Austrian ‘Business Cycle.’ Boiled right down: crashes and recessions happen because central banks set interest rates too low. Easy credit results, which screws up market signals. Loaners go crazy. Bubbles inflate and burst. Such lopsided production can only be remedied via letting interest rates rise to their ‘natural’ rate. In other words, the Austrian prescription is: let the crisis rip. It will be harsher but quicker. The only cure for god’s wrath is to wait for the plague to exhaust itself.\nOpposition to democracy is entailed by the Austrian view of how capitalism works. Democracy is the rule of the ignorant and selfish public, and the state is their tyrannical arm. Moronic majoritarianism wields unjustifiable power over the propertied and the entrepreneurs who are, for Hayek for instance, almost promethean artists in their special sensitivity and understanding.\nThe logically consequent idea that emergency dictatorship may be necessary to preserve liberal society from democracy is in neoliberalism’s source code. Neoliberalism, contrary to myth, is an authoritarian ideology, committed to defending property and wealth by violence both physical and structural.\nThe leaders of Rothbard’s revolution would be the libertarians and the minarchists. The troops would be the masses, spurred to fight the elites. And the spurring would take the form of appeals to racism.\nThe disproportionate number of former-libertarians in American fascism is revealing because conservatives are far more numerous in America than libertarians, which suggests that libertarianism is statistically over-represented.\nThe Cultural Marxism conspiracy theory now espoused across the alt-right is a reiteration of what the (actual) Nazis called kulturbolschewismus, an idea central to Nazi dogma, about degenerate art and culture being manufactured by Jewish communists to undermine the unity of the German people. The resurrection and repackaging of this idea across a movement soaked in libertarianism is not surprising, because antagonism to socialism goes right back to the dawn of libertarianism, to the Austrian School’s foundational and self-chosen role as the intellectual foe of Marx.\nPeople might not necessarily formulate their objections to the content of newspapers that way, but they’re nevertheless absenting themselves from daily exposure to one of the main means by which the ruling class produce ideology and public consent. This is at least as big a concern to the people running the media as the need to claw back profits.\nIn all of these cases, the strategy is to play on insecurities of young men in an age where there are mounting ideological challenges out there—especially on the Internet—to their untroubled social privilege. Coupled with the twin legacies of decades of neoliberalism—increasing ideological and political disorientation, and a future far less secure than that which faced their parents and grandparents at their age—such challenges can terrify the semi-privileged layer of young, white, middle class men, who enjoy all those privileges without also enjoying actual material security.\nReactionary politics once again takes advantage of having a wide batrachian mouth, both sides of which may be used for talking.\nThe reason actions don’t lead inevitably to goals isn’t because there are complex material structures of oppression that heavily shape people’s lives, but because we exist in linear time. Not only does Rothbard not connect time to what dominates it for most people in capitalist society—work—but hilariously, he doesn’t even bother connecting time to its ultimate horror and constraint, death.\nTo quote the monster directly: “Milton produced Paradise Lost in the way that a silkworm produces silk, as the expression of his own nature.”Marx would like all labour to be like that, and sees no fundamental reason why it shouldn’t.\nIt’s pretty clear that the Austrian School doesn’t even remotely care about this fact, but it doesn’t inherently contradict anything they say. But that is, in the end, the point, and one I’ve made before: they don’t care. That’s clear, in a sense, all the way back in the basic axiom, with its active foregrounding of the heroic individual acting upon the world, as opposed to the state of affairs that most actual people experience, which is mostly being buffeted around by various external forces, whether they be governments, history, or the class system. Indeed, “individual human beings are acted upon”would be every bit as justifiable an axiom as “individual human beings act,”if not moreso.\nThey have been hugging Marxism on the brink of the Reichenbach Falls for a century and a half, staring into its eyes, but have never really seen it.\nMises’ only invocation of courage is in the context of statesmen standing up to labor unions. Decency only comes up in the context of “laws of morality and decency.”And his sole mention of kindness is a complete and grotesque misunderstanding of the very concept as he declares that “the indigent has no claim to the kindness shown to him,”as if being unearned isn’t the entire fucking point of kindness. It is a conception of human action without a shred of concern for empathy — human action devoid of all humanity.\nBut the real reason for this is that, more than anyone else, Marx provided an alternative to the charade on which their entire philosophical edifice was constructed. He showed the need for the destruction of that which, to them, gives the world meaning—and a method by which it might be achieved.\nGiven that no small number of conspiracy theories are, in point of fact, anti-Semitic, any attempt to uncritically synthesize them will be as well.\nIcke’s theory is much the same way. We know wealthy elites control our minds. Knowing they’re lizards (or, for that matter, Jews) doesn’t actually change anything. It is, to borrow a phrase, malignantly useless knowledge.\nNot only does nothing follow from Icke’s conclusions, nothing follows within the argument itself. Icke does not so much lay out a case for the lizard people as blunder among vague associations, hoping that the aggregate of a bunch of extremely tenuous connections will somehow be persuasive instead of a discombobulated mess of shoddy research and sloppy reasoning.\nThe history of the world consists of a lot of wealthy assholes sleeping with each other and killing people. Changing up which assholes slept with and killed who doesn’t actually make much of a difference.\nRidiculous arguments, especially ones that recognize their absurdity, are capable of revealing things that do not follow obviously, if at all, from self-consciously serious approaches, but that are nevertheless true and valuable realizations.\nSo is his inclination to be skeptical of the “official”version of history. The value of this, to be clear, is not simply skepticism for its own sake (an approach that is just as likely to lead to things like climate change denial or creationism as it is to some productive insight), but rather the realization that, as the saying goes, history is written by the victors, and the standard version of history is inevitably the one that most flatters those in power.\nIt is not entirely clear why monstrous truth must take reptilian form, but just as the weird turns instinctively to tentacles and the hauntological inevitably drifts towards skulls, for some reason awful truth must take the form of a reptile, whether a petrifying basilisk or just a bunch of pan-dimensional aliens.\nThis is a leftist book, and so must engage in a circular firing squad at least once.\nThis set a pattern whereby trans rights were repeatedly employed by the gay rights movement as a bargaining chip—as the thing they were pointedly willing to sell out in the name of compromise, as they spectacularly did when lobbying for the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which excluded trans people in every version that was brought to Congress prior to 2009.\nThiel’s vision of corporate success is blatantly just the Moldbug/Land vision of how authoritarian capitalism will save us from the Great Filter.\nRather, it’s that once you’re willing to question the basic fact of Thiel’s competence it rapidly becomes apparent that the only actual evidence for this competence is that he has a lot of money.\nAnd his fascination with seasteading numbers him among the litany of people interested in micronations, which is such a rich vein of complete crackpottery that I’d hate to deprive you of the pleasure of Googling it. This borders on the investment portfolio you’d get if you gave David Icke several billion dollars.\nWho would craft such a thing as the alt-right? Only a fucking idiot. What other answer were we possibly going to find? It’s been idiots all the way down. And so of course even its billionaire supervillains bankrolling world-conquering AIs, vampiric life extension, and Donald Trump are idiots. This borders on “A is A.”And yet for all its obviousness, it captures what is perhaps the key realization about the alt-right—one that’s been implicit through much of this book, but is worth making explicit as we come to a close: they’re stupid.\nI do not suggest this to diminish their horror. Far from it: the essential horror of the abyss is stupidity. That’s why it’s an abyss. The unique and exquisite danger of stupidity is that by its nature, it is beyond reason. There is nothing that can be said to it, because by definition it wouldn’t understand. It is an ur-basilisk—the one terrifying possibility that haunts every single argument that has ever been made. It is a move without response, playing by no rules other than its own, which do not generally include any obligation towards consistency. It is, in its way, the only approach that can never lose an argument. And in the alt-right and its affiliates we have one of the most staggeringly vast nexuses of raw stupidity the world has ever crafted.\n","date":"May 31, 2018","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-neoreaction-a-basilisk/","section":"Posts","summary":"Angela Nagle’s appalling Kill All Normies, which takes the jaw-droppingly foolish methodology of simply reporting all of the alt-right’s self-justifications as self-evident truths so as to conclude that the real reason neo-nazis have been sweeping into power is because we’re too tolerant of trans people.\n","title":"Highlights for Neoreaction a Basilisk","type":"posts"},{"content":"I got around to visiting the Parklets in the Bergmannstraße. That is a plural because there are two of them during this pilot and that’s it.\nAs far as quality and usage goes I don’t think there is anything to complain about. The benches look and feel nice and they are being used by the tons of people passing through this street. It is nice to have some extra seating here that is non-commercial.\nThe only issue is that the rest of the street (especially the traffic situation on the thoroughfare) is still terrible. After having seen the botched project in the Maaßenstraße 1 local government is afraid to do much of anything, let alone give this street and neighborhood the overhaul they so desperately need.\nMaybe they are right to not do anything. Public works in Berlin have the tendency to not work out. If you already know that you are going to screw it up, you might as well keep your hands off it. But there are lots of new people in Berlin who demand better and in many cases are also willing and able to do it themselves. Let’s see how long the government can resist that pressure.\nThat Begegnungszone is not an utter failure. It has reduced the average speed of cars driving through the street mostly by preventing them from holding drag races at night. Still it is ugly enough to be scary.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"May 24, 2018","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/parklets-bergmannstrase/","section":"Posts","summary":"I got around to visiting the Parklets in the Bergmannstraße. That is a plural because there are two of them during this pilot and that’s it.\n","title":"Parklets Bergmannstraße","type":"posts"},{"content":"A couple of weeks ago I took the train to Hamburg and back to present at the Good School. Here\u0026rsquo;s a picture of me in action courtesy of The Good School.\n","date":"May 18, 2018","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/presenting-at-the-good-school/","section":"Posts","summary":"A couple of weeks ago I took the train to Hamburg and back to present at the Good School. Here’s a picture of me in action courtesy of The Good School.\n","title":"Presenting at the Good School","type":"posts"},{"content":"I dropped by the UIKonf unconference yesterday and gave a quick code/architecture talk. Normally I do mostly design/strategy type talks which are a lot more handwavy, so this felt a bit out of my water.\nBesides actual code I threw in some talk about impostor syndrome, the value of cleaning and maintenance, gradualism as defined by parkour and Christopher Alexander\u0026rsquo;s “A Pattern Language”.\nI think there is a lot of value in getting more different perspectives into the standard programming talk. I have seen enough engineering talks by now and many of them suffer from a lack of diversity.\n","date":"May 17, 2018","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/uikonf-unconference-gradual-coordinators/","section":"Posts","summary":"I dropped by the UIKonf unconference yesterday and gave a quick code/architecture talk. Normally I do mostly design/strategy type talks which are a lot more handwavy, so this felt a bit out of my water.\n","title":"UIKonf Unconference: Gradual Coordinators","type":"posts"},{"content":"This is a simple story, but it spooks me, insofar as it reminds me that the eye is simply a recorder, with or without our will. Perhaps the same could be said of the heart. But whether there is a violence at work here remains undecided.\nLast night I wept in a way I haven’t wept for some time. I wept until I aged myself. I watched it happen in the mirror. I watched the lines arrive around my eyes like engraved sunbursts; it was like watching flowers open in time-lapse on a windowsill.\nThe only exception was Holland, which, for inscrutable reasons, wanted a murky, rainbow-hued abstraction.\nJoan Mitchell, for one, customarily chose her pigments for their intensity rather than their durability—a choice that, as many painters know, can in time bring one’s paintings into a sorry state of decay. (Is writing spared this phenomenon?)\nBut I am inclined to think that anyone who thinks or talks this way has simply never felt the pulsing of a pussy in serious need of fucking—a pulsing that communicates nothing less than the suckings and ejaculations of the heart.\nI will admit, however, upon considering the matter further, that writing does do something to one’s memory—that at times it can have the effect of an album of childhood photographs, in which each image replaces the memory it aimed to preserve.\nBut if writing does displace the idea—if it extrudes it, as it were, like grinding a lump of wet clay through a hole—where does the excess go? “We don’t want to pollute our world with leftover egos”(Chögyam Trungpa).\nI have heard that this pain can be converted, as it were, by accepting “the fundamental impermanence of all things.”This acceptance bewilders me: sometimes it seems an act of will; at others, of surrender.\nThe tepid “there must be a reason for it”notion sometimes floated by religious or quasi-religious acquaintances or bystanders, is, to her, another form of violence.\nLikewise, I can say that seeing it has made me a believer, though I cannot say what, or in what, exactly, I have come to believe.\nAs her witness, I can testify to no reason, no lesson. But I can say this: in watching her, sitting with her, helping her, weeping with her, touching her, and talking with her, I have seen the bright pith of her soul. I cannot tell you what it looks like, exactly, but I can say that I have seen it.\n","date":"May 12, 2018","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-bluets/","section":"Posts","summary":"This is a simple story, but it spooks me, insofar as it reminds me that the eye is simply a recorder, with or without our will. Perhaps the same could be said of the heart. But whether there is a violence at work here remains undecided.\n","title":"Highlights for Bluets","type":"posts"},{"content":"One cannot chart a course of social action without understanding the world in which one lives, works, and struggles.\nThe rise of a system of global supply chains, with their multilayered set of factories, vendors, and transport links, has created a world system in which legal ownership of the forces of production have been divorced from operational control. This shift has generated a system in which accountability for labor conditions is legally diffused and knowledge of the actual producers is far from transparent.\nLike the global retailers of our time, they favored free trade, a weak regulatory state, transnational production, and cheap, if not unfree, labor.\nMost auto industry foremen took home wages about 25 percent higher than the men they supervised. More important, their paycheck was a good deal more predictable because managers sought to keep a core of experienced men employed even during large layoffs. Such employment stability enabled foremen to purchase solid houses in the better working-class neighborhoods and maintain a standard of living that approached that of the lower middle class.\nFreemasonry stood for brotherhood and respectability and propagated a creed of sober self-improvement, conventional morality, and class harmony.\nHowever, on a deeper social and psychological level, the foremen’s union orientation proved a tribute to the ability of a newly mobilized working class to sweep into its orbit whole social strata that in more socially quiescent times might have opposed it.\nThe Reuther plan nevertheless cast a long shadow, for it contained hallmarks of the strategic approach that was so characteristic of labor-liberalism in the 1940s: an assault on management’s traditional power made in the name of economic efficiency and the public interest, and an effort to shift power relations within the structure of industry and politics, usually by means of a tripartite governmental entity empowered to plan for whole sections of the economy.\nIts vision and its power attracted a species of political animal that is hardly existent today: the “labor-liberal,”who saw organized labor as absolutely central to the successful pursuit of his or her political agenda.\nThe fight for collective bargaining, they argued, had to remain secondary to the more important goal of racial betterment, which could only be achieved by “good will, friendly understanding, and mutual respect and co-operation between the races.”\nOthers rejected the influence of people who “have always told us what the white people want, but somehow or other are particularly silent on what we want.”“\nThe union hall, only a few blocks from the Reynolds Building, housed a constant round of meetings, plays, and musical entertainments, as well as classes in labor history, black history, and current events.\nThe activists encouraged the city’s blacks to participate in electoral politics. “Politics IS food, clothes, and housing,”declared the committee that registered some seven hundred new black voters in the months before the 1944 elections.\nWith almost one hundred thousand black workers organized in the Detroit area, black union activists played a central role in the civil rights struggle.\nSoon after the war, the company began a mechanization campaign that eliminated several predominantly black departments.\nBut most historians came to see the world of working-class politics as a venue in which a genuinely progressive, multiracial ethos had the best chance to realize itself. This was because the unions, for all their imperfections, were sites of racial empowerment, sometimes within a genuinely integrated context, but perhaps even more as political entities in which black caucuses and factions could emerge in an organic fashion, as they did in unions representing workers in the steel, packinghouse, auto, shipbuilding, and railroad industries in years that long preceded the 1960s.\nThe responsibilities and expectations of American citizenship—due process, free speech, the right of assembly and petition—would now find their place in factory, mill, and office. A civil society would be constructed within the very womb of the privately held enterprise.\nDuring those dramatic years in the early 1960s, when demonstrations and marches led by Martin Luther King and other militants pushed civil rights to the top of the social agenda, the entire discourse of American liberalism shifted decisively out of the New Deal—labor orbit and into a world in which the racial divide colored all politics.\nFrom the early 1960s onward, the most legitimate, and in many instances the most potent, defense of American job rights would be found not through collective initiative, as codified in the Wagner Act and advanced by the trade unions, but through an individual’s claim to his or her civil rights based on race, gender, age, or other attribute.\nThat’s true, because this recent advance in social legislation arises not out of the potency of the American labor left, which has been in retreat, but relies instead on the enormous political legitimacy amassed by the civil rights movement and its many rights-conscious heirs.\nThis is because solidarity is not just a song or a sentiment but requires a measure of coercion that can enforce the social bond when not all members of the organization—or the picket line—are in full agreement. Unions are combat organizations, and solidarity is not just another word for majority rule, especially when their existence is at stake. Thus, in recent decades, employer antiunionism has become increasingly oriented toward the ostensible protection of the individual rights of workers as against undemocratic unions and restrictive contracts that hamper the free choice of employees.\nAs anti-sweatshop and human rights advocates are now rediscovering, no consistent regulation is really possible without hearing from the workers themselves, and their voices will remain silent unless they have some institution that protects them from the consequences of speaking up.\nThus, the same species of rights-conscious liberalism that abolished racial segregation, ended McCarthyism, and legalized women’s rights has also undermined the legal basis of union power and turned solidarity into a quaint and antique notion.\nRights consciousness therefore transfers authority into the hands of another body—a court, a panel, a government agency—to sort out the various claims and strike the approximate balance. Justice may be served for a particular individual, or even an entire class, but not always through a system of participatory debate and democratic decision making.\nIn the United States workers have used the new workers rights that emerged out of the civil rights movement to democratize gender and racial hierarchies, only to see their real security and opportunities undermined by the dramatic transformation of a working environment over which they have had little control.\nFirst, the unions must themselves champion the rights impulse so that it does not become the presumptive property of the corporations, the free marketers, or even the human rights NGOs. To flourish again trade unionism does require civil rights and human rights and their vigorous enforcement in every global workplace.\nLike the socialists of Europe and the industrial democrats of New Deal America, trade unionism requires a transformative vision to sustain its moral and institutional existence, to link individual rights and social purpose.\nLike many other American progressives, both were enthusiasts for Mussolini-style corporatism. Fascism’s appeal to such liberals was found in its experimental nature, its antidogmatic temper, and its moral élan.\nThe 1935 Wagner Act did offer as its key rationale the establishment of industrial peace, but only after providing guarantees that genuinely independent trade unions had the power and solidarity to meet with their capitalist adversaries on a terrain that gave to labor the economic and political power necessary to cut a negotiated bargain.\nIn a pattern that really did have a fascist character, Southern elites had long figured out how to mobilize a big slice of the white working class in the interest of a reactionary and violently oppressive racial order. Thus the bitter resistance to the civil rights movement and to the implementation of school desegregation, which reached its apogee in the 1950s, was just the most overt manifestation of the reactionary manipulation of popular white sentiment—a sentiment that had first become apparent when Southern elites confronted New Deal statutes covering crop allotments, minimum wages, welfare payments, worker rights, and voting procedures.\nIn many of these authoritarian states, opposition movements that were defeated in 1968 reemerged a decade or more later, providing the leadership and a good deal of the spirit for the “velvet revolutions”that brought down the Eastern European regimes in 1989.\nMark Lilla has reminded us,\nThere was a tension between what capitalist society required of its citizens as producers and the habits it fostered in them as consumers. This contradiction, Bell wrote, would leave advanced capitalist societies without the moral basis they needed for continued prosperity and cohesion.\nAll revolutions, successful or not, link a transformation of the cultural and ideological terrain with a shift in power and governance.\nThere were culture wars in the 1930s as well as in later decades; one reason FDR was such a polarizing figure was that he embodied in his administration and in his persona the “class treason”that was so hateful to a generation of Yankee conservatives who had been the natural arbitrators of power and taste for so many decades.\nThe longest-standing argument against public sector unionism rests on the idea that such collective bargaining by workers in the public sector undercuts the sovereignty of government. The second idea is that public sector unionism makes government too expensive and sets a standard that private industry cannot meet. And the third conservative argument, which reflects the rise in recent years of an intense hostility to the very idea of a welfare state, asserts that public sector unions are bad not because they undermine the sovereignty of the state, but because they sustain it, especially insofar as the state, at either the local or national levels, creates a set of public goods, like education, infrastructure, health care, and even public safety, that conservatives seek to either abolish or privatize.\nTrade unions oppose the fragmentation of the public school system, they fight the privatization of municipal services, they sustain the Democratic Party, and they politicize and mobilize voters who would otherwise remain alienated and voiceless.\n“Many of the new research people,”he wrote in 1946, probably indicating his own feelings, “are disaffected and morally unhappy: they will their minds to people they don’t like for purposes they don’t feel at one with . . . What some of them really want is to connect their skill and intelligence to a movement in which they can believe; they are ready to give a lot of energy to an organization that would harness these skills in the service of the left. And the left to most of them means labor.”\nMills responded, “By intellectual here we mean humanitarian socialist. What the hell else? So I’ll say so in some innocent, hard-boiled way.”\nThe phrase “political publics”is important to this typology and in Mills’s mind is quite distinct from the more passive, uninformed “public opinion.”The political publics are more self-conscious, more politically alert communities either of ideology or interest that bring to bear a particular sensibility to the issues of the day. They formulate the ideas and programs that operate on the consciousness of the passive, atomized mass.\nNot if “the power and the intellect”are united. And that is why Mills found trade union leaders to be “the strategic elite in American society,”even as he also warned on the very last page, “Never has so much depended upon men who are so ill-prepared and so little inclined to assume the responsibility.”\nTrade unions are hybrid institutions—half monopoly seller of labor, half nascent social movement—and their leadership is just as mixed, though not always in the same personage: “an army general and a parliamentary debater, a political boss and an entrepreneur, a rebel and a disciplinarian.”\nHere they defended the wildcat strikes that periodically erupted, pushed for a labor party, and attacked those in the labor movement, such as the Communists, who subordinated working-class aspirations for a better life and a more democratic workplace to the foreign policy interests of one of the big powers.\nDespite high levels of consumption, unionization, and political complacency, Swados would later write, “there is one thing that the worker doesn’t do like the middle-class: he works like a worker.”\nConfronted with the financial and political strength of the most powerful American corporations, the UAW tempered its fight against job dissatisfaction, unemployment, and racial discrimination.\nAs early as 1945 and 1946 the Communists were overwhelmingly defeated in Western Zone trade union elections by those who remembered the disastrous role played by the Reds during the immediate pre—Nazi era (the Communist slogan then was “After Hitler Us!”).\nThus Lovestone helped erect the ideological Iron Curtain that walled off the unions from an entire generation of New Left activists and civil rights militants whose energy and talent was essential to the health of a truly “free”labor movement.\nSome were now union officers and staffers: their resistance, equivocation, and hypocrisy fueled Herbert Hill’s outrage for the rest of his life. Nothing infuriated him more than the complicacy, condescension, presumption, and outright racism that he found in the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU). In 1960 the ILGWU still traded on its socialist roots, its pioneering role in the New Deal, and in some circles its Jewish and Italian communitarianism. Yet anyone who bothered to look could also see that a stratum of aging Jewish liberals was presiding over a trade union that systematically excluded African Americans and Puerto Ricans from advancement in both the shop and the union hierarchy.\nHill wrote that she “denies the record of union racism in order to sanitize labor history,”along with many other labor historians who “find it necessary to minimize or deny racism in the labor movement because its existence conflicts with the useable past that they are constructing as labor history.”\nHill condemned what he called the “revived populist neo-Marxism that advanced the ideology of working class consciousness and solidarity against the social realties of race.”And as he put it in his critique of Gutman’s study of the late nineteenth-century United Mine Workers, “The attempt to dissolve race in class thus emerged in the ‘New Labor History’ as a modern version of the old socialist dream: that the class struggle, joined by united workers, would in time resolve the persistent and ideologically vexing issue of race by rendering it irrelevant.”\nOrganized labor is embattled, and not just at the bargaining table, but in a fundamentally ideological way that calls its very existence into question. In this context, academic intellectuals play a vital role as defenders, legitimizers, and even spokespeople for a movement that no longer quite knows how to explain itself to a larger public.\n","date":"May 12, 2018","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-a-contest-of-ideas/","section":"Posts","summary":"One cannot chart a course of social action without understanding the world in which one lives, works, and struggles.\n","title":"Highlights for A Contest of Ideas","type":"posts"},{"content":"To speak thus is to use the aesthetic as an anesthetic.\nWe would be unable to cope with modernity unless we had a few pockets of place in which to store our hope.\nRendering is technically what visual- and sonic-effects artists do to a film to generate a more or less consistent sense of atmosphere or world.\nelcphrasis\nTexts also exploit negative rhythm to generate tone. The absence of sound or graphic marks can be as potent as their presence. Gaps between stanzas, and other kinds of broken lineation, create tone out of sheer blankness.\nMoreover, there is an aesthetic politics of the rhizome, which promotes rhizome for rhizome\u0026rsquo;s sake.\necopoetics\nEcorhapsody\necomimesis\nEcodidacticism\necorhapsodic\nIt is providing a fantasy, an aesthetic playground in which the ideas in the book appear incarnated, a literary gravitational field generated by the sheer quantity of vivid description (elcphrasis).\nThis paradoxical act of identification with the fantasy object of ideology could be mirrored in critical analysis, by the relentless close reading of texts, not in order to achieve some tasteful distance toward them, but precisely in order to \u0026ldquo;mess around\u0026rdquo; with them, or as my students sometimes say in horror, \u0026ldquo;dissect.\u0026rdquo;\nIn sum, one of the principal complaints against establishing a vivid, solidly real nature \u0026ldquo;out there\u0026rdquo; or \u0026ldquo;over there\u0026rdquo; is that it just fails to be convincing. This lack of believability penetrates to the very core of ecomimesis, the most potent rhetorical device for establishing a sense of nature. The inherent instability of language, and of the human and nonhuman worlds, ensure that ecomimesis fails to deliver.\nThe problem comes when we start to think that there is something behind or beyond or above (in other words, outside!) the inside-outside distinction. Not that the distinction is real; it is entirely spurious. Thus, it is wrong to claim that there is something more real beyond inside and outside, whether that thing is a world of (sacred) nature (traditional ecological language) or machines (Deleuze and Guattari world). Yet it is equally wrong to say that there is nothing, to \u0026ldquo;believe in nothing,\u0026rdquo; as it were, and to say that he or she who has the best argument is the right one—pure nihilism. There is not even nothing beyond inside and outside. Getting used to that could take a lifetime, or more.\nWe can expect to find ambient qualities in any artwork whatsoever. We need not restrict ourselves to works that are specifically ambient, and especially not that subset of works that contain ecomimesis. In a world properly attuned to the environment, we would read poems with an eye to ecology, no matter what their content.\nNature cannot remain itself—it is the flickering shapes on the edges of our perception, the strangers who disturb us with their proximity, the machines whose monstrosity inspires revulsion.\nThey are identical because, under current economic conditions, not only is there no place, but there is also no space.\nBefore and after the work of capital, there persists a curious silence and absence marked by traces of misery and oppression.\nAlthough some DJs have created superstar cults, the notion of the disco or house DJ is that of an anonymous worker in a \u0026ldquo;sound factory,\u0026rdquo; generating libidinal pulses in a space of dancing, producing ambience, in the same way as fairgrounds provide machines for enjoyment rather than work.\nMarx described how capitalist alienation is fundamentally how human labor power and labor time get factored out of the process of value generation, even though they are intrinsic to it. Capitalism encrypts labor.\nRainforests are ransacked for biotechnology, and the insides of life-forms provide new products such as patented genomes in what ecofeminist Vandana Shiva describes as another wave of colonization.\nIn returning to Romanticism, ecocriticism highlights the yearning for a bygone life of feudal hierarchy. Primitivist environmentalisms crave a lost golden age of interconnect-edness with the environment. They look to pre-feudal, sometimes prehistoric, pasts to discover forms of primitive communism. In contrast, futurist environmentalisms are based on the notion that the golden age has not yet happened. They acknowledge that despite the medievalist glamour, most people never had much of a relationship with their land under a feudal hierarchy.\nAmbient poetics is about making the imperceptible perceptible, while retaining the form of its imperceptibility—to make the invisible visible, the inaudible audible.\nAmbient art wants to make the unknown known, like science. But it also wishes to retain the flavor of the unknown, a certain mystifying opacity—otherwise ambient art would in fact be science.\nOrganicism, that peculiarly English form of nature ideology, paints society as a nonsystemic heap of classes, beliefs, and practices, as ramshackle and spontaneous as a pile of compost. This is a rich, compelling, and finally authoritarian fantasy—there\u0026rsquo;s no arguing with it.\nTolkien narrates the victory of the suburbanite, the \u0026ldquo;little person,\u0026rdquo; embedded in a tamed yet natural-seeming environment. Nestled into the horizon as they are in their burrows, the wider world of global politics is blissfully unavailable to them. Tolkien\u0026rsquo;s work embodies a key nationalist fantasy, a sense of \u0026ldquo;world\u0026rdquo; as real, tangible yet indeterminate, evoking a metonymic chain of images—an anamorphic form.\nThe question of animals—sometimes I wonder whether it is the question—radically disrupts any idea of a single, independent, solid environment.\nFor Tolkien, dwarves, elves, hobbits, and talking eagles are welcome others, but swarthy \u0026ldquo;southern\u0026rdquo; or \u0026ldquo;eastern\u0026rdquo; men are not.\nThe only way to remain close to the strangers without killing them (turning them into yourself or into an inanimate object) is to maintain a sense of irony. If irony and movement are not part of environmentalism, strangers are in danger of disappearing, exclusion, ostracism, or worse.\nState terror takes an interest in ecological catastrophe.\nThe struggle between individualism and holism offers an attenuated choice between absolute liberty and absolute authority—in other words, the dilemma called America. Americans are caught between the constitution and a militarized state, between placards and pepper spray.\nMud, mud, glorious mud.\nSince it looks like capitalism is about to use an ecological rhetoric of scarcity to justify future developments, it is vital that we recognize that there are serious problems with imagining an ecological view based on limits, even at the level of abstraction we have been exploring. And we need to notice that scarcity and limitation are not the only ecological concepts on the block. What if the problem were in fact one of a badly distributed and reified surplus?\nGreen consumerism made it possible to be both pro-capitalist and green, repeating the Romantic struggle between rebelling and selling out.\nTo be a consumerist, you don\u0026rsquo;t have to consume anything, just contemplate the idea of consuming.\nBut this promise typifies the paradox of the Romantic avant-garde. If we could just get the aesthetic form right, we could crack reality, open it up, and change it.\nBoth quietism and activism are two sides of the same beautiful coin. The beautiful soul fuses the aesthetic and the moral.\nLikewise, there are fascist and New Age versions of environmentalism.\nNature writing partly militates against ecology rather than for it. By setting up nature as an object \u0026ldquo;over there\u0026rdquo;—a pristine wilderness beyond all trace of human contact—it re-establishes the very separation it seeks to abolish.\nSignificantly, Althusser suggests, if only poetically, that ideology is a dimension of existence—we exist \u0026ldquo;within\u0026rdquo; it.167 A more engaged ecological criticism would acknowledge this environment—one we are caught in even as we judge it.\nThe dizzyingly additive quality of the images makes us forget where we came from at the start of the paragraph, and where we are going—how do we end up at otter scat? But just as \u0026ldquo;out of joint\u0026rdquo; is the metaphorical slash of the \u0026ldquo;as I write.\u0026rdquo; Since the \u0026ldquo;as\u0026rdquo; slides between analogy, temporality, and strict semantic continuity, and since this sliding must take place for the passage to seduce us to visualize a fantasy world, \u0026ldquo;As I write\u0026rdquo; breaches the consistency of the ecomimesis even as it broaches it.\nOnly a very privileged person would make such a big deal out of having eyes and ears, of being able to walk, read, write. There are hints that nature is best accessed by the able-bodied, or at least, those with sharp, undistracted organs of perception.\nEcomimesis aims to rupture the aesthetic distance, to break down the subject-object dualism, to convince us that we belong to this world. But the end result is to reinforce the aesthetic distance, the very dimension in which the subject-object dualism persists. Since de-distancing has been reified, distance returns even more strongly, in surround-sound, with panoramic intensity.\nWriting outside the dominant Western traditions, Trungpa notices how materialism and spiritualism are joined at the hip:\nOur choice is false if it has been reduced to one between hypocrisy and cynicism, between wholeheartedly getting into environmental rhetoric and cynically distancing ourselves from it. In both cases, we would be writing liturgies for the beautiful soul. Although it is \u0026ldquo;realistic\u0026rdquo; to be cynical rather than hypocritical, we do not wish to reinforce the current state of affairs. Our answer to the ruthless ransacking of nature, and of the idea of nature, must be yes, we admit to the reality of the situation. And no, we refuse to submit to it.\nEcocritique could establish collective forms of identity that included other species and their worlds, real and possible. It would subvert fixating images of \u0026ldquo;world\u0026rdquo; that inhibit humans from grasping their place in an already historical nature.\nTo think in terms of either crude action or pure ideas is to remain within the prison of the beautiful soul.\nDark ecology acknowledges that there is no way out of the paradoxes outlined in this book. Far from remaining natural, ecocriticism must admit that it is contingent and queer.\nIf it is to be properly critical, montage must juxtapose the contents with the frame. Why? Simply to juxtapose contents without bringing form and subject position into the mix would leave things as they are.\nIf ecology without nature has taught us anything, it is that there is a need to acknowledge irreducible otherness, whether in poetics, ethics, or politics.\nAll is not lost in a consumerist universe, if only because the junk that surrounds us is so inconsistent. Its inconsistency has the quality of a clue. This clue is the secret of suffering curled up inside the very dimension of the object.\nEmbodied in the sonic and graphic materiality of the text, the earth quakes, setting up a subject quake, a tremor of the \u0026ldquo;I.\u0026rdquo; What remains after our long delve into the fake otherness of ecomimesis is the fragility of an \u0026ldquo;I\u0026rdquo; that we can\u0026rsquo;t quite get rid of, but that at least can be made to vibrate, in such a way that does not strengthen its aggressive resolve (like a hammer or a boot), but that dissolves its form, however momentarily.\nHeidegger has most powerfully described place as open and beyond concept. But Heidegger, infamously, solidifies this very openness, turning history into destiny and leaving the way open for an extreme right-wing politics, which can easily assimilate ecological thinking to its ideological ends, precisely because ecological thinking is highly aestheticized. The Nazis passed original laws to protect animals and (German) forests as ends in themselves.\nRomantic environmentalism is a flavor of modern consumerist ideology. It is thoroughly urban, even when it is born in the countryside.\nMoving from one station to the next becomes a metaphor for moving from one word to another in a sentence. Landmarks become textual.\nTo see a place in its strangeness is not just to see how it is permeated with otherness. That could collapse into racism: otherness immigrates and I\u0026rsquo;m ready with my gun. Within a horizon, you can indeed be aware of \u0026ldquo;another\u0026rdquo; place over yonder. Appreciating strangeness is seeing the very strangeness of similarity and familiarity. To reintroduce the uncanny into the poetics of the home (oikos, ecology, ecomimesis) is a political act.\nThe ecological thought, the thinking of interconnectedness, has a dark side embodied not in a hippie aesthetic of life over death, or a sadistic-sentimental Bambification of sentient beings, but in a \u0026ldquo;goth\u0026rdquo; assertion of the contingent and necessarily queer idea that we want to stay with a dying world: dark ecology.\nEcopsychology\nWe start by thinking that we can \u0026ldquo;save\u0026rdquo; something called \u0026ldquo;the world\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;over there,\u0026rdquo; but end up realizing that we ourselves are implicated. This is the solution to beautiful soul syndrome: reframing our field of activity as one for which we ourselves are formally responsible, even guilty.\nWe should be finding ways to stick around with the sticky mess that we\u0026rsquo;re in and that we are, making thinking dirtier, identifying with ugliness, practicing \u0026ldquo;hauntology\u0026rdquo; (Derrida\u0026rsquo;s phrase) rather than ontology.\nI often think that the trouble with posthumanism is that we have not yet achieved humanity, and that humanity and posthumanity have no time for what Derrida calls the animal that therefore I am.\nIn this respect, dark ecology diverges from those Romanticisms that follow a Hegelian dialectic, the story of the reconciliation of the self to the other, who turns out to be the self in disguise.159 It gets over the dilemma of the beautiful soul, not by turning the other into the self, but perversely, by leaving things the way they are.\nAnd being-here, being literally on this earth (Da-sein), would entail a need for forgiveness, an equally radical assumption that whatever is there is our responsibility, and ultimately, \u0026ldquo;our fault.\u0026rdquo;\nDark ecology tells us that we can\u0026rsquo;t escape our minds. Far from giving us a liturgy for how to get out of our guilty minds, how to stick our heads in nature and lose them, Clare helps us to stay right here, in the poisoned mud. Which is just where we need to be, right now.\nThe only firm ethical option in the current catastrophe, as I observed before, is admitting to the ecologically catastrophic in all its meaningless contingency, accepting responsibility groundlessly, whether or not \u0026ldquo;we ourselves\u0026rdquo; can be proved to be responsible.\nInstead of trying to pull the world out of the mud, we could jump down into the mud. To emerge from the poisoned chrysalis of the beautiful soul, we admit that we have a choice. We choose and accept our own death, and the fact of mortality among species and ecosystems. This is the ultimate rationality: holding our mind open for the absolutely unknown that is to come. Evolution will not be televised. One cannot have a video of one\u0026rsquo;s own extinction. A warning to deep ecology: if we aestheticize this acceptance, we arrive at fascism, the cult of death. Instead, ecological criticism must politicize the aesthetic. We choose this poisoned ground. We will be equal to this senseless actuality. Ecology may be without nature. But it is not without us.\n","date":"May 6, 2018","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-ecology-without-nature/","section":"Posts","summary":"To speak thus is to use the aesthetic as an anesthetic.\n","title":"Highlights for Ecology Without Nature","type":"posts"},{"content":"As a variation on the classic one: the willingness of a corporate CEO to spend half an hour in a room without windows with a random customer.\n","date":"May 3, 2018","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/rawlss-corporate-veil-of-ignorance/","section":"Posts","summary":"As a variation on the classic one: the willingness of a corporate CEO to spend half an hour in a room without windows with a random customer.\n","title":"Rawls's Corporate Veil of Ignorance","type":"posts"},{"content":"At the very least, you habitually find yourself in unfamiliar bodies on unfamiliar worlds where people are shooting at you. Even on a good day, no amount of briefing can prepare you for a total change of environment like that, and in the invariably unstable to lethally dangerous sets of circumstances the Envoys have been created to deal with, there just isn\u0026rsquo;t any point.\nSince it is logistically impossible to expect everything, she told us evenly, we will teach you not to expect anything. That way, you will be ready for it.\nBut really, I\u0026rsquo;m optimistic. You\u0026rsquo;d be surprised how many soldiers still find it difficult to shoot small children, even in these troubled times.\nTesting the human frame to destruction\nLapinee, a construct vocalist, was designed and launched to front the replacement song, which told the story of a young boy, orphaned in a Kempist sneak raid but then adopted by a kindly corporate bloc and brought up to realise his full potential as a top-level planetary executive.\nMaximum utility for ALL resources is our ultimate goal.\nMandrake was the commercial world\u0026rsquo;s equivalent of Carrera\u0026rsquo;s Wedge, and you had to assume a corresponding approach to latitudes of initiative at executive levels. There was really no other way for a cutting-edge organism to work.\nAnd like Quell says, rip open the diseased heart of a corporation and what spills out?'\n\u0026lsquo;People.\u0026rsquo;\nBody armour for the soul.\nThere\u0026rsquo;s a virtual version of me in the machine with some psychosurgeon peripherals wired in. I\u0026rsquo;ll send it in to bring back the best dozen and a half.\n\u0026lsquo;Look at that, Kovacs. We\u0026rsquo;re drinking coffee so far from Earth you have to work hard to pick out Sol in the night sky. We were carried here on a wind that blows in a dimension we cannot see or touch. Stored as dreams in the mind of a machine that thinks in a fashion so far in advance of our own brains it might as well carry the name of god. We have been resurrected into bodies not our own, grown in a secret garden outwith the body of any mortal woman. These are the facts of our existence, Kovacs. How, then, are they different, or any less mystical, than the belief that there is another realm where the dead live in the company of beings so far beyond us we must call them gods?\u0026rsquo;\nWe don\u0026rsquo;t need recourse to the places of origin to explain them. I\u0026rsquo;m just trying to show you how limited your world view is without an acceptance of wonder.\nTimes change, but market forces are forever. History unreels, the real dead stay that way.\nThe rest of us get to go on.\nShe said wars are fought over hormones. Male hormones, largely. It\u0026rsquo;s not about winning or losing at all, it\u0026rsquo;s about hormonal discharge.\nWar has a soothing, simplifying effect on politics that must hit the politicians like a betathanatine rush. You don\u0026rsquo;t have to balance the issues any more, and you can justify anything. Fight and win, and bring the victory home.\n\u0026lsquo;Every skill must be practised. Every act rehearsed. A blade is only a blade when it cuts.\u0026rsquo;\nThe wisdom of the ages shredded at a stroke into the pipe-cooked musings of a bunch of canal-dive barflies. Lao Tzu, Confucius, Jesus Christ, Muhammed — what did these guys know? Parochial locals, never even been off the planet. Where were they when the Martians were crossing interstellar space.\nFace the facts. Then act on them. It\u0026rsquo;s the only mantra I know, the only doctrine I have to offer you, and it\u0026rsquo;s harder than you\u0026rsquo;d think, because I swear humans seem hardwired to do anything but. Face the facts. Don\u0026rsquo;t pray, don\u0026rsquo;t wish, don\u0026rsquo;t buy into centuries-old dogma and dead rhetoric. Don\u0026rsquo;t give in to your conditioning or your visions or your fucked-up sense of . . . whatever. FACE THE FACTS. THEN act.\nHe was like all of them. Same intensity, same goddamned fucking conviction that he was right. Just a different dream of what he was right about.\n","date":"April 16, 2018","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-broken-angels/","section":"Posts","summary":"At the very least, you habitually find yourself in unfamiliar bodies on unfamiliar worlds where people are shooting at you. Even on a good day, no amount of briefing can prepare you for a total change of environment like that, and in the invariably unstable to lethally dangerous sets of circumstances the Envoys have been created to deal with, there just isn’t any point.\n","title":"Highlights for Broken Angels","type":"posts"},{"content":"I thought I had come up with the clever portmanteau “komplischwierig”, a combination of “kompliziert”(complicated) and “schwierig”(difficult). Unfortunately a quick Google search showed eight prior results where people have used the word.\nThe other German neologism I thought I could claim was “Fleischglück”but of course I\u0026rsquo;m not the first person to come up with that either.\n","date":"April 10, 2018","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/komplischwierig/","section":"Posts","summary":"I thought I had come up with the clever portmanteau “komplischwierig”, a combination of “kompliziert”(complicated) and “schwierig”(difficult). Unfortunately a quick Google search showed eight prior results where people have used the word.\n","title":"Komplischwierig","type":"posts"},{"content":"but that is the way of things, with cities as with life, for one moment we are pottering about our errands as usual and the next we are dying, and our eternally impending ending does not put a stop to our transient beginnings and middles until the instant when it does.\nLocation, location, location, the realtors say. Geography is destiny, respond the historians.\nThey had begun, each of them, to be penetrated, but they had not yet kissed.\nfor he was so gentle, and evoked in her a protective caring, as if for one’s own child, or for a puppy, or for a beautiful memory one knows has already commenced to fade.\nand he did not wish to do this, he preferred to abide, in a sense, in the past, for the past offered more to him.\nand so by making the promise he demanded she make she was in a sense killing him, but that is the way of things, for when we migrate, we murder from our lives those we leave behind.\nwho had run from war already, and did not know where next to run, and so were waiting, waiting, like so many others.\nEven more than the fighter planes and the tanks these robots, few though they were, and the drones overhead, were frightening, because they suggested an unstoppable efficiency, an inhuman power, and evoked the kind of dread that a small mammal feels before a predator of an altogether different order, like a rodent before a snake.\ncutting across divisions of race or language or nation, for what did those divisions matter now in a world full of doors,\nThe news in those days was full of war and migrants and nativists, and it was full of fracturing too, of regions pulling away from nations, and cities pulling away from hinterlands, and it seemed that as everyone was coming together everyone was also moving apart.\n“Millions arrived in our country,”Saeed replied. “When there were wars nearby.”\n“That was different. Our country was poor. We didn’t feel we had as much to lose.”\nTo flee forever is beyond the capacity of most: at some point even a hunted animal will stop, exhausted, and await its fate, if only for a while.\nPerhaps they had decided they did not have it in them to do what would have needed to be done, to corral and bloody and where necessary slaughter the migrants, and had determined that some other way would have to be found.\nIn exchange for their labor in clearing terrain and building infrastructure and assembling dwellings from prefabricated blocks, migrants were promised forty meters and a pipe: a home on forty square meters of land and a connection to all the utilities of modernity.\nA mutually agreed time tax had been enacted, such that a portion of the income and toil of those who had recently arrived on the island would go to those who had been there for decades, and this time tax was tapered in both directions, becoming a smaller and smaller sliver as one continued to reside, and then a larger and larger subsidy thereafter.\nHe was drawn to people from their country, both in the labor camp and online. It seemed to Nadia that the farther they moved from the city of their birth, through space and through time, the more he sought to strengthen his connection to it, tying ropes to the air of an era that for her was unambiguously gone.\nBut in his devotions was ever more devotion, and towards her it seemed there was ever less.\nIt seemed to Saeed that the people who advocated this position most strongly, who claimed the rights of nativeness most forcefully, tended to be drawn from the ranks of those with light skin who looked most like the natives of Britain—and as had been the case with many of the natives of Britain, many of these people too seemed stunned by what was happening to their homeland, what had already happened in so brief a period, and some seemed angry as well.\nand prayer for him became about being a man, being one of the men, a ritual that connected him to adulthood and to the notion of being a particular sort of man, a gentleman, a gentle man, a man who stood for community and faith and kindness and decency, a man, in other words, like his father. Young men pray for different things, of course, but some young men pray to honor the goodness of the men who raised them, and Saeed was very much a young man of this mold.\nand so even though they spoke less and did less together, they saw each other more, although not more often.\nOf this, in later years, both were glad, and both would also wonder if this meant that they had made a mistake, that if they had but waited and watched their relationship would have flowered again, and so their memories took on potential, which is of course how our greatest nostalgias are born.\nIt has been said that depression is a failure to imagine a plausible desirable future for oneself, and, not just in Marin, but in the whole region, in the Bay Area, and in many other places too, places both near and far, the apocalypse appeared to have arrived and yet it was not apocalyptic, which is to say that while the changes were jarring they were not the end, and life went on, and people found things to do and ways to be and people to be with, and plausible desirable futures began to emerge, unimaginable previously, but not unimaginable now, and the result was something not unlike relief.\nHow this assembly would coexist with other preexisting bodies of government was as yet undecided. It might at first have only a moral authority, but that authority could be substantial, for unlike those other entities for which some humans were not human enough to exercise suffrage, this new assembly would speak from the will of all the people, and in the face of that will, it was hoped, greater justice might be less easily denied.\nthe lives of cities being far more persistent and more gently cyclical than those of people\n","date":"April 1, 2018","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-exit-west/","section":"Posts","summary":"but that is the way of things, with cities as with life, for one moment we are pottering about our errands as usual and the next we are dying, and our eternally impending ending does not put a stop to our transient beginnings and middles until the instant when it does.\n","title":"Highlights for Exit West","type":"posts"},{"content":"Humankind paid for its lofty vision and industrious hands with backaches and stiff necks.\nBut if the Interbreeding Theory is right, there might well be genetic differences between Africans, Europeans and Asians that go back hundreds of thousands of years. This is political dynamite, which could provide material for explosive racial theories.\nThe foragers may have had their all-conquering Napoleons, who ruled empires half the size of Luxembourg; gifted Beethovens who lacked symphony orchestras but brought people to tears with the sound of their bamboo flutes; and charismatic prophets who revealed the words of a local oak tree rather than those of a universal creator god. But these are all mere guesses.\nEvery mammoth was a source of a vast quantity of meat (which, given the frosty temperatures, could even be frozen for later use), tasty fat, warm fur and valuable ivory. As the findings from Sungir testify, mammoth-hunters did not just survive in the frozen north — they thrived.\nThe average farmer worked harder than the average forager, and got a worse diet in return. The Agricultural Revolution was history’s biggest fraud.\nBack in the snail-mail era, people usually only wrote letters when they had something important to relate.\nWe thought we were saving time; instead we revved up the treadmill of life to ten times its former speed and made our days more anxious and agitated.\nHistory is something that very few people have been doing while everyone else was ploughing fields and carrying water buckets.\nEverywhere, rulers and elites sprang up, living off the peasants’ surplus food and leaving them with only a bare subsistence.\nWe believe in a particular order not because it is objectively true, but because believing in it enables us to cooperate effectively and forge a better society.\nFirst, you never admit that the order is imagined. You always insist that the order sustaining society is an objective reality created by the great gods or by the laws of nature.\nRomanticism tells us that in order to make the most of our human potential we must have as many different experiences as we can.\nThe inter-subjective is something that exists within the communication network linking the subjective consciousness of many individuals. If a single individual changes his or her beliefs, or even dies, it is of little importance. However, if most individuals in the network die or change their beliefs, the inter-subjective phenomenon will mutate or disappear. Inter-subjective phenomena are neither malevolent frauds nor insignificant charades.\nThroughout history, and in almost all societies, concepts of pollution and purity have played a leading role in enforcing social and political divisions and have been exploited by numerous ruling classes to maintain their privileges.\nMoney comes to money, and poverty to poverty. Education comes to education, and ignorance to ignorance. Those once victimised by history are likely to be victimised yet again. And those whom history has privileged are more likely to be privileged again.\nIn order to ensure her own survival and the survival of her children, the woman had little choice but to agree to whatever conditions the man stipulated so that he would stick around and share some of the burden. As time went by, the feminine genes that made it to the next generation belonged to women who were submissive caretakers. Women who spent too much time fighting for power did not leave any of those powerful genes for future generations.\nNobody really knows how to solve this thorny question of cultural inheritance.\nYet, in fact, religion has been the third great unifier of humankind, alongside money and empires.\nThese theological disputes turned so violent that during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Catholics and Protestants killed each other by the hundreds of thousands.\nIf a religion is a system of human norms and values that is founded on belief in a superhuman order, then Soviet Communism was no less a religion than Islam.\nThe existence of different human races, the superiority of the white race, and the need to protect and cultivate this superior race were widely held beliefs among most Western elites.\nAt the same time, a huge gulf is opening between the tenets of liberal humanism and the latest findings of the life sciences, a gulf we cannot ignore much longer.\nSuccessful cultures are those that excel in reproducing their memes, irrespective of the costs and benefits to their human hosts.\nSimilar arguments are common in the social sciences, under the aegis of game theory.\nThis was not merely a historical achievement, but an evolutionary and even cosmic feat.\nMere observations, however, are not knowledge. In order to understand the universe, we need to connect observations into comprehensive theories.\nMost scientific studies are funded because somebody believes they can help attain some political, economic or religious goal.\nWhat made Europeans exceptional was their unparalleled and insatiable ambition to explore and conquer.\nthe European conquerors knew their empires very well. Far better, indeed, than any previous conquerors, or even than the native population itself.\nNo less important was the fact that science gave the empires ideological justification. Modern Europeans came to believe that acquiring new knowledge was always good. The fact that the empires produced a constant stream of new knowledge branded them as progressive and positive enterprises.\nBanks and governments print money, but ultimately, it is the scientists who foot the bill.\nA hundred years later, princes and bankers were willing to extend far more credit to Columbus’ successors, and they had more capital at their disposal, thanks to the treasures reaped from America. Equally important, princes and bankers had far more trust in the potential of exploration, and were more willing to part with their money.\nThe secret of Dutch success was credit. The Dutch burghers, who had little taste for combat on land, hired mercenary armies to fight the Spanish for them. The Dutch themselves meanwhile took to the sea in ever-larger fleets. Mercenary armies and cannon-brandishing fleets cost a fortune, but the Dutch were able to finance their military expeditions more easily than the mighty Spanish Empire because they secured the trust of the burgeoning European financial system at a time when the Spanish king was carelessly eroding its trust in him. Financiers extended the Dutch enough credit to set up armies and fleets, and these armies and fleets gave the Dutch control of world trade routes, which in turn yielded handsome profits. The profits allowed the Dutch to repay the loans, which strengthened the trust of the financiers. Amsterdam was fast becoming not only one of the most important ports of Europe, but also the continent’s financial Mecca.\nHow exactly did the Dutch win the trust of the financial system? Firstly, they were sticklers about repaying their loans on time and in full, making the extension of credit less risky for lenders. Secondly, their country’s judicial system enjoyed independence and protected private rights — in particular private property rights.\nThis enterprise may sound a little strange to us, but in the early modern age it was common for private companies to hire not only soldiers, but also generals and admirals, cannons and ships, and even entire off-the-shelf armies. The international community took this for granted and didn’t raise an eyebrow when a private company established an empire.\nthe British demanded and received control of Hong Kong, which they proceeded to use as a secure base for drug trafficking\nThe most important economic resource is trust in the future, and this resource is constantly threatened by thieves and charlatans.\nMarkets by themselves offer no protection against fraud, theft and violence. It is the job of political systems to ensure trust by legislating sanctions against cheats and to establish and support police forces, courts and jails which will enforce the law. When kings fail to do their jobs and regulate the markets properly, it leads to loss of trust, dwindling credit and economic depression.\nFew of us understand how electricity does all these things, but even fewer can imagine life without it.\nOur children’s books, our iconography and our TV screens are still full of giraffes, wolves and chimpanzees, but the real world has very few of them left.\nMany call this process ‘the destruction of nature’. But it’s not really destruction, it’s change. Nature cannot be destroyed.\nMany kingdoms and empires were in truth little more than large protection rackets.\nA person who lost her family and community around 1750 was as good as dead.\nToday, parental authority is in full retreat. Youngsters are increasingly excused from obeying their elders, whereas parents are blamed for anything that goes wrong in the life of their child. Mum and Dad are about as likely to be found innocent in the Freudian courtroom as were defendants in a Stalinist show trial.\nThe decline of violence is due largely to the rise of the state. Throughout history, most violence resulted from local feuds between families and communities.\nA lot of evidence indicates that we are destroying the foundations of human prosperity in an orgy of reckless consumption.\nA meaningful life can be extremely satisfying even in the midst of hardship, whereas a meaningless life is a terrible ordeal no matter how comfortable it is.\nScience fiction rarely describes such a future, because an accurate description is by definition incomprehensible.\nThose who are not spooked by this question probably haven’t given it enough thought.\n","date":"March 31, 2018","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-sapiens/","section":"Posts","summary":"Humankind paid for its lofty vision and industrious hands with backaches and stiff necks.\n","title":"Highlights for Sapiens","type":"posts"},{"content":"Well, some worlds are built on a fault line of pain, held up by nightmares. Don’t lament when those worlds fall. Rage that they were built doomed in the first place.\nHe has given up some of who he was, but what remains is still an artist of terror. If he has seen fit to share the secrets of his artistry with them, they’re lucky. She hopes they appreciate it.\n“Would’ve been nice if we could’ve all had normal, of course, but not enough people wanted to share. So now we all burn.”\nThe fires within the earth are nothing to what you’re feeling right now, failed mother that you are.\nBut there are none so frightened, or so strange in their fear, as conquerors. They conjure phantoms endlessly, terrified that their victims will someday do back what was done to them—even if, in truth, their victims couldn’t care less about such pettiness and have moved on. Conquerors live in dread of the day when they are shown to be, not superior, but simply lucky.\nThis was what made them not the same kind of human as everyone else. Eventually: not as human as everyone else. Finally: not human at all.\nHjarka Leadership Castrima, who was taught from an early age to kill the few so the many might live, only touches her shoulder and says, “You’ll do what you have to do.”\nFor some crimes, there is no fitting justice—only reparation. So for every iota of life siphoned from beneath the Earth’s skin, the Earth has dragged a million human remnants into its heart.\nYou will do this—make her see these things, make yourself face it again, because this is the whole truth of what orogenes are. The Stillness fears your kind for good reason, true. Yet it should also revere your kind for good reason, and it has chosen to do only one of these things.\nBut that’s no different from what mothers have had to do since the dawn of time: sacrifice the present, in hopes of a better future. If the sacrifice this time has been harder than most … Fine. So be it.\nWhat follows won’t be good, but it’ll be bad for everyone—rich and poor, Equatorials and commless, Sanzeds and Arctics, now they’ll all know. Every season is the Season for us. The apocalypse that never ends. They could’ve chosen a different kind of equality. We could’ve all been safe and comfortable together, surviving together, but they didn’t want that. Now nobody gets to be safe. Maybe that’s what it will take for them to finally realize things have to change.\nWe will have set her free … to struggle for survival along with everyone else. But that is better than the illusion of safety in a gilded cage, is it not?\nRemember, too, that the Earth does not fully understand us. It looks upon human beings and sees short-lived, fragile creatures, puzzlingly detached in substance and awareness from the planet on which their lives depend, who do not understand the harm they tried to do—perhaps because they are so short-lived and fragile and detached.\n“They’re not going to choose anything different.”\n“They will if you make them.”\nShe’s wiser than you, and does not balk at the notion of forcing people to be decent to each other.\nThere is always loss, with change.\nThen you say, “I want the world to be better.”\nI have never regretted more my inability to leap into the air and whoop for joy.\nInstead, I transit to you, with one hand proffered. “Then let’s go make it better.”\nYou look amused. It’s you. It’s truly you. “Just like that?”\n“It might take some time.”\n“I don’t think I’m very patient.”But you take my hand.\nDon’t be patient. Don’t ever be. This is the way a new world begins.\n“Neither am I,”I say. “So let’s get to it.”\n","date":"March 25, 2018","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-the-stone-sky/","section":"Posts","summary":"Well, some worlds are built on a fault line of pain, held up by nightmares. Don’t lament when those worlds fall. Rage that they were built doomed in the first place.\n","title":"Highlights for The Stone Sky","type":"posts"},{"content":"That’s when you no longer need an answer to the question. There is such a thing as too much loss. Too much has been taken from you both—taken and taken and taken, until there’s nothing left but hope, and you’ve given that up because it hurts too much. Until you would rather die, or kill, or avoid attachments altogether, than lose one more thing.\nNot the thought. The thought was simple and predictable: Better to die than live a slave. But what you felt in that moment was a kind of cold, monstrous love. A determination to make sure your son’s life remained the beautiful, wholesome thing that it had been up to that day, even if it meant you had to end his life early.\nThe arguments that you have with the other advisors are more important: Your decisions affect more than a thousand people now. But they have the same silly, pedantic feel. Silly pedantry is a luxury that you’ve rarely been able to enjoy in your life.\nA girl whose mother never loved her, only refined her, and whose father will only love her again if she can do the impossible and become something she is not.\nOnce, as you trained Nassun, you told yourself that it did not matter if she hated you by the end of it; she would know your love by her own survival.\nThe children complain that he’s not very good—none of your finesse, and while he goes easier on them, they’re not learning as much. (It’s nice to be appreciated, if after the fact.)\nThis is a terrible thing that she is saying. It is a terrible thing that she loves herself.\nNow, she needs someone to blame for the loss of that perfect love. She knows her mother can bear it.\n“Oh, uncaring Earth,”you whisper.\n“This is a community. You will be unified. You will fight for each other. Or I will rusting kill every last one of you.”\nEven if “hasn’t yet committed genocidal slaughter”is a low bar to hop, other communities haven’t even managed that much.\n","date":"March 20, 2018","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-the-obelisk-gate/","section":"Posts","summary":"That’s when you no longer need an answer to the question. There is such a thing as too much loss. Too much has been taken from you both—taken and taken and taken, until there’s nothing left but hope, and you’ve given that up because it hurts too much. Until you would rather die, or kill, or avoid attachments altogether, than lose one more thing.\n","title":"Highlights for The Obelisk Gate","type":"posts"},{"content":"Accepted members of a comm are those who have been accorded rights of cache-share and protection, and who in turn support the comm through taxes or other contributions.\nAnd then you stop. Because, oh uncaring Earth. Look what you’ve done.\nObey the lore, make the hard choices, and maybe when the Season ends there will be people who remember how civilization should work.\nLikewise, no one speaks of celestial objects, though the skies are as crowded and busy here as anywhere else in the universe. This is largely because so much of the people’s attention is directed toward the ground, not the sky.\n“No, it won’t. And I don’t care how they feel. They don’t have to rusting like us. What matters is what they do.”\nYou’ll jigsaw them together however you can, caulk in the odd bits with willpower wherever they don’t quite fit, ignore the occasional sounds of grinding and cracking. As long as nothing important breaks, right? You’ll get by. You have no choice.\nNearly all affected comms were able to subsist on their own stores, thus proving the efficacy of Imperial reforms and Seasonal planning. In its aftermath, many comms of the Nomidlats and Somidlats voluntarily joined the Empire, beginning its Golden Age.\nShe cries because she has been inexpressibly lonely, and Schaffa… well. Schaffa loves her, in his tender and terrifying way.\nThe people who built those old things were weak, and died as the weak inevitably must. More damning is that they failed. The ones who built the obelisks just failed harder than most.\nThis is why she hates Alabaster: not because he is more powerful, not even because he is crazy, but because he refuses to allow her any of the polite fictions and unspoken truths that have kept her comfortable, and safe, for years.\n“I make sure he’s taken care of.”And she does. Corundum is always clean and well fed. She never wanted a child, but now that she’s had it—him—and held him, and nursed him, and all that… she does feel a sense of accomplishment, maybe, and rueful acknowledgment, because she and Alabaster have managed to make one beautiful child between them. S\nWho’s she kidding? It’s love. She loves her son. But that doesn’t mean she wants to spend every hour of every rusting day in his presence.\n","date":"March 13, 2018","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-the-fifth-season/","section":"Posts","summary":"Accepted members of a comm are those who have been accorded rights of cache-share and protection, and who in turn support the comm through taxes or other contributions.\n","title":"Highlights for The Fifth Season","type":"posts"},{"content":"Our world’s bright future will be built by people who have discovered that leadership is the enabling art. It is the art of releasing human talent and potential.\nLeadership is communicating to people their worth and potential so clearly that they are inspired to see it in themselves.\n“You know, sure, maybe over time things would have improved, but who wants to gamble their career—no, their life energy—on the hope of a sea change at an established, ‘successful’ company. I went on to pursue my dreams, and I’ve done so.”\nThe leader-leader structure is fundamentally different from the leader-follower structure. At its core is the belief that we can all be leaders and, in fact, it’s best when we all are leaders.\nRather than telling everyone what we needed to do, I would ask questions about how they thought we should approach a problem. Rather than being the central hub coordinating maintenance between two divisions, I told the division chiefs to talk to each other directly.\nThe twelve chiefs are the senior enlisted men. They are middle management. At our submarine schools, the instructors tell us that officers make sure we do the right things and chiefs make sure we do things right.\nMy unfamiliarity with the sub’s technical details was having an interesting side effect: since I couldn’t get involved with the specifics of the gear, I opened up space to focus on the people and their interactions instead, and to rely on the crew more than I normally would have.\nWhat are the things you are hoping I don’t change?\nWhat are the things you secretly hope I do change?\nWhat are the good things about Santa Fe we should build on?\nIf you were me what would you do first?\nWhy isn’t the ship doing better?\nWhat are your personal goals for your tour here on Santa Fe?\nWhat impediments do you have to doing your job?\nWhat will be our biggest challenge to getting Santa Fe ready for deployment?\nWhat are your biggest frustrations about how Santa Fe is currently run?\nWhat is the best thing I can do for you?\nAlthough I cursed my lack of technical knowledge, it prevented me from falling back on bad habits. In the past when I would interview a crew member about how something worked, I only acted curious because, in reality, I knew how it worked. Now, when I talked to the men on the ship, I actually was curious.\nYou can’t “direct”empowerment programs. Directed empowerment programs are flawed because they are predicated on this assumption: I have the authority and ability to empower you (and you don’t). Fundamentally, that’s disempowering.\nWe discovered that distributing control by itself wasn’t enough. As that happened, it put requirements on the new decision makers to have a higher level of technical knowledge and clearer sense of organizational purpose than ever before.\nThe crew was still focusing too much on complying with regulations rather than working to make our submarine the most operationally capable warship possible. It was the same problem as focusing on avoiding mistakes instead of trying to achieve something great.\nSHORT, EARLY CONVERSATIONS is a mechanism for CONTROL. It is a mechanism for control because the conversations did not consist of me telling them what to do. They were opportunities for the crew to get early feedback on how they were tackling problems. This allowed them to retain control of the solution. These early, quick discussions also provided clarity to the crew about what we wanted to accomplish. Many lasted only thirty seconds, but they saved hours of time.\nInefficiencies in my time were highly visible, especially to me. Less visible, however, were the inefficiencies of all the people throughout the organization.\nWhat happens in a top-down culture when the leader is wrong? Everyone goes over the cliff.\nIn effect, by articulating their intentions, the officers and crew were acting their way into the next higher level of command. We had no need of leadership development programs; the way we ran the ship was the leadership development program.\nYou want more, you give more orders, and you become more controlling. It has a seductive pull on the leaders, but it is debilitating and energy sapping for the followers.\nThere were no shortcuts. As the level of control is divested, it becomes more and more important that the team be aligned with the goal of the organization.\nThis had a big effect on me. It showed me how efforts to improve the process made the organization more efficient, while efforts to monitor the process made the organization less efficient.\nWe worked hard on this issue of communication. It was for everyone. I would think out loud when I’d say, in general, here’s where we need to be, and here’s why. They would think out loud with worries, concerns, and thoughts. It’s not what we picture when we think of the movie image of the charismatic and confident leader, but it creates a much more resilient system.\nThinking out loud is essential for making the leap from leader-follower to leader-leader.\nWe had been taking actions that pushed authority down the chain of command, that empowered the officers, chiefs, and crew, but the insight that came to me was that as authority is delegated, technical knowledge at all levels takes on a greater importance. There is an extra burden for technical competence.\nThe personal liberty, well-being, and economic prosperity we enjoy in the United States are unique throughout the history of mankind.\nThe result of increased technical competence is the ability to delegate increased decision making to the employees.\nThe change from passive briefs to active certification changed the crew’s behavior. We found that when people know they will be asked questions they study their responsibilities ahead of time.\nThey hear and think they know what you mean, but they don’t. They’ve never had a picture of what you are talking about. They can’t see in their imagination how it works. They are not being intentionally deceitful; they just are not picturing what you are picturing.\nSPECIFYING GOALS, NOT METHODS is a mechanism for COMPETENCE.\nHave you seen evidence of “gamification”in your workplace? Perhaps it’s worth reading one of Gabe Zichermann’s blog posts and discussing it with your management team.\nSince we were in a combat zone, the bonuses we awarded sailors when they reenlisted were tax-free.\nI continued to see benefits of deliberate action. DELIBERATE first of all reduced errors by operators and was also a mechanism for TEAMWORK. Finally, it was a mechanism for SIGNALING INTENT.\nThis is the power of the leader-leader structure. Only with this model can you achieve top performance and enduring excellence and development of additional leaders.\n","date":"March 4, 2018","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-turn-the-ship-around/","section":"Posts","summary":"Our world’s bright future will be built by people who have discovered that leadership is the enabling art. It is the art of releasing human talent and potential.\n","title":"Highlights for Turn the Ship Around","type":"posts"},{"content":"Maybe our colonel knew why they were shooting, maybe the Germans knew, but I, so help me, hadn\u0026rsquo;t the vaguest idea. As far back as I could search my memory, I hadn\u0026rsquo;t done a thing to the Germans, I\u0026rsquo;d always treated them friendly and polite.\nAll that tangled meat was bleeding profusely.\nThe one thing any of us really cared about was living for one more hour, one more hour is a big deal in a world where everything has reduced itself to murder.\nWhich proves that if you want people to think you\u0026rsquo;re normal there\u0026rsquo;s nothing like having an all-fired nerve. If you\u0026rsquo;ve got plenty of nerve, you\u0026rsquo;re all set, because then you\u0026rsquo;re entitled to do practically anything at all, you\u0026rsquo;ve got the majority on your side, and it\u0026rsquo;s the majority who decide what\u0026rsquo;s crazy and what isn\u0026rsquo;t.\nIn bed, though, she was superb, we came back again and again, and the pleasure she purveyed was real. She may have been a slut, but at least she was a real one. To give royal pleasure they\u0026rsquo;ve got to be. In the kitchens of love, after all, vice is like the pepper in a good sauce; it brings out the flavor, it\u0026rsquo;s indispensable.\nI hadn\u0026rsquo;t found out yet that mankind consists of two very different races, the rich and the poor. It took me \u0026hellip; and plenty of other people \u0026hellip; twenty years and the war to learn to stick to my class and ask the price of things before touching them, let alone setting my heart on them.\nA few poetic regrets, if adroitly placed, are as becoming to a woman as gossamer hair in the moonlight.\nWhen men can hate without risk, their stupidity is easily convinced, the motives supply themselves.\nThe Alaskan dog teams are invaluable. Since they are always needed, they are well cared for. Whereas nobody gives a damn about immigrants, of whom there are always too many.\nIn that state of undress, belching and worse, gesticulating like lunatics, they settled down in the fecal grotto.\nThen and there, perhaps, you\u0026rsquo;d throw off the exhausting habit of dreaming about successful people and enormous fortunes, because then you\u0026rsquo;d be able to put your hands on all that. The life of people without resources is nothing but one long rebuff and one long frenzy of desire, and a man can truly know, truly deliver himself only from what he possesses.\nLola was pacing the floor without many clothes on, and in spite of everything her body still struck me as very desirable. Where there\u0026rsquo;s a luxurious body there\u0026rsquo;s always a possibility of rape, of a direct, violent breaking and entering into the heart of wealth and luxury, with no fear of having to return the loot.\nBut it was too late to start being young again. I didn\u0026rsquo;t believe in it anymore. We grow old so quickly and, what\u0026rsquo;s more, irremediably. You can tell by the way you start loving your misery in spite of yourself. Nature is stronger than we are, no two ways about it. She tries us in one particular mold, and we\u0026rsquo;re never able to throw it off. I had started out as the restless type. Little by little, without realizing it, you begin to take your role and fate seriously, and before you know it, it\u0026rsquo;s too late to change. You\u0026rsquo;re a hundred-percent restless, and it\u0026rsquo;s set that way for good.\nPeople avenge themselves for the favors done them.\nWe were all in the same boat now. The priest would have to learn to walk in the dark like the rest of us. He was still unsteady on his pins. He asked me what he should do to keep from falling. He didn\u0026rsquo;t have to come if he was afraid. We\u0026rsquo;d get to the end together, and then we\u0026rsquo;d know what we\u0026rsquo;d been looking for in our adventure. That\u0026rsquo;s what life is, a bit of light that ends in darkness.\nNo good hoping to drop off your misery somewhere on the way. Misery is like some horrible woman you\u0026rsquo;ve married. Maybe it\u0026rsquo;s better to end up loving her a little than to knock yourself out beating her all your life. Since obviously you won\u0026rsquo;t be able to bump her off.\nA day that\u0026rsquo;s nothing more than a lapse of twenty-four hours is intolerable. Like it or not, a day should be one long, almost unbearable pleasure, one long coitus.\nDid Jesus Christ go to the toilet in front of everybody? It seems to me his racket wouldn\u0026rsquo;t have lasted very long if he\u0026rsquo;d taken a shit in public.\nI can\u0026rsquo;t deny that I felt sad as I started back to Vigny at the thought that all those people, those houses, those dirty, dingy, dismal things no longer spoke to me at all, no longer spoke straight to my heart as they had in the old days, and that, chipper as I might seem, I quite possibly didn\u0026rsquo;t have the strength to go on much further like that alone.\n","date":"March 4, 2018","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-journey-to-the-end-of-the-night/","section":"Posts","summary":"Maybe our colonel knew why they were shooting, maybe the Germans knew, but I, so help me, hadn’t the vaguest idea. As far back as I could search my memory, I hadn’t done a thing to the Germans, I’d always treated them friendly and polite.\n","title":"Highlights for Journey to the End of the Night","type":"posts"},{"content":"The core of strategy work is always the same: discovering the critical factors in a situation and designing a way of coordinating and focusing actions to deal with those factors.\nBad strategy tends to skip over pesky details such as problems. It ignores the power of choice and focus, trying instead to accommodate a multitude of conflicting demands and interests. Like\nTo make matters worse, for many people in business, education, and government, the word “strategy”has become a verbal tic.\nA good strategy doesn’t just draw on existing strength; it creates strength through the coherence of its design.\nAn insightful reframing of a competitive situation can create whole new patterns of advantage and weakness.\nA large organization may balk at adopting a new technique, but such change is manageable. But breaking with doctrine—with one’s basic philosophy—is rare absent a near-death experience.\nTo detect a bad strategy, look for one or more of its four major hallmarks:\nFluff. Failure to face the challenge. Mistaking goals for strategy. Bad strategic objectives. Bad strategy is long on goals and short on policy or action. It assumes that goals are all you need. It puts forward strategic objectives that are incoherent and, sometimes, totally impracticable. It uses high-sounding words and phrases to hide these failings.\nIf you continue down the road you are on you will be counting on motivation to move the company forward. I cannot honestly recommend that as a way forward because business competition is not just a battle of strength and wills; it is also a competition over insights and competencies.\nGood strategy works by focusing energy and resources on one, or a very few, pivotal objectives whose accomplishment will lead to a cascade of favorable outcomes.\nA long list of “things to do,”often mislabeled as “strategies”or “objectives,”is not a strategy. It is just a list of things to do.\nThe purpose of good strategy is to offer a potentially achievable way of surmounting a key challenge. If the leader’s strategic objectives are just as difficult to accomplish as the original challenge, there has been little value added by the strategy.\nWhen a leader characterizes the challenge as underperformance, it sets the stage for bad strategy. Underperformance is a result. The true challenges are the reasons for the underperformance.\nBad strategy flourishes because it floats above analysis, logic, and choice, held aloft by the hot hope that one can avoid dealing with these tricky fundamentals and the difficulties of mastering them.\nOnly the prospect of choice inspires peoples’ best arguments about the pluses of their own proposals and the negatives of others’.\nSo they avoided the hard work of choice, set nothing aside, hurt no interest groups or individual egos, but crippled the whole.\nSerious strategy work in an already successful organization may not take place until the wolf is at the door—or even until the wolf’s claws actually scratch on the floor—because good strategy is very hard work.\nStrategy does not eliminate scarcity and its consequence—the necessity of choice. Strategy is scarcity’s child and to have a strategy, rather than vague aspirations, is to choose one path and eschew others.\nStrategies focus resources, energy, and attention on some objectives rather than others. Unless collective ruin is imminent, a change in strategy will make some people worse off. Hence, there will be powerful forces opposed to almost any change in strategy. This is the fate of many strategy initiatives in large organizations. There may be talk about focusing on this or pushing on that, but at the end of the day no one wants to change what they are doing very much.\nThe transformational leader, they argued, unlocks human energy by creating a vision of a different reality and connecting that vision to people’s values and needs.\nCalled the New Thought movement, it combined religious sentiment with recommendations for worldly success. The theory was that thinking about success leads to success. And that thinking about failure leads to failure.\nNevertheless, the doctrine that one can impose one’s visions and desires on the world by the force of thought alone retains a powerful appeal to many people. Its acceptance displaces critical thinking and good strategy.\nThe kernel of a strategy contains three elements:\n1. A diagnosis that defines or explains the nature of the challenge. A good diagnosis simplifies the often overwhelming complexity of reality by identifying certain aspects of the situation as critical.\n2. A guiding policy for dealing with the challenge. This is an overall approach chosen to cope with or overcome the obstacles identified in the diagnosis.\n3. A set of coherent actions that are designed to carry out the guiding policy. These are steps that are coordinated with one another to work together in accomplishing the guiding policy.\nA good guiding policy tackles the obstacles identified in the diagnosis by creating or drawing upon sources of advantage.\nA guiding policy creates advantage by anticipating the actions and reactions of others, by reducing the complexity and ambiguity in the situation, by exploiting the leverage inherent in concentrating effort on a pivotal or decisive aspect of the situation, and by creating policies and actions that are coherent, each building on the other rather than canceling one another out.\nAn important duty of any leader is to absorb a large part of that complexity and ambiguity, passing on to the organization a simpler problem—one that is solvable. Many leaders fail badly at this responsibility, announcing ambitious goals without resolving a good chunk of ambiguity about the specific obstacles to be overcome. To take responsibility is more than a willingness to accept the blame. It is setting proximate objectives and handing the organization a problem it can actually solve.\nWhen someone says “Managers are decision makers,”they are not talking about master strategists, for a master strategist is a designer.\nA design-type strategy is an adroit configuration of resources and actions that yields an advantage in a challenging situation. Given a set bundle of resources, the greater the competitive challenge, the greater the need for the clever, tight integration of resources and actions. Given a set level of challenge, higher-quality resources lessen the need for the tight integration of resources and actions.\nExisting resources can be the lever for the creation of new resources, but they can also be an impediment to innovation.\nIt is also human nature to associate current profit with recent actions, even though it should be evident that current plenty is the harvest of planting seasons long past. When the profits roll in, leaders will point to their every action with pride. Books will be written recommending that others immediately adopt the successful firm’s dress code, its vacation policy, its suggestion-box policies, and its method of allocating parking spaces. Of course, these connections are specious.\nWere there such simple, direct connections between current actions and current results, strategy would be a lot easier. It would also be a lot less interesting, for it is the disconnect between current results and current action that makes the analysis of the sources of success so hard and, ultimately, so rewarding.\nThe proposition that growth itself creates value is so deeply entrenched in the rhetoric of business that it has become an article of almost unquestioned faith that growth is a good thing.\nNo one has an advantage at everything. Teams, organizations, and even nations have advantages in certain kinds of rivalry under particular conditions. The secret to using advantage is understanding this particularity. You must press where you have advantages and side-step situations in which you do not. You must exploit your rivals’ weaknesses and avoid leading with your own.\nThe forces at work were not only altering the fortunes of companies, they were shifting the very wealth of nations.\nTo make good bets on how a wave of change will play out you must acquire enough expertise to question the experts.\nLeaders who stay “above the details”may do well in stable times, but riding a wave of change requires an intimate feel for its origins and dynamics.\nThus, software’s advantage comes from the rapidity of the software development cycle—the process of moving from concept to prototype and the process of finding and correcting errors.\nWhat is actually surprising about the modern computer industry is not the network of relationships but the absence of the massively integrated firm doing all the systems engineering—all of the coordination—internally. The current web of “relationships”is the ghostly remnant of the old IBM’s nerve, muscle, and bone.\nDuring the relatively stable periods between episodic transitions, it is difficult for followers to catch the leader, just as it is difficult for one of the two or three leaders to pull far ahead of the others. But in moments of transition, the old pecking order of competitors may be upset and a new order becomes possible.\nThe simplest form of transition is triggered by substantial increases in fixed costs, especially product development costs. This increase may force the industry to consolidate because only the largest competitors can cover these fixed charges.\nMany major transitions are triggered by major changes in government policy, especially deregulation.\nA third common bias is that, in a time of transition, the standard advice offered by consultants and other analysts will be to adopt the strategies of those competitors that are currently the largest, the most profitable, or showing the largest rates of stock price appreciation.\nAnother bias is that, faced with a wave of change, the standard forecast will be for a “battle of the titans.”\nFor instance, people rarely predict that a business or economic trend will peak and then decline. If sales of a product are growing rapidly, the forecast will be for continued growth, with the rate of growth gradually declining to “normal”levels. Such a prediction may be valid for a frequently purchased product, but it can be far off for a durable good.\nAn industry attractor state describes how the industry “should”work in the light of technological forces and the structure of demand. By saying “should,”I mean to emphasize an evolution in the direction of efficiency—meeting the needs and demands of buyers as efficiently as possible.\nInertia due to obsolete or inappropriate routines can be fixed. The barriers are the perceptions of top management.\nChief scientist David Kirk put it this way: “There is a virtually limitless demand for computational power in 3-D graphics. Given the architecture of the PC, there is only so much you can do with a more powerful CPU. But it is easy to use up one tera-flop of graphics computing power. The GPU [graphics processing unit] is going to be the center of technology and value added in consumer computing.”\nThe benefit of a faster cycle is that the product will be best in class more often. Compared to a competitor working on an eighteen-month cycle, Nvidia’s six-month cycle would mean that its chip would be the better product about 83 percent of the time. Plus, there is the constant buzz surrounding new product introductions, a substitute for expensive advertising. As a further plus, the faster company’s engineers will get more experience and, perhaps, learn more about the tricks of turning the technology into product.\nWhenever a company succeeds greatly there is a complementary story of impeded competitive response. Sometimes the impediment is the innovator’s patent or similar protection, but more often it is an unwillingness or inability to replicate the innovator’s policies.\nA surface reading of history makes it look like 3dfx did itself in with too many changes of direction. The deeper reality was that Nvidia’s carefully crafted fast-release cycle induced 3dfx’s less coordinated responses.\nTo generate a strategy, one must put aside the comfort and security of pure deduction and launch into the murkier waters of induction, analogy, judgment, and insight.\nIn praising America’s “deep and liquid”financial markets, the herd conveniently skipped over the giant bag of flammable gas keeping those markets buzzing—easy credit, overleveraging, a vast expanse of unpriceable derivative securities, long-term assets financed with overnight borrowing from trigger-happy counterparties, and huge top management bonuses for taking on hidden risks.\nAlthough there were some voices cautioning that these new financial vehicles were new and untested, the dominant position was that the economy was growing and the finance industry was prospering, hence these new financial innovations must be doing something beneficial.\nSocial herding presses us to think that everything is OK (or not OK) because everyone else is saying so. The inside view presses us to ignore the lessons of other times and other places, believing that our company, our nation, our new venture, or our era is different. It is important to push back against these biases. You can do this by paying attention to real-world data that refutes the echo-chamber chanting of the crowd—and by learning the lessons taught by history and by other people in other places.\n","date":"February 11, 2018","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-good-strategy-bad-strategy/","section":"Posts","summary":"The core of strategy work is always the same: discovering the critical factors in a situation and designing a way of coordinating and focusing actions to deal with those factors.\n","title":"Highlights for Good Strategy Bad Strategy","type":"posts"},{"content":"Rich people do this. They have the power and they see no reason not to use it. Men and women are just merchandise, like everything else.\nThere were no protests — you can\u0026rsquo;t argue with a robot.\nWhat had possessed Bancroft to outfit me for summer with the scrambled weather systems that Bay City had so far exhibited was beyond me.\nShopping is physical interaction, exercise of decision-making capacity, sating of the desire to acquire, and an impulse to more acquisition, a scouting urge. It\u0026rsquo;s so basically flicking human when you think about it.\nI spent most of the journey feeling sorry for the girl, and worrying at the Catholic madness like a dog with a bone. This woman\u0026rsquo;s stack was utterly undamaged. Financial considerations aside, she could be brought back to life on the spin of a disc. On Harlan\u0026rsquo;s World she\u0026rsquo;d be temporarily re-sleeved for the court hearing, albeit probably in a synthetic, and once the verdict came down there\u0026rsquo;d be a Victim Support supplement from the state added to whatever policy her family already held. Nine cases out of ten that was enough money to ensure re-sleeving of some sort. Death, where is thy sting?\nWomen are the race, Tak. No two ways about it. Male is just a mutation with more muscle and half the nerves. Fighting, fucking machines.\nAnd make no mistake about this: being taken seriously, being considered dangerous marks the difference, the ONLY difference in their eyes, between players and little people. Players they will make deals with. Little people they liquidate.\nLike Bancroft, MacIntyre had been a man of power, and like all men of power, when he talked of prices worth paying, you could be sure of one thing. Someone else was paying.\n\u0026ldquo;The human eye is a wonderful device,\u0026rdquo; I quoted from Poems and Other Prevarications absently. \u0026ldquo;With a little effort, it can fail to see even the most glaring injustice.\u0026rdquo;\nKawahara grew up in Fission City, dealing anti-radiation drugs to the families of fuel rod workers.\nAll I had now was the gravity pull of mission time, the cold dawn and the sound of the waves on the shore.\nSee, the thing is, they\u0026rsquo;re looking for borderline psychopathic tendencies. That\u0026rsquo;s why they do most of their recruiting from the military in the first place.\nThe old-style yakuza were funny about that sort of thing.\n\u0026lsquo;How shall I explain the dying that was done? Shall I say that each one did the math, and wrote The value of his days Against the bloody margin, in an understated hand? They will want to know How was the audit done? And I shall say that it was done, For once, By those who knew the worth Of what was spent that day.\u0026rsquo;\n\u0026lsquo;Told you not to go there, didn\u0026rsquo;t I pal. Now look at you. Earth.\u0026rsquo; He spat and disappeared, leaving the echoes of his voice. \u0026lsquo;It\u0026rsquo;s a shithole. Got to get to the next screen.\u0026rsquo;\nGet to the next screen.\nIt was about Jimmy de Soto, clawing his own eye out in the mud and fire at Innenin, and the millions like him throughout the Protectorate, painfully gathered assemblages of individual human potential, pissed away into the dung-heap of history. For all these, and more, someone was going to pay.\nThe original draft of the plan had called for the ninja copy of me to stay at Ortega\u0026rsquo;s apartment until the Ryker copy had disappeared with Miriam Bancroft.\n","date":"January 28, 2018","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-altered-carbon/","section":"Posts","summary":"Rich people do this. They have the power and they see no reason not to use it. Men and women are just merchandise, like everything else.\n","title":"Highlights for Altered Carbon","type":"posts"},{"content":"It mattered little to which class or race they belonged; the subordinate peoples of the world keenly absorbed the deeper implications — moral and psychological — of Japan’s triumph.\nThey had failed to notice the intense desire for equality and dignity among peoples whom Europe’s most influential thinkers, from Hegel and Marx to John Stuart Mill, had deemed unfit for self-rule — thinkers whose ideas, ironically, would in fact prove highly potent among these ‘subject peoples’.\nDuring their long and eventful lives the Asians discussed in the book manifested all of the three main responses to Western power: the reactionary conviction that if Asian people were truly faithful to their religious traditions, which were presumed to be superior to those of all other civilizations, they would be strong again; the moderate notion that only a few Western techniques were required by Asians whose traditions already provided a sound basis for culture and society; and the vigorous determination, embraced by radical secularists like Mao and Atatürk, that the entire old way of life had to be revolutionized in order to compete in the jungle-like conditions of the modern world.\nIslam was as much a universalizing ideology as Western modernity is now, and it successfully shaped distinctive political systems, economies and cultural attitudes across a wide geographical region\nTwo centuries later, al-Jabarti seems to stand at the beginning of a long line of bewildered Asians: men accustomed to a divinely ordained dispensation, the mysterious workings of fate and the cyclical rise and fall of political fortunes, to whom the remarkable strength of small European nation-states would reveal that organized human energy and action, coupled with technology, amount to a power that could radically manipulate social and political environments. Resentfully\nThe Chinese themselves remained perplexed by the apparently unappeasable greed of the British.\nThe British were beginning to replace their economic and political regime of pure plunder, as had existed in Bengal, with monopoly interests in shipping, banking, insurance and trade, and administrative structures. They enlisted native collaborators, such as the middlemen who expedited the lucrative export of opium grown in India to China, but these tended to be Hindu, Sikh or Parsi rather than Muslim.\nEuropean forms of political and military mobilization (conscript armies, efficient taxation, codified laws), financial innovations (capital-raising joint-stock companies) and information-rich public cultures of enquiry and debate fed upon each other to create a formidable and decisive advantage as Europe penetrated Asia.\nBy 1900, a small white minority radiating out from Europe would come to control most of the world’s land surface, imposing the imperatives of a commercial economy and international trade on Asia’s mainly agrarian societies.\nSecret British government reports from Kandahar and Kabul in 1868 describe al-Afghani as having arrived from India in 1866, a virulent anti-British agitator and likely Russian agent, a slender man with a pale complexion, open forehead, penetrating azure eyes and goatee, who drank tea constantly, was well-versed in geography and history, spoke Arabic, Turkish and Persian (the last language like a native of Persia), not visibly religious and with a European rather than Muslim lifestyle.\nMost of Istanbul’s population was Christian, and parts of it — the western quarters of Pera and Galata — resembled, superficially at least, a more cosmopolitan version of Berlin or St Petersburg.\nMany Muslim reformers in his time spoke of following the West, but it was not easy for most ordinary Muslims to follow the ways of infidel peoples whom they feared or hated or knew nothing about.\nWith European bondholders and moneylenders practically running the country, al-Afghani was becoming less discreet than before about the dangers of Western encroachment.\nThe correspondent did admit that the expulsion ‘may not seem consonant with English ideals as to the free expression of opinion’, but added that the ‘peculiar circumstances of the country must be considered’.\nModernization, it was clear, hadn’t secured the Ottomans against infidels; on the contrary, it had made them more dependent.\nIndia had originally alerted al-Afghani to the advantages of Western science and knowledge; India also served as a warning against those advocating drastic, total Westernization.\nIn the same vein, he also argued that linguistic ties were more profound than religious ones (a lesson Pakistan was to learn when the Bengali-speaking Muslims in East Pakistan seceded to form Bangladesh in 1971).\nThe Indian visitors were keen to learn about the Mahdi, then the kind of minatory figure to Westerners that Osama bin Laden was to become later.\nRenan attacked Islam in terms similar to those he and other European freethinkers deployed against Catholicism: with its claims to supernatural revelation, it was an affront to reason, and a violent persecutor of free thought.\nThe masses do not like reason, the teachings of which are understood only by a few select minds. Science, however fine it may be, cannot completely satisfy humanity’s thirst for the ideal, or the desire to soar in dark and distant regions that philosophers and scholars can neither see nor explore.\nThat Islam needed a Reformation, with himself as Luther, was gradually becoming a favourite theme of al-Afghani.\nHe confessed he was worried about British influence in Afghanistan; the British, he said, always crept into countries as advisers before becoming their masters. This could also, he added, be proved true in Persia, where the shah was beginning to make major concessions to the British at the expense of Russia.\nBudding revolutionaries usually have one shot at success. Al-Afghani had had several, but he had nothing to show for his efforts except a wide network of friends, sympathizers and fellow conspirators across three continents.\nLike many other despots, he was interested in modernization only in so far as it strengthened his apparatus of surveillance and control, and made him look enlightened to foreign investors.\nThe imperatives for reform and science were contained in the Koran, which was perfectly compatible with modern science, politics and economics. He stressed a clear and modern reading of the Koran; no traditionalist interpretation of the holy text, he seemed to argue, should stand in the way of Muslim unity.\n‘The entire Oriental world,’ he told the German journalist who visited him in Istanbul, ‘is so entirely rotten and incapable of hearing the truth and following it that I should wish for a flood or an earthquake to devour and bury it.’\nMore drastic, and popular, revolutions from below were needed; and they needed to shatter the bases as well as the superstructures of oppression.\nA generation of educated Japanese, some exposed to Western societies, came to occupy powerful positions in the Meiji Restoration. They recognized the futility of unfocused xenophobia, shrewdly analysed their own weaknesses vis-à-vis the West as scientific and technical backwardness, and urgently set about organizing Japan into a modern nation-state.\nThe brisk rout of Chinese naval and land forces not only resoundingly proved the sturdiness of Japan’s military and its industrial and infrastructural base. It also showed that, as Sohō put it, ‘civilization is not a monopoly of the white man’.\nAt the risk of lèse-majesté, Kang now told his fellow students that China had degenerated so much that it resembled Turkey, another once-confident and now-feeble country carefully maintained in its infirmity by exploitative foreigners.\nThe Chinese resisted, and in the war that ensued the French destroyed much of the Chinese navy.\nEven Italy, a latecomer to Chinese affairs and expansionism in general, demanded territory (although it was successfully rebuffed).\nThey all faced the task of having to generate a new set of values that ensured survival in the modern era while respecting time-honoured traditions — of appearing loyal to their nation while borrowing some of the secrets of the West’s progress.\nthe sick men of Asia were better alive than dead, for they held chaos at bay, and could also be bullied at will.\nSingh particularly blamed the Russian and French soldiers for the mass killings, arson and rape inflicted on the Chinese. Some of the soldiers tortured their victims purely for fun. ‘All these sportsmen’, Singh noted, ‘belonged to what were called “civilized nations”.’\nAs he saw it, corporate interests played an insidious role in American politics. Frequent elections made for policy short-sightedness and cheap populism. People entering democratic politics tended to be third-rate; far too many American presidents had been mediocre and uninspiring.\nInvoking their ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity, the French authorities in Vietnam had rounded up some 100,000 peasants and artisans and shipped them to the battlefields of France. In return, France was to consider self-rule for their country at some unspecified point in the future.\nIt is hard to exaggerate the impact of Atatürk’s success on opinion across Asia — the greatest victory of the East since the Battle of Tsushima. ‘The truth’, Muhammad Iqbal wrote, ‘is that among the Muslim nations of today, Turkey alone has shaken off its dogmatic slumber, and attained to self-consciousness.’\nIndian philosophy and literature — which only Brahmans in possession of Sanskrit could read — had been a closed book to a majority of Indians; it was the European discovery, and translation into English and German, of Indian texts that introduced a new Western-educated generation of Indian intellectuals to their cultural heritage.\n‘Whatever is to their interest,’ Mukhopadhyay wrote about Europeans, ‘they find consistent with their sense of what is right at all times, failing to understand how their happiness cannot be the source of universal bliss.’7\nAccording to him, the Industrial Revolution, by turning human labour into a source of power, profit and capital, had made economic prosperity the central goal of politics, enthroning machinery over men and relegating religion and ethics to irrelevance. As Gandhi saw it, Western political philosophy obediently validated the world of industrial capitalism.\nOkakura had been alerted to Japan’s cultural heritage by his American teacher Ernest Fenollosa, an art historian and philosopher who believed that it was Asia’s destiny to spiritualize the modern West.\nAnd, he added, ‘the unbridled tyranny of the white races exists because there are no powerful people other than the white races. By breaking through this condition, we can make a positive contribution to all mankind.’\nIn this programme of eradication, Japan succeeded beyond the most garish militarist fantasy. In about ninety days, beginning on 8 December 1941, Japan overran the possessions of Britain, the United States and the Netherlands in East and South-east Asia, taking the Philippines, Singapore, Malaya, Hong Kong, the Dutch East Indies, much of Siam and French Indochina, and Burma with bewildering swiftness to stand poised at the borders of India by early 1942. There are few examples in history of such dramatic humiliation of established powers.\nThe Japanese had revealed how deep the roots of anti-Westernism went, and how quickly Asians could seize power back from their European tormentors.\nHowever, everywhere they came up against the new communal identities forged during the long war, when the Europeans were absent or slaving in prison camps.\nAccustomed to deferential natives, European powers mostly underestimated the post-war nationalism that the Japanese had unwittingly or deliberately unleashed. They also misjudged their own staying power among populations unremittingly hostile to them. This led to many disastrously futile counter-insurgency operations and full-scale wars, many of which still scar nations across Asia.\nThe prominent Malay nationalist Mustapha Hussain spoke for many Asians when he said that, ‘Although the Japanese occupation was described as one of severe hardship and brutality, it left something positive, a sweet fruit to be plucked and enjoyed only after the surrender.’\nThe revolutions that succeeded in Muslim countries were launched in the name of Islam not Marx or Paine. Liberalism, defined in the broadest sense, had a tenuous hold in the Muslim world.\nA further devastating blow to the reputation of the West was the creation of the state of Israel on Palestinian lands in 1948\nNew urban elites emerged from modern educational institutions and bureaucracies, and they tended to have little time for traditional sources of authority. Many of them enriched themselves at the expense of the rural poor. A reservoir of discontent built up, especially among the people most marginalized by this process, such as the clergy, small-town merchants, provincial officials and men from semi-rural backgrounds — the kind of people who hung around al-Afghani.\nRelations between the Arab world and the West were never so fraught as they were between the two world wars. Muslim intellectuals who stressed Western ideologies of nationalism, secularism and democracy felt cruelly betrayed by Europe’s refusal to support their aspirations for national independence.\nIn the war that followed, the Zionists defeated the combined Arab armies, expelled hundreds of thousands of Arab inhabitants of Palestine, and proclaimed an independent state. This constituted a radical defeat for Egypt in particular — the most modern of Arab nations — and Israel became, and has remained, a symbol of Arab impotence against Western power.\nThis was where Qutb first began to develop his larger critique of Western civilization as unhealthily obsessed with material and technological progress to the detriment of moral freedom and social justice.\nHe freely employed the words ‘white man’ as an epithet thereafter: ‘We must nourish in our school-age children sentiments that open their eyes to the tyranny of the white man, his civilization, and his animal hunger.’\nQutb extended a conventional critique of corrupt Middle Eastern regimes and failed modernization into an indictment of all those Western ideologies — whether nationalism, liberalism or socialism — that banished religion and morality from the realm of politics, and exalted human reason above God.\nThe attempt to push Iran into the twentieth century created a small middle class, but it also uprooted millions of people from their traditional rural homes and exposed them to the degradations of urban life. Inequality increased as a small urban elite prospered and acquired the symbols of a modern consumer economy.\nHowever, a visit to the then new nation-state of Israel in 1962 impressed upon him the power of political solidarity built upon a shared religion: ‘I as an Easterner [prefer] an Israeli model over all other models of how to deal with the West,’ he wrote in his diary.\nIn many countries, especially in the Middle East and South Asia where modernization failed or was not even properly attempted, hundreds of millions of Muslims have long inhabited a netherworld fantasy of religious-political revenge. Trying and failing to enter the modern world defined by the West, they ended up not only uprooting themselves but also hating the West — the source of so much upheaval and trauma in their lives.\nTurkey is the first Muslim country to have developed a model of indigenous modernity that not only does not depend on the original Western one but also seems to rival it. Furthermore, this Islamic modernism is rooted in lived experience rather than, as has been the case elsewhere, pure imagination. Western ideas remain important but they are now assessed on the basis of their effectiveness, rather than simply swallowed whole. And a certain abject attitude towards the West has been replaced by a renewed pride in Turkishness.\nBut Turkey itself shows that Atatürk’s political and cultural experiment succeeded only partially and that some selective borrowings from Western modernity cannot relegate Islam to the private sphere — let alone ensure social and economic justice for the majority of the population.\nWhat China may well need, he said, is state socialism which controls the economy and works to diminish inequality, while making the country a serious combatant in the jungle of international competition.\nThis loss of the West’s moral prestige and the assertiveness of the East may appear a recent phenomenon. But, as this book has shown, the less uneven global order coming into being was outlined as early as the nineteenth century by Asian intellectuals who rejected the West’s racial and imperial hierarchies and its right to define the rules of international politics.\nThis can be seen most clearly today within Europe and the United States, the originators of globalization. Inequality and unemployment grow as highly mobile corporations continually move around the world in search of cheap labour and high profits, evading taxation and therefore draining much-needed investment in welfare systems for ageing populations. Economic setbacks, the prospect of long-term decline and a sense of political impotence stoke a great rage and paranoia among their populations, directed largely at non-white immigrants, particularly Muslims.\nGlobalization, it is clear, does not lead to a flat world marked by increasing integration, standardization and cosmopolitan openness, despite the wishful thinking of some commentators.\nIt took much private and public tumult, and great physical and intellectual journeys, to bring these thinkers to the point where they could make sense of themselves and their environment, and then the knowledge they achieved after so much toil was often full of pain and did not offer hope. They often seemed to change their minds and contradict themselves. As some of the first to break with tradition, they were faced with the Sisyphean task of finding their bearings in the modern world and reorienting their minds to new problems of personal and collective identity.\nMany of these thinkers judged Western-style politics and economics to be inherently violent and destructive forces. They knew that borrowing technical skills through a modern system of education from Europe wasn’t enough; these borrowings brought with them a whole new way of life. They demanded an organized mass society whose basic unit was the self-reliant individual who pursues his economic self-interest while progressively liberating himself from guild rules, religious obligations and other communal solidarities — a presupposition that threatened to wreck the old moral order. These thinkers sensed that, though irresistible and often necessary, the modern industrial society and social freedoms pioneered by Europe would destroy many of their cherished cultures and traditions, just as they had in Europe itself, and leave chaos in their place.\nAnd all this was for a process which did not lead directly, even in the West itself, to a clear destination of happiness and stability, and which despite producing mass education, cheap consumer goods, the popular press and mass entertainment had only partly relieved a widely and deeply felt rootlessness, confusion and anomie.\nIndeed, as one indigenous modernizer after another in Japan, Turkey, China and India conceded, resistance to the West required urgent adaptation to Western ideas of organizing state and society.\nRyszard KapuÅšciÅ„ski once summed up the tragic ‘drama’ of the honest and patriotic postcolonial leader by describing the\nterrible material resistance that each one encounters on taking his first, second and third steps up the summit of power. Each one wants to do something good and begins to do it and then sees, after a month, after a year, after three years, that is just isn’t happening, that it is slipping away, that it is bogged down in the sand. Everything is in the way: the centuries of backwardness, the primitive economy, the illiteracy, the religious fanaticism, the tribal blindness, the chronic hunger, the colonial past with its practice of debasing and dulling the conquered, the blackmail by the imperialists, the greed of the corrupt, the unemployment, the red ink. Progress comes with great difficulty along such a road. The politician begins to push too hard. He looks for a way out through dictatorship. The dictatorship then fathers an opposition. The opposition organizes a coup.\nAnd the cycle begins anew.\nWe can see that the seemingly wholesale adoption of Western ideologies (Chinese communism, Japanese imperialism) did not work. Attempts at syntheses (India’s parliamentary democracy, Muslim Turkey’s secular state, China’s state capitalism) were more successful, and violent rejections of the West in the form of Iran’s Islamic Revolution and Islamist movements continue to have an afterlife.\nIt is simply this: no convincingly universalist response exists today to Western ideas of politics and economy, even though these seem increasingly febrile and dangerously unsuitable in large parts of the world.\nThe European model of the ethnically homogenous nation-state was a poor fit in Europe itself. That it was particularly so for multi-ethnic Asian societies has been amply proved by the plight of Kashmiri Muslims, Tibetans, Uighurs, the Chinese in Malaysia, Sunni Muslims in Iraq, Kurds in Turkey and Tamils in Sri Lanka.\nAs India and China rise with their consumerist middle classes in a world of finite energy resources, it is easy to imagine that this century will be ravaged by the kind of economic rivalries and military conflicts that made the last century so violent.\nThe hope that fuels the pursuit of endless economic growth — that billions of consumers in India and China will one day enjoy the lifestyles of Europeans and Americans — is as absurd and dangerous a fantasy as anything dreamt up by al-Qaeda.\n","date":"January 17, 2018","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-from-the-ruins-of-empire/","section":"Posts","summary":"It mattered little to which class or race they belonged; the subordinate peoples of the world keenly absorbed the deeper implications — moral and psychological — of Japan’s triumph.\n","title":"Highlights for From the Ruins of Empire","type":"posts"},{"content":"Indeed, this is the challenge of the historical novel: whether or not the stories are true might be the least important thing about them. History as it’s written down in books is one thing, but history as it’s lived is another.\nWhen the Europeans left, educated Ugandans climbed out of the swamps, slaked off the mud, and took to the hills and raw Ugandans flooded the swamps. Up in the hills, educated Ugandans assumed the same contempt as Europeans had for them.\nFor those whose jobs came as rarely as a yam’s flower this was a chance to feel useful.\nTradition claimed that identical twins were one soul who, failing to resolve the primal conflict in the self, split—and two people were born.\nEvery time a set of twins arrived, they shook his hand, “A strong man may wake up late and still get to do as much as we who woke up with the birds.”\nHe knew the snare of being a man. Society heaped such expectations on manhood that in a bid to live up to them some men snapped.\nHe had never discussed his role in her rise in status because words not only travel, but they acquire legs and arms along the way. And by the time they get to the person talked about, they are beyond recognition.\nI tell you fellow men: never negotiate with a woman. Their sense is not our sense.\nOf course, when a nation has plenty and peace reigns, foreigners start to flock in. And you know with foreigners: they bring their troubles with them.\nEveryone’s face turned and stared at Suubi as if her father killing his twin was written on her body.\nBritain and America were the lands of humanity, the places Miisi longed to be. The real Britain took him by surprise.\nShe corrected herself, “These things have no place in the modern world.”\n“As long as there are Africans in the world, there will always be someone seeking these things,”the woman laughed.\n","date":"January 5, 2018","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-kintu/","section":"Posts","summary":"Indeed, this is the challenge of the historical novel: whether or not the stories are true might be the least important thing about them. History as it’s written down in books is one thing, but history as it’s lived is another.\n","title":"Highlights for Kintu","type":"posts"},{"content":"This is the history of those who got away\nthe power of the state to deploy distance-demolishing technologies—railroads, all-weather roads, telephone, telegraph, airpower, helicopters, and now information technology—so changed the strategic balance of power between self-governing peoples and nation-states, so diminished the friction of terrain, that my analysis largely ceases to be useful.\nIn other words, living in the absence of state structures has been the standard human condition.\nThat frontier operated as a rough and ready homeostatic device; the more a state pressed its subjects, the fewer subjects it had.\nSeen from the state center, this enclosure movement is, in part, an effort to integrate and monetize the people, lands, and resources of the periphery so that they become, to use the French term, rentable—auditable contributors to the gross national product and to foreign exchange.\nMore commonly, nonstate peoples found it convenient to raid the settlements of sedentary farming communities subject to the state, sometimes exacting systematic tribute from them in the manner of states.\nThe main, long-run threat of the ungoverned periphery, however, was that it represented a constant temptation, a constant alternative to life within the state.\nFor long periods people moved in and out of states, and “stateness”was, itself, often cyclical and reversible.\nMuch of the periphery of states became a zone of refuge or “shatter zone,”where the human shards of state formation and rivalry accumulated willy nilly, creating regions of bewildering ethnic and linguistic complexity.\nTheir subsistence routines, their social organization, their physical dispersal, and many elements of their culture, far from being the archaic traits of a people left behind, are purposefully crafted both to thwart incorporation into nearby states and to minimize the likelihood that statelike concentrations of power will arise among them.\nThey are, in other words, political adaptations of nonstate peoples to a world of states that are, at once, attractive and threatening.\nThe attempt to bring the periphery into line is read by representatives of the sponsoring state as providing civilization and progress—where progress is, in turn, read as the intrusive propagation of the linguistic, agricultural, and religious practices of the dominant ethnic group:\nThe principle behind region-making in each case is that, for the premodern world, water, especially if it is calm, joins people, whereas mountains, especially if they are high and rugged, divide people.\nZomia is thus knitted together as a region not by a political unity, which it utterly lacks, but by comparable patterns of diverse hill agriculture, dispersal and mobility, and rough egalitarianism, which, not incidentally, includes a relatively higher status for women than in the valleys.\nIbn Khaldun, who noted that “Arabs can gain control only over flat territory”and do not pursue tribes that hide in the mountains.\nHill polities are, almost invariably, redistributive, competitive feasting systems held together by the benefits they are able to disburse.\nAccounts of lowland states that miss this dimension do not merely “leave out”the hills; they ignore a set of boundary conditions and exchanges that make the center what it is.\nFor most of its history, Southeast Asia has been marked by the relative absence even of valley states. Where they arose, they tended to be remarkably short-lived, comparatively weak outside a small and variable radius of the court center, and generally unable systematically to extract resources (including manpower) from a substantial population.\nIt becomes difficult, in this context, to reconstruct the life-world of nonelites, even if they are located at the court center.\nState rulers find it well nigh impossible to install an effective sovereignty over people who are constantly in motion, who have no permanent pattern of organization, no permanent address, whose leadership is ephemeral, whose subsistence patterns are pliable and fugitive, who have few permanent allegiances, and who are liable, over time, to shift their linguistic practices and their ethnic identity.\nGrain, then, as compared with root crops, is both legible to the state and relatively appropriable.\nAll the evidence points to the piecemeal elaboration of padi lands by kinship units and hamlets that built and extended the small diversion dams, sluices, and channels required for water control. Such irrigation works often predated the creation of state cores and, just as frequently, survived the collapse of many a state that had taken temporary advantage of its concentrated manpower and food supply.\nProvisioning the state’s core population with grain ran up against the intractable limits of distance and harvest fluctuations, while the population sequestered to plant that grain found it all too easy to walk beyond the reach of state control.\nIn thirteenth-century Europe, according to one calculation, shipping costs by sea were a mere 5 percent of the cost by land.\nBefore the distance-demolishing technology of railroads and all-weather motor roads, land-bound polities in Southeast Asia and Europe found it extremely difficult, without navigable waterways, to concentrate and then project power.\nRulers fed major inland cities such as Berlin and Madrid only at great effort and great cost to their hinterlands. The exceptional efficiency of waterways in the Netherlands undoubtedly gave the Dutch great advantages at peace and war.\nThey would also, as we shall see, help demarcate the sharp difference between a geography more amenable to state control and appropriation (state space) and a geography intrinsically resistant to state control (nonstate space).\nIt matters little how wealthy a kingdom is if its potential surplus of manpower and grain is dispersed across a landscape that makes its collection difficult and costly.\nLess reliant on volatile trade, more hierarchical, more insulated from food-supply crises, and capable of feeding quite massive armies, these agrarian states might lose a battle or even a war, but their staying power over the long haul tended to prevail.\n“To have too many people [as subjects to a lord] is better than to have too much grass [uncultivated land].”\nVagrancy was discouraged and displaced people were fixed to a plot of land where they could be turned into reliable sources of taxation, corvée labour and military service.\nThe expansion and peopling of legible state space was intrinsically difficult, given the open frontier. If it was occasionally achieved, it was due as much to the closing off of alternatives as to the inherent attractions of state space.\nStatecraft with both eyes fixed on the accumulation of manpower could hardly be particular about whom it incorporated. A “manpower state”in this sense is, in principle, the enemy of hard and fast cultural distinctions and exclusiveness. Put more accurately, such states had great incentives to incorporate whomever they could and to invent cultural, ethnic, and religious formulas that would allow them to do so.\nWhen it came to skilled manpower as well as foot soldiers and cultivators, the need for their services precluded rigid cultural exclusion.\nThe manpower imperative was, everywhere, the enemy of discrimination and exclusion.\nSlaves, it is fair to say, were the most important “cash crop”of precolonial Southeast Asia: the most sought-after commodity in the region’s commerce. Virtually every large trader was, simultaneously, a slave-raider or a buyer. Every military campaign, every punitive expedition was, at the same time, a campaign for captives who could be bought, sold, or held.\nKnowing this, one might have expected statecraft to consist in sailing as close to the wind as they could: that is, in extracting resources just short of the point at which they would provoke flight or rebellion.\nPeoples who appeared to have no fixed abode, who moved constantly and unpredictably, were beyond the pale of civilization.\nIn addition, to the degree that irrigated padi cultivation massively alters the landscape, while hill agriculture appears less visually obtrusive, hill peoples came to be associated with nature as against culture.\nThus, of all the commodities that the hill societies could deny the valleys, their trump card was manpower.\nAll those who had reason to flee state power—to escape taxes, conscription, disease, poverty, or prison, or to trade or raid—were, in a sense, tribalizing themselves.\nWhat passes, in the eyes of valley officials, as deplorable backwardness may, for those so stigmatized, represent a political space of self-governance, mobility, and freedom from taxes.\nThe official invisibility of defection is encoded in the narrative itself; those who move to nonstate space, who adapt to its agro-ecology, become ethnicized barbarians who were, presumably, always there.\nThose absorbed disappeared as distinctive societies, though they lent their cultural color to the amalgam that came to represent valley culture.\nThis reversal is an important reminder that the key to premodern state-building is the concentration of arable land and manpower, not altitude per se.\nCompetition among the agrarian states for conscripts led to constant sweeps for “vagrants”—virtually anyone without a fixed residence—to fulfill draconian recruitment quotas.\nGypsies, the most stigmatized and scourged of the itinerant poor, were criminalized and made the object of the notorious Zegeuner Jagt (Gypsy hunts).\nThis no-man’s land, this narrow zone of refuge, became known as the “outlaw corridor.”The outlaw corridor was simply a concentration of migrants “between the Palatine and Saxony, which was too far from the Prussian-Brandenburg recruitment area as well as from the Mediterranean (in the latter case, the transportation costs were higher then the price per slave).”\nAs Hefner observes, the overriding goal of the Tengger uplanders is to avoid “being ordered about”; an aspiration that is deliberately at odds with the elaborate hierarchies and status-coded behavior of the Javanese lowlands.\nThe varied timing of the many waves of migration, their location by altitude, and their mode of subsistence account, Keesing believes, for the luxuriant diversity of the mountain ethnoscape in contrast to valley uniformity.\nThe hills, from the valley perspective, were associated with heathenism, apostasy, primitive wildness and ferocity, and insubordination.\nHaving, over time, adapted to a hilly environment and, as we shall see, developed a social structure and subsistence routines to avoid incorporation, they are now seen by their lowland neighbors as impoverished, backward, tribal populations that lacked the talent for civilization.\nAgain and again, the compilers are told that the village was founded recently or several generations back by people who had come from elsewhere, usually to escape war or oppression.\nAll these options were generally preferred to the risks of open rebellion, an option confined largely to elites contending for the throne.\nThe expression “states make wars and wars make states,”coined by Charles Tilly\nIt mattered little whether the army in question was “one’s own”or that of a neighboring kingdom, the quartermaster’s requirements were the same, and so, largely, was the treatment of civilians and property.\nThe wet-rice valleys and the level plains of the typical valley state are not merely topographically flat; they can also be thought of as having been culturally, linguistically, and religiously flattened.\nWhen Islam swept the area the Berbers became Muslims, but soon expressed their dissent from the inequalities of Arab Muslim rule by becoming Kharijite heretics.”\nReligious identity in this case is a self-selected boundary-making device designed to emphasize political and social difference.\nMost of the deadly epidemic diseases from which we suffer—smallpox, flu, tuberculosis, plague, measles, and cholera—are zoonotic diseases that have evolved from domesticated animals.\nState-resistant space was therefore not a place on the map but a position vis-à-vis power;\nA complete accounting of state-resistant places would have as many pages devoted to low, wet places—marshes, swamps, fens, bogs, moors, deltas, mangrove coasts, and complex waterways and archipelagoes—as to high mountain redoubts.\nSelf-marginalization, or “self-barbarianization”in valley terms, might have been, at times, quite common. Civilizational discourse, however, made such conduct unthinkable.\nDissimilation—not to be confused with dissimulation—refers to the more or less purposeful creation of cultural distance between societies.\nThese communities ranged in size from Palmares in Brazil, with perhaps twenty thousand inhabitants, and Dutch Guiana (Surinam), with that many or more, to smaller settlements of escapees throughout the Caribbean (Jamaica, Cuba, Mexico, Saint-Domingue), as well as in Florida and on the Virginia-North Carolina border in the Great Dismal Swamp.\nTo choose swiddening or, for that matter, foraging or nomadic pastoralism is to choose to remain outside state space.\nWet rice is, to be sure, more productive per unit of land than shifting cultivation. It is, however, typically less productive per unit of labor. Which of the two systems is the more efficient depends mainly on whether land or labor represents the scarcer factor of production.\nIf, on the other hand, the population chooses to grow padi rice, they represent an easy target for a state (or raiders), who know where to find them and their crops, carts, plow animals, and possessions.\nOne Bornean specialist goes so far as to argue that the very purpose of shifting cultivation was to sustain a population of traders scouring the forest for valuable trade goods.5\nAny crop that allowed people to move to hitherto inaccessible areas and to provision themselves successfully there was, by definition, a crop stigmatized by the state.\nCassava allows its planters to occupy virtually any ecological niche, roam more or less at will, and avoid a great deal of drudgery.\nErnest Gellner describes this deliberate choice among the Berbers with the slogan “Divide that ye be not ruled.”It is a brilliant aphorism, for it shows that the Roman slogan “Divide and rule”does not work past a certain point of atomization.\nSocial structure, in other words, is, in large measure, both a state effect and a choice; and one possible choice is a social structure that is invisible and/or illegible to state-makers.\nThe British in Burma, Leach noted, everywhere preferred autocratic “tribal”regimes in compact geographical concentrations with which they could negotiate; conversely, they had a distaste for anarchic, egalitarian peoples who had no discernible spokesman.\nThey emphasize the equality of access to feasting and status competition, refusing to allow those who were already prominent or too wealthy to conduct further sacrifices lest they aspire to chiefdom status.\nAt the same time, those who migrate to lowland states and assimilate—and historically there have been a great many—enter valley society at its lowest rungs.\nThey might be termed equality, autonomy, and mobility, all understood relatively. As a matter of practice, of course, all three are encoded in material life in the hills—in location well away from lowland states, in dispersal, in common property, in shifting cultivation, and in the choice of crops.\nThe gumlao Kachin, as we have seen, have a history of enforcing egalitarian social relations by deposing or assassinating overreaching chiefs. One imagines that this history and the narratives that accompany it operate as a chilling cautionary tale for lineage chiefs with autocratic ambitions.\nthen, by the same token, the absence of writing and texts provides a freedom of maneuver in history, genealogy, and legibility that frustrates state routines.\nSuch legends are, like ethnic identity itself, a strategic positioning vis-à-vis other groups. We have every reason to imagine that such legends, like ethnic identity, will be adjusted if the circumstances shift appreciably.\nSecond, those who were literate in the script of the lowland state would have almost certainly have been elites whose bicultural skills fitted them best to become allies and administrators of the lowland state and, if they so chose, to take the path of assimilation.\nLowland padi states were centers of literacy not merely because they were cult centers for world religions but also because writing is a crucial technology of administration and statecraft.\nIn an oral culture, there cannot be a single authoritative genealogy or history that can serve as the gold standard of orthodoxy. In the case of two or more renditions, which one is given credence depends largely on the standing of the “bard”in question and on how closely the account conforms to the interests and tastes of the audience.\nOral culture exists and is sustained only through each unique performance at a particular time and place for an interested audience. These performances are, of course, far more than the transcript of the words spoken; each includes the setting, the gestures, and the expression of the performer(s), the audience reaction, and the nature of the occasion itself.\nOral traditions, then, appear to provide, under certain circumstances, something of the word-for-word constancy of a fixed, written text, together with the potential flexibility of strategic adjustment and change. They can, as it were, have it both ways; they can claim to be precise ur-texts while in fact being substantially novel—and there is no easy way of evaluating this claim.\nElaborate genealogies are, in this respect, a vast portfolio of possible connections, most of which remain in the shadows but could, if necessary, be summoned.\nBy denying their history—by not carrying the shared history and genealogy that define group identity—the Lisu negate virtually any unit of cultural identity beyond the individual household.\nErnest Renan was right when he wrote over a century ago: “Forgetting, and I would even say historical error, are an essential factor in the creation of a nation, and so it is that progress in historical studies is often a danger to nationality.”That is, I believe, a fine task for historians: to be a danger to national myths. —Eric Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780\nThe confusion was genuine and four-barreled. First, any particular trait was likely to be a gradient and occasionally a seamless continuum from one village or group to another. Lacking sharp, discontinuous changes in ritual, dress, building styles, or even language, any line of demarcation was arbitrary. Second, if one did in fact meticulously chart small variations and then try, conscientiously, to justify a particular trait boundary, another nearly insurmountable problem arose. The boundaries for trait A, B, and C did not map onto one another; each yielded a different line of demarcation, a different classification of “ethnicities.”The third and fatal difficulty was that any such trait-mapped ethnicities were unlikely to coincide with the phenomenological understandings of the tribal people whose life-world was being mapped. The colonial ethnographers’ map said they were A, but they said they were B and had always been. How could that not matter? And if the classification exercise somehow survived these blows, a fourth difficulty, time, would surely be the coup de grâce. Those with some sense of historical change understood that in terms of traits or in terms of self-identification, the A had, not so long ago, been B and seemed, alarmingly, now on their way to becoming C. How could an ethnic group, a tribe, be so radically unstable over time and still be a people?\nZomia is and has been what might be called a “fracture zone”of state-making, much like the Caucasus and the Balkans.\nSuch powerful identities are, in this respect, no less fictitious and constructed than most national identities in the modern world.\nThe perspective adopted and elaborated here is a radical constructionist one: that ethnic identities in the hills are politically crafted and designed to position a group vis-à-vis others in competition for power and resources. In a world crowded with other actors, most of whom, like modern states, are more powerful than they, their freedom of invention is severely constricted. They craft identities, but not in circumstances of their own choosing, to paraphrase Marx.\nBut what is novel and noteworthy for most of this long history in the hills is that ethnic and tribal identities have been put to the service not merely of autonomy but of statelessness.\nThe formula for full incorporation was minimal: becoming a retainer of a Malay chief, professing Islam, and speaking Malay, the lingua franca of trade in the archipelago. A negeri was less an ethnicity than a political formula for membership in the polity.\nAs suggested earlier, the Burmese and Siamese were to the numerous and varied populations they incorporated as the two thousand conquering Norman families were to the indigenous peoples of Britain.\nThe keystone, of course, is the technique of irrigated rice cultivation that makes possible a padi core in the first place. It was not, however, a technique exclusive to the Burmese and Tai, inasmuch as it had been the basis of the Khmer, Pyu, and Mon courts earlier. The cosmology and architecture of the Indic court center is, as it were, the ideological superstructure of the divine monarchy and was adapted for that purpose. Theravada Buddhism, another import, served as a universal domain, to assemble “ethnic deities and spirits”under a new hegemon, much as the padi state’s subjects were gathered around the court. Local spirits (nat, phi) were accommodated as subsidiary deities much as Catholicism accommodated pagan deities under the rubric of the saints. Even the languages of the state-builders, Burmese and Thai, were, in their written form (from Sanskrit via Pali), linked to the legitimating cosmology of Buddhism and the Indic state.\nWhile the historical process of ingathering was a cosmopolitan enterprise, the population thus assembled came to share a set of common cultural practices and institutions.\nBefore the advent of modern statecraft, with its practices of territorial administration and mutually exclusive sovereignties and ethnicities, such ambiguities were common.\nA person’s ethnic identity in this sense would be the repertoire of possible performances and the contexts in which they are exhibited.\nThe first is that powerful outsiders, especially states, constrain the identity choices of most actors. Second, movement toward one of an array of identities does not exclude the possibility that, should circumstances change, that movement might be reversed. Finally, and surely most important, we must never confuse what an outsider might perceive as a momentous shift in identity with the lived experience of the actors involved.\nPeoples whose vernacular order was egalitarian lacked the institutional handles by which they could be governed. Those institutions would have to be provided, if necessary, by force.\nIn Batavia, the Dutch discerned, according to their preconception, a Chinese minority. This mixed group did not consider itself Chinese; its boundaries merged seamlessly with those of other Batavians, with whom they freely intermarried. Once the Dutch discerned this ethnicity, however, they institutionalized their administrative fiction. They set about territorializing the “Chinese”quarter, selected “Chinese”officials, set up local courts for customary Chinese law as they saw it, instituted Chinese schools, and in general made sure that all those falling within this classification approached the colonial regime as Batavian “Chinese.”What began as something of a figment of the Dutch imperial imagination took on real sociological substance through the traffic patterns of institutions. And voilà!—after sixty years or so there was indeed a self-conscious Chinese community.\nThe point is that once created, an institutional identity acquires its own history. The longer and deeper this history is, the more it will resemble the mythmaking and forgetting of nationalism. Over time such an identity, however fabricated its origin, will take on essentialist features and may well inspire passionate loyalty.\nThe Lisu are without history not because they are incapable of history but because they choose to avoid its inconveniences.\nBy 1800 a kind of cultural template had been established for Lahu rebellions, which were innumerable. They were almost always led by holy men seen by the Lahu as god-kings who could cure illnesses, purify the community, and constitute a Buddhist “field of merit.”\nThe frequency of Lahu prophetic movements allows us to identify something of a “career trajectory,”even for an activity so decidedly unroutine as becoming a god-man. A local village priest has a mystical experience—perhaps as the result of an illness—and claims healing powers through the use of trance or possession. If his claim is accepted and he gains a substantial extravillage following for his curing powers, he may claim (or his followers may claim) that he has Gui-sha’s divine nature. He is then likely to insist on ritual and doctrinal reforms (diet, prayer, taboos) to cleanse the community and prepare for a new order. A final step, one that will invariably catapult him into the archives of his lowland neighbors and perhaps sign his death warrant, is when, as god-man, he proclaims a new order and unites his followers in defiance of the lowland state.\nNonetheless, the analogy does illustrate the way in which the cultural expectations and historical understanding of a charismatic public—often misunderstood as mere putty in his hands—can play a decisive role in influencing the script of a successful prophet. This stochastic process of successive adjustment is familiar enough; it is the stock in trade of most successful politicians and preachers.\nAmong others, Weber pointed to the Donatist sects of Roman North Africa, the Taborites (aka Hussites) of early-fifteenth-century Bohemia, the Diggers of the English Civil Wars, and Russian peasant sectarians as examples of the prophetic tradition of agrarian radicalism.\nThat is, it was not so much penury that led peasants to radical religious sects as the imminent prospect of losing their status as independent smallholders and falling into abject dependence as landless laborers or, worse, someone’s serf.\nVirtually all states were monarchies, and the remedy for a bad king was a better king.\nIn the great Taiping Rebellion, in the hundreds of cargo-cult uprisings in the Pacific Islands, in the rebellions of New World prophets against Europeans, the key figures are often culturally amphibious translators who move relatively easily between the worlds they inhabit.\nThe shaman or traditional healer treats patients who are troubled or ill, typically through trance and/or possession. The shaman identifies what is out of whack and then conducts rituals to persuade the spirit troubling the patient to withdraw. In the case of the prophet, however, it is the entire community that is, as it were, out of whack. Often the crisis and threat are such that the normal cultural paths to dignity and respect—diligence as a cultivator, bravery, successful feasting, good hunting, marriage and children, and locally honorable behavior generally—are no longer adequate to an exceptional situation.\nFor every would-be prophet who manages to lead his followers to a zone of relative peace and stability—and subsistence—many others fail. But the coincidence of such movements with economic, political, and military crises suggests that they can be seen as desperate social experiments, a throw of the dice in a setting where the odds of a very favorable outcome are long.\nFaced with slave raids, demands for tribute, invading armies, epidemics, and occasional crop failures, they appear to have developed not just the subsistence routines to keep the state at arm’s length but a shape-shifting social and religious organization admirably adapted to cope with a turbulent environment. The concentration of heterodox sects, hermit monks, pretenders, and would-be prophets in most hill societies has provided, in effect, the agency that allows many of them to substantially reinvent themselves when the situation requires it.\nTo stand back and take all this in, to wonder at the capacity of hill peoples to strike out, almost overnight, for new territory—socially, religiously, ethnically—is to appreciate the mind-boggling cosmopolitanism of relatively marginal and powerless people.\nIn light of this history it is perhaps not so surprising that they have been so adept at moving at the drop of a hat, reshuffling their social organization, and shape-shifting between various forms of millenarian dreams and revolt. These are, in a sense, high-stakes experiments in social identity by a people hoping to change their luck. As their situation has worsened, they have developed escape social structure into something of an art form.\nNevertheless, such movements have created new social groups, reshuffled and amalgamated ethnicities, assisted the founding of new villages and new states, provoked radical shifts in subsistence routines and customs, set off long-distance moves, and, not trivially, kept alive a reservoir of hope for a life of dignity, peace, and plenty in the teeth of very long odds.\nMost hill cultures have, as it were, their bags already packed for travel across space, across identities, or across both. Their broad repertoires of languages and ethnic affiliations, their capacity for prophetic reinvention, their short and/or oral genealogies, and their talent for fragmentation all form elements in their formidable travel kit.\nIt is in their interest to keep as many of their options open as possible, and what kind of history to have is one of those options. They have just as much history as they require.\nIn periods of dynastic consolidation, peace, and buoyant trade, Skinner explains, the local community opens and adapts to the opportunities these conditions afford. Economic specialization, trade, and administrative and political links flourish as the community takes advantage of the opportunities in the wider world. By contrast, in periods of dynastic collapse, economic depression, and civil strife and banditry, the local community withdraws increasingly into its own shell as a self-protective measure. The withdrawal was patterned, according to Skinner: first a normative withdrawal, then an economic closure, and, finally, a defensive military closure. Specialists and traders returned home, economic specialization diminished, the local food supply was guarded, outsiders were expelled, crop-watching societies were formed, stockades built, and local militias created.\nSuch adjustments can take place along one or several dimensions not easily available to the core peasantry. The first of these dimensions is location; the higher and more remote their dwelling, the farther they generally are from state centers, slave raids, and taxes. A second dimension is scale and dispersal; the smaller and more dispersed their settlements the less tempting a target they represent for raiders and states. Finally, they can and do modulate their subsistence techniques, each of which embodies a position vis-à-vis states, hierarchy, and political incorporation.\nWhat is most striking here, of course, is how closely the ideal of a civilized landscape and demography coincides with a landscape and demography most suitable for state-making and how closely a landscape unsuitable for state appropriation, as well as the people who inhabit it, is understood as uncivilized and barbaric.\nDwelling in inaccessible forests and on hilltops codes as uncivilized. Foraging, forest collecting—even for commercial gain—and swiddening also code as backward. Scattered living and small settlements are, by definition, archaic. Physical mobility and transient, negotiable identities are both primitive and dangerous. Not following the great valley religions or not being the tax- and tithe-bearing subjects of monarchs and clergy places one outside the pale of civilization.\nThe ruler of Palembang in 1747 observed: “It is very easy for a subject to find a lord, but it is much more difficult for a lord to find a subject.”\nOne of the most inspiring things I have ever seen was a large papiermâché statue of a running figure, a “Monument to the Deserters of Both World Wars”(Denkmal an den Unbekannten Deserteurs der Beiden Weltkriegen) assembled by German anarchists shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall and taken, via flatbed truck, to the cities of the former German Democratic Republic. It was chased from city to city by the local authorities until it came to rest, briefly, in Bonn.\nMilitary portering is especially dreaded. It has been common for porters to be worked to exhaustion on maneuvers and then executed so that they cannot return home, to be forced to walk ahead of Burmese troops through suspected minefields, and, occasionally, to be forced to wear uniforms and precede the troops in order to draw insurgent fire.\n","date":"January 4, 2018","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-from-the-art-of-not-being-governed/","section":"Posts","summary":"This is the history of those who got away\n","title":"Highlights for the Art of Not Being Governed","type":"posts"},{"content":"When you use “And what else?”you’ll get more options and often better options. Better options lead to better decisions. Better decisions lead to greater success.\nThere’s a place for giving advice, of course. This book isn’t suggesting that you never give anyone an answer ever again. But it’s an overused and often ineffective response.\nWhich is why people in organizations like yours around the world are working very hard and coming up with decent solutions to problems that just don’t matter, and why the real challenges often go unaddressed.\nThe simple act of adding “for you”to the end of as many questions as possible is an everyday technique for making conversations more development- than performance-oriented.\nStick to questions starting with “What”and avoid questions starting with “Why.”\nWe often don’t know what we actually want. Even if there’s a first, fast answer, the question “But what do you really want?”will typically stop people in their tracks.\nI was not a successful law student. I remember almost nothing from my classes, and I ended my studies by being sued by one of my lecturers for defamation. It’s a long story.\n“Are you more important or less important than I am?”is the question the brain is asking, and if you’ve diminished my status, the situation feels less secure.\nT is for tribe. The brain is asking, “Are you with me, or are you against me?”\nE is for expectation. The brain is figuring out, “Do I know the future or don’t I?”\nA is for autonomy.\nIf you believe you do have a choice, then this environment is more likely to be a place of reward and therefore engagement.\nA way to soften this question, as with all questions, is to use the phrase “Out of curiosity.”\nOther phrases that can have a similar softening effect on the question being asked are “Just so I know…”or “To help me understand better…”or even “To make sure that I’m clear…”\nYou’re giving the solution, you’re providing the answer, you’re adding something to your to-do list. You’re assuming you know what the request is, even though the request hasn’t been clearly made. In short, you’re taking responsibility.\nThe more direct version of “How can I help?”is “What do you want from me?”\nthe wheel is spinning but the hamster is dead.\nIn fact, “strategic”has become an overused qualifier, something we add to anything that we want to sound more important, more useful, more thoughtful, more… good.\nWhy are you asking me?\nWhom else have you asked?\nWhen you say this is urgent, what do you mean?\nAccording to what standard does this need to be completed? By when?\nIf I couldn’t do all of this, but could do just a part, what part would you have me do?\nWhat do you want me to take off my plate so I can do this?\nWhat is our winning aspiration?\nWhere will we play?\nHow will we win?\nWhat capabilities must be in place?\nWhat management systems are required?\nYou want them to learn so that they become more competent, more self-sufficient and more successful.\nAcademic Chris Argyris coined the term for this “double-loop learning”more than forty years ago.\nBut “What was most useful for you?”is like a superfood—kale perhaps—compared with the mere iceberg-lettuce goodness of the other questions.\n“Is my manager useful?”the question asks. And thinking back over the last year, he’s struck by the fact that every single conversation with you has proven to be useful.\nAnswering that question extracts what was useful, shares the wisdom and embeds the learning. If you want to enrich the conversation even further—and build a stronger relationship, too—tell people what you found to be most useful about the exchange.\n","date":"January 2, 2018","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-the-coaching-habit/","section":"Posts","summary":"When you use “And what else?”you’ll get more options and often better options. Better options lead to better decisions. Better decisions lead to greater success.\n","title":"Highlights for The Coaching Habit","type":"posts"},{"content":"Critical consciousness, they say, is anarchic. Others add that critical consciousness may lead to disorder.\nThis, then, is the great humanistic and historical task of the oppressed: to liberate themselves and their oppressors as well.\nThe oppressed, having internalized the image of the oppressor and adopted his guidelines, are fearful of freedom. Freedom would require them to eject this image and replace it with autonomy and responsibility.\nSolidarity requires that one enter into the situation of those with whom one is solidary; it is a radical posture.\nNo pedagogy which is truly liberating can remain distant from the oppressed by treating them as unfortunates and by presenting for their emulation models from among the oppressors.\nAny situation in which “A”objectively exploits “B”or hinders his and her pursuit of self-affirmation as a responsible person is one of oppression. Such a situation in itself constitutes violence, even when sweetened by false generosity, because it interferes with the individual’s ontological and historical vocation to be more fully human.\nConditioned by the experience of oppressing others, any situation other than their former seems to them like oppression.\nThe oppressed, as objects, as “things,”have no purposes except those their oppressors prescribe for them.\nSubmerged in reality, the oppressed cannot perceive clearly the “order”which serves the interests of the oppressors whose image they have internalized. Chafing under the restrictions of this order, they often manifest a type of horizontal violence, striking out at their own comrades for the pettiest reasons.\nThis discovery cannot be purely intellectual but must involve action; nor can it be limited to mere activism, but must include serious reflection: only then will it be a praxis.\nAccordingly, while no one liberates himself by his own efforts alone, neither is he liberated by others.\nKnowledge emerges only through invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other.\nThe dominant elites consider the remedy to be more domination and repression, carried out in the name of freedom, order, and social peace (that is, the peace of the elites).\nThrough dialogue, the teacher-of-the-students and the students-of-the-teacher cease to exist and a new term emerges: teacher-student with students-teachers. The teacher is no longer merely the-one-who-teaches, but one who is himself taught in dialogue with the students, who in turn while being taught also teach. They become jointly responsible for a process in which all grow.\nThe role of the problem-posing educator is to create; together with the students, the conditions under which knowledge at the level of the doxa is superseded by true knowledge, at the level of the logos.\nEducation as the practice of freedom—as opposed to education as the practice of domination—denies that man is abstract, isolated, independent, and unattached to the world; it also denies that the world exists as a reality apart from people. Authentic reflection considers neither abstract man nor the world without people, but people in their relations with the world.\nDialogue further requires an intense faith in humankind, faith in their power to make and remake, to create and re-create, faith in their vocation to be more fully human (which is not the privilege of an elite, but the birthright of all).\nWithout dialogue there is no communication, and without communication there can be no true education.\nWe simply cannot go to the laborers—urban or peasant9—in the banking style, to give them “knowledge”or to impose upon them the model of the “good man”contained in a program whose content we have ourselves organized.\nThey forget that their fundamental objective is to fight alongside the people for the recovery of the people’s stolen humanity, not to “win the people over”to their side. Such a phrase does not belong in the vocabulary of revolutionary leaders, but in that of the oppressor. The revolutionary’s role is to liberate, and be liberated, with the people—not to win them over.\nEducational and political action which is not critically aware of this situation runs the risk either of “banking”or of preaching in the desert.\nMeanwhile, the significant dimensions, which in their turn are constituted of parts in interaction, should be perceived as dimensions of total reality.\nIf the oppressed do not become aware of this ambiguity during the course of the revolutionary process, they may participate in that process with a spirit more revanchist than revolutionary.3 They may aspire to revolution as a means of domination, rather than as a road to liberation.\nOne is the thinking of the master; the other is the thinking of the comrade.\nIn order to present for the consideration of the oppressed and subjugated a world of deceit designed to increase their alienation and passivity, the oppressors develop a series of methods precluding any presentation of the world as a problem and showing it rather as a fixed entity, as something given—something to which people, as mere spectators, must adapt.\nThese courses are based on the naïve assumption that one can promote the community by training its leaders—as if it were the parts that promote the whole and not the whole which, in being promoted, promotes the parts.\nIf children reared in an atmosphere of lovelessness and oppression, children whose potency has been frustrated, do not manage during their youth to take the path of authentic rebellion, they will either drift into total indifference, alienated from reality by the authorities and the myths the latter have used to “shape”them; or they may engage in forms of destructive action.\nWhat Guevara did not say, perhaps due to humility, is that it was his own humility and capacity to love that made possible his communion with the people.\n","date":"January 2, 2018","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-pedagogy-of-the-oppressed/","section":"Posts","summary":"Critical consciousness, they say, is anarchic. Others add that critical consciousness may lead to disorder.\n","title":"Highlights for Pedagogy of the Oppressed","type":"posts"},{"content":"Most unexpectedly I read 52 books in 2017. These last couple of months I’d been gunning for it but nothing about the first half of this year indicated that I would even hit my challenge of 26 books.\nThe first half of the year was marked by some decidedly slow reading as well as becoming a twin dad. The long and regular naps of young babies along with my parental leave made that a period where I caught up on watching a lot of movies (see the 50 movies in my Letterboxd diary).\nThen halfway through the year, a shift happened where the kids underwent sleep regressions and we went through figurative hell. Watching video became impossible. The sleepless nights sitting up for 30-45 minutes at a stretch with a baby falling into deep sleep turned out to be a catalyst for reading.\nI wanted to see how dramatic this shift was so I retrieved my year’s reading from Goodreads, filled in the page counts 1 and made a bar chart of pages racked up per month.\nThat is indeed more or less where the kids started to become difficult sleepers (month 4-5) where my first peak starts and from there on it\u0026rsquo;s a steady pace until the end of the year bang.\nWhat this has taught me more than anything is how relative reading velocity is and how with a bit of time and a slight change in attitude you can easily read 2-5x more than you normally thought possible. One of my tricks is to read about five books simultaneously and to cycle through those to keep up the energy.\nFor a normal month 1500 pages seems sustainable which would be about five books per month or sixty a year if I\u0026rsquo;d kept that up from the start. And 1500 pages per month is only 50 a day something that anybody with a bit of dedicated time should be able to do.\nThe books are listed per category below and the recommended ones are marked bold.\nEngineering # A meagre year but I feel that in my current engineering practice I know mostly what I want to know and I\u0026rsquo;m looking more to branch out. I\u0026rsquo;m still open to reading books about engineering, but the bar is rather high since both of the UX books below did not add much to my knowledge. Alexander\u0026rsquo;s Notes… is seminal and should be a required exercise for anybody designing anything.\nLean UX: Applying Lean Principles to Improve User Experience Notes on the Synthesis of Form, Christopher W. Alexander Advanced Swift UX for Lean Startups Leadership # This has been one area where I branched out and tore through a decent stack of standard works. I\u0026rsquo;ve enjoyed most of the things I read here a lot. Some books did not teach me that much as much as reinforce and recontextualize things that I already knew. It\u0026rsquo;s nice to be confirmed about things you found out yourself, but let\u0026rsquo;s hope my reading prevents me from making as many mistakes as well.\nJocko Willink\u0026rsquo;s Extreme Ownership is simple but extremely (!) effective. Reinertsen\u0026rsquo;s is a seminal tome that formalizes a lot of (what I think to be) common sense when it comes to product development and project management. Never split the Difference is a thrilling read and I\u0026rsquo;m already looking forward to applying the haggling it taught. The Coaching Habit is a laser precision book that teaches you exactly what you need to know and when/how to apply it. More books should do that.\nExtreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win, Jocko Willink Personal Kanban: Mapping Work Navigating Life The Principles of Product Development Flow: Second Generation Lean Product Development, Donald G. Reinertsen Managing Humans: Biting and Humorous Tales of a Software Engineering Manager Developer Hegemony: The Future of Labor Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage of Human Consciousness What Got You Here Won\u0026rsquo;t Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful Financial Strategy for Public Managers Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It, Chris Voss The Coaching Habit, Michael Bungay Stanier Literature # Seven out of nine (78%) of these authors are non-white/non-male and that is a worse score than I was hoping for. Toer\u0026rsquo;s book on life in the Dutch East Indies should be essential reading for all Dutch people. Nelson has shown me parenting from a non-cis/-male perspective and for that I\u0026rsquo;m grateful.\nÁgua Viva Open City The Name Of The Rose Aarde der Mensen, Pramoedya Ananta Toer The Goldfinch The God of Small Things The Argonauts, Maggie Nelson Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West The Underground Railroad Genre fiction # Five out of nine (56%) books here are by non-white/non-males which is somewhat better than one could hope for in speculative fiction. Blue Mars was a lovely end to a huge journey and both the trilogy and the planet did grow on me. The second Inheritance book was the best of the lot which does not mean the series is bad in any way.\nThe Lathe of Heaven Blue Mars (Mars Trilogy, #3), Kim Stanley Robinson The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (Inheritance Trilogy, #1) The Broken Kingdoms (Inheritance, #2), N.K. Jemisin The Kingdom of Gods (Inheritance, #3) The Forever War (The Forever War, #1) The Dispossessed Blindsight (Firefall, #1) Echopraxia (Firefall, #2) Non-fiction # Not that much outstanding here other than Scott\u0026rsquo;s book about Zomia. Reading a lot of the other books here felt like work even if they were short.\nThe Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering We Have Never Been Modern The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia, James C. Scott Homage to Catalonia Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals Discontent and Its Civilizations: Dispatches from Lahore, New York, and London Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built Metaphors We Live By Pedagogy of the Oppressed Kids # Kids\u0026rsquo; books are terrible and Karp\u0026rsquo;s book on kids was one of the few I read that wasn\u0026rsquo;t totally useless.\nMann Und Vater Sein Babys brauchen Väter The Happiest Baby on the Block and The Happiest Toddler on the Block 2-Book Bundle, Dr. Harvey Karp The Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems: Sleeping, Feeding, and Behavior\u0026ndash;Beyond the Basics from Infancy Through Toddlerhood Was machst du kleiner Bagger? Wie kleine Tiere schlafen gehen Die kleine Raupe Nimmersatt Mein erstes Buch vom Körper Schlaf gut, Baby Poetry # A very slim year with Darwish the sole representant of this category, lovely but overly long in this selection.\nUnfortunately, It Was Paradise: Selected Poems, Mahmoud Darwish Spirituality # Trungpa\u0026rsquo;s style is highly accessible while maintaining a lot of jargon. This is one of the first times things have clicked for me.\nThe Truth of Suffering and the Path of Liberation, Chögyam Trungpa Goodreads API is no beauty and page counts are subject to redistribution licenses from the publishers and as such a lot are missing.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"December 31, 2017","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/reading-2017/","section":"Posts","summary":"Most unexpectedly I read 52 books in 2017. These last couple of months I’d been gunning for it but nothing about the first half of this year indicated that I would even hit my challenge of 26 books.\n","title":"Reading 2017","type":"posts"},{"content":" Turkish MC XiR has a new trap song out with the noteworthy title Angela Merkel. There is even somebody with a Merkel mask in the video.\nThe video has a quick and dirty German subtitle bundled with it which you can turn on and read.\nIn the spirit of international relations, I will translate to English the hook of the song (lyrics on Genius). The rest of the song is either not that interesting or I\u0026rsquo;m missing out on a lot of inside baseball. Either way, I won\u0026rsquo;t try it.\nAngela Merkel Schengen yok Karaköy\u0026rsquo;e sen gel\nBozulur dengen Yol aldı yengen Karaköy\u0026rsquo;e sen gel Angela Merkel\nAngela Merkel There is no Schengen You come down to Karaköy\nYou\u0026rsquo;ll lose your senses Your woman\u0026rsquo;s gone 1 You come down to Karaköy Angela Merkel\nI can\u0026rsquo;t make much more of it other than that the mythologization of Angela Merkel continues. I\u0026rsquo;m curious what the German foreign office thinks about that.\nThe German translation says: “Deine Freundin hat dich verlassen”.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"December 28, 2017","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/xir-angela-merkel/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"XiR - Angela Merkel","type":"posts"},{"content":"Madness and journeys give us handles on the concept of love, and food gives us a handle on the concept of an idea.\nWe are proposing that the concepts that occur in metaphorical definitions are those that correspond to natural kinds of experience.\nExamples are PHYSICAL ORIENTATIONS, OBJECTS, SUBSTANCES, SEEING, JOURNEYS, WAR, MADNESS, FOOD, BUILDINGS, etc. These concepts for natural kinds of experience and objects are structured clearly enough and with enough of the right kind of internal structure to do the job of defining other concepts.\nWhat is real for an individual as a member of a culture is a product both of his social reality and of the way in which that shapes his experience of the physical world.\nNew metaphors, like conventional metaphors, can have the power to define reality. They do this through a coherent network of entailments that highlight some features of reality and hide others. The acceptance of the metaphor, which forces us to focus only on those aspects of our experience that it highlights, leads us to view the entailments of the metaphor as being true. Such “truths”may be true, of course, only relative to the reality defined by the metaphor.\nA statement can be true only relative to some understanding of it.\nIt is because we understand situations in terms of our conceptual system that we can understand statements using that system of concepts as being true, that is, as fitting or not fitting the situation as we understand it. Truth is therefore a function of our conceptual system. It is because many of our concepts are metaphorical in nature, and because we understand situations in terms of those concepts, that metaphors can be true or false.\nThe reason we have focused so much on metaphor is that it unites reason and imagination. Reason, at the very least, involves categorization, entailment, and inference. Imagination, in one of its many aspects, involves seeing one kind of thing in terms of another kind of thing—what we have called metaphorical thought.\nThe reason is, simply, that if we can do this, we can draw inferences about the situation that will not conflict with one another. That is, we will be able to infer nonconflicting expectations and suggestions for behavior. And it is comforting—extremely comforting—to have a consistent view of the world, a clear set of expectations and no conflicts about what you should do. Objectivist models have a real appeal—and for the most human of reasons.\nA general realization that science does not yield absolute truth would no doubt change the power and prestige of the scientific community as well as the funding practices of the federal government. The result would be a more reasonable assessment of what scientific knowledge is and what its limitations are.\nWithin the experientialist myth, understanding emerges from interaction, from constant negotiation with the environment and other people.\nEach art medium picks out certain dimensions of our experience and excludes others. Artworks provide new ways of structuring our experience in terms of these natural dimensions. Works of art provide new experiential gestalts and, therefore, new coherences.\n","date":"December 28, 2017","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-metaphors-we-live-by/","section":"Posts","summary":"Madness and journeys give us handles on the concept of love, and food gives us a handle on the concept of an idea.\n","title":"Highlights for Metaphors We Live By","type":"posts"},{"content":"In a world in which Humanity had become redundant in unprecedented numbers, we\u0026rsquo;d both retained the status of another age: working professional.\nThe Unknown was technologically advanced—and there were some who claimed that that made them hostile by definition. Technology Implies Belligerence, they said.\nHumans didn\u0026rsquo;t really fight over skin tone or ideology; those were just handy cues for kin-selection purposes. Ultimately it always came down to bloodlines and limited resources.\nSo the therapists and psychiatrists poked at their victims and invented names for things they didn\u0026rsquo;t understand, and argued over the shrines of Freud and Klein and the old Astrologers. Doing their very best to sound like practitioners of Science.\nSince you don\u0026rsquo;t actually see it, there\u0026rsquo;s no messy eyeball optics to limit resolution.\nLuddites love to go on about computer malfunctions, and how many accidental wars we might have prevented because a human had the final say. But funny thing, commissar; nobody talks about how many intentional wars got started for the same reason.\n\u0026ldquo;What relationship? According to you there\u0026rsquo;s no such thing. This is just—mutual rape, or something.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;You use your Chinese room the way they used vision. You\u0026rsquo;ve reinvented empathy, almost from scratch, and in some ways—not all obviously, or I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t have to tell you this—but in some ways yours is better than the original. It\u0026rsquo;s why you\u0026rsquo;re so good at synthesis.\u0026rdquo;\nWhen asked for your perspective, you serve it straight up and unvarnished— until the decision is made, and the orders handed down. Then you do your job without question.\nI was good at what I did. I was so damned good, I did it without even meaning to.\nPeople were starting to weigh costs against benefits, opt for a day or two outside the panopticon even in the face of the inevitable fines and detentions.\n“Then it’s not your brain anymore. It’s something else. You’re something else.”\n“That’s kinda the point. Transcendence is transformation.”\nHe shook his head, unconvinced. “Sounds more like suicide to me.”\nthe Anarres colony\n“Have a drink,”he said. “Helps the future go down easier.”\n“Dan, you gotta let go of this whole self thing. Identity changes by the second, you turn into someone else every time a new thought rewires your brain. You’re already a different person than you were ten minutes ago.”\nShe’d hadn’t even been in the kill zone; she’d been on the other side of the world, growing freelance code next to the girl of her dreams. Those weren’t as rare as they’d once been. In fact they’d grown pretty common ever since Humanity had learned to edit the dream as well as the girl. Soul mates could be made to order now: monogamous, devoted, fiercely passionate\nI know how bad the optics are. I know how tough it is to sell an alliance with a regime whose neuropolitics are rooted in the Middle Ages. But we’re just going to have to take this dick in our mouths and swallow whatever comes out.\nI’ve told you before, Daniel: roach isn’t an insult. We’re the ones still standing after the mammals build their nukes, we’re the ones with the stripped-down OS’s so damned simple they work under almost any circumstances. We’re the goddamned Kalashnikovs of thinking meat.\nIt frightened him, at first—the way new thoughts spilled from his mouth before he could check them for veracity, before he could even parse their meaning.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s a hack, in other words; your brain has learned how to get the reward without actually earning it through increased fitness. It feels good, and it fulfills us, and it makes life worth living. But it also turns us inward and distracts us.\nBecause natural selection takes time, and luck plays a role. The biggest boys on the block at any given time aren\u0026rsquo;t necessarily the fittest, or the most efficient, and the game isn\u0026rsquo;t over. The game is never over; there\u0026rsquo;s no finish line this side of heat death. And so, neither can there be any winners. There are only those who haven\u0026rsquo;t yet lost.\nIn hindsight, it is apparent that describing the Bicamerals as a religious order is a little misleading: the parts of the brain they’ve souped up simply overlap with the parts that kick in during religious neurobehavioral events, so the manifestations are similar. Whether that’s a distinction that makes a difference is left as an exercise for the reader.\n","date":"December 27, 2017","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-blindsight-and-echopraxia/","section":"Posts","summary":"In a world in which Humanity had become redundant in unprecedented numbers, we’d both retained the status of another age: working professional.\n","title":"Highlights for Blindsight and Echopraxia","type":"posts"},{"content":"In every negotiation, in every agreement, the result comes from someone else’s decision. And sadly, if we believe that we can control or manage others’ decisions with compromise and logic, we’re leaving millions on the table. But while we can’t control others’ decisions, we can influence them by inhabiting their world and seeing and hearing exactly what they want.\nSo don’t settle and—here’s a simple rule—never split the difference. Creative solutions are almost always preceded by some degree of risk, annoyance, confusion, and conflict. Accommodation and compromise produce none of that. You’ve got to embrace the hard stuff. That’s where the great deals are.\nBE PLEASANTLY PERSISTENT ON NONSALARY TERMS\nSALARY TERMS WITHOUT SUCCESS TERMS IS RUSSIAN ROULETTE\nSPARK THEIR INTEREST IN YOUR SUCCESS AND GAIN AN UNOFFICIAL MENTOR\nAsk: “What does it take to be successful here?”\nWe are emotional, irrational beasts who are emotional and irrational in predictable, pattern-filled ways. Using that knowledge is only, well, rational.\nHaving just two words to start with might not seem like a lot of ammunition, but trust me, you can use “what”and “how”to calibrate nearly any question.\nThe trick to “How”questions is that, correctly used, they are gentle and graceful ways to say “No”and guide your counterpart to develop a better solution—your solution.\nWhen implementation happens by committee, the support of that committee is key. You always have to identify and unearth their motivations, even if you haven’t yet identified each individual on that committee.\nHumanize yourself. Use your name to introduce yourself. Say it in a fun, friendly way. Let them enjoy the interaction, too. And get your own special price.\nAnd if the other side pushes you to go first, wriggle from his grip. Instead of naming a price, allude to an incredibly high number that someone else might charge.\nSometimes a situation simply calls for you to be the aggressor and punch the other side in the face.\nThe person across the table is never the problem. The unsolved issue is. So focus on the issue. This is one of the most basic tactics for avoiding emotional escalations.\nThe systematized and easy-to-remember process has only four steps:\n1.Set your target price (your goal).\n2.Set your first offer at 65 percent of your target price.\n3.Calculate three raises of decreasing increments (to 85, 95, and 100 percent).\n4.Use lots of empathy and different ways of saying “No”to get the other side to counter before you increase your offer.\n5.When calculating the final amount, use precise, nonround numbers like, say, $37,893 rather than $38,000. It gives the number credibility and weight.\n6.On your final number, throw in a nonmonetary item (that they probably don’t want) to show you’re at your limit.\nThe shock of an extreme anchor will induce a fight-or-flight reaction in all but the most experienced negotiators, limiting their cognitive abilities and pushing them into rash action.\nIf you can show inconsistencies between their beliefs and their actions, you have normative leverage. No one likes to look like a hypocrite.\nBut when someone displays a passion for what we’ve always wanted and conveys a purposeful plan of how to get there, we allow our perceptions of what’s possible to change. We’re all hungry for a map to joy, and when someone is courageous enough to draw it for us, we naturally follow.\nThe alternative we’ve chosen is to not understand their religion, their fanaticism, and their delusions. Instead of negotiations that don’t go well, we shrug our shoulders and say, “They’re crazy!”\nWhatever the specifics of the situation, these people are not acting irrationally. They are simply complying with needs and desires that you don’t yet understand, what the world looks like to them based on their own set of rules.\nIf this book accomplishes only one thing, I hope it gets you over that fear of conflict and encourages you to navigate it with empathy. If you’re going to be great at anything—a great negotiator, a great manager, a great husband, a great wife—you’re going to have to do that.\nOne can only be an exceptional negotiator, and a great person, by both listening and speaking clearly and empathetically; by treating counterparts—and oneself—with dignity and respect; and most of all by being honest about what one wants and what one can—and cannot—do.\nWhen the pressure is on, you don’t rise to the occasion—you fall to your highest level of preparation.\n","date":"December 27, 2017","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-never-split-the-difference/","section":"Posts","summary":"In every negotiation, in every agreement, the result comes from someone else’s decision. And sadly, if we believe that we can control or manage others’ decisions with compromise and logic, we’re leaving millions on the table. But while we can’t control others’ decisions, we can influence them by inhabiting their world and seeing and hearing exactly what they want.\n","title":"Highlights for Never Split the Difference","type":"posts"},{"content":"Boeing’s executives expect their managers to know this information, in real time, if the company is to remain profitable.\nManagers need good information about costs to set prices, determine how much of a good or service to deliver, and to manage costs in ways that make their organization more likely to achieve its mission.\nPublic financial resources are finite, scarce, and becoming scarcer.\nCVP is a powerful tool that can directly illuminate many important management decisions.\nFor most public organizations personnel costs are the largest and most visible budget inputs. That’s why effective budgeting for public organizations starts, and often ends, with careful attention to budgeting for personnel.\nPublic managers must know what portion of the costs for which they’re responsible are fixed, variable, and step-fixed. They must also understand how different cost items connect to service delivery outputs, and how their cost center is assigned indirect costs. And perhaps most important, they must understand how their program’s cost structure and cost behavior will change under different performance scenarios.\nFor instance, for organizations with mostly fixed costs one of the best approaches to manage costs and bolster profitability is to “scale up.”Since fixed costs are fixed, one way to manage them is to spread them across the largest possible volume of service. However, for organizations with mostly variable costs, scaling up will simply increase variable costs. The better approach in that circumstance is to invest in new technology, procurement processes, or other strategies that can drive down variable costs.\nThe best we can do is understand these trends, forecast them to the best of our ability, and help policymakers understand the trade-offs these trends put in play.\nBut fundamentally, budgeting is a form of politics. Resources are scarce, and budgeting is the process by which organizations allocate those scarce resources. As such, budgeting is about managing conflict.\nFor budget policymakers, conflict and compromise is often around that annual percentage change, or increment. This assumes, of course, that last year’s budget — or base budget — was a fair representation of the organization’s goals and priorities. If this is not true, then debating incremental change will only amplify that disconnect between resources and priorities. In fact, for most public organizations, that disconnect is persistent and pervasive.\nLegislators and board members are generally willing to appropriate small amounts of money to try “innovative”approaches. With time, many of those small experiments morph into large-scale programs.\n","date":"December 27, 2017","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-financial-strategy-for-public-managers/","section":"Posts","summary":"Boeing’s executives expect their managers to know this information, in real time, if the company is to remain profitable.\n","title":"Highlights for Financial Strategy for Public Managers","type":"posts"},{"content":"\u0026ldquo;We are dealing with a people manifestly incapable of governing themselves. And do you know what happens with people who cannot govern themselves? That’s right. Others come in to govern for them.\u0026rdquo;\nThere is no such joy in the tavern as upon the road thereto, said the Mennonite.\nSproule sat without moving. The kid looked at him but he would look away. He was wounded in an enemy country far from home and although his eyes took in the alien stones about yet the greater void beyond seemed to swallow up his soul.\nBut the kid only spat into the darkness of the space between them. I know your kind, he said. What’s wrong with you is wrong all the way through you.\nAnd so these parties divided upon that midnight plain, each passing back the way the other had come, pursuing as all travelers must inversions without end upon other men’s journeys.\nThey’d been skinned and I can tell ye it does very little for a man’s appearance.\nThe way of the world is to bloom and to flower and die but in the affairs of men there is no waning and the noon of his expression signals the onset of night. His spirit is exhausted at the peak of its achievement. His meridian is at once his darkening and the evening of his day.\nTheir arms aloft pulling at their clothes were luminous and each obscure soul was enveloped in audible shapes of light as if it had always been so.\nThe horse screamed and kicked but the bull had planted its feet and it lifted the animal rider and all clear of the ground before Miller could get his pistol free and when he put the muzzle to the bull’s forehead and fired and the whole grotesque assembly collapsed he stepped clear of the wreckage and walked off in disgust with the smoking gun dangling in his hand.\nEach man scanned the terrain and the movements of the least of creatures were logged into their collective cognizance until they were federated with invisible wires of vigilance and advanced upon that landscape with a single resonance.\nMoral law is an invention of mankind for the disenfranchisement of the powerful in favor of the weak.\nOf such corporal histories even as these he bore no tidings and although it was the custom in that wilderness to stop with any traveler and exchange the news he seemed to travel with no news at all, as if the doings of the world were too slanderous for him to truck with, or perhaps too trivial.\n","date":"December 10, 2017","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-blood-meridian/","section":"Posts","summary":"“We are dealing with a people manifestly incapable of governing themselves. And do you know what happens with people who cannot govern themselves? That’s right. Others come in to govern for them.”\n","title":"Highlights for Blood Meridian","type":"posts"},{"content":"\u0026ldquo;I was so happy renting in New York City for so long because renting—or at least the way I rented, which involved never lifting a finger to better my surroundings—allows you to let things literally fall apart all around you. Then, when it gets to be too much, you just move on.\nBut any fixed claim on realness, especially when it is tied to an identity, also has a finger in psychosis. If a man who thinks he is a king is mad, a king who thinks he is a king is no less so.\nThis slice of truth, offered in the final hour, ended up beginning a new chapter of my adulthood, the one in which I realized that age doesn’t necessarily bring anything with it, save itself. The rest is optional.\nTo devote yourself to someone else’s pussy can be a means of devoting yourself to your own. But whatever sameness I’ve noted in my relationships with women is not the sameness of Woman, and certainly not the sameness of parts. Rather, it is the shared, crushing understanding of what it means to live in a patriarchy.\nIn fact I have come to understand revolutionary language as a sort of fetish—in which case, one response to the above might be, Our diagnosis is similar, but our perversities are not compatible.\nWe haven’t yet stopped trying to explain to each other what these words mean to us; perhaps we never will.\nOver time, I have come to suspect that my affection for Bubbles may have less to do with its endorsement of the rule of negative gynecology, and more to do with its ridiculous title, which it shares with Michael Jackson’s pet chimpanzee.\nBut the tacit undercurrent of her argument, as I felt it, was that Gallop’s maternity had rotted her mind—besotted it with the narcissism that makes one think that an utterly ordinary experience shared by countless others is somehow unique, or uniquely interesting.\nIt reminds us that any bodily experience can be made new and strange, that nothing we do in this life need have a lid crammed on it, that no one set of practices or relations has the monopoly on the so-called radical, or the so-called normative.\nThese are the voices that pass for radicality in our times. Let us leave them to their love, their event proper.\nLeave it to the old patrician white guy to call the lady speaker back to her body, so that no one misses the spectacle of that wild oxymoron, the pregnant woman who thinks. Which is really just a pumped-up version of that more general oxymoron, a woman who thinks.\nWho cares what SHE feels like doing? It’s her conjugal duty to get over a massive physical event that has literally rearranged her organs and stretched her parts beyond comprehension and brought her through a life-or-death portal as soon as humanly possible.\nThese are solid guidelines to which I have long aspired. But now I think we have a right to our kink and our fatigue, both.\nIf all goes well, the baby will make it out alive, and so will you. Nonetheless, you will have touched death along the way. You will have realized that death will do you too, without fail and without mercy. It will do you even if you don’t believe it will do you, and it will do you in its own way. There’s never been a human that it didn’t.\nOnce he came to, he called her collect; she didn’t accept the charge. She threw up her hands as she told us this story, saying, I didn’t have the money! But we also heard her saying, I can’t carry him anymore.\nThe mother of an adult child sees her work completed and undone at the same time.\n","date":"November 27, 2017","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-the-argonauts/","section":"Posts","summary":"“I was so happy renting in New York City for so long because renting—or at least the way I rented, which involved never lifting a finger to better my surroundings—allows you to let things literally fall apart all around you. Then, when it gets to be too much, you just move on.\n","title":"Highlights for the Argonauts","type":"posts"},{"content":"Nothing will bias a session faster than you trying to sell him on your ideas. You’re not there to talk. You are there to listen.\nNobody in the world can possibly tell you whether some abstract concept you just explained will solve a problem that they have. Even if they could somehow understand the wild abstractions you’re presenting them with, they couldn’t honestly tell you whether they would pay money for your solution.\nThey hear “listen to your customer”and think that we want them to blindly accept every ridiculous feature request made by somebody with a credit card and an opinion.\nThe point was, whatever changes we made, we had an objective way of determining whether or not the design was a success.\nYou see, if you’re designing something interactive, you need to design it to be\u0026hellip;well\u0026hellip;interactive.\nOne of the most common problems, and possibly the toughest one to overcome, is the tendency to accept solutions from users without understanding the underlying problem.\nIf you trust your engineering team to make some interaction design decisions, then you can present them with lower fidelity mocks and work through things like corner cases with them as they build.\nI’ll just mention that, if you’re working with an outside agency of any sort, it is almost certainly spending time making its deliverables attractive. I\nIt may not be immediately clear how that relates to UX, but in my experience, Agile, iterative, efficient teams create better user experiences every time.\nDesign is not art. If you think that there’s some ideal design that is completely divorced from the effect it’s having on your company’s bottom line, then you’re an artist, not a designer. Design has a purpose and a goal, and those things can be measured.\nThe best alternative is the cross-functional team.This can be a tough change for people who are used to working in their own little silos, but combining people into one product team lets you go much faster.\nThe reason this works is that everybody is working on the same thing at the same time, which means that there are no handoffs where information gets garbled or lost.\n","date":"November 27, 2017","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-ux-for-lean-startups/","section":"Posts","summary":"Nothing will bias a session faster than you trying to sell him on your ideas. You’re not there to talk. You are there to listen.\n","title":"Highlights for UX for Lean Startups","type":"posts"},{"content":"The idea is that by sharing orders, delivery status, and customer feedback each member company can improve efficiency and service quality, while remaining separately owned.\nAlibaba encourages a sense of informality at work. Every employee is asked to adopt a nickname.\nWith its constant emphasis on culture and ideology, people at Alibaba refer to HR informally as the “Political Commissar”(zheng wei).\nreducing “time to market,”launching products that they can perfect later, an approach some refer to as “running with short steps.”\n“English helps me a lot. It makes me understand the world better, helps me to meet the best CEOs and leaders in the world, and makes me understand the distance between China and the world.”\nThen trotting out one of his favorite sayings: “Today is brutal, tomorrow is more brutal, but the day after tomorrow is beautiful. However, the majority of people will die tomorrow night. They won’t be able to see the sunshine the day after tomorrow. Aliren must see the sunshine the day after tomorrow.”\nBecause schools teach knowledge, while starting businesses requires wisdom. Wisdom is acquired through experience. Knowledge can be acquired through hard work.”\nTaobao.com’s tagline was “There is no treasure that cannot be hunted out, and there is no treasure that cannot be sold.”\nBut this contrarian stance is vintage Jack.\n","date":"November 27, 2017","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-from-alibaba-the-house-that-jack-ma-built/","section":"Posts","summary":"The idea is that by sharing orders, delivery status, and customer feedback each member company can improve efficiency and service quality, while remaining separately owned.\n","title":"Highlights from Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built","type":"posts"},{"content":"I saw a starter task fly by in the Swift Weekly Brief and jumped on it. Now it turns out that the Swift project has a util directory full of various Python scripts that perform various tasks including cloning and building the project.\nOne of those python scripts needed to print out a message if somebody calls it without the \u0026ndash;clone parameter. If you don\u0026rsquo;t do that, it doesn\u0026rsquo;t clone all the repositories that you need to be able to build the project. I did some path fiddling and testing against a sample of directories that should be present and there is PR #12856 that got merged into the project (and got mentioned in the next Brief).\nI had to run the thing by the people who have testing/merging privileges a couple of times mostly because of how stringent Python linting is these days. Writing code that adheres to PEP8 is no joke but I\u0026rsquo;m glad that people have set such a high standard for themselves and the community. I got commit access to another project 1 and figured out how to run the linter there until it was happy with the code on my machine.\nThere is also lots to do even just in the python part of the Swift codebase without me even having to dive into C++. I also have 15+ years of python experience to draw from vs. two months or so of C++. I\u0026rsquo;ve been looking around for some other python starter tasks to contribute some more stuff but still have to find the time to do them. Whether I\u0026rsquo;ll get around to ever contribute to the core project is still open, but knowing how to build and run Swift is useful if I want to try out some of the interesting new proposals.\nI\u0026rsquo;m very glad too that the Swift project itself has chosen for python as its scripting language. Too many iOS tools to my taste are written in ruby a language I have zero inclination to learn. I taught myself a bit to be able to get a plugin into fastlane, but that was more than enough. But it looks like we may be able to get rid of ruby in the future since more and more functionality of fastlane is being rolled into Xcode and cocoapods is being superseded by the Swift Package Manager. SPM especially is a project where there is still a lot of rather accessible work to be done which will yield huge improvements in the quality of life of lots of developers.\nAsk me how much fun it is to maintain a project to work on both Python 2.7 and 3.6.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"November 23, 2017","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/a-small-contribution-to-appleswift/","section":"Posts","summary":"I saw a starter task fly by in the Swift Weekly Brief and jumped on it. Now it turns out that the Swift project has a util directory full of various Python scripts that perform various tasks including cloning and building the project.\n","title":"A small contribution to apple/swift","type":"posts"},{"content":"There were walls around all his thoughts.\nYou know how it is, what women call thinking is done with the uterus! Of course, there’s always a few exceptions, God-awful brainy women with vaginal atrophy.\n“Entirely on your own initiative,”said Oiie. “It is the only initiative I acknowledge,”Shevek said, smiling, in dead earnest.\nAll such luxuries which if freely allowed to the public would tend to drain irreplaceable natural resources or to foul the environment with waste products were strictly controlled by regulation and taxation.\nThe meetings of such groups, the vehicles of both social action and sociability, were the framework of life in any small community, but here in the city they seemed much less important.\nEven from the brother there is no comfort in the bad hour, in the dark at the foot of the wall.\nIn a human sacrifice to deity there might be at least a mistaken and terrible beauty; in the rites of the moneychangers, where greed, laziness, and envy were assumed to move all men’s acts, even the terrible became banal.\nfigurines and souvenirs and kickshaws and mementos and gewgaws and bric-a-brac, everything either useless to begin with or ornamented so as to disguise its use\nAfter all, work is done for the work’s sake. It is the lasting pleasure of life. The private conscience knows that. And also the social conscience, the opinion of one’s neighbors.\n“It’s always easier not to think for oneself. Find a nice safe hierarchy and settle in. Don’t make changes, don’t risk disapproval, don’t upset your syndics. It’s always easiest to let yourself be governed.”\nOiie was an ethical man, but his private insecurities, his anxieties as a property owner, made him cling to rigid notions of law and order.\nYou’re thirty, aren’t you? By that age a man should know not only his cellular function but his organic function—what his optimum role is the social organism is.\nThe individual cannot bargain with the State. The State recognizes no coinage but power: and it issues the coins itself.\nThe thing about working with time, instead of against it, he thought, is that it is not wasted. Even pain counts.\nWe left with empty hands, a hundred and seventy years ago, and we were right. We took nothing. Because there is nothing here but States and their weapons, the rich and their lies, and the poor and their misery. There is no way to act rightly, with a clear heart, on Urras. There is nothing you can do that profit does not enter into, and fear of loss, and the wish for power. You cannot say good morning without knowing which of you is ‘superior’ to\nSomebody had told Bedap that Rulag was an engineer, and he had found in her the engineer’s clarity and pragmatism of mind, plus the mechanist’s hatred of complexity and irregularity.\nThe only security we have is our neighbors’ approval. An archist can break a law and hope to get away unpunished, but you can’t ‘break’ a custom; it’s the framework of your life with other people.\nWhat’s the good of an anarchist society that’s afraid of anarchists?\n","date":"November 18, 2017","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-from-the-dispossessed/","section":"Posts","summary":"There were walls around all his thoughts.\n","title":"Highlights from The Dispossessed","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik ben een trouwe luisteraar van GBI en het was leuk dat Vasilis toen hij in Berlijn was de tijd nam om ook eens met mij te praten. Volgens mij is het een leuk gesprek geworden.\nAlper Çuğun in gesprek met Vasilis van Gemert\n","date":"November 18, 2017","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/the-good-the-bad-and-the-interesting/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik ben een trouwe luisteraar van GBI en het was leuk dat Vasilis toen hij in Berlijn was de tijd nam om ook eens met mij te praten. Volgens mij is het een leuk gesprek geworden.\n","title":"The Good, the Bad and the Interesting","type":"posts"},{"content":"Successful people consistently compare themselves favorably to their peers.\nPeople who believe they can succeed see opportunities where others see threats. They’re not afraid of uncertainty or ambiguity. They embrace it. They want to take greater risks and achieve greater returns. Given the choice, they will always bet on themselves.\nSuccessful people have a unique distaste for feeling controlled or manipulated.\nIf you press people to identify the motives behind their self-interest it usually boils down to four items: money, power, status, and popularity.\nThat’s the fallacy of added value. Whatever we gain in the form of a better idea is lost many times over in our employees’ diminished commitment to the concept.\nIt’s obvious that the best course of action for dealing with people like this is to not let them make us angry. Getting angry doesn’t improve the situation and life’s too short to waste on feeling bad.\nBut once you appreciate the payoff of saying nothing—that if you’re silent, you cannot make an ass out of yourself or make an enemy out of someone else—then you might have a chance of getting better.\nI also suspect that’s a big reason why so many of us withhold information. It’s not that we want to keep people in the dark. It’s simply that we’re too busy. We mean well. We have good intentions. But we fail to get around to it.\nIf the answer was “yes”he gave them some very quick recognition, either by phone, e-mail, voice mail, or a note.\nStop blaming others for the choices you made—and that goes with double emphasis for the choices that turned out well.\nNo one expects us to be right all the time. But when we’re wrong, they certainly expect us to own up to it.\nIt’s not about you. It’s about what other people think of you.\nBasically, we accept feedback that is consistent with our self-image and reject feedback that is inconsistent.\n1. Let go of the past. 2. Tell the truth. 3. Be supportive and helpful—not cynical or negative. 4. Pick something to improve yourself—so everyone is focused more on “improving”than “judging.”\nIt’s my contention—and it’s the bedrock thesis of this book—that interpersonal behavior is the difference-maker between being great and near-great, between getting the gold and settling for the bronze.\nEven though we may be able to deny our problems to ourselves, they may be very obvious to the people who are observing us.\nSome of the best feedback comes from what you observe. If you accept it and act on it, it’s no less valid than people telling you the same thing at point-blank range.\nIn each phase you must target a different constituency. In phase 4, you woo up—to get your superiors to approve. In phase 5, you woo laterally—to get your peers to agree. In phase 6, you woo down—to get your direct reports to accept.\nAll I’m saying is that you cannot rely on other people to read your mind or take note of the changed behavior you’re displaying. It may be patently obvious to you, but it takes a lot more than a few weeks of behavioral modification for people to notice the new you.\nThere’s the part where we actually listen. And there’s the part where we speak. Speaking establishes how we are perceived as a listener. What we say is proof of how well we listen. They are two sides of the same coin.\nAsking, “Is it worth it?”engages you in thinking beyond the discussion to consider (a) how the other person regards you, (b) what that person will do afterwards, and (c) how that person will behave the next time you talk.\nThe ability to make a person feel that, when you’re with that person, he or she is the most important (and the only) person in the room is the skill that separates the great from the near-great.\nEventually, you’ll come to see that expressing gratitude is a talent—a talent that goes hand in hand with wisdom and self-knowledge and maturity.\nBut injecting Jim into the mix—a friendly sympathetic human being whom, on the one hand, I do not want to disappoint (that’s human nature) and who, on the other hand, provides constant encouragement and input—brings it more in line with the follow-up process I’ve been describing here\nSuccessful people have a high need for self-determination and will tend to accept ideas about concerns that they “own”while rejecting ideas that feel “forced”upon them.\nWhat’s interesting (and reassuring) about this story is that it’s an example of a boss accurately assessing his shortcomings and his employee agreeing with him. That isn’t always the case. Sometimes the gap between what a boss says about himself and what the staff believes is wide, very wide.\nYour memo has to be brutally honest. Your employees have to believe it is accurate. And most important, they must believe it matters.\nLet them figure out what they should be doing on their own. Let them tell you where you’re not needed.\nIf you manage your people the way you’d want to be managed, you’re forgetting one thing: You’re not managing you.\nMost leadership development revolves around one huge false assumption—that if people understand then they will do. That’s not true. Most of us understand, we just don’t do.\nI tell people that change is a simple equation: Stop the annoying behavior and you’ll stop being perceived as an annoyance.\nThe smart ones believed that their corporation would “drop them in a flash”when they no longer met the company’s needs, so they in turn were willing to “drop the company”when it no longer met their needs.\nAs a general rule, people in their 20s want to learn on the job. In their 30s they want to advance. And in their 40s they want to rule.\nLet that be your model for dealing with needy, demanding, allegedly “selfish”employees. To ignore them and resent them is to misunderstand them—and eventually lose them. You’re committing the corporate equivalent of a hate crime.\nManagers at smart companies are catching on. They’re beginning to see that their relationship with top talent resembles a strategic alliance rather than a traditional employment contract.\nStop trying to change people who don’t think they have a problem.\n","date":"November 16, 2017","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-from-what-got-you-here-wont-get-you-there/","section":"Posts","summary":"Successful people consistently compare themselves favorably to their peers.\n","title":"Highlights from What Got You Here Won't Get You There","type":"posts"},{"content":"But if globalization is capable of holding out any fundamental promise to us, any temptation to go along with its havoc, then surely that promise ought to be this: we will be more free to invent ourselves.\nWhat distinguishes the “war on terror”is that it is a war against a concept, not a nation. And the enemy concept, it seems to me, is pluralism.\nCivilizations are illusions, but these illusions are pervasive, dangerous, and powerful.\nOn our globalizing planet, where the pace of change keeps accelerating, many of us are coming to feel at least a bit foreign, because all of us, whether we travel far afield or not, are migrants through time.\nIt’s a funny thing to lose your first language.\nYes, babies could look cute. But I’d been in enough relationships to know looks only go so far, particularly when they’re packaged with a high-maintenance need for constant attention.\nOurs is a large extended family: my mother is one of nine, my father one of four.\nAnd there will be people like me, with our powered exoskeletons left often in the closet, able to leap over buildings when the mood strikes us, but also prone to wandering naked and feeling the sand of a beach between our puny toes.\nBut a crisis can be an opportunity. It incites change. And the novel needs to keep changing if it is to remain novel.\nCivilizations are illusory. But they are useful illusions. They allow us to deny our common humanity, to allocate power, resources, and rights in ways repugnantly discriminatory.\n","date":"October 29, 2017","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/notes-from-discontent-and-its-civilizations/","section":"Posts","summary":"But if globalization is capable of holding out any fundamental promise to us, any temptation to go along with its havoc, then surely that promise ought to be this: we will be more free to invent ourselves.\n","title":"Highlights from Discontent and its Civilizations","type":"posts"},{"content":"I believe it has to do with the belief system of our times: in a hierarchical worldview, there can be only one brain in command, just as there must be a single boss at the head of every organization.\nThen suddenly, almost out of nowhere, modernity has brought us unprecedented wealth and life expectancy in the last two centuries.\nIt is probably no exaggeration, but sad reality, that the very survival of many species, ecosystems, and perhaps the human race itself hinges on our ability to move to higher forms of consciousness and from there collaborate in new ways to heal our relationship with the world and the damage we’ve caused.\nIt turns out that, throughout history, the types of organizations we have invented were tied to the prevailing worldview and consciousness.\nEvery transition to a new stage of consciousness has ushered in a whole new era in human history.\nWhile Red Organizations can be extremely powerful (especially in hostile environments where later stages of organizations tend to break down), they are inherently fragile, due to the impulsive nature of people’s way of operating (I want it so I take it).\nSize and stability become possible because people in Conformist-Amber are content to stay in their box and not vie for a higher prize. People operating from this stage identify with their roles, with their particular place in the organization.\nWhere Red’s perspective was egocentric and Amber’s ethnocentric, Orange brought about the possibility of a worldcentric perspective.\nThe fears of the ego often undermine good intentions.\nBringing about consensus among large groups of people is inherently difficult. It almost invariably ends up in grueling talk sessions and eventual stalemate. In response, power games break out behind the scenes to try to get things moving again.\nConsciously or unconsciously, leaders put in place organizational structures, practices, and cultures that make sense to them, that correspond to their way of dealing with the world.\nThe shift to Evolutionary-Teal happens when we learn to disidentify from our own ego. By looking at our ego from a distance, we can suddenly see how its fears, ambitions, and desires often run our life. We can learn to minimize our need to control, to look good, to fit in.\nWe are ready to let go of anger, shame, and blame, which are useful shields for the ego but poor teachers for the soul. We embrace the possibility that we played a part in creating the problem, and inquire what we can learn so as to grow from it.\nAs a result, there are very, very few people working in staff functions in Teal Organizations. And those that do typically have no decision-making authority. They can provide guidelines but cannot impose a rule or a decision.\nThe higher you go, the more lines converge. It is only at the very top that the different departments such as sales, marketing, R\u0026amp;D, production, HR, and finance meet. Decisions are naturally pushed up to the top, as it’s the only place where decisions and trade-offs can be informed from the various angles involved. It’s almost deterministic: with a pyramidal shape, people at the top of organizations will complain about meeting overload, while people below feel disempowered.\nThe general philosophy is one of reverse delegation. The expectation is that the frontline teams do everything, except for the things they choose to push upward.\nThe heart of the matter is that workers and employees are seen as reasonable people that can be trusted to do the right thing. With that premise, very few rules and control mechanisms are needed.\nA huge amount of time is freed by dropping all the formalities of project planning—writing the plan, getting approval, reporting on progress, explaining variations, rescheduling, and re-estimating, not to mention the politics that go into securing resources for one’s project or to find someone to blame when projects are over time or over budget.\nusing voluntary task forces instead of fixed staff functions has multiple benefits. Employees find avenues to express talents and gifts that their primary role might not call for. They develop a true sense of ownership and responsibility when they see they have real power to shape their company.\nTeal Organizations reverse the premise: people are not made to fit pre-defined jobs; their job emerges from a multitude of roles and responsibilities they pick up based on their interests, talents, and the needs of the organization.\nWithout boxes to put people into, the organization chart disappears and it’s not always easy to know who is responsible for what.\nEvery role people take on is a commitment they make to their peers. They are not accountable to one boss; every one of their peers is a boss in respect to the commitments they made.\nThrough these weekly one-on-one discussions, teachers and students know each other on a much deeper level than in traditional schools.\nThe advice process transcends this opposition beautifully: the agony of putting all decisions to consensus is avoided, and yet everybody with a stake has been given a voice; people have the freedom to seize opportunities and make decisions and yet must take into account other people’s voices.\nI have noticed that for some reason, many people naturally assume that in the absence of bosses, decisions in self-management organizations will be made by consensus. And because they have been scarred by the paralysis and endless discussions that often come when people seek consensus, they are quick to dismiss self-management as a viable way to run organizations.\nConsensus comes with another flaw. It dilutes responsibility. In many cases, nobody feels responsible for the final decision. The original proposer is often frustrated that the group watered down her idea beyond recognition; she might well be the last one to champion the decision made by the group. For that reason, many decisions never get implemented, or are done so only half-heartedly.\nIf traditional companies rarely hold all-hands meetings, it is precisely because they can be unpredictable and risky. But in that very risk lies their power to reaffirm an organization’s basic assumptions and to strengthen the community of trust.\nThings would change under you: one day we are doing it this way, the next day we’d completely change something core, and the next day it’s yet different and we’re always running to catch up.\nSelf-management, just like the traditional pyramidal model it replaces, works with an interlocking set of structures, processes, and practices; these inform how teams are set up, how decisions get made, how roles are defined and distributed, how salaries are set, how people are recruited or dismissed, and so on.\nThe tasks of management—setting direction and objectives, planning, directing, controlling, and evaluating—haven’t disappeared. They are simply no longer concentrated in dedicated management roles. Because they are spread widely, not narrowly, it can be argued that there is more management and leadership happening at any time in Teal Organizations despite, or rather precisely because of, the absence of fulltime managers.\nPower is not viewed as a zero-sum game, where the power I have is necessarily power taken away from you. Instead, if we acknowledge that we are all interconnected, the more powerful you are, the more powerful I can become. The more powerfully you advance the organization’s purpose, the more opportunities will open up for me to make contributions of my own.\nWith freedom comes responsibility: you can no longer throw problems, harsh decisions, or difficult calls up the hierarchy and let your bosses take care of it. You can’t take refuge in blame, apathy, or resentfulness. Everybody needs to grow up and take full responsibility for their thoughts and actions—a steep learning curve for some people.\nAt check-in, participants are invited to share how they feel in the moment, as they enter the meeting. The practice brings participants to listen within, to reconnect with their body and sensations, and to grow the capacity for awareness in the moment. Naming an emotion is often all it takes to leave it behind and not carry it over into the meeting.\nall colleagues have the opportunity to learn a simple three-step process for difficult conversation: Step 1: Here is how I feel. Step 2: Here is what I need. Step 3: What do you need?\nMany blue-collar workers join FAVI scarred from past experience of mistrust and command and control. Joining an environment where they are considered trustworthy and where their voice counts is often a groundbreaking experience.\nYou have full liberty to find a solution, but until you have found one, you are bound to your previous commitments.\nfour simple statements for the yearly appraisal discussions: State an admirable feature about the employee. Ask what contributions they have made to Sun. Ask what contributions they would like to make at Sun. Ask how Sun can help them.\nBut such feedback should be given on the spot, all year round, and not left unsaid, waiting for the appraisal discussion at the end of the year.\nInstead, people in these companies have a very clear, keen sense of the organization’s purpose and a broad sense of the direction the organization might be called to go. A more detailed map is not needed. It would limit possibilities to a narrow, pre-charted course.\nPredictions are valuable in a complicated world, but they lose all relevance in a complex world.\nThe decision can be reviewed at any time if new data comes up or someone stumbles on a better idea.\nIn both cases, if there is a workable solution on the table—”workable”meaning a solution that nobody believes will make things worse—it will be adopted.\nIs my heart at work? Do I sense that I am at the right place?\nWe each have full responsibility for the organization. If we sense that something needs to happen, we have a duty to address it. It’s not acceptable to limit our concern to the remit of our roles.\nPut supportive structures, practices, and processes in place (lower-right quadrant) Ensure that people with moral authority in the company role-model the behavior associated with the culture (upper-right quadrant) Invite people to explore how their personal belief system supports or undermines the new culture (upper-left quadrant)\nThere are three ways to help put new cultural elements in place: through practices that support corresponding behavior, through role-modeling by colleagues with moral authority, and by creating a space where people can explore how their belief system supports or undermines the new culture.\nOver and over again, the CEO must ensure that trust prevails and that traditional management practices don’t creep in through the back door.\nThat is the magic of organizations: their processes can lift up employees to adopt behaviors from later stages of consciousness that they might not yet have integrated at an individual level.\nFighting the inner urge to control is probably the hardest challenge for founders and CEOs in self-managing organizations. Over and over again, they must remember to trust.\nCEOs that role-model virtues such as humility, trust, courage, candor, vulnerability, and authenticity invite colleagues to take the same risks.\nEvery time a team presents, a new picture of a desirable future is woven into the collective consciousness.\nThrough purpose: Individual energies are boosted when people identify with a purpose greater than themselves. Through distribution of power: Self-management creates enormous motivation and energy. We stop working for a boss and start working to meet our inner standards, which tend to be much higher and more demanding. Through learning: Self-management provides a strong incentive for continuous learning. And the definition of learning is broadened to include not only skills but the whole realm of inner development and personal growth. Through better use of talent: People are no longer forced to take management roles that might not fit their talents in order to make progress in their careers. The fluid arrangement of roles (instead of predefined job descriptions) also allows for a better matching of talent with roles. Less energy wasted in propping up the ego: Less time and energy goes into trying to please a boss, elbowing rivals for a promotion, defending silos, fighting turf battles, trying to be right and look good, blaming problems on others, and so on. Less energy wasted in compliance: Bosses’ and staff’s uncanny ability to create policies generates wasteful control mechanisms and reporting requirements that disappear almost completely with the self-management. Less energy wasted in meetings: In a pyramid structure, meetings are needed at every level to gather, package, filter, and transmit information as it flows up and down the chain of command. In self-managing structures, the need for these meetings falls away almost entirely.\nThrough better sensing: With self-management, every colleague can sense the surrounding reality and act upon that knowledge. Information doesn’t get lost or filtered on its way up the hierarchy before it reaches a decision maker. Through better decision-making: With the advice process, the right people make decisions at the right level with the input from relevant and knowledgeable colleagues. Decisions are informed not only by the rational mind, but also by the wisdom of emotions, intuition, and aesthetics. Through more decision-making: In traditional organizations, there is a bottleneck at the top to make decisions. In self-managing structures, thousands of decisions are made everywhere, all the time. Through timely decision-making: As the saying goes, when a fisherman senses a fish in a particular spot, by the time his boss gives his approval to cast the fly, the fish has long moved on. Through alignment with evolutionary purpose: If we believe that an organization has its own sense of direction, its own evolutionary purpose, then people who align their decisions with that purpose will sail with the wind of evolution at their back.\nPeople might not just reduce or increase the number of hours they work as employees. They might switch between employment (fulltime and/or part-time) and freelance work; they might at others times choose to volunteer, donate money, or temporarily have no involvement at all with an organization, only to come back later.\nMany of us sense that the current way we run organizations is deeply limiting.\n","date":"October 29, 2017","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/notes-from-reinventing-organizations/","section":"Posts","summary":"I believe it has to do with the belief system of our times: in a hierarchical worldview, there can be only one brain in command, just as there must be a single boss at the head of every organization.\n","title":"Highlights from Reinventing Organizations","type":"posts"},{"content":"\u0026ldquo;I believe that the dominant paradigm for managing product development is fundamentally wrong.\u0026rdquo;\nIn practice, sensible behavior prevails, despite the presence of a dysfunctional formal procedure.\nThird, with a little help from option pricing theory, we will discover that we can actually design development processes such that increases in variability will improve, rather than worsen, our economic performance.\nWe favor highly granular planning because we don’t understand the statistics of variability.\nWe value flexibility, and we pay for it. In contrast, most product development organizations exclusively reward specialization.\nOne of the most interesting examples of decentralizing control without losing alignment is the way the military deals with the uncertainty of warfare.\nIf you only quantify one thing, quantify the cost of delay.\nAs this book progresses, you will see that the economics of flow is almost always dominated by the cost of queues. If we cannot quantify the cost of a queue on the critical path, then we cannot quantify the benefit of reducing this queue. If we cannot quantify the benefit, we can’t generate support for major changes.\nReducing risk, which is the primary mission of testing, clearly creates economic value for product developers. In fact, reducing risk is so centrally important to product development that it is indispensable for us to quantify its economic impact.\nIn product development, our greatest waste is not unproductive engineers, but work products sitting idle in process queues.\nIn product development, our problem is virtually never motionless engineers. It is almost always motionless work products.\nWe can create enormous improvements in decision making with surprisingly imperfect answers. Do not let fear of inaccuracy prevent you from creating economic frameworks.\nThis leads to what we might call the Pareto Paradox: There is usually more actual opportunity in the undermanaged 80 percent than the overmanaged 20 percent.\nSome product developers aspire to use the same approach in product development. They prepare a minutely detailed plan at the beginning of the project and measure performance against this plan. When they deviate from this plan, they take corrective action. They aspire to front-load their decisions. While this is a superb strategy in repetitive environments like manufacturing, it is a terrible one in product development.\nNot only do these emergent opportunities arrive continuously and randomly, but they are also quite perishable. Opportunities get smaller with time, and obstacles get larger.\nIt is always useful to look for a way to reshape a bad choice into a better one. Decompose the choice into its pieces and keep the good parts.\nThe general principle is that we should make each decision at the point where further delay no longer increases the expected economic outcome.\nThe value of information is its expected economic value.\nLow-cost activities that remove a lot of risk should occur before high-cost activities that remove very little risk.\nSuch aggressive filtering, before acquiring sufficient information to make a good economic choice, would eliminate all uncertain and poorly understood opportunities. However, it is precisely these uncertain opportunities that have large payoff asymmetries, making them the best sources of new drugs. Opening the filter to pass these asymmetric opportunities actually increases economic value.\nIn my experience, most managers make amazingly fast decisions when they are presented with compelling economic arguments.\nProduct development inventory is observable through its effects: increased cycle time, delayed feedback, constantly shifting priorities, and status reporting.\nThe more projects we have in process, the more projects we have to track and report status on.\nThis is actually a more serious problem than most developers realize because the waste created by following a bad path typically increases exponentially, not linearly, as we progress down the path.\nWidespread queues demotivate workers and undermine initiative.\nManaging the process upstream of the bottleneck is a valuable tool for improving flow at the bottleneck.\nWe simply cannot rely on randomness to correct the problems that randomness creates.\nWaiting for complete information improves efficiency, but it leads to queueing.\nProduct development creates economic value by producing the recipes for products, information, not by creating physical products.\nRisk-taking is central to value creation in product development.\nWe frequently encounter strongly asymmetric payoffs in product development. The value of a success can be much higher than the cost of a failure.\nEither excessive or insufficient probability of failure reduces the efficiency with which we generate information.\nRepeating the same failures is waste, because it generates no new information. Only new failures generate information.\nProduct developers should clearly distinguish exploratory testing, which should be optimized for information generation, and validation testing, which should be optimized for high success rates.\nWhen our task list becomes very granular, the noise in each estimate is very high compared to the signal. Granular estimates produce good estimates of aggregate scope, but we should never schedule tasks at this level of detail. Instead, it makes more sense to aggregate many small tasks and to schedule them as a group.\nThe irony of this is that many companies try to reduce the risk of poor forecasts by taking more time to do a careful forecast.\nA buffer converts uncertain earliness to certain lateness.\nIn product development, “left side”outcomes represent bad variability, but “right side”outcomes represent good variability.\nEach engineering decision acts as a predecessor for many subsequent decisions. The number of dependent decisions generally grows geometrically with time. Consequently, a single incorrect assumption can force us to change hundreds of later decisions. When we delay feedback, rework becomes exponentially more expensive.\nWhen engineers are experimenting with a new idea, rapid feedback is enormously energizing. Rapid feedback quickly supplies the positive reinforcement of success, and fast positive reinforcement always increases motivation.\nIt is generally safe to assume that we really don’t know where the optimum point is on the batch size response surface. As a result, we must test the response of the product development process to batch size reduction by reducing batch size and measuring the results.\nSequence activities to create maximum value for minimum cost, and remember that removing risk from a project is a key way to increase the expected value of the project.\nSince it takes almost equal effort to ask for a big bag of money as a small one, people prefer to ask for big bags of money.\nthe practice of working in one phase at a time is so devoid of common sense that engineers seldom follow it, even when it is required by their procedures.\nIf a simple kanban system was trying to limit the WIP between two processes to 30 items, it might use six pallets that could each hold five parts as physical kanbans. The downstream process would take parts off a pallet and when it was empty, send it back to the upstream process. This empty pallet would signal the upstream process to make more parts. The upstream process is not allowed to make parts unless it has an empty pallet to put them on. This sets an upper limit on the amount of WIP between the two processes.\nToyota further enhances the effectiveness of this WIP constraint by cross-training workers at adjacent work stations.\nA smaller batch size approach to WIP purging is to shed requirements during periods of congestion.\nIt is best to identify in advance which requirements we would consider eliminating or relaxing. We do this for two reasons. First, we can make a more well-reasoned decision before the pressure of a congestion crisis occurs. Second, if we preplan which requirements might be jettisoned, we can structure our product architecture to make it easy to jettison them. We do so by loosely coupling these elements to the rest of the system, so that we can cut them loose quickly.\nA simple way to do this is for the development team to pay for variances during manufacturing ramp. Once the product has been in manufacturing for a fixed amount of time, responsibility for these variances can be transferred to manufacturing.\nWhich project activities are most suited for part-time resources? Those that are most prone to expensive congestion. These are high-variability tasks on the critical path. Activities that are more predictable can be handled with full-time resources, since such activities experience less congestion.\nUnfortunately, most organizations love to load these highly productive resources to very high utilization rates. We need to change this mind-set. The big guns are not most valuable as an efficient substitute for small guns, they are most valuable for handling situations that the small guns cannot handle.\nExperts allow us to apply tremendous problem-solving power to a bottleneck. Generalists can be easily shifted to any place they are needed. Is there a way to get both these benefits from the same person? Some organizations believe this is possible, and they characterize the people they are trying to create as T-shaped resources.\nThe ideal resource is a jack-of-all-trades and a master-of-one.\nIt takes advanced planning to do cross-training and to create T-shaped resources. It takes discipline to load experts to less-than-full utilization. The decision to use part-timers must be made early.\nDetailed planning is very perishable, and this perishability increases with the distance to the planning horizon.\nWhen we cram too many projects into the product development pipeline, we create queues. These queues create a frictional drag on throughput as developers spend more time expediting and less time adding value. The added load reduces output instead of increasing it.\nWhenever we have any flexible customers, we can use pricing to reduce congestion. Because of the steepness of the queueing curve, even a small shift in demand can make a big difference in flow time.\nWe monitor the queue and intervene to restore it to the center of its target range, not to simply bring it back within bounds.\nCadence inherently makes activities automatic and routine. This lowers transaction overhead and makes it economical to use smaller batches.\nThis is an interesting case where the heirs of a brilliantly designed system failed to understand the underlying logic of the system.\nWhen all jobs have the same delay cost, the preferred scheduling strategy is to do the shortest job first (SJF).\nProjects should only visit nodes that add economic value. They should visit these nodes in the specific sequence that adds economic value most cost-effectively.\nAs a general rule, any inexpensive step that eliminates a lot of risk should occur early.\nInstead, it is usually better to maintain a trickle flow of work through the alternate route, even when the primary route is under-utilized.\nDecisions are made at a synchronous, cadenced meeting where people from adjacent processes can easily interact.\nThe curtain between adjacent processes does not have to be completely opaque. As work nears completion, we should make its character visible to downstream resources.\nThey assume that the plan is correct, and a deviation is always bad. Therefore, they try to close the gap between the two by making results closer to the plan. They often discover it is cheaper to prevent deviations than it is to correct them, so they also emphasize preventing deviations.\nWhen goals are dynamic, we need different control systems. If we have stable goals, we try to prevent deviations, often by increasing inertia and avoiding risk. If we have dynamic goals, we try to quickly correct deviations, often by decreasing inertia.\nNot all deviations have negative economic consequences.\nBy accelerating feedback, we can design processes with less WIP, thereby lowering delay times.\nWhenever we have a short turning radius and a quick reaction time, we can proceed safely at a higher speed.\nThis develops a culture of magical decision making, where everybody feels they can make great decisions unencumbered by either analysis or facts.\nWhen people see that their actions cause consequences, it changes their behavior. They feel a sense of control, and this causes them to take even more control of the system.\nUnder dynamic conditions, we need to pay attention to the timing of the revenue associated with the inventory. When revenue is growing rapidly, we may need more DIP to support this growth.\nThe Marines believe orders are incomplete without this information. They believe that intent needs to be understood deeply through the organization. They believe that when intent is clear, Marines will be able to select the right course of action.\nIn product development, we can change direction more quickly when we have a small team of highly skilled people instead of a large team. We can change direction more quickly when we have a product with a streamlined feature set, instead of one that is bloated with minor features. We can change direction more quickly when we have reserve capacity in our resources.\nSince the Marines expect plans to change, they focus on simple, modular, and flexible plans. Simplicity leads to fast adaptation. Modularity solves the problem of adaptation because different modules can be configured many different ways. Flexibility is achieved by preplanning “branches”and “sequels.”\nThere is no substitute for moving to a quick proof-of-concept. There is no substitute for early market feedback.\nThey believe that one of the biggest mistakes a leader could make is to stifle initiative.\n","date":"October 27, 2017","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/notes-from-the-principles-of-product-development-flow/","section":"Posts","summary":"“I believe that the dominant paradigm for managing product development is fundamentally wrong.”\n","title":"Highlights from The Principles of Product Development Flow","type":"posts"},{"content":"The Spaniards are good at many things, but not at making war. All foreigners alike are appalled by their inefficiency, above all their maddening unpunctuality.\nfor some reason all the best matadors were Fascists.\nWhen a man refused to obey an order you did not immediately get him punished; you first appealed to him in the name of comradeship. Cynical people with no experience of handling men will say instantly that this would never \u0026lsquo;work\u0026rsquo;, but as a matter of fact it does \u0026lsquo;work\u0026rsquo; in the long run.\nIt was not till late March that I saw a bomb worth throwing.\nI admit I was amazed and scandalized when I first saw it done. The idea of trying to convert your enemy instead of shooting him! I now think that from any point of view it was a legitimate manoeuvre.\nActually churches were pillaged everywhere and as a matter of course, because it was perfectly well understood that the Spanish Church was part of the capitalist racket.\nThis alliance, known as the Popular Front, is in essential an alliance of enemies, and it seems probable that it must always end by one partner swallowing the other.\nThe Anarchists were the opposite of the majority of so-called revolutionaries in so much that though their principles were rather vague their hatred of privilege and injustice was perfectly genuine.\nThe Communist\u0026rsquo;s emphasis is always on centralism and efficiency, the Anarchist\u0026rsquo;s on liberty and equality.\nWhen I joined the militia I had promised myself to kill one Fascist\u0026ndash;after all, if each of us killed one they would soon be extinct\u0026ndash;and I had killed nobody yet, had hardly had the chance to do so.\nIf there is one thing I hate more than another it is a rat running over me in the darkness.\nI have felt exactly the same thing when stalking a wild animal; the same agonized desire to get within range, the same dreamlike certainty that it is impossible.\nMany of the normal motives of civilized life\u0026ndash;snobbishness, money-grubbing, fear of the boss, etc.\u0026ndash;had simply ceased to exist.\nAnd, after all, instead of disillusioning me it deeply attracted me. The effect was to make my desire to see Socialism established much more actual than it had been before. Partly, perhaps, this was due to the good luck of being among Spaniards, who, with their innate decency and their ever-present Anarchist tinge, would make even the opening stages of Socialism tolerable if they had the chance.\nA fat man eating quails while children are begging for bread is a disgusting sight, but you are less likely to see it when you are within sound of the guns.\nIt is a horrible thing to have to enter into the details of inter-party polemics; it is like diving into a cesspool.\nThere are occasions when it pays better to fight and be beaten than not to fight at all.\nAnyone who has served in Spain knows that the one operation of war that Spaniards really perform really well is that of feeding their troops.\nSince 1930 the Fascists had won all the victories; it was time they got a beating, it hardly mattered from whom.\nMy second was a violent resentment at having to leave this world which, when all is said and done, suits me so well.\nTo be killed in battle\u0026ndash; yes, that is what one expects; but to be flung into jail, not even for any imaginary offence, but simply owing to dull blind spite, and then left to die in solitude\u0026ndash;that is a different matter.\nI have the most evil memories of Spain, but I have very few bad memories of Spaniards. I only twice remember even being seriously angry with a Spaniard, and on each occasion, when I look back, I believe I was in the wrong myself.\n","date":"October 6, 2017","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-from-homage-to-catalonia/","section":"Posts","summary":"The Spaniards are good at many things, but not at making war. All foreigners alike are appalled by their inefficiency, above all their maddening unpunctuality.\n","title":"Highlights from Homage to Catalonia","type":"posts"},{"content":"\u0026ldquo;The establishment in many ways is as suicidal as some of the far left\nIf we fail to communicate with them, if we don\u0026rsquo;t encourage them to form alliances with us, they will move to the right.\nWe must first see the world as it is and not as we would like it to be.\nPolitical realists see the world as it is: an arena of power politics moved primarily by perceived immediate self-interests, where morality is rhetorical rationale for expedient action and self-interest.\nThe pursuit of happiness is never-ending; happiness lies in the pursuit.\nConcern for our private, material well-being with disregard for the well-being of others is immoral according to the precepts of our Judaeo-Christian civilization, but worse, it is stupidity worthy of the lower animals.\nIn short, ethics are determined by whether one is losing or winning.\nThe ninth rule of the ethics of means and ends is that any effective means is automatically judged by the opposition as being unethical.\nTo oversimplify, what Gandhi did was to say, \u0026ldquo;Look, you are all sitting there anyway—so instead of sitting there, why don\u0026rsquo;t you sit over here and while you\u0026rsquo;re sitting, say Independence Now!'\u0026rdquo;\nThe Haves develop their own morality to justify their means of repression and all other means employed to maintain the status quo.\nand as we use purifying synonyms, we dissolve the bitterness, the anguish, the hate and love, the agony and the triumph attached to these words, leaving an aseptic imitation of life.\nTo pander to those who have no stomach for straight language, and insist upon bland, non controversial sauces, is a waste of time.\nhe knows that worn-out words like \u0026ldquo;white racist,\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;fascist pig,\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;motherfucker\u0026rdquo; have been so spewed about that using them is now within the negative experience of the local people\nThey knew not only of my concern about their plight but that I liked them as people. I felt their response in friendship, and we were together. It is in this totality of the situation that I did what, otherwise, would have been offensive.\nWith very rare exceptions, the right things are done for the wrong reasons. It is futile to demand that men do the right thing for the right reason—this is a fight with a windmill. The organizer should know and accept that the right reason is only introduced as a moral rationalization after the right end has been achieved, although it may have been achieved for the wrong reason—therefore he should search for and use the wrong reasons to achieve the right goals.\nCommunication on a general basis without being fractured into the specifics of experience becomes rhetoric and it carries a very limited meaning.\nOrganizations are built on issues that are specific, immediate, and realizable.\nIt is impossible to maintain constant action on a single issue. A single issue is a fatal strait jacket that will stifle the life of an organization.\nWe learn, when we respect the dignity of the people, that they cannot be denied the elementary right to participate fully in the solutions to their own problems. Self-respect arises only out of people who play an active role in solving their own crises and who are not helpless, passive, puppet-like recipients of private or public services.\nOne big problem is a constant shifting of responsibility from one jurisdiction to another—individuals and bureaus one after another disclaim responsibility for particular conditions, attributing the authority for any change to some other force.\nYou can insult and annoy him, but the one thing that is unforgivable and that is certain to get him to react is to laugh at him. This causes an irrational anger.\nThey are right; but we must begin from where we are if we are to build power for change, and the power and the people are in the big middle-class majority.\nThey see the poor going to colleges with the waiving of admission requirements and given special financial aid. In many cases the lower middle class were denied the opportunity of college by these very circumstances.\nPeople must be \u0026ldquo;reformed\u0026rdquo;—so they cannot be deformed into dependency and driven through desperation to dictatorship and the death of freedom. The \u0026ldquo;silent majority,\u0026rdquo; now, are hurt, bitter, suspicious, feeling rejected and at bay. This sick condition in many ways is as explosive as the current race crisis. Their fears and frustrations at their helplessness are mounting to a point of a political paranoia which can demonize people to turn to the law of survival in the narrowest sense.\nThe frenetic scene around them is so bewildering as to induce them to either drop out into a private world, the nonexistent past, sick with its own form of social schizophrenia—or to face it and move into action.\nThe middle classes are numb, bewildered, scared into silence. They don\u0026rsquo;t know what, if anything, they can do. This is the job for today\u0026rsquo;s radical—to fan the embers of hopelessness into a flame to fight.\n","date":"October 6, 2017","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-from-rules-for-radicals/","section":"Posts","summary":"“The establishment in many ways is as suicidal as some of the far left\n","title":"Highlights from Rules for Radicals","type":"posts"},{"content":"\u0026ldquo;Inspector Thomas Mathew seemed to know whom he could pick on and whom he couldn’t. Policemen have that instinct.\u0026rdquo;\nSome days he walked along the banks of the river that smelled of shit and pesticides bought with World Bank loans.\nHe oiled himself with warm, peppered coconut oil, kneading his old, loose flesh that stretched willingly off his bones like chewing gum.\nthe Loss of Sophie Mol grew robust and alive. It was always there. Like a fruit in season. Every season. As permanent as a government job.\nsavoring their teacherly disapproval, touching it with their tongues, sucking it like a sweet\nIt was as though the window through which their father disappeared had been kept open for anyone to walk in and be welcomed.\nnot of the wedding itself so much as the fact that she had permitted herself to be so painstakingly decorated before being led to the gallows. It seemed so absurd. So futile. Like polishing firewood.\nAmmu said that human beings were creatures of habit, and it was amazing the kind of things they could get used to.\nThe nodder nodded as Rahel’s ancestral lineage fell into place for him.\nWhen she looked at him now, she couldn’t help thinking that the man he had become bore so little resemblance to the boy he had been. His smile was the only piece of baggage he had carried with him from boyhood into manhood.\n","date":"September 26, 2017","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-from-the-god-of-small-things/","section":"Posts","summary":"“Inspector Thomas Mathew seemed to know whom he could pick on and whom he couldn’t. Policemen have that instinct.”\n","title":"Highlights from the God of Small Things","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;m putting this here so I don\u0026rsquo;t have to keep looking it up.\nThe name of the game by John Boyd is moral leverage for grand strategy:\nPreserve or build up our moral authority while compromising that of our adversaries in order to pump up our resolve, drain away adversaries\u0026rsquo; resolve, and attract them as well as others to our cause and way of life.\n","date":"September 22, 2017","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/name-of-the-game/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’m putting this here so I don’t have to keep looking it up.\n","title":"Name of the Game","type":"posts"},{"content":"\u0026ldquo;Association with those you hate is suffering.\u0026rdquo;\nIt is very hard. It turns out to be quite a handful, quite a project, for us to keep everything at the ideal level.\nThe conclusion is that everybody is neurotic, that neurosis creates discomfort and anxiety, and that basic anxiety is happening all the time.\nWe can’t just practice passion, aggression, and ignorance on ourselves alone; we do it to somebody else as well, and someone always gets hurt.\nWe generate their anxiety, and they also generate it themselves; and we end up with what is known as “the vicious circle of samsara.”Everybody is constantly making everybody else feel bad.\nWe would like to watch the birth of our child and its growth, so that finally we will have a child who is competent and good because of our training.\nThe torturing process we impose on ourselves is a habitual pattern, or ape instinct.\nYou don’t want to be born into the next world, but unfortunately, the situation is such that you are born into the next world.\nAs we get older, we are not getting the entertainment we used to get out of things. We have already experienced practically everything that exists in our world.\nWe want our own particular habits to keep happening, and we do not want to give anything up, viewing that as a sign of weakness.\nThen, quite conveniently, they blame somebody else, if they have a scheming enough style of thinking; and if they don’t, they just freak out with their mouths open.\nNothing will satisfy you. Nothing will be wish-fulfilling at all, absolutely not. Something is not quite working. Whether you are smart or dumb, it doesn’t make much difference: things don’t quite work.\nSince you carry your burden of suffering with you all the time, you have grown accustomed to it. You have learned to live with it.\nTherefore, with greater clarity, pain is experienced more harshly, more precisely and directly\nThe original problem began because you lost your awareness. You cannot lay that on someone else.\nThere doesn’t have to be a second meaning all the time, and you don’t have to philosophize everything. There could be pure motivation.\nBasically, both eternalism and nihilism are ways of trying to nourish one’s existence and one’s ego. They are extreme views in the sense that either you couldn’t care less and nothing is a problem, or there is a problem, so you have to be on the right side of it.\nSimply perceiving it through your mind and seeing the futility of it, realizing it is just a game, is the saving grace. That seems to be the point of the practice of meditation.\nThis ignorance is a different sort of ignorance than the initial triggering process. It is not basic bewilderment but rather simply boycotting situations, ignoring things, refusing to see things in an intelligent way.\nTaking life, stealing, and sexual misconduct are regulated by social norms. Some forms of these actions are approved by law because they go along with the basic scheme of society; others are not approved by law because they interfere with that scheme.\nYou hope that if you speak your harsh words loudly and clearly, they will be a kind of weapon or bomb that you can throw into the midst of society, into the midst of your friends, or into the midst of your enemies.\nAs the creator of harsh, destructive words, you hope that you can destroy society, concepts, ideas, feelings, and theories of all kinds.\nBecause you feel so rugged and primitive, you are afraid that you might be excluded from that vision, so you stick to your particular logic, your jumbled-up confusion, your poverty mentality.\nFirst we have to interrupt our ignorance, and second we also have to interrupt our passion. By interrupting both our ignorance and our passion, we have nothing happening in terms of the samsaric world. We have already unplugged the refrigerator.\nA person experiences a glimpse of cessation as a kind of appetizer. If the appetizer is good, you have a sense of how the main course will be.\nThe Buddha said that cessation could be experienced. He said that suffering should be known; the origin of suffering should be renounced; the cessation of suffering should be realized; and the path should be regarded as the truth to resolution. That’s almost word for word.\nWe begin to feel that we could prevent such problems by being highly disciplined and by having a genuine connection with our own mind and thought patterns, which could be good or bad, virtuous or otherwise.\nYou practice due to your own inspiration. Nobody can make you do it if you don’t want to.\nThe only possibility is that at one and the same time, the simplicity of the practice can be developed with respect to the tradition and discipline, and your intuition can be developed according to your own basic understanding of life. That is the point of profundity.\nBeyond that, you are becoming highly disciplined. You are realistic, proper, and industrious; you have self-discipline and project dignity. Such ordinary decency is recognized as a token of cessation.\nYou begin to see the value of the intellect, which in this case means sharpened clarity rather than theory. Instead of resorting to Jungian or Freudian styles of psychologizing everything, you are simply experiencing your life and understanding how it works.\n“Because everything is impermanent, everything is always painful and subject to suffering.”\nOn the path of accumulation we are working with ourselves and we are inspired to make sacrifices. We accumulate good merit by developing a good attitude and performing good deeds. We cultivate simplicity and sacrifice.\nThere is a tremendous sense of humor and relaxation, and a sense of openness, gentleness, and goodness. You are beginning to feel the effect of your practice. It is beginning to work, and you feel positive. It is like coming out of a steam bath: your muscles have relaxed; you feel so healthy.\n","date":"September 13, 2017","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-from-the-truth-of-suffering-and-the-path-of-liberation/","section":"Posts","summary":"“Association with those you hate is suffering.”\n","title":"Highlights from The Truth of Suffering and the Path of Liberation","type":"posts"},{"content":"\u0026ldquo;You must see the people who work with you.\u0026rdquo;\nThe presence of rigid, e-mail-based status reports comes down to control, a lack of imagination, and a lack of trust in the organization.\nThe courage it takes to stop this meeting five minutes into the scheduled hour because there is no discernible way to make progress.\nIt’s great that your freak has chosen to freak out. The alternative is that they’re not saying a thing and have decided to leave the company.\nA meeting agenda would help, but as most meetings proceed without one, you’re on your own.\nIt’s a noble act, speaking your mind in front of all your peers. But it’s also a waste of time.\nRoles and agendas in these meetings are simple. Talkers are talking and listeners are listening. Get it? There is no problem to be solved other than the transmission of information. The quicker it happens, the sooner everyone is back to work.\nExhibiting your power and knowledge as a manager isn’t always the best method of communicating.\nBlindly landing process without considering the culture it needs to support it is a recipe for disaster.\nEach additional person levies a communication tax, and unless we figure out how to constantly improve our communication, we’re just going to get slower.\nBright-and-shiny inflection points are full of energy, but unless that energy is carefully channeled back into the building and immediately acted upon, all an off-site represents is a frustrating opportunity to dream, but not to act.\nUse the development environment to build the product. This means you must be familiar with your team’s tools, including the build system, version control, and programming language.\nProcess is the means by which your team communicates.\nWhat I am saying is that any big decision, any big problem, deserves time and consideration.\nI know there is no controlling the world, but I will fluidly surf the entropy by constantly changing myself.\nThe game here isn’t just overcommunication and Grapevine eradication; I’m still worried I missed something in the plan, and the status spamming is another means of vetting both the plan and the progress.\nThese people, called managers, don’t create product. They create process.\nWe all get shit work, but it’s the responsibility of the guy or gal in charge to dole this work out fairly and consistently.\nEach week that passes where you don’t share the joy, despair, and discovery of software development is a week when you slowly forget what it means to be a software developer.\nA strategic hire is someone who is going to push their agenda, their opinion.\nA tactical hire is a person who is filling a well-defined need.\nYour job interview isn’t over until you’ve changed to become part of a new team.\nThere are chronically negative nerds out there, but in my experience with nerd management, it’s more often the case that the nerd is bitter because they’ve seen this situation before four times, and it has played out exactly the same way.\nYeah, they’re going to argue, but it’s the argument you want your teams to have. It’s not a fear-based “Should we or shouldn’t we?”it’s “Let’s do this thing, let’s make sure it gets done, and let’s make sure it gets done right.”\nAs an aside, let me stress how bad of a career move it is to not know who you are going to be working for when you arrive. The 30-minute interview you have with your future manager is a critical piece of information when you decide whether or not to make a move.\nMy personal favorites are mechanical organics. These folks have all the slick tricks of organic information gathering, but they’ve got the astounding organization skills of the mechanic. They know everything and never forget a bit. I mean it. Organic mechanics are frightening. They have extreme depth of knowledge, but there is no obvious organic thread that ties it all together. Here’s the scary part. There is a thread. There is a purpose. They just aren’t letting you see it. Organic mechanics will keep you on your heels and just when you think you’ve figured them out, they’ll change everything. I hate that. I mean, I love that.\nWait, don’t these holistics have product to ship? No, they have multiple products, but they’ve hired rock-star inwards to get the products built to specification and on time so they can focus on figuring out what to build next and who they’re going to need to build it.\nI’m not suggesting that outwards don’t care about the daily professional shenanigans within the company; they do, but they’ve also hired a group of rock-star holistics to run their company. The rub is this: while it’s not their job to run the company on a daily basis, they are accountable for it.\nWhat you need to know about your manager is how much he cares about this growth and, more importantly whether he sees this as his growth opportunity or the team’s.\nYou are not that person, because once you are rewarded for releasing crap, you begin a blind walk down a path of mediocrity that ends up with you working at Computer Associates on a product no one has heard of and that no one cares about.\n","date":"August 6, 2017","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/notes-from-managing-humans/","section":"Posts","summary":"“You must see the people who work with you.”\n","title":"Highlights from Managing Humans","type":"posts"},{"content":"For my personal archive, here is the talk I gave at Thingscon Amsterdam last year.\nThingsCon Amsterdam 2016: Alper Cugun from ThingsConAMS on Vimeo.\n","date":"July 18, 2017","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/thingscon-amsterdam-2016-talk-on-conversational-interfaces/","section":"Posts","summary":"For my personal archive, here is the talk I gave at Thingscon Amsterdam last year.\n","title":"Thingscon Amsterdam 2016 Talk on Conversational Interfaces","type":"posts"},{"content":"Here or there, our blood will plant olive trees.\nOurs is a country of words: Talk. Talk.\nI ask: Is it true, good ladies and gentlemen, that the earth of Man is for all human beings as you say? In that case, where is my little cottage, and where am I?\nCan a people be born on a guillotine? We have the right to die any way we wish.\nIn this hymn we lay a dream, we raise a victory sign, we hold a key to the last door, to lock ourselves in a dream.\nI gaze upon trees guarding the night from the night and the sleep of those who would wish me death.\nThe stars had only one task: they taught me how to read. They taught me I had a language in heaven and another language on earth.\nI will come out of these walls a free man, like a ghost when he floats freely out of himself. I will go to Aleppo. Dove, fly with my Byzantine ode to my kinsman, and take him this greeting of dew.\nWho am I after your two almond eyes? the male stranger asks. Who am I after your exile in me? the female stranger asks.\nEvery time she hits a certain note, her jinn casts its spell on us. And we are transported to another time.\nNothing causes us pain— not the final parting of the doves nor the cold in our hands nor the wind around the church.\nDo not glance at the twin partridges sleeping on her chest.\nI saw three of my friends crying, sewing my burial shroud with golden threads.\nI was born in spring to keep the orators from endlessly speaking about this heartbreaking country, about the immortality of fig and olive trees in the face of time and its armies.\nHomeland for him, he tells me, is to drink my mother’s coffee, to return at nightfall.\nHe used to arrive like a sword dipped in wine, and leave like the end of a prayer.\nAnd I died, I died utterly. How tranquil and peaceful is death without your crying? How tranquil and peaceful is death without your hands pounding on my chest to bring me back? Before and after death I loved you, and between I saw nothing but my mother’s face.\n","date":"June 23, 2017","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-from-unfortunately-it-was-paradise/","section":"Posts","summary":"Here or there, our blood will plant olive trees.\n","title":"Highlights from Unfortunately, It Was Paradise","type":"posts"},{"content":"One for the archives, this a talk I gave last summer that I thought went pretty well.\n","date":"June 12, 2017","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/the-ux-and-messaging-of-chatbots/","section":"Posts","summary":"One for the archives, this a talk I gave last summer that I thought went pretty well.\n","title":"The UX and Messaging of Chatbots","type":"posts"},{"content":"Modern! How quickly that word had surged forward and multiplied itself like bacteria throughout the world.\nThomas Aquinas, she said, once saw two people who were born in the same year, in the same month, on the same day and at the same hour, even in the same place. The joke played by astrology was that one became a great landowner and the other his slave.\nIn his body ran some Native blood. Who knows how many drops or clots.\nUnder the illusion he was actually a Dutch citizen he strove to act as one for the sake of his grandchildren’s future.\nShe is just a nyai, living in sin, giving birth to illegitimate children, low in moral character, selling honor to live easily and in luxury.\nHer attitude toward her daughter was refined and wise and open, not like that of Native mothers.\nThe Dutch generals almost gave up. The Dutch were only ever able to destroy the children, the grandmothers and grandfathers, the ill, the pregnant women.\nOnce in their lives people must take a stand. If not, they will never become anything.\nMy world was not rank and position, wages and embezzlement. My world was this earth of mankind and its problems.\nI felt so totally Javanese. But when the ignorance and stupidity of Java was mentioned, I felt European.\nSo don’t indulge yourself. Strengthen your heart.\nYou are among the first of the educated Natives. Much is demanded of you.\n\u0026ldquo;May I ask why Mr. Mellema did not like Dutch literature?\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;I don\u0026rsquo;t really know, miss. But he used to say that it was dominated by triviality, had no spirit, no fire.\u0026rdquo;\nIf that vengefulness was missing, she\u0026rsquo;d be truly, brilliantly outstanding, Minke.\n\u0026ldquo;Shame is not a concern of European civilization.\u0026rdquo;\n","date":"June 9, 2017","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-from-this-earth-of-mankind/","section":"Posts","summary":"Modern! How quickly that word had surged forward and multiplied itself like bacteria throughout the world.\n","title":"Highlights from This Earth of Mankind","type":"posts"},{"content":"Last Tuesday I gave a talk at EMERCE Tech Live on the main stage of the Beurs van Berlage in Amsterdam. It was a lovely event and it was fun being back in Amsterdam however briefly.\nIt was a business focussed practical riff on my ‘Designing Conversational Interfaces’ talk that may have blown some people\u0026rsquo;s minds. So it goes!\nA post shared by Alper Cugun (@alper) on May 30, 2017 at 1:56am PDT\nNow on stage @alper on conv interfaces. The good and bad. The power of simplicity #tel17\nA post shared by Iskander Smit (@iskandr) on May 30, 2017 at 3:46am PDT\nA post shared by Iskander Smit (@iskandr) on May 30, 2017 at 4:11am PDT\n","date":"June 5, 2017","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/talk-at-emerce-tech-live-in-amsterdam/","section":"Posts","summary":"Last Tuesday I gave a talk at EMERCE Tech Live on the main stage of the Beurs van Berlage in Amsterdam. It was a lovely event and it was fun being back in Amsterdam however briefly.\n","title":"Talk at Emerce Tech Live in Amsterdam","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik heb me de afgelopen weken geërgerd aan en gegeneerd voor de domme venijnige kritieken die het boek ‘Hallo Witte Mensen’ van Anousha Nzume kreeg. Zoals de uitgever van het boek Ebissé Rouw zegt: Nederland is een intellectual wasteland. We zijn nu eenmaal een klein taalgebied waar iedereen zich heel slim en onschuldig kan voelen door het Engelstalige debat over een onderwerp compleet te missen en zelf wat bij elkaar te verzinnen.\nIk probeerde bij te houden wat voor onzin er gepubliceerd werd in de mediahype rondom het boek maar op een gegeven moment was dat ook geen doen meer. Morad van FunX vond dat Nzume dit boek niet had moeten schrijven, Pieter van der Wielen ventileerde in Nooit Meer Slapen al zijn persoonlijke frustraties eventjes, de Volkskrant liet een radicaal een totaal onleesbaar stuk schrijven (niet gelinkt) en Sylvain Ephimenco liet in Trouw zijn gebruikelijke ding uithangen (direct weerlegd in diezelfde krant door Seada Nourhussen).\nIk heb het boek wel maar ik heb het net zoals Morad ook nog niet gelezen. Ik vind niet dat je een cultureel product geconsumeerd moet hebben om erover te kunnen praten, zeker niet als het zo uitgebreid behandeld is in de media. Ik ga het daarom ook niet hebben over de letterlijke inhoud van ‘Hallo Witte Mensen’ (Waarvan ik wel geloof dat het snor zit. Koop dat boek!) maar over het debat.\nIk ben zelf redelijk bij in dat debat al weet ik zeker niet alles en ben ik ook niet overal mee eens. We hebben allemaal nog veel te leren dus laten we blij zijn dat zo’n handleiding anti-racisme nu bestaat.\nMaar niemand lijkt in staat tot een kritische benadering. De ene kant doet het niet omdat een afwijkende mening hebben wordt gezien als overlopen. De andere kant doet het niet omdat ze (zie de voorbeelden boven) zo vastzitten in hun eigen hangups dat ze niet meer na kunnen denken.\nIk denk dat kritiek kan én moet. Hier drie voorzetjes.\nMeepraten Nzume zegt dat ze dacht dat ze op een gegeven moment ook zou kunnen meepraten bijvoorbeeld over racisme. Dat lijkt me erg goed. Je hoeft niet zwart te zijn om te zien dat racisme nog steeds een groot probleem is.\nIk vraag me dan wel af waarom zwart Nederland er niet voor zorgt dat ze politiek vertegenwoordigd worden. In de afgelopen Tweede Kamer verkiezingen stonden er geen Afrikaanse-Nederlanders op een verkiesbare plek (zie Kiza Magendane). Artikel 1, een politieke partij aangevoerd door een prominente zwarte vrouw met een krachtig verhaal, slaagde er niet in om ook maar één zetel te halen.\nTurkse-Nederlanders bijvoorbeeld die ook van ver moeten komen zijn erg goed vertegenwoordigd met een handjevol kamerleden en zelfs een eigen politieke partij.\nWat mij betreft zijn dit vier verloren jaren niet alleen voor zwart Nederland maar voor ons allemaal. Waarom is dit niet gelukt en waarom waren Nzume \u0026amp;co. tijdens hun gesprek met Sylvana Simons in Dipsaus zo terughoudend?\n2. Intersectionaliteit\nZoals ik het concept intersectionaliteit begrijp gaat het erom dat we allemaal meerdere identiteiten hebben die elkaar voeden, raken en soms met elkaar botsen. Dat betekent dat iemand die zwart en rijk is en iemand die wit en arm is allebei lijden aan onderdrukking. Het is dan ook beter om ze allebei serieus te nemen dan ze met elkaar te willen vergelijken.\nDat vergelijken wordt ook wel ‘Oppression Olympics’ genoemd, een wedstrijdje wie het meest onderdrukt wordt. Het beste doen we niet aan dat soort wedstrijdjes omdat ze veel leed en geen winnaars opleveren.\nNzume zegt dat ze in het boek opzettelijk de tegenstelling wit/zwart heeft benadrukt. Zo’n harde scheidslijn doet geen recht aan de echte levens van mensen en zorgt ervoor dat witte mensen aanslaan. Dat aanslaan is onterecht maar ik vraag me dan wel af: Waarom zouden witte mensen mee willen doen aan een ‘Oppression Olympics’ waar ze toch altijd als verliezer uit de bus komen?\n3. Globalisering\nVerreweg de meeste weerstand in het racisme-debat komt van boerse Nederlanders (Hallo mensen buiten de Randstad!) die niet zoveel van de wereld hebben gezien. Hadden ze dat gedaan dan waren ze erachter gekomen dat witte mensen wereldwijd verreweg in de minderheid zijn. Discriminatie op basis van huidskleur is in een geglobaliseerde wereld achterlijk, onhoudbaar en onproductief.\nDeze mensen zijn verliezers van de globalisering en ze zitten vast in het verleden. De toekomst wordt gemaakt in Afrika, China en de Golfstaten, allemaal plaatsen waar weinig witte mensen wonen.\nOp lokaal niveau binnen Nederland zijn witte mensen in de meerderheid en houden er nog te vaak racistische ideeën op na. Maar zelfs daar is er meer wat zwarte en witte Nederlanders economisch met elkaar gemeen hebben dan dat ze van elkaar scheidt.\nIs het racisme-debat zoals het nu gevoerd wordt (wij-tegen-zij) geen kadootje voor de financiële elites die ons willen laten geloven dat sociale voorzieningen een beperkte taart zijn waar om gevochten moet worden?\nHasan Bahara wilde graag dat mensen het racisme debat naar een hoger plan tillen. Misschien kan hij hier wat mee.\n","date":"May 5, 2017","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/kritiek-naar-aanleiding-van-hallo-witte-mensen/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik heb me de afgelopen weken geërgerd aan en gegeneerd voor de domme venijnige kritieken die het boek ‘Hallo Witte Mensen’ van Anousha Nzume kreeg. Zoals de uitgever van het boek Ebissé Rouw zegt: Nederland is een intellectual wasteland. We zijn nu eenmaal een klein taalgebied waar iedereen zich heel slim en onschuldig kan voelen door het Engelstalige debat over een onderwerp compleet te missen en zelf wat bij elkaar te verzinnen.\n","title":"Kritiek naar aanleiding van Hallo Witte Mensen","type":"posts"},{"content":"\u0026ldquo;Let us not mix up heaven and earth\nIn works produced by anthropologists abroad, you will not find a single trait that is not simultaneously real, social and narrated.\nThe ethnologist will certainly not write three separate books: one dealing with knowledge, another with power, yet another with practices.\nthe representation of nonhumans belongs to science, but science is not allowed to appeal to politics; the representation of citizens belongs to politics, but politics is not allowed to have any relation to the nonhumans produced and mobilized by science and technology.\nHobbes’s and Boyle’s followers succeeded in carrying out this task — the former by ridding Nature of any divine presence, the latter by ridding Society of any divine origin.\nBy playing three times in a row on the same alternation between transcendence and immanence, the moderns can mobilize Nature, objectify the social, and feel the spiritual presence of God, even while firmly maintaining that Nature escapes us, that Society is our own work, and that God no longer intervenes.\nThe critical power of the moderns lies in this double language: they can mobilize Nature at the heart of social relationships, even as they leave Nature infinitely remote from human beings; they are free to make and unmake their society, even as they render its laws ineluctable, necessary and absolute.\nBy separating the relations of political power from the relations of scientific reasoning while continuing to shore up power with reason and reason with power, the moderns have always had two irons in the fire. They have become invincible.\nIt is the impossibility of changing the social order without modifying the natural order — and vice versa — that has obliged the premoderns to exercise the greatest prudence.\nBy rendering mixtures unthinkable, by emptying, sweeping, cleaning and purifying the arena that is opened in the central space defined by their three sources of power, the moderns allowed the practice of mediation to recombine all possible monsters without letting them have any effect on the social fabric, or even any contact with it.\nSeen as networks, however, the modern world, like revolutions, permits scarcely anything more than small extensions of practices, slight accelerations in the circulation of knowledge, a tiny extension of societies, minuscule increases in the number of actors, small modifications of old beliefs.\nWith the postmoderns, the abandonment of the modern project is consummated. I have not found words ugly enough to designate this intellectual movement — or rather, this intellectual immobility through which humans and nonhumans are left to drift.\nA single modern example will illustrate the abdication of thought as well as the self-inflicted defeat of the postmodern project.\nIt is the double contradiction that is modern, the contradiction between the two constitutional guarantees of Nature and Society on the one hand, and between the practice of purification and the practice of mediation on the other.\nThere is only one positive thing to be said about the postmoderns: after them, there is nothing.\nThey are simply stuck in the impasse of all avant-gardes that have no more troops behind them. Let them sleep till the end of the millennium, as Baudrillard advocates, and let us move on to other things. Or rather, let us retrace our steps. Let us stop moving on.\nAs Lévi-Strauss says, ‘the barbarian is first and foremost the man who believes in barbarism.’\nNature and Society are no longer explanatory terms but rather something that requires a conjoined explanation.\nWe want to gain access to things themselves, not only to their phenomena. The real is not remote; rather, it is accessible in all the objects mobilized throughout the world.\nThe collectives we live in are more active, more productive, more socialized than the tiresome things-in-themselves led us to expect.\nOur collectives are more real, more naturalized, more discursive than the tiresome humans-among-themselves led us to expect.\nReal as Nature, narrated as Discourse, collective as Society, existential as Being: such are the quasi-objects that the moderns have caused to proliferate.\nEverything changes if the staunch discipline of the principle of symmetry forces us to retain only the causes that could serve both truth and falsehood, belief and knowledge, science and parascience.\nMarc Augé when he resided among the lagoon-dwellers of the Ivory Coast, sought to understand the entire social phenomenon revealed by sorcery\nA symmetrical Marc Augé would have studied the sociotechnological network of the metro itself: its engineers as well as its drivers, its directors and its clients, the employer-State, the whole shebang — simply doing at home what he had always done elsewhere.\nWestern ethnologists cannot limit themselves to the periphery; otherwise, still asymmetrical, they would show boldness toward others, timidity toward themselves. Back home anthropology need not become the marginal discipline of the margins, picking up the crumbs that fall from the other disciplines’ banquet table.\nHer tribe of scientists claims that in the end they are completely separating their knowledge of the world from the necessities of politics and morality (Traweek, 1988). In the observer’s eyes, however, this separation is never very visible, or is itself only the byproduct of a much more mixed activity, some tinkering in and out of the laboratory. Her informers claim that they have access to Nature, but the ethnographer sees perfectly well that they have access only to a vision, a representation of Nature that she herself cannot distinguish neatly from politics and social interests (Pickering, 1980). This tribe, like the earlier one, projects its own social categories on to Nature; what is new is that it pretends it has not done so. When the ethnologist explains to her informers that they cannot separate Nature from the social representation they have formed of it, they are scandalized or nonplussed.\nThis is the stance that makes it possible to respect the differences (the dimensions of the helixes do vary) while at the same time respecting the similarities (all collectives mix human and nonhuman entities together in the same way).\nModern knowledge and power are different not in that they would escape at last the tyranny of the social, but in that they add many more hybrids in order to recompose the social link and extend its scale.\nYes, science is indeed politics pursued by other means, means that are powerful only because they remain radically other (Latour, 1990b).\nNothing is, by itself, either reducible or irreducible to anything else. Never by itself, but always through the mediation of another.\nThe past was a barbarian medley; the future, a civilizing distinction.\nBut before long they will have achieved modernization, they will have liquidated those islands, and we shall all inhabit the same planet; we shall all be equally modern, all equally capable of profiting from what, alone, forever escapes the tyranny of social interest: economic rationality, scientific truth, technological efficiency.\nHaving been slapped in the face with modern reality, poor populations now have to submit to postmodern hyperreality. Nothing has value; everything is a reflection, a simulacrum, a floating sign; and that very weakness, they say, may save us from the invasion of technologies, sciences, reasons.\nThe moderns’ greatness stems from their proliferation of hybrids, their lengthening of a certain type of network, their acceleration of the production of traces, their multiplication of delegates, their groping production of relative universals. Their daring, their research, their innovativeness, their tinkering, their youthful excesses, the ever-increasing scale of their action, the creation of stabilized objects independent of society, the freedom of a society liberated from objects — all these are features we want to keep.\n","date":"April 27, 2017","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-from-we-have-never-been-modern/","section":"Posts","summary":"“Let us not mix up heaven and earth\n","title":"Highlights from We Have Never Been Modern","type":"posts"},{"content":"Naar aanleiding van de Zomergasten met Leon de Winter had ik al wat aantekeningen gemaakt. Deze zaterdag las ik in de Volkskrant Femke Halsema\u0026rsquo;s veroordeling van de Winter en zijn debat-techniek. Ik heb mijn aantekeningen van toen er maar weer bij gepakt.\nHalsema\u0026rsquo;s felste kritiek is dat de Winter en de zijnen graag gebruik maken van de vrijheid van meningsuiting, maar zodra andersdenkenden zich van hetzelfde instrument bedienen worden uitgemaakt voor: ‘heulers met fascisten en anti-semieten’. Ze heeft gelijk dat dat een flauwe manier van debatteren is.\nMijn kritiek van de Winter gaat verder. Doordat hij olie op het vuur gooit en de doelen van terroristen verkeerd voorstelt, frustreert hij doeltreffende maatregelen tegen terrorisme. Tegelijkertijd zaait hij angst waar hij maar kan en hiermee helpt hij terroristen in feite hun doel van terreur te bewerkstelligen.\nEerst de uitleg dat terrorisme geen effectief middel is voor de doelen die terroristen écht willen bereiken onder al die rhetoriek. Die doelen zijn vaak een stuk redelijker dan het met wortel en tak uitroeien van de Westerse beschaving. Daarna leg ik uit waarom bang zijn en dat laten zien wel het domste is wat je kunt doen tegen een terroristische dreiging.\nIneffectiviteit van terrorisme # In een recent artikel (via Schneier) “Why Terrorism Does Not Work”wordt betoogd dat terrorisme in verreweg de meeste gevallen niet leidt tot succes.\nTerrorisme is dus weinig effectief voor de meeste doelen. Voor die gevallen waarin er effect wordt gesorteerd, is die effectiviteit sterk gecorreleerd met de soort doelen die terroristen nastreven en sterker nog met hun doelwitkeuze: burgers danwel militairen.\nDoelen: Doelen van terroristen zijn onder te verdelen in maximalistisch, beperkt, en idiosyncratisch of gemengd. Beperkte doelen omvatten fysiek tastbare eisen zoals uitwisseling van land of gevangenen. Maximalistische doelen zijn erop gericht om verandering in de waarden en ideologie van een land teweeg te brengen 1. Beperkte doelen zijn nog weleens gedeeltelijk of compleet haalbaar. Maximalistische doelen zijn bijna per definitie al niet haalbaar. De doelen zijn te verstrekkend en daarnaast zijn de kosten 2 voor de verliezende partij te groot.\nDoelwitten: De keuze voor ofwel militaire doelen ofwel burgerdoelen is nog bepalender voor het succes omdat de doelwitkeuze impliciet de vermeende doelen van terroristen bepaalt. Mensen hebben bij aanslagen op burgerdoelen de neiging om de resultaten van de aanslagen toe te schrijven aan de doelen van terroristen 3 met redeneringen als: ‘ze hebben een paar van ons doodgemaakt, dus ze willen ons allemaal doodmaken’. Aanslagen op burgerdoelen laten de bevolking denken dat de terroristen maximalistische doelen nastreven en roepen dus veel weerstand op.\nHet maakt dus niet uit of de doelen van terroristen beperkt zijn of niet, door een verkeerde doelwitkeuze worden ze aangezien voor maximalistisch. De terroristen willen in de meeste gevallen geen maximalistische doelen behalen maar ze wekken wel de weerstand en de tegenmaatregelen op die daarmee gepaard gaan.\nTerroristen zijn zich hier waarschijnlijk niet bewust van als je kijkt naar hun rhetoriek maar door hun doelwitkeuze maken ze het onwaarschijnlijk dat ze hun doelen ooit gaan behalen 4. De maatregelen tegen terrorisme zijn ook weinig effectief, maken vaak niet de bevolking veiliger en doen weinig aan de echte oorzaken van dat terrorisme.\nDe Winter roept continu dat de terroristen ons allemaal dood willen maken en dat ze onze manier van leven en onze vrijheden haten 5. Dit misverstand is gegeven bovenstaande theorie begrijpelijk maar helpt ons niet verder.\nHij polariseert het debat tot een niveau waar weinig zinnige discussie meer mogelijk is. Door zijn verkeerde voorstelling van de doelen van de terroristen —iets wat hij met de terroristen gemeen heeft— pleit hij voor tegenmaatregelen die ons niet veiliger gaan maken en die zeker niet de hoeveelheid terrorisme op de wereld gaan verminderen. Het ontkennen van de echte oorzaken van terrorisme en funeste oorlogen voeren op dubieuze gronden gaan ons niet helpen 6. Daardoor lopen we in feite alleen maar meer gevaar.\nRaadgever van angst # Het overgrote deel van de terroristen wil onze manier van leven dus niet veranderen. Misschien is er een kleine groep terroristen die dat wél wil. De Winter helpt en steunt deze groep terroristen met zijn angstzaaierij.\nAngst was in de uitzending van Zomergasten een toegegeven belangrijke motivator voor de Winter. Angst voor de terroristen en voor wat ze ons aan willen doen. Deze angst dat de terroristen ons en onze manier van leven willen vernietigen is grotendeels ongegrond. Voor zover zo\u0026rsquo;n angst gegrond zou zijn, is toegeven aan die angst wel het ergste wat we kunnen doen. Leon de Winter zelf zegt ook dat hij bang is. Van een zelfbenoemd leider in een van de grootste conflicten van deze tijd —volgens de Winter— mogen we toch wel iets meer moed verwachten?\nHet doel van maximalistische terroristen is zoals het woord al zegt: het verspreiden van terreur (zie weer Schneier), niet het doden van mensen. Dode mensen zijn niet meer te beïnvloeden, ze worden alleen maar gebruikt om de nog levenden angst aan te jagen. Door angst te prediken en te hameren op de potentiele gevaren en risico\u0026rsquo;s 7 hoe klein de kans daarop ook is, herhalen en versterken we de angst die terorrisme veroorzaakt.\nWat kun je dan het beste doen tegen de terroristen die angst willen zaaien en daarmee onze manier van leven willen veranderen? De effectiefste manier om te zorgen dat dit niet gebeurt is: weerstand bieden, weigeren bang te zijn en geen concessies doen aan de vrijheid en onze manier van leven.\nOpportunistische collaboratie # Angst is een slechte raadgever en staat rationeel denken in de weg. De Winter is hier het levende bewijs van. Leon de Winter bevordert mispercepties over de doelen van terroristen, hij verspreidt en vermenigvuldigt angst, hij polariseert de discussie waardoor vooruitgang bemoeilijkt wordt en hij haalt hard uit naar iedereen die anders —en waarschijnlijk rationeler— denkt.\nAl deze handelingen maken hem in het beste geval een opportunist die gedijt op ideologische conflicten en in het ergste geval een landverrader die collaboreert met de terroristen om hun agenda van angst te bevorderen.\nIdiosyncratische doelen vallen buiten de tweedeling ideologie-land en zijn gericht op het vernietigen van andere groeperingen of het verbreken van relaties tussen staten.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nVeranderen van ideologie, samenleving etc. doe je niet zomaar.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nDit volgens een theorie die de Correspondent Inference Theory heet.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nIn het artikel worden als cases de Tsjetsjeense aanslagen in Rusland, de aanslagen van Al-Qaeda op het WTC en de eerste intifada in Israel behandeld.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nHij heeft een weblog bij Elsevier waar hij zijn boodschap verspreidt.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nHet artikel sluit af met: “Third, correspondent inference theory may have prescriptive utility for conducting a more strategic and humane war on terrorism. If countries impute terrorists’ motives from the consequences of their actions, then the communities in which terrorists thrive may impute states’ motives from the consequences of their counterterrorism policies, reinforcing the strategic logic of minimizing collateral damage. Correspondent inference theory can explain not only why terrorist campaigns rarely work, but also perhaps why counter-terrorism campaigns tend to breed even more terrorism.”\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nDe Winter\u0026rsquo;s geliefde kernbom die elk moment op het Westen kan vallen.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"April 19, 2017","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/leon-de-winter-landverrader/","section":"Posts","summary":"Naar aanleiding van de Zomergasten met Leon de Winter had ik al wat aantekeningen gemaakt. Deze zaterdag las ik in de Volkskrant Femke Halsema’s veroordeling van de Winter en zijn debat-techniek. Ik heb mijn aantekeningen van toen er maar weer bij gepakt.\n","title":"Leon de Winter landverrader","type":"posts"},{"content":"I don\u0026rsquo;t think you can draw a lot of conclusions from this bit of selectorate theory but it\u0026rsquo;s interesting to get a feel for the numbers.\nThe German federal election of 2013\nGerman population in 2013: 80'620'000 Interchangeables (registered to vote): 61'946'900 (76.8%) Influentials (turnout): 44'309'925 (55.0%) Votes for CDU: 16'233'642 Votes for SPD: 12'843'458 Votes for CSU: 3'544'079 Winning coalition (votes for CDU + SPD + CSU): 32,621,179 (40.5%)\nThe Dutch general election of 2012\nDutch population in 2012: 16'800'000 Interchangeables (registered to vote): 12.689.810 (75.5%) Influentials (turnout): 9.462.223 (56.3%) Votes for VVD: 2.504.948 Votes for PvdA: 2.340.750 Winning coalition (votes for VVD + PvdA): 4,845,698 (28.8%)\n","date":"April 10, 2017","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/applying-selectorate-theory-to-current-dutch-and-german-governments/","section":"Posts","summary":"I don’t think you can draw a lot of conclusions from this bit of selectorate theory but it’s interesting to get a feel for the numbers.\n","title":"Applying selectorate theory to current Dutch and German governments","type":"posts"},{"content":"The USA example of resistance against Trump in the form of Tech Solidarity quickly gained a following in the Netherlands with TechSolidarity.nl and here in Berlin with some Tech-Solidarity-Berlin. I\u0026rsquo;ve had a small role in both of those groups\u0026rsquo; creation but I\u0026rsquo;m currently not an active participant.\nTech Solidarity\u0026rsquo;s success is of course unique to the local environment and Pinboard\u0026rsquo;s prior activism in tech. That said there are a lot of similarities that make similar movements over here possible and necessary. The Netherlands and Germany have elections this year and are faced with similar populist disruptions. The technology industries here are also very heavily dependent on expat workers who have specific issues and interests. The time seems ripe for people in technology to organize themselves.\nThe idea of the Berlin organization is not to duplicate efforts. There are already lots of initiatives in Berlin that address most parts of this agenda. What tech solidarity should do here is 1. posit an encompassing vision of what we want to achieve and that it is possible to achieve that together 2. function as a switching board to match people who want to do things with things that need people.\nI\u0026rsquo;m associated with the Berlin meetup but I haven\u0026rsquo;t attended any of the American events so we had to piece together what we thought would be an agenda for our local context. I suggested these five points that I personally think are relevant and critical right now.\nMaintain the freedom of movement and other liberal values that make Berlin and Europe an amazing place to live and work. Europe is an unique place in the world—increasingly so, though not as unique as we might like to think. The high standard of living and freedom enjoyed here attract people from all over the world. Those positive qualities and the new people they attract are not seen as positive by all Europeans alike. Populist movements want to close borders, go back in time and tear down the institutions of our liberal open societies. These measures will affect foreign workers and immigrants much more than they will local residents. What can we do to maintain and strengthen our local social democracies, the institutions that make up Europe and how can we scale out these values? Make it so that foreigners in Berlin can and do participate in local civil society. This is not just a problem for foreigners but they suffer from much higher hurdles when it comes to this. Foreigners are often here temporarily, usually do not speak German and do not get to vote. It is harmful to both residents and to society as a whole for people to be disenfranchised. What can be done right now to circumvent those limitations and what needs to be done in the future to create a more vibrant and inclusive civil society? Support diversity initiatives of all kinds in the workplace. In most tech companies in Berlin diversity is neither valued or practiced. Diversity has proven benefits to everybody involved. Also by not starting to practice this now the industry is putting themselves on the back foot when it comes to the future. What can we do to increase the awareness and practice of diversity? Use our skills and resources to help local immigrants and refugees. People working in technology have access to an immense amount of economic and social opportunities. People who are new to Berlin or who have already lived here for a while should have access to the same opportunities and be able to contribute their efforts and perspectives. How can we educate and include people without traditional paths into technology and make the sector as a whole more open and inclusive? Formulate actionable positions on professional ethics (data retention, car exhausts etc.). We need to formulate ethical standards for people working in technology and back them up when they need to abide by them. The potential to do things that are unethical and harmful is increasing just as quickly as technology\u0026rsquo;s influence but not everything that is possible should be economically determined. Laws are not a sufficient protection since they can be weakened or removed due to changing political circumstances. What are ethical red lines that we can agree upon and what is practical support we can offer people? ","date":"March 30, 2017","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/a-possible-agenda-for-a-tech-workers-solidarity-movement/","section":"Posts","summary":"The USA example of resistance against Trump in the form of Tech Solidarity quickly gained a following in the Netherlands with TechSolidarity.nl and here in Berlin with some Tech-Solidarity-Berlin. I’ve had a small role in both of those groups’ creation but I’m currently not an active participant.\n","title":"A possible agenda for a tech workers solidarity movement","type":"posts"},{"content":"\u0026ldquo;there are also visions of books as yet unwritten.\u0026rdquo;\nHe seemed unable to think save with his hands, an attribute I considered then worthier of a mechanic.\nSuch is the power of the truth that, like good, it is its own propagator.\nIt does not seem to me that they were preaching things contrary to the Gospel, but when the session of earthly things is in question, it is difficult for men to reason justly.\nWhen female nature, naturally so perverse, becomes sublime through holiness, then it can be the noblest vehicle of grace.\nIn the Italian city, on the contrary, you must have noticed that goods serve to procure money. And even priests, bishops, even religious orders have to take money into account. This is why, naturally, rebellion against power takes the form of a call to poverty. The rebels against power are those denied any connection with money, and so every call to poverty provokes great tension and argument, and the whole city, from bishop to magistrate, considers a personal enemy the one who preaches poverty too much.\nThe simple are meat for slaughter, to be used when they are useful in causing trouble for the opposing power, and to be sacrificed when they are no longer of use.\nHe replied that when your true enemies are too strong, you have to choose weaker enemies.\n“But why do some people support them?”“Because it serves their purposes, which concern the faith rarely, and more often the conquest of power.”\nI was upset. I had always believed logic was a universal weapon, and now I realized how its validity depended on the way it was employed.\nNow I realized that not infrequently books speak of books: it is as if they spoke among themselves. In the light of this reflection, the library seemed all the more disturbing to me. It was then the place of a long, centuries-old murmuring, an imperceptible dialogue between one parchment and another, a living thing, a receptacle of powers not to be ruled by a human mind, a treasure of secrets emanated by many minds, surviving the death of those who had produced them or had been their conveyors.\nI was told that in that period, for fifteen days and fifteen nights, the rhetoricians Gabundus and Terentius argued on the vocative of ‘ego,’ and in the end they attacked each other, with weapons.\nBooks are not made to be believed, but to be subjected to inquiry. When we consider a book, we mustn’t ask ourselves what it says but what it means, a precept that the commentators of the holy books had very clearly in mind.\nFear prophets, Adso, and those prepared to die for the truth, for as a rule they make many others die with them, often before them, at times instead of them.\nPerhaps the mission of those who love mankind is to make people laugh at the truth, to make truth laugh, because the only truth lies in learning to free ourselves from insane passion for the truth.\n","date":"March 28, 2017","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-from-the-name-of-the-rose/","section":"Posts","summary":"“there are also visions of books as yet unwritten.”\n","title":"Highlights from The Name of the Rose","type":"posts"},{"content":"[soundcloud url=\u0026ldquo;https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/308750042\" params=\u0026ldquo;auto_play=false\u0026amp;hide_related=false\u0026amp;show_comments=true\u0026amp;show_user=true\u0026amp;show_reposts=false\u0026amp;visual=true\u0026rdquo; width=\u0026ldquo;100%\u0026rdquo; height=\u0026ldquo;450\u0026rdquo; iframe=\u0026ldquo;true\u0026rdquo; /]\nIt\u0026rsquo;s Monday, February 20th and coming to you from Berlin I\u0026rsquo;m Alper for episode 7 of ‘Europe Was Left’. The coming Dutch elections are dominated by the specter of Geert Wilders\u0026rsquo;s far right PVV (the Dutch Freedom Party). The PVV has been on the stage for about a decade now but this is the first election where they are leading in the polls.\nThings should be looking up for them, but not everything is going as smoothly as it should.\nSome repositioning from their direct competitor the ruling right-wing VVD and other parties has deflated Wilders\u0026rsquo;s poll lead from its all-time high of 35 to some 25 seats for our parliament of 150. Still huge but no longer unassailable by our current prime minister Mark Rutte.\nNot having the electoral stamina to cash in on this early lead was to be expected but there are some other signs that Wilders is stumbling. He bowed out of the first major television debate with the flimsiest of excuses. Additional parties had been invited to the debate than had been initially agreed upon because the field had narrowed. That change proved too much for Wilders and he refused to participate.\nThen he bowed out of another debate by the same television channel because they had interviewed Wilders\u0026rsquo;s brother about his politics and their family ties. Wilders said this was a disgrace and again refused participation.\nHis brother does not much approve of Wilders\u0026rsquo;s extremist politics and has said so occasionally on Twitter over the past years. In the interview he said he\u0026rsquo;d like their family ties to be reinstated and told that he himself has been the target of threats from Wilders supporters. This is ironic since it is Wilders himself who is always paraded as the imperiled politician.\nTwo debates down, we are in a situation where he will be only in two major debates before we get to vote. One debate the day before the elections and the other two days before the elections. You would almost think that Wilders\u0026rsquo;s positions don\u0026rsquo;t hold up to scrutiny by his political opponents. Wilders also had his official campaign start last Saturday in Spijkenisse, a town that is the epitome of the beleaguered white working class. For being the candidate who leads in the polls he didn\u0026rsquo;t manage to draw a huge audience of rapt supporters. Somewhere between 80 and 200 people showed up, about as many as the number of people from news organizations present to cover the event.\nDutch state broadcaster NOS tried to play up his support and opened the eight o\u0026rsquo;clock news saying that ‘unbelievable crowds of people’ were present. They were supposed to say ‘unbelievably small’ but found themselves too beholden to Wilders to be able to say the truth.\nFlanked by his protection detail Wilders attempted to hand out fliers barely able to reach beyond the thicket of domestic and international press. Wilders is under protection because he offended a bunch of dudes with small dicks ages ago but that doesn\u0026rsquo;t matter that much anymore. The protection itself has become inseparable from the entity that is Wilders. It is the source of his moral high-horse and his electoral appeal. He has admitted in private that his visible security detail nets him several parliament seats at least.\nBut threats to ethnically cleanse the Netherlands, such as Wilders has expressed, are not speech that deserves protection. During his last interview Wilders pedaled back from this position but even then: threatening to ethnically cleanse the Netherlands publicly and then backing off when pressed, is also not a speech act that deserves protection. Yesterday world famous comedian Arjen Lubach aired a long segment exposing the emptiness of Wilders\u0026rsquo;s where none of his extremist statements are grounded in any kind of reality or backed by even an inkling of a plan.\nLubach\u0026rsquo;s segment was necessary. Dutch journalists, too afraid to estrange the angry old white man still buying their newspapers, have been lax and mostly absent when it comes to rebuking Wilders. A clear history and overview of the absurdity of Wilders\u0026rsquo;s position is useful both as a reference and to obliterate any votes he might get from people still susceptible to reason.\nWhat Lubach doesn\u0026rsquo;t get though is that—well of course Wilders voters don\u0026rsquo;t watch his show—but more than that it is exactly the impossibility and unreasonableness of Wilders\u0026rsquo;s positions that makes him so attractive to a certain kind of voters. This is the quality that most makes him a fascist. Wilders\u0026rsquo;s positions do not need to be practical, or reasonable or anything else, the only thing they need to be is extreme, broad and damaging to elites, foreigners and other undesirables.\nFascists do not care that lots of treaties will have to be rescinded or the constitution will have to be cut up. The one in the White House doesn\u0026rsquo;t and Wilders won\u0026rsquo;t either. I think Wilders is recusing himself from debates and interviews and any other kinds of public exposure that he can\u0026rsquo;t control because he is getting nervous. The coming elections are his last and best opportunity to seize power and become prime minister of the Netherlands. But even this best opportunity is still pretty uncertain.\nIf he doesn\u0026rsquo;t succeed this time and we manage to keep him out, he\u0026rsquo;ll have to while away another four years in opposition while people better than him govern the country. He can stand on the sidelines and shout things that are even more extreme—or try it, I\u0026rsquo;m not sure more extreme is physically possible anymore at this point—and spend the rest of his time collaborating with foreign powers and media.\nWhat will be left of him after another four years? Not much I reckon. A decisive electoral defeat come March 15th will stop Wilders and after that we\u0026rsquo;ll be rid of him. That\u0026rsquo;s all for this episode. Like Europe Was Left where you find it, keep the comments coming and talk to you soon.\n","date":"March 16, 2017","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/europe-was-left-7-geert-wilders-and-pvvs-decisive-moment/","section":"Posts","summary":"[soundcloud url=“https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/308750042\" params=“auto_play=false\u0026hide_related=false\u0026show_comments=true\u0026show_user=true\u0026show_reposts=false\u0026visual=true” width=“100%” height=“450” iframe=“true” /]\n","title":"Europe Was Left #7 - Geert Wilders and PVV's Decisive Moment","type":"posts"},{"content":"A grouch through and through, but it was he who first taught me the value of memory, and how to think of it as mental music, a setting to iambs and trochees.\nWe were all confused about what was happening; we were American, had always thought ourselves so, and not Japanese.\nIt was I, no less solitary than he but having made the lesser use of the morning, who was to be pitied.\nBut I was touched not only at the passage of these fixtures in my mental landscape, but also at the swiftness and dispassion with which the market swallowed even the most resilient enterprises.\nThis was part of my suspicion that there was a mood in the society that pushed people more toward snap judgments and unexamined opinions, an antiscientific mood; to the old problem of mass innumeracy, it seemed to me, was being added a more general inability to assess evidence.\nAfrica was always waiting, a substrate for the white man’s will, a backdrop for his activities.\nIt was the art of a country that had an aristocracy but did not have the patronage of courts: a simple, open-faced, and awkward art.\nBut atrocity is nothing new, not to humans, not to animals.\nWe had to leave because the future was uncertain. We would have been targeted, that was almost certain, and who knows what else might have happened.\nIt was only years later, when I became interested in these things for my own sake, that I surmised that my oma, heavily pregnant, had likely been one of the countless women raped by the men of the Red Army that year in Berlin, that so extensive and thorough was that particular atrocity, she could hardly have escaped it.\nNot that I liked labor for its own sake—far from it—but I found something true in the work, found something of myself in it.\nAnd the French are lazy, she said, they hate working and are envious of the Flemish. I’ll tell you this in case you don’t hear it from anyone else.\nHad Brussels’s rulers not opted to declare it an open city and thereby exempt it from bombardment during the Second World War, it might have been reduced to rubble.\nIslam, in its conservative form, was on constant view, though it was not clear to me why this should be so: Belgium had not had a strong colonial relationship with any country in North Africa.\nHe knew then that difference is never accepted. You are different, okay, but that difference is never seen as containing its own value. Difference as orientalist entertainment is allowed, but difference with its own intrinsic value, no. You can wait forever, and no one will give you that value.\nThere’s always the expectation that the victimized Other is the one that covers the distance, that has the noble ideas; I disagree with this expectation. It’s an expectation that works sometimes, I said, but only if your enemy is not a psychopath. You need an enemy with a capacity for shame.\nIt seemed as if the only way this lure of violence could be avoided was by having no causes, by being magnificently isolated from all loyalties. But was that not an ethical lapse graver than rage itself?\nIt’s a test case of what I believe; people can live together but still keep their own values intact.\nBut I have been disappointed. Europe only looks free. The dream was an apparition.\nIf we try to speak to the Palestinian situation, we hear six million.\nHe had brought me too close to his pain, and I no longer saw him.\nThat doubt that said, these, too, could have killed and killed and only later learned how to look innocent.\nFor people to feel that they alone have suffered, it is very dangerous. Having such a degree of resentment is a recipe for trouble. Our society has made itself open for such people, but when they come in, all you hear is complaints.\nWe’d used up our common ground, and there seemed nothing left to chat about.\nIt has been much too difficult to pass legislation of this kind. Future generations will perhaps wonder what took us so long.\nI am used to it, but it never ceases to surprise me how easy it is to leave the hybridity of the city, and enter into all-white spaces, the homogeneity of which, as far as I can tell, causes no discomfort to the whites in them.\n","date":"February 19, 2017","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-from-open-city/","section":"Posts","summary":"A grouch through and through, but it was he who first taught me the value of memory, and how to think of it as mental music, a setting to iambs and trochees.\n","title":"Highlights from Open City","type":"posts"},{"content":"Geert Wilders, leader of the PVV —the far right Dutch Freedom Party— had his campaign start today for the upcoming parliamentary elections in Spijkenisse, one of his traditional strongholds.\nThe eight o\u0026rsquo;clock news of the NOS (the Netherlands\u0026rsquo; state broadcaster) opened with this and their reporter Michiel Breedveld on the scene in the video below said it had attracted ‘an unbelievable crowd of people’.\n[video width=\u0026ldquo;1520\u0026rdquo; height=\u0026ldquo;856\u0026rdquo; mp4=\u0026quot;/dingen/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/ongelofelijke-mensenmassa.mp4\u0026quot;][/video]\nOther reporters who were on the scene today (1, 2) said the number of people Wilders had attracted was somewhere between 80 to 200 and that the ratio of supporters and press was about 1:1.\nSalima Bouchtaoui: ‘Spijkenisse this Saturday morning. Lots of press. And lots of police. Few people.’\nHaro Kraak: ‘There were at most 150 supporters of the PVV, probably fewer. And at least as much press, probably more.’\nThere seems to have been so much press that this was what it looked like most of the time.\nThis incident is oddly reminiscent of Trump\u0026rsquo;s inauguration where the actual number of people present was much lower than was claimed by the administration.\nBut the crucial difference is that Trump was the liar. Wilders could spread the lie that his campaign start ‘had the most people ever’ but why should he if the state broadcaster does it for him?\nUpdate: Dutch newspaper the Volkskrant (a newspaper I\u0026rsquo;ve given some grief before) calls the NOS\u0026rsquo;s coverage bad and harmful.\nUpdate: De NOS have posted a rectification on their single page hard to link they use for this.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s not the opening of the evening news, but it will have to do. Notably they say they have used ‘wrong words’ to describe the event and they still put the number of supporters at several hundred.\n","date":"February 18, 2017","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/dutch-public-broadcasting-goes-fake-news/","section":"Posts","summary":"Geert Wilders, leader of the PVV —the far right Dutch Freedom Party— had his campaign start today for the upcoming parliamentary elections in Spijkenisse, one of his traditional strongholds.\n","title":"Dutch Public Broadcasting Goes Fake News","type":"posts"},{"content":"Just another day in the Dutch election campaign.\nGeert Wilders posts a photoshopped image (tweet) of Alexander Pechtold his most direct opponent and says ‘Pechtold is protesting alongside Hamas terrorists.’\nThis is in reaction to the statement by Simone Kukenheim, Alderman of Amsterdam, who said Amsterdam would not recognize fascist policies under a possible Wilders government and could look to secede.\nAlexander Pechtold was not amused since he has had to defend himself from death threats caused by these kind of insinuations before. Unlike Wilders Pechtold does not gain that much electorally from having his life put in danger.\nThis seems to have gotten really under Wilders\u0026rsquo;s skin (I talk a bit about it at the end of Europe Was Left #4), maybe because a sovereignty move from Amsterdam would effectively make him a foreigner again.\nI inquire whether there is a Dutch newspaper that will do their jobs and take him to task for spreading a false image. Margriet Oostveen posting the original tweet works at the Volkskrant. The Volkskrant is what some people in the Netherlands consider to be a quality newspaper.\nI don\u0026rsquo;t get a reply from her but a question back: \u0026lsquo;Which paper are you subscribed to?’ The answer is that I just subscribed to the New York Times. I am actually looking for a Dutch publication right now and can\u0026rsquo;t find anything suitable.\nI offer to buy any article of theirs that is critical of Geert Wilders. I am told I am lazy and I should get lost. I then remember @Disruptia had pointed out that Margriet Oostveen just wrote a fairly neutral piece about Pegida.\nThen later that afternoon former politician Tofik Dibi tweets a quote from the same Volkskrant where the political editor of that newspaper Frank Hendrickx in his coverage seems to have written that ‘It is unclear whether the PVV (the political party of which Geert Wilders is the dictator) knew the image was doctored.’\nThe second tweet is him saying that sentence was removed. I found and purchased the piece on their site using Blendle and I couldn\u0026rsquo;t find that sentence in it. The article isn\u0026rsquo;t even that bad but that makes it all the more difficult to understand how something that stupid could end up in there.\nThis is one case, the above mentioned nuancing of right-wing extremist group Pegida is another and the list goes on and on. The only thing you could say is that the Volkskrant is not as bad as some other Dutch newspapers. But at this point I don\u0026rsquo;t have much use for effectively slanted, pretending to be fair and balanced reporting.\nFinally I said ‘Volkskrant more like Völkische Krant’ which is not fair. I take that back. But they definitely aren\u0026rsquo;t a Münchener Post either.\n","date":"February 6, 2017","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/dutch-newspapers-dont-do-their-jobs/","section":"Posts","summary":"Just another day in the Dutch election campaign.\n","title":"Dutch newspapers should do their jobs","type":"posts"},{"content":"it might have been only a temporary confluence of interests, but everything was temporary now— with so many traditions broken or vanished, it left what John used to call the necessity of creation;\nThey were apolitical, supposedly, like civil servants— empiricists, who only wanted things managed in a rational scientific style, the greatest good for the greatest number, which ought to be fairly simple to arrange, if people were not so trapped in emotions, religions, governments, and other mass delusional systems of that sort.\nFor the adepts, the walk from Sabishii up onto the massif must have been an aesthetic journey, filled with allusions and subtle variants of tradition that were invisible to him. Hiroko would have called it areoformation, or the areophany.\nTo see the landscape in its history, to read it like a text, written by its own long past;\nLess obviously visionary, perhaps, less spectacular, less active; an acceptance of what was there; love of rock, for rock’s sake. For Mars’s sake.\nThat must be why they’re killing each other— they know what they’re thinking themselves, and so they suspect all the others. How ugly. How sad.\n“The so-called risk of the capitalist is merely one of the privileges of capital.”\nYou don’t know about this partly because you are ignorant, and partly because metanationalism itself steadfastly ignored and denied all alternatives to it.\nAnd justice and freedom do not contradict each other as much as has been claimed, because freedom in an injust system is no freedom at all.\nIn your mental traveling you can journey back into the past, retrace your steps, see where you turned and why, then proceed onward in a direction that is different because it includes these loops of understanding.\nIt was power politics and hierarchy to these people now, they had forgotten the real issues involved.\nWhat mattered to them was not the result of any single disagreement, but the successful use of the process.\nOf course her reading of Bogdanovism was relatively simple: things should be just, Arkady had insisted, and everyone free and equal; the past didn’t matter; they needed to invent new forms whenever the old ones looked unfair or impractical, which was often; Mars was the only reality that counted, at least to them.\nShe was a power; and people knew it; and power was corrosive. Power was powerful, in more ways than one.\nIf millions and millions of Terrans began to pour up onto Mars, they all argued, what then of Mars— not just of the landscape itself, but of the Martian culture that had been forming over the m-years? Wouldn’t that be drowned in the old ways brought up by the new influx, which might quickly outnumber the native population?\nWe have a lot of time to fill. And the only work really interesting enough to pursue over the long haul would be raising a kid, don’t you think?\nIt was hard to give up being a revolutionary. Nothing seemed to follow from it, either logically or emotionally.\nin an expanding universe, Spencer had said, order was not really order, but merely the difference between the actual entropy exhibited and the maximum entropy possible. This difference was what humans perceived as order.\n“And the land is in the shared stewardship of everyone. We still own personal items as property, but land as property has never happened here. That’s a new social reality, we struggle with it every day.”\nWhat now was lacking? Peace of mind? Nanao would have laughed. The presence of other old friends? Well, there would be other days for that. Now, in this moment, they were two old brothers in arms, sitting on a sea cliff. After all the years of struggle they could sit out there all afternoon if they liked, flying a kite and talking. Discussing their old friends and the weather. There had been trouble before, there would be trouble again; but here they were.\nAnd as the process continued, and a hundred and then a thousand asteroids and moonlets were given a local habitation and a name, the process took fire, becoming what some called the explosive diaspora, others simply the accelerando.\nPeople now ordinarily understood capitalism to have been the clash of feudalism and democracy, and the present to be the democratic age, the clash of capitalism and harmony.\nIn this pressured situation, history was little comfort; so far they had dealt with it well, but never before had humanity responded to a crisis of need with any longterm consistent sensible sanity; mass madness had erupted before; and they were the exact same animals that in previous centuries, faced with matters of subsistence and survival, had slaughtered each other indiscriminately.\nThey did not fully understand that patriarchy no longer mattered, and perhaps never had— that it had always been caught in the Kegel grip of uterine law, which operated outside patriarchy with a biological power that could not be controlled by any mere politics.\n“It’s like a rainbow. Without an observer at a twenty-three-degree angle to the light reflecting off a cloud of spherical droplets, there is no rainbow. The whole universe is like that. Our spirits stand at a twenty-three-degree angle to the universe. There is some new thing created at the contact of photon and retina, some space created between rock and mind. Without mind there is no intrinsic worth.”\nThe Chinese are still jammed into their country like sardines, and they don’t give a damn about the intrinsic worth of China itself, much less a barren moonlet on the edge of the solar system.\nYou can try sabotage like the Reds did on Mars, but they can blow you off the moons here just as easy as you can them, and they’ve got a million replacements for every colonist they lose.\nTheir attitude was deeply hypocritical, as most of those applauding made their living from Terran tourists, and all of them were immigrants or the children of immigrants; but they cheered anyway.\nAnd so the newcomers can’t cope. They cluster in immigrant ghettos, or new towns entire, and keep their traditions and their ties to home, and hate everything here, and all the xenophobia and misogyny in those old cultures breaks out again, against both their own women and the native girls.”\nWe’ve tried to integrate newcomers every way we know, but they clump, naturally, and you can’t just break them up.\nBut so many problems are rising— cases of sharia, family abuse, ethnic gangs getting in fights, immigrants attacking natives— usually men attacking women, but not always. And young native gangs are retaliating, harassing the new settlements and so on.\nMars right now is the battleground of past and future, and the past has its power, but the future is where we’re all going. There’s a kind of inexorable power in it, like a vacuum pull forward.\nScience was a social construct, but it was also and most importantly its own space, conforming to reality only; that was its beauty\nIf nothing was real but this moment, Planck instant after Planck instant, an unimaginably thin membrane of becoming between past and future.\nPeople in the streets, that’s the only thing governments are afraid of. Well, or term limits. Or free elections! Or assassination. Or being laughed at, ah, ha-ha-ha!\n","date":"January 26, 2017","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-from-blue-mars/","section":"Posts","summary":"it might have been only a temporary confluence of interests, but everything was temporary now— with so many traditions broken or vanished, it left what John used to call the necessity of creation;\n","title":"Highlights from Blue Mars","type":"posts"},{"content":"The right decision, even when all seems lost, can snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. The wrong decision, even when a victorious outcome seems all but certain, can result in deadly, catastrophic failure.\nThey must literally risk life and limb to accomplish the mission. For this reason, they must believe in the cause for which they are fighting. They must believe in the plan they are asked to execute, and most important, they must believe in and trust the leader they are asked to follow.\nSuch concepts are simple, but not easy\nThese principles empower those teams to dominate their battlefields by enabling leaders to fulfill their purpose: lead and win.\nNo doubt, as an outstanding leader himself, he felt somewhat responsible.\nI was the leader. I was in charge and I was responsible. Thus, I had to take ownership of everything that went wrong.\nThey must first look in the mirror at themselves. The leader bears full responsibility for explaining the strategic mission, developing the tactics, and securing the training and resources to enable the team to properly and successfully execute.\nEvery mistake, every failure or shortfall—those leaders would own it.\nThe best leaders checked their egos, accepted blame, sought out constructive criticism, and took detailed notes for improvement.\nthere are no bad teams, only bad leaders.\nConsequences for failing need not be immediately severe, but leaders must ensure that tasks are repeated until the higher expected standard is achieved.\nLeaders should never be satisfied. They must always strive to improve, and they must build that mind-set into the team.\nHis attitude reflected victimization: life dealt him and his boat crew members a disadvantage, which justified poor performance.\n“We may not be winning,”said the CTO resolutely, “but we’re making the right decisions.”“If you aren’t winning,”I responded, “then you aren’t making the right decisions.”\nWhen it comes to performance standards, it’s not what you preach, it’s what you tolerate.\nAs a critical part of our culture, we constantly challenged each other to tests of physical strength.\nI didn’t believe that this mission made sense. I didn’t believe it was smart. I didn’t believe it would be successful.\nBut once I understood and believed, I then passed that understanding and belief on, clearly and succinctly, to my troops so that they believed in it themselves. When they understood why, they would commit to the mission, persevere through the inevitable challenges in store, and accomplish the task set before us.\nEven when others doubt and question the amount of risk, asking, “Is it worth it?”the leader must believe in the greater cause. If a leader does not believe, he or she will not take the risks required to overcome the inevitable challenges necessary to win.\nEvery leader must be able to detach from the immediate tactical mission and understand how it fits into strategic goals.\nBut in the minds of her sales managers, she was still The Boss: experienced, smart, and most important, powerful. That position demanded a high level of reverence—so high, in fact, that for an employee to question her ideas seemed disrespectful.\nLeadership isn’t one person leading a team. It is a group of leaders working together, up and down the chain of command, to lead. If you are on your own, I don’t care how good you are, you won’t be able to handle it.\nIt was immaterial which units did what or who conducted the most operations. It was about the mission and how we could best accomplish it and win.\nOften, the most difficult ego to deal with is your own.\nThis isn’t his fault, it’s yours. You are in charge, so the fact that he didn’t follow procedure is your fault. And you have to believe that, because it’s true.\nIf you approached it as he did something wrong, and he needs to fix something, and he is at fault, it becomes a clash of egos and you two will be at odds. That’s human nature. But, if you put your own ego in check, meaning you take the blame, that will allow him to actually see the problem without his vision clouded by ego.\nWhen plans and orders are too complicated, people may not understand them. And when things go wrong, and they inevitably do go wrong, complexity compounds issues that can spiral out of control into total disaster.\nHe fearlessly stood in the window braving incoming enemy rounds as he unleashed three to five round bursts of his own into insurgent positions.\nEven the greatest of battlefield leaders could not handle an array of challenges simultaneously without being overwhelmed. That risked failing at them all. I had to remain calm, step back from my immediate emotional reaction, and determine the greatest priority for the team. Then, rapidly direct the team to attack that priority.\nIt is crucial, particularly for leaders at the top of the organization, to “pull themselves off the firing line,”step back, and maintain the strategic picture.\nI trusted them to lead. My ego took no offense to my subordinate leaders on the frontlines calling the shots. In fact, I was proud to follow their lead and support them.\nEvery time we called for help, the company commander fearlessly placed himself and his men at great risk. He personally saddled up and drove out in his tank to bring the thunder on our behalf and beat back enemy attacks on SEAL positions.\nTeams must be broken down into manageable elements of four to five operators, with a clearly designated leader. Those leaders must understand the overall mission, and the ultimate goal of that mission—the Commander’s Intent. Junior leaders must be empowered to make decisions on key tasks necessary to accomplish that mission in the most effective and efficient manner possible.\nLeaders must be free to move to where they are most needed, which changes throughout the course of an operation.\nSituations will sometimes require that the boss walk away from a problem and let junior leaders solve it, even if the boss knows he might solve it more efficiently.\nIf frontline troops are unclear about the plan and yet are too intimidated to ask questions, the team’s ability to effectively execute the plan radically decreases.\nNo matter how exhausted from an operation or how busy planning for the next mission, time is made for this debrief because lives and future mission success depend on it.\nIt was a realization for him that even when a leader thinks his troops understand the bigger picture, they very often have difficulty connecting the dots between the tactical mission they are immersed in with the greater overarching goal.\nLeaders must routinely communicate with their team members to help them understand their role in the overall mission.\nI needed to check my negative attitude, which was corrosive and ultimately only hampered our ability to operate.\nLeading up the chain takes much more savvy and skill than leading down the chain. Leading up, the leader cannot fall back on his or her positional authority. Instead, the subordinate leader must use influence, experience, knowledge, communication, and maintain the highest professionalism.\nDon’t ask your leader what you should do, tell them what you are going to do.\nTake responsibility for leading everyone in your world, subordinates and superiors alike.\nIf someone isn’t doing what you want or need them to do, look in the mirror first and determine what you can do to better enable this.\nRegardless, leaders cannot be paralyzed by fear. That results in inaction. It is critical for leaders to act decisively amid uncertainty; to make the best decisions they can based on only the immediate information available.\nInstead of letting the situation dictate our decisions, we must dictate the situation. But for many leaders, this mind-set was not intuitive. Many operated with a “wait and see”approach.\nDiscipline equals freedom.\nThe test is not a complex one: when the alarm goes off, do you get up out of bed, or do you lie there in comfort and fall back to sleep? If you have the discipline to get out of bed, you win—you pass the test. If you are mentally weak for that moment and you let that weakness keep you in bed, you fail.\nInstead of making us more rigid and unable to improvise, this discipline actually made us more flexible, more adaptable, and more efficient. It allowed us to be creative.\nIf frontline leaders and troops executing the mission lack the ability to adapt, this becomes detrimental to the team’s performance.\nA true leader is not intimidated when others step up and take charge. Leaders that lack confidence in themselves fear being outshined by someone else.\nIt is a leader’s job to always mitigate as much as possible those risks that can be controlled to accomplish the mission without sacrificing the team or excessively expending critical resources.\nLeaders must never get so close that the team forgets who is in charge.\n","date":"January 22, 2017","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-from-extreme-ownership-how-u-s-navy-seals-lead-and-win/","section":"Posts","summary":"The right decision, even when all seems lost, can snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. The wrong decision, even when a victorious outcome seems all but certain, can result in deadly, catastrophic failure.\n","title":"Highlights from Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win","type":"posts"},{"content":"\u0026ldquo;The insistent permissiveness of the late Twentieth Century had produced fully as much sex-guilt and sex-fear in its heirs as had the insistent repressiveness of the late Nineteenth Century.\u0026rdquo;\nThere was an acceptant, passive quality about him that seemed feminine, or even childish.\nNo doubt Haber had a lot of ambition and found it hard to believe that a man could be without it.\nHe arrived at ideas the slow way, never skating over the clear, hard ice of logic, nor soaring on the slipstreams of imagination, but slogging, plodding along on the heavy ground of existence.\nThat one worked but didn\u0026rsquo;t get approved, it came under the brainwashing laws, we decided.\nThat reality\u0026rsquo;s being changed out from under us, replaced, renewed, all the tune—only we don\u0026rsquo;t know it? Only the dreamer knows it, and those who know his dream. If that\u0026rsquo;s true, I guess we\u0026rsquo;re lucky not knowing it.\nBut the big man was like an onion, slip off layer after layer of personality, belief, response, infinite layers, no end to them, no center to him.\nThe end justifies the means. But what if there never is an end? All we have is means.\nRefugees from southwest Portland had to walk through it; women carried their children and walked weeping with pain, in thin shoes full of broken glass.\nTo be, the will to power must increase with each fulfillment, making the fulfillment only a step to a further one.\nBut change need not unbalance you; life\u0026rsquo;s not a static object, after all.\nEvery step forward that I force you to take, you cancel, you cripple with the deviousness or stupidity of the means your dream takes to realize it. You try, each time, to take a step backward.\nThere were still gray people now, it was said, particularly in the Middle West and Germany, but most of the rest had gone back to white, brown, black, red, yellow, and mixtures\n","date":"January 22, 2017","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-from-the-lathe-of-heaven/","section":"Posts","summary":"“The insistent permissiveness of the late Twentieth Century had produced fully as much sex-guilt and sex-fear in its heirs as had the insistent repressiveness of the late Nineteenth Century.”\n","title":"Highlights from The Lathe of Heaven","type":"posts"},{"content":"Like every year the books I read and the movies I watched. Recommended ones are in bold.\nBooks # The book situation was shameful but instead of reading a lot of books, I wrote “Designing Conversational Interfaces”, so I\u0026rsquo;ll call that even.\n\u0026ldquo;PACE: A Small Business Owner\u0026rsquo;s Guide to Complete Cash Flow Clarity\u0026rdquo; Jesse Mecham \u0026ldquo;Agile Game Development with Scrum\u0026rdquo; by Keith Clinton \u0026ldquo;Americanah\u0026rdquo; by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie \u0026ldquo;The $1 Prototype: A Modern Approach to Mobile UX Design and Rapid Innovation\u0026rdquo; by Greg Nudelman \u0026ldquo;Slouching Towards Bethlehem\u0026rdquo; by Joan Didion \u0026ldquo;The iPhone App Design Manual: Create Perfect Designs for Effortless Coding and App Store Success\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;Mobile Web Designer\u0026rsquo;s Idea Book: The Ultimate Guide to Trends, Themes and Styles in Mobile Web Design\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;Factotum\u0026rdquo; by Charles Bukowski \u0026ldquo;Mobile Design Pattern Gallery: UI Patterns for Smartphone Apps\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;Master and Margarita\u0026rdquo; by Mikhail Bulgakov \u0026ldquo;Science, Strategy and War: The Strategic Theory of John Boyd\u0026rdquo; by Frans Osinga \u0026ldquo;So Good They Can\u0026rsquo;t Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love\u0026rdquo; by Cal Newport \u0026ldquo;Green Mars\u0026rdquo; by Kim Stanley Robinson \u0026ldquo;The Dictator\u0026rsquo;s Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics\u0026rdquo; by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita Movies # This went a lot better with 72 if you count the individual installments of the Decalogue.\nInside Out Princes Mononoke Kingsman Dekalog IV District 9 The Passion of Joan of Arc Edge of Tomorrow Persona Her Dekalog V Into the Wild 2001: A Space Odyssey Star Wars: The Force Awakens Code Inconnu The Hateful Eight in 70mm Roadshow at Zoo Palast X-Men: Days of Future Past Relatos Salvajes Dekalog VI Cave of Forgotten Dreams Sicario Neon Genesis Evangelion: The End of Evangelion Knock Knock Dogville Tropa de Elite Prelude to Axanar Fast \u0026amp; Furious 6 Addicted to Sheep Paths of Glory Spirited Away Decalogue VII Fast Five The Martian Django Unchained Annie Hall Dekalog VIII Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance The Assassin Amy Toy Story 3 Whiplash Dekalog IX Lammbock A Scanner Darkly Pusher Like Father Like Son Ex Machina The Revenant Burn After Reading Dekalog X Pusher II RoboCop by José Padilha Johnny Mnemonic Der siebente Kontinent The Wolf of Wall Street Spectre Easy Rider Dredd Show Me A Hero Pusher III Wild Strawberries Star Trek Beyond Wall Street Jodorowsky’s Dune The Wind Rises Aeon Flux Copie Conforme Stalker by Andrei Tarkovsky The Neon Demon The Wailing İklimler World War Z Thor The Physician ","date":"January 1, 2017","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/books-and-movies-of-2016/","section":"Posts","summary":"Like every year the books I read and the movies I watched. Recommended ones are in bold.\n","title":"Books and movies of 2016","type":"posts"},{"content":"We went over to the client’s office and spent an entire eight-hour day going over each and every pixel and word in that deck. When it was over, the client clapped (really). They loved it. We were relieved. And we never looked at that deck again. Six months after that meeting, nothing had changed on the client’s site. I don’t think they ever looked at that deck again, either.\nIt’s also for developers who understand that a collaborative team environment leads to better code and more meaningful work.\neach principle detailed here will help you build a product design organization that is more collaborative, more cross-functional, and a more useful fit for today’s reality.\nInsight on each idea is brought in from all relevant disciplines earlier in the process.\nTranslated to Lean UX, this concept means creating only the design that is necessary to move the team forward and avoiding a big “inventory”of untested and unimplemented design ideas.\nIt’s worth noting that there’s been a lot of backlash in the design world against measurement-driven design.\nThe most effective way I’ve found to rally a team around a design direction is through collaboration.\nThese conversations may seem awkward at first; after all, you’re breaking down time-tested walls between disciplines.\nThat’s why you should include a researcher on your team if you can. Just don’t outsource the work to that person. Instead, use the researcher as a coach to help your team plan and execute your activities.\nHere’s why: it becomes very easy to create a situation in which the entire team is never working on the same thing at the same time.\nThe people on the team generally performed in their area of expertise/strength but were supportive of other specialties and interested in learning new skills.\nI looked for opportunities to work in real time with other people on the team (such as developers and the product manager) and rough things out as quickly as possible at the lowest responsible level of fidelity.\nAt most, these teams plan an iteration or two ahead. This perceived “short-sightedness”tends not to satisfy most high-level managers.\nKeep the conversations focused on outcomes (how you’re trending towards your goal), not feature sets.\nThe more discrete a person’s job is, the easier it becomes to retreat to the safe confines of that discipline.\nToo often, people in organizations discourage others from working outside the confines of their job descriptions.\nEvery team member possesses a core competency—design, software development, research, etc.—and must deliver on that skill set. However, he or she may also possess secondary competencies that make the team work more efficiently.\nDesigners must open up the design process.\nThe entire concept of design as hypothesis immediately dethrones notions of heroism; as a designer you must expect that many of the your ideas will fail in testing.\nDon’t waste time debating which type of artifact to create, and don’t waste time polishing them to perfection. Instead, use the one that will take the least amount of time to create and communicate to your team.\nDesigners can demonstrate their problem solving skills by illustrating the path they took to get from idea to validated learning to experience. In doing so, they’ll demonstrate their deep worth as designers.\nTo use the concept of UX debt, write stories to capture a gap analysis between where the experience is today and where you’d like it to be.\nInstead, their engagements are based on simple time-and materials agreements, or, more radically, on outcome-based contracts.\nSome managers may be threatened by proposals to work in a new way, which could result negative consequences for you.\nIf your manager still doesn’t see the value in working this way and you believe your organization is progressing down a path of continued “blind design,”perhaps it’s time to consider alternative employment.\n","date":"January 1, 2017","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-from-lean-ux/","section":"Posts","summary":"We went over to the client’s office and spent an entire eight-hour day going over each and every pixel and word in that deck. When it was over, the client clapped (really). They loved it. We were relieved. And we never looked at that deck again. Six months after that meeting, nothing had changed on the client’s site. I don’t think they ever looked at that deck again, either.\n","title":"Highlights from Lean UX","type":"posts"},{"content":"Kuhn had written about Priestley— that a scientist who continued to resist after his whole profession had been converted to a new paradigm might be perfectly logical and reasonable, but had ipso facto ceased to be a scientist.\nHe won every argument but never got anywhere.\nSo in the current political situation, information technology was creating not totalization but balkanization.\nIt was fairly humorous to see how responsive mood was to chemical manipulation, despite what it implied about the precarious balance of one’s emotional equanimity, even sanity itself.\nCertainly the common wisdom was correct; the emergence of the transnationals in the 2040s had set the stage, and was the ultimate cause of the war.\nFor the record showed that the industrial nations had prospered under the transnats, while the developing nations had had no recourse but to fight each other for flag-of-convenience status.\nWell, you know, this particular division of Subarashii is run by Georgians, and they’re in the grip of a big Stalin revival there. It’s a patriotic gesture to run their country as stupidly as possible.\nWhat was personal gain but the freedom to do what you wanted to do? And what was power but the freedom to do what you wanted to do? And once you had that freedom, any more wealth or power actually began to restrict one’s options, and reduce one’s freedom. One became a servant of one’s wealth or power, constrained to spend all one’s time protecting it.\n“The resistance begins fighting itself, because that’s the only thing it can beat. Happens every time. You can’t get any movement larger than five people without including at least one fucking idiot.”\nEspecially since most minimalists want to keep exactly the economic and police system that keeps them privileged. That’s libertarians for you— anarchists who want police protection from their slaves.\nAt Praxis we believe nations were never truly sovereign, but were always semiautonomous in relation to the rest of the world.\nIf only the rich would behave decently, then the system would be okay. That’s crap. The system overdetermines everything, and it’s the system that has to change.\nIn these arrangements the client government becomes the enforcement agency of the metanational’s economic policies. In general they enforce what are called austerity measures, but all government employees are paid much more than they were before, including the army and police and intelligence operations.\nBut either way, the scientist’s job is to explore everything. No matter the difficulties! To stay open, to accept ambiguity. To attempt to fuse with the object of knowledge. To admit that there are values shot through the whole enterprise. To love it. To work toward discovering the values by which we should live. To work to enact those values in the world. To explore— and more than that— to create!\n“That is the great pleasure of conspiracy theory— not explanation, but narrative. It is like Scheherazade.”\nWhat use was utopia without joy, after all? What was the point of all their striving if it did not include the laughter of the young?\n","date":"January 1, 2017","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-from-green-mars/","section":"Posts","summary":"Kuhn had written about Priestley— that a scientist who continued to resist after his whole profession had been converted to a new paradigm might be perfectly logical and reasonable, but had ipso facto ceased to be a scientist.\n","title":"Highlights from Green Mars","type":"posts"},{"content":"\u0026ldquo;In fact, bad behavior is more often than not good politics.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;It is hard to imagine that anyone, including ourselves, cares much about what we think ought to be. Neither do we exhort others to be better than they are.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Why do leaders do what they do? To come to power, to stay in power and, to the extent that they can, to keep control over money.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;If we are going to play the game of politics, and we all must from time to time, then we ought to learn how to win the game.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;No one rules alone; no one has absolute authority. All that varies is how many backs have to be scratched and how big the supply of backs available for scratching.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Managing the interchangeables, influentials, and essentials to that end is the act, art, and science of governing.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;This support is only forthcoming if a leader provides his essentials with more benefits than they might expect to receive under alternative leadership or government.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;It’s always better for a ruler to determine who eats than it is to have a larger pie from which the people can feed themselves.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;The most effective cash flow for leaders is one that makes lots of people poor and redistributes money to keep select people—their supporters—wealthy.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Why do some political parties favor immigration? Rule 2: Expand the set of interchangeables.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;The problem for democrats is that they face different constraints and have to be a little more creative than their autocratic counterparts.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Anyone who thinks leaders do what they ought to do—that is, do what is best for their nation of subjects—ought to become an academic rather than enter political life.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;When democratic politicians lament “mortgaging our children’s future,”they’re really regretting that it was not them who came up with the popular policy that voters actually want.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;To achieve power means recognizing the moment of opportunity, moving fast, and moving decisively to seize the day.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Unless such a purge can be accomplished in the dark, presented as a fait accompli to the old group of influentials, the risk of failure is real.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;This is the essential lesson of politics: in the end ruling is the objective, not ruling well.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Both leaders knew that it is better to have loyal incompetents than competent rivals.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Any action he took—say, sending so-and-so to Siberia—was the will of the people, and any of the people in the replacement pool had a chance, albeit a slight one, of being called up to serve as an influential or maybe even an essential somewhere down the line.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;The real decisions are made by the group leaders who deliver blocs of votes. They are the true influentials. It is therefore unsurprising that it is common for the rewards to flow through them, so that they can take their cut, rather than go directly to the people.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Leaders, however, are rather fond of taxes—as long as they don’t have to pay them.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Ruling is about staying in power, not about good governance.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;In autocracies, it is unwise to be rich unless it is the government that made you rich. And if this is the case, it is important to be loyal beyond all else.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;It is ironic that while oil revenues provide the resources to fix societal problems, it creates political incentives to make them far worse.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Of course, borrowing more today means higher indebtedness and a smaller ability to borrow tomorrow. But such arguments are rarely persuasive to a leader.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;This makes the current leader vulnerable. Incurring debt today is attractive because, after all, the debt will be inherited by the next administration. That way, it also ties the hands of any future challenger.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;They resist the cry of people like us who demand improved governance before any bailout money is offered up to rescue a troubled autocratic economy.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;That this uneven distribution of top-notch universities favors large-coalition locales is no accident.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;To know what the people need, governments need to make it easy for the public to make clear what basket of public goodies they desire. That is best done by allowing the least costly and most precious public good of all: freedom.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;The causal ties run both ways: power leads to corruption and corruption leads to power.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Anyone unwilling to undertake the dirty work that so many leaders are called on to do should not pursue becoming a leader.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Most of us would like to believe that foreign aid is about helping impoverished people.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Yes, it is true that a lot of aid is given to corrupt governments but that is by design, not by accident or out of ignorance. Rather, aid is given to thieving governments exactly because they will sell out their people for their own political security.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;This is all just the dance of the donors and the takers, the recipients looking for as much money as possible and the donors looking for a highly salient, costly political concession.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;A UNSC seat gives leaders valuable favors to sell in the form of their vote on the Security Council, and the aid they receive results in worse performance for their economy.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;It is perhaps ironic that while aid affords the resources to alleviate poverty and promote economic growth, it creates the political incentives to do just the opposite.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;A common argument is that the locals know much better how to address their problems than do far-away donors. That’s probably true, but knowing how to fix local problems and having the will or interest to do so is quite another matter.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Dictators are cheap to buy. They deliver policies that democratic leaders and their constituents want, and being beholden to relatively few essential backers, autocrats can be bought cheaply.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Buying democrats is much more expensive.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;However, as long as we the people want cheap gasoline and an abundance of markets in which to dump agricultural products, and we want that more than we want to see genuine development in poor countries, then our leaders are going to carry out our wishes.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;A prudent dictator nips rebellion in the bud. That is why we have reiterated the claim that only people willing to engage in really nasty behavior should contemplate becoming dictators. The softhearted will find themselves ousted in the blink of an eye.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Effectively the government told these survivors to go away and die quietly: inhumane in the extreme, but good small-coalition politics. Dead people cannot protest.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Allowing people to die reveals serious policy failure.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;The willingness of democracies to try harder goes a long way to explaining why seemingly weaker democracies often overcome seemingly stronger autocracies.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Democrats more often than autocrats fight when all other means of gaining policy concessions from foreign foes fail. In contrast, autocrats are more likely to fight casually, in the pursuit of land, slaves, and treasure.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Democracies don’t fight with each other, true. Rather, big democracies pick on little opponents whether they are democratic or not, with the expectation that they won’t fight back or won’t put up much of a fight.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Democracy overseas is a nice thing to believe in, in the abstract. In practice it’s probably not what we, the people want.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;It is precisely this predictability and normality of war that makes it, like all the pathologies of politics we have discussed, susceptible to being understood and fixed.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Pursuing the perfect world for everyone is a waste of time and an excuse for not doing the hard work of making the world better for many.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Think about what is good for interchangeables, influentials, and essentials, the three dimensions of political life:\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;The essential facts of political life are that people do what is best for them.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;At the beginning and the end of an incumbent’s reign the danger of being purged is greatest and so, at these times, coalition members should be most receptive to reform.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Effective reform means expanding the coalition and that means that everyone, including the current essentials, has a good chance of being needed by tomorrow’s new leader.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Outsiders would be wise to take cues from the same lessons: the time for outside intervention to facilitate democratic change or improved corporate responsibility is when a leader has just come to power or when a leader is near the end of his life.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;As the rules to rule by lead us to expect, states in which leaders required support from a larger proportion of the population developed faster.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;The rules of the electoral college make it possible in a two-candidate race for one candidate to win a majority of the popular vote and the other candidate to be elected president of the United States.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Expanding immigrant access and rights, then, can boost the required size of the winning coalition and, in the process, improve the quality of public policy.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Give us your poor and let’s see if they can make a better life. Give us your tired and let’s see if they can be energized by participating in making a more public-goods oriented government work better. Give us your huddled masses longing to be free and let’s see if their children don’t grow up to be the foundation of a stronger, more peaceful, and more prosperous society than they first came to.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Using foreign aid to set up nationwide wireless access to the Internet and to provide the poor with mobile phones could be a win-win-win-win among the four constituencies affected by aid.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Offering such deals might prove self-fulfilling. Once essential supporters believe their leader might take such a deal, they themselves start looking for his replacement, so even if the leader had wanted to stay and fight he might no longer have the support to do so. \u0026quot;\n\u0026ldquo;Leaders want to survive in office and maximize their control over money. But what if their choice is to trade the power of office in exchange for the right to the money?\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Our individual concerns about protecting ourselves from unfriendly democracies elsewhere typically trump our longer term belief in the benefits of democracy.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Democracy overseas is a great thing for us if, and only if, the people of a democratizing nation happen to want policies that we like. When a foreign people are aligned against our best interest, our best chance of getting what we want is to keep them under the yoke of an oppressor who is willing to do what we, the people, want.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Every government and every organization that relies on a small coalition eventually erodes its own productivity and entrepreneurial spirit so much that it faces the risk of collapsing under the weight of its own corruption and inefficiency.\u0026rdquo;\n","date":"January 1, 2017","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/notes-from-the-dictators-handbook/","section":"Posts","summary":"“In fact, bad behavior is more often than not good politics.”\n","title":"Highlights from The Dictator's Handbook","type":"posts"},{"content":"Next up, @alper talking about conversational interfaces. Join the livestream at https://t.co/mdVhV45tsg\n— Peter Bihr 🚀 (@peterbihr) December 2, 2016\nUp now #thingsconams Designing Conversational Interfaces with @alper. Here we go: chatbots! \u0026ldquo;Why isn\u0026rsquo;t this presentation given by a bot?\u0026rdquo; pic.twitter.com/62AGWjAxle\n— TIStv (@TIStv) December 2, 2016\nConversational interfaces at Thingscon (at @Volkshotel in Amsterdam w/ @iskandr @alper) https://t.co/VRvsntSq78 pic.twitter.com/U6IcGtHZJI\n— !ianus keller (@ianus) December 2, 2016\n\u0026ldquo;Are chatbots the end of applications? @patagonia said \u0026lsquo;we can do this better at our website, so please delete our app.\u0026rdquo; @alper #thingsconams\n— TIStv (@TIStv) December 2, 2016\nNext: the mastermind of Designing for conversational interfaces @alper on the UX of messaging and chatbots #thingsconams pic.twitter.com/ISFlwttIrl\n— Info.nl (@infonl) December 2, 2016\nNow @alper on designing for conversational interfaces. From Eliza to Lark. Via Clippy. pic.twitter.com/9pBIvZHAs9\n— Iskander Smit (@iskandr) December 2, 2016\nAgain someone stating the end off #Apps, will messaging be the answer? @alper @ThingsConAMS #thingsconams pic.twitter.com/YvriSdFr0J\n— IoT Sensemakers AMS (@SensemakersA) December 2, 2016\nThe UX of messaging and chatbots is what @alper talks about in his keynote. #ThingsConAMS pic.twitter.com/ULpQsQPDRS\n— ThingsCon Amsterdam (@ThingsConAMS) December 2, 2016\nOn stage @alper: (at @Volkshotel in Amsterdam w/ @iskandr @josk @frankmeeuwsen) https://t.co/BYiYlCm954 pic.twitter.com/d0OghNZLvF\n— guidoz (@guidoz) December 2, 2016\nEntering the world of #chatbots @duolingo and \u0026amp; @hm leading the way @alper @ThingsConAMS pic.twitter.com/u2Ibsac3ot\n— IoT Sensemakers AMS (@SensemakersA) December 2, 2016\nBest practices and interesting newcomers in the world of chatbots according to @alper: @qz, Marsbot, @SlackHQ and @duolingo. #thingsconams\n— TIStv (@TIStv) December 2, 2016\n\u0026ldquo;Prototyping an interactive chatbot is not very different from writing the script for an interactive story book.\u0026rdquo; @alper #thingsconams\n— TIStv (@TIStv) December 2, 2016\nDigitale dementz, too much noice from messages and notifications @alper #conversationalUI #thingsconams\n— Anouschka Scholten (@anous) December 2, 2016\nThere\u0026rsquo;s no \u0026ldquo;view source\u0026rdquo; for chatbots. - @alper #thingsconams How do we figure out how systems work? The UX for AI.\n— Ame Elliott (@ameellio) December 2, 2016\n\u0026ldquo;\u0026lsquo;UI for AI\u0026rsquo;. Whatever kind of Artificial Intelligence, chat will be the interface.\u0026rdquo; @alper #thingsconams\n— TIStv (@TIStv) December 2, 2016\nChat is for AI what the lightbulb was for electricity: a first experience of the this new technology, says @alper #thingsconAMS\n— Peter Bihr 🚀 (@peterbihr) December 2, 2016\nAmazon can take your data in a truck, but I don\u0026rsquo;t think German companies are allowed to do this, by law. @thingscon @alper\n— Axel Roest (@axello) December 2, 2016\n\u0026ldquo;Chat is for AI what the light bulb was for electricity\u0026rdquo;: great talk by @alper at #ThingsConAMS\n— Martina Uhlig (@martina_uhlig) December 2, 2016\nDesigners! Let\u0026rsquo;s get to work. @alper on the next technologies we need to design for. #thingsconams pic.twitter.com/imjImkbOTZ\n— Ame Elliott (@ameellio) December 2, 2016\n#chatbots entering the messaging apps human use among each other can be very envasive and lead to stress\u0026hellip; 😨 @alper #thingsconams\n— IoT Sensemakers AMS (@SensemakersA) December 2, 2016\nDesigners need to program to make really interesting stuff. With Framer @alper #thingsconams pic.twitter.com/wc0ZQ3G1ii\n— Iskander Smit (@iskandr) December 2, 2016\nSlide van de dag, met dank aan @alper #thingsconams pic.twitter.com/xQPurwgiRM\n— Frank Meeuwsen (@frankmeeuwsen) December 2, 2016\n#thingsconAMS impressions: @alper pic.twitter.com/9othPU1Kdn\n— Peter Bihr 🚀 (@peterbihr) December 2, 2016\n","date":"December 8, 2016","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/thingscon-amsterdam-2016-talk/","section":"Posts","summary":"Next up, @alper talking about conversational interfaces. Join the livestream at https://t.co/mdVhV45tsg\n","title":"ThingsCon Amsterdam 2016 Talk","type":"posts"},{"content":"Somewhere between language proficiency levels C1 and C2 lies a plateau that I\u0026rsquo;m finding difficult to cross in German. Living in Berlin I\u0026rsquo;m simply not exposed to enough of the language on a day to day basis. The usual advice would be to join a Verein and hang out with Germans. That sounds fun but I\u0026rsquo;m not in the market for a new hobby.\nI\u0026rsquo;m going to approach it from another direction by becoming kind of politically active. I don\u0026rsquo;t think people of my generation will become members of political parties much again. I also don\u0026rsquo;t have much of an interest in political work. I do want to figure out why things work the way they do. If nothing else I hope it makes me a better citizen and improves my German.\nTo do this I\u0026rsquo;m going to attend events of the two major progressive parties around: die Grüne (the Greens) and die Linke (the Left). There have been local elections last month and both parties are likely to enter in a coalition with the SPD and rule, so it is an exciting time to dive in.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve now attended one event by each and here\u0026rsquo;s a quick write-up.\ndie Grüne # A while back just after the September election I attended an event by my local Green chapter. It was fun to see all the people I knew from the campaign posters gathered in one place. In general they\u0026rsquo;re nice people of the kind that I would normally hang out with anyway.\nThe Greens were peeved that they\u0026rsquo;d suffered a loss but not super peeved. They are still the biggest party in Friedrichshain/Kreuzberg and they will likely get to govern Berlin as a whole as well.\nI\u0026rsquo;d attribute that loss to a campaign that felt complacent and did not have a strong narrative to address economic justice issues. Rent and income disparities in Berlin are on the rise which makes them the most important political issue here. I see the Greens focused more on social justice, environmental and quality life issues.\nThe Greens may really not have to worry since the more an area gentrifies, the more it seems to vote green. Berlin as a whole will definitely continue to gentrify.\ndie Linke # Last Saturday I finally found a Linke event that I could attend which happened to be the education session for their locally elected representatives. Each borough in Berlin is governed by a BVV (Bezirksverordnetenversammlung) which is the lowest level of representation and the only one I am allowed to vote for in Germany 1. This event was meant to give the newly elected legal and administrative foundations to help them through the next five years.\nI showed up 2 this Saturday morning at 09:00 for a four hour lecture. Some thirty people, mostly newly elected Linke BVV representatives but also some stray SPD/Grüne members, were there. I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t say the Linke is a more representative cross-section of Berlin but it seems somewhat more social-economically diverse.\nA session like this is not the recommended way to get acquainted with a party, but it proved to be very educational if you enjoy twisted, complicated things. I had some rough ideas of what the BVV can and cannot do and this lecture filled in the blanks. My preconceived notions notions were confirmed (as they too often are).\nThe main problems are as follows:\nThe BVV is not authorized to do anything. From the handout I got: the boroughs are not a legal entity and they have no rights to set budgets or to create statutes. This means they have no actual responsibilities and cannot determine anything. They are fully beholden to the state of Berlin (every borough has the suffix ‘von Berlin’). BVV work seems to revolve around applying whatever little agency you can find or whip up.\nThe BVV is a huge amount of work. What I gathered from the Grüne meeting as well is that the workload for local representatives is ridiculous even by German standards. Just the committee meetings on weekday evenings take a lot of time. Add to that the various other meetings and all the preparation that goes into them and it looks like a full-time job (but it isn\u0026rsquo;t). Being a BVV member is a voluntary position that is nominally compensated (with some €500/month). I have no clue why people would volunteer to do this.\nThe BVV is a democratic distraction. I got the idea that the various levels of government do not communicate with each other that much. As said the BVV is the lowest level and has near zero power but it is the place where democracy connects with citizen\u0026rsquo;s lives. If you interrogate the BVV about something in the city not working properly, they\u0026rsquo;ll usually answer that they\u0026rsquo;re not zuständig (not competent). Both hearing that things are the fault of the senate and having to tell people that, get really annoying really fast for everybody. The BVV functions as a democratic pretense that allows the state government to do its thing without being bothered by people 3.\nDon\u0026rsquo;t even get me started on this. European citizens get to vote for cities in Germany but Berlin is not a city but a state. The equivalent of a city in Berlin is the Bezirk (borough) but it cannot do any of the things a regular city would be able to do.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n90% of local politics is showing up.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nAnd of course the way this is setup is fully intentional. During the session there was some debate about how to fix this dysfunction. One way would be to give local government actual and clear power and responsibility. That seems extremely unlikely. There\u0026rsquo;s also very sound reasons not to give groups of amateurs the keys to city administration. Abolishing this level of government is something that nobody wants to discuss because you are destroying the hobbies of 12x55=660 people but it seems like it should be on the table as well.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"November 3, 2016","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/local-politics-in-german/","section":"Posts","summary":"Somewhere between language proficiency levels C1 and C2 lies a plateau that I’m finding difficult to cross in German. Living in Berlin I’m simply not exposed to enough of the language on a day to day basis. The usual advice would be to join a Verein and hang out with Germans. That sounds fun but I’m not in the market for a new hobby.\n","title":"Local politics in Berlin","type":"posts"},{"content":"This network is the seat of scientific opinion; it is split into thousands of fragments, held by a multitude of individuals, each of whom endorses the others’ opinion at second hand, by relying on the consensual chains which link him to all the others through a sequence of overlapping neighborhoods.\nThe practice of science/engineering and the pursuit of technology permit us to continually rematch our mental/physical orientation with that of the changing world so that we can continue to thrive and grow in it.\nAnalysis means taking something apart to understand it; systems thinking means putting it into the context of the larger whole.\nThe goal, again, is to survive, and to survive on one’s own terms, or improve one’s capacity for independent action.\nOrientation shapes the character of present observations-orientation-decision-action loops — while these present loops shape the character of future orientation.\nEnmesh adversary in an amorphous, menacing, and unpredictable world of uncertainty, doubt, mistrust, confusion, disorder, fear, panic, chaos.\nBoyd finds fault with the separation of inductive and deductive approaches.\nArmed forces are like autopoietic systems, continually making efforts to maintain their distinctive character despite the turbulent environment.\nWar is like the non-linear clash of two Complex Adaptive Systems.\nAn armed force is by design a fairly robust system. It is designed to cause change within an opponent’s system and oppose the need to do so itself.\nBecause an error in response or a slower response will magnify in impact over time through the feedback loops, it is basically only necessary to create an initial advantage and prevent the opponent from compensating for it.\nFortunately, there is a way out. Remember, as previously shown, we can forge a new concept by applying the destructive deduction and creative induction mental operations.\nIt may be advantageous to possess a variety of responses that can be applied rapidly to gain sustenance, avoid danger and diminish an adversary’s capacity for independent action.\nAll revolve around maintaining cohesion among one’s own units, creating confusion and disrupting cohesion in the enemy camp.\nThe defense should have better intelligence, operate faster, be more mobile, move even more inconspicuously.\nDiminish adversary’s capacity while improving our capacity to adapt as an organic whole, so that our adversary cannot cope while we can cope with events/efforts as they unfold.\nThis, combined with shattered cohesion, paralysis, and rapid collapse demonstrated by the existing adversary regime, makes it appear corrupt, incompetent, and unfit to govern.\nConsequently, the name of the game becomes one of consciously shaping the opponent’s perception of the pattern of operations unfolding before him, while hiding the real picture.\nHe who is willing and able to take the initiative to exploit variety, rapidity, and harmony — as basis to create as well as adapt to the more indistinct — more irregular — quicker changes of rhythm and pattern, yet shape focus and direction of effort — survives and dominates.\nGet inside adversary observation-orientation-decision-action loops (at all levels) by being more subtle, more indistinct, more irregular, and quicker — yet appear to be otherwise.\nThe Art of Success Appear to be an unsolvable cryptogram while operating in a directed way to penetrate adversary vulnerabilities and weaknesses in order to isolate him from his allies, pull him apart, and collapse his will to resist; yet Shape or influence events so that we not only magnify our spirit and strength but also influence potential adversaries as well as the uncommitted so that they are drawn toward our philosophy and are empathetic toward our success.\nOrientation, seen as a result, represents images, views, or impressions of the world shaped by genetic heritage, cultural tradition, previous experiences, and unfolding circumstances.\nOrientation is the Schwerpunkt. It shapes the way we interact with the environment — hence orientation shapes the way we observe, the way we decide, the way we act.\nThe pay-off is ‘a command and control system, whose secret lies in what’s unstated or not communicated to one another (in an explicit sense) — in order to exploit lower-level initiative yet realize higher-level intent, thereby diminish friction and compress time, hence gain both quickness and security.’\nLeadership Implies the art of inspiring people to cooperate and enthusiastically take action toward the achievement of uncommon goals.\nSurvive, survive on own terms, or improve our capacity for independent action.\nThat is what strategy is about. It is: ‘a game in which we must be able to diminish an adversary’s ability to communicate or interact with his environment while sustaining or improving ours’\nMorally our adversaries isolate themselves [!] when they visibly improve their well being to the detriment of others (allies, the uncommitted), by violating codes of conduct or behavior patterns that they profess to uphold or others expect them to uphold.\nHere the expected pay-off is: vitality and growth, with the opportunity to shape and adapt to unfolding events thereby influence the ideas and actions of others.\nPut another way, ‘one should preserve or build-up moral authority while compromising that of our adversaries in order to pump-up our resolve, drain away adversaries’ resolve, and attract them as well as others to our cause and way of life’.\nThe central theme is one of interaction/isolation while the key ideas are the moral-mental-physical means towards realizing this interaction/isolation.\nIn this sense the practice of science/engineering and the pursuit of technology permit us to continually rematch our mental/physical orientation with that changing world so that we can continue to thrive and grow in it.\nFurthermore, novelty is produced continuously, if somewhat erratically or haphazardly. Now, in order to thrive and grow in such a world we must match our thinking and doing, hence our orientation, with that emerging novelty.\nUncertainty associated with the unconfinement, undecidability, incompleteness theorems of mathematics and logic. Numerical imprecision associated with using the rational and irrational numbers in the calculation and measurement processes. Quantum uncertainty associated with Planck’s Constant and Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle. Entropy increase associated with the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Irregular and erratic behavior associated with far from equilibrium open non-linear processes or systems with feedback Incomprehensibility associated with the inability to completely screen, filter, or otherwise consider the spaghetti-like influences from a plethora of ever-changing, erratic, or unknown outside events. Mutations associated with environmental pressure, replication errors, or unknown influences in molecular and evolutionary biology. Ambiguity associated with natural languages as they are used and interact with one another. Novelty generated by the thinking and actions of unique individuals and their many-sided interactions with each other.\nThe hidden message for his audience is that, if organizations want to survive in a highly dynamic environment, in peace-time as much as in war, they need to embrace uncertainty and novelty.\nTo that end we must effectively and efficiently orient ourselves; that is, we must quickly and accurately develop mental images, or schema, to help comprehend and cope with the vast array of threatening and non-threatening events we face.\nSignificantly, whereas the D and A of the OODA loop generally are seen to stand for Decision and Action, in this model Boyd offers his own view on the meaning of both words by tying Decision to Hypothesis and Action to Test.\nThe OODA loop is much less a model of decision-making than a model of individual and organizational learning and adaptation in which the element of orientation — made up of genetics, experience, culture — plays the dominant role in the game of hypothesis and test, of analysis and synthesis, of destruction and creation.\nBoyd instead argues that the aim is to create and perpetuate a highly fluid and menacing state of affairs for the enemy, and to disrupt or incapacitate his ability to adapt to such an environment.\nMoreover, Boyd emphasizes the capability to validate the schemata before and during operations and the capability to devise and incorporate new ones, if one is to survive in a rapidly changing environment.\nAt the strategic level adaptation is more indirect and takes longer time intervals. It revolves around adjusting doctrines and force structures and disorienting the opponent’s orientation patterns, or mental images. At the grand-strategic level it revolves around shaping the political and societal environment, including an attractive ideology, and selecting a form of warfare.\nBoyd advocates an agile cellular organization — networked through ideology, experience, trust, aim and orientation pattern — that thrives in uncertainty and fosters innovation, creativity and initiative.\nHigher command levels must restrain themselves in their desire to know all that is going on at lower levels and to interfere. Higher commands must shape the ‘decision space’ of subordinate commanders. They must trust and coach. They must encourage cooperation and consultation among lower levels. They must accept bad news and be open for suggestions, lower-level initiatives and critique.\nIn an abstract sense, Boyd regards these schools of thought as alternative modes of behavior, and the theories as orientation patterns. He regards strategic theories and strategic concepts, like doctrines, as part of the repertoire of a strategist’s orientation pattern, integrating them in the cognitive dimension and in the discovery of fundamental similarities when he strips the theories to their bare essentials and expresses them in systems-theoretical/neo-Darwinist terms.\nHis very starting premise is that the world is fundamentally uncertain, truth is an arena of combat, knowledge is a weapon, as is the capability to evolve one’s knowledge base.\nIn the ‘Information domain’ the force must have the ‘capability to collect, share, access, and protect information’, as well as ‘the capability to collaborate in the information domain, which enables a force to improve its information position through processes of correlation, fusion, and analysis’.\nAlso the reasons for fighting cannot be understood within the nation-state framework: ‘more fundamental is the clash over different conceptions of community and how these conceptions should be reflected in political arrangements and organizations’.\nThe distinction between combatant and non-combatant is irrelevant. Deliberately ignoring and destroying this distinction is an explicit part of strategy in these conflicts.\nThus, academically they open the possibility of being engaged in a war, employing non-military methods to achieve their aim, while the West would not recognize that it was engaged in one.\nRegarding war not as a military but as a political struggle, they focus on the political will of western politicians and polities; exploit their impatience and casualty-sensitivity.\n","date":"September 9, 2016","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-from-science-strategy-and-war-by-frans-osinga/","section":"Posts","summary":"This network is the seat of scientific opinion; it is split into thousands of fragments, held by a multitude of individuals, each of whom endorses the others’ opinion at second hand, by relying on the consensual chains which link him to all the others through a sequence of overlapping neighborhoods.\n","title":"Highlights from Science, Strategy and War by Frans Osinga","type":"posts"},{"content":"Riukhin sat in complete solitude, hunched over his bream, drinking glass after glass, understanding and recognizing that it was no longer possible to set anything right in his life, that it was only possible to forget.\n‘Yesterday, in your office, I saw this individuum briefly, but it only takes a fleeting glance at his face to understand that he is a bastard, a squabbler, a trimmer and a toady.’\nToday I’m an unofficial person, and tomorrow, lo and behold, I’m an official one! And it also happens the other way round — oh, how it does!’\nThe counting-up took place, interspersed with Koroviev’s quips and quiddities, such as ‘Cash loves counting’, ‘Your own eye won’t lie’, and others of the same sort.\nIt was necessary at once, right on the spot, to invent ordinary explanations for extraordinary phenomena.\nLove leaped out in front of us like a murderer in an alley leaping out of nowhere, and struck us both at once.\n‘Can they be crooks?’ the magician asked worriedly of his visitor. ‘Can there be crooks among the Muscovites?’\nNever ask for anything! Never for anything, and especially from those who are stronger than you. They’ll make the offer themselves, and give everything themselves.\n","date":"September 7, 2016","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-from-master-and-margarita-by-mikhail-afanasyevich-bulgakov/","section":"Posts","summary":"Riukhin sat in complete solitude, hunched over his bream, drinking glass after glass, understanding and recognizing that it was no longer possible to set anything right in his life, that it was only possible to forget.\n","title":"Highlights from Master and Margarita by Mikhaí­l Afanasyevich Bulgakov","type":"posts"},{"content":"That is one last thing to remember: writers are always selling somebody out.\nThe future always looks good in the golden land, because no one remembers the past.\na place where little is bright or graceful, where it is routine to misplace the future and easy to start looking for it in bed.\nJoan Baez was a personality before she was entirely a person, and, like anyone to whom that happens, she is in a sense the hapless victim of what others have seen in her, written about her, wanted her to be and not to be.\nNow, at an age when the wounds begin to heal whether one wants them to or not,\nAs it happens I am comfortable with the Michael Laskis of this world, with those who live outside rather than in, those in whom the sense of dread is so acute that they turn to extreme and doomed commitments; I know something about dread myself, and appreciate the elaborate systems with which some people manage to fill the void, appreciate all the opiates of the people, whether they are as accessible as alcohol and heroin and promiscuity or as hard to come by as faith in God or History.\nOur favorite people and our favorite stories become so not by any inherent virtue, but because they illustrate something deep in the grain, something unadmitted.\nI think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not.\nThe dismal fact is that self-respect has nothing to do with the approval of others—who are, after all, deceived easily enough;\nHowever long we postpone it, we eventually lie down alone in that notoriously uncomfortable bed, the one we make ourselves. Whether or not we sleep in it depends, of course, on whether or not we respect ourselves.\nThey are willing to invest something of themselves; they may not play at all, but when they do play, they know the odds.\nIf we have been taught to keep our promises—if, in the simplest terms, our upbringing is good enough—we stay with the body, or have bad dreams.\nOf course we would all like to “believe”in something, like to assuage our private guilts in public causes, like to lose our tiresome selves; like, perhaps, to transform the white flag of defeat at home into the brave white banner of battle away from home. And of course it is all right to do that; that is how, immemorially, things have gotten done.\nBecause when we start deceiving ourselves into thinking not that we want something or need something, not that it is a pragmatic necessity for us to have it, but that it is a moral imperative that we have it, then is when we join the fashionable madmen, and then is when the thin whine of hysteria is heard in the land, and then is when we are in bad trouble. And I suspect we are already there.\nShe is an open and trusting child, unprepared for and unaccustomed to the ambushes of family life, and perhaps it is just as well that I can offer her little of that life.\nIt is hard to find California now, unsettling to wonder how much of it was merely imagined or improvised; melancholy to realize how much of anyone’s memory is no true memory at all but only the traces of someone else’s memory, stories handed down on the family network.\nMisinformation about rattlesnakes is a leitmotiv of the insomniac imagination in Los Angeles.\nThat was the year, my twenty-eighth, when I was discovering that not all of the promises would be kept, that some things are in fact irrevocable and that it had counted after all, every evasion and every procrastination, every mistake, every word, all of it.\nthe canker, you see, was already in the rose\nEverything that was said to me I seemed to have heard before, and I could no longer listen.\nAll I mean is that I was very young in New York, and that at some point the golden rhythm was broken, and I am not that young any more.\n","date":"September 6, 2016","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-from-slouching-towards-bethlehem-by-joan-didion/","section":"Posts","summary":"That is one last thing to remember: writers are always selling somebody out.\n","title":"Highlights from Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion","type":"posts"},{"content":"There was something immodest about her modesty: it announced itself.\nBut Ifemelu had always sensed, in Sister Ibinabo, a deep-sown, simmering hostility to young girls. Sister Ibinabo did not like them, she merely watched them and warned them, as though offended by what in them was still fresh and in her was long dried up.\nthe easy relationship between two people who carefully avoided conversations of any depth.\nHe was tall and rangy, with the easy manner of the entitled.\nShe had always liked this image of herself as too much trouble, as different, and she sometimes thought of it as a carapace that kept her safe.\nWith him, she was at ease; her skin felt as though it was her right size.\nIf you are not careful in this country, your children become what you don’t know.\nAfterwards they would return to America to fight on the Internet over their mythologies of home, because home was now a blurred place between here and there, and at least online they could ignore the awareness of how inconsequential they had become.\nIt had to be that Americans were taught, from elementary school, to always say something in class, no matter what.\nThe wind blowing across the British Isles was odorous with fear of asylum seekers, infecting everybody with the panic of impending doom, and so articles were written and read, simply and stridently, as though the writers lived in a world in which the present was unconnected to the past, and they had never considered this to be the normal course of history: the influx into Britain of black and brown people from countries created by Britain.\nThey would not understand why people like him, who were raised well fed and watered but mired in dissatisfaction, conditioned from birth to look towards somewhere else, eternally convinced that real lives happened in that somewhere else, were now resolved to do dangerous things, illegal things, so as to leave, none of them starving, or raped, or from burned villages, but merely hungry for choice and certainty.\nShe wished she believed in the devil, in a being outside of yourself that invaded your mind and caused you to destroy that which you cared about.\nHe was left-leaning and well-meaning, crippled by his acknowledgment of his own many privileges.\nThey were the sanctified, the returnees, back home with an extra gleaming layer.\nThe best thing about America is that it gives you space. I like that. I like that you buy into the dream, it’s a lie but you buy into it and that’s all that matters.\nBut of course it makes sense because we are Third Worlders and Third Worlders are forward-looking, we like things to be new, because our best is still ahead, while in the West their best is already past and so they have to make a fetish of that past.\n","date":"September 6, 2016","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-from-americanah-by-chimamanda-ngozi-adichie/","section":"Posts","summary":"There was something immodest about her modesty: it announced itself.\n","title":"Highlights from Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie","type":"posts"},{"content":"When you shoot a person, you say why and do it, without excuse. This is how the Radchaai are.\nShe was old enough to know firsthand that we had, indeed, shot people in the past. She could hardly be blamed for fearing we might do so in the future.\nThere had been a time when a property owner like her would have been shot early on, so someone’s client could take over her plantation.\nAnd within the gravity well of the planet Shis’urna itself—or for that matter any planet—lay the Underworld, the land of the dead from which humanity had had to escape in order to become fully free of its demonic influence.\nAnd you don’t like my saying that, but here’s the truth: luxury always comes at someone else’s expense. One of the many advantages of civilization is that one doesn’t generally have to see that, if one doesn’t wish. You’re free to enjoy its benefits without troubling your conscience.”\nHuman bodies to make into ancillaries weren’t exactly a scarce resource.\nAmong the wealthy, clientage was a very hierarchical relationship—a patron promised certain sorts of assistance to her client, both financial and social, and a client provided support and services to her patron. These were promises that could last generations. In the oldest, most prestigious houses the servants were nearly all the descendants of clients, for instance, and many businesses owned by wealthy houses were staffed by client branches of lower ones.\n“Only criminals, or people who aren’t functioning well, are reeducated. Nobody really cares what you think, as long as you do what you’re supposed to.”\nOthers took longer to leave, testing my authority, perhaps, though not far—anyone with the stomach to do such a thing had been shot sometime in the last five years, or at least had learned to restrain such a near-suicidal impulse.\nYou see murder and destruction on an unimaginable scale, but they see the spread of civilization, of Justice and Propriety, of Benefit for the universe. The death and destruction, these are unavoidable by-products of this one, supreme good.\nTo noncitizens, who only ever see Radchaai in melodramatic entertainments, who know nothing of the Radch besides ancillaries and annexations and what they think of as brainwashing, such an order might be appalling, but hardly surprising. But the idea of shooting citizens was, in fact, extremely shocking and upsetting. What, after all, was the point of civilization if not the well-being of citizens? And these people were citizens now.\nJustice, propriety, and benefit, isn’t it? Let every act be just, and proper, and beneficial.\n","date":"September 6, 2016","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-from-ancillary-justice-by-ann-leckie/","section":"Posts","summary":"When you shoot a person, you say why and do it, without excuse. This is how the Radchaai are.\n","title":"Highlights from Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie","type":"posts"},{"content":"Memory is redundant: it repeats signs so that the city can begin to exist.\nPerhaps, Kublai thought, the empire is nothing but a zodiac of the mind’s phantasms.\nthe emperor is he who is a foreigner to each of his subjects,\nthat the more one was lost in unfamiliar quarters of distant cities, the more one understood the other cities he had crossed to arrive there;\nBy now, from that real or hypothetical past of his, he is excluded; he cannot stop; he must go on to another city, where another of his pasts awaits him, or something perhaps that had been a possible future of his and is now someone else’s present.\nCities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears, even if the thread of their discourse is secret, their rules are absurd, their perspectives deceitful, and everything conceals something else.”\n“Memory’s images, once they are fixed in words, are erased,”\n“You return from your voyages with a cargo of regrets!”\nKublai reflected on the invisible order that sustains cities, on the rules that decreed how they rise, take shape and prosper, adapting themselves to the seasons, and then how they sadden and fall in ruins.\nThere is the city where you arrive for the first time; and there is another city which you leave never to return.\n“I speak and speak,”Marco says, “but the listener retains only the words he is expecting.”\nTraveling, you realize that differences are lost: each city takes to resembling all cities, places exchange their form, order, distances, a shapeless dust cloud invades the continents.\nThe catalogue of forms is endless: until every shape has found its city, new cities will continue to be born.\nConvinced that every innovation in the city influences the sky’s pattern, before taking any decision they calculate the risks and advantages for themselves and for the city and for all worlds.\nI recognize only cities and cannot distinguish what is outside them. In uninhabited places each stone and each clump of grass mingles, in my eyes, with every other stone and clump.\nIf I tell you that the city toward which my journey tends is discontinuous in space and time, now scattered, now more condensed, you must not believe the search for it can stop.\nThe second is risky and demands constant vigilance and apprehension: seek and learn to recognize who and what, in the midst of the inferno, are not inferno, then make them endure, give them space.\n","date":"September 6, 2016","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-for-invisible-cities-by-italo-calvino/","section":"Posts","summary":"Memory is redundant: it repeats signs so that the city can begin to exist.\n","title":"Highlights for Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino","type":"posts"},{"content":"War strategies, however, rest on a deeper foundation of people working together under stress and uncertainty, and good ones shape the terms of the conflict to their liking before combat begins.\nWhat the commanders had, at best, was information about the enemy within a few miles of them.\nRather than dig in and “consolidate his position,”or otherwise savor the fruits of victory, he proceeded to use his advantage in time to neutralize his opponents’ forces and weapons.\nYour other choice, if you believe that you do not have the resources to carry out the order, or that it is just plain dumb, is to challenge it. The German system encouraged this, but once agreement was reached, the superior could assume that the mission would be accomplished.\nthe greater risk is the loss of time that comes from always trying to be explicit.\nHe must observe the environment, which includes himself, his opponent, the physical, mental, and moral situation, and potential allies and opponents.\nThe idea behind strategy is to create chaos in the opponent, not in ourselves.\nStrategy is a mental tapestry of changing intentions for harmonizing and focusing our efforts as a basis for realizing some aim or purpose in an unfolding and often unforeseen world of many bewildering events and many contending interests.\nHe starts blaming the customer, or insisting that his sales force “educate the customer.”\nBasic Rule of All Competition (BRAC): You are not smarter than either the customer or the competition.\nAnother, and more insidious strategic effect of complex methodologies is that they can turn the attention of the company inwards. Most of them, for example, require extensive input.\nAs Musashi summarized it, in the translation by Hanshi Steve Kaufman, which was Boyd’s favorite:Practice is the only way that you will ever come to understand what the Way of the warrior is about . . . Words can only bring you to the foot of the path . . .”\nDeming rails against organizations that don’t understand the importance of requiring first-line supervisors to have expertise in the jobs they manage. How can a supervisor have a “feel”for how his operation is going if he’s never done it?\nCommunications is the bottoms-up aspect of command and control, and the Marines define “control,”to be this stream of information.\nObviously it takes a lot of mutual trust to know whom to appoint to which missions and especially to admit and quickly communicate mistakes.\nConcentrate instead on the essence of the concept, which is to devolve maximum responsibility onto the subordinate, in return for his or her pledge to use his/her initiative and creativity to accomplish the task, consistent with your ground rules.\nYou must try these concepts, practice them, create mechanisms for sharing experiences, develop common outlooks and orientations, and manage by them.\nNo probabilities here; you’ve made yourself certain to win.\nBecause you never know what will prod your creativity and the more widely you prospect, the more likely you are to find that something to set your offerings apart from all of your competitors.\nStudies of innovation reveal that practically everything new consists of bits and pieces of other concepts, often from fields that appeared to be unrelated, that somebody had the genius to reassemble to form something new and exciting.\nAs Boyd pointed out, a plan is only an intention, and a strategy is merely a scheme for creating and managing plans.\nIf you want your system to run faster, what you have to do is change it in ways that decrease the time it takes to do the most important things you do, those that affect the customer.\n","date":"September 6, 2016","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/notes-for-certain-to-win-by-chet-richards/","section":"Posts","summary":"War strategies, however, rest on a deeper foundation of people working together under stress and uncertainty, and good ones shape the terms of the conflict to their liking before combat begins.\n","title":"Highlights for Certain to Win by Chet Richards","type":"posts"},{"content":"“Whenever scientists say they’re Christian,”Sax said, “I take it to be an aesthetic statement.”\n“You Americans would like to end politics and history, so you can stay in a world you dominate!”\nEvolution is a matter of environment and chance, acting over millions of years. But history is a matter of environment and choice, acting within lifetimes, and sometimes within years, or months, or days!\nMutual professional respect, a great maker of friendships. And so nice to talk nothing but business.\nIt means rather fitting into it as it is, and worshiping it with our attention.\nBeauty is power and elegance, right action, form fitting function, intelligence, and reasonability.\nOnly three who could even try, and Frank’s French was worse than no French at all, like listening to someone attack the language with a hatchet.\nIn practice, as last night had made clear, it had the U.N.’s usual toothlessness before national armies and transnational money.\nEconomics is like astrology in that sense, except that economics serves to justify the current power structure, and so it has a lot of fervent believers among the powerful.\nThey are richer than us. And in this system, richer is more powerful.\nIf any men in the world were treated like you treat your women, the U.N. would ostracize that nation. But because it is a matter of women, the men in power look away. They say it is a cultural matter, a religious matter, not to be interfered with. Or it is not called slavery because it is only an exaggeration of how women are treated elsewhere.\nYoung men and women, educated very carefully to be apolitical, to be technicians who thought they disliked politics, making them putty in the hands of their rulers, just like always.\nSome of them defined ideology as an imaginary relationship to a real situation.\nAnd as she cleaned the dishes, she felt her stiff throat move; she croaked out her part of the conversation, and helped, with her little strand, to weave the human illusion.\n","date":"September 6, 2016","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/notes-for-red-mars-by-kim-stanley-robinson/","section":"Posts","summary":"“Whenever scientists say they’re Christian,”Sax said, “I take it to be an aesthetic statement.”\n","title":"Highlights for Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson","type":"posts"},{"content":"I strolled through the massive exhibition ‘Welt am Draht’ at Leipziger Strasse this weekend. This is a selection of video art from the massive Julia Stoschek Collection exhibited in the former Czech Cultural center.\nLike everybody says the quality of video art in general is extremely inconsistent. That is true in this exhibit as well. There are a bunch of works where it is not at all obvious why somebody finished it, somebody approved it and somebody paid money for it.\nThe works that were most interesting in this exhibition consistently were not the video ones but those created with a game engine. That may be my own novelty bias at work, but a fully digital workflow like that allows: 1. more and faster iteration 2. fully dynamic products, the combination of which leads to totally new kinds of things that can be produced.\nSome examples:\nI forget what this was, but despite the concept being more or less ridiculous it has a compelling internal consistency.\nRMB City by Cao Fei is a rich and spectacular playground of randomness.\nI can\u0026rsquo;t really argue with any of Ed Atkins\u0026rsquo;s work which stands out for the pure skill of the renderings combined with spoken word that is not trite (so rare).\nIan Cheng\u0026rsquo;s Emissary Forks at Perfection is an ongoing collage of elements in a dynamic simulation that looks like an edgy version of the large scale installations Theo Watson makes.\n","date":"June 27, 2016","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/welt-am-draht/","section":"Posts","summary":"I strolled through the massive exhibition ‘Welt am Draht’ at Leipziger Strasse this weekend. This is a selection of video art from the massive Julia Stoschek Collection exhibited in the former Czech Cultural center.\n","title":"Welt am Draht","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;ve spent June until October writing a brief but comprehensive book called “Designing Conversational Interfaces” introducing the creation of messaging applications and chatbots to a non-technical audience.\nYou can purchase the book on Gumroad or review it on GoodReads.\nLoading\u0026hellip;\n","date":"June 7, 2016","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/writing-a-book-on-conversational-interfaces/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’ve spent June until October writing a brief but comprehensive book called “Designing Conversational Interfaces” introducing the creation of messaging applications and chatbots to a non-technical audience.\n","title":"New book 'Designing Conversational Interfaces'","type":"posts"},{"content":"Today I got a tour of the Käthe Kollwitz museum in Berlin. I had wanted to visit this museum for a while but this proved the concrete reason to finally go (though the café next door makes some mean pancakes if you find yourself in the area).\nI was recently attended to her existence by MacGregor\u0026rsquo;s series on German history (episode). I now believe that she is one of the most important German artists of the past couple of centuries. If there are any other significant candidates, I would like to hear about them 1.\nWhat makes her stand out as an artist are:\nHer mastery of both drawing and sculpture. That she depicts ‘common’ people and social themes prominently. She thought these people were beautiful in their own way and that their plight was one that merited attention. For me this is a stark contrast with how current (artistic) elites try to ignore the ‘common and stupid’ people (like Trump voters). The loss of her son and how that permeates her later work. Our tour guide didn\u0026rsquo;t make the connection but I find it more than fitting that on May 1st we would be looking at for instance the Weavers cycle (one of which I have pasted below).\nI discount Caspar David Friedrich because he was a painter of landscapes.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"May 1, 2016","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/kathe-kollwitz-museum-berlin/","section":"Posts","summary":"Today I got a tour of the Käthe Kollwitz museum in Berlin. I had wanted to visit this museum for a while but this proved the concrete reason to finally go (though the café next door makes some mean pancakes if you find yourself in the area).\n","title":"Why Käthe Kollwitz is one of Germany's most important figurative artists","type":"posts"},{"content":"I was at the 2016 Bot Summit in London a couple of weeks ago. I did my best to capture salient points from every talk in a tweet. Here are all of them in order.\nNow @v21 who made https://t.co/46XYTViILi about creating tools to enable people to play with technology. #botsummit\n— Alper Çuğun (@alper) April 9, 2016\n. @v21 talking about learning, competency and sandboxes, reminds me of this talk by @helvetica: https://t.co/2A62R4yK7c #botsummit\n— Alper Çuğun (@alper) April 9, 2016\n. @v21 hints at what skills may come in handy when creating bots: \u0026ldquo;Poets are better botmakers than programmers.\u0026rdquo; #botsummit\n— Alper Çuğun (@alper) April 9, 2016\nImportant points by @ojahnn about how to make bots pick the right words and how that shapes our interaction with them. #botsummit\n— Alper Çuğun (@alper) April 9, 2016\nI do think that using vernacular and colourful language is the most advanced part of language acquisition for humans and bots. #botsummit\n— Alper Çuğun (@alper) April 9, 2016\nOne point from @mtrc\u0026rsquo;s talk is to not make bots pretend they are human. I think that is an approach that limits us both. #botsummit\n— Alper Çuğun (@alper) April 9, 2016\nThe bot by @M_PF \u0026amp;co that makes Katamari Damacy-like 3D printable objects on Thingiverse is amazing. https://t.co/sXCgapTUeX #botsummit\n— Alper Çuğun (@alper) April 9, 2016\nA really important labour analysis of digital assistants by @HelenHester starting off with the Apple Knowledge Navigator. #botsummit\n— Alper Çuğun (@alper) April 9, 2016\n. @HelenHester references @ibogost\u0026rsquo;s hyperemployment as a rebranding of the relational work that used to be done by women. #botsummit\n— Alper Çuğun (@alper) April 9, 2016\nLots of references to @TayandYou at #botsummit which was just a bunch of engineers crunching hard to get something out before #BUILD16.\n— Alper Çuğun (@alper) April 9, 2016\nBrecht (so boring…) has a good point via @mewo2: “The audience should never forget they are interacting with a machine.” #botsummit\n— Alper Çuğun (@alper) April 9, 2016\nLots of examples by @mewo2 of Brechtian digital technology that\u0026rsquo;s more focused on enlightenment than on entertainment. #botsummit\n— Alper Çuğun (@alper) April 9, 2016\nOr as @mewo2 put it eloquently: \u0026ldquo;A set of techniques which promote a realistic view of bots and a bot-like view of reality.\u0026rdquo; #botsummit\n— Alper Çuğun (@alper) April 9, 2016\nA live performance by @deer_ful of Graphic Score Bot. #botsummit @ Victoria and Albert Museum https://t.co/pNDeIPLqwE\n— Alper Çuğun (@alper) April 9, 2016\nGuidelines by @starsandrobots how to put personality into physical robots using this great example: https://t.co/6Utr3Lh1Cp #botsummit\n— Alper Çuğun (@alper) April 9, 2016\nThe guidelines by @starsandrobots are that a robot gets personality by being: expressive, generative, fun and surprising. #botsummit\n— Alper Çuğun (@alper) April 9, 2016\n. @ArianaNGiorgi talks about the algorithmic journalism bots can (help) perform. See her slides here: https://t.co/QSRMLFeAnJ #botsummit\n— Alper Çuğun (@alper) April 9, 2016\nOne of my favorite journalistic bots is autotldr on @reddit: https://t.co/vIo07ACXuT (explanation: https://t.co/3erkE9CTsu ) #botsummit\n— Alper Çuğun (@alper) April 9, 2016\nSometimes my paraphrasing from #botsummit may be a bit too free. Here are the actual guidelines by @starsandrobots. https://t.co/tt3ESQeUgy\n— Alper Çuğun (@alper) April 9, 2016\nOddly no mention of ELIZA yet (right?) at #botsummit though many have talked about the qualities people ascribe to even the simplest bots.\n— Alper Çuğun (@alper) April 9, 2016\n. @davelubin mentions ELIZA and “Computer Power and Human Reason”while explaining the ethical issues behind @TVCommentBot. #botsummit\n— Alper Çuğun (@alper) April 9, 2016\nLive demo by davidlublin of the various TV bot comment modes #botsummit @ Victoria and Albert… https://t.co/wTnnfmdiex\n— Alper Çuğun (@alper) April 9, 2016\n. @erocdrahs who has made some amazing bots (https://t.co/4lzn6xOvYZ ) made us think about what it could be like to be a bot. #botsummit\n— Alper Çuğun (@alper) April 9, 2016\nA beautiful closing of #botsummit by @katierosepipkin about taking up making bots as a folk art both personally and as a wider thing.\n— Alper Çuğun (@alper) April 9, 2016\n#botsummit was an excellent mix of disciplines and of people who are in themselves a mix of these disciplines. END OF BOTCAST\n— Alper Çuğun (@alper) April 9, 2016\n","date":"April 24, 2016","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/tweet-coverage-of-the-2016-bot-summit-at-the-va-in-london/","section":"Posts","summary":"I was at the 2016 Bot Summit in London a couple of weeks ago. I did my best to capture salient points from every talk in a tweet. Here are all of them in order.\n","title":"Tweet coverage of the 2016 Bot Summit at the V\u0026A in London","type":"posts"},{"content":"The video of my talk “Conversations are the New Interfaces” at Interaction16 Helsinki has been posted. I am yet to watch it, but here it is for my archive.\nAlper Cugun: Conversations are the new Interfaces from Interaction Design Association on Vimeo.\n","date":"April 18, 2016","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/talk-at-interaction16-2/","section":"Posts","summary":"The video of my talk “Conversations are the New Interfaces” at Interaction16 Helsinki has been posted. I am yet to watch it, but here it is for my archive.\n","title":"Talk at Interaction16","type":"posts"},{"content":"I shared it elsewhere but to briefly clip it here as well. I took a bunch more pictures with the photographer that were a lot of fun but of course this is the one they chose.\n","date":"April 5, 2016","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/that-spread-in-elsevier/","section":"Posts","summary":"I shared it elsewhere but to briefly clip it here as well. I took a bunch more pictures with the photographer that were a lot of fun but of course this is the one they chose.\n","title":"That spread in Elsevier","type":"posts"},{"content":"I used to travel between the Netherlands and Germany at least once a month and pretty quickly I grew tired of forgetting things. That\u0026rsquo;s why I made a list (in bold, comments added) with the things that I should take or at least consider taking. Whenever I pack my bag, I quickly scan the list and make sure I\u0026rsquo;ve covered the bases. Maybe it\u0026rsquo;ll be helpful to you as well.\nThis and clothes go into a Patagonia MLC bag.\nTake knife off keychain\nI\u0026rsquo;ve forgotten to do this more than a couple of times. What makes it weirder still is that TXL/SXF will allow me to fly out with a Swiss army knife but most other airports will not allow me to fly back with one.\nEssentials\nThese are things that are irreplaceable and without which a trip usually cannot happen.\nLaptop Obvious. Macbook Pro 13\u0026quot;. Power cable Without this the laptop is pretty worthless. Replacements if you can find them in a local store are upwards of €100. Passport Without this traveling isn\u0026rsquo;t really possible. Boarding cards / tickets You could get these from the airport but I print out everything I can at home. Toiletries\nSunblock At some point it becomes silly to buy new sunblock at every sunny destination. Toothbrush, paste Sometimes I don\u0026rsquo;t bother to bring any and buy them at the destination airport but it\u0026rsquo;s more reliable to pack. Often I also take the head of my electric tooth brush. Lipbalm I put this on there after I once needed it and paid €11 for a stick at ZRH. Assorted other toiletries This is a pain with only a carry-on. I try to usually depend as much as possible on what is available at my destination. Getting around\nThese are particularly essential for the Netherlands where you need to bring a card to be able to prove your identity to the various transit systems around.\nForeign SIM Often this means just my Dutch T-Mobile SIM. I often have SIMs for destinations outside of Europe but those are so short lived that they aren\u0026rsquo;t reusable. Foreign money / transit cards I have ziploc bags per country with the currency leftovers as well as any transit card (Oyster, Suica) or SIM that may still be usable. Power converters The US and the UK account for most of my trips where these are necessary. I put these in the ziploc bags with the currency. Paperclip I used to need one of these to do the SIM swap. Now I have an Apple SIM pin in the box with all my SIM cards. Keys Keys to my parents place in the Netherlands or any other home/office at the destination. Small backpack The MLC isn\u0026rsquo;t very practical to haul around town. I have a tiny Bach day pack that is super basic but fits everything you could need during a day. Canteen I usually don\u0026rsquo;t bother taking this because of weight and bulk, but it is useful for longer trips. Office\nVGA dongle Trips usually involve some kind of public speaking and as a speaker you should be self-sufficient. Don\u0026rsquo;t leave this at the venue where you\u0026rsquo;re speaking. Pens I need to carry some quality pens with me. I usually have a four color box of Staedtler fineliners and a couple of Japanese gel pens. Index cards Always useful but don\u0026rsquo;t bring too many because paper is heavy. Business cards Trips are usually for business and people appreciate a nicely designed business card. Headphones with microphone The standard Apple ones will do for most calls. Noise cancelling headphones You need headphones with some noise cancelling effect for during flights. I used to travel with my Sony MDR-7506. They are bulky but if you fly an easyJet to Berlin with those on your head, everybody thinks you\u0026rsquo;re a DJ. Now I prefer to take my Sennheiser CX-300 II in-ears. Special wardrobe\nHavaianas Bring if the destination is hot. Running shoes, pants Nice to be able to do some sports while traveling. Swimming trunks Always bring these. Sunglasses I always take my Moscot Lemtosh with me. Hiking shoes Whether to bring my decade old pair of Meindls is heavily dependent on the type of trip and the environment. Climbing shoes If there are climbing halls nearby, I\u0026rsquo;ll take these instead of/in addition to running shoes. Things to check at home\nWashing machine faucet shut Gas turned off Lock door Fridge empty, leave door open ","date":"April 2, 2016","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/packing-list/","section":"Posts","summary":"I used to travel between the Netherlands and Germany at least once a month and pretty quickly I grew tired of forgetting things. That’s why I made a list (in bold, comments added) with the things that I should take or at least consider taking. Whenever I pack my bag, I quickly scan the list and make sure I’ve covered the bases. Maybe it’ll be helpful to you as well.\n","title":"Packing List","type":"posts"},{"content":"Kevin posted yesterday that he had an extra ticket for Max Richter\u0026rsquo;s Sleep at Kraftwerk Berlin yesterday. Without a moment\u0026rsquo;s hesitation I packed my sleeping bag and cycled there with him.\nKraftwerk Mitte is a disused power plant in the middle (Mitte) of the city that is now a club venue and host to a variety of events. The most striking features of it are large open spaces and lots of exposed concrete everywhere.\nMax Richter I didn\u0026rsquo;t know before but I quickly confirmed that I would agree with his music. It had been one of my desires to attend a classical music concert while lying down being able to doze in and out of sleep as your mind and body dictate. Classical concerts tend to be long and uncomfortable affairs.\nI hadn\u0026rsquo;t imagined I would get the chance to do this during an 8 hour overnight concert.\nThe music is very smooth to listen to and it is a kind of music that Richter is known for (read this interview). I\u0026rsquo;m listening to From Sleep now as I write this. I listened to the first couple of hours and then fell into a fitful sleep until I woke up again at 07:30 to catch the end.\nSleeping on stretcher beds at a power station 15 minutes cycling away from home with a couple of hundred other people was a strange experience. It was for one one of the lowest key camping trips I have ever undertaken. Though I\u0026rsquo;m used to the occasional communal sleeping arrangement, those are totally different situations. Berlin\u0026rsquo;s club spaces facilitate experiences in between the intimate and transgressive but even then this is an odd one out.\nI probably also wasn\u0026rsquo;t the only person in the room who considered it wry that we would pay €48 to sleep in circumstances similar to thousands of others in Germany right now.\nI\u0026rsquo;m still not sure what to make of the event but it is a memorable experience that will stay with me for a while like a dream but more powerful.\n","date":"March 18, 2016","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/sleep-by-max-richter/","section":"Posts","summary":"Kevin posted yesterday that he had an extra ticket for Max Richter’s Sleep at Kraftwerk Berlin yesterday. Without a moment’s hesitation I packed my sleeping bag and cycled there with him.\n","title":"Sleep by Max Richter","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;m still waiting for the pictures of Friday to air on the IxDA Flickr and for the video of my talk to be posted, but here are some notes I found around the web about my talk (for my personal notebook).\nEigenlijk veel interessanter om 14:00 is ‘ Conversations are the new interfaces‘, van Alper Çuğun (nog een Nederlander!). Als de mensen van Hubbub iets doen rondom experimentele interfaces, dan let ik op. — Vormfout.nl\nToday Alper Çuğun will lead a session about ‘Conversations are the new interfaces’ and Marcel Schouwenaar will talk about ‘Trade-offs \u0026amp; Sharing’. — Embassy of the Netherlands in Finland\nAlper Çuğun (@alper), who used to co-run a gaming company called Hubbub, talked about conversational interfaces. I\u0026rsquo;ve been really interested in these lately so I found it very helpful. He showed an example of a conversational UI that they developed and gave a rundown of do\u0026rsquo;s and dont\u0026rsquo;s when designing for them. One interesting insight was that they found that kids will read a lot of text if they get it in SMS-sized chunks. He smartly called conversational UIs the \u0026ldquo;UI for AI\u0026rdquo; and cautioned that they are not perfect for every use case. — Aaron Ganci\nAnother fantastic talk was from Alper Çuğun. He gave an overview of conversational user interfaces. It was based on his own experience making mobile games that use conversations and messaging as the main mechanic. He also shared an analysis of the tools out there to make conversational UIs and a prediction of where the scene is heading.\nIn particular, I was struck by how conversations, like the messaging apps we’re all familiar with on our phones, can lower the barrier to people using technology. It now feels very natural to text back and forth with friends. When machines can text with us, that might give us a sense of accessibility and agency in our interaction with them. — Michelle Thorne\n","date":"March 14, 2016","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/notes-from-interaction16/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’m still waiting for the pictures of Friday to air on the IxDA Flickr and for the video of my talk to be posted, but here are some notes I found around the web about my talk (for my personal notebook).\n","title":"Notes from Interaction16","type":"posts"},{"content":"I just got back from Interaction in Helsinki having given my talk about how Conversations are the New Interfaces.\nI have been blown away by the response to and kind words about my talk. I think this is a conversation (!) worth continuing. Stay tuned for details on that.\nHere now is a collection of photos I found of my talk (for my personal archive):\n. @alper asks #ixd16 if we are at #peakchat. #sketchnotes @whatsthehubbub pic.twitter.com/QlEIINjVgu\n— Chris Noessel (@chrisnoessel) March 4, 2016\n@kaeru @alper :-) pic.twitter.com/RB148HXINS\n— Nico Druif (@NicoDruif) March 4, 2016\nConversational UI: the Rise of the Chatbot! My prediction for the next Star Wars title? @alper #ixd16 pic.twitter.com/IyTeI0GI4a\n— duff_el (@duff_el) March 4, 2016\nAny startup with \u0026ldquo;chat\u0026rdquo; in it is gonna get funded right now. When will we reach \u0026ldquo;Peak Chat\u0026rdquo;? @alper #startups #ixd16 pic.twitter.com/rntO9PcioV\n— Thomas Fogarasy (@thomasfogarasy) March 4, 2016\nChat UIs have origin in choose own adventure stories. As pattern progresses, need storywriting tools - @alper #ixd16 pic.twitter.com/lM7g3mG7JT\n— Chris Lee (@cleerview) March 4, 2016\nShoutout to Clippy, the original conversational interface. @alper at #Ixd16 pic.twitter.com/Qq3uMolQ51\n— Peter Bihr (@peterbihr) March 4, 2016\nChat Everything @alper #ixd16 pic.twitter.com/hN7i2J8GRe\n— Sonja Heinen (@sonjaheinen) March 4, 2016\nGreat to see @alper talk about conversational interfaces and games about difficult choices at #Ixd16 pic.twitter.com/0OrO8koOnC\n— Peter Bihr (@peterbihr) March 4, 2016\nInspirational talk about conversational interfaces by @alper Great stuff! @ixdconf #futurice #ixd16 pic.twitter.com/NKzT2gB9B6\n— Matti Vahtera (@mattivahtera) March 4, 2016\n","date":"March 6, 2016","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/talk-at-interaction16/","section":"Posts","summary":"I just got back from Interaction in Helsinki having given my talk about how Conversations are the New Interfaces.\n","title":"Talk at Interaction16","type":"posts"},{"content":"I was really anticipating Firewatch and I was sorely disappointed as was of course bound to happen.\nThis bit I liked:\nThe best part about the game\nA video posted by Alper Cugun (@alper) on Feb 13, 2016 at 12:55pm PST\nThe art and environment are the stars of the game. The attention to detail and craft that went into creating the world and nature you are walking through are breathtaking. It\u0026rsquo;s a nice touch that you get to take pictures and keep pictures.\nWhat\u0026rsquo;s problematic about the game is that even people who don\u0026rsquo;t like it as a game think that the writing is really good. This is just not the case. The setup is embarrassingly bad, juvenile, and sexist. The cliched story of cheap self-pity and codependence made us want to quit the game then and there. As many people have remarked, the dialogue between the two characters is good and manages to entertain at times and move things forward despite the poor setup. The actual plot and reveal on which the game hinges is awful and inconsequential. The other characters and what happens with them do nothing more than distract from the core of the game: the natural environment \u0026amp; talking with Delilah.\nI get that gamers don\u0026rsquo;t read literature and have historically low expectations when it comes to story. But when so many people think that the writing in Firewatch is good, it lowers the bar for all games. That is something that has been happening for a long time already and it has led us right here.\nLots of people are happy with Firewatch however poor and unsatisfying its story is. But maybe there could also be works with good writing? And maybe those should not be called games with all the expectations and limitations that come with the term?\n","date":"February 15, 2016","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/firewatch-lowers-the-narrative-bar-for-games-and-that-is-fine/","section":"Posts","summary":"I was really anticipating Firewatch and I was sorely disappointed as was of course bound to happen.\n","title":"Firewatch lowers the narrative bar for games and that is fine","type":"posts"},{"content":"At the end of 2015 personal and professional changes made it clear to us that we would not continue Hubbub in its current form. That realization made me reorient myself in Berlin and refocus on my core skills as an engineer.\nI set myself the goal to work on a significant product as part of a larger team. I thought it would be useful to change up my professional life which thusfar had consisted only of freelance and client work. A long story short, as of this week I\u0026rsquo;m employed as a software engineer at ResearchGate.\n","date":"January 5, 2016","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/new-beginnings/","section":"Posts","summary":"At the end of 2015 personal and professional changes made it clear to us that we would not continue Hubbub in its current form. That realization made me reorient myself in Berlin and refocus on my core skills as an engineer.\n","title":"New beginnings","type":"posts"},{"content":"I have a personal log of culture consumed going back to 2003. This year was a particular low on many counts. I have been busy and I don\u0026rsquo;t ascribe the same value to consuming culture pure for the goal of consuming it anymore. Been there, done that.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve read eleven books (see my Goodreads) which is more than I had expected but nothing compared compared to the bookwormy prowess of people like Hans or Kars.\nThe Peripheral by William Gibson Game Mechanics: Advanced Game Design by Ernest Adams \u0026amp; Joris Dormans Play Matters by Miguel Sicart Surface Detail by Ian M. Banks The Hydrogen Sonata by Ian M. Banks Between the World and Me by Ta-nehisi Coates Der Tod des Iwan Iljitsch by Leo Tolstoy Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson Certain to Win by Chet Richards Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie Bold is recommended. It looks like this year I especially enjoyed non-fiction maybe because my fiction was limited to fairly mediocre genre stuff. I\u0026rsquo;m resolving that reading should not be painful (Russians were a good attempt, but too boring) and that it should also not be trivial (so no more genre fiction crap for me).\nIn movies I fared slightly better but did not manage to hit the one movie per week baseline with a meagre 23 of which only two in the cinema 1. I\u0026rsquo;m playing catchup now over the christmas break with eleven these views happening in December.\nAll are in my Letterboxed diary but since sites disappear I\u0026rsquo;m archiving them here as well. I am immensely pleased with almost all of the movies I have seen except for the two marked as shit.\nCaché The Imitation Game Oldboy Moonrise Kingdom The Raid 2: Berandal Sonnenallee Citizenfour Before Midnight Straigth outta Compton Grizzly Man The Fantastic Four 💩 Frances Ha The Grand Budapest Hotel Gravity Pacific Rim Elysium Frozen The Princess Bride Slow West Avengers: Age of Ultron 💩 Snowpiercer Inherent Vice Dekalog, trzy I managed to avoid going to theater plays and went to one opera “Les Contes d\u0026rsquo;Hoffmann”in the Komische Oper which was delightful.\nI guess I can in part explain this shift by my consumption of games. Even without owning a console there is more than enough stuff to play. Here are nineteen games I played for the first time in 2015. Some of them were played only once and some of them were played for dozens of hours 2.\nBorderlands 2 Nuclear Throne Panamax The Westport Independent King of New York Bang! Cobra Club Fallout Shelter Her Story A Dark Room Sage Solitaire Let\u0026rsquo;s make Chaofan Panoramical Mouse Guard: Swords \u0026amp; Strongholds Downwell Fightin Words Counter Strike: Global Offensive Galaxy Trucker Sunless Sea Codenames I miss Cineville so badly.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nIt could be insightful but I don\u0026rsquo;t think I want to look at my Steam hours summed over the year.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"December 31, 2015","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/the-year-in-culture/","section":"Posts","summary":"I have a personal log of culture consumed going back to 2003. This year was a particular low on many counts. I have been busy and I don’t ascribe the same value to consuming culture pure for the goal of consuming it anymore. Been there, done that.\n","title":"The year in culture","type":"posts"},{"content":"Rob Dubbin at the Awl has written a comprehensive account of what is wrong with Secret Hitler. I agree with his critique but I want to highlight one issue in particular.\nI tried ignoring Secret Hitler but their design notes kept making their way into my twitter. I skimmed through them and found them to be well put together. The last one about illustration and graphic design however convinced me that the game goes well beyond just bad taste.\nThe problem is that the identity cards for fascist players in the game (shown below) display them als lizards where the liberal identities are shown as human. Fascists are inhuman, get it?\nThis is simplistic and immoral. If it\u0026rsquo;s not obvious why, here are three reasons:\nDepicting certain groups of people like vile animals is a way of objectifying them and an excuse to exterminate them. One of the lessons of history is that we don\u0026rsquo;t produce this kind of propaganda. Depicting the fascists as animals is not a reversal that makes it all right. The fascist of my fascist is still a fascist. Depicting fascists as intrinsically different from other people and easily recognizable as such is a deeply wrong and misleading fantasy. This way of thinking is part of an ongoing trivialization of fascism and spreading it is harmful.\nAs Rob Dubbin says in his piece:\nThere should be a high bar for invoking this person, and there should be such a thing as falling well short of it.\nThe people making Secret Hitler are obviously intelligent, skilled and have vast resources at their disposal. I can only guess why they would make a game about this topic and then do it so poorly.\n","date":"December 27, 2015","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/a-not-so-secret-hitler/","section":"Posts","summary":"Rob Dubbin at the Awl has written a comprehensive account of what is wrong with Secret Hitler. I agree with his critique but I want to highlight one issue in particular.\n","title":"A not so secret Hitler","type":"posts"},{"content":"I was tremendously hyped for Deutschland \u0026lsquo;83 after hearing about it and watching the first episode. Now that it is finally airing in Germany it turns out that it is not doing that well. Viewership started out low and has been declining over the first four episodes.\nPeople are attributing this to the fact that the average RTL viewer is stupid and only used to watch plain episodic series. That may well be true, but the decline of the series\u0026rsquo;s ratings closely mirror the decline of my appetite for the show itself. By episode four Deutschland \u0026lsquo;83 is a slog and the only thing that got me to the finish line was an empty Sunday and stamina.\nThe plot devolves and loses whatever internal logic and coherence it had. The characters which are enigmatic to begin with become increasingly hard to empathize with and start doing random things. Worst of all, Deutschland \u0026lsquo;83 tries to put a neutral spin on one of the most polarized conflicts of the last century which of course fails.\nThe one message that does come through is that everybody on the East side was evil and psychopathic and that the people on the West side were basically decent chaps. This is a laughable depiction of the world as it was back then (or as parts of the world still are). The violence and surveillance enacted by the Soviet bloc is hardly different from the stuff the Americans did and still do around the world. The only reason we get to ridicule the East Germans in the series is because they lost.\n","date":"December 10, 2015","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/deutschland-83/","section":"Posts","summary":"I was tremendously hyped for Deutschland ‘83 after hearing about it and watching the first episode. Now that it is finally airing in Germany it turns out that it is not doing that well. Viewership started out low and has been declining over the first four episodes.\n","title":"Deutschland '83","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;ve been running a live open streetmap edits view as a screen saver for a couple of years now and it never fails to draw the attention from people in the room (whether they know what OSM is or not). The OSM visualization is pretty cool and really comes to life when it is displayed full screen. It is also a great way to see a part of the world you might not have known existed. I used to browse atlases when I was a kid, so this is me indulging in virtual travel again.\nWill attended me to the fact that I shot a video of it but I never wrote up the super basic process behind it, so here goes.\nWhat it looks like:\nThis must have been the tweet by Thomas that started it all in early 2013.\n@mrtoto That should be made quickly with a web view or not? I still use my Barbarian Group screenstagram.\n— Alper Çuğun (@alper) April 26, 2013\nAfter I read that I fiddled around a bit with making my own screensaver in XCode. That seems simple enough but building stuff on OS X is a bit of a pain if you\u0026rsquo;re used to iOS and definitely not something you\u0026rsquo;ll be able to finish in an hour or so. It turns out that there is a far far easier way.\nInstall the webviewscreensaver. Thanks to Alastair Tse. Plugin the URL to the live OSM view into the screensaver. This one: http://osmlab.github.io/show-me-the-way/ Enjoy. ","date":"December 2, 2015","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/osm-live-edit-screensaver/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’ve been running a live open streetmap edits view as a screen saver for a couple of years now and it never fails to draw the attention from people in the room (whether they know what OSM is or not). The OSM visualization is pretty cool and really comes to life when it is displayed full screen. It is also a great way to see a part of the world you might not have known existed. I used to browse atlases when I was a kid, so this is me indulging in virtual travel again.\n","title":"OSM Live Edit Screensaver","type":"posts"},{"content":"I finally got the chance of trying out the McB, McDonald\u0026rsquo;s new ecological burger tonight after a visit to the opera.\nFirst I think it\u0026rsquo;s great that McDonald\u0026rsquo;s is doing this. It would be nice if they switched all their meat to what is at least a nominally biologically produced variety. I\u0026rsquo;ve seen people hating on it but large food producers having to shift over is a sign of victory. Read this Fortune article about the war on Big Food.\nSecond I don\u0026rsquo;t think McDonald\u0026rsquo;s understands why it is that people eat organical food. I and many others eat it because it tastes better than the other stuff. There are other reasons to eat organically but if those were the only ones then it would be nowhere near as popular as it is now. The problem with the McB is that it\u0026rsquo;s just as bad a hamburger as you are used to eating from McDonald\u0026rsquo;s but now with a bio patty.\nThis makes it a great burger for the staunch McDonald\u0026rsquo;s customer who was thinking of switching away because they started worrying about meat quality. For Berlin\u0026rsquo;s actual burger lovers this is irrelevant and you should just keep going to Tommi.\n","date":"November 20, 2015","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/trying-out-the-mcb/","section":"Posts","summary":"I finally got the chance of trying out the McB, McDonald’s new ecological burger tonight after a visit to the opera.\n","title":"Trying out the McB.","type":"posts"},{"content":"The idea that German television is necessarily terrible has to be reconsidered. I\u0026rsquo;ve recently started watching Deutschland \u0026lsquo;83 which is amazing (more on that later) and yesterday I finished season two of the web series Mann/Frau by BR PULS.\nMann/Frau is a mirror format byte-sized episodic where each installment details the interactions of a man and a woman their relations and lives. It treats most of the themes occupying people around my age living in Berlin but manages to do so drawing more from slapstick than from cliché.\nThe series is helped enormously by the fact that each episode concludes somewhere under five minutes. Brevity unfortunately is a rare commodity in Germany. The benefits of it here are that it forces them to get to the point quickly, cut rapidly and finish. Episodes of this length also greatly facilitate binge watching 1. I had never considered you could make a traditional format series with episodes this short, but it works fine.\nHalfway through I did develop an intense distaste for the man (Mirko Lang 2) and the man episodes. This isn\u0026rsquo;t just because the man character is a huge doofus, but also because it turns out that the man and woman episodes are written and directed by a brother and sister respectively. The woman episodes are more punchy, contain less whining and more action.\nIn this interview with the brother and sister directors the problem becomes painfully obvious. During the entire interview the brother does most of the talking but doesn\u0026rsquo;t say anything of substance.\nI will keep watching when the next season comes out but I might just fast forward through most of the man\u0026rsquo;s episodes.\nThese series may have a catalytic effect on the German television landscape. By their very existence they educate the tastes of an audience that might not have known or expected something like this to be possible. And actually creating something good in turn makes it so that other tv makers can\u0026rsquo;t hide behind the excuse that the whole landscape is mediocre. Who knows what more may be possible.\nThey released all 20 season two episodes on YouTube at once.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nFunnily enough this series isn\u0026rsquo;t listed in his filmography anywhere because I guess it is a web series.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"November 12, 2015","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/mann-frau/","section":"Posts","summary":"The idea that German television is necessarily terrible has to be reconsidered. I’ve recently started watching Deutschland ‘83 which is amazing (more on that later) and yesterday I finished season two of the web series Mann/Frau by BR PULS.\n","title":"Mann/Frau","type":"posts"},{"content":"This is an expanded transcription of a tweetstorm (based partially on conversations with Peter) that starts at this Tweet about the Volkswagen emissions scandal but actually as we go along it will be clear that it is about ethics in software engineering. First the news that started it all.\nVolkswagen\u0026rsquo;s US head Michael Horn blamed his engineers during a testimony about the emissions scandal.\n1/ Volkswagen\u0026rsquo;s US head Michael Horn blamed his engineers during a testimony about the emissions scandal. http://t.co/ZSbrT8UyLM\n— Alper Çuğun (@alper) October 9, 2015\nDoes anybody believe a German multinational is agile enough for a couple of engineers to be able to ship a feature without oversight? Because on the one side as people have commented if this were true that would leave huge questions open when it comes to their quality control and delivery process. On the other side if true it would be a refreshing level of agility in a German corporation. A car maker that uses the tagline ‘move fast and break things’ would certainly be a novelty.\nI would be curious to see what the codebase of a modern car looks like but thanks to the DMCA that will probably never happen. Unless maybe if somebody dumps the VW code during the CCC this year?\nThis isn\u0026rsquo;t about car manufacturing or recruiting engineers, this is actually about ethics in software engineering. How this will affect VW\u0026rsquo;s chances of hiring the best engineers (“ Volkswagen, and how not to describe your employees”) is one issue. They couldn\u0026rsquo;t hire the best anyway but they will likely always be able to hire a fair level of talent. To write good code, having a clear vision and a stable process are more important than having a mythical 10x engineer on your team. The questions now are why this took so long to be discovered and what the consequences are for the various parties involved.\nI will focus on the software engineers because I am one and because I think they will be underrepresented.\nProgrammers could get away not caring about ethics when it involved being callous with user data or new ways to serve banner ads. The proliferation of really weird privacy-invading ad tech used to be considered a perfectly acceptable way for engineers to spend their time. Even the leak of sensitive user data like in the Ashley Madison hack was more or less business as usual among digital companies. Software companies being liable for their errors and engineers engaging in ethical behaviour were considered optional.\nNot anymore. You probably wish you hadn\u0026rsquo;t snoozed through that ethics class in university. Not that that would have helped that much. Unlike many others, in university we got courses in both ethics and in the history of science and technology. Courses which at the time were much maligned by my fellow students for their lack of practical application. They were right that that course wouldn\u0026rsquo;t have helped you much by itself, but some basic level of understanding on this subject is nice to have.\nBesides continuing to teach ethics, schools should teach engineers about rights and liability. Those courses in ethics could be supplemented by a practical course about your rights and liabilities when you are working at somebody else\u0026rsquo;s company or at your own. It used to be that either nobody cared about this stuff or that the company would bear the consequences. Both of those notions seem fairly shaky right now.\nWhat do you do when your boss tells you to implement a feature, or very very strongly encourages you to reach a certain outcome? What VW seems to be arguing is that nobody gave the order to build this specific feature but it arose from a rogue group of people. That seems just as unlikely as the case where this was mandated but VW management maintained the operational security required to keep it a secret. The investigation almost certainly will reveal that an order was given and who gave it.\nIn an ideal company a manager of course will not tell their people how to do their work. Your boss should give you an ‘Auftrag’ (assignment) to reach certain strategic goals and leave it to you to determine the best way of getting there. They will trust that you will operate to the best of your ‘Fingerspitzengefühl’ (working knowledge) within the framework that is the norm in the ‘Einheit’ (unity) that is the company. This all borrowed liberally from Chet Richards\u0026rsquo;s excellent Certain to Win.\nEven if an order was not given this points to an atmosphere in which exerting huge pressure is normal and where people consider it standard operating practice to cut corners maybe even without informing their superiors.\nWhat recourse does a software engineer have in that situation? The current policy situation and broader environment suggest they have almost none.\nWho\u0026rsquo;s responsible when that feature threatens the planet, evaporates shareholder value and leads to criminal investigations? Now that software is a determinant in one of the biggest industries in the world, bad actions have large consequences. Selling millions of faulty cars and exposing many millions more to pollution finally gives us a software malfunction that everybody can relate to.\nThis isn\u0026rsquo;t just the case for VW since other car companies are also implicated in fraud during emissions testing. It isn\u0026rsquo;t even exclusive for car makers since the sequence of events leading up to the financial crash were nothing but a large number of model/software malfunctions.\nIn the case of the financial crash nobody got punished. The American enthusiasm to extract punitive damages from VW may be attributed to the fact that the U.S.A. finally is a relevant player in (clean) car technology again.\nBecause these are the biggest industries in the world with immense resources and influence, normal or just rules of responsibility don\u0026rsquo;t really apply.\nWe need to answer these questions ourselves because if you ask the higher-ups it is clear who\u0026rsquo;ll get thrown under the VW bus. Software engineers can refuse to do work that they find ethically objectionable and find another job easily (the Snowden option). That is a luxurious position but it still remains to be seen how many actually do this.\nWhat will likely happen is that the legal investigation will take forever and in the end some convenient people will take the fall. I think it\u0026rsquo;s unlikely that that will create a just outcome or improve the overall situation.\nThe criteria to which these emissions tests were held were already watered down thanks to the lobbyists of various car companies who also set the tests so that it would be easy to cheat on them. The tests may be fixed a little bit ostentatiously because they are the most visible point of failure.\nThe actual problem will go unfixed. We can\u0026rsquo;t independently verify the code that runs in cars now thanks to our broken copyright legislation. When cars become self-driving and dependent on remote services this will become infinitely harder. We are not be able to check software running in our devices to see whether it does what it promises to. That is the real problem and one I don\u0026rsquo;t think that is going to be fixed anytime soon.\nUpdate: So today the word got out that some 30 managers at VW were involved in this. It looks like Michael Horn\u0026rsquo;s statement about the rogue engineers was not true.\n","date":"November 11, 2015","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/actually-its-about-ethics-in-software-engineering/","section":"Posts","summary":"This is an expanded transcription of a tweetstorm (based partially on conversations with Peter) that starts at this Tweet about the Volkswagen emissions scandal but actually as we go along it will be clear that it is about ethics in software engineering. First the news that started it all.\n","title":"Actually it's about ethics in software engineering","type":"posts"},{"content":"I went to “Les Contes d\u0026rsquo;Hoffmann” yesterday in one of Berlin\u0026rsquo;s three operas thanks to this piece in the Guardian. Yes, I have to rely on a British paper for reliable cultural advice about Berlin.\nThe Komische Oper is a ten minute bike ride from my house and you can get a discounted ticket with some mild visual obstruction for €18. This makes it a fairly ideal way to spend a Sunday in Berlin which otherwise can be fairly quiet (stores aren\u0026rsquo;t open, most places close at five or six).\nI\u0026rsquo;m not an expert on opera but I enjoyed the staging and the performances a lot. The Komische Oper\u0026rsquo;s productions can look a bit kitschy but this was all fairly in line. I can\u0026rsquo;t share anything from the play thanks to an extremely stringent copyright policy, so below is a recording of one of the major songs by the Met.\nAfter having severed my relation with theater, opera is something that is still fun and interesting to me. What is especially interesting about opera is that despite it fielding some of the biggest budget stage productions we have, it allows a lot of space for weird things. That is not just the case for this opéra fantastique but reading the plot of any opera will leave you amazed at how cheesy it is.\nThe fact that opera is so open to even the dumbest of stories and at the same times is a spectacular confluence of the multimedia arts would indicate that it has a grand future. Unfortunately the average age of the attendees indicates that that is not the case yet.\n","date":"October 12, 2015","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/les-contes-dhoffmann/","section":"Posts","summary":"I went to “Les Contes d’Hoffmann” yesterday in one of Berlin’s three operas thanks to this piece in the Guardian. Yes, I have to rely on a British paper for reliable cultural advice about Berlin.\n","title":"Les Contes d'Hoffmann","type":"posts"},{"content":"Last week there was some debate spurred by some of the larger insurers of the Netherlands who want to use tracking data to personalize insurance coverage. A piece in the Reformatorisch Dagblad of all places and Rob Wijnberg talking about it at DWDD.\nThe problem is that insurance by definition is not personalized and we should be protected from each other\u0026rsquo;s best interests. I tweetstormed about it and have recorded it below.\n1/ Recent developments in NL have sparked the debate about the changing role of insurance in an age of personal tracking and big data.\n— Alper Çuğun (@alper) October 5, 2015\n2/ Tempting as it may be for insurers to know more about us, it is in their and our best interests that they do not.\n— Alper Çuğun (@alper) October 5, 2015\n3/ Insurers\u0026rsquo; job from a user perspective is to hedge us for the consequences of the unforeseen.\n— Alper Çuğun (@alper) October 5, 2015\n4/ Data science may claim that it can see the future. Big data actually does not remove the unforeseen for the (n=1) individual case.\n— Alper Çuğun (@alper) October 5, 2015\n5/ Insurers have proposed two general ways they would like to use data: to penalize wrong behavior and to help people improve.\n— Alper Çuğun (@alper) October 5, 2015\n6/ The first of these tasks is better left to the government and the second we are better suited to do ourselves.\n— Alper Çuğun (@alper) October 5, 2015\n7/ We wouldn\u0026rsquo;t want government to track us so they can automatically punish us. Why would we allow a company to do this?\n— Alper Çuğun (@alper) October 5, 2015\n8/ Big data can improve lives by informing research and democratic policy. This would help everybody and also bind insurers.\n— Alper Çuğun (@alper) October 5, 2015\n9/ Conflating government and insurance is not that weird in NL where both are heavily intertwined, but maybe they shouldn\u0026rsquo;t be.\n— Alper Çuğun (@alper) October 5, 2015\nThis is particularly salient from a design perspective if you see the tweets below. What this comes down to is a policy design problem of a vast scale, a level of abstraction up again from service design. People aren\u0026rsquo;t well equipped to make these decisions for themselves and they probably shouldn\u0026rsquo;t have to be. They should be aware of which expertise they are lacking and they should know who they can trust. Creating those two competencies are the two hardest problems of our time.\n@pieninja People\u0026rsquo;s idea of how they behave is often not consistent with how they actually behave. That\u0026rsquo;s one risk.\n— Alper Çuğun (@alper) October 6, 2015\n@pieninja The second risk: people have no idea (and have no idea that they have no idea) of how their behaviour is measured and modelled.\n— Alper Çuğun (@alper) October 6, 2015\n","date":"October 8, 2015","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/insurance-in-the-age-of-big-data-and-personalized-tracking/","section":"Posts","summary":"Last week there was some debate spurred by some of the larger insurers of the Netherlands who want to use tracking data to personalize insurance coverage. A piece in the Reformatorisch Dagblad of all places and Rob Wijnberg talking about it at DWDD.\n","title":"Insurance in the age of big data and personalized tracking","type":"posts"},{"content":" I would have preferred Straight Outta Compton to be a documentary cut together from real footage and narrated by the guys themselves. There is a lot of that available which you can see bits of during the credits of this movie. The biopic is well done but the dramatization does not add much and in many parts the movie devolves into melodrama.\nWhat is amazing is how music executives are universally portrayed as the terrible human beings which they are. This is a recurring theme up until the late movie slithering appearance of Jimmy Iovine. If you read up on the stuff that went down with Ruthless you could even argue that the movie downplays it.\nThe record executives bring the money which in the movie is portrayed as breaking the relationships that make the music. The main characters regularly bail out of collaborations to start from zero because their contracts won\u0026rsquo;t let them retain ownership of their work. Thinking about that and the outrageous claims still made by record companies made me look into the argument for copyright. It turns out that there\u0026rsquo;s only a fairly flimsy justification for a system that controls our lives.\nI would like to see 12 O\u0026rsquo;Clock Boys now. Fuck the police.\n","date":"September 19, 2015","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/straight-outta-compton/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Straight outta ComptonÂ","type":"posts"},{"content":"Talk about this is increasing all around us (see this piece by Cennyd) and I think it\u0026rsquo;s time for me to share some of our recent thinking on the topic as well. We believe that conversational user interfaces will be the way that most people will interact with digital systems from the near future on. That can be chat or voice or something else constrained to offer only specific responses or fully freeform. Natural language processing has improved to a point to make this workable and will continue to improve further.\nChat apps are the sine qua non of mobile devices. They are essential, they are everywhere and many of them are cross-platform. People use chat to connect to people but increasingly chat applications are used to interface with non-humans. Chat apps can offer a flat channel to a digital system or facilitate any and all kinds of persistent bots and application logic to be deployed. A great example is this a16z piece on the wide applications of WeChat in China.\nThe fact that chat apps are cross-platform creates a new smallest common denominator on which you can build applications that are guaranteed to work on all the devices the app runs on. This is a new OS. That people are used to these interactions and normally use them to connect to other people also creates a convenient habituation.\nI argue that the bits of conversational logic deployed through chat can be called applications and do most things that apps do.\nMost apps allow you to retrieve information or to perform an action. This is glued together with some chrome filled with awkward ever-changing (hamburger menu in or out?) architectures. They need to conform to stringent visual design guidelines while looking recognizably the same across lots of different devices.\nInformation retrieval and performing actions can be done via chat as well where an AI/bot counterparty will keep track of your context and give you the right cues at the right time. “Slackbot give me a GIF.”“ Domoticz turn off the light.”\nI am the purveyor of a small app to find good coffee called Cuppings. There is no reason why that same experience could not be delivered through a chat interface. No reason in fact why it could not be delivered better through a chat interface.\nAdd to that that making good apps is becoming an increasingly difficult endeavour because of device proliferation (mainly on Android), API bloat (on all platforms) and increasingly high visual and interaction design standards. Increasingly making a pixel perfect app that feels nice and works well is something that only larger companies can afford.\nMost of the effort we spend right now into user interfaces could be moot if the experience would be delivered through a chat interface. That every app has a different UI and information architecture and that it has to be learned anew is a huge impediment to its adoption. We have recently built several chat based apps \u0026amp; games inspired partially by Lark. During testing we found that users don\u0026rsquo;t need to be explained anything because they are so familiar with the paradigm.\nChat is here to stay and I\u0026rsquo;m incredibly excited to see how far we can push this new medium.\n","date":"September 17, 2015","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/chat-as-an-important-new-platform-for-user-experience/","section":"Posts","summary":"Talk about this is increasing all around us (see this piece by Cennyd) and I think it’s time for me to share some of our recent thinking on the topic as well. We believe that conversational user interfaces will be the way that most people will interact with digital systems from the near future on. That can be chat or voice or something else constrained to offer only specific responses or fully freeform. Natural language processing has improved to a point to make this workable and will continue to improve further.\n","title":"Chat as an important new platform for user experience","type":"posts"},{"content":"The great Peter and Michelle have written a book called “Understanding the Connected Home” based on current developments around the topic and both of their professional interests.\nI talked about the topic with Peter a bit and thought it to be a natural extension of his work in the connected devices spaces and their recent visit to Casa Jasmina in Torino.\nI hope to get around to reading it soon since right now I have no desire or opportunity to live in a connected home. The housing stock in Berlin is old and does not lend itself well to connectivity. Our current house has a central water heater but even then most faucets are heated locally using electricity. Internet connectivity (let alone Fiber to the Home) is hard to find in many houses and you can count yourself lucky if you can get a Kabel Deutschland connection.\nI think I would like to take the best of what these technologies can bring but they probably only make sense if you innovate in the other layers of a house as well as in what is built and the way it is built.\nIf you look at the six Ss, connectivity consists of things at the manufactured level of Stuff (cheap consumer grade electronics from China). It latches onto the Space Plan and I would guess it has considerable effects on that and would benefit from changes in that plan. More problematically it pierces these layers and as such deteriorates the structural integrity of the house further. Connected things need to either interface with the Services layer or call for new Services to be deployed throughout the house. These move from the inside out but also from the outside —Skin layer— in when it comes to things like solar power and geothermal connectivity.\nIt seems an interesting though complicated time to be an architect. The API and expectation surface of a house is exploding while the margins and expertise of your average architecture practice leave a lot to be desired.\nWhat would then seem obvious is that we need systematic and generative ways of creating our dwellings in which the inhabitants of a house are participants as much as the traditional experts are. It seems like connected homes will make more sense and sense made of them when you consider the movements of self-built buildings and open source dwellings.\n","date":"September 17, 2015","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/understanding-the-connected-home/","section":"Posts","summary":"The great Peter and Michelle have written a book called “Understanding the Connected Home” based on current developments around the topic and both of their professional interests.\n","title":"Understanding the Connected Home","type":"posts"},{"content":" Yesterday I saw the documentary on the Nakagin Capsule Tower by Rima Yamazaki as part of the DOKU.ARTS festival here in Berlin. I wasn\u0026rsquo;t aware of this landmark during my last visit to Tokyo though I must have passed close by while cycling through the city. I\u0026rsquo;ll make a point to see it when next I visit if it still stands because that is exactly the topic of the documentary.\nThe tower is a prime example of Metabolist architecture by Kisho Kurokawa. Metabolism is a hard to define but influential strand of architecture that is described in the documentary as an architecture without timelag. It turns out that the tower by now, though charming with its tiny rooms, is outdated and unmaintainable. Most of the owners want to tear it down and have something new built there that makes more economic sense. Among architects and historians there are voices for preserving it as a monument to an important movement in Japanese architecture and other who think it could indeed be torn down.\nThe main reason why I wanted to see this movie is because next week I\u0026rsquo;m moving into a building in Berlin designed by a metabolist architect Arata Isozaki. He appears in the movie as a member of the metabolist movement and as an proponent of conservation. I found his reasoning to be somewhat incoherent and overly sentimental. I\u0026rsquo;m not sure what that means for the building I will be living in but we\u0026rsquo;ll see. I\u0026rsquo;ve only been there once, but I absolutely love the building pictured above. Time will tell whether that is justified.\nAnother architect Toyo Ito who expressed a disillusionment with metabolism was in favor of tearing it down. His reasoning is that buildings just like people are finite and that if they have fulfilled their purpose they should be allowed to disappear to be replaced by something new. This is a way of thinking about architecture that is mostly alien if you live in Europe but that I find to be extremely refreshing. I think our local hangups on history and current efforts to construct buildings in a historicized fashion are morbid but this is the way we do things in Europe.\nAll along during the documentary I had to think about some William Gibson I read about Tokyo but which I cannot find right now. So instead I\u0026rsquo;ll post this from My Own Private Tokyo that I came across.\nThe Japanese, you see, have been repeatedly drop-kicked, ever further down the timeline, by serial national traumata of quite unthinkable weirdness, by 150 years of deep, almost constant, change. The 20th century, for Japan, was like a ride on a rocket sled, with successive bundles of fuel igniting spontaneously, one after another.\n","date":"September 16, 2015","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/nakagin-capsule-tower/","section":"Posts","summary":" Yesterday I saw the documentary on the Nakagin Capsule Tower by Rima Yamazaki as part of the DOKU.ARTS festival here in Berlin. I wasn’t aware of this landmark during my last visit to Tokyo though I must have passed close by while cycling through the city. I’ll make a point to see it when next I visit if it still stands because that is exactly the topic of the documentary.\n","title":"Nakagin Capsule Tower","type":"posts"},{"content":"Last week we finally got featured with Bycatch on Boingboing and Fast Company thanks to our invitation to the XOXO festival. It is amazing to see what that attention does and what kind of effect that has on sales.\nThe drone warfare game where you spy on players with your smartphone http://t.co/gZXUbQt0By @offworld pic.twitter.com/QO1MeUwOrx\n— Games for Change (@G4C) August 22, 2015\nNow that we have finally arrived in the English speaking world we can relax a bit and keep pushing out the marketing we had planned all along. I would be curious to see whether something similar happens at some point for Japanese and Chinese speaking online communities.\n","date":"August 25, 2015","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/breaking-into-the-english-speaking-world/","section":"Posts","summary":"Last week we finally got featured with Bycatch on Boingboing and Fast Company thanks to our invitation to the XOXO festival. It is amazing to see what that attention does and what kind of effect that has on sales.\n","title":"Breaking into the English speaking world","type":"posts"},{"content":"This is turning into a traffic blog more than anything else. After taking stock of the plans for the new Maaßenstraße which is very slowly nearing completion, now let\u0026rsquo;s take a look at another place close to my heart: Moritzplatz. The square is right underneath my office and as such I cross it several times daily both on foot and by bike.\nA couple of weeks ago week an accident took place there where a cyclist was touched by a car. No big deal in his case, but it could have been worse considering the way motorists behave here. I have to pay close attention every time I cross this roundabout otherwise this could happen to me as well.\nRedesign # Two weeks ago they started marking what is to be the revamped Moritzplatz. I had my hopes up that it would be a serious improvement but judging from the plans it is mostly going to be a new paint job.\nThe paint job will separate the bicycle lane with stripes from the car lane narrowing the space the cars get and widening the space the bicycles get. The cycle lane itself will be painted bright red. Cycling on the new markings and adhering to the new situation is a bit weird but it does feel like it\u0026rsquo;s going to be an improvement. It is however not going to fix the most important problem with the square 1.\nThe new situation for cyclists # Cyclists get their lane doubled in width and protected by markings. Whether that protection will mean anything in reality remains to be seen. Cars in Berlin will drive anywhere they please. What is a bigger problem on this roundabout and what will remain so in the new situation is that it is unclear who has precedence on the points where cyclists and cars have to cross each other. The angle with which the two cross has also remained the same so you really have to pay attention not to hit a cyclist and not to get hit by a car. A real solution would have been to mark the roundabout with Sharks\u0026rsquo; teeth and maybe even to elevate the cycle path. That way cars entering and leaving the roundabout notice that they do so physically. Physical separations on the road make the power dynamic a little less unbalanced like you can see in this example from California. They are of course also expensive. There are roundabouts in the Netherlands that are laid out this defensively even though that usually is not necessary. The new situation for pedestrians # Pedestrians around Moritzplatz have really been shafted and they are getting a tiny improvement in the new situation. For a pedestrian there is no safe way to cross the square. The underground crossing through the U-Bahn station does not count. Going down and up stairs 2 isn\u0026rsquo;t an option for disabled people and it\u0026rsquo;s too much effort for most people in general. Traffic should be safe for its weakest participants so that it benefits everybody. Let\u0026rsquo;s take a look at the various options to cross Moritzplatz. Keep in mind that you will often have to cross at least one arm of the roundabout to get anywhere. West - There is no way to cross the road here except for the traffic light at Stallschreiberstraße. This traffic light feels broken for pedestrians because during rush hour it gives you about 12 seconds to make the crossing. Almost nobody makes it across during the green phase and everybody knows that the red phase takes forever so people also cross when it\u0026rsquo;s already red 3. The traffic light is not an option for crossing Moritzplatz since it is 50m away. That is too far. North - On this side there is an island in the road where pedestrians are relatively safe so at least they don\u0026rsquo;t have to make the entire crossing in one go. It is still unsafe because there isn\u0026rsquo;t a zebra crossing but it\u0026rsquo;s better than nothing. East - There is no way to cross here except for the pedestrian crossing 50m down Oranienstraße. South - A new pedestrian island is planned here. Unfortunately it is 15m off the main arm but that is better than 50m. Just like at the other islands, there won\u0026rsquo;t be a zebra crossing there which makes any pedestrian trying to cross still a potential victim. It doesn\u0026rsquo;t matter if there is no way to cross the road, people still do of course. Even if you pay attention and cross the road when there is no traffic, incoming cars expect to be able to push you off the road 4. At which point you are forced to run across or be killed.\nThe main flaw here is that people shouldn\u0026rsquo;t be forced to walk ten or fifty meters more to make things more convenient for motorized traffic. People are more important than cars.\nUpdate: The work is nearing completion and actually the new markings do not seem to make that much of a difference except to cause everybody on the square to be fairly stressed out.\nI guess this adequately describes all of us.\n@alper I admit that I am in despair over the cycling policy that I rejoice in this silly markings.\n— Fabian Hickethier (@bar_m) August 26, 2015\nThankfully it\u0026rsquo;s not going to be botched as badly as the redesigned Kottbusser Tor roundabout.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nMoritzplatz does not have an elevator for some strange reason.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nGerman pedestrian lights don\u0026rsquo;t have a blinking green phase in between green and red.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nI actually cannot comprehend how this is acceptable behaviour and why these people are allowed on the road at all.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"August 14, 2015","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/the-redesign-of-moritzplatz-roundabout/","section":"Posts","summary":"This is turning into a traffic blog more than anything else. After taking stock of the plans for the new Maaßenstraße which is very slowly nearing completion, now let’s take a look at another place close to my heart: Moritzplatz. The square is right underneath my office and as such I cross it several times daily both on foot and by bike.\n","title":"The redesign of Moritzplatz roundabout","type":"posts"},{"content":"A couple of weeks ago already, James Bridle opened his first solo show The Glomar Response at NOME gallery here in Berlin. The opening was attended by more or less everybody I got to know when I first got to Berlin, a reunion of sorts.\nThe exhibition is a collection of recent work and is still exhibited there for this entire month. James is one of the few artists who creates thoughtful work from the conflation of state power and information technology. His work is only made stronger by the writing that underpins it which is all worth reading and listed neatly over on booktwo.\n","date":"August 13, 2015","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/the-glomar-response/","section":"Posts","summary":"A couple of weeks ago already, James Bridle opened his first solo show The Glomar Response at NOME gallery here in Berlin. The opening was attended by more or less everybody I got to know when I first got to Berlin, a reunion of sorts.\n","title":"The Glomar Response","type":"posts"},{"content":"This was my situation for most of last week watching The International main event take place thanks to the time difference.\nThe event this year was bigger and better than ever before both in its organization and in the level of play that was displayed.\n","date":"August 12, 2015","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/the-international-2015/","section":"Posts","summary":"This was my situation for most of last week watching The International main event take place thanks to the time difference.\n","title":"The International 2015","type":"posts"},{"content":"Berlin is rebuilding the Maaßenstraße into the first Begegnungszone (‘Encounter Zone’) of its kind in the city. Works are underway now after a public consultation was finished last year or the year before. I looked around a bit but I couldn\u0026rsquo;t find the plans for what they are actually building there. A quick e-mail to the senate solved that problem and I got a PDF of the plan.\nThe most important bit of that plan is the layout of the new street which is dramatically different from what we have right now. Maaßenstraße is a street in Berlin saturated with cafes and restaurants where people from far West Berlin will go to go out on weekend nights. It also touches on Motzstraße which is a popular gay going out area and there are tons more bars and restaurants littered about. On Saturdays the market on Winterfeldtplatz is brimful of people and blocks most of the traffic on the South side.\nThe quantity of establishment is deceiving since the gastronomy on Maaßenstraße is of such a low quality that I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t regularly visit any of the places there except the two Turkish kebab places Hasir and the Keb\u0026rsquo;up House (for the late night döner box).\nTraffic wise there used to be bike paths on the pavement but because of the heavy use by pedestrians and the fact that the bike path was level with the walking area, these caused dangerous situations. The road itself wasn\u0026rsquo;t a great alternative as it was used mostly for parking, double parking and the ostentatious display of muscle cars at night. All in all the usage of the street was thoroughly out of whack with how space was distributed between the various groups.\nThe new plan removes parking altogether which may or may not work depending on the enforcement level. Cars can park anywhere they want in Berlin and receive a fine that is so low nobody really cares about it. Cycling and driving are integrated on the remaining piece of road that is a lot more narrow than it was and lots of space is allotted to pedestrians walking and hanging out on the street. I have no idea what that is going to do to the noise levels in the street but I don\u0026rsquo;t live on a popular party street for a reason.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve annotated what I think is noteworthy about the plan below (in a 13MB image file, click for big). All in all the plan looks solid and is bolder than I could have hoped for. It remains to be seen how it will be received by drivers and whether the police enforces the zones that are on there with vigour.\n","date":"May 28, 2015","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/encounter-zone-maasenstrase/","section":"Posts","summary":"Berlin is rebuilding the Maaßenstraße into the first Begegnungszone (‘Encounter Zone’) of its kind in the city. Works are underway now after a public consultation was finished last year or the year before. I looked around a bit but I couldn’t find the plans for what they are actually building there. A quick e-mail to the senate solved that problem and I got a PDF of the plan.\n","title":"Encounter Zone Maaßenstraße","type":"posts"},{"content":"With some trepidation did I read Evgeny Morozov\u0026rsquo;s latest piece “The Taming of Tech Criticism” but thankfully the firebrand has matured and this piece is both readable and relevant.\nA critical or oppositional attitude toward Silicon Valley is no guarantee of the critic’s progressive agenda; modern technology criticism, going back to its roots in Germany at the turn of the twentieth century, has often embraced conservative causes.\nIt treats something that I had been struggling with over the past week after the umpteenth debate here about Silicon Valley and venture funded technology. I share the qualms of my friends but at the same time I hink that criticisms of startup culture are deeply reactionary. Whatever argument you make against them is going to be boring, non-productive and unsuccessful. Morozov signals a similar trend that technology criticism which is startup criticism by another name is conservative and futile.\n“By offering to reduce the amount of work we have to do, by promising to imbue our lives with greater ease, comfort, and convenience, computers and other labor-saving technologies appeal to our eager but misguided desire for release from what we perceive as toil,”notes Carr in an unashamedly elitist tone.\nThe fact that Nicholas Carr is patronizing, elitist, stupid and wrong is nothing new but it is good to read it exposed clearly. What does this say about people who still read Carr?\nIn fact, what distinguishes radical critics from their faux-radical counterparts is the lens they use for understanding Silicon Valley: the former group sees such firms as economic actors and situates them in the historical and economic context, while the latter sees them as a cultural force, an aggregation of bad ideas about society and politics.\nWhat it comes down to and what Morozov considers to be a radical—I\u0026rsquo;m sure this is radical in America—is that we need better things as well as better ways to pay for them. That is something that should still be eminently feasible in the parts of Europe that have not fallen prey to neoliberalism.\nBy the end I found out that all of Morozov\u0026rsquo;s writing—much of it mistaken by his own admission—was so difficult because he hadn\u0026rsquo;t come around to the speculative turn yet. With this piece it sounds as if he might have, though his omission of sources makes it hard to tell.\nBy slicing the world into two distinct spheres—the technological and the non-technological—it quickly regresses into the worst kind of solipsistic idealism, paying far more attention to drummed-up, theoretical ideas about technology than to real struggles in the here and now.\nEven a cursory reading of Bruno Latour and friends would have told you long ago that divisions between technology and non-technology—society and nature— are a lie (“We Have Never Been Modern”), that there is no technology per se (actor-network theory), and that you cannot take short-cuts when talking about anything (object-realism).\nIn fact, the very edifice of contemporary technology criticism rests on the critic’s reluctance to acknowledge that every gadget or app is simply the end point of a much broader matrix of social, cultural, and economic relations.\nThis is actor-network theory if ever I read it.\nThe rallying cry of the technology critic—and I confess to shouting it more than once—is: “If only consumers and companies knew better!”\nIt is my conviction as a designer that consumers and companies usually do know better. They are as well informed as they can be for the things they value and they take the best possible decisions considering their personal value functions. Claims to the contrary gloss over realities that these actors are faced with and more than anything else stem from a patronizing difference of opinion.\n","date":"March 31, 2015","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/evgeny-morozov-discovers-actor-network-theory/","section":"Posts","summary":"With some trepidation did I read Evgeny Morozov’s latest piece “The Taming of Tech Criticism” but thankfully the firebrand has matured and this piece is both readable and relevant.\n","title":"Evgeny Morozov discovers actor-network theory","type":"posts"},{"content":" I heard about the session of the traffic commission of Berlin-Neukölln through the great Urbanist Magazine who wrote that cities get the bike paths they deserve and that being present at political sessions is a prerequisite to change things.\nSo I made my way over to Rathaus Neukölln during rush hour yesterday to listen in on the session. Even though these things are deadly boring, they are at the same time extremely revealing of the workings and attitudes of our governments and just for that fact worthwhile to occasionally visit. At the same time I think it is a civic duty to attend these sessions for the things that you are interested in. If you don\u0026rsquo;t, others will.\nThe website Berlin.de lists the proceedings of the session but it is unfortunately totally unusable on a mobile device (see the screenshot above) so I went by ear and noted what I could understand of the proceedings. The meeting protocol was I may add a bit chaotic and unclear. Part of it may be because I was ten minutes late (thank BVG) but I would expect local political sessions to at least have signs to show who\u0026rsquo;s who (like they do in Amsterdam).\nPoints two to five of the agenda were about improvements for cycling in Neukölln and after some debate all of these points were summarily rejected by the SPD/CDU who have a majority in this part of the city and I gather also chair the commission. For some proposals the chairs took offence and for the others they declared that what was proposed would be of no use. During the vote for each of these points they were rejected.\nThe debate about point 3 was especially illuminating.\nPoint 3 was a proposal to research how to keep the bike path on Karl-Marx-Straße free of parked cars. The chair of the committee said that this problem simply cannot be solved. The representative of the police said that they don\u0026rsquo;t have the capacity to enforce the law when it comes to this matter and that doing so would jeopardize their ability to stop violent crime 1. Somebody present requested that these people be fined to which the chair replied that that wouldn\u0026rsquo;t help either because people don\u0026rsquo;t care about the fines.\nThe chair cited examples to the contrary from around Schloßstraße and Savignyplatz. These don\u0026rsquo;t really seem relevant to me. Fines for parking on a bike lane are nearly trivial 2 but not so trivial that they wouldn\u0026rsquo;t be felt in Neukölln at all.\nA couple of people attending protested 3 and said that this was a selective application of the law meant to fuck cyclists. These people were not taken seriously at all by the committee.\nIt seems that the governing parties in Berlin reject any proposal submitted by the opposition. An opposition who I may add do not seem to be the sharpest knives. Some of the proposed solutions were not realistic in the slightest. One example: replacing the DHL trucks with cargo bikes is batshit crazy. To add to that: DHL trucks parking on the bike lanes are not the biggest problem at all and something that can be solved fairly easily.\nI went to this meeting to see why cycling in Berlin is so bad as it is and most of what I thought was confirmed. Berlin does not take cyclists seriously and the governing bodies are populated by people who say they care but who really don\u0026rsquo;t give a shit.\nThey were checking cyclists for lights at the very same moment on Kottbusser Damm.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nThey are a couple of dozen euros where of course they should be closer to €100.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nI got in late and I wasn\u0026rsquo;t clear whether spectators were allowed to say anything at all during these kind of meetings.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"March 26, 2015","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/session-of-the-traffic-commission-of-the-berlin-borough-of-neukolln/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Session of the traffic commission of the Berlin borough of Neukölln","type":"posts"},{"content":"Matt Jones: Jumping to the End \u0026ndash; Practical Design Fiction from Interaction Design Association on Vimeo.\nMatt Jones gives an overview of the kind of work he used to do at BERG and then talks about the process of his creative work at Google. It\u0026rsquo;s refreshing to see that practice is shifting towards media that is readily consumable and deliverables that actually do something.\n","date":"March 18, 2015","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/jumping-to-the-end-by-matt-jones/","section":"Posts","summary":"Matt Jones: Jumping to the End – Practical Design Fiction from Interaction Design Association on Vimeo.\n","title":"Jumping to the end by Matt Jones","type":"posts"},{"content":"This is the best photo ever taken of Terry Pratchett, and indeed one of the best photos ever taken of anybody pic.twitter.com/p1JCQtfX05\n— Mitch Edgeworth (@mitchedgeworth) March 12, 2015\nThough I didn\u0026rsquo;t read him for very long, Terry Pratchett\u0026rsquo;s books in the local library translated to Dutch were my introduction to both fantasy and a certain kind of critical way of looking at the world. Only now I\u0026rsquo;m finding out how many other people were deeply influenced by Pratchett. I\u0026rsquo;m also glad to see how a literary establishment that had studiously ignored him and all genre fiction for all that time now has no other choice but to admit that they were wrong.\n","date":"March 13, 2015","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/terry-pratchett/","section":"Posts","summary":"This is the best photo ever taken of Terry Pratchett, and indeed one of the best photos ever taken of anybody pic.twitter.com/p1JCQtfX05\n","title":"Terry Pratchett","type":"posts"},{"content":" Yesterday I attended the weekly Dota2 night at Meltdown esports bar for the first time. I\u0026rsquo;m looking for people who I can play with regularly because going out into solo queue is becoming a bit tedious and unpredictable. There is a small crowd of people there who play 5v5\u0026rsquo;s in a private lobby against the Meltdown London cafe. It\u0026rsquo;s a lot of shouting and mostly fun.\nWhat strikes me when I go to these get togethers is that however different the people are, there is a shared culture because everybody reads /r/dota2 and watches the same streams and tournaments. It is fairly homogenized everywhere with the exception of China which is insular with its own client, servers and a slew of native language media.\nI was also happy to see that the gender balance wasn\u0026rsquo;t as one-sided as I had feared. There\u0026rsquo;s still a long way to go but what I saw at the bar makes me optimistic.\n","date":"February 23, 2015","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/dota-night-at-meltdown-esports-bar/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"DOTA night at Meltdown Esports Bar","type":"posts"},{"content":" So it turns out that 3G over Blau in Berlin is good enough to watch a Twitch stream of the DAC finals between Evil Geniuses and Vici Gaming and allowed me to watch the amazing Storm Spirit performance by SumaiL in the last match.\nThe finals started at around 8AM (China Standard Time) and unfortunately were a clean sweep for EG so they were over pretty quickly. Most impressive was the fact that SumaiL, a fifteen year old kid from Pakistan, stole the show. Watch a summary below.\n","date":"February 15, 2015","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/esports-spectating-in-the-u-bahn/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Esports spectating in the U-Bahn","type":"posts"},{"content":" A couple of weeks ago I was invited to attend a NVIDIA sponsored Counter Strike: Global Offensive tournament in association with 99 damage at the Berlin Game Science Center.\nCS:GO is an amazing team based sport where five terrorists try to set and explode a bomb on a bomb site (you can see sites A and B marked on the maps) while counter-terrorists try to prevent the bomb placement or defuse it. Players need to have a combination of mechanical aim/shoot skills combined with tactical insight at an incredibly high tempo. The difference between life or death in any of these games rests in a fraction of a second combined with an awareness of what is happening around the entire map. Esports are sports that are just as demanding mentally and physically as any other.\nYou don\u0026rsquo;t have to watch the entire video of the Dreamhack finale below but it can\u0026rsquo;t hurt to watch a couple of matches with the commentary (The walls are transparent for spectators. They aren\u0026rsquo;t for players.): The culture around this particular game is its own and somewhat different from people who for instance play SC2 or MOBAs. Attending this tournament was a lot of fun and I got to see some high level play as well as a demonstration of case modding by a company with its own branded energy drink.\n","date":"February 15, 2015","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/counter-strike-global-offensive/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Counter Strike: Global Offensive","type":"posts"},{"content":" This week I got to play the board game Panamax at a game night here in Berlin. Though it is slightly complicated I was struck by how good an adaptation of container shipping this game is.\nThe game is about getting contracts to move your cargo from one side of the canal to the other using either your own ships or the ships of other companies. The core mechanic of the game is the fact that canal locks can only contain 4 units of ships and if there is a ship behind you that won\u0026rsquo;t fit, it will push you out when it moves. This will cost the pushing ship a movement action but it will not cost the ship that is being pushed.\nAn interesting element in the game is that you as a player have private money and you are managing a shipping company with money of its own. The shipping company uses its money as working capital to perform actions. As a player you start out with one share in your own company and you can use your private money to buy shares in companies including your own.\nThe cost of a share is paid to the company in effect raising capital and the price of the stock is increased by one. At the end of each turn a company pays out dividends to all players who own a share in it if it can pay out to all of them. If the company does not have enough money to pay out dividends, nobody gets anything and the company share price drops by two. Shares are liquidated at the end of the game at their current vue to add to the capital of players (which are victory points).\nThis way of interweaving player interests with each other is incredibly interesting and has been executed really elegantly compared to the complexity it adds to the gameplay. Besides combining destinies using the shares, you can also load your cargo on somebody else\u0026rsquo;s ship. This way figuring out which actions benefit whom exactly quickly becomes intractable.\nWhat\u0026rsquo;s also funny is that cargo that is stuck in the canal incurs costs at the end of each turn. If a company cannot pay all of these costs from its own capital, it will get it from the player managing it. This means that companies are not limited liability or that managing directors are fined for mismanagement both of which are interesting.\nAll in all Panamax is a very successful eurogame that actually fits fairly nicely with its theme. At each step it feels like you are taking important decisions for the company you manage.\n","date":"February 8, 2015","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/panamax/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Panamax","type":"posts"},{"content":" I watched Winter Sleep in the train back to Berlin and Ceylan is indulging himself with his movies becoming ever longer. Winter Sleep clocks in at three hours and fifteen minutes so by the time it was over I found myself well past Hannover.\nThe movie is about freedom—the bit with the horse and the guy on the motorcycle sort of gave it away—and in particularly the fact that however much apparent physical freedom people may have, they will not take advantage of it because their effective freedom is the product of complex social negotiation. At some point people become trapped both within themselves and by each other.\nThe script is based on writing by Chekhov which is apparent in the self-contained rustic scenes interspersed by the conversations of a family with deep seated issues. Maybe it\u0026rsquo;s just geographical proximity but Russian writers seem to be more accessible and prevalent in Turkey than I\u0026rsquo;ve found them to be in the Netherlands.\nTo close off the key scene with Ismail translated (mild spoilers):\nLet\u0026rsquo;s see if we made a correct calculation.\nIf this much were for little Ilyas who put his life on the line to restore his father\u0026rsquo;s hurt pride.\nIf this much were for the self-sacrificing brother Hamdi forced to go kiss somebody\u0026rsquo;s hand by himself to restore his reputation.\nIf this much were for the drunk father Ismail who took a beating in front of his son disgracing himself and his family.\nThere would be a bit left.\nAnd if that were for the heroic Ms. Nihal who by giving alms to people more unfortunate than herself tries to ease her conscience.\nThis would be exactly the right amount of money.\n","date":"January 23, 2015","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/kis-uykusu-winter-sleep-by-nuri-bilge-ceylan/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"KıÅŸ Uykusu (Winter Sleep) by Nuri Bilge Ceylan","type":"posts"},{"content":" In my newly rekindled love for movies, this weekend I finally watched Caché 1. As expected the movie is excellent and I should watch more movies by Haneke. It plays out like a reverse and more refined version of the Dinner.\nI was however stupefied to learn about the Paris massacre of 1961 from this movie. The French culture we learned in school did not really touch on colonial history instead focusing on the more touristic aspects.\nThis leads me to believe that Dutch kids are the happiest in the world (a widely cited statistic) because in school they don\u0026rsquo;t learn how fucked up the world was and is. It is however a very Dutch thing to be proud of being oblivious.\nI seem to be the only person I know who watches a lot of French movies.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"January 20, 2015","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/cache-and-french-history/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Caché and French history","type":"posts"},{"content":" I rewatched Once Upon a Time in Anatolia last week with my parents and it was even better than the first time. I usually think that movies shouldn\u0026rsquo;t be longer than two hours but here even a second viewing did not bore.\nWhat I learned is that it at one point the convoy moves out of the Kırıkkale area into the administrative part of Turkey that we are from (map).\nThe idle chit-chat of the people in the cars is still funny but now it was easier to keep track of the interleaving stories. Pared down they rend flesh. Arap\u0026rsquo;s story about why you need a gun or the piecewise telling of a woman\u0026rsquo;s suicide are incredible. The point where Clark Gable swallows his words being one extreme example.\nMy memory had exaggerated the appearance of the angel halfway through the movie. It is still a key moment but not as magically-realistic as I had remembered.\nThe movie as a whole is about the utter insignificance of human action on all levels. Or as the poet 1 said: ‘years again will pass and I will leave no trace // darkness and cold will encompass my weary soul’.\nI am immensely looking forward to seeing his next movie Kış Uykusu which is playing in cinemas right now. And I am still eagerly awaiting Nuri Bilge Ceylan to make a movie adaptation of one of Pamuk\u0026rsquo;s big books (The Black Book or Snow).\nI am told that the poet is Mikhail Lermontov but I haven\u0026rsquo;t been able to find an English version of the poem.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"January 19, 2015","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/once-upon-a-time-in-anatolia/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Once Upon a Time in Anatolia","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;m really into the series Da Vinci\u0026rsquo;s Demons right now (thanks to Kevin Slavin) which is a light hearted affair for the off season when there\u0026rsquo;s no Game of Thrones, True Detective or Sherlock.\nThe trailer for the first season is kinda messed up, try the one for season two otherwise.\nI had been clamoring for Game of Thrones inspired historical fiction for a while now. There are lots of dark nooks of history which with a decent treatment could excite large audiences. So many topics to choose from but how about an epic series on Khublai Khan or about Charlemagne?\nWith Da Vinci\u0026rsquo;s Demons this is becoming reality at least for Leonardo da Vinci\u0026rsquo;s life in Florence. This Italian city and the papal intrigue of its time proves to be a great backdrop for an occult story set around this artist/engineer/inventor. The drawn overlays are a bit reminiscent of Sherlock and the premise of Da Vinci creating outrageous contraptions in no time at all is a lot like MacGyver 1. Its anachronistic depiction and juiciness are like Game of Thrones though people in da Vinci\u0026rsquo;s world seem even more cruel. In its depiction of a young incarnation of a well-known figure it even reminds me of Young Indiana Jones. Maybe there\u0026rsquo;s even a bit of Dan Brown in there but I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t know because I don\u0026rsquo;t touch that crap.\nAs a series it may be too trivial to function as a social status signifier 2, but even its pulpiness has found its bearings after the first couple of episodes. The initially more evil characters are rounding out nicely with depth and conflicting interests of their own.\nI was happily surprised to see that it has been renewed. After eight episodes in the first season there are at least two more seasons awaiting. Just by watching it I want to read more about Leonardo Da Vinci\u0026rsquo;s life and go to Florence. History education has never been as fun and if this isn\u0026rsquo;t the education, it\u0026rsquo;s a great gateway drug.\n(All art from the show\u0026rsquo;s brilliant accompanying tumblr.)\nI must have seen every episode of MacGyver a couple of times.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nWhich is I believe an important function of the diversion of cultural attention to series and podcasts currently among a certain group people. I opt out by NOT watching House of Cards or Mad Men but instead watching Generation Kill and Deadwood.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"January 14, 2015","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/give-da-vincis-demons-a-shot/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’m really into the series Da Vinci’s Demons right now (thanks to Kevin Slavin) which is a light hearted affair for the off season when there’s no Game of Thrones, True Detective or Sherlock.\n","title":"Give Da Vinci's Demons a shot","type":"posts"},{"content":"Mirror\u0026rsquo;s Edge looks great but the tutorial was really difficult and frustrating already. Not sure this is the best interface for a parkour game.\nA photo posted by Alper Cugun (@alper) on Dec 12, 2014 at 10:47am PST\nNot so much a game as it is a parkour simulator with some combat thrown in. It is absurdly difficult which isn\u0026rsquo;t even the problem. The real problem is that every time you restart it takes too long and puts you in a place where you have to replay large segments of the game. This may be fun for some but not for me.\nI\u0026rsquo;m also not convinced that it is useful to have a parkour simulator where you don\u0026rsquo;t see where your feet are and as such cannot time your jump really. There are better parkour games out there (Assassin\u0026rsquo;s Creed II comes to mind).\nThe aesthetics of the game are special and that is more or less the only reason I was told to play this game.\n","date":"January 8, 2015","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/console-gaming-after-the-fact-mirrors-edge/","section":"Posts","summary":"Mirror’s Edge looks great but the tutorial was really difficult and frustrating already. Not sure this is the best interface for a parkour game.\n","title":"Console gaming after the fact: Mirror's Edge","type":"posts"},{"content":"Modern Warfare 2, I\u0026rsquo;m in a deep cover mission with a Russian terrorist and anytime I kill a civilian I have to restart. Whenever I die the game gives me quotes by Cheney and Gandhi.\nA photo posted by Alper Cugun (@alper) on Dec 12, 2014 at 12:29pm PST\nCall of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is an extremely questionable game catering to the war fantasies of American hawks. I played the fully German version and having to make sense of a war scene where people are shouting stuff at you in German only adds to the weirdness.\nEvery time you die also you get quotes about war and peace by such notables as Cheney, Rumsfeld and Gandhi. I have no idea what the people who made this game were even thinking.\nIn the German (and Japanese) version also the “No Russian”mission is weird. You\u0026rsquo;re in a terrorist group that is massacring a Russian airport but any time you hurt a civilian the mission restarts. It turns out that this is something region specific.\nFor the rest it\u0026rsquo;s just a bunch of shooting around the world with a questionable (and increasingly incoherent) neo-terrorist plot straight from a Steven Seagal movie.\n","date":"January 8, 2015","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/console-gaming-after-the-fact-call-of-duty-modern-warfare-2/","section":"Posts","summary":"Modern Warfare 2, I’m in a deep cover mission with a Russian terrorist and anytime I kill a civilian I have to restart. Whenever I die the game gives me quotes by Cheney and Gandhi.\n","title":"Console gaming after the fact: Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2","type":"posts"},{"content":"This is just a lovely experience. A small, beautiful, near perfect game with graphics that have held up excellently over time. Are there more games like this? If not there should be. This has such a broad appeal and playability.\nJourney which is an absolutely lovely game\nA photo posted by Alper Cugun (@alper) on Dec 12, 2014 at 11:29am PST\nSome of the transitions are among the most beautiful things I\u0026rsquo;ve seen in gaming. The sunset sand surf through the mountain in shimmering gold (video on YouTube) stands out but most of it is excellent.\nWhat comes to mind with regards to aesthetics and also breaking out of the ‘gamer’ confines is this year\u0026rsquo;s hit Monument Valley but we could use a lot more.\n","date":"December 30, 2014","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/console-gaming-after-the-fact-journey/","section":"Posts","summary":"This is just a lovely experience. A small, beautiful, near perfect game with graphics that have held up excellently over time. Are there more games like this? If not there should be. This has such a broad appeal and playability.\n","title":"Console gaming after the fact: Journey","type":"posts"},{"content":"I have found myself in the custody of a Playstation 3 console and have borrowed a couple dozen games to play over the holidays. This came to be after I mentioned to my local game design support group that I hadn\u0026rsquo;t played anything on a console for over ten years and that I was quite happy with that state of being. They thought that this was unacceptable.\nTheir reasoning was: 1. That consoles get the best games these days. (I\u0026rsquo;m not so sure about that.) 2. That I should have played some of these games to have an idea what I\u0026rsquo;m talking about or against. (Fair enough.)\nGaming rig for Christmas\nA photo posted by Alper Cugun (@alper) on Dec 12, 2014 at 2:35pm PST\nThe big screen is back home because we have emptied our office in Berlin and are awaiting the new one. The biggest impediment to me getting a console in fact was the fact that we didn\u0026rsquo;t have any screens at home and buying a console would mean having to get a tv/projector as well.\nAnd Markus Kaikkonen agreed to hook me up with his old Playstation 3 since he had just gotten a PS4 and was going to play some stuff on that over the holidays anyway. Many thanks to Markus for that and I do agree that it can\u0026rsquo;t hurt to play a bunch of these games but now that I have nearly two dozen of them (thanks also Peter Bihr and Simon Cubasch) to go through it does feel a bit like work. I will post my findings here.\nSomme preliminary stuff that isn\u0026rsquo;t very game specific:\nConsole games are a huge deal. This may seem obvious but I hadn\u0026rsquo;t fully realized it before. I think it is fair to say that most males below the age of 40 own a console, owned one or have wanted to own one in the past decade. Being a contender in the console wars and releasing AAA games have huge entry costs but they also carry with them the potential for gigantic upsides.\nI had noted the fact that there weren\u0026rsquo;t any good action franchises anymore. The only stuff we get are Bond movies and a Bourne episode every five years or so. I am now wagering that most of the audience and the budgets for these things have gone into AAA shooters. A FPS game is more fun, about as poorly written and more cost effective (for the consumer) than going to the cinema for a similar ‘shoot stuff and blow stuff up’ experience. For the same price as a current AAA game you can go to the movies 3-4 times.\nI am surprised at the amount of grinding in AAA games. Playing parts of a game over and over again because of poor design or balancing. Especially egregious are situations where every death means a lengthy reload and resumes you somewhere back before. Also I\u0026rsquo;m spending a lot of time in geometric first or third person games walking around looking for the clue to the next stage. They may have higher production values than mobile games but the amount of grinding seems to be about the same.\n","date":"December 29, 2014","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/console-gaming-after-the-fact/","section":"Posts","summary":"I have found myself in the custody of a Playstation 3 console and have borrowed a couple dozen games to play over the holidays. This came to be after I mentioned to my local game design support group that I hadn’t played anything on a console for over ten years and that I was quite happy with that state of being. They thought that this was unacceptable.\n","title":"Console gaming after the fact","type":"posts"},{"content":"Extremely crude but a decent shooter nonetheless. Can be a bit of a slough at times but now that I\u0026rsquo;ve played more from the genre that seems to be par for the course.\nKillzone 2\nA photo posted by Alper Cugun (@alper) on Dec 12, 2014 at 12:05pm PST\nThe writing is so bad that you seriously wonder where they get it. The target audience for these kind of games does not seem to want much more. Thankfully the science fiction setting where you fight a pure evil removes some of the moral issues that other games in the genre carry.\n","date":"December 25, 2014","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/console-gaming-after-the-fact-killzone-2/","section":"Posts","summary":"Extremely crude but a decent shooter nonetheless. Can be a bit of a slough at times but now that I’ve played more from the genre that seems to be par for the course.\n","title":"Console gaming after the fact: Killzone 2","type":"posts"},{"content":"The Last of Us is amazing. Even at the easiest level it is kicking my ass. And now that I got some dramatic story progression I am well amazed.\nA photo posted by Alper Cugun (@alper) on Dec 12, 2014 at 1:01pm PST\nMassive spoilers for The Last of Us follow. Normally I\u0026rsquo;d encourage you to read on but with this game I recommend renting, borrowing, procuring, house-sitting, whatever is necessary to play it. I played most of the game in a single twelve hour sitting until nine in the morning. That may well be the best way to experience this: one weekend, little sleep and feverishly playing.\nI was sceptical at first (I was promised that this game has the best writing that exists) but this was a singular experience despite its shortcomings. It takes a bit to get going and break out of the survival horror shooting game trope even though the beginning is executed very well. Another game where I\u0026rsquo;m not sure there is anything else to play after you\u0026rsquo;ve finished it. A sequel has been tentatively announced and there\u0026rsquo;s a DLC “Left Behind” that I can buy for €15.\nThe plot isn\u0026rsquo;t the best thing about the writing in this game and honestly in many examples of good writing the plot isn\u0026rsquo;t the best part. The atmospheric environments in The Last of Us have a coherence and detail that gives them much more depth than in any of the other games I\u0026rsquo;ve played since then. These provide a convincing backdrop on which Joel and Ellie play out their relationship and that is the real strength of the writing in this game. Out of a shared experience consisting of horror and idleness they forge a bond that carries over through the screen.\nIn broad strokes it The Last of Us is a retelling of The Road made stomachable for a mainstream audience. All the other characters are mostly forgettable and their losses however close they had gotten do not really count for much.\nThe biggest issue in the game is the moral one and not so much the one in the game as it is players\u0026rsquo; reactions to it. The game forces you to save Ellie who is going to be cut up to potentially create a cure against the plague. What scares me is the vast number of players who take issues with this choice. I shot the entire OR staff without blinking (also partially because I knew it was coming) because I don\u0026rsquo;t think there is a real moral issue here. Sacrificing a person to save humanity is unacceptable. It turns out that (too) many gamers are in favour of moral consequentialism and medical experiments on human beings.\nAnother shortcoming in the game for me was that you don\u0026rsquo;t play as Ellie enough. I enjoyed her physical disadvantages and her true grit when running through a snowstorm and jumping up on huge dudes to slaughter them with a switch blade.\nThe bit where Ellie is hunting the buck is meditative and by that time it was seven in the morning, I had been playing for ten hours and it took me a good half hour of chasing the buck through the snowfields. That was a near transcendental experience and in fact those were the most enjoyable parts of the game. Not those where you are on edge because you could be attacked at any moment. The best parts of the game were those where Joel and Ellie are hiking through a forest or on an abandoned highway and shooting the shit with each other. I would have happily played a game consisting of nothing but that.\nThe upside down fight is amazing.\nA photo posted by Alper Cugun (@alper) on Dec 12, 2014 at 2:00pm PST\n","date":"December 25, 2014","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/console-gaming-after-the-fact-the-last-of-us/","section":"Posts","summary":"The Last of Us is amazing. Even at the easiest level it is kicking my ass. And now that I got some dramatic story progression I am well amazed.\n","title":"Console gaming after the fact: The Last of Us","type":"posts"},{"content":"A story I meant to write up for a while is my discovery of the German rap formation K.I.Z. (Kapitalismus ist Zauberhaft) and with that German pop culture that is actually worthwhile and fun.\nI was cycling through Berlin when at a traffic light a car full of women next to me was bouncing to some heavy beats. The lyric I caught through the open window was “Sie klatschen aneinander bei der Double Penetration”. That of course piqued my interest.\nThe story does not end well. I overtook them at the next traffic light and I was sure that they would not appreciate my vehicular cycling. Indeed they didn\u0026rsquo;t and they honked at me when they overtook (a particularly bad habit of Berlin drivers). In the spur of the moment I shouted the F-word back at them and I didn\u0026rsquo;t expect it but that did shut them up.\nAfter that incident I listened to a bunch of K.I.Z. and found their lyrics to be funny and smart. Their general modus operandi seems to be lots of clowning and ironizing topics by taking them to their utter extremes.\nA great example of this is the song \u0026ldquo;Ich bin Adolf Hitler\u0026rdquo;. I actually had to look up whether K.I.Z. were nazis or not. Irony in Germany can be difficult to gauge. They also had a song about Jörg Haider called Straight outta Kärnten. I was on holiday in Kärnten this summer blissfully unaware of its dubious reputation.\nK.I.Z. is a breath of fresh air in German popular culture. It does not take itself or anything particularly seriously and that is something Germany could use a great deal more of.\n","date":"November 27, 2014","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/capitalism-is-magical/","section":"Posts","summary":"A story I meant to write up for a while is my discovery of the German rap formation K.I.Z. (Kapitalismus ist Zauberhaft) and with that German pop culture that is actually worthwhile and fun.\n","title":"Capitalism is magical","type":"posts"},{"content":" In de nrc.next van vandaag staat de eerste helft van mijn recensie van de iOS sensatie Desert Golfing. Hier is de rest:\nDesert Golfing is een game over golfen in de woestijn. In een twee-dimensionaal pastelkleurig woestijnlandschap moet je een bal de hole in schieten. Je vinger bepaalt de kracht en de hoek van je slag en als je loslaat vliegt de bal weg. Hoe ver je bal komt, hoe vaak hij stuitert en hoe lang hij doorrolt voelen perfect, eigenlijk precies alsof je echt golf speelt in een woestijn. Alleen ben je hier na 18 holes niet klaar. De maker laat niet veel los maar spelers hebben ontdekt dat er duizenden willekeurig gegenereerde woestijnlandschappen—de een moeilijker dan de andere—wachten om gespeeld te worden. Of er een einde aan komt weten we niet. De combinatie van eenvoud en oneindigheid maken dat je Desert Golfing lang kunt blijven spelen. Het is een fijn tussendoortje voor onderweg en tegelijkertijd een meditatie op hoeveel er met heel weinig mogelijk is.\n","date":"September 3, 2014","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/recensie-desert-golfing-in-de-nrc-next/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Recensie Desert Golfing in de nrc.next","type":"posts"},{"content":"I read “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” on assignment and I am glad I did because it is a well written, easy to read and profoundly insightful book. It illuminates what capital is and what effects it has in the world to an extent that hasn\u0026rsquo;t been done before. The book contains lots of insights and it takes down many financial myths that are imposed on us every day.\nEven though I read this book on an Austrian mountain I was still witness to the age old workings of capital. The cabin next door belonged to a person who also owned a large chunk of the mountain. On this plot he kept a couple of dozen cows who grazed and calved there by themselves. This herd and therefore this farmer\u0026rsquo;s capital would thereby multiply every year yielding double digit returns (I estimate anything from 20-80% on the animals).\nI\u0026rsquo;ll treat each of the myths in this post from the copious notes I took while reading the book.\nMyth 1: Capital concentration is not a problem # This is the central tenet of the book. The idea that capital is not an issue and will never be again in our societies is disproved. The core equation of r \u0026gt; g states that most of the time the yield on investments is higher than economic growth and even a small difference will have fairly large consequences in the long run.\nThose that don\u0026rsquo;t have any capital (over 50% of society) have no idea what kind of concentrations of capital are available to others nor which mechanisms enable them to create and maintain these quantities of wealth. A lack of widespread knowledge both of the details of capital as of the financial strategies available to elites is a democratic deficit.\n“Those who have a lot of it [money] never fail to defend their interests.”\nMyth 2: Merit determines what people get # “Modern meritocratic society, especially in the United States, is much harder on the losers, because it seeks to justify domination on the grounds of justice, virtue, and merit, to say nothing of the insufficient productivity of those at the bottom.”\nThis point is being argued increasingly by for example Alain de Botton on ‘the evils of meritocracy’. It turns out that this argument frames everybody who isn\u0026rsquo;t rich (usually because of hereditary misfortune) into a loser who who isn\u0026rsquo;t trying hard enough or is lazy.\nThis is an absurd piece of reasoning that has been surprisingly predominant in the past decades.\nMyth 3: We need 5-10% annual growth # The current consensus seems to be that a growth rate below 2-3% is bad news. Piketty argues that even a growth of 1% year over year will compound to create large amounts of change. This rate of increase is actually exponential growth (for a fairly low exponent) even though Piketty does not call it so.\nAccording to Piketty high growth usually takes place during phases of catch up. Once a country is caught up growth will come down to normal rates. Other countries can and will experience these high growth periods as threatening.\nMyth 4: Macro-economists are doing the best job they can # The biggest value of Piketty\u0026rsquo;s book is that it demonstrates that a realist approach to economy is possible. Many of the insights in the book are not illuminating because of their politics but because this kind of data has never been collected and analysed in this way before. He calls his deductions accounting identities and as such their content isn\u0026rsquo;t subject to debate as much as their consequences are.\nIn the book he questions regularly what economists have been doing for the past centuries. Piketty at one point says that Marx could have done a better job if he\u0026rsquo;d consulted the data that was available to him at the time. I would say that rather than building a realistic and empirical basis for their positions they have undertaken pissing contests between this school and that.\nEvery graph in the book points to a data series on an accompanying website where you can download an archive with Stata files, Excel files and all of the graphs in the book. Though a somewhat primitive approach, for the field of economy this looks like a revolutionary innovation. This may be a bit of ‘digital social sciences’ happening finally.\nThe sheer amount of data lends this book a sheen of objectivity. That may explain why so many people who had not read this book totally lost their shit over it. I believe this is a case where the extra credibility lent to something based on data is mostly justified.\nAt the end of the book Piketty welcomes the empirical research being popularised within economy as part of ‘behavioural economics’:\n“Economists today are full of enthusiasm for empirical methods based on controlled experiments. When used with moderation, these methods can be useful, and they deserve credit for turning some economists toward concrete questions and firsthand knowledge of the terrain (a long overdue development).”\nMyth 5: Immigration is a bad thing # “In a quasi-stagnant society, wealth accumulated in the past will inevitably acquire disproportionate importance.”\nThe consensus in Europe is that immigration is a bad thing. Piketty argues that population growth is a factor on top of economic growth (or instead of) to increase a nation\u0026rsquo;s income.\nMyth 6: Debts are neutral # Piketty explains that debts are a transfer from the poor to the rich. Bond holders are almost exclusively rich people either directly or through portfolios who are paid interest by nations as a whole. As such everybody including poor people pay while the only people who benefit are the rich.\nThis is highly relevant when considering the levels of national debts within Europe and the fact that nation states are being held hostage by lenders whose identities we don\u0026rsquo;t even know.\nMyth 7: Taxation is just about creating revenue # “It is important to understand that a tax is always more than just a tax: it is also a way of defining norms and categories and imposing a legal framework on economic activity.”\nPiketty says that even a tax that is too small to make a fiscal difference would be useful because taxation necessitates transparency and mapping. Just as the taxation of land requires a legible cadastral system to know who had what piece of land, creating a fractional tax on capital would shine some light in a dark place.\nMyth 8: Inflation is bad # “How can a public debt as large as today’s European debt be significantly reduced? There are three main methods, which can be combined in various proportions: taxes on capital, inflation, and austerity. An exceptional tax on private capital is the most just and efficient solution. Failing that, inflation can play a useful role: historically, that is how most large public debts have been dealt with. The worst solution in terms of both justice and efficiency is a prolonged dose of austerity—yet that is the course Europe is currently following.”\nIt turns out that inflation is not as bad a thing as it is made out to be. Many European nations have used inflation in the 20th century to greatly reduce their debts. Piketty says above that austerity is the worst thing that you can do in the face of large national debts.\nInflation is however not an uniformly good strategy to get rid of debts because it will disproportionately affect those without real assets (poor people and the lower middle class) i.e. people with a small nest egg in the bank.\nIn fact later in the book Piketty mentions that Germany has benefited most from inflation during the 20th century but now refuses to let others benefit similarly.\nGermany is often exemplarized as an economic example within Europe but this is patently false. Germany is in fact a deeply unfair and hyper-capitalist society which has more similarities with the USA than with any other continental European nation. There is no minimum wage in Germany. Parents can give their children €800'000 taxfree every ten years. The list goes on.\nAfter using inflation to reduce their debts, Germany has in the 90s reformed its social security and labour market to a fairly extreme level. With such a liberal job market it is also economically expedient for them to be an immigration nation pulling in the qualified labour pools of other countries.\nNow being the dominant economic power in Europe Germany is using every means at its disposal to stay that way even if it means choking off other European nations. Comparisons of Merkel with Hitler may be absurd, a comparison with Putin seems justified. Just like Putin, Merkel is allowed to stay in power as long as the economy is growing and things are stable.\nMyth 9: Supermanagers deserve to make absurd amounts of money # There has been a lot of debate about this already and it is pertinent to Piketty because the people at the top of the income distribution today are people that have both historically accumulated wealth and are in positions where they make a lot of money from their work.\nPiketty argues what has been argued in other places as well: there is no proof for increased productivity of supermanagers or for anything else that would merit such disproportionately high pay. A better explanation for it is that there are old boys who determine each others\u0026rsquo; renumeration and have no incentive to hold back.\nMyth 10: Education should be expensive # Piketty argues that even though education may not be a cure for inequality that open access to higher education for anybody who is able to go is very important for a society.\nUnfortunately in the Netherlands higher education is being instrumentalized and financialized. It is becoming unattractive to learn things that do not have a direct market payoff because of the debt you incur while studying. It is fairly obvious that this system disproportionately benefits those with money who are less affected by opportunity cost.\nMyth 11: Globalization is bad # Piketty argues that globalisation is good and that countries that close themselves off rarely benefit from it. He uses this as an argument for more taxes: “Absence of progressive taxation may undermine support for a globalised economy.”\nMyth 12: The United States have always been a nation of low taxation # “Furthermore, the Great Depression of the 1930s struck the United States with extreme force, and many people blamed the economic and financial elites for having enriched themselves while leading the country to ruin.”\n“Josiah Wedgwood, in the preface to a new edition of his classic 1929 book on inheritance, agreed with his compatriot Bertrand Russell that the “plutodemocracies”and their hereditary elites had failed to stem the rise of fascism. He was convinced that “political democracies that do not democratize their economic systems are inherently unstable.”\nI was amazed that the United States (and England) for a period of time had incredibly high (confiscatory) taxes on income, capital and estates because: ‘all excessively high incomes were suspect.’ The accumulation of capital was seen as something unhealthy and also as something profoundly illiberal.\nMyth 13: Financial transparency is undesirable # “It is particularly striking to discover that the countries that are most dependent on substantial tax revenues to pay for their social programs, namely the European countries, are also the ones that have accomplished the least, even though the technical challenges are quite simple.”\nOne of the most important solutions and necessities Piketty suggests is to increase the transparency of capital stocks and flows around the world. There are initiatives underway to do this but they will take a long time to implement and will probably be watered down when they get there. Doxing off-shore banks may be the only remedy available to us in the meantime.\nFinancial transparency for everybody and especially the ultra-rich should be something for which there is a clear majority. The question then remains why it is so hard to push through. Maybe having a president of the European Commission who used to work for the Luxembourg cottage financial industries is not making this any easier?\nKnowing whose money is where and where it is going is also necessary during financial crises to be able to take the right action. It would seem obvious but it turns out that during the recent financial crises our governments had to resort to the equivalent of randomly throwing money into black holes.\nThe initiative Open Spending focuses on making government finances transparent. A similar initiative should push for doing the same with the financial data of public and private companies.\nMyth 14: Public wealth will follow after economic growth # Economic growth in an area does not benefit everybody and definitely not equally. Berlin for instance has recently seen a gigantic influx of capital and private wealth. The city finally has budgets in the black again but still has no money to speak of. More correctly: there isn\u0026rsquo;t any money for better public transportation or to clean school buildings; there is money for large scale construction projects and Olympic bids.\nMyth 15: Investors are as useless as a gorilla # “The higher we go in the endowment hierarchy, the more often we find alternative investment strategies,”that is, very high yield investments such as shares in private equity funds and unlisted foreign stocks (which require great expertise), hedge funds, derivatives, real estate, and raw materials, including energy, natural resources, and related products (these, too, require specialized expertise and offer very high potential yields).”\nPiketty demonstrates this popular notion to be patently false. It turns out that given enough money you can get both access to more interesting investment opportunities and hire advisors that can get you high yields on those opportunities. He takes the endowment of for instance Harvard as an example where they by investing a small part of their huge capital (of some $30B) they manage to get returns on the order of 10% a year.\nThe measly one or two percent you and I can get at the bank pales in comparison and does not even keep up with inflation. You could save yourself some trouble and just throw your money into a fireplace.\n","date":"August 31, 2014","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/thomas-piketty-debunks-conventional-economics/","section":"Posts","summary":"I read “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” on assignment and I am glad I did because it is a well written, easy to read and profoundly insightful book. It illuminates what capital is and what effects it has in the world to an extent that hasn’t been done before. The book contains lots of insights and it takes down many financial myths that are imposed on us every day.\n","title":"Thomas Piketty Debunks Conventional Economics","type":"posts"},{"content":"I read this paper by Acemoglu and Robinson right after I read the book by Piketty thinking that there would be some interesting economic debate. Unfortunately I was proved wrong and this seems to be exemplary for the stagnation of the economic field.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s extremely selective nitpicking, some qualms with definitions and arguing about semantics. In those places where Piketty actually writes the same thing as them, they don\u0026rsquo;t mention it in their paper. This means that they have either not read the book or that they are being disingenuous.\nTheir paper was also written so poorly that reading it felt like more of a slog than 600 pages by Piketty.\nI found a confirmation for my point (and another one) of view and it looks like it\u0026rsquo;s the old: ‘I need to publish something quickly to take advantage of somebody else\u0026rsquo;s freshly minted superstardom.’.\n","date":"August 31, 2014","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/acemoglus-critique-on-piketty/","section":"Posts","summary":"I read this paper by Acemoglu and Robinson right after I read the book by Piketty thinking that there would be some interesting economic debate. Unfortunately I was proved wrong and this seems to be exemplary for the stagnation of the economic field.\n","title":"Acemoglu's Critique on Piketty","type":"posts"},{"content":"“The new technology was both the virus and the vector of transmission.”— Walter J. Ong\nThis was one of the three books I read during my holiday in a cabin on the Austrian Alps. To hedge against a lack of sun hours to charge my reading device with I brought some physical books that had been lingering on my moribund to-read pile.\nI wasn\u0026rsquo;t sure if ‘The Information’ would be worth reading as a graduate in computer science but it turns out that it is as fantastic a book as everybody said it was.\nShortly summarised ‘The Information’ is a summary of a large part of my studies: the formal logic and computability parts, the signal processing and information theory parts and a bunch more. As such it functions as an easier to digest mashup of ‘Gödel, Escher, Bach’ and ‘The Baroque Cycle’ if I may call it that.\nThe book treats many of the same topics as those books and paints a stunning picture of the history of science. It shows you in the writings of those scientists how our understanding of information evolved with time and how that evolution informs our current perspective.\nThe book focuses on Shannon, where GEB for instance is more about Kurt Gödel and Cryptonomicon (the prelude to the Baroque Cycle) is more about Alan Turing. What is interesting to note is how Shannon\u0026rsquo;s work contributed an informational turn to the social sciences.\nInformation historical accounts are super interesting—also something that I enjoyed immensely during the Latour MOOC—but a weakness of the book is that the insights offered therein break down the closer we get to the present day. Current events move too quickly to be framed with the same flourishes as the writings of Charles Babbage and Ada Byron Lovelace.\n","date":"August 25, 2014","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/holiday-reading-the-information-by-james-gleick/","section":"Posts","summary":"“The new technology was both the virus and the vector of transmission.”— Walter J. Ong\n","title":"Holiday Reading: The Information by James Gleick","type":"posts"},{"content":"This post was previously published on Medium and is now archived here.\nThere’s some recent writing about the decomposition of apps into either thin slivers of single purpose functionality per app or even breaking out of the traditional app domain entirely and delivering their functionality through for instance the notifications screen.\nI think both of these are onto something but that the trend itself is more fundamental. I think there are three things happening.\n1. Apps can be decomposed into high-level user wants. # A want starts with “I want”and is followed by getting or creating something often accompanied by some social intermediation. Such a want could be “I want to send a message”or it could be “I want to read (and reply to) my messages”or it could be “I want to find a place to eat.”\nThese are not utilities. Most interesting apps these days are lifestyle apps. Focusing on a single want does not mean the app becomes easier to make. Implementing a want with its very specific functionality, appropriate context, user interface and communication may be even more difficult. A want is a summary of what used to be called ‘user stories’ but focused on what people want to do not on what people are supposed to do. At the risk of sounding obvious: people don’t want to do things they don’t want to do. The exception to this is work where people do things they don’t want to do. People want apps that bring them entertainment, social connections or self-actualisation.\n2. Apps cannot support more than a couple of wants well. # Any app that tries to cram in more than a couple of wants from different domains starts to creak and feel cluttered. This looks like the main reason why Foursquare unbundled the totally disparate wants of local discovery “I want to find a good restaurant now”and that of social broadcasting “I want to tell my friends where I am.”\nSuch unbundling is becoming the norm because an app cannot do everything well without containing multiple apps. Just think back of Facebook’s everything-and-the-kitchen-sink app with its own homescreen. The Facebook app itself is becoming more and more bare while wants are increasingly delivered by apps that don’t show they belong to Facebook.\nThis is a good indicator of what the future holds for these apps. I would for instance be surprised if complicated list management features would be a significant part of the future Foursquare mobile app. Lists do support local discovery but they will never have the mass appeal the app is focusing on.\n3. Wants can be fulfilled anywhere you want. # This ties into Naveen’s piece about the notifications becoming the app. I would take this further and say that the app will be wherever people interact with a connected device. Building an app becomes a matter of translating a user want into the interaction affordances of a medium.\nYou could indeed read and reply to messages in a notification screen if that is where you spend your time. But soon you might do the same thing using the same app but on your connected watch. In a somewhat more distant future you might send a Yo! by slamming two IoT enabled rocks together.\nThe medium through which a want is fulfilled has become flexible. What matters is the want itself and appropriateness. A talented designer will figure out whether a translation makes sense and how to best implement it.\nAll in all this is a great development. Digital design is breaking out of screens enabling it to find us where we are and offer us the things we really want.\n","date":"July 9, 2014","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/product-design-focused-on-user-wants/","section":"Posts","summary":"This post was previously published on Medium and is now archived here.\n","title":"Product design focused on user wants","type":"posts"},{"content":"Last Sunday the Senate\u0026rsquo;s plan to build on Tempelhof was voted off thankfully. Not just to preserve the field which is a one-of-a-kind but to signal to the city that their way of managing construction and housing is not the right way (a full treatment in German).\nThen yesterday I went for a run in the nearby Viktoriapark. Out of necessity because I was trying out a running track which turned out to be closed to the public.\nSo instead of that I ran my laps through the park up and down the hill of the Kreuzberg and was treated with some spectacular views.\nDoubling back through the South side of the park I came upon this very odd housing development built around a former brewery.\nThe entire thing was built from scratch and looked super eery and artificial.\nAnd worst of all it is hard to access and hermetically closed off from the park. The entire area is fenced off and unaccessible from the park (and vice versa). When you try to pass through you end up on this dead end square. It is a gated community in the center of Berlin and probably exemplary of the type of developments the city government likes to see.\nAnd from there on you can only get out the same way you got in. I can\u0026rsquo;t really imagine what it must be like to live there without any city activity or people passing through. The only people there are your neighbours on their balconies and their watchful eyes. These people have been sold the fact that they live in Kreuzberg and they probably pay a premium for it but this is as far from that city experience as you can get.\nAnd finally on the other side of the track I found this local sporting club having their BBQ.\n","date":"May 27, 2014","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/berlin-real-estate-development-victoriapark-edition/","section":"Posts","summary":"Last Sunday the Senate’s plan to build on Tempelhof was voted off thankfully. Not just to preserve the field which is a one-of-a-kind but to signal to the city that their way of managing construction and housing is not the right way (a full treatment in German).\n","title":"Berlin real estate development Victoriapark edition","type":"posts"},{"content":"A couple of weeks ago by now I finally got to visit our new office in the Vechtclub XL building in Utrecht. This turned out to be a great experience.\nOne of the best aspects of the ‘club’ is that it offers an alternative to Utrecht\u0026rsquo;s terribly cramped and overpriced city center. Everybody wants to live and work in the Utrecht within the ‘singels’ but that privilege costs a lot of money and doesn\u0026rsquo;t give you a lot of quality of life. Only if you manage to strike a suitable property deal with the city you can do whatever the fuck you want.\nThe Vechtclub XL is a fifteen minutes bike ride out of the city on a derelict business park, about here. There\u0026rsquo;s nearly nothing nearby which means the building needs to be self-sustaining. That necessity is actually causing that to happen. They are setting up a fully functional cafetaria with world class coffee and more facilities. Being there right now is not terrible. People make do with whatever they have already brought in and there are upsides such as somebody training for a barista championship, lunch being brought in once a week and other events being organized.\nThis is a continuation of a previous non-XL Vechtclub. Most of it has been funded by the people there who run it not as a cooperative —which looks to be vital. Development is autonomous and moves at a fast clip. The space which is already pretty great is improving continuously.\nYou can imagine that I was a bit envious and loathe to leave. The upside is that it\u0026rsquo;ll probably be all new again next time I get there.\nGoing down everywhere # I was looking around a bit to see if something similar is happening in Berlin or other places as well.\nAdam Greenfield mentioned the Institut for (X) in Aarhus which looks very similar in its setup and goals. In Berlin there is the Alte Gießerei which is being converted into a similar setup 1. There are a bunch more spaces that do something in that direction but most of them do not manage to hit the scale or communal vibe that I try to describe above.\nIt manages to hit the same concentration of disciplines, scale, workshops and it is conveniently far out of the city center in Lichtenberg.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"April 18, 2014","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/loving-the-vechtclub-xl/","section":"Posts","summary":"A couple of weeks ago by now I finally got to visit our new office in the Vechtclub XL building in Utrecht. This turned out to be a great experience.\n","title":"Loving the Vechtclub XL","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"April 18, 2014","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/utrecht/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Utrecht","type":"categories"},{"content":"There is a shack on Tempelhofer Feld that explains the senate\u0026rsquo;s plans with the park and the construction they plan to do there:\nThe people of 100% Tempelhofer Feld with an alternate view are not allowed to express their view on the park itself. Reading through their facebook feed for the past weeks is a collection of absurdism that beggars belief. Truth is stranger than fiction.\nAnd now the city has started a campaign where they found people willing to shill for construction on the field in videos such as these:\nThey don\u0026rsquo;t mention how much these people have been paid for their participation. Maybe a human flesh search for these people would be a good idea to track them down and ask them what they really think.\nAnyway the entire thing is turning into a travesty where capitalism and the corrupt local government get what they want regardless. There is a term for such an unholy alliance though it has fallen slightly out of use in Germany these past decades.\n","date":"April 11, 2014","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/tempelhofer-park-and-the-union-between-local-government-and-property-developers/","section":"Posts","summary":"There is a shack on Tempelhofer Feld that explains the senate’s plans with the park and the construction they plan to do there:\n","title":"Tempelhofer Park and the union between local government and property developers","type":"posts"},{"content":"I have been long flummoxed by how terrible the CDU/CSU complex in Germany is. I could not understand how people could be that stupid and that conservative to the detriment of everybody including themselves. The number of examples is near infinite, but this post was prompted by yesterday\u0026rsquo;s action by the young Union Berlin 1.\nI now have a new working theory that explains this issue and sheds a new light on Germany.\nWorking theory: Most of the people from the Nazi party who weren\u0026rsquo;t shot after WWII went into the Union. 2\nI have not really heard anybody object to this and it really does explain a lot 3. Those people had to go somewhere and I\u0026rsquo;m guessing they did not enter the socialist parties which were probably seeded from whatever red element survived the world wars.\nThis fact has shaped modern German politics from then on.\nWho will never ever demonstrate except at the opportune moment where they can celebrate the state\u0026rsquo;s boot crushing down on the poor and the oppressed. See this VICE report to see how incredibly fucked that situation is.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nCheeky corollary: More people from the Nazi party should have been shot.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nAlso these are the kind of theories that are not at all salonfähig in German pubs or academia. That\u0026rsquo;s why outsiders living in Germany need to formulate them.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"April 10, 2014","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/the-union-issue/","section":"Posts","summary":"I have been long flummoxed by how terrible the CDU/CSU complex in Germany is. I could not understand how people could be that stupid and that conservative to the detriment of everybody including themselves. The number of examples is near infinite, but this post was prompted by yesterday’s action by the young Union Berlin 1.\n","title":"The Union issue","type":"posts"},{"content":"I have followed the Turkish elections on the night from Sunday to Monday which turned into a gripping account of prime minister Erdogan trying to steal the elections while most of the people were sleeping. Orchestrated blackouts had drawn out the count. The twitter block didn\u0026rsquo;t prevent activism from spreading but did reduce the reach of its effects. Those that knew and cared about it were at the counting locations trying to safeguard the ballots and the tallies.\nPeople not abandoning votes till entered into online system. ~6a. MT @Partizan4eva 4 saattir bekliyoruz! #sandıktayım pic.twitter.com/baRd3q6dRK\n— Zeynep Tufekci (@zeynep) March 31, 2014\nThe tally notes were shared to be able to corroborate them with entries into the online result system. Most of those results have been off, some by a small amount, some by a larger amount.\nTurkey\u0026rsquo;s Citizen journos have been documenting ballot box results. Important with all the swirling Qs. RT @140journos pic.twitter.com/kYu0XGewXI\n— Zeynep Tufekci (@zeynep) March 31, 2014\nAltogether it was a mess and from the cross section of tallies I\u0026rsquo;ve seen it\u0026rsquo;s hard to believe that the AKP would have fully swept Istanbul and Ankara. What follows now is a long process of chasing the issue into Turkey\u0026rsquo;s notoriously horrible judicial system. It is unclear whether that will have an effect other than reducing the trust people in Turkey have in institutions even further.\nYesterday I learned unexpectedly but viscerally that democracy is worth defending. It\u0026rsquo;s not the best feeling but I\u0026rsquo;d still recommend it.\n— Alper Çuğun (@alper) March 31, 2014\nWhat that night did teach me after the lukewarm Dutch municipal elections is that democracy is an institution worth defending both when things are calm but especially when times are tough. I am finally allowed to participate in a vote in Berlin. The European Parliament elections may be lackluster but I\u0026rsquo;ll take whatever little democracy I\u0026rsquo;m given.\nI\u0026rsquo;ll post back here about how that vote and its count goes.\nSomething else that is noteworthy is the dismal coverage the elections got in the Dutch mainstream media. For any kind of news event that you are interested in, following tweets either in the local language or by English speaking commentators on the ground provides a far better experience. What I saw on Dutch television and in Dutch newspapers was predictable, shallow, disconnected and actively shameful.\n","date":"April 2, 2014","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/turkeys-stolen-elections/","section":"Posts","summary":"I have followed the Turkish elections on the night from Sunday to Monday which turned into a gripping account of prime minister Erdogan trying to steal the elections while most of the people were sleeping. Orchestrated blackouts had drawn out the count. The twitter block didn’t prevent activism from spreading but did reduce the reach of its effects. Those that knew and cared about it were at the counting locations trying to safeguard the ballots and the tallies.\n","title":"Turkey's stolen elections","type":"posts"},{"content":"I promised to write an update to the Heist Model a long time ago and never got around to it because of work and other stuff. Then recently conversations with friends moving back into the freelance life prompted this smaller update but it too had been languishing in a draft for far too long.\nSo now I\u0026rsquo;m resolving to get this out as a multi blogpost thing over the course of the coming week.\nAs a disclaimer, we at Hubbub are not working exactly like the model proposed above anymore. This is in part because the focus of our business has shifted towards consulting, but for any serious production work we do still work like that.\nWe have incorporated and thought up some innovative ways to structure the business within the Dutch/German framework we live in. I\u0026rsquo;ll come back to that later.\nWe have also seen too many of our friends change their businesses or suspend their operations to prompt serious reflection on our part. That reflection is ongoing but the way we are organized contributes to our optimistic view of the future.\nThe Heist Model was meant to be a way for sole proprietors to work together and to think bigger. I think those things are still necessary. During the next days we\u0026rsquo;ll first treat the standard options that are open to freelancers and why they don\u0026rsquo;t really fit before we dive into an alternative way of doing things.\n","date":"March 26, 2014","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/new-ways-to-work-a-long-overdue-update-to-the-heist-model/","section":"Posts","summary":"I promised to write an update to the Heist Model a long time ago and never got around to it because of work and other stuff. Then recently conversations with friends moving back into the freelance life prompted this smaller update but it too had been languishing in a draft for far too long.\n","title":"New Ways to Work: A Long Overdue Update to the Heist Model","type":"posts"},{"content":"As of right now I\u0026rsquo;m frightfully behind on my Latour MOOC. What I have been doing instead is reading up old articles in my Instapaper. One such is this interview with Dutch sociologist/philosopher Willem Schinkel in Vrij Nederland. It\u0026rsquo;s good to read a fresh Dutch thinker who seems to understand things (and who also is in with Latour). Calling Geert Wilders a proto-fascist and the Netherlands a museum are only a couple of the ringers in there.\nThe disappointing bit came at the end where he confessed to not having a cell phone out of principle. This is a terrible bit of intellectual laziness which brings me to this point on Sloterdijk by Adam Greenfield which rings true:\nThe task before us is to discover, or invent, a politics, a mobility and a conviviality that are both authentic to the circumstances in which we find ourselves and capable of giving full expression to the emancipatory potential that remains latent and unrealized in our networked technologies.\n","date":"February 24, 2014","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/reading-more-about-the-social/","section":"Posts","summary":"As of right now I’m frightfully behind on my Latour MOOC. What I have been doing instead is reading up old articles in my Instapaper. One such is this interview with Dutch sociologist/philosopher Willem Schinkel in Vrij Nederland. It’s good to read a fresh Dutch thinker who seems to understand things (and who also is in with Latour). Calling Geert Wilders a proto-fascist and the Netherlands a museum are only a couple of the ringers in there.\n","title":"Reading more about the social","type":"posts"},{"content":"This got stuck in my draft queue but I have no idea what to meaningfully add to this absurd amount of highlights. The Unwinding by George Packer is a massive and amazing work with turns of phrase worth remembering on every page. It also shows very precisely how amazingly fucked up the USA is right about now. Here is the book cut up through my lens, but I would highly encourage you to read the whole thing (I tore through it in a couple of days).\nWhen the norms that made the old institutions useful began to unwind, and the leaders abandoned their posts, the Roosevelt Republic that had reigned for almost half a century came undone. The void was filled by the default force in American life, organized money.\nThe unwinding brings freedom, more than the world has ever granted, and to more kinds of people than ever before—freedom to go away, freedom to return, freedom to change your story, get your facts, get hired, get fired, get high, marry, divorce, go broke, begin again, start a business, have it both ways, take it to the limit, walk away from the ruins, succeed beyond your dreams and boast about it, fail abjectly and try again.\nWinning and losing are all-American games, and in the unwinding winners win bigger than ever, floating away like bloated dirigibles, and losers have a long way to fall before they hit bottom, and sometimes they never do.\nHe had bought into a lie: go to college, get a good education, get a job with a Fortune 500 company, and you’d be happy. He had done all that and he was miserable.\nGingrich knew exactly what to do. He moved to the right and went after her on welfare and taxes. He had a new rock in his pocket, “the corrupt liberal welfare state,”and he nailed her between the eyes with it.\nWhat he would do once he got there wasn’t clear, and didn’t really matter. The point was to be in the room, at the summit of American life.\nBut in retrospect, the dénouement looked as mechanical and inevitable as an ancient sacrificial rite at the center of a tribal culture. The candidate vows to carry on and tries to ignore the baying of the hounds. The media keep drawing more blood. The candidate receives expressions of support from his colleagues. But the stories are creating an overwhelming and awful impression, one that may never be lifted. The candidate gathers his family and inner circle around him and, one by one, asks their advice. They want him to stay in so he can defend his honor; they want him to get out so he can defend his honor. Amid tears, the candidate decides to stand down. He faces the cameras chin up, in a contained rage.\nThey began to wander. They had great dreams and believed that hard work would make those dreams come true. Ray was going to be a writer. Everything else would come after that.\nHe seemed to know, in the unintentional way of a fiction writer, that the country’s future would be most unnerving in its very ordinariness, in the late-night trip to the supermarket, the yard sale at the end of the line. He sensed that beneath the surface of life there was nothing to stand on.\nAfter years of cutbacks and other warning signs, the end came with breathtaking speed, as companies that had been the most important institutional pillars of their communities for over a century and looked set to continue forever disappeared in rapid order\nBut Carter was also one of the most spiritual people Dean had ever met, always seeking after the things that you couldn’t see. He gave Dean a book called Think and Grow Rich, written by a man named Napoleon Hill and published in 1937. Dean must have read it twenty-five times without putting it down.\nGetting rich was a matter of wanting to be rich, wanting it with “a white heat of desire,”teaching yourself to imagine wealth as specifically as possible, learning to concentrate your mind on the desired goal and the means, and to eliminate besetting fears and other negative thoughts. These were lessons that Americans, living under a system of capitalism and democracy, were uniquely equipped to apply in their lives.\nSpiritual and material thirsting were always mingled in Americans, leaving them easy prey to hucksters of the cloth, the book, the screen.\nOver time, she got pretty jaded about the union. She went to a meeting and spent it watching a couple of white guys argue.\nThat was his first job in retail, and it lasted long enough for Sam to learn that if employees were called “associates,”they gained a sense of pride in the company.\nPeople were cheap. They’d never pass up a rock-bottom price. It was true in the little all-white towns around Arkansas and Oklahoma and Missouri after the war. It was true everywhere all the time.\nWhen the departure of factory jobs for overseas turned into a flood, Mr. Sam launched a Buy American campaign, winning praise from politicians and newspapers around the country, and Wal-Mart stores put up MADE IN THE U.S.A. signs over racks of clothing imported from Bangladesh, and consumers didn’t stop to consider that Wal-Mart was driving American manufacturers overseas or out of business by demanding killingly low prices.\nand eventually six of the surviving Waltons would have as much money as the bottom 30 percent of Americans.\nBiden had used him, and he had used Biden, and they would go on using each other, but that would be all. It was a Washington relationship.\nAnd he began to understand how power worked in the White House. People didn’t have it—they made it. If you wanted to be included in a meeting, you didn’t wait for an invitation; you just showed up. He told Mikva, “If you don’t use your power, you won’t have any power.”\nThey stayed up late arguing about things like the nature of property rights (that was how Thiel made friends, at Stanford and all his life). Hoffman said that property was a social construct, it didn’t exist without society, while Thiel quoted Margaret Thatcher: “There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women.”\nConfinity’s cramped, spartan offices above a bike shop soon filled with carelessly dressed, badly groomed men in their twenties (Thiel was one of the oldest at thirty-two), chess players, math whizzes, libertarians, without distracting obligations like wives and children or time-wasting hobbies like sports and TV (one applicant was turned down because he admitted to enjoying shooting hoops). Some employees lived on junk food at their desks, others were on life-extension calorie-restricted diets.\nThiel read a book published the previous year, The Sovereign Individual by Lord William Rees-Mogg and James Dale Davidson.\nThe book sketched out a libertarian apocalypse, a dream with dark edges, and it was part of the inspiration for PayPal.\nClinton told a crowd assembled just off the National Mall, where a gala public celebration was scheduled for later Friday night. “Light may be fading on the twentieth century, but the sun is still rising on America.”\nClinton told a crowd assembled just off the National Mall, where a gala public celebration was scheduled for later Friday night. “Light may be fading on the twentieth century, but the sun is still rising on America.”\nand a framed copy of his favorite Bible verse, Matthew 7:7.\nHe had two hundred employees, poor blacks and white trash, many of them single mothers, and he hated paying them close to minimum wage with no health benefits—how could you raise kids on that?—but when he tried to get a better class of workers by pushing the pay up to ten or twelve dollars an hour, the performance never improved and it took him two years to get the wage back down by attrition.\nWith the Mastermind alliance, ideas could be caught out of the air that wouldn’t have appeared to someone working alone. Dean and Chris had been like that. But Napoleon Hill didn’t have instructions for what to do if one of the minds turned out to be a crackhead.\n“From day one I’ve struggled with the business, always undercapitalized, always trying to leverage everything I had. Between the credit card companies, the big oil companies, the taxes, the employees stealing, with twenty-something percent unemployment around here, I just never had a chance.”\nThree Wal-Marts for a poor rural county of just ninety thousand people: that would wipe out just about every remaining grocery store, clothing store, and pharmacy in the area, and because Wal-Mart also sold discount fuel, eventually it would kill the truck stop owners.\nIn 1995 he declared himself a Republican. His friend Rich Armitage, a known party member, had warned him not to: it was no longer the party of Eisenhower—it was no longer even the party of Reagan. Something had been set loose, a spirit of ugliness and unreason, even in foreign policy.\nHe was holding together the foreign policy establishment without knowing that it was gone. He needed structure to thrive, but the structures that held up the postwar order had eroded. The Council on Foreign Relations and the Ford Foundation no longer mattered. The statesmen and generals had become consultants and pundits. The army was composed of professionals, not citizens. The public schools were leaving the children of the whole people semiliterate. The parties were locked in a war of attrition. He was trying to function inside institutional failure, but that was incomprehensible to the stellar product of great American institutions. The administration was rotten with ideologues and operatives who showed contempt for the institutions. He didn’t see that they had him isolated and defeated.\nWhen the war began, the president said that he was sleeping like a baby. “I’m sleeping like a baby, too,”the secretary said. “Every two hours, I wake up screaming.”\nAt Arnold \u0026amp; Porter, Connaughton had drawn the line at representing Allianz, a German insurance company that had been accused of cheating Jewish policyholders after World War II.\npublic service seemed to bring more humiliation than triumph—but the private sector was closer to a meritocracy: you got rewarded according to what you produced, not the whims and flaws of the boss.\nWealth added to their power, power swelled their wealth. They connected special interests to party officials using the adhesive of fundraising. They ate breakfast with politicians, lunch with the heads of trade associations, and dinner with other Professional Democrats.\nPower couples could switch off between government and the private sector, one spouse bringing in money while the other climbed the rungs of government, sharing whatever intelligence they picked up along the way.\nlistened to the trucks heading south on 220, carrying crates of live chickens to the slaughterhouses—always under cover of darkness, like a vast and shameful trafficking—chickens pumped full of hormones that left them too big to walk—and he thought how these same chickens might return from their destination as pieces of meat to the floodlit Bojangles’ up the hill from his house, and that meat would be drowned in the bubbling fryers by employees whose hatred of the job would leak into the cooked food, and that food would be served up and eaten by customers who would grow obese and end up in the hospital in Greensboro with diabetes or heart failure, a burden to the public, and later Dean would see them riding around the Mayodan Wal-Mart in electric carts because they were too heavy to walk the aisles of a Supercenter, just like hormone-fed chickens.\nDean, in his awakened state, met a writer named James Howard Kunstler, through his books and his weekly blog, Clusterfuck Nation.\nIn the 1980s, the food scene took off around the country, and young people with new money wanted to eat only the best things, or at least be told they were doing so.\nThis woman was sanitizing herself and her daughter against contamination from a disorderly and dangerous society in which the lives and bodies of the poor presented a harsh example.\nA few local critics pointed out the strategy’s resemblance to a Ponzi scheme. But everything kept growing and no one paid attention.\nIn the hierarchy of the boom years, the poor were Mexican day laborers on construction sites; the working class had jobs in the building trades; the lower middle class were bank tellers; the middle class were real estate agents, title insurance agents, and civil engineers; the upper middle class were land use attorneys and architects; and the rich were developers.\n“They get you into debt like putting butter in your mouth,”she said.\nWhen he was covering city hall at The Palm Beach Post, he’d gotten deeply interested in urban planning—for a while he even thought about switching careers, until he realized that city planners had even less clout than reporters. But his bookshelves filled up with titles like A Field Guide to Sprawl, The History of the Lawn, Suburban Nation, and the pair that were his bibles: The Power Broker and The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Van Sickler became a Jane Jacobs disciple.\nTampa had tried to take a shortcut to greatness, but that never worked; its downtown had no coherence, nothing to attract people beyond an office job, a hockey game, or a court case.\nThe corporate-built houses in the subdivisions looked like bunkers, with tiny windows, no breezeways or courtyards to suit the climate, air conditioners running all the time in cavelike darkness. Inside, families sat in their carpeted living room before a large-screen plasma TV, with the blinds drawn against the sunlight. Outside, the long, long streets of identical houses without shade gave people no reason to want to walk anywhere, so they went from car to driveway to house and never got to know their neighbors. They were retreating from the world, and their isolation was deepened by a pervasive paranoia. Signs advertising accident attorneys, fast cash for houses, and get-rich-quick schemes were everywhere, and auto insurance was higher in Florida than elsewhere—insurers called it “a fraudulent state.”\nVan Sickler believed that there were two kinds of journalists—the ones who told stories, and the ones who uncovered wrongdoing.\nAt some point in late 2005 or early 2006, with the housing market at its dizzying mid-decade height, speculators suddenly lost confidence, the faith that kept Florida aloft gave way, and the economy plummeted like a Looney Tunes character who, suspended in midair, looks down.\nWhen Usha talked about American workers, her nose scrunched up and her mouth turned down and her eyes narrowed as if the subject was physically unpleasant. They were spoiled, as she had once been spoiled, and it was by all the foreigners doing cheap labor.\nHe borrowed money from a former client to put his family into a rental apartment in a ghettoish neighborhood, where the kids in the parking lot picked on the grandson with cerebral palsy. They were living on food stamps, his wife’s disability, the grandson’s SSI, and charity. Mike was deteriorating psychologically, his mind racing three hundred miles an hour—he was afraid of homelessness, suicide, the loony bin, running into the boyfriend, who didn’t know they were back in St. Petersburg—afraid all the time, making up stories in his mind about what could happen to him and then finding that the things did happen. And he had once been so calm, so steady, varnishing yachts in the marina under a blue sky. His torso ballooned, and though he could still laugh at himself, his eyes stared out through rimless glasses in medicated sadness. He was on painkillers for back pain and Xanax for anxiety, and once, tired of it all, wanting to put his load down and sleep, he took thirty Xanax and four Vicodin and fell into a two-day coma. “The economy triggered it all,”he said. “It just ripped me apart, it took away my will to live. That’s the way I see it.”\n“In suburbia,”Van Sickler said, “no one can hear you scream.”\nA Ponzi scheme was a confidence game that succeeded only when enough people were willing to put aside common sense. Everyone involved was both being taken and taking someone else. The result was universal credulousness and universal fear.\nEveryone was making money on Sonny Kim’s business, and the business of all the other Sonny Kims out there, while the bad loans seemed to vanish into the air.\nThe banks had thrown money at fraudulent borrowers to overpay for crappy houses because the risk was immediately passed on to someone else.\nThe conventional wisdom among journalists was that everybody was responsible for the financial crisis. “Greed just got out of control. We don’t know why, we just got really greedy, and everybody wanted a house they couldn’t afford,”Van Sickler said. “I think that’s lazy journalism. That’s a talking point for politicians who want to look the other way. We’re not all to blame for this.\nAyn Rand wouldn’t have invested in Thefacebook.\nThefacebook was already on about twenty campuses, operating under a benign version of the Brezhnev Doctrine: once a college was targeted for a takeover, pretty much the entire student population was captured in a matter of days, and the process became irreversible.\nHe was only twenty, wearing a T-shirt, jeans, and rubber flip-flops, and already stubborn about what he wanted, with an intense focus, a coder’s introversion, obtuse to the point of Asperger’s about other people (something of a paradox in the founder of a social network).\nOver dinner they did not talk about sex, religion, or other people’s lives. Instead, they talked about ideas, world events, and the future of technology.\nAs a libertarian, Thiel welcomed an America in which people could no longer rely on old institutions or get by in communities with longstanding sources of security, where they knew where they stood and what they were bound for.\nHe got there, much to his own surprise, by maintaining the modesty of his ambition and the calm of his daring.\nHe was careful to hedge his ambition with humility, his risk-taking with expressions of worry.\nthe bond market was reality and everything else was an interest group.\nEven Alan Greenspan admitted that he had been wrong, but the pride that had always been masked by humility would not allow Rubin to do it.\nOut here in the middle of the country he felt no energy, none of the entrepreneurial spirit of the coasts and big cities, as if all the molecules had come to a rest.\nIf it was true, everything he had learned in business school about efficient markets, everything he had learned in law school about the standards of disclosure at banks, about the professional duty of the lawyers and accountants they hired to reveal material information and protect investors, was bullshit. He believed in those institutions—he had to.\nAll the large institutions in Youngstown were distrusted, because they had failed: industry, unions, banks, churches, every level of government.\n“A lot of it is not that they don’t want. It is because the system is designed in some instances like it feeds on people a little bit and messes up people’s minds. People get caught in it and they don’t know how to stop it.”\n“the real America,”by which she did not mean fallow farms and disability checks and crack.\nBut every time—and he must have given the pitch to a hundred different audiences—Dean sounded as if the exciting novelty of his words was occurring to him right then for the very first time, because it was, and that this and only this was the road to collective salvation, because it was.\nElites thought that everyone needed to become a computer programmer or a financial engineer, that there would be no jobs between eight dollars an hour and six figures.\nHe was always about the money. Second best wasn’t worth the ultimate price on the street, so he learned to compete and win as if his life depended on it.\nHe gave Marcy a voice, and the nightmare that America had locked in the basement was suddenly playing in kids’ bedrooms. They wanted to live the American dream with a vengeance, like Scarface, like Jay-Z, they wanted to break the laws and win because only fools still thought you could do it in an orange uniform or a cheap suit when that game was fixed, and there could be a shortcut with a big payoff.\nBut the overwhelming majority of the cases went uncontested. Sylvia knew how it was, how the banks beat them down, lied to them, gave them the runaround, didn’t answer calls, until, by the time their day in court finally came, most defendants had long since given up. Justice was delivered in their absence, in the blink of an eye.\nBasically, Weidner took anything that walked through the door—he was a door lawyer, the subsistence farmer of the legal world, a couple-grand retainer up front.\n“We’re consuming crap from wherever but we’re not making anything. How are we supposed to make mortgage payments here in the United States when we don’t make anything else?\n“Our grandparents would never have mortgaged everything and lived off the credit. If you look at the gross domestic product in the past twenty years, in particular the last ten years, it’s not off anything we’ve produced. It’s trading on the paper of what was produced thirty years before that.”\nThrough most of 2008 and 2009 he assumed that the government and the banks would work something out—split the defaulted loans, the Treasury paying the banks half the value, the banks writing off the other half as bad debt, the mortgages now belonging to the feds, who would start over with the homeowners and keep them in their houses. Something like the bank bailout—just evaporate all that phantom debt, which would never be paid off in the whole history of the world. But there was no bailout for homeowners.\nNo one noticed any of this while the economy chugged along, but as soon as things went into the toilet and people stopped being able to pay, America’s mortgages turned out to be a hoax.\nWall Street (“Gotham,”he called it, “the anus, the black hole of the country, sucking all the money up there, the core of the apocalypse”)\nHis mind filled with visions of a decadent kleptocracy in rapid decline, abetted by both political parties—America’s masses fed on processed poison bought with a food stamp swipe card, low-skill workers structurally unable to ever contribute again and too dumb to know their old jobs weren’t coming back, the banks in Gotham leeching the last drops of wealth out of the country, corporations unrestrained by any notion of national interest, the system of property law in shambles, the world drowning in debt.\nChaos. That was the future—civil unrest, social disintegration.\nWeidner to Sylvia Landis. Blogging under the slogan “Fighting for the American People, Speaking Out As Long As Political Speech Remains Protected,”he wrote every day, in the early morning or late at night, often at great length. The week of Martin Luther King’s birthday he posted an essay to “My Dear Fellow Attorneys,”\nFighting a global financial services company to an exhausting draw caused Usha to revise her view of her adopted country. Justice, she concluded, was for rich people, not her. The bankers and lawyers benefited while she went broke. The banks made their money by bullying little people, first trying to intimidate her into surrender, and then, when she fought back, burying her in paperwork, hiring appraisers and inspectors who filed false reports about the condition of her motel, smearing her name.\nConnaughton, a moderate Democrat, was in the process of being “radicalized by a stunning realization that our government has been taken over by a financial elite that runs the government for the plutocracy.”\nIt was easy to overlook this denuded free-market landscape during the long boom years—Connaughton had done just that—but when the storms blew in and there were no walls to keep out the gale or trees to hold down the eroded earth, everyone howled.\nThe establishment could fail and fail and still survive, even thrive.\n“You know, just about whatever anyone proposes, no matter what it is, the banks will come out and claim that it will restrict credit and harm the economy.”Long pause from the little round face at the top of the long body, eyes magnified by glasses, cagey creases running down either side of the mouth. “It’s all bullshit.”\nYou had to think really hard before you took on the establishment, because there were a lot of ways to build a very comfortable life if you went with the flow (like become the top lobbyist for the movie industry, which was what Dodd would go on to do), but standing against the establishment closed off a big part of America that otherwise would have made room for you. You were in or you were out.\n“There’s nothing more honorable than standing up as the sole dissenting voice on a matter of principle.”\nSpectacles perched on the end of his nose, Kaufman towered over his desk and chopped the air and his trembling voice declaimed, “In 1933 we made a decision that helped us through three generations. Why are we not passing legislation that’ll work over the next two or three generations? Something that’ll work whether we get a president who believes in the fact that we should have free markets or not? Whether we have a good regulator or a bad regulator? Why should not the Senate of the United States do its job?”\n“When you go back into government, you realize how dramatically asymmetrical it has become with the public interest. Virtually no one walks in your door trying to educate you about the public’s argument.”\nConnaughton spent months researching these new markets and was stunned by the opacity of the electronic labyrinth. He was a pretty sophisticated investor, but he could no longer say what happened to the trade orders he placed—and none of the insiders seemed able to explain it, either.\nFortunately, he was too drunk to be thoroughly indoctrinated in critical theory, but the prevailing philosophy of moral relativism inevitably eroded his personal standards. It wasn’t such a big step from the Frankfurt School to getting shitfaced nightly.\nFoucault, Horkheimer, Adorno, and Marcuse\nDrudge and the Internet rescued him from the cynical irony of his generation and showed him the power of one individual to expose the corruption of the Complex.\nHe read Camille Paglia on academic politics and saw his whole life as an illustration of the Complex’s totalitarian power.\n’d been living behind enemy lines\nHe’d been living behind enemy lines ever since birth: the liberal fascism of the Hollywood elite, the left-wing bias of the mainstream media, the Nazi-fleeing German philosophers of his Tulane syllabi who had settled in L.A. and taken over higher education in order to destroy the coolest lifestyle in history and impose their Kurt Cobain—like depressive nihilistic Marxism.\nThe terrain Breitbart sauntered onto was diminishing, crumbling, wide open to him. Pillars of the Old Media were turning to infotainment and opinion journalism to save money and hold on to a distracted audience.\nTelling the truth was fun, having the American people behind him was fun, fucking with the heads of nervous journalists and helping the mainstream media commit suicide was fun.\nBreitbart went on Real Time with Bill Maher and stood up for himself and Rush to the politically correct hometown mob of an audience, and it was an incredibly committed moment in his life.\nAnyway, Old Media’s rules about truth and objectivity were dead. What mattered was getting maximum bang from a story, changing the narrative.\nAndrew Breitbart collapsed from heart failure and died at age forty-three.\nand then Glenn Beck was standing backstage of his set, with his blond brush cut, pinstriped suit, and sneakers, close to the camera, his face filling the frame, choking back tears. “Are you ready to be that person you were that day after 9/11, on 9/12? I told you for weeks, ‘You’re not alone.’”\nThe defeat of light rail had depressed Van Sickler more than he expected. It seemed as if America was becoming a country that no longer believed in itself.\nHis neighbors never gave Obama a chance. They called him a socialist, a radical, and a Muslim, but the word that got to the main point started with n.\nThe elites were biased toward other elites, even after they had failed massively.\nBy conventional morality, the plus side should have kept them afloat, and at another time, in another place, maybe it would have.\nThat kind of thing didn’t happen anymore. People were too scared to join a union, and the corporations had too much money, they’d just threaten to sue.\nThe Great Depression produced three regulations: The FDIC—your bank deposits were safe. Glass-Steagall—banks couldn’t go crazy with your money. The SEC—stock markets would be tightly controlled. For fifty years, these rules kept America from having another financial crisis. Not one panic or meltdown or freeze. They gave Americans security and prosperity. Banking was dull. The country produced the greatest middle class the world had ever seen.\nMost people in bankruptcy weren’t irresponsible—they were too responsible.\nMost people in bankruptcy weren’t irresponsible—they were too responsible.\nShe made no attempt to conciliate or ingratiate. She actually seemed to hate the banks. She had arrived at radicalism, like many conservatives before her, by seeing the institutions that had sustained the old way of life collapse.\nShe seemed to have walked into the hearing room and taken her seat at the dais out of the past, from the era when the American prairie raised angry and eloquent champions of the common people,\nTimothy Geithner, aggravated almost to shouting in an oversight hearing, couldn’t stand her.\nTimothy Geithner, aggravated almost to shouting in an oversight hearing, couldn’t stand her.\nWall Street used this purposefully opaque language to intimidate outsiders, but to succeed you just had to be somewhat comfortable with math or else with bullshit—the former went into trading, the latter into sales, and a quant who could lie made the big money.\nIt was too late to restore Glass-Steagall and go back to the 1950s. The financial sector had gotten way too big—those minds on the Street should have been finding the green energy cure or starting the next tech boom. That was the country’s future, not banking.\nAt the beginning of 2011 she got a tattoo on her right forearm, the names of the five New York boroughs in Old Dutch, because she liked history, and also because she wanted to remember that things change.\nshe plowed through a huge biography of the labor martyr Joe Hill.\nShe hadn’t given up on music and the arts, but she also wanted to organize, get down and dirty, be in the fight.\nShe hadn’t given up on music and the arts, but she also wanted to organize, get down and dirty, be in the fight.\nThe scene in Zuccotti reminded him of the city back in the eighties, when he attended private school, listened to Run-D.M.C., and went down to Times Square to watch the games of three-card monte and the police raids—when New York was wilder and more ragged.\nBut a few activists seemed to dominate these groups, in an insular conversation about “the process”that kept returning to ideas for restructuring into smaller groups in order to refine the process and make it “more inclusive.”\nBoth Obama and Romney ended up in the wrong place: the former thought American exceptionalism was no longer true and should be given up, while the latter thought it was still true. Neither was willing to tell Americans that they were no longer exceptional but should try to be again.\nTechnology, on the other hand, could change the world without other people’s permission.\nIf there was something inegalitarian about his investments, every technological advance had an unequal component—you were doing the new thing, and the new thing could seldom be instantaneously transmitted to everybody.\nA university education had become the equivalent of a very expensive insurance policy, like owning a gun.\nHe wanted to burn his ship so that he would never be able to succumb and sail back to his former life. With Nellie lying at his feet, he spent each morning writing a book about what had happened to Washington in his years there. It would be called The Payoff: Why Wall Street Always Wins. It would say everything.\nA book on the subject was titled Rendering: The Invisible Industry. It was the kind of disgusting but essential service, like sewers, that no one wanted to think about.\nIt was strange how small the idea had to get before anyone would give it a chance.\nThough this book is a work of nonfiction throughout, it owes a literary debt to the novels of John Dos Passos’s great U.S.A. trilogy, published in the 1930s and overdue for a revival.\n","date":"February 24, 2014","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/notes-from-the-unwinding-by-george-packer/","section":"Posts","summary":"This got stuck in my draft queue but I have no idea what to meaningfully add to this absurd amount of highlights. The Unwinding by George Packer is a massive and amazing work with turns of phrase worth remembering on every page. It also shows very precisely how amazingly fucked up the USA is right about now. Here is the book cut up through my lens, but I would highly encourage you to read the whole thing (I tore through it in a couple of days).\n","title":"Highlights from The Unwinding by George Packer","type":"posts"},{"content":"We just switched over to Slack and we are quite happy with the tool as a replacement for our previous Hipchat setup. It all feels a bit fresher, it\u0026rsquo;s easier to integrate with the rest of the web and has more functionality and niceties built in.\nI did have this frustrating twitter conversation with them about what I think is an important topic:\n@alper That\u0026rsquo;s true, but: there are already IM networks (and email, phones, SMS, Skype, etc.) out there. We\u0026rsquo;re building something for teams.\n— Slack (@SlackHQ) February 14, 2014\nThe problem is that it is difficult to use these tools if you are part of several organizations. The way people work these days I could be part of a dozen or more companies and non-profits. Slack is a bit more flexible and it allows quick switching between logged in organizations. What it doesn\u0026rsquo;t give you is an integrated view of your channels across organizations.\nThe way we use Slack may be different from most others people. We use it both to coordinate intensively around projects in private rooms, but besides that we have a couple dozen friends from all over the world in a couple of open channels 1 who help us create and maintain our company culture. None of these people are \u0026lsquo;part of our organization\u0026rsquo; per se but they all belong in our organization.\nThe hermetically sealed company wall is the anomaly. There are more free agents than ever who work in flexible configurations. This is a trend that does not show any sign of abating. What the twitter exchange above shows is that Slack either does not understand this or they don\u0026rsquo;t want to understand this. This is fine but also a bit disappointing for a company that wants to be visionary when it comes to new ways of working together.\nI criticize because I love Slack. If there is any company that can help us work together in this new world, it is probably them. But for that to happen we need to start having these conversations.\nWhich is also why we may be stuck on the Lite Plan indefinitely.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"February 21, 2014","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/we-dont-need-saddles-nor-do-we-need-faster-horses/","section":"Posts","summary":"We just switched over to Slack and we are quite happy with the tool as a replacement for our previous Hipchat setup. It all feels a bit fresher, it’s easier to integrate with the rest of the web and has more functionality and niceties built in.\n","title":"We don't need saddles nor do we need faster horses","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;m currently at a German MVNO called Congstar. Partially because somebody told me that they have LTE (which is not true) and partially because I had gotten rather fed up with my Vodafone prepaid plan (branded CallYa). Like any service in Germany this one too is terrible and since then I have come to call them Cunststar.\nThe website is an utter pain to navigate and essential information is spread out across major sections. Other essential information that you would like to have such as how much money there actually still is on your card is not available at all. Added to that there is no actual customer support but instead you are allowed to navigate through a maze of fora, bots and other things not at all relevant.\nStill it gives you a data plan and such things are rare in Germany. There are also some switching costs to trying out all of the other MVNOs as well which are probably just as bad. So I stuck with it.\nMy latest ordeal came when I tried to upgrade my 1GB plan to a 3GB plan. Trying to give these people more money turned out to be quite difficult. It wasn\u0026rsquo;t very clear but I had to wait for the 1GB option to run out. Then out of the blue I got an SMS yesterday night that it was gone.\nI then tried to activate the 3GB option. At that moment I had enough money in my account to be able to buy that option:\nStill Congstar wouldn\u0026rsquo;t activate it and as if by magic the next morning some money has disappeared to make it just out of reach. I have no idea where the money went and Congstar won\u0026rsquo;t tell me:\n@alper Hm, kann ich so nicht nachvollziehen, sry. Ich kann jetzt nur sehen, dass für die 3000er nicht genug da ist :/ ^MW\n— congstar (@congstar) February 19, 2014\nWhat is to say that these operators don\u0026rsquo;t shave off money from customers\u0026rsquo; accounts when it suits them? Due to the lack of information from them it is impossible for a customer to verify where the money goes to 1.\nThe major advantage of this plan over my previous prepaid is that I don\u0026rsquo;t get SMS spam all the time. Small blessings like that are all we can hope for in the land of telcos.\nSo why don\u0026rsquo;t I get a non prepaid plan? Because in Germany those are insanely expensive, all run for 24 months and LTE is but a faint glimmer on the horizon.\nUpdate:\nThere is indeed a usage view but it shows that some time after I tried upgrading my plan (which failed) my phone tried to use the internet and incurred some charges.\nObviously if you don\u0026rsquo;t allow people to add a data plan if you wait long enough their phones will use data at some point when they can\u0026rsquo;t get a WiFi connection and you have a good excuse to let them pay more. Telcos are a bottomless pit into which we can throw money for all our lives.\nWell we know it went in some douchebags pockets.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"February 19, 2014","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/cuntstar-ne-congstar/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’m currently at a German MVNO called Congstar. Partially because somebody told me that they have LTE (which is not true) and partially because I had gotten rather fed up with my Vodafone prepaid plan (branded CallYa). Like any service in Germany this one too is terrible and since then I have come to call them Cunststar.\n","title":"Cuntstar né Congstar","type":"posts"},{"content":"On Saturday evening I was in the Volksbühne for Stargaze among others to see Cantus Domus perform a set with an odd German band called 1000 Robota. After that there was an intermission and the main performance of the evening by Pantha du Prince and The Bell Laboratory.\nThe artistic mandate of the evening bordered a bit on the odd. 1000 Robota is more or less a lunatic act part of the melodramatic German singer-songwriter movement. Pantha du Prince \u0026amp; The Bell Laboratory were forced to interpret Terry Riley\u0026rsquo;s in C as part of the program. Of course they said it was a great inspiration to them and they did quite a good job of it. After the official part of the program they started making some real music and the entire Volksbühne got to its feet 1. I asked myself: ‘What the fuck were we doing up until this point?’\nI realize that the evening wasn\u0026rsquo;t supposed to be a club night, but if the unofficial part of the program is so much more vibrant that should be a clear signal.\nI had a similar experience in the same venue where a performance by Apparat was mired by a boring play about Russian nobility.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"February 17, 2014","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/unleash-the-panther/","section":"Posts","summary":"On Saturday evening I was in the Volksbühne for Stargaze among others to see Cantus Domus perform a set with an odd German band called 1000 Robota. After that there was an intermission and the main performance of the evening by Pantha du Prince and The Bell Laboratory.\n","title":"Unleash the panther","type":"posts"},{"content":"This book by Alain de Botton started out slowly for me because I am already quite familiar with the global logistical infrastructure and the various ways our food is made (thanks to the Keuringsdienst van Waarde). In the second half though with its focus on the moral and spiritual aspects did it pick up and became a very worthwhile read.\nHow ignorant most of us are by contrast, surrounded by machines and processes of which we have only the loosest grasp;\nThe range of items available for purchase may have grown exponentially since then, but our understanding of their genesis has diminished almost to the point of obscurity.\nMoments, a six-centimetre-wide biscuit made of chocolate and shortcake\nthe idea of answering psychological yearnings with dough might seem daunting,\nas befitted a snack which respected the realities of life even as it offered temporary relief from them.\nVilfredo Pareto, who theorised that a society would grow wealthy to the extent that its members forfeited general knowledge in favour of fostering individual ability in narrowly constricted fields.\nIn a perfect society, so specialised would all jobs be, that no one would any longer understand what anyone else was doing.\nIt is left to the painter, working in a quieter, more observant idiom, to rescue what the film has encouraged its viewers not to see.\nThe biscuits carried lives on their backs.\nAll societies have had work at their centre; ours is the first to suggest that it could be something much more than a punishment or a penance.\n‘The liberal arts have sung their own praise long enough; they should now raise their voice in praise of the mechanical arts. The liberal arts must free the mechanical arts from the degradation in which these have so long been held by prejudice’.\nTheir obvious good health and, in some cases, beauty served to suggest that knowledge and experience might not, in the end, be very valuable commodities to take refuge in.\nTheir obvious good health and, in some cases, beauty served to suggest that knowledge and experience might not, in the end, be very valuable commodities to take refuge in.\nOne might be doomed not by a lack of talent, but by a species of pessimistic pride.\nAs a result, it is now a member of the European Union, its highest legal authority is the Court of Justice in Strasbourg, its agricultural and fishery policies are defined in Brussels and its currency, valid even in the Indian settlement of Pilakoupoupiaina on the Oyapock River, is the euro, from the European Central Bank of Frankfurt-am-Main.\nThey engaged in elaborate praise of their counterparts’ most routine achievements, like their ability to build a petrol station or to install air conditioning\nEvoking comparison with Chandigarh and Brasilia, two other examples of modern architecture’s impressive track record of indifference to issues of context and culture, it was in an advanced stage of decomposition after only a few decades of existence.\nfor it meant that never again would the fate of planetary exploration depend to a hazardous degree on such unpredictable variables as the mood of Johannes Kepler’s wife, Barbara, or the inclinations of his patron Emperor Rudolf II\nclass? I felt my allegiances shift to the engineers and technicians around me, these new medicine men who often sported baseball caps, and had a tendency towards unsophisticated humour — but who had nonetheless mastered the workings of the universe.\nThere is also a suitcase jammed with scarves and jumpers, for outdoor painters tend to know the story of how Cézanne caught a chill one morning while painting a sparrow in a field in Aix-en-Provence — and was dead by sunset.\nI found myself wishing that the rest of mankind would follow the engineers’ example and agree on a series of symbols which could point incontrovertibly to certain elusive, vaporous and often painful psychological states- a code which might help us to feel less tongue-tied and less lonely, and enable us to resolve arguments with swift and silent exchanges of equations.\nSentimental associations and impossible longings are shut down, and the self is reassembled as an apparently coherent entity, with stable commitments and a prescribed future.\nwe can be grateful for how tightly bound we have kept our desires, and proud of the restraint we have shown in not poisoning our colleagues or entombing our relations under the patio.\nHow satisfying it is to be held in check by the assumptions of colleagues, instead of being forced to contemplate, in the loneliness of the early hours, all that one might have been and now never will be.\nThey have no ambition to become known to strangers or to record their insights for an unimpressed and ephemeral future. They are well adjusted enough to have made their peace with oblivion.\nprinted a quote from a speech by Theodore Roosevelt, in which the president spoke of the need for every man to strive for excellence and, ‘if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat’.\nOf course, power has not disappeared entirely; it has merely been reconfigured. It is by posing as a regular employee that the chairman stands his best chance of preserving his seniority. His subordinates admire the sincerity with which he pretends to share their fate, while he privately recognises that only a convincing show of normalcy will prevent him from ever having to be normal again.\nbefore adroitly slipping in a recommendation for improvements to their methods in the humble and supplicating manner of a preacher in an age of declining faith.\nHow few are the moments of the day when money is truly being made, and how many are on either side given over to daydreams and recuperation.\nHe contemplates all that has been difficult, unnecessary and regrettable but from a position of distance, with a calm and poignant vantage point over his imperfections and missed opportunities, as though his life were nothing but a bad sentimental film and he its half sympathetic, half repugnant hero.\nThe start-up company may be as central to our contemporary ideals as the ritual of praying for the souls of the dead or the maintenance of female virginity was to the values of our medieval ancestors.\na new kind of holiday company which would take tourists around industrial locations rather than museums;\nTheir real function was to serve as a reminder of the unavailability of beauty to an overwhelmingly male, middle-aged and harried-looking base of customers.\nLearning of it was akin to having seduced someone in a bar only to discover, when she stood up to dance or go to the bathroom, that she had only one leg.\ninvented the term Ruinenlust to describe this new passion. It seems, in fact, that the more advanced a society is, the greater will be its interest in ruined things, for it will see in them a redemptively sobering reminder of the fragility of its own achievements.\nIt is paying death too much respect to prepare for it with sage prescriptions.\n","date":"January 8, 2014","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/notes-from-the-pleasures-and-sorrows-of-work-by-alain-de-botton/","section":"Posts","summary":"This book by Alain de Botton started out slowly for me because I am already quite familiar with the global logistical infrastructure and the various ways our food is made (thanks to the Keuringsdienst van Waarde). In the second half though with its focus on the moral and spiritual aspects did it pick up and became a very worthwhile read.\n","title":"Notes from The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work by Alain de Botton","type":"posts"},{"content":"Not hugely satisfying but still a nice read. Supposedly the first book in this series is better.\nA hasty temper was one of the greatest faults a general could have, and people who were provoked by insults were easy to defeat.\n“You think China’s sending in peacekeepers again?”\nWhen the sea levels rose, they built huge dikes to protect their coastlines, and floated their greatest cities on the waves, like they did with Island Shanghai.\nNow, she swung the machete with expert strength. City girl learning country living.\nIt was submerged again, but it had been terrifying—beast and human welded together in an unholy mix.\nSoldier boys would’ve loved it. Battle to the death. Epic ring.\n“I ain’t started cutting, yet.”“So you’re starting with her tongue?”“Gotta start somewhere.”\nScout the town. See if we got any more castoffs. Maybe we got a whole nest of China rats we don’t know about.\nIt was foolish to think that there was anything left to save energy for, but it was his nature. He had been designed too well.\nFull-grown. Unusual in the Drowned Cities, where war ate its young long before they reached maturity.\nFull-grown. Unusual in the Drowned Cities, where war ate its young long before they reached maturity.\nShe’d seen people stand up, determined to hold on to principles. People who thought there was right and wrong. People who tried to save others.\nHe would have stood tall. And the soldier boys would have shot his head right off and gone on to someone else without a second thought.\nI’m sure whoever first started questioning their political opponents’ patriotism thought they were being quite clever.\nYou didn’t want to overthink. It just got you confused, and it got you killed.\nNobody wanted a castoff reminding them how China had taken everything over for more than a decade, telling everyone what to do and how to live.\n“Generals are in the habit of using up all the people around them. It’s their job. It’s what they do best.”\n","date":"January 5, 2014","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/notes-from-the-drowned-cities-by-paulo-bacigalupi/","section":"Posts","summary":"Not hugely satisfying but still a nice read. Supposedly the first book in this series is better.\n","title":"Notes from The Drowned Cities by Paulo Bacigalupi","type":"posts"},{"content":"This pamphlet by Adam Greenfield, the first of more is a concise and enjoyable distillation of his politics when it concerns the smart city and also features a number of similarly inclined thinkers:\nIn this light, the casual contempt for history that is part and parcel of Koolhaas\u0026rsquo;s generic city and the comparable conceptions of urbanity we find in the canonical smart cities feels particularly glib, adolescent and unsatisfactory.\nIf a city can even be said to have any such quality as intelligence to begin with, that intelligence is bound to be singular, something that subsists in the unique lifeways, cultures and pragmatic local adaptations that have evolved in a particular place.\nWhat do exist in the world are specific deployments of components from specific vendors, laminated together as particular propositions, and each of these may differ profoundly from other, similar propositions, along all of the axes that condition human interaction with them.\nThe fact is that the data is never “just”the data, and to assert otherwise is to lend inherently political and interested decisions regarding the act of data collection an unwonted gloss of neutrality and dispassionate scientific objectivity.\nThey\u0026rsquo;re too perfectly tuned to the exigencies of a given moment, and generally get caught wrongfooted when the moment shifts.\nThe sense that citizens themselves may wish to avail themselves directly of the information ostensibly being gathered on their behalf is almost surreally absent from the smart-city literature.\nIt’s hard to imagine a robustly autonomous community, or a public sphere in any traditional sense, taking root in the soil of a municipality that is owned and operated as a business in the way these places are.\nBut unquestioned neoliberal assumptions even show up in the smart-city literature in contexts where it makes little or no apparent sense.\nthe smart city itself, as a coherent object of discourse, arises out of a specific set of conditions produced by late capitalism, under which cities compete against each other as global destinations for capital and talent.\nBut the results are identical, and at the margins, enthusiasm for the vigor with which an autocratic regime can act can be hard to distinguish from outright apologia for the systematic practice of oppression.\nthey arise in response to the needs of a great many people of differing proclivities, interacting with one another over reasonably long periods of time.\nThe same diversification of need and desire that generates a vibrant service ecosystem also makes the city a patchwork of constituencies with wildly divergent conceptions of the good, the just and the proper, virtually guaranteeing the impossibility of satisfying them all at once. But that, too, is part of what we mean when we call something a city.\nwe shouldn\u0026rsquo;t fool ourselves that the endeavor is in any way based on an appreciation of the city as a crucible of contested spaces and conflicting constituencies, or of municipal management as the art of balancing their broadly irreconcilable demands.\nThis, by the way, is entirely intentional: Le Corbusier had consciously designed the Radiant City to “use up tires, wear out road surfaces and gears, and consume oil and gasoline”so as to generate the maximal amount of economically productive activity by way of replacement.\nAnd history teaches us, repeatedly — bludgeoning the point home with a blunt shovel, for those who simply refuse to get the point — that maintenance budgets are among the very first things to go.\nAnd yet the orthodox conception of the smart city says virtually nothing about the prospect that its inhabitants might be equipped with the smartphone.\nAnd while misgivings may in fact be prevalent, there are likely to be relatively few in the bureaucracy who are able to express them forthrightly — that is to say, who are sufficiently comfortable with the technology to understand precisely what is being proposed, sufficiently familiar with the way their city works to convincingly articulate why this is problematic, sufficiently assured of their own position to feel safe in doing so, and sufficiently passionate about the issue to willingly shoulder the risk involved.\nThe truth is that our cities are already densely and intimately linked with one another, bound together by their own citizens in a constant and mutually-reinforcing traffic in atoms and bits.\nWe must never lose sight of the idea, though, that another city is possible, a city that harnesses networked information technology toward the lasting empowerment of the people who live in it, give life to it and make it what it is.\n","date":"November 25, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/notes-for-against-the-smart-city-by-adam-greenfield/","section":"Posts","summary":"This pamphlet by Adam Greenfield, the first of more is a concise and enjoyable distillation of his politics when it concerns the smart city and also features a number of similarly inclined thinkers:\n","title":"Notes for Against the Smart City by Adam Greenfield","type":"posts"},{"content":"This was a tremendously enjoyable read. I wonder why my English teacher never pointed us in this literary direction for things to read.\nHe cursed the “goddamn shitting heat”with such violence and such hatred that it sometimes ruined the atmosphere of the place\neverything from wild young Turks who wanted to rip the world in half and start all over again \u0026ndash; to tired, beer-bellied old hacks who wanted nothing more than to live out their days in peace before a bunch of lunatics ripped the world in half.\na shoplifting Cuban who carried a gun in his armpit, a half-wit Mexican who molested small children\nVagrant journalists are notorious welshers, and to those who travel in that rootless world, a large unpaid bar tab can be a fashionable burden.\nI was a consultant for the cockfighting syndicate\nIt was a greedy life and I was good at it.\nFinally I broke in. “Hey!”I shouted. “What the hell is this? I have to get on that plane!”\nWhen I got to the plane I had to shove past five or six people waiting to board.\nSuddenly the old man jumped up and tried to scramble over me like a dog.\nAfter ten minutes of half-hearted listening I suspected I was in a den of hustlers.\nArriving half-drunk in a foreign place is hard on the nerves.\n“You\u0026rsquo;ll turn queer in this place, Kemp \u0026ndash; mark my words. This place will turn a man queer and crazy.”\n“His penis is pressing on his brain and he can\u0026rsquo;t think.”\nI realized how long it had been since I\u0026rsquo;d felt like I had the world by the balls,\nSuddenly she began to howl: at first I thought I was hurting her, then I realized she was having some sort of extreme orgasm.\n“They\u0026rsquo;re going to kill us all. Come on in after lunch \u0026ndash; it should be safe by then.”\nwasted hours and frustrated moments and opportunities forever lost because time had eaten so much of my life and I would never get it back.\nShe was so close to naked, and so apparently unaware of it, that I felt helpless.\nHe drank incessantly, and by the time it got dark he was steaming drunk and shouting.\nYeamon smiled. “A man never knows when his head might get twisted.”\nTell them that this man Kemp is fleeing St. Louis because he suspects the sack is full of something ugly and he doesn\u0026rsquo;t want to be put in with it.\nOn the way down the hill we walked three abreast in the cobblestone street, drunk and laughing and talking like men who knew they would separate at dawn and travel to the far corners of the earth.\nHe was lewd and corrupt in every way.\nThere was a time I had been the same way. I wanted it all and I wanted it fast and no obstacle was big enough to put me off. Since then I had learned that some things were bigger than they looked from a distance, and now I was not so sure anymore just what I was going to get or even what I deserved. I was not proud of what I had learned but I never doubted it was worth knowing.\nIt was terribly sad \u0026ndash; not the music itself, but the fact that it was the best they could do.\nA ten-year accumulation of these vagrant addresses can weigh on a man like a hex. He begins to feel like the Wandering Jew. That\u0026rsquo;s the way I felt.\nI didn\u0026rsquo;t want to go anywhere. Yet, when Yeamon talked about moving on, I felt the excitement anyway.\nThere was an awful suspicion in my mind that I\u0026rsquo;d finally gone over the hump, and the worst thing about it was that I didn\u0026rsquo;t feel tragic at all, but only weary, and sort of comfortably detached.\nThat maddening delusion that a man can lead a decent life without hiring himself out as a Judas Goat.\nShe seemed oblivious to everything but the music and the freak who led her around the floor.\n","date":"November 23, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/notes-from-the-rum-diary-by-hunter-s-thompson/","section":"Posts","summary":"This was a tremendously enjoyable read. I wonder why my English teacher never pointed us in this literary direction for things to read.\n","title":"Notes from the Rum Diary by Hunter S. Thompson","type":"posts"},{"content":"Funny to come across three pieces today wherein a bunch of fashionable faux-intellectuals are taken apart.\nFirst Franzen in the LRB:\nHe writes against blogs, yet allows a comparison between Die Fackel and blogs; he writes about the way the internet disturbs the reading experience, but does it in pages bracketed into German and English sections and in notes that confuse me more than anything I read online — that confuse me more than the Talmud. He writes about competition and the work ethic, but never mentions his own Heine: David Foster Wallace, a master of the nuanced citation who managed to be both smarter and more casual, crazier and kinder.\nI tore through Freedom for a book club but I never understood the hype. Recently he\u0026rsquo;s hitchhiking on the anti-internet nostalgia that is so fashionable in 40-somethings which makes him not only suspect but lazy as well. And yes you should read all of DFW and none of Franzen.\nThen Gladwell in the New Republic whose stories were amusing to read but who I never could take seriously after the exposition of his corporate shilling.\nNow also Diamond in the LRB being taken apart by the esteemed James C. Scott whose writing could inform so much of what passes for political debate in the Netherlands but who seems to be ignored by the fashions of continental academia and the stupidity of our opinion makers.\nAnd last week the exposition in nsfwcorp of Pierre Omidyar as an extremist robber baron (just like every other billionaire out there).\nIn many regions, Omidyar Network investments have helped fund programs that create worsening conditions for the world’s underclass, widening inequalities, enhancing exploitation, pushing millions of people into crippling debt and supporting anti-poverty programs that, in some cases, resulted in mass-suicide by the rural poor.\nThis compromises all of the work that Greenwald and colleagues will do under that banner. Of course no reaction from Glenn Greenwald will be forthcoming because of the (partially justified) internet paranoiac way in which he handles criticism.\nThe lesson here seems simple: if something strikes you as too convenient or too simple to be true, it probably is.\n","date":"November 22, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/lazy-intellectualism-exposed-probably-without-consequences/","section":"Posts","summary":"Funny to come across three pieces today wherein a bunch of fashionable faux-intellectuals are taken apart.\n","title":"Lazy intellectualism exposed (probably without consequences)","type":"posts"},{"content":"Reading this book took me quite some time since it arrived in my mailbox some four years ago. I only picked it up after acquiring an epub version of it that I could read in Readmill wherever I happened to find myself (so also really after Readmill launched their iPhone app). It takes some getting into but this book is hugely rewarding and a pleasure.\nit was somehow sadistic-seeming, like drilling a peephole in the wall of a handicapped bathroom.\ntoo Canadianly dumb for anything but the brutalest work.\nthe terrible accident that resulted in all locks being taken off E.T.A. saunas\u0026rsquo; doors and the saunas\u0026rsquo; maximum temperature being hard-wired down to no more than 50°C.\nIt now lately sometimes seemed like a kind of black miracle to me that people could actually care deeply about a subject or pursuit, and could go on caring this way for years on end.\nThe fish asking about what\u0026rsquo;s water.\nHe could just hunker down in the space between each heartbeat and make each heartbeat a wall and live in there. Not let his head look over. What\u0026rsquo;s unendurable is what his own head could make of it all.\nDeath says the woman who either knowingly or involuntarily kills you is always someone you love, and she\u0026rsquo;s always your next life\u0026rsquo;s mother. This is why Moms are so obsessively loving, why they try so hard no matter what private troubles or issues or addictions they have of their own, why they seem to value your welfare above their own, and why there\u0026rsquo;s always a slight, like, twinge of selfishness about their obssessive mother-love: they\u0026rsquo;re trying to make amends for a murder neither of you quite remember, except maybe in dreams.\nThe rest would be allowed to die for leur rai pays.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s like a big wooden spoon keeps pushing him just under the surface of sleep and then spooning him up for something huge to taste him, again and again.\nwhy did she love him when he flang her down and beat her up on a more or less daily basis for fucking years on end.\nOne of the highest prices of sobriety was not being able to keep from remembering things you didn\u0026rsquo;t want to remember\nhe doesn\u0026rsquo;t have any idea what it means and no reason to be thinking it with roaring force, so the sensation is not only creepy but somehow violating, a sort of lexical rape.\ngot in some insane drunken limbo-dance challenge with a rival executive and tried to like limbo under a desk or a chair or something insanely low, and got his spine all fucked up in a limbo-lock, maybe permanently\nmixed with the sounds of severely fucked-up Canadians returning to whatever passed with Nucks for consciousness and calling for what they called medecins\n\u0026ldquo;could not find his own bottom with both hands and a nautical compass of exacting precision.\u0026rdquo;\nher home\u0026rsquo;s kitchen, where, apparently despondent, she committed suicide by putting her extremities down the garbage disposal — first one arm and then, kind of miraculously if you think about it, the other arm.\nthe fact that the Auteur\u0026rsquo;s belief in a finite world-total of available erections rendered him always either impotent or guilt-ridden.\nAnd at E.T.A. only 16s snapped towels, and only for a year or two, but they went at it with a vengeance, towel-snapping, a brief flared genuflection to jock-stereotype, a stage where there\u0026rsquo;s this primate-like passion for red-assed bonding in steamy rooms.\nYou looked into their maps and something was gone.\nThere may be some persons who are born imprisoned. The irony, of course, being that the very imprisonment that prohibits sadness\u0026rsquo;s expression must itself feel intensely sad and painful.\nThe dinner ended in a kind of explosion of goodwill.\nuntil she\u0026rsquo;d been approached by Orin, who made no secret of the fact that he had balls of unrejectable steel where horrifyingly pretty girls were concerned.\nnorthern Quebec\u0026rsquo;s La Culte de Baiser Sans Fin\nBut even the first to quail and jump has jumped. Far beyond prohibited, not to jump at all is regarded as impossible. To \u0026ldquo;perdre son coeur\u0026rdquo; and not jump at all is outside le Jeu\u0026rsquo;s limit. The possibility simply does not exist. It is unthinkable. Only once, in le Jeu du Prochain Train\u0026rsquo;s extensive oral history, has a miner\u0026rsquo;s son not jumped, lost his heart and frozen, remaining on his jut as the round\u0026rsquo;s train passed. This player later drowned.\nthe precise mechanical specifications of each scheduled train\u0026mdash;\u0026mdash;these are known to the directeurs, they comprise the constants in a game the variables of which are the respective wills of the six ranged along the track, and their estimates of one another\u0026rsquo;s will to risk all to win.\ninfamous \u0026ldquo;Le ]eu du Prochain Train,\u0026rdquo; and that the A.F.R.\u0026rsquo;s Root Cult itself was comprised largely or perhaps even entirely of veteran devotees and practitioners of this savage, nihilistic, and mettle testing jeu pour-meme.\n\u0026ldquo;Les jeux pour-memes\u0026rdquo; formal competitive games whose end is less any sort of \u0026ldquo;prize\u0026rdquo; than it is a manner of basic identity: i.e., that is, \u0026ldquo;game\u0026rdquo; as metaphysical environment and psychohistorical locus and gestalt.\nIt turns out the more luridly absorbing the angle of topic you choose, the more people have already been there before you with their footprints to fill and their obscurely academic-type-journal articles to try and absorb and, like, synthesize.\neach subsequent reviewing of the Entertainment now would have the price of one digit from the Subject\u0026rsquo;s extremities.\nThat we\u0026rsquo;re all lonely for something we don\u0026rsquo;t know we\u0026rsquo;re lonely for.\nIt is a level of psychic pain wholly incompatible with human life as we know it. It is a sense of radical and thoroughgoing evil not just as a feature but as the essence of conscious existence. It is a sense of poisoning that pervades the self at the self\u0026rsquo;s most elementary levels. It is a nausea of the cells and soul. It is an unnumb intuition in which the world is fully rich and animate and un-map-like and also thoroughly painful and malignant and antagonistic to the self, which depressed self It billows on and coagulates around and wraps in Its black folds and absorbs into Itself, so that an almost mystical unity is achieved with a world every constituent of which means painful harm to the self.\nWe are shown how to fashion masks of ennui and jaded irony at a young age where the face is fictile enough to assume the shape of whatever it wears.\nthey are doomed, because you cannot both celebrate and suffer, and play is always suffering\non some level you can tell that he views the recipients of his charity not as persons so much as pieces of exercise equipment on which he can develop and demonstrate his own virtue.\nthe father is crushed into aspic in a freak accident on the Jamaica Way and all opportunities for transgenerational instruction are forever lost\nthis quality of Look-At-Me-Being-So-Totally-Open-And-Sincere-I-Rise-Above-The-Whole-Disingenuous-Posing-Process-Of-Attracting-Someone-,-And -I-Transcend-The-Common-Disingenuity-In-A-Bar-Herd-In-A-Particularly-Hip-And-Witty-Self-Aware-Way-,-And-If-You-Will-Let-Me-Pick-You-Up-I-Will-Not-Only-Keep - Being - This - Wittily, - Transcendently - Open -, - But - Will - Bring-You - Into - This -World-Of-Social-Falsehood-Transcendence,\nit is a pose of poselessness\nI know that he erased his own cartography in a grisly way.\nFootball is pure homophobically repressed nancy-ism, and do not let O. tell you different.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s the nature of the game. It\u0026rsquo;s the machine they\u0026rsquo;re all dying to throw themselves into.\nthat night he seemed to be the piece of string by which I hung suspended over hell itself.\nwith breasts like artillery and a butt like two bulldogs in a bag\nThis was back when his brother Orin needed only to have sexual intercourse with them instead of getting them to fall so terribly in love with him they\u0026rsquo;d never be able to want anyone else.\neat with such horrible P.O.W.ish gusto\nnobody but Ludditic granola-crunching freaks would call bad what no one can imagine being without.\nwho looks like one of those people you see in pictures of African famine\na Dial-a-Prayer telephone service for atheists in which the atheist dials the number and the line just rings and rings and no one answers\ncreepy boys who talked without moving their lower jaw\ndowning one plastic cup after another of beer-foam until he got so blind drunk his sphincter had failed and he\u0026rsquo;d not only pissed but also actually shit his pant\nwhen the check arrived, in an extra-long-size envelope to accommodate all the zeroes\nAt a certain level of abstraction it\u0026rsquo;s like the brain recoils.’\nThe fourth horseman stays hidden, of course, like in all quality eschatologies, the unturned card, under wraps till actual game-time.\nThe only reason she\u0026rsquo;s never been diagnosed or treated for it is that in her the Disorder doesn\u0026rsquo;t prevent her from functioning. It all seems to come back to functioning.\nTheir faces become sexual faces.\nthe abortive parents who\u0026rsquo;d left or lost them in the general geopolitical shuffle of mass migration\na suicidal Nuck cult of Nucks that worshipped a form of Russian Roulette that involved jumping in front of trains and seeing which Nuck could come the closest to the train\u0026rsquo;s front without getting demapped.\neliminating the saliva guy\u0026rsquo;s map on the spot,\nHe\u0026rsquo;d have no problem with looking deep into some bitch\u0026rsquo;s eyes and looking so sincere it\u0026rsquo;s like he\u0026rsquo;s dying inside him.\nLenz has a keen antenna for people like this and their stock is low on his personal exchange.\nSo after the incident with the flaming cat from hell\nThere were more chunks of dismantled street lying all over.\nWhat you do is you hide your deep need to hide, and you do this out of the need to appear to other people as if you have the strength not to care how you appear to others.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s not necessarily pejorative to compare a cornered bureaucrat to a cornered rat.\nAs a high-velocity object people can project themselves onto, forgetting their own limitations in the face of the nearly limitless potential someone as young as yourself represents.\nThis drives me bats. You know this drives me bats.\nthe essential vagueness about himself that Tavis fought by sort of peeling his skull back and exposing his brain to you without any sort of warning or invitation;\nI\u0026rsquo;d be more than happy to shake hands, even one of those intricate multiple-handed ethnic handshakes if you\u0026rsquo;ll bear with my inexperience with that sort of handshake\nwhere there are disco-ized Brazilians can cocaine and narcotics ever be far away.\nThe neural distillate of, say, orgasm, religious enlightenment, ecstatic drugs, shiatsu, a crackling fire on a winter night — the sum of all possible pleasures refined into pure current and deliverable at the flip of a hand-held lever. Thousands of times an hour, at will.\nwho\u0026rsquo;s rumored also to attend Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous, which engages everyone\u0026rsquo;s imagination to the max.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s all the sort of thing that\u0026rsquo;s uninteresting unless you\u0026rsquo;re the one responsible, in which case it\u0026rsquo;s cholesterol-raisingly stressful and complex\nHis mother was subsequently involved with a live-in lover, a former Navy M.P. who used to beat her up on a regular schedule, hitting her in the vicinities between groin and breast so that nothing showed.\nGately can\u0026rsquo;t even start to guess what it would be like to be a sober and drug-free biker. It\u0026rsquo;s like what would be the point. He imagines these people polishing the hell out of their leather and like playing a lot of really precise pool.\nThe whole place smells like death no matter what the fuck you do.\nYou can\u0026rsquo;t induce a moral sensibility the same way you\u0026rsquo;d train a rat. The kid has to learn by his own experience how to learn to balance the short- and long-term pursuit of what he wants.’\nthat congenital plagiarists put so much more work into camouflaging their plagiarism than it would take just to write up an assignment from conceptual scratch. It usually seems like plagiarists aren\u0026rsquo;t lazy so much as kind of navigationally insecure. They have trouble navigating without a detailed map\u0026rsquo;s assurance that somebody has been this way before them.\n","date":"November 7, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-from-infinite-jest-by-david-foster-wallace/","section":"Posts","summary":"Reading this book took me quite some time since it arrived in my mailbox some four years ago. I only picked it up after acquiring an epub version of it that I could read in Readmill wherever I happened to find myself (so also really after Readmill launched their iPhone app). It takes some getting into but this book is hugely rewarding and a pleasure.\n","title":"Highlights from Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace","type":"posts"},{"content":"Another long overdue post with notes from the biography of Colonel John Boyd. This is partially so long overdue because extracting quotes from Readmill is somewhat annoying and the excellent API integration Box of Quotes no longer works 1.\nHe quoted Sophocles: “One must wait until the evening to see how splendid the day has been.”\nHe reacted the only way he knew how: by attacking. The rank or position of his enemy, the size or significance of the institution, none of it mattered. He attacked. And when Boyd attacked, he gave no quarter.\nHe was a pure man at a time when pure men were needed but so few answered the call.\nShe hammered into John that as long as he held on to his sense of what was right, and as long as his integrity was inviolate, he was superior to those who had only rank or money.\nwhat is found deep in the bone marrow of a fighter pilot—exaggeration and the belief that a good story is more important than sticking with the bare facts.\nThus, aerial combat favors the bold, those who are not afraid to use the airplane for its true purpose: a gun platform. There is nothing sophisticated about sneaking up on someone and killing him.\nThe saying of the time was “The more you bleed in peace time, the less you bleed in war.”\nHe told how to use various tactical combat maneuvers such as the scissors, the high-speed yo-yo, the low-speed yo-yo, the high-G barrel roll, and the vertical rolling scissors to gain the advantage on an opponent.\nBut what they do has nothing to do with combat flying. It’s all about appearance and not about flying an airplane. I wouldn’t have anything to do with that crowd. All they do is work the cocktail and pussy circuit.”\nHeat waves danced on the runway like dervishes.\n“The world is divided into hosers and hosees. Your job as fighter pilots is to be a hoser.”A feral grin split his face. He leaned toward the class and added, “I, of course, am the ultimate hoser.”\nwho talked as if he learned the English language in a New Orleans whore-house.\nBut he needed Boyd, the maverick: the obstreperous and independent officer who cared more for his work than for his career. Only such a man could save the F-X from being cancelled and prevent the Air Force from being outmaneuvered by the Navy. Only such a man could save the Air Force from itself.\nThen Boyd began showing his briefings to Sprey and asking for an opinion. Sprey often ripped the briefs to shreds. And he did it in such a calm and irrefutable manner, reason stacked atop reason, logic atop logic, that it was impossible to disagree. Boyd referred to a Sprey critique as the “Pierre Sprey buzz saw.”But he knew Sprey was making his work stronger and more focused and virtually impervious to attack. “We’ve got to do our homework, Tiger,”Boyd often said to Sprey. “One mistake and they will leverage the hell out of it.”\nVery few men were ever invited by Boyd to join forces with him. None ever refused. Each sensed intuitively that he was being offered a rare gift. Each was to pay a terrible price for his friendship with Boyd. Each would have paid more.\nIt was new and different. And anything new and different is feared by a bureaucracy.\nThen he made changes to the paper. It was always fluid.\nBurton had a new rule: judge people by what they do and not what they say they will do.\nThe greatest superpower on earth used almost every arrow in its quiver, everything from multimillion-dollar airplanes to laser-guided bombs to electronic sensors to special-operations forces, and still was defeated by little men in black pajamas using rifles and bicycles.\nAnd when managers lead an army it is their nature to cast blame rather than to accept responsibility.\nBut some had never heard of Sun Tzu and could not spell “von Clausewitz.”They might have known the names of Douhet or Jomini or von Schlieffen or Fuller or Guderian or Lawrence or Balck, but few knew the theories espoused by these men.\nBut when he walked out of the Building, he walked into a world of ideas.\nBoyd thought analysis could lead to understanding but not to creativity.\nHe talked of “paralysis by analysis”and said Washington was a city of ten thousand analysts and no synthesizers. “They know more and more about less and less until eventually they know everything about nothing”\nTo make sure the new reality is both viable and relevant, Boyd said it must be continually refined by verifying its internal consistency and by making sure it matches up with reality. But the very process of making sure the reality is relevant causes mismatches between the new observation and the description of that observation.\nThe advantage gained from the fast transient suggests that to win in battle a pilot needs to operate at a faster tempo than his enemy. It suggests that he must stay one or two steps ahead of his adversary; he must operate inside his adversary’s time scale.\nGenerating a rapidly changing environment—that is, engaging in activity that is so quick it is disorienting and appears uncertain or ambiguous to the enemy—inhibits the adversary’s ability to adapt and causes confusion and disorder that, in turn, causes an adversary to overreact or underreact.\nThey remained ambiguous because Boyd still believed ambiguity created opportunities for unexpected richness.\n“Sun Tzu tried to drive his adversary bananas while Clausewitz tried to keep himself from being driven bananas.”\nThey moved so fast the enemy simply could not understand what was happening and became unglued.\nThe intent is to shatter cohesion, produce paralysis, and bring about collapse of the adversary by generating confusion, disorder, panic, and chaos. Boyd said war is organic and compared his technique to clipping the nerves, muscles, and tendons of an enemy, thus reducing him to jelly.\nBut few of those who speak so glibly about the OODA Loop have a true understanding of what it means and what it can do.\nBoyd, like Sun Tzu and Napoléon, believed in attacking with “moral conflict”—that is, using actions that increase menace, uncertainty, and mistrust in the enemy while increasing initiative, adaptability, and harmony within friendly forces.\nHe remembered what Boyd often said: “There are only so many ulcers in the world and it is your job to see that other people get them.”\nBut those groups often are single-issue groups whose members have no more than a surface knowledge of the military or of defense matters. Because their concerns are frivolous or tangential, they are easily dismissed.\nHe went in and wrote on the blackboard, “Duty Honor Country.”Then he crossed out the words and under them wrote, “Pride Power Greed.”\nMarines are considered both primitive and elitist—primitive because all Marines are basically infantrymen, and elitist because they are so few in number and so good at what they do.\nWar is ever changing and men are ever fallible. Rigid rules simply won’t work. Teach men to think.”\n“So you got your reward; you got kicked in the teeth. That means you were doing good work.\nThey think the real business of the Pentagon has something to do with defending America. But it does not. The real business of the Pentagon is buying weapons.\nAnd whistle blowers get no respect; they get others to help them do something that they can’t do themselves.\nThe Army said, “Well, they do exist. But we can’t model them on the computer so we ignore them.”\nHe was inside their minds and knew how they thought and how they reacted. He could walk into a room of civilian and Army officials and know when the game was afoot. He knew intuitively when and how the adversary would move. Burton had the Fingerspitzengefuhl to move rapidly through the OODA Loop and stay ahead of his adversary, and he found the experience exhilarating.\nEach one began with his saying, “I want you to know there is nothing personal in what I am about to do.”And then total devastation.\nTo make these timely decisions implies that we must be able to form mental concepts of observed reality, as we perceive it, and be able to change these concepts as reality itself appears to change.\nWithout this unstructuring the creation of a new structure cannot proceed—since the bits and pieces are still tied together as meaning within unchallenged domains or concepts.\nThe result is a changing and expanding universe of mental concepts matched to a changing and expanding universe of observed reality\nBuilding things on top of APIs looks to be a thing of the past for anything serious or meant to run longer than one week.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"November 5, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/notes-from-boyd-the-fighter-pilot-who-changed-the-art-of-war/","section":"Posts","summary":"Another long overdue post with notes from the biography of Colonel John Boyd. This is partially so long overdue because extracting quotes from Readmill is somewhat annoying and the excellent API integration Box of Quotes no longer works 1.\n","title":"Notes from Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War","type":"posts"},{"content":"I finished Aramis (PDF) a couple of weeks ago and this is absolutely essential reading for anybody involved with technology in a wider sense than just technology. It is also quite funny. I look forward to reading more by Bruno Latour, An Inquiry into the Modes of Existence is high on my list 1 and I\u0026rsquo;ve registered to join his MOOC on the Scientific Humanities.\nfor life is a state of uncertainty and risk, of fragile adaptation to a past and present environment that the future cannot judge.\nThe actors come in varying sizes; this is the whole problem with innovation.\nA signature on a contract, an endorsement, an agreement stabilizes the relative size of the actors by lending to the provisional definition of alliances the assistance of the law, a law whose weight is enormous because it is entirely formal and because it applies equally to everyone.\nWoe betide those who trust the law alone to shelter their projects from random hazards.\nWhereas we sociologists have to drag ourselves around everywhere. Our terrains aren\u0026rsquo;t territories. They have weird borders. They\u0026rsquo;re networks, rhizomes.\nTo translate is to betray: ambiguity is part of translation.\nThe problem is, the innovator has to count on assemblages of things that often have the same uncertain nature as groups of people.\nMen and things exchange properties and replace one another; this is what gives technological projects their full savor.\nWe won\u0026rsquo;t keep the humans\u0026rsquo; physical presence, their caps, their uniforms, or their outspokenness; but we\u0026rsquo;ll keep some of their knowledge, their abilities, their knowhow.\nFor a project to materialize, it must at once recruit new allies and at the same time make sure that their recruitment is assured.\nTo study a technological project, one must constantly move from signs to things, and vice versa.\nA technological project is neither realistic nor unrealistic; it takes on reality, or loses it, by degrees.\n\u0026ldquo;But we all know what economic studies are worth.\u0026rdquo;\nThe actors don\u0026rsquo;t have a strategy; they get their battle plans, contra dictory ones, from other actors.\nThe actors create both their society and their sociology, their language and their metalanguage.\nNo, because the actors also provide themselves with the means to pass from one point of view to another, and they unify, from their own point of view, and each for himself, the multiplicity of points of view thus deployed. Each constructs his own instrument in order to elaborate a synoptic view. All the actors thus repair, for themselves, the disorder they create by multiplying perspectives.\nTo survive in a variable-ontology world, the promoters of a technological project have to imagine little bridges that let them temporarily ensure their stability.\nresearch is, as we know, the surest although the most enjoyable way for a company to go bankrupt.\nThey, too, want to stabilize a certain interpretation of what they are and what they want. And there they are, ordering notes and questionnaires, which accumulate in a file that is soon complicated enough to require new notes, syntheses, and summaries.\nThe human sciences do not show up as the curtain falls, in order to interpret the phenomenon. They constitute the phenomenon. And the most important human sciences, always overlooked, include accounting, management, economics, the \u0026ldquo;cameral sciences\u0026rdquo; (bureau-graphy), and statistics.\nAnd then they reach the height of cruelty and ingratitude: here\u0026rsquo;s technological prowess that has given engineers hundreds of sleepless nights for ten years, that makes them quake with fright because it may not work, and the customers take it for granted!\nThe actors are always right, whether they\u0026rsquo;re multiplying viewpoints or cutting down on them. If we use the adjectives \u0026lsquo;irrational\u0026rsquo; and \u0026lsquo;absurd,\u0026rsquo; it\u0026rsquo;s because we haven\u0026rsquo;t made our own frames of reference supple enough.\nEverything happens in defiance of common sense, but there is no common sense for innovations, since they happen, they begin, they invent common sense, the right direction , the correct procedure.\u0026quot;\nHow can I become a being, an object, a thing-finally a self, yes, a full set, saturated with being-without them, without their agreement, without their coming to terms (since I myself am made from them, flesh of their flesh, a rib extracted from theirs), without their acknowledgment that I am transports, displacements of human beings?\nTechnology is sociology extended by other means.\nGive me the state of things, and I\u0026rsquo;ll tell you what people can do-this is how technologism talks. Give me the state of human beings, and I\u0026rsquo;ll tell you how they will form things-this is the watchword of sociology.\nThe soul of machines constitutes the social element. The body of the social element is constituted by machines.\nOur bureaucracy-so widely scorned-is our second brain, as indispensable as the first.\nThe disorder that is wiped away on one side by describing the tasks meticulously in neat logical trees turns up again on the other side, among the programmers, who are having as much fun as a barrel of monkeys, shooting themselves in the foot, dividing up tasks according to procedures that can\u0026rsquo;t be described, for their part, in neat logical trees.\nHumans and nonhumans take on form by redistributing the competences and performances of the multitude of actors that they hold on to and that hold on to them.\nA technology isn\u0026rsquo;t one single character; it\u0026rsquo;s a city, it\u0026rsquo;s a collective, it\u0026rsquo;s countless.\nYou can\u0026rsquo;t give me enough orders, not fast enough, not in time. You have to let me handle things on my own.\nEvery part of the system is as complicated as the system as a whole. Every plate we unfold is itself made up of plates to be unfolded!\nBut you\u0026rsquo;re drawing the wrong lesson. It is not our creative power that we need to curtail; it is our 101le that we need to extend, even to our lesser brothers who did not ask us for life. We acquainted them with existence. We need to acquaint them with love.\nThey all say the same thing: what the principal actors have put in their mouths! What doormats, these scientific journalists! Always ready to popularize, never to investigate.\nThey throw money out the window, but they think research means throwing money out the window\nYou don\u0026rsquo;t think you have the power? Then don\u0026rsquo;t expect that Aramis will.\nI would have been happy to be something, in the end, anything at all-but first you have to agree among yourselves. I can\u0026rsquo;t be every thing to everybody. The finest project in the world can\u0026rsquo;t give more than it has, and what it has is what you give it.\nThough unfortunately not available as an ebook.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"November 2, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/notes-from-aramis-by-bruno-latour/","section":"Posts","summary":"I finished Aramis (PDF) a couple of weeks ago and this is absolutely essential reading for anybody involved with technology in a wider sense than just technology. It is also quite funny. I look forward to reading more by Bruno Latour, An Inquiry into the Modes of Existence is high on my list 1 and I’ve registered to join his MOOC on the Scientific Humanities.\n","title":"Notes from Aramis by Bruno Latour","type":"posts"},{"content":"I tried to register to vote for the buyback of the Berlin energy grid and then I got this letter back informing me that I cannot vote.\nI already knew that I cannot vote for national German elections and I don\u0026rsquo;t care much for them anyway. That I can\u0026rsquo;t vote at the local level where I live and where I am taxed is however somewhat annoying. Especially given the number of new entrants to the city, the fact that none of them receive any representation for their taxation is a outrageous.\nThere\u0026rsquo;s a Turkish man who cycles around Berlin with a placard about this very fact 1. He has a cassette tape to make his point and looks rather funny but the issue that he protests is real for many people. A lot of people who live in Germany for a long time have no say in what happens there. During the most recent elections the statistic was posted that a quarter of people living in Germany are not allowed to vote (because they are foreigners) and another quarter do not vote. This means the government has a shaky mandate based on half the inhabitants.\nIt could also explain why mainstream politics is so broken and boring. Maybe it\u0026rsquo;s time for some democracy in Germany?\nI\u0026rsquo;ll try to get a picture of him next time I see him.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"October 28, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/4806/","section":"Posts","summary":"I tried to register to vote for the buyback of the Berlin energy grid and then I got this letter back informing me that I cannot vote.\n","title":"Germany still isn't really a democracy","type":"posts"},{"content":"Here are my notes from a couple of weeks of drinking coffee in Tokyo on a fact finding mission for Cuppings. With Cuppings we try to give you a guide of the best coffee places around the world based on our personal tastings. Some notable locales are still not as well represented as they should be. London and New York have their own excellent guides for coffee with Oliver Strand\u0026rsquo;s Coffee App and the London Coffee Map. Tokyo is one place that I thought we should fill in.\nI had picked my hotel to be on the right side of the city to be off to a running start so I could visit places right from the very first day. So landed at Narita, got my Mifi and while waiting to checkin I made my way to.\nLittle Nap Coffee Stand # I had a quick lunch and walked to the Little Nap Coffee Stand (checkin, tip) which I had seen a video of over at My First Coffee and was totally smitten with. As promised the store was beautiful and the coffee was excellent.\nFuglen Tokyo # Then I walked over to this place recommended to me by Companion Coffee. This Fuglen (checkin, tip) is a sister to a store by the same name in Oslo 1. This place turned out to be more of a cafe with an event program and cocktails in the evening and a diverse group of Japanese people and expats hanging around with laptops during the day.\nThe decorations are lush Nordic wood and the Kalita Wave pour over that I had was terrific.\nOmotesando Koffee # Then after some more walking around at the end of the day I finally hit the promised place: Omotesando Koffee (checkin, tip) which had been recommended to me by countless people and where Eiichi Kunimoto practices his craft. I had an iced cappuccino here because —what I hadn\u0026rsquo;t counted on— the weather was extremely pressing and it was rainy humid and very warm all day. It stayed that way for most of my stay.\nThe iced cappuccino at Omotesando is more of a milkshake like concoction with the espresso shot put into a blender along with some ice and milk, the result is poured out into your cup and sprinkled with —I think— cinnamon. Drinking this at that moment in the idyllic garden of Omotesando was a near religious experience and felt like the best coffee I have ever had. I returned to Omotesando a number of times during my visit for the coffee, the amicable staff and the quiet ambiance of its garden.\nBear Pond Espresso # The next day I walked from my hotel to Shimokitazawa, a 20 minute saunter in the heat through the quiet residential area of Hatagaya. I don\u0026rsquo;t have any pictures of Bear Pond (checkin, tip) because of their policy but this was the other summit of my Tokyo coffee experience.\nKatsuyuki Tanaka (and Eiichi Kunimoto of Omotesando) are very different and have a totally different style of coffee and shop but both elevate making coffee to a level which can only be called artistry.\nThe ambiance at Bear Pond is slightly forbidding but with the American radio playing it is rather easy to unwind on one of the stools and wait for your espresso to be served. That espresso when it comes out is one of the shortest shots you have ever drunk and probably also one of the most intense.\nI ordered an espresso on an empty stomach which I normally never do because it gives me problems. But this espresso was so smooth that not only did my stomach not get upset, it was so delicious that I chased it with another one. With the reduced quantity it becomes something of an effort to get every last bit of taste out of the cup.\nI brought back a bag of Bear Pond\u0026rsquo;s house blend ‘Flower Child’ and even when made in Berlin (by the heroes of Companion Coffee) after two weeks, it still had that characteristic deep chocolate like flavour.\nCafe Obscura # The next stop was Cafe Obscura (checkin, tip), a somewhat out of the way place with lots of nice leather sofas and good siphons on offer. Obscura also have a laboratory which I skipped in favor of this place. The siphon coffee is expertly made and really good.\nNozy Coffee # Then it was a quick visit to Nozy Coffee (checkin, tip) which is a small but very nice looking coffee place. I had a solid cappuccino and saw that they have lots of beans on offer. Unfortunately I had no time to come back and bring some of these with me, but this place is one to look out for.\nBe A Good Neighbor (Sendagaya) # The following day started out at the tiny Be A Good Neighbor (checkin, tip) store in Sendagaya. The cappuccino and the cake were both excellent and the barista was very helpful in offering tips about where to get more coffee. Especially useful was his pointer to Paddlers which I started the next day with.\nStreamer Coffee Company Shibuya # I then walked on to Shibuya to try the coffee at Streamer (checkin, tip). The type of coffee which they serve here and which I had is a latte. I normally don\u0026rsquo;t drink them but in the light of trying out the coffee as it is being served locally I had one. Shockingly this was the first place in Tokyo I encountered where the coffee was not fantastic.\nWhat Streamer does do really well is to be a nice place to hangout. There were lots of people in the store with and without laptops having a great time and relaxing which is exactly what I did as well.\nOn the Corner No. 8 Bear Pond # The last stop this day was the Shibuya On the Corner Bear Pond No. 8 (checkin, tip) take-out bar which is a beautiful store front with attached coffee bar where you can sit on a handful of stools and recharge your phone or as it seems to be the intention: take out your coffee. You get an expertly drawn coffee with milk in it and a no photo policy is in effect here as well, so I can show you the cup I drank it from:\nI did not visit the restaurant and instead had an awesome burger around the corner at Whoopie Gold Burger.\nPaddler\u0026rsquo;s Coffee # The next day I trekked to the area around Sangubashi station in the morning and had a terrific start of the day at Paddlers Coffee (checkin, tip) a brilliant setup lunch place with Stumptown coffee on offer. I had a spectacular iced coffee in the stifling heat.\nCafe Kitsune # I then made it out to Cafe Kitsune (checkin, tip) whose presence I had just been alerted to. This is a fashion store in Omotesando where they have a fabled Slayer Espresso machine.\nThen it was off to Kyoto to see some sights and sample the coffee outside of Tokyo. This was something of a disappointment, but we\u0026rsquo;ll get to that in a bit.\nSpecialty Coffee Unir # In Kyoto I found it rather hard to get a coffee that I would term drinkable. Most of the local brews are very dark roasted and ridiculously over extracted to a point that I can hardly drink them even with milk and sugar (or gum syrup).\nOne exception to his in Kyoto was Unir (checkin, tip) where they make a very nice cappuccino and which I visited a couple of times because of this.\nアカツキコーヒー (Akatsuki Coffee) # Based on some research I found Akatsuki (checkin, tip) which is a nice place in a different part of town. This place gets the filter brew almost right and the shop itself looks beautiful.\nOmotesando Koffee # What I didn\u0026rsquo;t know until my last day in Kyoto and after my camera broke down is that they have a branch of Omotesando (checkin, tip)in the city on the main shopping street in a fashion store of United Arrows. The same impeccable Omotesando branding and the same fantastic coffee. I\u0026rsquo;m half glad that I didn\u0026rsquo;t know of it before because given the Kyoto coffee scene I would have been at this place all the time.\nHood Cafe # Then it was off to Osaka to do the same. My experience here was a bit better than in Kyoto but not much. Hood (checkin, tip) is a very nice coffee shop which manages to hit all of the cultural paraphernalia associated with third wave coffee and also serves a bunch of different beans and methods but still it does not seem to hit the level of Tokyo. Still they serve very good coffee even without comparing it to the stuff on offer in the rest of the city.\nEspresso Bar Millpour # Next up was Millpour (checkin, tip) which is a tiny place in the city where they make a near perfect cappuccino.\nAfter that detour it was time to get back to Tokyo and to finish this visit.\nThe Monocle Cafe # I dropped by the Monocle Cafe (checkin, tip) in the basement of a clothing store and was disappointed by the coffee though the food was rather ok. The coffee is not terrible, but it does not have the quality that you would expect from Monocle which is more or less the same for the rest of the store.\nBe A Good Neighbor Skytree # Then I made my way over to the Be A Good Neighbor (checkin, tip) store in the Skytree. The Skytree itself is a pandemonium of commerce where people are screaming at you all the time to buy something. Finding your way through the mall to the exact location of Be A Good Neighbor is no mean feat, but finally having arrived there the coffee is as excellent as in their other store. I would only recommend going here if you\u0026rsquo;re already in the area or god forbid entering the Skytree but then it is a welcome place to rest.\nSarutahiko Coffee # I also did a round of Ebisu and found two very nice coffee places in that part of town. Sarutahiko (checkin) is a small shop but it seems to have everything necessary and made a very nice coffee. Definitely worth a visit.\nHitinui Espresso Bar # A bit further on is Hitinui (checkin, tip) which is a tiny place and also doubles as a Tahitian dance school. I couldn\u0026rsquo;t check out the dance, but the cappuccino was excellent and the barista very friendly.\nIdentity Coffee Bar+Gallery # Identity Coffee Bar+ Gallery (checkin, tip) also in Omotesando is a rather nice store and has an excellent selection of both Intelligentsia and Handsome beans which they prepare perfectly.\nThat was the roundup from my Tokyo coffee experience. I visited a couple of the places several times and brought back some bags of coffee but I am extremely impressed with the coffee culture and I\u0026rsquo;ll definitely be back.\nAnd Oslo with its coffee scene is still very high on my to visit list.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"October 20, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/tokyo-coffee-notes/","section":"Posts","summary":"Here are my notes from a couple of weeks of drinking coffee in Tokyo on a fact finding mission for Cuppings. With Cuppings we try to give you a guide of the best coffee places around the world based on our personal tastings. Some notable locales are still not as well represented as they should be. London and New York have their own excellent guides for coffee with Oliver Strand’s Coffee App and the London Coffee Map. Tokyo is one place that I thought we should fill in.\n","title":"Tokyo Coffee Notes","type":"posts"},{"content":" This was the week of getting a lot of things done and a minor John Boyd obsession. I read the biography by Coram and queued the PhD thesis by Osinga to read as soon as I finish Latour\u0026rsquo;s Aramis 1 instead of the pop-sci that permeates everything.)). Frans Osinga is a rather impressive fellow if you look at his Ministry of Defense webpage. We were joking around that having a design event with him would be brilliant mind-expand. Unfortunately events take too much time to organize so that won\u0026rsquo;t be happening anytime soon.\nOne thing to keep in mind from Boyd\u0026rsquo;s tragic life is to make the decision to either Be Somebody or to Do Something. Most people I hang out with all want to Do Something, but it does pay to keep in mind how it will work out for you personally.\nI made a brief stop in Aachen 2 before heading to the Netherlands to catch up with local coffee, for some quality time at Hubbub HQ and meeting Amsterdam friends.\nTo prepare for that visit to the Netherlands I had to kill another two hours at the local Bürgeramt because the Meldebescheinigung I had was not recent enough for some stupid Dutch institution.\nThis is all a move towards reading more foundational works (I [wrote about that here](/dingen/2013/08/apply-your-philosophy/\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nSmall towns across Europe are scary places filled with old people and conservatism.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"October 6, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-336/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Week 336","type":"posts"},{"content":"A funny week and with these weeknotes falling ever further behind it is also becoming increasingly vague what ever did happen back then.\nSomething I didn\u0026rsquo;t publish back then but I might as well now is [this horrible ancient picture](http://www.netzpiloten.de/barcamp-berlin-blogger-interviewen-blogger/ work) that Peter dug up of me from a long ago visit to Berlin. That was in a certain year during the first Web 2.0 Expo that was held in Berlin by O\u0026rsquo;Reilly. We made it out here with a Dutch group and attended the event along with Barcamp Berlin and lots of parties. Fun times in a Berlin that was very different.\nAlso this week Cuppings was featured rather prominently both on twitter and in publications which all in all did not lead to the exponential sales you may have been expecting. It turns out that the visibility windows of twitter are too short to lead to any serious conversion.\nWe watched this rare talk by Jack Schulze which is recommended viewing.\n\u0026ldquo;He has to make what he is thinking in order to express it.\u0026rdquo; —Schulze\nAnd Kars was in Berlin so we iterated on the Cuppings game version which should be published somewhere in October for you all to play.\n","date":"September 30, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-335/","section":"Posts","summary":"A funny week and with these weeknotes falling ever further behind it is also becoming increasingly vague what ever did happen back then.\n","title":"Week 335","type":"posts"},{"content":"Tonight I saw the magical Symphonie Cinétique works at MADE in Berlin.\nIepe Rubingh who I to my shame only met last night told me about these beautiful works of art by Joachim Sauter (and music by Ólafur Arnalds) and this being the last chance to see them. I don\u0026rsquo;t think I have really seen a music and installation piece before where both parts combine this well. Julio Le Parc\u0026rsquo;s kinetic work in the Palais de Tokyo is comparable, but this is better.\nThis is Berlin at its finest.\n","date":"September 23, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/symphonie-cinetique/","section":"Posts","summary":"Tonight I saw the magical Symphonie Cinétique works at MADE in Berlin.\n","title":"Symphonie Cinétique","type":"posts"},{"content":"I will be gone during the peak of the horrible German election campaigns (in fact I\u0026rsquo;m just back and voting is this Sunday). The only thing that is keeping things somewhat bearable are the low-budget fake news broadcasts by Tagesschaum. I pay taxes in this damned country but I am not eligible to vote. That\u0026rsquo;s why I penned this election advice before I left for those that are. I didn\u0026rsquo;t have time to polish it then but here it is, better late than never.\nI agree with others that votes should not be cast on FDP, CDU or SPD because they are all cynical douchebags, one not much better than the other. You would think that the SPD are sort of good but they aren\u0026rsquo;t really and yesterday I found out thanks to the Wahl-Apparat that they are both for weapons sales and the Kirchensteuer.\nThen to treat the remaining parties:\nThe Left - They have some policies with significant merit. The abolishment of the two class healthcare system is long overdue 1 and their other economic policies hit the right tone in a time in which almost everything is being sold to the highest bidder. But I can only recommend voting for them in protest and if you do, hope that everybody else doesn\u0026rsquo;t do the same. When they were in power, these people perpetrated some of the worst crimes against society in recent history (see the pictures from the Stasi archives). They even have an actual Stasi member (source) leading their list. And for economic redistribution to work there has to be an economy, something I\u0026rsquo;m not so sure will still exist if these people come into power.\nThe Pirates - It\u0026rsquo;s hard to take these guys seriously anymore but they seem to have some good —even if probably frightfully naive— candidates that you may be able to elect directly. Giving your protest vote to them is also by far the most harmless option.\nThe Greens - They are not the idealists that they were anymore (that honour goes to the Pirates). This does not prevent them from applying their ideals onto the world with horrible consequences. Their economic policies are about as good as those of the Left but more oriented towards yuppies as are their environmental policies. Large parts of the party also seem to be batshit crazy —though probably not much more than the other parties— and there are lots of controversies that I haven\u0026rsquo;t read up on and can\u0026rsquo;t really write about 2.\nHaving taken that all into account I would advice a vote for the Greens anyway because they are mostly harmless and because it is the party that is most adamantly pro-bicycle. On the local level their policies are already paying off and a strong national faction will only supplement that. Putting your vote behind cycling in a single issue fashion is not that bad and it is an issue that is being clinched right now. Next time around the choice may be slightly less hopeless.\nAlso: I will be talking on stage to a Dutch delegation here for the elections about what it\u0026rsquo;s like to live and work in Germany.\nThe Netherlands did this a while back without adverse effect.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nLiterally cannot write about because freedom of speech does not exist in Germany.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"September 20, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/voting-advice-for-the-german-elections/","section":"Posts","summary":"I will be gone during the peak of the horrible German election campaigns (in fact I’m just back and voting is this Sunday). The only thing that is keeping things somewhat bearable are the low-budget fake news broadcasts by Tagesschaum. I pay taxes in this damned country but I am not eligible to vote. That’s why I penned this election advice before I left for those that are. I didn’t have time to polish it then but here it is, better late than never.\n","title":"Voting advice for the German elections","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;m writing this from Japan after seeing I have fallen seriously off the blogging horse. I think this particular week I was a bit under the weather but I did manage to get out a minimal prototype for AJI.\nThat was the week of the Somewhere cocktails event here a lot of friends were present.\nCo-up had their summer barbecue which was a fun grill and beer on the street.\nAnd end of the week we got to meet Simon and Ulla who were visiting Berlin. It\u0026rsquo;s always awesome to have friends drop by (you should too!). We spent the afternoon drinking coffee and eating Austrian food.\nAnd after that we went to a gallery in Kreuzberg with an exposition about the influx of new people into Berlin. The artist had outfitted a proper German Behörde and given us a form to fill in about our reasons for coming to Berlin. I was amazed to read the growing number of Dutch people coming to Berlin every year now. Nobody in Berlin is really from Berlin.\n","date":"September 13, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-334/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’m writing this from Japan after seeing I have fallen seriously off the blogging horse. I think this particular week I was a bit under the weather but I did manage to get out a minimal prototype for AJI.\n","title":"Week 334","type":"posts"},{"content":"This week was a bit more stationary than the last thankfully. I tried out a competitor to Cuppings called Bean Seeker which is a rather terrible app.\nThat night I attended the IoT Berlin meetup organized by Martin and had dinner with a rather interesting set of people.\nI also started playing DOTA2 this week for which there is a working Mac client available and which is a deep but somewhat too hardcore experience.\nCuppings was featured on Fontanel and we got a mention from London\u0026rsquo;s Best Coffee. Both of those are from people we respect which makes it mean the world to us. It also made us hit top 3 in the Food and Drink category of the Dutch store, which is nice to see (and altogether too easy).\nI met Will Perkins and Nikos Green both highly capable people who I look forward to work with (again).\nI read up about SpriteKit which is in the forthcoming iOS7 release and should make 2D game programming very very easy for developers. Looking forward a lot to iOS becoming an even more capable platform than it is.\nOn Friday we tried to attend the inaugural Biteclub which turned out to be too busy if you actually want to eat something.\nThat Saturday I started to work on the AJI prototype in earnest which is coming together nicely as we speak.\n","date":"September 5, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-333/","section":"Posts","summary":"This week was a bit more stationary than the last thankfully. I tried out a competitor to Cuppings called Bean Seeker which is a rather terrible app.\n","title":"Week 333","type":"posts"},{"content":"Oh, this week. This week was how to put it rather intense.\nWe got visits again from Peter Rukavina and this time Thomas dropped in as well to make it a proper Reboot reunion. I decided to join Peter (Bihr) to go to London in October to attend Playful and Mozilla Festival and potentially Gamecity too which is supposed to be an awesome conference in Nottingham. I\u0026rsquo;ve never been outside of London so that alone may be worth the trip.\nI also had a visit of my old friend Bjorn who I worked with at a company that shall not be named but that was deep in the territory of the bizarre.\nI spent the beginning of that week prepping for a client engagement which got me waking up on Wednesday somewhere before five o\u0026rsquo;clock to take a hellish cab ride into Tegel airport. You are never driven to Tegel in the same way twice, but I\u0026rsquo;ll definitely make sure never to take the highway again.\nDuring the flight I also managed to spill coffee both over my clothes and my laptop and that was all before I even arrived in Munich. That was a rather terrible start of a day that turned out very well. That evening we celebrated our success with a Tsukemen ramen at a local Munich ramen joint 1.\nThe next day we did another day at the client after which having been nicely friend I took an S-Bahn to the airport. Munich airport right now has the best feature ever. There is a beer garden in between the two terminals where you can cheaply load up on a local microbrew before you board your plane. Every airport should have this.\nThen after having done all of this and with hardly enough sleep I dropped into our weekly Sheperditchi breakfast and then straight into a OpenGL ES course given by Stijn Oomes. Stijn has a PhD from my alma mater and we know many of the same people even though I didn\u0026rsquo;t have too many interactions with the computer graphics group at my faculty. We had talked earlier that year about his current pursuit of 3D vision and about the potential of such a workshop for iOS programmers. It was a thoroughly enjoyable day of pure learning with a lot of hands on and a knowledgeable teacher at hand.\nThat evening I joined the Berlin Critical Mass which is changing for the better and after that I watched Only God Forgives. A brilliant contemplative orgy of violence, shades of which I am seeing in Hotline Miami which I\u0026rsquo;m playing right now.\nAnd the next day I got my first sailing lessons —which I had half forgotten I was supposed to have— and after that I finally had some time to catch up on e-mail. Pretty odd how something that was such a critical part of infrastructure in this part of the world is nothing more than a pass time for well off people at the moment.\nWho knew that Munich even had ramen places let alone a ramen place that serves an interpretation of tsukemen!?\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"August 26, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-332/","section":"Posts","summary":"Oh, this week. This week was how to put it rather intense.\n","title":"Week 332","type":"posts"},{"content":"Odd that I hadn\u0026rsquo;t gotten around to blogging these notes from Dan Hill\u0026rsquo;s brilliant book, but here they are then finally:\nThis is all underscored by an optimistic belief in progressive change, that the current conditions are changeable for the better, that the present can be transformed into multiple positive futures.\nthe mental agility to generate ideas — to see design as cultural invention — is directly linked to the craft skills of design practice\nAs stated earlier, design’s core value is in synthesising disparate views and articulating alternative ways of being.\nYet such temporary interventions are often accompanied by claims as to wider significance; that an installation, say, can suggest a new way of doing, of living.\nto understand the pixel and the platform.\nThe problem is in taking clear design intent — the stage where “smart city”concepts are rife — into development, procurement and commissioning, and emerging from the other side with the intent intact, perhaps even improved by the process, such that further strategic outcomes can be realised\nzooming back and forth from matter to meta, and using each scale to refine the other, is core to strategic design.\nThe collapse of knowledge, of authority, of institution can leave a dizzying sensation, a kind of vertiginous drop into an abyss of uncertainty.\ndesign must make clear that its remit is expanded from simply problem-solving to context-setting.\nYou simply have to solve within the brief you’ve been set; you can’t challenge its premise.\nThere are either well-known technical solutions, and the real problem may be a lack of commitment, funding, skill, or motivation, or they are at least clearly defined problem spaces, that process improvement, nuanced analysis, elbow grease and the odd bit of luck could easily solve\nAnd if it was designed in one way, it follows that it can be designed in a different way.\nprototyping and heuristics in a space of “unknown-unknowns”\nMatter matters, in this respect\nAll these struggles are about the profound social injustice in our societies — whether in Egypt, Syria or the US and Spain.\n","date":"August 26, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/dark-matter-trojan-horses-highlights/","section":"Posts","summary":"Odd that I hadn’t gotten around to blogging these notes from Dan Hill’s brilliant book, but here they are then finally:\n","title":"Dark Matter \u0026 Trojan Horses Highlights","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;ve been on something of an applied philosophy 1 binge recently and after almost finishing “Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War” 2 I am now starting to read Aramis which Latour opens with:\nI have sought to offer humanists a detailed analysis of a technology sufficiently magnificent and spiritual to convince them that the machines by which they are surrounded are cultural objects worthy of their attention and respect. They\u0026rsquo;ll find that if they add interpretation of machines to interpretation of texts, their culture will not fall to pieces; instead, it will take on added density. I have sought to show technicians that they cannot even conceive of a technological ohject without taking into account the mass of human beings with all their passions and politics and pitiful calculations, and that by becoming good sociologists and good humanists they can become better engineers and better­ informed decisionmakers.\nI read these texts not only because as Latour promises it will turn me into a better engineer (and designer) but because only works of sufficient conceptual depth and denseness contain the force necessary to alter and improve our thinking. Books should never be tedious but they are allowed to be straining 3.\nI\u0026rsquo;m not a big fan of the other kind.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nThis is actually a biography and not exactly the kind of book I was looking for but it provides a good overview of the various disciplines that Boyd influenced. I will have to and will read the PhD thesis “Science Strategy and War”by Frans Osinga for the in depth treatment of his theories.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nThis is also the reason why pop-sci is usually a waste of time.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"August 24, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/apply-your-philosophy/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’ve been on something of an applied philosophy 1 binge recently and after almost finishing “Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War” 2 I am now starting to read Aramis which Latour opens with:\n","title":"Apply your philosophy","type":"posts"},{"content":"Right now in Berlin we are being bombarded with the election campaign but I do not know anybody who looks forward to voting come September. I cannot vote but if I were allowed I would also face a tough choice. None of the options are appealing and what we will get seems so certain and terrible that potential alternatives pale. Germany being as it is the election focuses on the heartland and there isn\u0026rsquo;t that much being discussed that people living in a city can relate to.\nThis particular city, Berlin, is doing better than it has in ages but is still in terrible shape. What it is sorely missing is the idea that it can be better and that we can make it so. To offer a start on that path I have drafted a list of ten points that should be improved. By now I\u0026rsquo;m sick of complaining and I imagine that I\u0026rsquo;m not the only one. I will be putting my weight and any weight I can borrow behind changing —initially— some of these things.\nThe points are not meant to be taken literally. In some cases they are more provocations than implementation plans, but in all cases they highlight a need and a way forward. I may have missed lots of things and the points below may not be perfect, but this list, like this city, is in beta.\nSome points are already being executed by people and organisations on the ground. I want to draw attention to their good work and support them where we can. People working for the benefit of the greater good can use all the help we can give them.\nPoliticians are not the focus of this initiative but I do think they benefit from people who hold them to a higher standard. This is a list of things that need doing. I don\u0026rsquo;t care who gets it done.\n1. World class bike paths # Berlin should have some of the best bicycle paths in the world. It deserves better than it has right now. If you want to see what I mean by this, go take a look at Copenhagen or Amsterdam.\nThis is not a pure matter of creating infrastructure, since most infrastructure will fail if the social conventions don\u0026rsquo;t support it. The city needs to start taking cyclists seriously if any of this is supposed to work.\nSome targets to strive for: - at least 40% of all personal transport should take place on a bicycle - at least 20% of commutes over 5km should be done by bike - at least 50% of all motorized traffic should be done with non-personally owned vehicles - lorries entering the city should be taxed, older lorries should be taxed more heavily\nPublic transportation in Berlin is on the point of falling apart. All stations should be renovated and expanded to a point beyond just keeping them running. Most U- and S-Bahn carriages should be replaced and they should all go faster.\n2. Fiber to the home available everywhere # The lack of serious broadband in Berlin is ridiculous. Fiber should be laid up to each building to facilitate fiber to the home everywhere in the next 5-10 years. All non-local fiber optic lines should be public property.\n3. Better Public Space # The Spree is a dead river running through Berlin on which you can see the occasional boat. Swimming in the Spree should be made possible. Public space around the riverside should be improved into a coherent whole.\nTempelhofer Park should remain as empty as it is right now.\n4. Fully digital government services # Berlin\u0026rsquo;s bureaucracies are maddening, unnecessary and they waste an incredible amount of time. All government services should be receivable online with only those services that include a proof of identity or notarisation to require a visit to a physical office.\nPayment and identity for government services should be fully digital.\n5. Food independence # Berlin (with the addition of Brandenburg) should be a net producer of food. Berlin should allow for more urban gardening to happen within the city.\n6. Energy independence # Berlin (with the addition of Brandenburg) should be able to fulfil all of its energy requirements itself. Grid infrastructure should be public property.\n7. All government data and documents public # The public should have direct access to all documents and data that the city government creates and stores.\n8. A functioning hub airport # Berlin needs to have a proper connection to the rest of the world and the BER airport should be completed quickly.\n9. Balanced property market # Improving the quality of life in the city will make the city more unaffordable than it already is. This cannot be remedied wholly, but the increase in property values can be put to better use than to supply investment funds with a predictable return. The improvements above need to be paid and money from overvalued parts of the city can be used to prop up the underdeveloped parts.\nThe best option would be to institute a hereditary tenure like we have in Amsterdam (with home owners leasing the land from the city in 10-50 increments) but people might object if we suddenly nationalise all land in Berlin. In any case Berlin should not sell any land it still has but lease it out instead.\nInstead I propose instituting a very progressive property tax on both land and buildings.\n10. Not a single sub quality school # I don\u0026rsquo;t know why there would be a debate about this point.\n","date":"August 23, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/the-declaration-for-a-better-berlin/","section":"Posts","summary":"Right now in Berlin we are being bombarded with the election campaign but I do not know anybody who looks forward to voting come September. I cannot vote but if I were allowed I would also face a tough choice. None of the options are appealing and what we will get seems so certain and terrible that potential alternatives pale. Germany being as it is the election focuses on the heartland and there isn’t that much being discussed that people living in a city can relate to.\n","title":"The Declaration for a Better Berlin","type":"posts"},{"content":"With KANT we were still figuring out mostly what it is we are doing and seeing as we are neither a collective or a coworking space it was up in the air a bit. I wrote up our offering in a more straight-forward and streamlined way where you can very easily find what it is you may be looking for. In other news we are discussing next steps for KANT in the future but anything on that order is off for at least 6-12 months.\nThat week I attended the Cocoaheads meetup on the Luftgarten at Tempelhofer Airport. This week the plans for the city to build at least two thirds of that field have been revealed. The 100% Tempelhofer Feld initiative is already preparing their campaign in September and it looks like it\u0026rsquo;s going to be a long winter. The reasoning of policy makers is \u0026lsquo;How can Berlin afford not to build on this piece of land?’ which is a staggeringly stupid way to frame something if ever I heard it.\nI got my Canon S100 camera which is proving to be a lot of fun and is getting me photographing at volume again. Judging from the pictures and the f/2.0 lens it has about the same performance as my old EOS camera with its kit lens but now in a much smaller package. What is also interesting is how accustomed people have gotten to larger cameras and phones that a small pocket cam hardly registers anymore.\nI also did some experiments with video mounting the camera on my bike: I could not bother installing Lightroom again (and definitely not with the Creative Cloud hell) and setting up any kind of workflow, so my current editing philosophy is NONE. Pictures are nominally straightened in iPhoto and slapped straight to Flickr.\nOur Friday Sheperditchi breakfasts are getting more and more fun with random friends dropping in. If you\u0026rsquo;re reading this, we usually have breakfast with KANT at Simitdchi on Friday mornings at 09:00 to get an early start into the day.\nAnd also with the summer lots of people are blowing through Berlin among which Peter Rukavina: And just to close off with a whole grilled fish: ","date":"August 19, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-331/","section":"Posts","summary":"With KANT we were still figuring out mostly what it is we are doing and seeing as we are neither a collective or a coworking space it was up in the air a bit. I wrote up our offering in a more straight-forward and streamlined way where you can very easily find what it is you may be looking for. In other news we are discussing next steps for KANT in the future but anything on that order is off for at least 6-12 months.\n","title":"Week 331","type":"posts"},{"content":"A new coffee place had reportedly opened up in the area and I went out searching for it. Concierge is tucked into a gate on Paul-Lincke-Ufer and they are really nice guys pulling quality shots. It is amazing both that this part of Berlin which was quite barren when it comes to coffee is shaping up so nicely and also that\nThat week we went into our Open State board meeting where everything is picking up in pace considerably. After that I just made it to the drinks of the Upfront UG which was a lot of fun.\nWe started ideation and building of an app for the piazza+social media platform which I\u0026rsquo;m rather excited about. More on that over on the Hubbub blog soon.\nI will be speaking at the Retune conference in my hometown on the subject of games with a purpose and our creative process. It looks like a super nice conference and I would love to meet you here.\nOur office landlords invited us to join them in a celebration on our building\u0026rsquo;s roof terrace. It\u0026rsquo;s been a while since I was on one of those and they look like mandatory facilities for anybody living in Berlin. I\u0026rsquo;m putting it my list of required utilities for the next KANT office.\nJust to prove the awesomeness of Berlin, we just had a Korean food shack opening here (besides the already rather large offering of Korean cuisine that Berlin has). I had my first Kimchi Fries there, which I think is indeed best described as a Korean kapsalon.\nOn Friday I just handled a last bit of business for the week and then went off to Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (MeckPom) for a bit of kayaking and canoeing which is about all there is to do in that part of Germany. It is a state that is trying to cope with severe shrinkage and because of its sparse population lends itself particularly well to forays into nature. I saw lots of animals and their young and definitely learned the difference between a kayak and a canoe. Also: bringing an aeropress can make situations much more bearable.\n","date":"August 12, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-330/","section":"Posts","summary":"A new coffee place had reportedly opened up in the area and I went out searching for it. Concierge is tucked into a gate on Paul-Lincke-Ufer and they are really nice guys pulling quality shots. It is amazing both that this part of Berlin which was quite barren when it comes to coffee is shaping up so nicely and also that\n","title":"Week 330","type":"posts"},{"content":"Most of the time this week was spent doing heads down work (notes on which elsewhere). Meeting with Igor and Tijmen and hanging out in parks. Summer.\nThat week I went to the Liepnitzsee for a swim. The key to surviving the summer in Berlin is to get out of the city and usually coincide that wit a trip to one of the many many lakes. Most of these are just bedding of the Havel/Spree/Oder passing through so they are not very deep or cool, but the Liepnitzsee is an exception and may be one of the best distance/quality lakes in the area.\nWith global warming happening here with a vengeance water temperatures are on the rise as well. Most of the not so deep lakes are approaching 28C already and there\u0026rsquo;s no telling where stuff will end up next week or in a couple of years. So even though it may be to early, I\u0026rsquo;m already worrying about the brain eating amoeba.\nAfter that it was off to Betapitch to hangout with friends and to see startups present. What was painfully obvious in most of the presentations was that none of the startups had a serious unfair advantage other than their presumed grit.\n","date":"August 5, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-329/","section":"Posts","summary":"Most of the time this week was spent doing heads down work (notes on which elsewhere). Meeting with Igor and Tijmen and hanging out in parks. Summer.\n","title":"Week 329","type":"posts"},{"content":" After a rather hectic week and day last Friday I went to see Only God Forgives in Central cinema 1. The movie is rather excellent if you like extreme violence or Ryan Gosling or both.\nThe stylized violence and disjunct story telling reminded me remotely of This Is How You Will Disappear. Probably not because any real visual similarity but because I am anxious for somebody in theater to produce something that good and ballsy again. And as this Guardian critic says, the Asian setting and lighting are reminiscent of Noé\u0026rsquo;s Enter the Void which I would recommend if you can stomach it.\nBut the violence and the characters in essence are Shakespearian and ‘Only God Forgives’ is how you actually should do a modern day Shakespeare adaptation. The movie is a post-modern mix of Macbeth and King Lear without a hint of slavish following. I lost count of how many bloodless—in all meanings of the word— Shakespeares I have seen on the stage. With this movie Winding Refn has also just schooled all theatre directors.\nWhich honestly is a bit of a dump, but it was the best option given the circumstances.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"July 29, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/only-god-forgives/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Only God Forgives","type":"posts"},{"content":"Travel is making it hard to keep up writing these notes weekly (or write anything for that matter). So this blog is turning into an expensive affair.\nWay back when this happened I was in the Netherlands for an appointment that was cancelled and because of that I had to fly to Munich from Amsterdam for a day of workshopping. The next night I flew back to Amsterdam to spend the rest of the week at Hubbub HQ in the Netherlands.\nWe did our strategic sessions about which I probably have written elsewhere already but this was as good a time as any to revisit this brilliant interview with Jack Schulze. They don\u0026rsquo;t make them like that anymore.\nNo one cares about what you think, unless you do what you think. No one cares what you do, unless you think about what you do. No one ever really cares what you say.\nAdvice to frame and put above your desk.\nThe last day I did a coffee tour of Amsterdam, which is in utter bloom at this moment with Third Wave coffee places opening up literally left and right. I paid a duty visit to BrunsNiks which is one of the best up and coming design firms of that city where most stuff is bullshit.\nWhat is also brilliant are the new Hackers and Founders offices of the eponymous meetup group. My old office in the Volkskrantgebouw got evicted because they are turning that into a hotel (like pretty much everything in Amsterdam) so they got together with the neighbors of Bottlenose and some other friends and rented a nice floor smack in Amsterdam city centre. I can\u0026rsquo;t take any credit for what they did but still I\u0026rsquo;m half proud of what that turned into.\nAnd that segued nicely into the speaker\u0026rsquo;s dinner for our Hack de Overheid event (which got a nice press release drop over at Wired thanks to Bruce). The event, the next day in City Hall, was one where all of the founders were present at one and the same location. That already was amazing. After the day was finished I spent the evening talking philosophy with Simeon.\nAnd the next day it was back in the train to Berlin which has added a whole hour because the flooding has damaged a bridge and caused a large stretch of tracks to be dislodged. Deutsche Bahn says that reconstruction will take until December. That may be just in time for next year\u0026rsquo;s flooding.\n","date":"July 29, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-328/","section":"Posts","summary":"Travel is making it hard to keep up writing these notes weekly (or write anything for that matter). So this blog is turning into an expensive affair.\n","title":"Week 328","type":"posts"},{"content":"This was the week that Kars returned from his honeymoon on Bali. And all for the better as well, because I had worked through most of our stack —we didn\u0026rsquo;t have any running projects at the time— and I was getting so annoyed by Dopplr\u0026rsquo;s performance that I was about to write a clean implementation of its trip model to store my upcoming travels in.\nThat week I also attended a meetup by Autofreies Kreuzberg and wrote that up. One additional note that I want to place is that Oranienstraße is a total traffic clusterfuck and I am amazed that nobody is fixing that. There is a clear political majority in Kreuzberg, the shopkeepers could use more space and removing the cars would improve the quality of life for everybody. Why not just do it then 1?\nI drove to MLOVE that week to present in our Dutch Quantified Self block. The block turned into a party of the sort Dutch people are good at and the Q\u0026amp;A session afterwards was one of the best I\u0026rsquo;ve either seen or given. The sharpness of the audience also had a lot to do with it. The questions were sharp, fast and on point like you rarely see at events.\nI drove back the next day and by some fluke where I lost half an hour in Halle 2 I got stuck behind massive car crash on the highway with three hours of barely moving cars to the next exit towards Dessau. It took the radio at least two hours to figure out that there had been a major car crash on this bit of road which I found stunning. After I finally got out of the traffic jam where there were several more Eastern European trucks simply broken down on the road blocking even more traffic. And finally I got trapped in a major summer storm with heavy thunder and rain. It got to the point several times where I barely could see the marking on the road so I decided to stop two times and wait out the rain instead of trying my luck with the rental car 3. All in all a trip that should have taken me two and a half hours, took me over ten and this experience of pure time-wasting ruined driving for me altogether.\nThe fabled German Autobahn proved to be a disappointment as well. It has been a fiction for me anyway. The last time I\u0026rsquo;ve ever actually driven 180 for a stretch is probably six years ago. The rest of the time there are either too many cars to drive really fast or they are busy doing constructions works. The actual bits where you are allowed to go infinite speed are also being chipped away at bit by bit 4 so at some point this may become a thing of the past.\nThe odd part of the traffic jam and the rain after was how primitive the German highways are compared to the Dutch ones. In the Netherlands almost all main and provincial roads are sensored so you can get real-time traffic flow information, most major highways have matrix displays above and beside them to actuate traffic and most of the critical sections and exits are surveilled by cctv cameras to see what is actually happening. There also is this thing called ZOAB which works wonders when it is raining.\nThe primitiveness stems from the fact that in Germany all roads from main roads in the city up to the A level highways are under the authority of the Länder. So if your highway is in the rather backward Sachsen-Anhalt province it means that you can\u0026rsquo;t really expect anything. This is also the reason that the Green/Red majority in Kreuzberg can\u0026rsquo;t decide to close down Oranienstraße for traffic because they don\u0026rsquo;t have that majority in the Land Berlin.\nAs I said compared to the Netherlands the roads themselves are already rather primitive, but the administrative organization also does not seem to make a lot of sense. In the Netherlands the provinces (analogous to the Länder) control the secundary roads between the cities, the so called ‘Provinciale Wegen’. On the map in that Wikipedia page you can very clearly see the division with the main arteries ‘Rijkswegen’ being maintained by the central government and for instance the roads within Amsterdam being the purvey of the municipality of Amsterdam. This is a method of organization that is clear and never will be implemented in Germany. Putting the main highways under federal control and the city streets under that of the city (though with Berlin that might coincide with the province of Berlin) would take money and power away from the Länder and will therefore be fought tooth and nail like these things always are.\nThe week after this one was a bit idiotic.\nThe answer is the strange administrative division when it comes to roads in Germany.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nThe tremendously chaotic multi-story roundabout had a lot to do with that.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nWhich was a rather charming Ford Focus in any case.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nThey\u0026rsquo;re doing this quietly because cars in Germany are like the NRA in the USA.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"July 16, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-327-car-freeness-banging-qa-the-fabled-autobahn-and-the-administrative-organization-of-infrastructure/","section":"Posts","summary":"This was the week that Kars returned from his honeymoon on Bali. And all for the better as well, because I had worked through most of our stack —we didn’t have any running projects at the time— and I was getting so annoyed by Dopplr’s performance that I was about to write a clean implementation of its trip model to store my upcoming travels in.\n","title":"Week 327: car-freeness, banging Q\u0026A, the fabled Autobahn and the administrative organization of infrastructure","type":"posts"},{"content":"As my work based weeknotes are being catered for rather nicely both at Hubbub and KANT, I\u0026rsquo;m going to keep writing weeknotes here, but instead of making an overview of the week\u0026rsquo;s work, I\u0026rsquo;ll do some more long form reflecting on stuff that happened. A bit more casual and personal than we are used to.\nI see I marked a picture of this ridge in the newly opened Park am Gleisdreieck as a cycling nuisance. I find it stunning how poorly designed that particular park is. It is a given that the location and the shape of the various pieces of land and already existing functions do not make for an easy mix, but the result should not have been quite that bad in my opinion. Especially the newly opened North Eastern part is a total jumble of functions and feels oddly cramped for a park of a reasonable size.\nOne of the biggest problem from my perspective is that a large park in the city is an ideal shortcut for cyclists and will be used as such. Just take a look at the myriads of people cycling through the Vondelpark on any given day. The Gleisdreieckpark has no functional separation to indicate where cyclists should cycle and pedestrians should walk. Not that pedestrians in Berlin will adhere to such indicators, but that is a different issue. The most logical cycle paths are also littered with trash cans and benches, which add to the confusion. The connections to the park from the city are also a massive inconvenience and horrible to get in or out of with no connections to major arteries in the city.\nThe park is a ‘success’ in so far that it is being used quite enthusiastically by a large number of people. There is also a notable shortage of drug dealers which is a nice change. This only serves to show that parks are vital to Berlin and there are not enough of them already. It is not a testament to the design of this park which is a failure like most of the urban planning happening in Berlin 1.\nWe released Cuppings to the app store somewhere this week which has taken some work to get going but we are at a point now that the app sells by itself (modestly) so anything we do on top of that are welcome extras. We are planning a bunch of updates to the guide app and are right now prototyping a game (more about which over at Hubbub). Coffee remains a lasting passion of ours, so working on apps and games about coffee and documenting our habits as a form of marketing cannot really be called work. Fun may be a better word for it.\nI also sunk a lot of time preparing a presentation that week. Something that I\u0026rsquo;m resolved not to do anymore. I\u0026rsquo;m going to try some other ways of doing presentations that offer different min/max outcomes when it comes to the time spent giving a presentation and the eventual result. More on that later.\nI have some pet theories as to why public servants in Berlin are so incompetent as to border on the corrupt. Not sure if I can share those here anytime soon however.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"July 16, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-326/","section":"Posts","summary":"As my work based weeknotes are being catered for rather nicely both at Hubbub and KANT, I’m going to keep writing weeknotes here, but instead of making an overview of the week’s work, I’ll do some more long form reflecting on stuff that happened. A bit more casual and personal than we are used to.\n","title":"Week 326","type":"posts"},{"content":"Hij staat ook bij Niels op de site in het blokje paid alpha\u0026rsquo;s wat erg leuk geworden is. Prison Architect is een curieus spel en ik heb er een tijdje op gezeten om te kijken of ze het nu af gingen maken of niet en uiteindelijk heb ik dit korte stukje ervan gemaakt:\nHet lijkt een perverse fantasie: in een game een gevangenis ontwerpen, inclusief cellen, recreatiefaciliteiten en een elektrische stoel, om de constante stroom van gedetineerden het hoofd te bieden. Maar de setting blijkt decoratie bij dit soort simulatiespellen, of het nu een gevangenis, stad, ziekenhuis of pretpark betreft. Waar het werkelijk om gaat is de balans tussen inkomsten en uitgaven, het blij houden van je onderdanen en het managen van incidenten. Waarom zou je dan per se een gevangenis willen besturen? Voor mensen die daar prat op gaan is Prison Architect geslaagd. Veel van hen hebben het spel al gekocht en denken in de online community mee met de ontwikkeling. Dat maakt het spel niet makkelijker, maar zorgt wel dat het des te meer aansluit op de wensen van gevangenisfans.\nRecensie door Alper Çuğun\nPrison Architect Van: Introversion Software Voor: Windows, OS X, Linux 3/5 ballen\nIk ben bang dat het niet een heel leuk spel is omdat degenen die het spel nu al gekocht hebben en inspraak hebben op de ontwikkeling redelijke die-hard prison-sim mensen zijn. De kans dat een spelontwikkelaar dan nog genoeg auteurschap kan toepassen om er een gebalanceerd en interessant spel van te maken, schat ik niet heel hoog.\n","date":"July 5, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/recensie-prison-architect/","section":"Posts","summary":"Hij staat ook bij Niels op de site in het blokje paid alpha’s wat erg leuk geworden is. Prison Architect is een curieus spel en ik heb er een tijdje op gezeten om te kijken of ze het nu af gingen maken of niet en uiteindelijk heb ik dit korte stukje ervan gemaakt:\n","title":"Recensie: Prison Architect","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;m running frightfully behind with these and debating whether to continue writing weeknotes if it means this work is being featured in a total of three places. That seems a bit too much.\nWay back then I pushed Cuppings to the App Store.\nI gave an interview about Politwoops: I built a preliminary Foursquare paper map creating tool.\nI was featured in WDR Funkhaus Europa with a small item about Politwoops:\nAnd also a tweet I posted was featured on the New York Times website: And finally I dropped by the office warming of IXDS who have a brilliant space two streets down from us on the waterside.\nAnd finally that Saturday I had a beer with @pinboard at the Berlin Pinboard meetup.\n","date":"June 28, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-325/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’m running frightfully behind with these and debating whether to continue writing weeknotes if it means this work is being featured in a total of three places. That seems a bit too much.\n","title":"Week 325","type":"posts"},{"content":"So today I went to the meeting of Autofreies Kreuzberg about the traffic calming of the Manteuffelstraße between Skalitzer and Naunynstraße.\nI\u0026rsquo;m not an inhabitant of the area, but I like to sit at Görlitzer Bahnhof cafe quite regularly and the car and traffic situation in that street is pretty bad.\nI found out recently that there is an initiative underway to close that street off for traffic which would solve the problem of passing traffic going to Köpenicker Straße passing through and also the double parked cars that are endemic in Kreuzberg 1.\nIn brief: at the meeting die Grünen were well represented and the fact that they are well represented in local politics makes this initiative almost a certainty. It will need to go through channels which means this probably won\u0026rsquo;t happen this year, but it probably will happen.\nThe meeting was held to present the results of a neighborhood survey and solicit ideas what to do with the resulting space.\nFirst we got a presentation about car free zones in Berlin and outside of it and there are quite some already. I myself have lived in a car free area twice in the Netherlands and both times it was a fantastic experience as an inhabitant.\nWe were attended to another initiative that wants to make 30kph the default speed limit within cities. Something well worth supporting, so sign that initiative here.\nThe neigborhood survey had a return rate of 15 which is not very high but it showed some interesting things especially that most people living in the area already do not use motorized transportation.\nThe biggest objection came from one guy who was worried that making the street car free would further increase the gentrification that is happening in Kreuzberg. To that the politicians responded that the situation is already quite bad and beautifying this street is not going to create a significant change in that respect 2.\nThere is a group of people in Berlin who try to deter new entrants by making parts of the city worse to live in. There have been campaigns of throwing trash and dog shit on the streets. These actions are of course futile. In the current climate these things only add to the ‘authentic’ Berlin feeling that so many tourists come here for.\nI agree with these people that the rampant speculation in both houses and rents needs to stop, but the solution is not to hunker down and try to weather it with local ultra-conservatism. Protests against rent increases also don\u0026rsquo;t serve much of a function other than to reinforce the idea that nothing can be done. They have become rituals more than demonstrations of change. What is needed is something with concrete results 3.\nWe also got the story how they managed to convert Crellestraße (in my part of the city) to a car free zone back in the day. It used to be the quickest way to circumvent a bunch of traffic lights and get from Schöneberg to Kreuzberg and there were several taxi operations and a gas station. Currently it is a very nice part of the city with playgrounds and terraces and generally hardly any cars.\nI would like them to fix Oranienstraße 4 next, but due to some quirk it turns out that its not the local council that is responsible for that street, but the Berlin council and that will prove a much more difficult change to implement.\nIt is a mystery to me why the Ordnungsamt does not do anything about this.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nOne comment added that people with money prefer to have space for their cars nearby. That is why most new developments in the area come with their own garage space.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nI have some ideas which will probably all prove impossible because of the terrible German bureaucracy/conservatism, but we\u0026rsquo;ll see.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nOranienstraße is blockaded by cargo loading/unloading most of the day and during the day and night the driving by (criminal) people with large cars is absurdly agressive. You really fear for your life there.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"June 18, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/autofreies-kreuzberg-manteuffelstrase/","section":"Posts","summary":"So today I went to the meeting of Autofreies Kreuzberg about the traffic calming of the Manteuffelstraße between Skalitzer and Naunynstraße.\n","title":"Autofreies Kreuzberg: Manteuffelstraße","type":"posts"},{"content":" Two weeks ago I headed towards Amsterdam where I\u0026rsquo;ll be the week after next again. I did a massive sprint on Cuppings and prepared my presentation for Sign of Times in Pakhuis de Zwijger.\nI worked on a bunch of projects over at Hubbub on Tuesday and on Wednesday I was there again but then to prepare my presentation. That talk went really well despite the torrential rains of the day and I had a great time catching up with the people who had showed up.\nI caught up with Daphne on Thursday and wandered around the city a bit looking for good coffe which I found at the newly opened Head First.\nI finally ended up at the presentations of the Liquid Journalism masterclass and got to talk with Alexander and Laura.\nOn Friday Kars got married which was the other main reason I was in the Netherlands for.\n","date":"June 18, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-324/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Week 324","type":"posts"},{"content":"There\u0026rsquo;s an absurd amount of construction being done in my neighborhood and I presumed that as a resident somewhere you would be entitled to see the changes that are being planned in the area. Not to mention to be able to know the traffic blockades that result from this construction (which almost exclusively seem to black the foot/bike paths.\nSo I tried to request these wholesale or in part from my local council. I could think of a bunch of interesting open data work that you could do on a current list of building permits starting with: inform the public.\nThis unfortunately did not work out. We can score this as yet another thing that was disallowed with a summary reference to ‘Datenschutz’, Germany\u0026rsquo;s easy excuse to act dead.\nich fürchte, ich kann Ihnen in der angefragten Weise nicht helfen.\nGrundsätzlich unterliegen Bauanträge und Baugenehmigungen dem Datenschutz und sind entsprechend vertraulich zu behandeln.\nZwar kann man z.B. im wissenschaftlichen Interesse im Einzelfall -natürlich anonymisiert- Ausnahmen machen. Ich fürchte jedoch, Sie unterschätzen den Umfang von Genehmigungen aller Verfahrensarten, die hier durchlaufen (es handelt sich ja nur in den wenigeren Fällen um tatsächliche Neubauvorhaben mit mehreren Geschossen und Wohnungen, vieles sind Umbauten im Bestand, kleine Ergänzungen u.s.w.).\nNatürlich stehen uns auch digitale Instrumente zur Verfügung, um die Genehmigungsverfahren zu bearbeiten. Diese sind jedoch aus den oben genannten Gründen nicht öffentlich.\nWenn Sie Ihr Forschungsinteresse näher darlegen könnten (z.B. sachlich und regional) und sich in geeigneter Weise legitimieren könnten (z.B. Bestätigung einer Universität über Ihre Forschungstätigkeit), könnte ich Sie möglicherweise im Rahmen meiner Kapazitäten und Möglichkeiten unterstützen.\nIch bitte Sie daher, entsprechende Überlegungen anzustellen und ggf. erneut Kontakt mit mir aufzunehmen (bitte erst ab dem 9.3.2013, da ich heute einen Kurzurlaub antrete).\n","date":"June 15, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/getting-building-permits-in-berlin/","section":"Posts","summary":"There’s an absurd amount of construction being done in my neighborhood and I presumed that as a resident somewhere you would be entitled to see the changes that are being planned in the area. Not to mention to be able to know the traffic blockades that result from this construction (which almost exclusively seem to black the foot/bike paths.\n","title":"Getting building permits in Berlin","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"June 10, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/open-state/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Open State","type":"categories"},{"content":"This week started with Pentecost. Trying to get stuff done in Germany during the bank holiday flurry that is May is always a challenge. I spent more time working on Cuppings. In all likelihood this app will never make any serious money, but there are other advantages to building apps which may become apparent in the future.\nThis week I gave an interview to Süddeutsche Zeitung about our project Politwoops which turned out pretty well:\nJust before German class I was interviewed in German about altogether different matters:\nThis is @ alper getting interviewed about @ kantberlin on German National TV twitter.com/chriseidhof/st…\n— Chris Eidhof (@chriseidhof) May 21, 2013\nKANT is slowly shaping up:\nI received this device to be able to live digitally in the outdoors:\nAnd end of that week I spent some time writing and especially my piece on data was picked up nicely and got a record amount of views:\nVery good point made by @ alper on releasing pseudonymized locational data alper.nl/dingen/2013/05… #privacy #datamining\n— Timo Grossenbacher (@wnstns) May 25, 2013\nWie Daten richtig anonymisiert werden sollten vor ihrer Veröffentlichung. Post von @ alper alper.nl/dingen/2013/05… via @ opendatacity\n— Thomas Husmann (@thusmann) May 25, 2013\nRT @ wnstns: do not release pseudonymized locational data- by @ alper alper.nl/dingen/2013/05… #privacy #datamining\n— offenenetze (@offenenetze) May 25, 2013\nÄhnlich argumentierte heute @ jburnmurdoch bei #jpd13 MT @ opendatacity: Post von @ alper zu anonymisierten Datensätzen alper.nl/dingen/2013/05…\n— Max Zierer (@maxzierer) May 24, 2013\nPost von @ alper in Sachen re:log: Warum anonymisierte Datensätze nicht veröffentlicht werden sollten (in Engl.) alper.nl/dingen/2013/05… #rp13\n— OpenDataCity (@opendatacity) May 24, 2013\nAnd the next day Peter and Michelle got married which was a tremendous amount of fun:\n","date":"June 10, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-323/","section":"Posts","summary":"This week started with Pentecost. Trying to get stuff done in Germany during the bank holiday flurry that is May is always a challenge. I spent more time working on Cuppings. In all likelihood this app will never make any serious money, but there are other advantages to building apps which may become apparent in the future.\n","title":"Week 323","type":"posts"},{"content":"The Quantum Thief was a very stimulating read. Make no mistake. However far off the events in this book may seem, Rajaniemi manages to evoke concepts and create language for issues that we are already dealing with.\nThe All-Defector. The thing that never cooperates and gets away with it.\nsummons the combat autism the pellegrini built into her. It enfolds her like a cool blanket, turns the world into vectors and gravity wells.\nThere is always a way out. You are never in a prison unless you think you are.\nThat’s why its task is to turn this matter into another Prison, to increase the purity of the Universe. This is what their Father the Engineer-of-Souls thought them to love. This is the way the world is made right.\nThe pirates worm their way into the victim’s confidence, chipping away at their gevulot until they have enough to do a brute-force attack on their mind.\nIsidore feels around with his gevulot sense — an Oubliette citizen’s acute awareness of privacy settings in the intelligent matter all around.\nSending brain-to-brain messages directly through a quantum teleportation channel seems like a dirty, invasive way to communicate compared to Oubliette co-remembering. The latter is much more subtle: embedding messages in the recipient’s exomemory so that information is recalled rather than received.\nBut today, he is there in person, to kill an old friend.\nThe shops that you find only once,\nThe tall, intricate buildings, like belle époque Paris without the burden of gravity,\nAlmost no one hides beneath a full gevulot privacy screen here. This is the Avenue: you are supposed to flaunt it.\nWhat happens there is remembered by everybody, accessible to everyone.\nFor a time, a group of parkroullers follows us, mistaking our race for some urban game, the kids bounce off walls and make somersaults across gaps between rooftops, the oversized wheels sticking to every surface.\nIn a shifting city where many places are permanently hidden by gevulot, their job is to figure out how to get you from point A to point B.\nHe is used to the gevulot handshakes that link names with faces and establish social context.\n‘I think she was supposed to be McGonigal,’ says the pointy-eared man. ‘She was putting together a Werewolf game in the back room. But she hadn’t changed her body that much. Lame.’\nShe has a powerful voice, like a singer. ‘Our zoku is an old one: we can trace our origins back to the pre-Collapse gaming clans.’\n‘This is the way things work here. No one has to be a stranger.’\nA device that stores Time as quantum cash — unforgeable, uncopyable quantum states that have finite lifetimes, counterfeit-proof,\nThe exomemory stores data — all data — that the Oubliette gathers, the environment, senses, thoughts, everything. The gevulot keeps track of who can access what, in real time. It’s not just one public/private key pair, it’s a crazy nested hierarchy, a tree of nodes where each branch can only by unlocked by the root node.\nThe Martians have a dedicated organ for it.’ I tap my head. ‘A privacy sense. They feel what they are sharing, what is private and what isn’t. They also do something called co-remembering, sharing memories with others just by sharing the appropriate key with them.\nThe awareness that people he has not shared gevulot with now know who he is and what he has done makes him feel dirty.\nAbove, the platforms of the city shift and interlock as the city optimises its weight distribution with each step.\nFor me, it’s memes: brain worms, religion, poetry, Kabbalah, revolutions, Fedorovist philosophy, booze.\nThe dots — each a Bose-Einstein condensate, charged with energy and quantum logic — become extensions of her mind, like disembodied limbs.\nOne point every time you say a true thing, with achievements unlocked by actual emotional revelations.\nThe exomemory is everywhere. Its tiny distributed sensors — in every piece of smart- and dumbmatter — record everything, from events to temperature fluctuations to object movements to thoughts, with access to it controlled only by gevulot. But it has been designed to be write-only, with massive redundancy.\nIt traps the vasilev into a sandbox and starts cutting; separating higher conscious functions, rewarding and punishing.\nA place where everyone owns their own minds, a place where we belong to ourselves.\nThe Oubliette exomemory does the same thing, stores everything thought, experienced and sensed in a location in the ubiquitous computing machinery around it.\nBut the bottom line is, the Oubliette is not a place of forgetting. It’s not a privacy heaven. It’s a panopticon\nThe temptation is there, always, to take on a different form, to escape.\nWake up. Yes, you won, you beat me; you worked it out. But the rest of us, we have bigger things to do. Not just another case, but justice, for everyone.’\nVast machines in the underworld are rumbling, and for a moment it feels like the city is a thin layer of life on the rough skin of some huge creature, stirred by a bee sting, shaking itself.\nWe hacked the panopticon system. Turned it into the exomemory. Used it to give the power to us.’\nSpartan places, with bared-down physics and barely enough detail to stay out of the valleys of the uncanny.\n","date":"June 6, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/the-quantum-thief-highlights/","section":"Posts","summary":"The Quantum Thief was a very stimulating read. Make no mistake. However far off the events in this book may seem, Rajaniemi manages to evoke concepts and create language for issues that we are already dealing with.\n","title":"Highlights from The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi","type":"posts"},{"content":"So it turns out I\u0026rsquo;ve fallen immensely behind with the weeknotes over here, but we did start writing them at the new office now, which should make up for something. Those live at http://kantberlin.tumblr.com/ currently.\nWhat happened that week was a bunch of work and getting a desk from IKEA to work on at the new place: The Möbeltaxi driver took us on an interesting shortcut through the old service tunnels of Tempelhof —I am amazed that Moves tracked it as well as it did— which might be fun to do some urban exploring in at some point: Back then we were still drinking some horrible leftover coffee brewed in a two step process: And I had a talk for at Bits of Freedom that I sketched out on our brilliant new whiteboard: I promised the people future shock and I think I delivered that to some extent.\nNa de avond van @ bitsoffreedom resoneert bij mij een opmerking van @ alper: het vermogen tot gebruik van technologie is wat ons mens maakt.\n— Xander Bouwman (@xbouwman) May 29, 2013\n","date":"June 5, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-322/","section":"Posts","summary":"So it turns out I’ve fallen immensely behind with the weeknotes over here, but we did start writing them at the new office now, which should make up for something. Those live at http://kantberlin.tumblr.com/ currently.\n","title":"Week 322","type":"posts"},{"content":"I have a current shtick that says that game designers harbour no illusions about human reality. Designing and testing a game on people reveal the murky depths of human nature in a way few other pursuits do. Take even the simplest game with the possibility of deception and it will often devolve into the horrible treatment of one player for the advantage of another.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve been enjoying reading Venkatesh Rao\u0026rsquo;s ‘The Gervais Principle’ a lot. Because I think it also sheds a lot of light on the human condition. He just published the final installment ‘Children of an Absent God’ and I was more than pleasantly surprised to read a lot of game design thinking in it and quite a bit of speculative realism as well.\nTake this passage which calls game design a power literacy:\nSo the process of ripping away masks of social reality and getting behind them ultimately turns into a routine skill for the Sociopath: game design. Once you do it a few times, it becomes second nature, a sort of basic power literacy. An understanding of the processes by which the fictions of social reality are constructed, and growing skill at wrangling those processes.\nI don\u0026rsquo;t know if I\u0026rsquo;ve read that definition of game design before (and I\u0026rsquo;ve read quite a few): ‘an understanding of the processes by which the fictions of social reality are constructed and […] skill at wrangling those processes.’ The interesting differentiator I think then is whether the participants in those social realities are willing or unwilling ones.\nAfter that there follows a de-centering of the uniqueness of human experience which is very similar to what we\u0026rsquo;ve been reading in new materialism and Object-Oriented Ontology:\nSocial realities exist as a hierarchy of increasingly sophisticated and specialized fictions for those predisposed to believe that there is something special about the human condition, which sets our realities apart from the rest of the universe.\nIt is nice to see the philosophy I have been reading for the past year being operationalized into a thinking that can be applied to personal power dynamics. But to tie back into Kars\u0026rsquo;s statement of assumptions, here\u0026rsquo;s one:\nGame design is an endeavour that from nihilism creates something of meaning.\n","date":"May 24, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/recess-13-game-design-as-a-nihilistic-endeavour/","section":"Posts","summary":"I have a current shtick that says that game designers harbour no illusions about human reality. Designing and testing a game on people reveal the murky depths of human nature in a way few other pursuits do. Take even the simplest game with the possibility of deception and it will often devolve into the horrible treatment of one player for the advantage of another.\n","title":"Recess! 13 - Game Design as a Nihilistic Endeavour","type":"posts"},{"content":"There is no thing as an anonymized dataset. Anybody propagating this idea even tacitly is doing a disservice to the informed debate on privacy. Here\u0026rsquo;s a round up with some recent cases.\nRe:publica # Just today Berlin visualization outfit Open Data City published a visualization of the devices that were connected to their access points during the Re:publica conference earlier this month. The visualization is a neat display of the ebb and flow of people in the various rooms during the event.\nIt is also a good attempt to change the discourse about data protection in Germany. The discourse tends to be locked in the full stop stance where absolutely ‘nothing is allowed’ without a ton of waivers. Because of that hassle, a lot of things which could be useful are not implemented. A more relaxed approach and a case by case decision on things would be better. In the case of Re:publica there does not seem to be any harm in making this visualization or in releasing the data (here find it on Fusion Tables where I uploaded it).\nWhat I find to be a disservice to the general debate is the application of ‘pseudonymized’ data where the device ids have been processed with a salt and hash. The identifying characteristics have been removed but the ids are still linked across sessions making it possible to link identities with devices and figure out who was where exactly when during the conference.\nhttp://twitter.com/stefanwehrmeyer/status/337972064306724866\nTo state again: at a professional conference such as Re:publica there would in all likelihood be no harm done if the entire dataset would be de-anonymized. The harm done is the pretense that processing a dataset in this way and then releasing it with the interlinkage across sessions is a good idea.\nWhich brings me to my next point.\nEquens # http://twitter.com/AlexanderNL/status/337693480014970880\nYesterday the Dutch company, Equens, that processes all payment card transactions announced a plan to sell these transactions to stores. Transactions would be anonymized but still linked to a single card. This would make it trivial for anybody with a comprehensive secondary dataset (let\u0026rsquo;s say Albert Heijn or Vodafone) to figure out which real person belongs to which anonymized card. That last fact was not reported in any of the media coverage of this announcement which is also terrible.\nhttp://twitter.com/ThijsNiks/status/337699593464709120\nAfter a predictable uproar this plan was iced, but they will keep on testing the waters until they can implement something like this.\nToday Foursquare released all real-time checkin data but with suitable anonymization. They publish only the location, a datetime and the gender of the person checking in. That is how this should be done.\nLicense plates # Being in the business of opening data we at Hack de Overheid had a similar incident where a dataset of license plates was released where the plates had been md5\u0026rsquo;ed without a salt. This made it trivial to find out whether a given license plate was in that dataset.\nThis was quickly fixed. Again this is not a plea against opening data —which is still a good idea in most cases— but a plea for thinking about the things you do.\nAOL search data # The arch-example of poorly anonymized search data is of course still the AOL search data leak from back in 2006. That case has been extensively documented, but not extensively learned from.\nMemory online is frightfully short as is the nature of the medium but it becomes annoying if we want to make progress on something. Maybe it would be better altogether to lose the illusion that progress on anything can be made online.\nFor the privacy debate it would be good to keep in mind that the increasingly advanced statistical inference available means that almost all anonymization is going to fail. The only way around this is to not store data unless you have to or to accept the consequences when you do.\n","date":"May 24, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/dont-release-anonymized-datasets/","section":"Posts","summary":"There is no thing as an anonymized dataset. Anybody propagating this idea even tacitly is doing a disservice to the informed debate on privacy. Here’s a round up with some recent cases.\n","title":"Don't release anonymized datasets","type":"posts"},{"content":"The week before last was filled with theater, a full 9 hours of it which should last me for the rest of the year. I wrote the one negative review you will find of ‘Krieg und Frieden’ as a result of it.\nI also spent quite a bit of time struggling with German bureaucracy to be able to request a new Dutch passport. It\u0026rsquo;s always a fun thing to do.\nAnd add to that the fact that I was in the middle of moving offices from Praxis to KANT and you can say productivity was a bit hampered that week.\nI dropped by the Git-Merge event in Berlin which besides hosting the Berlin git community seems to draw out a group of interesting developers. The party they hosted the next day was a great opportunity for me to catchup wit old friend Cristiano Betta who is now an evangelist at Paypal.\n","date":"May 20, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-321/","section":"Posts","summary":"The week before last was filled with theater, a full 9 hours of it which should last me for the rest of the year. I wrote the one negative review you will find of ‘Krieg und Frieden’ as a result of it.\n","title":"Week 321","type":"posts"},{"content":" The turn above from Rosa-Luxemburg-Straße into Schönhauser Allee yesterday around 19:15 is where I almost got hit by a woman driving a black car with license plates LDS HS 179. Shaken but not too shaken I pursued them up the street to demonstrate my discontent and to write down the plate number.\nI should have seen that they weren\u0026rsquo;t going to stop though they usually do but this was rather unexpected during a leisurely evening ride where absolutely nothing should have gone wrong.\nPolice will be contacted on Monday and then we\u0026rsquo;ll see how far this can be pursued.\n","date":"May 18, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/4575/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Almost hit and run","type":"posts"},{"content":"So that cat is out of the bag: I\u0026rsquo;ve taken up residency at KANT, the Kreuzberg Academy for Nerdery and Tinkering. Peter who you may have read before on The Waving Cat just wrote the inaugural post on our freshly pressed Tumblr (tweets are still forthcoming).\nI\u0026rsquo;m in the process of moving over, getting my things in order and doing all of my other work, but I do believe that we have struck upon a mix here that has all of the right kinds of volatile creativity with a solid dash of make.\nI don\u0026rsquo;t know what will come out of it yet, but that is the nature of a lab like this. My main source of inspiration is the Open Coop model as pioneered in Amsterdam North where independent entities team up and create new structures from their intellectual and physical overhead. There has been talk about all kinds of ideas already but we all know ideas are bullshit. The challenge will be to narrow things down and figure what we want to do. I do think that we are heading into the right direction. Onwards and upwards.\n","date":"May 13, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/moving-into-kant/","section":"Posts","summary":"So that cat is out of the bag: I’ve taken up residency at KANT, the Kreuzberg Academy for Nerdery and Tinkering. Peter who you may have read before on The Waving Cat just wrote the inaugural post on our freshly pressed Tumblr (tweets are still forthcoming).\n","title":"Moving into KANT","type":"posts"},{"content":"The week before last started out with me still in Paris sampling the local coffee scene which has been improving massively over the past year or so.\nTélescope already was nice: But with the addition of Loustic, French coffee can finally be taken seriously again: Most of these places seem to be run by English speaking expatriates and they are also mostly frequented by the same. This was something I also noticed at my coworking space in La Cantine. It seems that foreigners are a necessary mediator to introduce new things —digital or coffee— into French culture.\nThat Tuesday I worked at KANT and all of the people there presented roughly what they\u0026rsquo;re doing at the agency we sublease at Panorama3000.\nI was thinking of writing a screensaver that does the live OSM viewer ‘Show me the way’, but it turns out there\u0026rsquo;s a way easier solution by plugging that URL into the WebView Screensaver.\nThat Wednesday I did a quick ignite for UIKonf on Beestenbende\u0026rsquo;s design aspects and the next day I was at Heimathafen Neukölln at 06:00 to help them with setup and registration. I managed to catch a bit of the conference and based on the content on stage and reactions in the room, it looks like it was a resounding success.\nThe next day I spent working at the office for most of the day, but in the evening I dropped by the UIKode hackathon to show the iOS project I had picked up again that week. More on that to be announced here soon.\n","date":"May 13, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-320/","section":"Posts","summary":"The week before last started out with me still in Paris sampling the local coffee scene which has been improving massively over the past year or so.\n","title":"Week 320","type":"posts"},{"content":"This week was the week where we were in full sprint for the pilot launch of KAIGARA. Besides that we had a dinner off NEXT with some people involved and some speakers. What I managed to catch from NEXT\u0026rsquo;s program while working was nothing short of splendid. Bruce Sterling\u0026rsquo;s talk has been shared widely and I\u0026rsquo;m eagerly awaiting Anab Jain\u0026rsquo;s to be published as a video (the slides are already there).\nOn Thursday I managed to set aside a bit of time to go to the local multiplayer picknick at Amaze. The Amaze Indie Connect is the most fun event of the Berlin game scene and it always gets lots of very cool people to come out. Just sitting at the same table as Terry Cavanagh and Michael Brough left me a bit star-struck: @ amazefest #dgt13 #AMaze2013 Thanks 2 all for that wonderful time. I wish u a successful year and hope seeing u 2014 back in Berlin.\n— Thorsten S Wiedemann (@ST0RN0) April 28, 2013\nIt was also nice to see lots of old friends who I manage to see a couple of times a year. My highlight of Amaze was to be able to play Samurai Gunn. This game isn\u0026rsquo;t available yet and the video I\u0026rsquo;m going to post below does not nearly do it justice. It is one of the most gripping multiplayer combat games I\u0026rsquo;ve played to date. On Friday I had breakfast at the Sheperditchi 1 and then on Saturday it was off to Paris for CHI for the designing gamification workshop run by Sebastian Deterding.\nI\u0026rsquo;ll explain later what this exactly means.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"May 12, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-319/","section":"Posts","summary":"This week was the week where we were in full sprint for the pilot launch of KAIGARA. Besides that we had a dinner off NEXT with some people involved and some speakers. What I managed to catch from NEXT’s program while working was nothing short of splendid. Bruce Sterling’s talk has been shared widely and I’m eagerly awaiting Anab Jain’s to be published as a video (the slides are already there).\n","title":"Week 319","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;ve learned my lessons: I will not go to traditional German theater anymore and I will never again book a play without first checking its duration.\nYesterday night I went to the Volksbühne to see Krieg und Frieden, five hours of 19th century Russian war drama, by the Centraltheater Leipzig as part of the Theatertreffen. I had been listening to its soundtrack by Apparat for the past months. It used to be freely available on Soundcloud and is out now on Spotify.\nThe excellent music and the fact that the intendant of Leipzig, Sebastian Hartmann, had made some interesting statements about the state of German theater heightened my anticipation for this play.\nTurns out I wasn\u0026rsquo;t the only one drawn in by the presence of a world renowned electronic musician. The room was noticeably younger than for instance the Haus der Berliner Festspiele the day before but unfortunately it didn\u0026rsquo;t stay that way. As soon as people around me figured out that this wasn\u0026rsquo;t going to be an Apparat concert, that in fact the bits of music were going to be interrupted by long and boring German theater, many of them left.\nThe music was good. So good in fact that the play suffered by comparison 1.\nWhat was wrong with the play? I would give it an A for effort because that had gone into it. But still all of that effort could not improve the poor writing and dramaturgy. We got subjected to literal hours of exposition 2. Actors enter, they declaim happenings in the 19th century, they expect this to have an affective effect on us and then they leave. Repeat. Sometimes they do this in chorus form which makes it even worse.\nThe absence of gripping monologues or almost any sharp dialogue did not help the energy level of the play. I felt like I was being beat into drowsiness that was occasionally relieved by the music.\nQualitatively there were lots of good things in this bad play. The acting when it was allowed was actually really good. There were a couple of scenes that managed to be evocative and memorable. The tilting platform was used brilliantly and added interesting dynamic variations to the scenes. It looks like there are two hours of very solid theater hidden away in these five. If only the director\u0026rsquo;s creativity had been restrained a bit and his darlings been massacred by somebody.\nAfter the main play, a third part was tacked on which should have been scrapped. The actors go into a meta-treatment and engage in extensive amateur-philosophizing. This was the part where I got my much needed bit of sleep (the room was a third empty by then). The electronic lighting and animation at the very end were added in a way that didn\u0026rsquo;t match anything in the piece. One wonders at the deliberation that went into that if any.\nGerman theater need not be stuck in the past as proven by Ostermeier. Russian classics need not be enacted in a boring fashion as proven by van Hove. That makes the creation of this mix with its good music, quality acting, terrible indulgence and dramaturgical chaos a choice. A choice that should have been made differently.\nAt the end there was one old German guy booing Apparat like an animal during the applause. It turns out not everybody is a big fan of electronic music.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nI think exposition is wholly superfluous in modern media but maybe it should be left in to the benefit of the older audiences that go to these plays?\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"May 9, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/war-and-peace-under-the-shadow-of-the-apparat/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’ve learned my lessons: I will not go to traditional German theater anymore and I will never again book a play without first checking its duration.\n","title":"War and Peace under the shadow of the Apparat","type":"posts"},{"content":"Unbelievable how many weeks behind I am on these. That\u0026rsquo;s not wholly intended, but the last couple of weeks have been a bit busier than usual. This was the week of April 15th which I spent mostly in Amsterdam.\nI spent a full day with the team on Tuesday working on KAIGARA: I drank very awesome coffee that Angelo had brought back from his road trip along the west coast of the USA: We celebrated shipping some projects that night with Kars and Simon and the next day I was back at Hubbub for another day of work. That night it was off to the Open State offices in Amsterdam for a bit of envisioning with our new managing director. A very solid and constructive session, well catered by our in-house team of Bite Me: My work setup at the brilliant Koko: The Thursday I spent working at the Open Coop and preparing my Python programming course I gave on the now defunct Gidsy.\nFriday I took the train back to Berlin and it was confirmed to me again that train companies are stupid. If I take a different train to Berlin I need to pay the difference in distance even if I start and end in the same place: And Saturday I also managed squeeze out a long overdue Recess!.\nSo lots of stuff and more to follow.\n","date":"May 8, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-318/","section":"Posts","summary":"Unbelievable how many weeks behind I am on these. That’s not wholly intended, but the last couple of weeks have been a bit busier than usual. This was the week of April 15th which I spent mostly in Amsterdam.\n","title":"Week 318","type":"posts"},{"content":"Something that we noticed during my recent study of the German language is the tremendous promiscuity of Dutch with English which goes even further than I had previously noticed. We all know the usage of many English words in Dutch as if they were our own, but I wanted to pay attention here to a special case: the fully imported verb.\nThese are present in phrases such as:\n‘Hij kon het niet meer handelen.’ - “He couldn\u0026rsquo;t handle that anymore.” ‘Ik loop hier onwijs te struggelen.’ - “I\u0026rsquo;m struggling like a fiend here.” ‘Dat gaat niet happenen.’ - “It\u0026rsquo;s not going to happen.” ‘Hard hosselen.’ - “Hustlin’ hard.”(special case)\nThere are a couple of things to pay attention to.\nFirstly Dutch people pronounce almost all of the English words they use as if they were Dutch. You can oppose this with Germans using words such as ‘clever’ or ‘teenager’ with the (more or less) proper pronunciation. In Dutch we will say ‘fuck’ a lot, but we won\u0026rsquo;t pronounce it \\ˈfÉ™k\\ but more like \\ˈfɵk\\. It\u0026rsquo;s a subtle difference, but especially on the ‘u’ vowels it is very audible.\nThis same mechanism is at play here, the imported verbs are pronounced as if they were Dutch, but the familiarity between the languages goes even further. The English words are conjugated into faux Dutch infinitives to make them fit into the Dutch sentences. I don\u0026rsquo;t know if there is a word for this use of loan words with conjugations.\n‘Hard hosselen’ is a special case because there the English word ‘hustle’ has been assimilated even further so that it is hardly recognizable anymore.\nTalking in this fashion is very poor form but also very convenient which makes us use these kinds of phrases all the more. If you have more (or more extreme) examples or can shed some linguistic light on this, please put it in the comments.\n","date":"April 28, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/the-flexibility-of-the-dutch-language/","section":"Posts","summary":"Something that we noticed during my recent study of the German language is the tremendous promiscuity of Dutch with English which goes even further than I had previously noticed. We all know the usage of many English words in Dutch as if they were our own, but I wanted to pay attention here to a special case: the fully imported verb.\n","title":"The Flexibility of the Dutch Language","type":"posts"},{"content":"The week before this on Monday (almost two weeks ago), I went to a lecture by Graham Harman. Notes on that were blogged in a timely fashion.\nThat week also involved a one-day trip to Munich to present on the work we did for a client there. More on that on the Hubbub blog in due course.\nThursday I worked at the Kreuzberg Academy for Nerdery and Tinkering next door. I really love how Oranienstraße is coming together as a creative technological hub of import in Berlin.\nThe rest of the week was used developing Ripple Effect and with maintenance on GidsGame.nl.\n","date":"April 21, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-317/","section":"Posts","summary":"The week before this on Monday (almost two weeks ago), I went to a lecture by Graham Harman. Notes on that were blogged in a timely fashion.\n","title":"Week 317","type":"posts"},{"content":"I played a bunch of Ultratron over the past couple of weeks. It\u0026rsquo;s beautiful pulsing dance of bullets that lost its charm somewhere past level 100 where I thought I had the game beat, but everything keeps on repeating ever faster. That was eleven hours of obsessive pleasure (according to Steam) followed by emptiness.\nSomething that does give me a lot of meaning recently but which you probably cannot call a game are my Moves stats. Definitions are not important and neither are buzzwords. Moves hits the ‘quantified self’ buzzword and foregoes the ‘gamification’ one but still numbers and feedback are key to the experience. Its prescriptive restraint is tasteful and it tracks all the bike rides I could not be bothered with. Automatic and good enough turns out to be near perfect.\nI\u0026rsquo;ll be looking for more meaningful ways to play games in my day to day life in the near future but for now there\u0026rsquo;s more work than play in my life. With the Berlin summer upon us, if I play anything, I\u0026rsquo;ll be looking to do it outside. I\u0026rsquo;ve been meaning to learn cricket, but I\u0026rsquo;m open to other suggestions too.\n","date":"April 20, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/recess-10/","section":"Posts","summary":"I played a bunch of Ultratron over the past couple of weeks. It’s beautiful pulsing dance of bullets that lost its charm somewhere past level 100 where I thought I had the game beat, but everything keeps on repeating ever faster. That was eleven hours of obsessive pleasure (according to Steam) followed by emptiness.\n","title":"Recess! 10","type":"posts"},{"content":"The week before this is getting a bit boring, but as soon as the current project is over I promise that adventures will resume again.\nGerman lessons continued even with one of our participants being back in the Netherlands: Sun was enjoyed at last after the gruelling Berlin winter we had to endure: And my laptop crashed again during the week and this time because I had already performed all backups and come to terms with the mortality of the device, this time the decision was quickly made to buy a new laptop. This is something I should have done a year ago.\nAnd I\u0026rsquo;m noticing that Berlin police are very helpful if you\u0026rsquo;re cyclist. One example: ","date":"April 15, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-316/","section":"Posts","summary":"The week before this is getting a bit boring, but as soon as the current project is over I promise that adventures will resume again.\n","title":"Week 316","type":"posts"},{"content":"Last Monday I heard Graham Harman give the International Flusser Lecture in Berlin. The lecture was in German and for me as a non-native speaker somewhat hard to follow, but the present Germans loved it. ‘The English dominated academia’ seems to be problematic for them 1.\nHarman put Heidegger, McLuhan and Clement Greenberg through a comparison and treated their views on the surface of things and their essence. Greenberg sounded to have been thrown in to make a connection to the art world.\nGiven that being can only show itself on the surface, I started to wonder whether a object based approach to ANT borrowing from programming might not be a useful analogy? The links between objects are along API surfaces that can be made to interact with each other under certain circumstances. The trajectory of an object is its internal state. A state that is in a black box that we cannot access except through the API it exposes. We may be able to open the black box but that could have unintended consequences such as breakage or discovery.\nA final example that Harman gave was about writing about something such as wine. He said that by putting it into a machine, you could get a definite analysis of the wine, but lose its essence. To me it seems that a wine writer, writes about wine for humans and a machine writes about wine for machines. Presupposing that the human\u0026rsquo;s point of view is the only one that is valid, devolves to the anthropocentrism that we had just left behind us. Of course, wine to a robot is something else than wine is to us, and robots may have electromagnetic pleasures that we in turn cannot fathom, but translations can always be made however much they lose of the \u0026rsquo;essence\u0026rsquo; of the object (as translations always do).\nHarman\u0026rsquo;s response dives back into qualia, something which I had hoped to avoid: http://twitter.com/DrZamalek/status/321888255505211392\nAnd because of the lecture I found this book New Materialism: Interviews and Cartographies and I\u0026rsquo;m looking forward to reading the interview with Manuel DeLanda that is in there.\nI have been in that conundrum myself and experienced that talking in English to a traditional German audience results in a \u0026gt; 75% loss of signal and a total negation of empathy.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"April 14, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/graham-harman-at-the-universitat-der-kunste/","section":"Posts","summary":"Last Monday I heard Graham Harman give the International Flusser Lecture in Berlin. The lecture was in German and for me as a non-native speaker somewhat hard to follow, but the present Germans loved it. ‘The English dominated academia’ seems to be problematic for them 1.\n","title":"Graham Harman at the Universität der Kunste","type":"posts"},{"content":"I had penned some notes about bitcoin before the entire thing exploded last week. So it seems that everybody is blogging pretty much everything about bitcoin there is to blog. So trying to see if I have some points that are still worth publishing.\nProvenance # The main improvement over a physical currency, is that with a digital currency you can in fact track all transactions. This is in fact a feature of bitcoin with its global transaction register.\nThe problem with that is that most transactions are done anonymously so you can see that money went from A to B but you don\u0026rsquo;t know who A and B are nor why it moved. This makes bitcoins very attractive to people selling illicit wares.\nNow comes the challenge:\n1. I don\u0026rsquo;t want to live in a failed narco-state (and I don\u0026rsquo;t think many others do either). 2. In principle I am for a currency where every transaction is public and traceable but I am not for the increase in state power that this will entail.\nSo there is probably some more crypto-trickery necessary to be able to get a currency where you can prove that: it wasn\u0026rsquo;t used for certain types of transactions, or that certain taxes were indeed paid in previous transactions.\nVolatility # I used to think that bitcoin would not be viable because the market and individual actors are too easily compromised. The checks and balances are so weak that any computer exploit means you lose all your money. Right now I think that is in fact a feature not a bug.\nBitcoin was envisioned as an exchange currency and if you use it as such all of these problems go away. Whenever you need to buy something online, you convert some money into bitcoins at the day\u0026rsquo;s rate and do your business.\nSo it is in fact not necessary to store large amounts of bitcoins for a prolonged amount of time except if you want to speculate. All others would buy bitcoins as necessary and sell them when they don\u0026rsquo;t need them and this would increase the liquidity of the currency.\n","date":"April 14, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/add-provenance-to-your-bitcoin/","section":"Posts","summary":"I had penned some notes about bitcoin before the entire thing exploded last week. So it seems that everybody is blogging pretty much everything about bitcoin there is to blog. So trying to see if I have some points that are still worth publishing.\n","title":"Add provenance to your bitcoin","type":"posts"},{"content":"We\u0026rsquo;re in the middle of a big project, so pretty much everything is that right now. In between some small things happen, but we\u0026rsquo;re rather busy shipping right now.\nI did post the answer to the most frequently asked question I get, which is how you actually pronounce my name:\nhttp://soundcloud.com/alper/pronunciation-of-my-name\nAnd in between stuff I dropped in on this book presentation at c-base, which was pretty weird: And I had a strange encounter with Berlin police who it seems cannot look around them.\nFurthermore I did some account maintenance for Open State, getting things in order for our new CEO who arrives next week.\n","date":"April 6, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-315/","section":"Posts","summary":"We’re in the middle of a big project, so pretty much everything is that right now. In between some small things happen, but we’re rather busy shipping right now.\n","title":"Week 315","type":"posts"},{"content":"This was an interesting read and only strengthens my resolve to read most of the things Houellebecq has written.\nIt required no creativity, no imagination and only the most basic second-rate intellect.\nIt would be true to say that in the last years of Western civilization it contributed to a general mood of depression bordering on masochism.\nHappiness is an intense, all-consuming feeling of joyous fulfillment akin to inebriation, rapture or ecstasy.\nThe girls who arrived at Big Sur were, for the most part, stupid little WASP bitches, at least half of whom were virgins.\nYoung, good-looking, famous, desired by women and envied by men, rock stars had risen to the summit of the social order.\nIn truth, he had always thought of Americans as idiots.\nBy the end of the first day, it was apparent that Catherine’s personality had aspects of the witch, but also of the lioness, which usually pointed to a career in sales management.\nHe doesn’t know it yet, but the infinity of childhood is brief.\nThe vibrations drove the snake wild and it would throw itself against the glass until it knocked itself unconscious.\nWhat had to be endured, he would endure.\nShe was forty-five years old and her vulva was scrawny and sagged slightly, but she was still a very beautiful woman.\nAll in all, nature deserved to be wiped out in a holocaust—and man’s mission on earth was probably to do just that.\nThe ambulance drove off in a howl of sirens. So ended Bruno’s first love.\nThough unimpressed by the philosopher’s work, she was struck by his ugliness, which almost amounted to a handicap;\nI tell you, I saw women with their legs wide open, wet and up for it, spending the whole evening masturbating because no one would fuck them.\nIf ever a country were loathsome, that country, specifically, was Brazil.\nTenderness is a deeper instinct than seduction, which is why it is so difficult to give up hope.\nAll around him human beings were living, breathing, striving for pleasure or trying to develop their personal potential.\nWas she masturbating while listening to Brahms?\ncustomarily, after a number of hours, some of them would go into a trance—or pretend to.\nHe was the first of his generation to see beyond the ridiculous, contradictory and outmoded superstitions it adopted to the fact that New Age thought appealed to a very real suffering symptomatic of psychological, ontological and social breakdown.\nHe sometimes managed to coax a tit-job out of a girl, but as far as Bruno was concerned there were not nearly enough to go around.\nHe found in mathematics a happiness both serene and intense.\nThe broadcast, which lasted three or four hours, probably represents the culmination of the first stage of the great Western technological dream.\nChildren suffer the world that adults create for them and try their best to adapt to it; in time, usually, they will replicate it.\nIt has been surprising to note the meekness, resignation, perhaps even secret relief with which humans have consented to their own passing\nI love that kid more than anything, but I’ve never even been able to accept his existence.\nHe wasn’t unhappy; the medication was working, and all desire was dead in him.\nHe had a sudden premonition that all his life would be like this moment. Emotion would pass him by, sometimes very close.\nThey would come to be rivals—which was the natural relationship between men. They would be like animals fighting in a cage; and the cage was time.\nTheir egotism knows no bounds—such is the nature of the individual.\nPhysical violence, the most perfect manifestation of individuation, was about to reappear.\nHe felt as though what was between his legs was a piece of oozing, putrefying meat devoured by worms.\nWithout beauty a girl is unhappy because she has missed her chance to be loved.\nHis eyes were wide open, but his expression was not one of grief, nor of any recognizable human emotion. His face was filled with abject, animal fear.\nCohen had no illusions about the depths to which the human animal could sink when not constrained by law.\nShe lost her virginity at the age of thirteen—a remarkable achievement given the time and place.\nOh, there are little moments of depression, of sadness or doubt, but they’re easily dealt with using advances in antidepressants and tranquilizers.\nFrom the point of view of the good of the species, they were a couple of aging human beings of middling genetic value.\nUltimately, a society governed by the pure principles of universal morality could last until the end of the world.\nHuxley, he would always remember, had seemed detached about the prospect of his own death, though perhaps he was simply numbed or drugged.\nIn the midst of nature’s barbarity, human beings sometimes (rarely) succeed in creating small oases warmed by love. Small, exclusive, enclosed spaces governed only by love and shared subjectivity.\nAfter a couple of years of working, sexual desire wanes and people turn their attention to gourmet food and wine.\nMetaphysical mutations—that is to say radical, global transformations in the values to which the majority subscribe—are rare in the history of humanity.\nThe couple quickly realized that the burden of caring for a small child was incompatible with their ideal of personal freedom\nThis vile, unhappy race, barely different from the apes, which nevertheless carried within it such noble aspirations. Tortured, contradictory, individualistic, quarrelsome and infinitely selfish, it was sometimes capable of extraordinary explosions of violence, but never quite abandoned its belief in love.\nDespite the nights they spent together, each remained trapped in individual consciousness and separate flesh\nNow and then the wind dies away and the silence is almost total, broken only by cries of pleasure.\nThirty years later he could not come to any other conclusion: women were indisputably better than men. They were gentler, more affectionate, loving and compassionate; they were less prone to violence, selfishness, cruelty or self-centeredness. Moreover, they were more rational, intelligent and hardworking.\n","date":"March 27, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-from-the-elementary-particles-by-michel-houellebecq/","section":"Posts","summary":"This was an interesting read and only strengthens my resolve to read most of the things Houellebecq has written.\n","title":"Highlights from the Elementary Particles by Michel Houellebecq","type":"posts"},{"content":"Two week notes in one because last week seems to have been too busy to write any.\nWeek 313 was spent in the Netherlands with a somewhat hectic visit. I spent a lot of time at the Hubbub studio and at the Open Coop.\nAnd of course the inevitable five (!) visits to the Village who were serving only Coffee Collective coffees when I was there:\nAnd that Friday was Free Bassel Day in remembrance of our friend who is still imprisoned in a Syrian prison: And then it was an ICE back to Berlin already: I did manage to get some good writing in those two weeks. First one piece about why levying a tax on data is not a bad idea at all: Taxing data is not crazy. And the week after that about Jaron Lanier who is a crazy person with some interesting ideas: Who owns the future?\nTORREON should be about finished by now. And last Friday we also forcibly launched the German incarnation of Politwoops now with an accompanying Twitter account because the SPD chancellor candidate posted something he shouldn\u0026rsquo;t have.\nAlso I\u0026rsquo;m doing another bout of programming education for non-programmers in Amsterdam next week with a course and a meetup. More on that in a bit.\nAnd I finished my Recess! post.\n","date":"March 25, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/weeks-313-4/","section":"Posts","summary":"Two week notes in one because last week seems to have been too busy to write any.\n","title":"Weeks 313-4","type":"posts"},{"content":"Dear Niels and Kars,\nThis week I bought Ultratron and played that a bit. It looks like a solid 2D shooter like I haven\u0026rsquo;t played in ages. Before that I played bunches of Ridiculous Fishing and Spelunky which Darius Kazemi has kindly translated into HTML5 for us non-Windows users. And that\u0026rsquo;s only this week. I\u0026rsquo;m playing so many games right now. The amount of new games being released is also huge. Truly we live in a ludic age.\nHow different this is from back in the day when I would spend days grinding levels and gold in Final Fantasy on the NES or map out the dungeons of Faria. There simply wasn\u0026rsquo;t that much to play back then so we made do with what we had. I hear there are still people with such singular dedication to a game, but I can\u0026rsquo;t imagine it.\nHow different it is even from my tastes of a couple of years ago where I would play the occasional game but also see over 60 movies a year and a couple of dozen plays. That has changed and not just because of my move to Berlin.\nGood games are not only abundant these days, they are cheaper than passive media 1, easier to get and more engaging. Things that are not interactive have a terribly hard time getting and keeping my attention unless they\u0026rsquo;re very good or very short. Some stupid people would bemoan the change of our media consumption patterns and imagine that we are losing something essential. I don\u0026rsquo;t agree. I think we are better off with these more systemically complex and often also more social experiences.\nSo games replace previous media only once for each person and after they\u0026rsquo;ve done that they replace each other. I play many games briefly but intensively and then never again (Plague for instance) or sometimes I never manage to get into them at all (I played all of 30 minutes of Swords and Sworcercy). And then new games arrive and it turns out to be hard to get back into the swing, let alone the story of a game you played a week ago. Nothing seems to stick.\nMaking digital games that we can play over the course of years seems hard. Purely digital forms are too easy to forget and often limited in many ways. Long lasting games need to create widespread alliances in both the physical and the social world so we will keep re-encountering them in different contexts. Minecraft, Joust and Angry Birds come to mind off-hand. That suggests that cracking this question is the way to becoming successful, or is it the other way around?\nAlper\nA cinema ticket is somewhere between €10-15 and theater can be double that for only 1-2 hours of entertainment.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"March 23, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/recess-7-game-gluttony/","section":"Posts","summary":"Dear Niels and Kars,\n","title":"Recess! 7 - Game Gluttony","type":"posts"},{"content":" A new large scale German drama series has been making the rounds on Twitter this week called ‘Unsere Mütter, Unsere Väter’ and it is interesting though flawed. I haven\u0026rsquo;t seen a production with these production values on German television before and I think we should see more of it 1.\nThe series is somewhat schmaltzy (see the screen capture above of bullet casings landing in slow motion on a group portrait) but that is to be expected from a mainstream production.\nWhat I found problematic is the sharp division drawn between the group of five main characters and the other actors in wartime Germany. The main characters are idealized figures who are supposed to symbolize their generation and its moral choices during the war. These choices mostly center on the small evils of oversight, looking away, following orders and opportunism. The real capital letter evils are perpetrated by others, mostly those of another generation, whose appearance and motivations are far more sinister.\nI know there are several opinions about this (but I am not alone if I read all the critiques in German papers), but this portrayal to me seems to exceptionalize evil which is probably not the best idea. A more naturalistic and flat treatment of the systems of the war would have been immensely more difficult but also immensely better.\nUpdate: Now that I\u0026rsquo;ve seen the last episode I would like to discourage anybody from watching this series. Any suspense and pace that was in the first episode was gone by the end. Moreover the writing and drama was absurdly poor by then. I know that properly ending stories is hard, but how a modern dramaturg and script writer signed off on this clusterfuck is beyond me. If this was the last hope for German public broadcasting to be relevant then that hope is in vain and the entire institution should be burnt down as quickly as possible.\nSomething properly historical could be interesting. Martin suggested a series on the life of Charlemagne.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"March 22, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/not-their-mothers-and-fathers/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Not their mothers and fathers","type":"posts"},{"content":"In Conversation: Jaron Lanier and James Bridle On Who Owns the Future? from The School of Life on Vimeo.\nI have just watched the above conversation between Jaron Lanier and James Bridle in Conway Hall organized by the School of Life. The event was to mark the occasion of Lanier\u0026rsquo;s new book “Who Owns The Future?”(Guardian review) and the conversation focused on some interesting ideas from it. I will probably not read the book itself, but I think the things said in the video above can be taken by themselves and though they are provocative they do not motivate me to give Lanier any money 1.\nThe main issue is that Lanier signals some interesting problems (He\u0026rsquo;s not alone. Om Malik just posted this about Data Darwinism), he makes some terrible comparisons and posits solutions that are wholly unconvincing.\nProblems # Laniers big idea is that those with the biggest computers on the network (and the largest collection of brains to program those computers) are in danger of becoming the rentiers of big data. They will be able to out-compute everybody else and figure out what Gibson called the ‘order flow’ in his Blue Ant trilogy: the best set of actions given the circumstances.\nThat is an interesting if not exactly novel idea. It serves as a jumping off point into some outright crazy ideas about intellectual property. Lanier compares the contraction created by the current austerity measures with what is happening in the music industry. This is a ridiculous comparison. Even if it did hold, then whatever is happening is an overdue correction to a situation that was unsustainably overleveraged.\nIn the same vein he waves around the scarecrow that ‘the economy will shrink’. A notion that will undoubtedly play well with the same audience that is inclined to buy his book. Rhetoric about shrinking economies is almost always a phantom. Economic shrinkage may very well be in our near future and does not necessarily need to be a bad thing.\nLanier\u0026rsquo;s point that people are forced into an informal economy is valid but it speaks more to the failure of social systems than anything else. The social democratic contract that may be inconceivable for Americans is working quite well in Europe. It may need updating both for changing demographics and the digital age, but I don\u0026rsquo;t think many people here would trade it for what Lanier is peddling. Like I mentioned in my data tax post, we don\u0026rsquo;t have the problem of musicians who can\u0026rsquo;t pay their medical bills 2.\nSolutions # The proposed solutions are even more problematic (though if you\u0026rsquo;re so inclined you might term them ‘thought provoking’).\nLanier seems overly influenced by the music industry and by the concept of private copyright. I would assert that the music industry with its track record is not something worth emulating. The sky is not falling in the music industry. They are facing a long overdue re-evaluation of their social contract because their carrier of value has lost its excludability. There are still lost of people making music and thriving.\nLanier seems to roughly comprehend how a just society should work: ‘For society to be democratic, income needs to be distributed in a way that is roughly a bell curve.’ but at the same time he seems to be confused how it should be implemented: ‘Socialism needs to be off the table in the information age.’\nThe bidirectional reference networks that Lanier proposes that preserve the context and provenance of data sound fantastic. There are however real reasons why we are doing the ‘profoundly dumb thing we are doing’ instead. His network sounds awfully similar to the idea of the semantic web, where everything online will work perfectly if only we would do it The Right Way (which we of course never will).\nHis solution to ‘Become as aware as possible of how you fit in other people\u0026rsquo;s computation schemes.’ is a good idea. It is the same algorithmic literacy pointed to in work by Kevin Slavin, Douglas Rushkoff and James Bridle himself.\nI\u0026rsquo;m afraid that Lanier\u0026rsquo;s rhetoric of a ‘more honest accounting’ will play particularly well in Germany where similar words are already being used to take Google to court. Germany passed a Leistungsschutzrecht (ancillary copyright for publishers) because they figured out that large American companies were making outlandish amounts of money based on the work of large German publishing houses.\nThe conversation of a fair distribution of wealth in a power-law based networked economy is one we need to have. I doubt though if this particular book is a good starting point for such a conversation. Lanier\u0026rsquo;s cultural foundations point us towards a solution that is at best unrealistic 3 and tries to extrapolate the problematic private notion of copyright to society as a whole.\nThe data tax I wrote about yesterday is an approach from a more public point of view. That would focus more on personal data and the revenue generated from such a tax would go into government so it would be subject to democratic controls. Ideas that won\u0026rsquo;t fly well with Lanier\u0026rsquo;s Silicon Valley crowd, but maybe that\u0026rsquo;s all the better.\nI try to read as little pop-sci as possible. I try not to give any money to self-proclaimed gurus on the talk trail who have written yet another ‘the internet is fantastic/horrible’ book.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nIn fact the myopia particular to the US and Silicon Valley may explain most of Lanier\u0026rsquo;s issues.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nWhat are commercial uses? Who gets credit for a particular work? etc.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"March 18, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/who-owns-the-future/","section":"Posts","summary":"In Conversation: Jaron Lanier and James Bridle On Who Owns the Future? from The School of Life on Vimeo.\n","title":"Who owns the future?","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"March 17, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/monster-swell/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Monster Swell","type":"categories"},{"content":"There are some interesting similarities between a recent proposal commissioned by the French government and the book out by Jaron Lanier just now “Who Owns The Future?”\nBoth analyses signal the dominance of corporate actors in a big data world and both suggest new methods of taxation as a potential solution to the problem. An article over at Forbes explains the commission\u0026rsquo;s proposal by Nicolas Colin and makes a lot of sense.\nThe French report has been received with predictable knee-jerk responses across the tech world. It is true that governments have not been very good at regulating the internet. But not regulating the internet is not a solution. We could hope for representation that is competent when it comes to the digital world.\nThe companies that create the internet should not cry foul. They have a track record of evading taxes more than contributing their fair share back to society.\nI\u0026rsquo;ll tackle Lanier\u0026rsquo;s position in another post. I just watched the conversation he had with James Bridle in Conway Hall and noticed some errors in Lanier\u0026rsquo;s ideas: they require a fully functional semantic web, they seem overly informed by private copyright practice and complementarily they take a weak government for granted 1.\nHow you would enforce such a law is another question entirely, but it cannot go further off the mark than how large companies manage to evade taxes right now. It may in fact be a lot fairer to tax data at the point of collection/use.\nIf you don\u0026rsquo;t bother to read the article above, I can sum it up in two key points below:\nData is hazardous waste material and as such its production and storage should be discouraged (the CO2 tax was given as an example in the Forbes article). Cory Doctorow compared personal data breaches to nuclear disasters, because the fallout is so tremendously hard to contain and control. Whoever collects large amounts of personal data treats the privacy damage caused by breaches as an externality. As such the storage of such data should be discouraged with a tax.\nData is capital and should be taxed as all capital is. Storage, mining and arbitrage using data can generate revenue for sophisticated market actors (those that Lanier terms as those with ‘the biggest computer on the network’). Data is a value adding asset that generates wealth and more data for those who already have it. If we don\u0026rsquo;t want a situation where a small group of people get richer at the expense of everybody else, we should tax it.\nSo data is both capital and hazardous. We tax many things with either of those properties so we should definitely tax something that has both.\nMost of the problems he states do not exist in a social democracy. Social democracies will face a similar set of problems in the near future, but musicians who can\u0026rsquo;t pay their medical bills are not one of them.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"March 17, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/taxing-data-is-not-crazy/","section":"Posts","summary":"There are some interesting similarities between a recent proposal commissioned by the French government and the book out by Jaron Lanier just now “Who Owns The Future?”\n","title":"Taxing data is not crazy","type":"posts"},{"content":" I booked my trip and accommodation in Paris. I\u0026rsquo;m quite looking forward to see that city again.\nOn Tuesday we had a big office lunch along with the people from Schnelle Bunte Bilder.\nWednesday we had our weekly German language class.\nAnd that night I worked late to finish TORREON. A small project that took up way too much time as all small projects do.\nThat same night I helped a kid in the Netherlands do his maths homework. I think it is standard practice for kids in the Netherlands to share pictures of their homework issues on social media. This time I got caught by one and managed to help the kid out decomposing square roots.\nhttp://twitter.com/_rmi/status/309032534635839488\nhttp://twitter.com/_rmi/status/309032594706669568\nNiels managed to hit another high with his contribution to Recess!. I think it may be about time to create a single serving website for tat serial.\nReading is something I still manage to do quite a lot though I have given up reading articles in Instapaper and have been reading a solid streak of books again. Some friends didn\u0026rsquo;t agree and they think the solution to this problem lies in craft beer.\nOn Friday morning we had a meeting with the breakfast gang. My blurb for TNW magazine was published on the open web.\nAnd we closed off the week with a nice game of Citadels.\n","date":"March 16, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-312/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Week 312","type":"posts"},{"content":"Last week we were on something of a tear continuously shipping things (it beats continuous integration). As Kars mentioned in the Hubbub weeknotes I was featured in the rather shiny TNW magazine about the subject of gamification. Much to my surprise this issue was filled with blabbering by Gabe Zichermann. It\u0026rsquo;s not only that we take issue with the way he approaches games, it looks like everything about the man is shameful. You can read unparalleled levels of douchebaggery over at Kevin Slavin and to my dismay even GigaOM 1 is complicit.\nTo my shame it took me until Friday night to write my second installment of Recess!\nI also got in touch with the government of Tempelhof-Schöneberg to procure all building permits for the area which had some disappointing results. More on that later.\nI thought GigaOM was a spark of light in the cesspool of tech journalism but it turns out I was wrong.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"March 5, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-311/","section":"Posts","summary":"Last week we were on something of a tear continuously shipping things (it beats continuous integration). As Kars mentioned in the Hubbub weeknotes I was featured in the rather shiny TNW magazine about the subject of gamification. Much to my surprise this issue was filled with blabbering by Gabe Zichermann. It’s not only that we take issue with the way he approaches games, it looks like everything about the man is shameful. You can read unparalleled levels of douchebaggery over at Kevin Slavin and to my dismay even GigaOM 1 is complicit.\n","title":"Week 311","type":"posts"},{"content":"It seems to be not completely obvious how to host a website on heroku while at the same time also maintaining e-mail delivery. You would think that this is a very common situation and it would be well documented but unfortunately it is not.\nWe got a DNSimple account because that\u0026rsquo;s the way that heroku allows naked domains to function. DNSimple sets up the ALIAS record for you rather easily, but what it doesn\u0026rsquo;t do is warn you if you have both MX and CNAME records on something. What happens is that the CNAME record always takes precedence as a redirect so your e-mails are then routed to proxy.heroku.com. Something that is undesirably and that DNSimple should warn against.\nWhat turns out to be the best solution is to set ALIAS records for both your apex domain and your subdomains (as proposed here). This way you don\u0026rsquo;t need a CNAME record anymore that can interfere with other settings. Heroku in their documentation advise you to use a CNAME record, so I\u0026rsquo;m going to ask them if there are any problems with using an ALIAS for all web routing.\nThe other option would be to purchase another plan for Zerigo which seems to be heroku\u0026rsquo;s preferred solution for this issue right now. Again this is rather poorly documented and we would have liked to be informed about that before we chose for the DNSimple option.\nUpdate: Heroku replied with the following.\nGreat question. The ALIAS record, created by DNSimple, is basically a bunch of magic that does a combination of what CNAMEs and A Records do, but does it behind the scenes. You can read more about the ALIAS records here: http://blog.dnsimple.com/zone-apex-naked-domain-alias-that-works/\nThat said, DNSimple would likely be better quipped to answer a question like this. I don\u0026rsquo;t see any reason why you couldn\u0026rsquo;t use ALIAS records in place of CNAMEs. There might be a slight difference in performance between the two, but I\u0026rsquo;m not certain enough about that to say for sure.\nAfter which I asked the same question over at DNSimple on their blog. That comment is awaiting moderation and an answer but I\u0026rsquo;ll post that here as soon as it appears.\n","date":"March 4, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/hosting-on-heroku-with-functioning-mx-records/","section":"Posts","summary":"It seems to be not completely obvious how to host a website on heroku while at the same time also maintaining e-mail delivery. You would think that this is a very common situation and it would be well documented but unfortunately it is not.\n","title":"Hosting on Heroku with functioning MX records","type":"posts"},{"content":"Hier mijn recensie van Proteus voor de nrc.next een paar weken geleden geplaatst (dit is een fractie van wat Bogost heeft gedaan op Gamasutra maar in Nederland is er geen plek, tijd of geld voor games):\nJe kon hem al spelen, maar Proteus van Ed Key is nu eindelijk officieel uit. Proteus is de naam van het willekeurig gegenereerde eiland opgebouwd uit impressionistische pixel-graphics waar je heen gaat. Aangekomen op het strand zie je op het eerste gezicht alleen wat bomen maar als je verder loopt kom je gaandeweg dieren en ook andere dingen tegen zoals torens, standbeelden en stenen. Je aanwezigheid beïnvloedt het eiland. Dat zie je niet alleen, je hoort het vooral in de muziek (gecomponeerd door David Kanaga) en de geluiden die allebei reageren op wat je doet.\nProteus bevat geen echte doelen. Er is geen prestatiedruk en je hoeft je niet bezig te houden met wat je nu ook alweer moet doen zoals in andere spellen. Je loopt gewoon over een eiland en dat alleen al is een bijzonder prettige ervaring.\nTijdens dat lopen is er ook genoeg te doen. Keer op keer ondernam ik een tocht die ik halverwege afbrak omdat ik een groepje dieren achterna ging of naar een adembenemend uitzicht wilde kijken. En elke keer als er een dag of een seizoen voorbij is, verandert Proteus en zijn er weer nieuwe dingen te zien en te doen.\nDe doelloosheid en eindeloze variëteit van Proteus maken dat je niet uitgekeken raakt. Je kunt er keer op keer terug blijven komen. Proteus is dan ook niet zozeer een spel als wel een serene plek waar je altijd heen kunt.\n","date":"March 4, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/proteus-recensie-voor-de-nrc-next/","section":"Posts","summary":"Hier mijn recensie van Proteus voor de nrc.next een paar weken geleden geplaatst (dit is een fractie van wat Bogost heeft gedaan op Gamasutra maar in Nederland is er geen plek, tijd of geld voor games):\n","title":"Proteus Recensie voor de nrc.next","type":"posts"},{"content":"Hi Niels \u0026amp; Kars,\nI\u0026rsquo;m checking in with you guys straight from what used to be Cold War Berlin. Berlin is still in a state of conflict, mostly because of growing pains and a lack of a coherent identity (today they started demolishing the last bit of that wall to make place for luxury apartments). An interesting example of that conflict on the streets is the civil disobedience and destruction themed game Camover. The idea is generally that people with balaclavas go around destroy security cameras and documenting the fact to gain points. Now as if that wasn\u0026rsquo;t controversial enough, an activist associated with it suggested to extend the game to ‘data goggles’ and destroy those of people recording your visage.\nData goggles obviously means Google Glass. Last week we had a brief discussion on twitter about why Glass would or would not be an obvious device to play games on. Say what you will about the video or just compare it to the Microsoft vision of internet connected fridges.\nhttp://twitter.com/alper/status/304595659749728256\nI\u0026rsquo;m well aware of the standard arguments against AR. Kars was quick to point them out. These are very valid, but it is still an experience that can be put to a variety of uses. Just look at the Move controller\u0026rsquo;s whose limited in- and outputs enable a game as interesting as Joust of which the depths have not been exhausted yet 1. Similarly the hardware affordances of Glass should yield at least one interesting game.\nWhat is the most annoying part of Joust is finding enough controllers to play it with. If Glass reaches the Android like ubiquity that Google is obviously aiming for, we can expect a very rich ecosystem to arise around this. These games will be mostly very boring, poor conversions or techno-wankery such as for instance Ingress but we should not rule out that there may be one or two good ones to pop up as well. I\u0026rsquo;ll take something that\u0026rsquo;s half as fun to play as Zumbie looks to be.\nStraight up game development of course is not the most interesting thing that such a platform offers. The changes in our social interaction that such hardware engenders will probably be the most interesting hooks to build interesting playful interactions into. So the loony activist above was not that far off the mark, but let us try to be a bit more constructive.\n- Alper\nWhy haven\u0026rsquo;t we played Joust in the dark yet?\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"March 1, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/recess-4-glass/","section":"Posts","summary":"Hi Niels \u0026 Kars,\n","title":"Recess! 4 — Glass","type":"posts"},{"content":"http://twitter.com/thornet/status/303586923719557122\nThe week was off to a smashing smart with the irregular Iron Blogger Berlin drinks. For some people it is an expensive drinking club, for me with my iron blogging resolve it is more an expensed drinking club.\nBerlin weather has been crazy last week. Also again we did tons of stuff for Hubbub, see it over there on Week 183.\nOver at Open State we are still recruiting a managing director to take over operations and lead us up onto the next level of open government and civic innovation. If you are reading this and you are inclined towards getting things done and civic responsibility, do get in touch with us: http://twitter.com/alper/status/304548937942069248\nI was preparing to write a book about the way we\u0026rsquo;ve come to work for a while now, but as most books go this was not really happening. So I decided to convert it to a format that is easier to get started on and write it as a series of blog posts right here.\nAt the end of the week we threw together an impromptu Friday\u0026rsquo;s at Seven here in the neighborhood to end the week and tap into the scenius that is coalescing. We\u0026rsquo;ll definitely do that again and try out various other event formats to see which is the most fun in the long run.\nAnd Saturday I finally finished Infinite Jest after having received the hardcopy version of it over four years ago. I was quite happy with that if only because I now have time again to read other things (just started the Quantum Thief).\n","date":"February 25, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-310/","section":"Posts","summary":"http://twitter.com/thornet/status/303586923719557122\n","title":"Week 310","type":"posts"},{"content":"A bunch of stuff I did last week is summarized nicely at the Hubbub weeknotes. This is going to happen more and more often, so these weeknotes may become at risk. We\u0026rsquo;ll see what happens.\nAnyway, I tried to dial into a conference call while there was a massive demonstration happening over at Wienerstraße #Lausitzer8. Having the riot police and the anarchists play tag below your window creates something of a racket: [flickr video=8472216913 secret=0f08479af8 w=400 h=225]\nThis corner of Kreuzberg is becoming more and more interesting and I\u0026rsquo;m running into people randomly in various lunch places. Last week I had the pleasure to meet both Chris Eidhof (who we should see more of in this part of town) and Jannis Leidel.\nNiels posted the second Recess! which was as awesome as I\u0026rsquo;d expected it to be.\nOn Thursday I went to the TPB AFK screening in c-base which was organized by Michelle Thorne after a conversation in a cafe here. I look forward to meeting lots more interesting people around the area and conspiring to do awesome things with them.\nI wrote up the watersnake app I wrote over here. Expect to see us meddle more into these kind of systems from a game design point of view.\nAnd on the weekend I played two new board games (Cosmic Encounter and King of Tokyo) and had dinner with Tim de Gier and the Dekker brothers.\n","date":"February 21, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-309/","section":"Posts","summary":"A bunch of stuff I did last week is summarized nicely at the Hubbub weeknotes. This is going to happen more and more often, so these weeknotes may become at risk. We’ll see what happens.\n","title":"Week 309","type":"posts"},{"content":"I swore to myself never to go to the theater again 1 which took a lot of the pressure off. But yesterday I did go to see V. in Ballhaus Ost. The posters hanging around town piqued my interest that a group in Berlin would stage a text by Thomas Pynchon. And if anyone should break my rules, it should be me.\nGerman reinterpretations of English works are often problematic because of the language and culture ravine that lies between. That\u0026rsquo;s no different here. I often had the feeling that the people treating it or doing it don\u0026rsquo;t really understand the text and they\u0026rsquo;re just doing something. Just reading a text by Pynchon is no mean feat, let alone creating an adaptation to the stage.\nThe dramatic performances are more convincing than what I\u0026rsquo;ve seen in the larger venues here in Berlin. There is also a camera that shows us parts of the stage that are occluded. The bar and party area, the living room quarters with the Killroy curtain hanging in front of it. A refreshing addition especially because videography is anathema in traditional German theater.\nThe piece takes its time. Probably stemming from the misconception that things that have a long duration are profound. This can be true, but three hours is just in between a bearable evening play and the dramatic marathon that imbibes special meaning to the ordeal. It is amazing however that such theatric effort can be bought for €13, a steal whichever way you look at it.\nAfter the first hour of trying to follow what was happening in various parts of the stage I had the realization that made everything fall into place. Instead of trying to follow the story I just thought back to The Invisibles, the legendary psychedelic graphic novel of disparate threads bound together by a crazed vision. After that I could just let the subsequent hours wash over me. Which raises the question: has there been an The Invisibles play yet? King Mob on the stage would kick Molière\u0026rsquo;s ass.\nIf you want to see over three hours of risky disjunctive theater, you should definitely go.\nJust after seeing mightysociety10 in Amsterdam.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"February 16, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/v-in-ballhaus-ost/","section":"Posts","summary":"I swore to myself never to go to the theater again 1 which took a lot of the pressure off. But yesterday I did go to see V. in Ballhaus Ost. The posters hanging around town piqued my interest that a group in Berlin would stage a text by Thomas Pynchon. And if anyone should break my rules, it should be me.\n","title":"V. in Ballhaus Ost","type":"posts"},{"content":"My small project during Swhack was to create a django version of a delegated voting system partially inspired by Liquid Feedback and the manyfold problems that system has 1. In particular that it is written on such an esoteric stack 2 that it is near impossible to get running without root on a Linux machine and let\u0026rsquo;s not even discuss the maintenance. What is even worse is that it makes it nearly impossible for outsiders to join the project and contribute to it significantly.\nIn this interview about Liquid Democracy you can read quite clearly how the technical mandate drives the direction of the project. Something that may not be very desirable if you think of it as a democracy-centric issue and not a technology-centric one.\nSo to see how hard it would be to write something similar in vanilla django. It\u0026rsquo;s easy to hate on django but you can find tons of people who can work on this in just about every major city, the framework and the documentation are mature and many parts of the framework can be called excellent 3.\nI thought putting something together that at its core implements a delegated voting engine should be doable in an afternoon and it was. What took the most time was playing around with the settings of the testrunner which I hadn\u0026rsquo;t really used before. So the watersnake app in this project does majority voting on single proposals with support for delegation 4. To see it work you have to run the tests, but building this out into a full fledged (web) app that can be deployed to heroku with a single command is technically trivial (and also time consuming).\nThis wasn\u0026rsquo;t a stretch to implement right now because I\u0026rsquo;m also doing some other projects which border on collaborative writing/decision making/filtering. As always, technology is neither the problem or the solution, but certain technical systems grant different socio-technical affordances than others. I will probably not work on this unless there is a clear demand, but I thought it would be useful to debunk the idea that building such a system needs to be difficult or complex.\nAmong others: the atrocious user experience, the fact that it does not support anonymity, the impossibility of i18n.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nThe core is a 4500 line pgsql file which is a solid way to deter outside involvement in a project.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nI for instance can\u0026rsquo;t really imagine using sqlalchemy over the django ORM.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nWe can build it out to support as complex a voting setup and algorithms as you would like, but I would be reluctant to do so without clear indications that it will be actually beneficial.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"February 16, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/watersnake-a-simple-voting-app/","section":"Posts","summary":"My small project during Swhack was to create a django version of a delegated voting system partially inspired by Liquid Feedback and the manyfold problems that system has 1. In particular that it is written on such an esoteric stack 2 that it is near impossible to get running without root on a Linux machine and let’s not even discuss the maintenance. What is even worse is that it makes it nearly impossible for outsiders to join the project and contribute to it significantly.\n","title":"Watersnake, a simple voting app","type":"posts"},{"content":"Besides the immense amount of things we did over at Hubbub last week, I also spent a lot of time doing various other things which sort of amazed me to be honest.\nTuesday I went to the Netzpolitische Abend here in c-base where Janneke Slöetjes of Bits of Freedom was one of the speakers. It was great fun catching up with what they\u0026rsquo;ve been busy with and the activist\u0026rsquo;s life.\nAnd on Saturday Jan Lehnardt and I organized the first Swhack Berlin, a commemorative hackathon to do the things that we would normally only talk about. A round-up of the things we did is still forthcoming, but everybody is super-busy of course. It was a lot of fun and I was pleasantly surprised even by the 10+ people who showed up and got busy. We\u0026rsquo;ll do another one sometime in the near future.\n","date":"February 14, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-308/","section":"Posts","summary":"Besides the immense amount of things we did over at Hubbub last week, I also spent a lot of time doing various other things which sort of amazed me to be honest.\n","title":"Week 308","type":"posts"},{"content":"Last Monday Uber had drinks here in Berlin and took a complimentary Uber there to chat with their Berlin team. The experience was extremely comfortable but given big city traffic it wasn\u0026rsquo;t very fast 1. In cities where the cab market is unreliable and corrupt I can definitely imagine the appeal of Uber. People working on transit apps should take note, this is the way it should work.\nWednesday we got a new person to join us over here at Praxis: the elusive iksi who seems to be rather more connected to my Dutch friends than I had foreseen.\nThe rest of the week Kars Alfrink was here in Berlin for copresent sprints on all the running projects and you\u0026rsquo;ll read more about all that stuff in last week\u0026rsquo;s Hubbub weeknotes.\nI did bang out a Re:publica submission, kick started a hackathon (there\u0026rsquo;s a separate post on that) and started a neighborhood initiative.\nI could have done the same distance quicker by public transportation and even a well-trained runner may have beat the S Class Mercedes.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"February 6, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-307/","section":"Posts","summary":"Last Monday Uber had drinks here in Berlin and took a complimentary Uber there to chat with their Berlin team. The experience was extremely comfortable but given big city traffic it wasn’t very fast 1. In cities where the cab market is unreliable and corrupt I can definitely imagine the appeal of Uber. People working on transit apps should take note, this is the way it should work.\n","title":"Week 307","type":"posts"},{"content":"Recess! is a correspondence series with personal ruminations on games. Dear Kars and Niels,\nI finally bought Proteus yesterday and though I really wanted to like it, I only half succeeded. It truly is a beautiful looking game but I do care a great deal about goals in the games I play (otherwise I probably would have loved Glitch too). Proteus has even fewer goals than Dear Esther. I can chase a few animals but other than that there isn\u0026rsquo;t much else to do on the island than to look at the spectacular sunsets.\nMy issue with that is that I think I should go outside and experience real nature instead of a procedurally generated facsimile on my screen, however beautiful it may be. Am I being a stick in the mud? The Kleistpark around the corner here is rather plain but this afternoon I did spot a fat bird between the branches.\nLast week I was looking for a quick game to unwind in between work. Luftrausers would fit the bill, but that isn\u0026rsquo;t available yet on my system. I\u0026rsquo;m more or less done with Hundreds by now. I am playing Galcon now on the iPhone and sort of enjoying that. So my first Recess stays at the surface and is about that age old: tell me what to play.\nAlper\n","date":"February 5, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/recess-1-proteus-and-nature/","section":"Posts","summary":"Recess! is a correspondence series with personal ruminations on games. ","title":"Recess! 1 - Proteus and nature","type":"posts"},{"content":"Here in the Berlin office we grind by hand: ","date":"February 5, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/grindin-at-the-office/","section":"Posts","summary":"Here in the Berlin office we grind by hand: ","title":"Grindin’ at the office","type":"posts"},{"content":"So this Saturday Jan Lehnardt and I are having a small hackathon here in Berlin in remembrance of Aaron Swartz and to in one small way continue doing the work that needs to be done on the internet, in government and especially where those two meet.\nWe have done a lot of what we used to call ‘civic hacking’ in the past, a phrase that has been used so often by now that I\u0026rsquo;m slightly sickened when using it. But there is still a lot to be done and both resistance against the movement and co-optation are growing. In Germany, where I live now, things are still in a pre-dormant state. The internet is in a rather sorry state here and people are good at complaining but less so at changing things.\nSaturday\u0026rsquo;s hackathon is meant to focus efforts and do random stuff. The stuff you normally never get around to doing because of the day-to-day business. I have some rather unorthodox ideas to change things but I could use some help. So join us!\n","date":"February 4, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/swhack-berlin/","section":"Posts","summary":"So this Saturday Jan Lehnardt and I are having a small hackathon here in Berlin in remembrance of Aaron Swartz and to in one small way continue doing the work that needs to be done on the internet, in government and especially where those two meet.\n","title":"Swhack Berlin","type":"posts"},{"content":"All of the books I read are to be found on Goodreads but here is my year\u0026rsquo;s overview because it is customary to do these things. I count 23 which is not too shabby but should be improved upon (always).\nThe Sandman: Endless Nights Gaiman, Neil Getting around to finishing all of the Sandman. Somewhat indulgent but still a very well done multi-mythology.\nThe Invisibles Omnibus Morrison, Grant A hugely important graphic novel. Also mind expanding in all the good ways that are necessary for a broad view of the world.\nPump Six and Other Stories Bacigalupi, Paolo More Bacigalupi. Even more please.\nTwo Cheers for Anarchism: Six Easy Pieces on Autonomy, Dignity and Meaningful Work and Play Scott, James C. A short and proper introduction to anarchism, sociology, political science and history by James Scott. One of the most important scholars for our current age of odd and corrupt governance. Consider the Lobster and Other Essays Wallace, David Foster Slowly getting around to reading everything by DFW. I might even finish Infinite Jest this year.\nThe Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet Mitchell, David Read during two intercontintental flights. Not the best of literature but still a tour de force by David Mitchell who makes everything look easy.\nFear and Loathing in Las Vegas Thompson, Hunter S. Another long overdue classic. Mind stretching.\nKill Decision Suarez, Daniel A light but important technothriller featuring drone warfare.\nSprakeloos Lanoye, Tom Too indulgent as is to be expected of Lanoye\u0026rsquo;s novels. We\u0026rsquo;re better off if he writes theater.\nThe Little Prince Saint-Exupéry, Antoine de Another long overdue book. Read in French.\nCommon Sense Paine, Thomas Highly readable and very stimulating. They don\u0026rsquo;t write \u0026rsquo;em like that anymore.\n1Q84 Murakami, Haruki Murakami is another of my indulgences however mixed his later books are becoming.\nLiars and Outliers: Enabling the Trust that Society Needs to Thrive Schneier, Bruce A highly necessary game theoretical analysis of society\u0026rsquo;s processes.\nAlien Phenomenology, or What It\u0026rsquo;s Like to Be a Thing Bogost, Ian The best introduction to OOO you could find anywhere.\nPrince of Networks: Bruno LaTour and Metaphysics Harman, Graham A very good introduction to Latour and the current speculative realistic vein in philosophy.\nKoorddansen in de Kaukasus: Reis door Ruslands onbeheersbare achtertuin Koens, Olaf Spectacular portrait of this inaccessible edge of Europe.\nEssays in Love: A Novel Botton, Alain de Forgettable.\nTo the Lighthouse Woolf, Virginia Long overdue but a brilliant book.\nPersuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames Bogost, Ian It turns out that reading How to do things with videogames is the better choice.\nThe Windup Girl Bacigalupi, Paolo Highly necessary future climate dystopia. Bacigalupian is definitely going to be a thing. Large parts of the world are already living it.\nBeginning Iphone 3 Development: Exploring the Iphone SDK Mark, Dave The book that got me into iPhone development (and did it quite well).\nThe Art of Travel Botton, Alain de Entertaining.\nZendegi Egan, Greg Some interesting ideas, but still not the hard Egan sci-fi one would want.\n","date":"January 29, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/books-read-in-2012/","section":"Posts","summary":"All of the books I read are to be found on Goodreads but here is my year’s overview because it is customary to do these things. I count 23 which is not too shabby but should be improved upon (always).\n","title":"Books read in 2012","type":"posts"},{"content":"Recovering from flu meant a week of mostly broken days, but still got a lot done and more importantly: got better.\nTORREON is more or less finished with the client accepting the work into their own repository now.\nTuesday we had an board meeting with Open State. I added my thoughts to Emma Mulqueeny\u0026rsquo;s post about social entrepreneurship and the long game. We are struggling with the same issues but optimistic.\nI had a meeting over at Netzpolitik for our upcoming joint venture with Open State as well.\nI wrote this blog post about real thinkers anywhere on the continent 1: “Who still thinks in Germany?”\nFinally I had a nice coffee with recent Berlin arrival Jurriaan who I think is a great addition to the local tech scene.\nOn Saturday I dropped by the extra Apps and the City hackday and turned my python hack into a javascript version for better distribution and graphical presentation. The javascript community disappointed me because there wasn\u0026rsquo;t a graph based A* solver available anywhere, so I was forced to write my own version using the Wikipedia pseudocode and underscore.js. That now lives on Github. It still needs a bunch of work.\nFurther I also updated my Thinkup installation to the most recent beta and my Dreamhost account to a VPS but still haven\u0026rsquo;t gotten it to work properly. I\u0026rsquo;m hoping that outage does not take too long.\nWhich may have been slightly more inflammatory than necessary, but then again, who hates a nice controversy.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"January 28, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-306/","section":"Posts","summary":"Recovering from flu meant a week of mostly broken days, but still got a lot done and more importantly: got better.\n","title":"Week 306","type":"posts"},{"content":"German friends some things need to be written but don\u0026rsquo;t take them personally. If anything, as I write below, this presents a very large opportunity for who will take it.\nI had my misgivings about what passes for intellectualism in Germany both in the newspapers and in the public debate. Germans pride themselves on being a country of Dichter und Denker (poets and thinkers) but traces of both are thin on the ground.\nI wondered about this a bit more after the Nexus Conference in Amsterdam last year which staged thinkers such as Alain Badiou, Rory Stewart, Roger Scruton, Evgeny Morozov. My Dutch friends who attended exclaimed: ‘Where are the thinkers of this calibre in the Netherlands?’ Suffice it to say there aren\u0026rsquo;t any. Nobody really expect Dutch people to be the source of great thoughts, so no loss there.\nBut when I then asked for contemporary German thinkers, who are read widely abroad, my friends on Twitter came up with this very thin list:\nhttp://twitter.com/alper/status/280376102424297472\nI would say that Grass, Sloterdijk and Jelinek can just barely be called contemporary (the same with Habermas) and Roche hardly an intellectual.\nIt turns out I wasn\u0026rsquo;t the only one to notice it. Slavoj Žižek, however repugnant I find the man, mentions in a recent Salon interview:\nThat said, I quite admire the United States and Canada. In some ways, they are better than Europe now. France and Germany, for instance, are currently in a very low state intellectually — especially Germany. Nothing interesting is happening there. Yet it surprises me how intellectually alive The United States and Canada are. Let me give you an example: Hegelian studies. If Europeans want to understand Hegel, they go to Toronto or Chicago or Pittsburgh.\nThis may be a bit hard to stomach if you\u0026rsquo;re German, it isn\u0026rsquo;t too bad for aspiring thinkers. In a country where the point of everything is drowned out in a sea of pompous verbosity, opportunities abound for those with a fresh perspective and proper delivery.\n","date":"January 26, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/who-still-thinks-in-germany/","section":"Posts","summary":"German friends some things need to be written but don’t take them personally. If anything, as I write below, this presents a very large opportunity for who will take it.\n","title":"Who still thinks in Germany?","type":"posts"},{"content":"With most of my work focusing at Hubbub these days, the weeknotes over there (the past week) are going to form the meat of my work in the foreseeable future 1. I may need to use these weeknotes as an excuse for long form writing again and blog more here in general on loose ideas.\nI published my piece about the Protocoletariat. I hope to be able to do more stuff in that field and tie in my professional endeavours in games, open government and computer science.\nI can very much recommend following both @Dymaxion and @justinpickard for the interesting anarcho-futurist trends their interactions hint at.\nhttp://twitter.com/justinpickard/status/292793712390594561\nI had a more than welcome catchup with Martin Spindler.\nThen I started the procedures to finish the administrative year here in Germany and on to the next one.\nThese weeknumbers also don\u0026rsquo;t make any sense anymore since my sole proprietorship in the Netherlands has lapsed with my emigration.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"January 21, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-305/","section":"Posts","summary":"With most of my work focusing at Hubbub these days, the weeknotes over there (the past week) are going to form the meat of my work in the foreseeable future 1. I may need to use these weeknotes as an excuse for long form writing again and blog more here in general on loose ideas.\n","title":"Week 305","type":"posts"},{"content":"I got things back running again. Did a bunch of work on TORREON. Most Hubbub stuff is in a weeknote over there now that I am writing now alternating with Kars Alfrink.\nI updated my Thinkup which proved to be something of a mixed bag now forcing me to upgrade my hosting package.\nWednesday I had my first class of my language course at the Goethe Institute which proved to be a bit too easy for my taste (which is probably always the case if you already know a bunch of languages). The practice will be good for me in any case and I hope to apply the practical parts more and more in German professional life.\nHaving started everything in Berlin —to my chagrin— on Thursday I went to Amsterdam for the Open State board dinner and some other odds and ends that needed seeing to. That day I also fasted for my friend Bassel who is jailed in Syria just for being a free software activist.\nThe board dinner that night at the new restaurant my brother runs Fa. Speijkervet was a lot of fun. There are a lot of changes coming up and almost all of them are for the better.\nFriday I hung out at Koko in Amsterdam. A nice new coffee place run by two girls who are totally into coffee and fashion. A big recommendation if you want to escape the hectic Amsterdam city center. After I did our meeting at De Gids (again see the Hubbub weeknote), we did a run of the town with Kars and Alexander Zeh.\nSaturday I learned about the suicide of Aaron Swartz an immensely respected figure in freedom and/of information. He was one of the rare people both whose software I used and whose thoughts resonated with me. He got so much done in that short time he was here that his passing places a big burden on the rest of us to continue that work.\nI then ended my theater going life by seeing the final Mightysociety show in Frascati. More on that when there is time.\nSunday was another Hubbub workday —yes we have a lot to do— with ample visits to the Village which is really an even funner place then than it is during the week.\n","date":"January 17, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-304/","section":"Posts","summary":"I got things back running again. Did a bunch of work on TORREON. Most Hubbub stuff is in a weeknote over there now that I am writing now alternating with Kars Alfrink.\n","title":"Week 304","type":"posts"},{"content":"Recensie verschenen in de nrc.next ergens in oktober 2011:\nIn ‘The Binding of Isaac’ wil Isaacs godsdienstwaanzinnige moeder hem opofferen zoals in het gelijknamige bijbelverhaal. Jij moet Isaac helpen ontsnappen in een hellegang onder zijn eigen huis. Een apart thema en off-beat humor zoals we eerder ook zagen in Super Meat Boy van dezelfde maker.\nJe loopt met Isaac van kamer naar kamer, tranen schietend op duivelse vliegen, bewegend vlees en andere monsters. Zodra alles dood is kun je door met de buit die je verzamelt. Ga je zelf dood, dan begin je opnieuw. Behendig spelen en de juiste keuzes maken zijn zaak om te winnen van Isaacs demonen. De niveau\u0026rsquo;s zijn elke keer anders en symboliseren de afdaling in Isaacs nachtmerries.\nHet is een spel van extreme contrasten. De tekenstijl is kinderlijk maar druipt van het bloed. De verwijzingen naar de bijbel worden afgewisseld met referenties naar games. Dat ligt wat zwaar op de hand voor een spel dat blijft steken bij hele simpele satire. Toch is ‘The Binding of Isaac’ wél erg leuk. Er valt veel te verkennen, de moeilijkheid neemt subtiel toe en de drempel om nog een keer te spelen ligt lekker laag.\n","date":"January 15, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/recensie-nrc-next-the-binding-of-isaac/","section":"Posts","summary":"Recensie verschenen in de nrc.next ergens in oktober 2011:\n","title":"Recensie nrc.next: The Binding of Isaac","type":"posts"},{"content":"I followed the last CCC from a distance reading the Twitter fallout and keeping track of the live streams while getting work done in an empty Berlin. Besides the various controversies playing out, there were some good talks. What I found to be the best of the event was “Long live the protocoletariat” by Eleanor Saitta (@dymaxion) and Smári McCarthy (@smarimc) about a topic that is very near to the things I am thinking about: institutions and networks and all of the opportunities and problems associated with them. The presentation in the first thirty minutes of this video is well worth watching. Pull quotes below are paraphrases.\nI have been to CCC once and didn\u0026rsquo;t feel the need to go again. I have been long disheartened by the odd turn that political consciousness has taken within that particular technological crowd. The combination of information/privacy fundamentalism with a total disdain for normal users is something which is normal in the open source world but not something I can support.\nIt is refreshing then to hear two people at CCC who pursue an agenda that I think is important in a manner that make sense and is constructive. Briefly the things from the talk that I found noteworthy.\nThey treat the various levels of obscurity and disfunctionality built into Liquid Feedback but on the whole they do agree that it is a functional system that needs some bug fixing.\nLiquid Feedback seems to have been sparked by a blog post some years ago is a good example of the primate of the developer. Because of limitations in development capacity, whoever builds these things builds the definitive version. It remains definitive until somebody builds a better one (or if the problem goes away). We don\u0026rsquo;t get the option of more consideration, or better design or any of the other things we would want. We get whatever time a volunteer can spare to hack something together that works. This also makes that often we are in local optima because there already is an implementation that is perceived to be ‘good enough’.\nPeople who have the time to solve problems don\u0026rsquo;t have problems. Those with real problems are too busy coping with their problems to be able to solve them generically. —Smári McCarthy\n“Don\u0026rsquo;t confuse math problems with human problems.” —Eleanor Saitta\nAn interesting next step is their demand of more thorough thinking from those aspiring to politics. They warn against an information politics that says: ‘We just want our current way of living without the bad things.’ I agree —and many others with me— that idealism needs a clear and functional vision of an alternative world with an implementation plan to get there.\nWhat then follows is a comparison between institutions and networks. I think it is very interesting to think about the importance of these two and why they have such trouble to deal with each other. What we are doing at Hack de Overheid is one attempt at bridging a network with a bunch of Dutch institutions. We should come up with more translator services and adapter structures to make the two work together.\nThey then treat the protocolization of institutions. How an institution can be decomposed in process and substance. How the symbolic language that an institution accepts can be codified as an automaton and then be translated into a peer to peer communications protocol. One problem of such a protocol is that it lacks institutional memory and tacit knowledge. Networks consist of nodes that adhere to the protocol (by definition) and are in effect interchangeable which means they don\u0026rsquo;t have to remember over the whole.\nMemory and knowledge are essential for the proper functioning of all organizations and that functionality needs to be coded in some way into the networked version. I\u0026rsquo;m reading James C. Scott right now and he talks at length about the high modernist folly of laying down ‘thin and brittle’ structures that do not work 1. Such structures have not been tested or used enough and lack the pliability and adaptations that are necessary for proper functioning.\nSaitta and McCarthy propose to build institutions that only do long-term memory and let the process execution be handled by the network.\nThey then identify the open problems that still need work:\nMapping the complexity classes and executive processes of institutions A language for protocolization of executive processes A decentralized but collectivized and compellable taxation protocol for an anonymous crypto currency Better tools for network-instution interactions A concept of network jurisprudence and mercy The complexity theoretical treatment of social institutions is something that rather tickles my fancy. On university we never got to solve anything but the most theoretical of problems during those courses. I recently found some complexity theoretical treatments of games (“Classic Nintendo Games are (NP-)Hard”) and I look forward to even broader applications.\nTo stay in the vein of games, the problems stated in 1. and 2. are things that have a lot in common with what we do when we build games. The design of games consists of many similar information theoretical problems. Games may also be good staging grounds if you want to replace the nation state. The first thing that comes to mind to model these interactions is Joris Dormans\u0026rsquo;s Machinations, a finite state machine modeling tool.\nAnyway it looks like there are tons of important and interesting problems still to be solved to which we as game practitioners might be able to contribute as well.\nThere are philosophical problems that we need to solve but they need to be directed towards the real world. —Eleanor Saitta\nAfter the talk there follow a series of somewhat odd questions. The replies fortunately more than make up for it:\nYou need to have a sufficiently complete philosophical understanding of why your ideas make sense and how they are coherent and how they encompass [agriculture]. Otherwise your [privacy] arguments are going to fall flat. —Smári McCarthy\nInstead we should build alternate structures. We are going to build this thing over here and it\u0026rsquo;s a much better way to run things. That can sort of infect into the world and obsolete other things. —Eleanor Saitta\nThat last one should be the golden test of activism: are you just complaining or are you doing something to actually make things better? If not, why not?\nSuch structures are created mostly by a select group of people to pursue an agenda of money or power.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"January 14, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/29c3-long-live-the-protocoletariat/","section":"Posts","summary":"I followed the last CCC from a distance reading the Twitter fallout and keeping track of the live streams while getting work done in an empty Berlin. Besides the various controversies playing out, there were some good talks. What I found to be the best of the event was “Long live the protocoletariat” by Eleanor Saitta (@dymaxion) and Smári McCarthy (@smarimc) about a topic that is very near to the things I am thinking about: institutions and networks and all of the opportunities and problems associated with them. The presentation in the first thirty minutes of this video is well worth watching. Pull quotes below are paraphrases.\n","title":"29C3: Long live the protocoletariat","type":"posts"},{"content":"A couple of weeks ago I and judging from Twitter almost everybody I knew read Quinn Norton\u0026rsquo;s Eulogy for #Occupy. Her coverage for Wired and her twitter stream had already broadcast an almost minute to minute beat of events in the movement. That account finally culminated in this retelling of the camps and the evictions crowned with a tally of the movements hopes and achievements. It is one of the journalistic highlights of 2012.\nOddly such a comprehensive account has not been available for Europe. We have had camps near the financial districts too, not to mention a massive amount of political conflict in the Mediterranean countries. All these things are tied up in the monstrous Union we have wrought to hold each other in a technocratic stranglehold. We are interrelated, however difficult it may be to tell from the national coverage alone.\nOur working theory was that most European journalists don\u0026rsquo;t have the stones to endure what Norton has gone through, to really be ‘in, but not of, Occupy’, to cover something beyond the confines of the nine-to-five job. To be sure I checked with her:\nhttp://twitter.com/quinnnorton/status/286872424451018752\nThis means that not one journalist conversant in English/German/French/Spanish on this continent figured out that there may have been a story here worth pursuing? That not one newsroom freed up the resources necessary for somebody to cover this? If that is the case, then may all our newspapers shrivel up and turn to dust because there is nothing worth saving here.\nUpdate: The Times shows their most popular articles of 2012 and journalism isn\u0026rsquo;t anywhere to be found.\n","date":"January 9, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/a-eulogy-for-european-journalism/","section":"Posts","summary":"A couple of weeks ago I and judging from Twitter almost everybody I knew read Quinn Norton’s Eulogy for #Occupy. Her coverage for Wired and her twitter stream had already broadcast an almost minute to minute beat of events in the movement. That account finally culminated in this retelling of the camps and the evictions crowned with a tally of the movements hopes and achievements. It is one of the journalistic highlights of 2012.\n","title":"A eulogy for European journalism","type":"posts"},{"content":"Nothing much happened during the Christmas week before, so I decided to skip that note. Most of Berlin shut down into a deep hibernation normally only witnessed in student towns.\nEverything only got into gear again on by Thursday when I got my copy of Gun Machine (and finished it two days after) and caught up studio flows with Hubbub Utrecht. I did my work on TORREON and had lunch with the vvvv guys.\nFriday it was more TORREON going on through the weekend and some consulting on KAIGARA.\nI also caught up with some talks at the CCC this year (along with all of the other issues the event had this year). Best of show is this one by Eleanor Saitta and Smári McCarthy about the advantages and disadvantages of networks and institutions:\nhttp://twitter.com/Dymaxion/status/287634115807805440\nA short week that one too, but more to come.\n","date":"January 9, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-303-starting-everything-back-up-again/","section":"Posts","summary":"Nothing much happened during the Christmas week before, so I decided to skip that note. Most of Berlin shut down into a deep hibernation normally only witnessed in student towns.\n","title":"Week 303: starting everything back up again","type":"posts"},{"content":"Recensie verschenen in de nrc.next ergens in december 2011:\n“Where is my Heart?”is een platform-puzzelspel van Deense sensatie Die Gute Fabrik. Je bestuurt om beurten één van drie ontheemde monsters die in het bos de weg naar huis proberen te vinden. De monsters zijn charmant geanimeerd, het bos is getekend in wondermooie pixel-art en de soundtrack bestaat uit frisse 8-bit muziek. Dat is allemaal bijzaak. Waar het om gaat is de buitengewoon originele manier van spelen.\nJe ziet van elk level alleen een stel kaders zoals een strip, maar deze zijn totaal uit hun verband gerukt. Je hebt geen flauw idee wat je door elk kader van het level ziet en wat de relatie met de rest is. Loop of spring je een kader uit, dan kom je vaak heel ergens anders terecht dan je verwacht. Visueel gedesoriënteerd ben je in elk level op zoek naar de relatie tussen je waarnemingen en de achterliggende werkelijkheid. Die vind je het makkelijkst door al spelend je hersens te dwingen de juiste verbindingen te leggen.\nOnderweg gebruik je de speciale vaardigheden van Bat King en Antler Ancestor (onzichtbare dingen zien, dubbel springen) maar Rainbow Spirit steelt de show. Hij kan de kaders van een level herschikken en kiezen in welke hij landt. Dat zet alles op zijn kop en de eerste keer dat ik het deed viel ik bijna van mijn stoel.\n“Where is my Heart?”is een zeldzaam moeilijk spel wat daardoor hier en daar eentonig dreigt te worden. De verzorgde uitvoering trekt je daar gelukkig doorheen en uiteindelijk duurt het niet heel lang voor de monsters weer thuis zijn en jij thuis met een voldaan gevoel naar de aftiteling kijkt.\n","date":"January 8, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/recensie-nrc-next-where-is-my-heart/","section":"Posts","summary":"Recensie verschenen in de nrc.next ergens in december 2011:\n","title":"Recensie nrc.next: Where Is My Heart?","type":"posts"},{"content":" Yesterday I learned that the German mail service has a special rate for mailing books because if you use normal package rates, shipping books becomes prohibitively difficult for more purposes 1. So there\u0026rsquo;s a special tariff for the “Büchersendung” and it is incredibly cheap: €1,00 for a half kilo book or €1,65 to ship a kilogram of paper anywhere you would like within Germany.\nTo be eligible for that rate you need to adhere to a very strict list of guidelines one of which is that you are not allowed to add any personal writing (i.e. a letter) to the package. You are allowed to add things such as advertisements and/or invoices. See here the updated (per 1-1-2013) list that aren\u0026rsquo;t allowed:\nAdressierte schriftliche Mitteilungen (Briefe) sind weiterhin nicht zugelassen, z.B.: individuelle Brieftexte aller Art, ob handschriftlich oder gedruckt, Texte mit Anrede (z.B. \u0026ldquo;Sehr geehrter Kunde\u0026rdquo;), Texte mit Höflichkeitsformel (z.B. \u0026ldquo;Mit freundlichen Grüßen\u0026rdquo;), persönliche Mitteilungen (z.B. \u0026ldquo;Rest folgt\u0026rdquo;).\nWhat struck me is how revealing this artifact is about German society.\nThe fact that there would be a special rate for books tells about the value attributed to books and the knowledge that is contained in them. Special facilities such as the Büchersendung needed to be created so even the more remote parts of the country could be connected to the book —which is to say knowledge— economy.\nThe fact that there are employees of the mail service who sample the shipments and check whether the criteria have been met —books have to be mailed in resealable envelopes— tells how resistent such institutions here are even to this day and how seriously they take their job. Comparing this to the Netherlands where such a system does not exist: such a rule would first not be enforced anymore and then when abuse became rampant it would be abolished.\nAnd with that the fact that this institutional vestige still exists is a reminder of how many historic rights that serve no real purpose anymore still are upheld in Germany because there can always be found a vocal group of people somewhere who want to maintain it and are willing to spend the effort to campaign for it. I don\u0026rsquo;t know if that is the case with the Büchersendung right now but I\u0026rsquo;m quite sure it will be with us for quite some time still.\nSomething I found out when I tried to sell my library second hand. Besides the absurd amount of work, sending books away in the Netherlands amounted to taking a loss.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"January 4, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/mailing-books-within-germany/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Mailing books within Germany","type":"posts"},{"content":"Recensie verschenen in de nrc.next van 20 juni 2012:\nHet langverwachte “Botanicula”van Amanita Design is uit en het is nog mooier dan de vorige spellen (Samorost, Machinarium etc.) van deze studio. De jaren werk die erin zitten zijn af te zien en te horen aan dit spel dat verbaast door zijn pure schoonheid.\nIn Botanicula speel je vijf botanische wezens die de boom waar ze leven moeten redden van duistere spinnen die alles dood maken. Dit loopt uiteindelijk —natuurlijk— goed af.\nHet flinterdunne verhaal is een excuus om mooie dingen te laten zien. Elk scherm is een botanische aquarel waarin van alles dwarrelt, deint of iets anders schattigs doet als reactie op jou. Amanita meet zich hiermee met de groten uit de animatiewereld en brengt het daar goed vanaf.\nZo prachtig als het is uitgevoerd, zo simpel is het spel. Je verzamelt zaadjes en klikt dieren aan op de boom om weer andere wezens te helpen die je verder brengen. Niet heel ingewikkeld maar makkelijker gezegd dan gedaan. Soms is ook na zoeken de bedoeling niet helemaal duidelijk en er zitten minigames in die in verhouding met de rest van het spel te moeilijk zijn.\nDit maakt dat het spel niet heel diepgaand is maar een paar uur plezier heb je er zeker wel van. Botanicula is zo’n kinderboek dat je als volwassene ook kunt kopen en wie ermee aan de slag gaat maakt dan ook niet zoveel meer uit.\n","date":"January 1, 2013","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/recensie-nrc-next-botanicula/","section":"Posts","summary":"Recensie verschenen in de nrc.next van 20 juni 2012:\n","title":"Recensie nrc.next: Botanicula","type":"posts"},{"content":"One recap of 2012 which was an odd year what with the international move and all. Still in the second half I managed to get a lot of travel in leaving aside the almost monthly trips to Amsterdam by train. Dopplr unfortunately does not give me a total amount of kilometers travelled for 2012 anymore.\nThe funny thing is that I visited a lot of capitals of countries that I hadn\u0026rsquo;t visited before even though I may have visited the country.\nTo Madrid in February: I had been to Spain often but never visited either Madrid or Barcelona.\nTo Athens in June: I had not ever been to Greece at all, so this was all new. A lot more fun than Madrid by the way.\nTo Paris in July: I\u0026rsquo;d been to France a couple of times but never to Paris yet.\nTo Helsinki in July: Another new capital and country, a visit which was very enjoyable both because of the company and because of the immense livability of the city.\nTo Beijing in October: A long overdue visit to China which was even more elucidating than it was enjoyable.\nNot to (Canberra) in October: Though I did visit both Melbourne and Sydney which don\u0026rsquo;t count.\nTo Moscow in December: A nice combination of business and personal visits and a welcome confrontation with the weirdness of Russia.\nWhich makes my visited countries map look like this: ","date":"December 31, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/capitals-i-didnt-visit-until-2012/","section":"Posts","summary":"One recap of 2012 which was an odd year what with the international move and all. Still in the second half I managed to get a lot of travel in leaving aside the almost monthly trips to Amsterdam by train. Dopplr unfortunately does not give me a total amount of kilometers travelled for 2012 anymore.\n","title":"Capitals I didn't visit until 2012","type":"posts"},{"content":"Last Monday was the last day in Berlin before the holidays so something of a push here and there to get things to go through. That night we had a vvvv workshop at the studio hosted by Joreg to teach somewhere around eight people the basics of node based graphical environments (the only other one I had used extensively before was Open DX and of course there\u0026rsquo;s Quartz Composer and Impure Quadrigram).\nI messed around a bit with it and managed to produce this bit of media art. It is very interesting to have the power of DirectX9 under your fingers without having to program at all, though the whole fact of non-programming feels a bit strange to me. [flickr video=8281500739 secret=e80d6a27c3 w=400 h=225]\nAlso there was this bit about the journalistic climate in the Netherlands:\nhttps://twitter.com/alper/status/280658121272217600\nI would recommend anybody interfacing with journalists to be wholly guarded and keep clearly in mind what\u0026rsquo;s in it for them in the interaction. The way it is played by most actors, it hasn\u0026rsquo;t been about the uncovering of the truth for a long time.\nTuesday was my travel day to Amsterdam where I wrote a bunch of stuff in the train and had an Open State board meeting that evening.\nI spent most of Wednesday in Utrecht at the Hubbub studio. That night I had dinner with Tim de Gier, Loeki Westerveld and Justus Bruns partially by plan, partially by coincidence.\nThursday was also spent at Hubbub discussing business and getting work done. That night I had drinks with Kars and Lieke in a smashing new Utrecht establishment.\nOn Friday I met Edo van Royen at Studyflow, had lunch with Peter Robinett, coffee with Justus Bruns, dropped by at my accountant, had a beer with Thijs Niks and then drinks at the Open Coop with Lex and Alexander. Having said that: these visits to the Netherlands always tend to devolve into a flurry of errands that barely leave any time to think. That is going to change for the next one.\n","date":"December 28, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-301-a-flurry-of-appointments-in-amsterdam/","section":"Posts","summary":"Last Monday was the last day in Berlin before the holidays so something of a push here and there to get things to go through. That night we had a vvvv workshop at the studio hosted by Joreg to teach somewhere around eight people the basics of node based graphical environments (the only other one I had used extensively before was Open DX and of course there’s Quartz Composer and Impure Quadrigram).\n","title":"Week 301: a flurry of appointments in Amsterdam","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik ben even in de e-mail archieven gedoken om mijn recensie-arbeid voor de nrc.next te verzamelen. Naast wat er al op het ter-ziele-gegane Bashers staat, zal ik de rest hier posten.\nInside a Star-filled Sky van Jason Rohrer op 13 juli 2011\nThe Cat and the Coup van Peter Brinson op 19 augustus 2011\nPhone Story van Molleindustria op 10 november 2011\nEr volgen dan nog de recensies voor the Binding of Isaac, Where Is My Heart? en Botanicula die wel in de krant maar nooit op Bashers zijn verschenen en wat ik daarna nog weet te schrijven.\n","date":"December 27, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/recensiewerk-voor-de-nrc-next/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik ben even in de e-mail archieven gedoken om mijn recensie-arbeid voor de nrc.next te verzamelen. Naast wat er al op het ter-ziele-gegane Bashers staat, zal ik de rest hier posten.\n","title":"Recensiewerk voor de nrc.next","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;m sitting in the train and get passed a link to a piece from Süddeutsche Zeitung about the internet and its sharing culture. This being my more-or-less favorite German newspaper, I dig into it expecting it to yield a solid piece of thought that will cause me to reflect on my online behaviour.\nThe real result is a lot less positive. It ends on this note:\nWir müssen nichts mehr erfinden, denn Google und Facebook lehren uns, dass neue Ideen leicht zu haben sind. Es könnte sogar sein, dass fügsame, gelehrige Kopisten jetzt erfolgreicher sind als diejenigen, die innovativ sind.\nSome old dude quotes selectively and writes about a subjective divide between digital and analog like you would find in the eighties. And it quotes an interview with Geert Lovink from 2007 that superficially treats ‘blogging’.\nThe piece opines that because of connectivity we will not be able to pay attention to what is important or come up with original thoughts ourselves. But it turns out that the Süddeutsche has fallen prey to that disease itself. Here as almost everywhere, German writing about the internet follows a predictable course that fails to illuminate.\n","date":"December 23, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/sz-echoes-of-chatter/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’m sitting in the train and get passed a link to a piece from Süddeutsche Zeitung about the internet and its sharing culture. This being my more-or-less favorite German newspaper, I dig into it expecting it to yield a solid piece of thought that will cause me to reflect on my online behaviour.\n","title":"SZ: Echoes of chatter","type":"posts"},{"content":"Last week was a week without travel or deadlines so a lot of stuff that had been lying around for too long got done.\nI did some more work on the small secret project 1. Also going forward with work on TORREON.\nChris Eidhof dropped by briefly at Praxis and told me about his plans to organize an iOS conference in Berlin.\nhttp://twitter.com/chriseidhof/status/278462418835881984\nI bit the bullet and got myself a monthly ticket for the U-Bahn along with a ticket for my bike. This has made a huge different in getting around the city. Many trips which would take half an hour by bike are a lot easier now and especially with the snow the combination of transit+bike makes a lot more stuff possible.\nI enrolled in a conversational German course at the Goethe Institute to up my German to a professional level. We are going to get a new collaborator over at Praxis. And I went to my first ever CrossFit training session on the recommendation by Mustafa Isik.\nI finally bit the bullet and changed my T-Mobile Netherlands plan to something a bit more minimal because I don\u0026rsquo;t spend much more than a week a month in the Netherlands anyway. On Thursday I sent a new proposal for TORREON. I did more stuff on REYNOSA.\nI got the funny (for Berlin\u0026rsquo;s reputation, see this Times piece) sticker for the new play Sommergäste by the Schaubühne written by Maxim Gorki. The previous play by that same director, Eugen Onegin, was absurdly boring so hopes for this adaptation of a Russian master should not be too high. Another Schaubühne play we almost went to, The Black Rider 2, seems to be by all accounts also really rather terrible.\nTheater is a hopeless moribund discipline but Fabian Hinrichs may prove a notable exception in Berlin this week (which I\u0026rsquo;ll be missing because of travel to Amsterdam).\nThis week was also the week of the brilliant eulogy for occupy by Quinn Norton. Intentional or not, it confirmed my cynicism about the movement. What little sparks of brilliance and hope were to be found in the USA versions were almost totally absent from the Dutch camps. Around the studio here in Kreuzberg there are still some remnants of the movement active: Friday I started initial work on TORREON and after that I went to the VVVV 10th anniversary event over at Letters are my friends.\nTwitter announced the general availability of your own tweets for download in archive form. I had done some preliminary work on this when this option was available to Europeans and now ThinkUp is busy building a full-fledged importer.\nSunday morning I finished reading The Invisibles, a brilliant mind bending comic by Grant Morrison. It may not seem like it is relevant to my work, but it very much is in a multitude of strange ways.\nI regret not picking a codename for it now. Henceforth it shall be known as REYNOSA.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nReally, the massive misguided stones necessary to translate Burroughs into German…\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"December 17, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-300/","section":"Posts","summary":"Last week was a week without travel or deadlines so a lot of stuff that had been lying around for too long got done.\n","title":"Week 300: odds and ends","type":"posts"},{"content":" On Monday morning I flew to Moscow to participate in a panel at the Moscow Urban Forum. A gathering of experts on the subject of the city and policy who would shed some light on the development of a megacity such as Moscow. On the day I flew in, I got an opportunity to stroll a bit through the city.\nI was impressed by the incredible amount of traffic that didn\u0026rsquo;t leave a lot of room for a person on foot. An experience I haven\u0026rsquo;t had since Beirut. And as underwhelmed as I was by the Red Square itself, the church at the end (Saint Basil\u0026rsquo;s Cathedral) was jarring in its familiarity. It had made a heavy impression on me when I was a small child and television commentary on the Soviet Union would feature it as a backdrop. An experience to finally see it in real life.\nSurprisingly the one coffee chain in Moscow I visited Кофеин (Caffeine, I\u0026rsquo;m guessing) served a very smooth coffee and Foursquare is rather positive about the other chain (Кофемания) too.\nThat night I had a long overdue couple of drinks with Olaf Koens, an old friend who works as a Dutch correspondent in Moscow and writes a smashing travel book as well. A native guide is really recommended to ease acclimatization into Moscow. Without Olaf my impression of the city may have been a different one. As the night progressed we almost naturally wound up at Жан-Жак (Jean Jacques). A pleasant surprise as I had wanted to visit it ever since I read the piece about Russia\u0026rsquo;s New Decembrists last year.\nOne more thing we in the Netherlands and Germany especially could learn from Moscow: there is open WiFi almost everywhere. No bullshit passwords to mess with, just open.\nOn Tuesday I was in a panel to present our extra-governmental/developer approach to open data which we have built up with Hack de Overheid over the past years. It is a complex story to tell and to translate across the cultural divide to practitioners over there, but I think the things we have achieved speak for themselves. Right now we are slowly figuring what parts of our practice can be exported and what parts are too specific for the Dutch case.\nThere are the answers to the obvious questions (‘Should you charge for data?’, ‘In what format should you supply data?’ etc.) that we have mostly figured out already but that seem to be difficult to explain and supply as shortcuts. And after that there are the very subtle nuances of what data means, what it says about the world, what it excludes and how you can create a process that guarantees maximal inclusion and all of its benefits. Answering those issues requires a far more in depth look at everything, a look for which there is hardly any market or audience unfortunately.\nThe next day before flying out I managed to get my first ice skating of the season in at Gorki Park. And then as a bit of infrastructure enthusiasm I went on a lightning tour of the various Moscow underground stations which are regularly quite stunning. The Russian metro system seems to be mostly at capacity with trains arriving every couple of minutes, covering the full length of the platform and many of which being jam-packed during peak hours. Fortunately if ever the city wants to create a tram/light-rail system to complement its public transportation, there is ample space still at street level.\nI got some more work in and then after a two hour drive to the airport I was in a plane back to Berlin. I had gained three hours of time with which I managed to visit the Game Developers meetup in Berlin.\nThen it was back full speed on development for SAKE and I visited the new offices of the esteemed Peter Bihr and Matt Patterson, just two doors down the street from where I\u0026rsquo;m at now. It is brilliant to further increase the concentration of internet nous in the same couple of streets.\nI took the opportunity to relax a bit on Friday and have lunch with Igor Schwarzmann and then we presented our current release version of SAKE to the Gids. I was telepresent at that meeting which is a fun but also odd way to end a Friday, I must say.\nAs a side note: if you\u0026rsquo;re reading this you are probably a good candidate to be in the advice commission for the Dutch subsidy fund (Stimuleringsfonds) for either e-culture or architecture. What these commissions can use more than anything is a solid group of practitioners advising on proposals and people who set the bar high.\n","date":"December 10, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-299-moscow-and-sake-release/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Week 299: Moscow and sake release","type":"posts"},{"content":"Horribly late but here goes anyway. On Monday I briefly dropped by the Makers Loft and finally managed to see the Third Wave crew again.\nSake started up in earnest and team participation started to ramp up. Just now I piped the git commits into our communal chatroom, something I should have done a lot earlier because it so nicely shows the active heartbeat of a project.\nI installed two applications I had been holding out on. I\u0026rsquo;m trying to backup my files to Amazon Glacier using arq but Berlin bandwidths are not very conducive to sending 192GB to the internet. Also I installed Flux to modulate my screen temperature into something a bit warmer for these cold winter days.\nI think this bears sharing regularly:\nhttps://twitter.com/mattur/status/272745213611622401\nThe rest of the week sake kept up. On Tuesday I picked up my visa from the Russian consulate for the trip to Moscow. I\u0026rsquo;m on the plane back to Berlin as I\u0026rsquo;m typing this.\nWednesday I had a coffee with Niels van der Linden, a Dutch national who\u0026rsquo;s living in Istanbul and is active in the startup scene over there. Lots of interesting parallels and things to learn from each other in that one. We had a nice lunch with Praxis and then I went to the Iron Blogger Berlin meetup.\nA sizable part of the week was spent finalizing paperwork both for my German bookkeeper and for various institutions back in the Netherlands. After making my rounds through the city I dropped by at the ÖPNV hackday Apps and the City at Supermarkt.\nI couldn\u0026rsquo;t hack as much as I wanted because I needed to send my slides to Moscow for the following week, but once I finished those I still managed to get two small things in:\nFirstly I uploaded the sample file of the various POIs for Berlin\u0026rsquo;s S-Bahn stations to Google Fusion Tables to be able to get a quick feel for the data. What\u0026rsquo;s in it, what\u0026rsquo;s not and how accurate it is.\nSadly, there is a full dataset available with the points for all stations in Berlin, but that is geocoded in some obscure German datum and therefore cannot be readily loaded into Fusion Tables. Ready usability is key for many hackday datasets, even if other participants had more time to do a possible conversion than I did. For a data provider: you show knowledge of the outside world by supplying GPS.\nThe issue to be solved with this dataset would be: finding your ideal way around a station for a transfer or your ideal exit for your final destination and based on that information to chain back and guide you into the optimal carriage of the underground train.\nThe first approach, to brute force the problem by tabulating all possible entries and exits, turned out to quickly balloon into something horribly large. After some thinking I thought up a graph representation of a subway station and demonstrated with a proof of concept “Stationsrouter” that you can route through that using the well-known A* algorithm. 1\nThis can be easily extended for for instance wheelchair access by using a weighted graph and setting the weights of stairs to infinity for those users. I posted the algorithm and a rough graph coding online, I need to find the time to make the interface more attractive (probably by porting it to Javascript) and to transcode a couple more stations. To figure out where an arriving train lands on a platform and therefore which graph segment that corresponds to wouldn\u0026rsquo;t be too difficult.\nOn Friday I was supposed to take an introductory German language course, but the hackday shenanigans made sure I missed that early appointment. Trying to reschedule something for the new year to level up my Deutsch. We did a capacity planning session with Hubbub and I ended the afternoon by watching a bit of TEDxAmsterdam waiting for the new talk by Kevin Slavin.\nOn Sunday I met with Peter Bihr, Matt Patterson and Daniela Augenstein to talk about open government in Berlin and then the next day it was off to Moscow!\nWeb developers many of which are self-taught and who are not regularly faced with problems that are not solvable using procedural programming and databases often have no idea how more difficult problems in the domain of computer science can be solved. Corollary: game development contains many many of these more difficult problems.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"December 7, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-298-berlin-odds-and-ends-hackday/","section":"Posts","summary":"Horribly late but here goes anyway. On Monday I briefly dropped by the Makers Loft and finally managed to see the Third Wave crew again.\n","title":"Week 298: Berlin odds and ends, hackday","type":"posts"},{"content":"At the start of the week I managed to upload a batch of trip pictures (the China section) but after things went quickly downhill.\nI spent the first three days of the week wrapped up mostly in visa procedures because I\u0026rsquo;ll be participating in the Moscow Urban Forum next week. I did manage to have some good chats in between, but attention was too scattered to get anything solid done (also this being the first week back from a reasonably long trip). Lunch with Fabian Mürmann, a board meeting for Open State.\nI did discover a very nice coffee place around the corner and went there for just about every day since (I think this is love).\nAdd to that two visits to the dentist as well on subsequent days and I was more or less done.\nFriday was the first day where I could finally catchup with most things. I dropped by Gidsy and had lunch with Matt Patterson and then lunch again with my office mates. And the evening I prepped a session for the students from the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences to tell them more or less everything I could about data visualization in 90 slides.\nAnd on Sunday I finished my first book by James C. Scott which was fantastic (more on which later) and managed to finally get a secret little project underway that had been lying for far too long.\n","date":"November 27, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-297-getting-back-into-the-groove/","section":"Posts","summary":"At the start of the week I managed to upload a batch of trip pictures (the China section) but after things went quickly downhill.\n","title":"Week 297: getting back into the groove","type":"posts"},{"content":"I read Consider the Lobster as a bit of a reprieve from the book guilt Infinite Jest still casts over my night stand and as a long overdue requiem to the literary colossus DFW is. Here\u0026rsquo;s the stuff I found noteworthy:\nforked dorsally over the knee of a morbidly obese cellphone retailer\nIt turned out that the LAPD detective found adult films moving, in fact far more so than most mainstream Hollywood movies\nThe impression is that of a very expensive thoroughbred being led onto the track under a silk blanket.\nbutane gas to be pumped via PVC into her lower colon and set afire on expulsion, resulting in a 3.5-foot anal blowtorch\nwherein a starlet’s vagina and rectum are simultaneously accessed by two woodmen\na straight-on deep-focus view of a dilated and wood-ready orifice.\nwith everybody seemingly teetering right on the edge of coitus all the time\nsend everyone tumbling into a tangled mass of limbs and orifices\nalliteration and anatomically mixed metaphor Schwartz’s\nmoments of near-Periclean eloquence\n“I want to thank my mother, who spread her legs and made all this possible.”\nthe other famous phallocrats\nthe prospect of dying without even once having loved something more than yourself.\nseem less like John Updike than like somebody doing a mean parody of John Updike.\nIt never once occurs to him, though, that the reason he’s so unhappy is that he’s an asshole.\nthe horrific struggle to establish a human self results in a self whose humanity is inseparable from that horrific struggle.\nThat our endless and impossible journey toward home is in fact our home.\nThat, finally, the door opens … and it opens outward—we’ve been inside what we wanted all along.\nDid you know that US lexicography even had a seamy underbelly?\nsomebody who knows what dysphemism means and doesn’t mind letting you know it.\nthe bland condescension with which he performs the two occult keystrokes that unfreeze your screen is both elitist and situationally valid\na three-week Emergency Remedial Usage and Grammar Unit, during which my demeanor is basically that of somebody teaching HIV prevention to intravenous-drug users\nThe kids end up scared, both of me and for me.\nway the beloved English of their youth is being trashed in the decadent present\ncan somehow avoid or transcend ideology is simply to subscribe to a particular ideology, one that might aptly be called Unbelievably Naive Positivism.\nWithout the existence of these external rules, there is no difference between the statement “I am in fact using tree consistently with my own definition”and the statement “I happen to be under the impression that I am using tree consistently with my own definition.”\nit seems indisputable that we put some extra interpretive burden on the recipient when we fail to honor certain conventions.\nPeople really do judge one another according to their use of language.\nboth are deficient in the same linguistic skill—viz., the ability to move between various dialects and levels of “correctness,”\nlike most dogmatists they’ve been extremely stupid about the rhetoric they used and the audience they were addressing.\nThis reviewer’s own humble opinion is that some of the cultural and political realities of American life are themselves racially insensitive and elitist and offensive and unfair, and that pussyfooting around these realities with euphemistic doublespeak is not only hypocritical but toxic to the project of ever really changing them.\nStandard Written English, which we might just as well call “Standard White English”because it was developed by white people and is used by white people, especially educated, powerful white people.\nPCE purports to be the dialect of progressive reform but is in fact—in its Orwellian substitution of the euphemisms of social equality for social equality itself—of vastly more help to conservatives and the US status quo\ncensorship always serves the status quo.)\nthat we who are well off should be willing to share more of what we have with poor people not for the poor people’s sake but for our own; i.e., we should share what we have in order to become less narrow and frightened and lonely and self-centered people.\nit’s tempting to think AE’s real purpose is concealment and its real motivation fear.\nwhich was indeed a rhetorical boner.\nHis argumentative strategy is totally brilliant and totally sneaky, and part of both qualities is that it usually doesn’t seem like there’s even an argument going on at all.\nTruly decent, innocent people can be taxing to be around.\nthat exquisite hybrid of animal and angel\nthe seductive immortality of competitive success and the less seductive but way more significant fragility and impermanence of all the competitive venues in which mortal humans chase immortality. me, the real mystery—whether such a person is an idiot or a mystic or both and/or neither.\nthe most complicated stuff also tended to be the most interesting\npoliticians’ statements of principle or vision are understood as self-serving ad copy and judged not for their truth or ability to inspire but for their tactical shrewdness, their marketability.\nthe likeliest reason why so many of us care so little about politics is that modern politicians make us sad, hurt us deep down in ways that are hard even to name, much less talk about.\nAnd we keep learning for years, from hard experience, that getting lied to sucks—that it diminishes you, denies you respect for yourself, for the liar, for the world.\nSo who wouldn’t yawn and turn away, trade apathy and cynicism for the hurt of getting treated with contempt?\ncoffee that tastes like hot water with a brown crayon in it\nBy all means stay home if you want, but don’t bullshit yourself that you’re not voting. In reality, there is no such thingas not voting: you either vote by voting, or you vote by staying home and tacitly doubling the value of some Diehard’s vote.\nwho knows she’s average and just wants a decent, noncynical life for herself and her family\nBut if you’re subjected to great salesmen and sales pitches and marketing concepts for long enough—like from your earliest Saturday-morning cartoons, let’s say—it is only a matter of time before you start believing deep down that everything is sales and marketing, and that whenever somebody seems like they care about you or about some noble idea or cause, that person is a salesman and really ultimately doesn’t give a shit about you or some cause but really just wants something for himself\nThe answer depends on how gray-area-tolerant you are about sincerity vs. marketing, or sincerity plus marketing, or leadership plus the packaging and selling of same whether he’s truly “for real”now depends less on what is in his heart than on what might be in yours.\nbut rather that intranational tourism is radically constricting, and humbling in the hardest way — hostile to my fantasy of being a true individual, of living somehow outside and above it all.\nThere are limits to what even interested persons can ask of each other\n","date":"November 22, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/notes-from-consider-the-lobster/","section":"Posts","summary":"I read Consider the Lobster as a bit of a reprieve from the book guilt Infinite Jest still casts over my night stand and as a long overdue requiem to the literary colossus DFW is. Here’s the stuff I found noteworthy:\n","title":"Notes from Consider the Lobster…","type":"posts"},{"content":"I picked up a Monocle at Sydney airport for a long flight without laptop (along with a book) and I was a bit disappointed 1 in finding that the magazine hadn\u0026rsquo;t progressed much since I first read it years ago. It still is that strangely a-political collection of fluff pieces for the spendy class and because of the current realities of print publishing now also brimful of advertorials.\nI do read and enjoy (in an odd way) Tyler Brûlé\u0026rsquo;s Fast Lane column in FT and it looks like Monocle itself is larded with his signature phraseology. A distillation from a single issue:\na country\u0026rsquo;s ability to [X] says volumes about its identity\nThe forthcoming generation needs help to be globally competitive\nInfrastructure is lagging behind\nTo his nearby weekend retreat\nA far cry from the polished décor and white-gloved service elsewhere in the area\nDiplomacy and negotiations don\u0026rsquo;t just happen in airless meeting rooms\nLike all good campaigns it flatters the consumer\nThe alcohol induced violence that often comes with bars and clubs\nPrompting eager entrepreneurs to roll in while the paint is barely dry\nThe company is eyeing its prospects overseas\nThe diligent start at the helm of\nThe name never fails to raise a smile among [X]\n[X] is not known for its subtle advertising campaigns\nAnd has bureaux in London, New York and Beijing\nHas caused a stir on several occasions\nWe\u0026rsquo;re all familiar with the trajectory\nThe problems are being discussed but significant government-sponsored solutions are yet to emerge.\nwith help from an expert panel of architects\nhas been developed by passionate fundraising\n[X] feels like a resort\nanalogue ways of staying in touch are still the most popular\nit\u0026rsquo;s a problem that needs to be addressed by the government, not just enterprising individuals\nThe architects tried hard to infuse a sense of warmth and comfort.\nwe need an attitude change\nBuyers were successful businessmen with good taste\nit must be the most laidback event in the design calendar\nit\u0026rsquo;s remarkable that so little priority is given to the emotional impact of the interiors\nthe clever spatial design and careful choice of high-spec domestic furniture\nThe hope is that this is a model to be rolled out\nit has also sparked a longing for restaurants where home-cooked, uncomplicated food is served in familiar settings\nIn retrospect I should have bought a New Yorker if they had them, but this was an impulse purchase and yes I too do aspire in a modest way.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"November 20, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/monocle-isms/","section":"Posts","summary":"I picked up a Monocle at Sydney airport for a long flight without laptop (along with a book) and I was a bit disappointed 1 in finding that the magazine hadn’t progressed much since I first read it years ago. It still is that strangely a-political collection of fluff pieces for the spendy class and because of the current realities of print publishing now also brimful of advertorials.\n","title":"Monocle-isms","type":"posts"},{"content":"After some weeks traveling to Beijing and Australia, last week I was back in Europe, touching down in Amsterdam Tuesday morning early. I had a very nice flight in from Sydney with the only annoyance being that my laptop had broken upon arrival there. This made me spend half a day of the two I had there in the Bondi Apple Store trying to figure out what the problem was.\nThe Genius there was less than helpful. Determining that it was my hard drive, he tried without avail to erase it and then load up a new version of the OS. I am more or less pleased that he wasn\u0026rsquo;t successful in doing that. In Amsterdam I tried another couple of things but finally handed it in at Maccare.nl who without touching it said ‘it was probably the cable’ and the very same day had replaced it for me. Since the Genius hadn\u0026rsquo;t even managed to erase my disk, I could incredulously resume working from where I was a week ago.\nNot having a laptop I did manage to finish The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoete and a Monocle on the flights from Sydney to Guangzhou to Amsterdam and the layover.\nNiels van Hoorn from Brainsley provided support (as well as many many friends online) in the form of tools and a place to hangout while I tried swapping fresh hard drives in and out. The following day I handed my laptop in and while it was being fixed, I worked the day in Utrecht where using Chrome\u0026rsquo;s sign-in feature, I could resume most of my old work on an old Hubbub Macbook. It turns out the cloud is not a lie at all.\nThursday morning I got my Macbook Pro back and spent most of the day working at Brainsley\u0026rsquo;s offices which are small but rather cozy. I dropped by the Open Coop to chat with Lex and pick up my Open State business cards. And that night I met up with some old friends who work now mostly as hired guns in the Amsterdam startup scene for cocktails at the famed Door 74.\nFriday I dropped by the Village (again!) and then got onto the train to Berlin where I am typing this right now.\n","date":"November 19, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-296-back-in-europebusiness/","section":"Posts","summary":"After some weeks traveling to Beijing and Australia, last week I was back in Europe, touching down in Amsterdam Tuesday morning early. I had a very nice flight in from Sydney with the only annoyance being that my laptop had broken upon arrival there. This made me spend half a day of the two I had there in the Bondi Apple Store trying to figure out what the problem was.\n","title":"Week 296: Back in Europe/business","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;m sitting here at Beijing Airport writing these too late weeknotes on their free WiFi 1 which is an oddly implemented but still excellent service.\nLast week was mostly spent with a scattered brain working on my ignite an various proposals. We had a studio meeting at Praxis to discuss recent developments and issues.\nThursday night I gave the Ignite to a packed Supermarkt Berlin. Thanks everybody for attending and listen to me rave about games for five minutes. Also fantastic to meet everybody in Berlin who I hadn\u0026rsquo;t caught up with for ages.\nOn Friday I finished off most of my paperwork before the trip. That night we went to see Werner Herzog read with the studio.\nThe next morning I got up at seven to see the market build up and watch the GSL Code S final together with Mustafa Işık and a colleague of his. You are either mildly serious about watching this or you are not. I\u0026rsquo;d already set up and tested the GOM Player before. That\u0026rsquo;s the bit of KPop you see above.\nIt was rather exhilarating to see a GSL event streamed live and I\u0026rsquo;m glad my light season ticket entitled me to view it. I\u0026rsquo;ve recently gotten into Star Craft because of Frank Lantz\u0026rsquo;s excellent “Drinking Man\u0026rsquo;s Guide to Watching Star Craft” and am greatly enjoying it as a highly complex, dense and therefore less boring alternative to most spectator sports.\nAlso: it is nice to still have a blog in a country where most social services are effectively a SPOF.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"October 26, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-292-ignite-gsl-pre-trip-prep/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’m sitting here at Beijing Airport writing these too late weeknotes on their free WiFi 1 which is an oddly implemented but still excellent service.\n","title":"Week 292: Ignite, GSL, pre-trip prep","type":"posts"},{"content":"Last week I presented at the Berlin Ignite. I had been present at the last one and greatly enjoyed, so I looked what I could add to the mix.\nI threw most of the thinking in the studios for the past 1-2 years on the floor with post-its and distilled the pertinent threads from that. As it happens ‘New Games for New Cities’ was the title of a presentation Kars gave some time ago to which I had contributed but had forgotten about.\nLeafing through the older presentations, it is good to see that the thinking has evolved over the years. The old points still hold, but time and experience has refined our opinions and forced us to refocus here and there.\nPutting the presentation together was a fair amount of work (and not something I was particularly looking forward to the week before a holiday 1) but all of the positive responses were more than worth it. I can highly recommend Ignite 2 for the mix of topics it touches on, the fun and light delivery and the varied and open crowd it attracts.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve come to refer to that state of mind where your event horizon is defined by a single event ‘Brain Zero’.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nThough I don\u0026rsquo;t know if I should, because it\u0026rsquo;s totally packed anyway.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"October 25, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/games-on-ignite-berlin-3/","section":"Posts","summary":"Last week I presented at the Berlin Ignite. I had been present at the last one and greatly enjoyed, so I looked what I could add to the mix.\n","title":"Games on Ignite Berlin #3","type":"posts"},{"content":"Just to start a series here about ways in which German society could be organized more sensibly 1 2.\nWhen we switched to the euro in the Netherlands I hardly ever remember seeing the one and two cent coins. I think they were there in the beginning, but popular consensus soon decided that those were too small money amounts to justify bothering with and dispensed with them. They are still legal tender so occasionally you will be given change in those coins at some odd shop in the outback. Everybody knows though that people who do that are douchebags.\nHere in Germany these coins still abound for some mysterious reason. Everybody hands them out and their tiny copper presence clutters pants pockets and wallets everywhere. Maybe you can buy beer in some remote part of Germany for 3 cents and that\u0026rsquo;s why it is imperative that these coins remain in circulation. I honestly don\u0026rsquo;t know.\nThese coins should be abolished. I am positive that doing so will simplify at least one interaction per day per person in Germany.\nParaphrasing Harry Potter from the Methods of Rationality: “I don\u0026rsquo;t want to rule the universe. I just think it could be more sensibly organised.”\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nAlso I need to document this somewhere to get it out of my head.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"October 21, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/berlin-inefficiences-12-cents/","section":"Posts","summary":"Just to start a series here about ways in which German society could be organized more sensibly 1 2.\n","title":"Berlin Inefficiences: 1/2 Cents","type":"posts"},{"content":"Yesterday we went to see Werner Herzog read from his own work in ‘Erroberung des Nutzlosen’ at the Volksbühne. While an impressive display of authorship my enjoyment of the performance was hampered by me having no knowledge of his movies and a recent aversion towards the theater.\nWith some heavy German, Herzog reads his diary notes from the production of Fitzcarraldo (trailer below), a massive undertaking to make a movie of a massive undertaking. The whole protracted shooting in the jungle sounds a lot like how Apocalypse Now was made.\nThe passages Herzog reads are gripping and contain lots of absurdities and events that happen when you are shooting a motion picture in the jungle (also rather reminiscent of También la Lluvia) as well as reflections on the nature of being and emotional turmoil.\nThe evening is turned into theater by adding evocative background projections of jungle scenes (nice!) and music by a jazz improvisation duo, a Sardinian choir of men and a Senegalese singer. They interject protracted bits of singing in between Herzog\u0026rsquo;s reading turning the whole thing into something like a Werner Herzog mixtape.\nThe music is where I lost it. Firstly: I keep forgetting how much I loathe jazz improvisation until its too late and I\u0026rsquo;m already in the middle of one. It may be fun to do, but I don\u0026rsquo;t see improvisations go anywhere dramatically. Added to that the music doesn\u0026rsquo;t fit well with Herzog\u0026rsquo;s reading. This created a lot of dissonance for me that forced me to interpret all of the musical intermezzi as kitsch. Funnily after Herzog was done reading —during the encore— the music was far more enjoyable.\nThis is probably a must-see (another probably sold out show tonight) if you\u0026rsquo;re into Herzog and/or improvisational jazz and/or world music. I couldn\u0026rsquo;t check those boxes but still enjoyed seeing the man read.\n","date":"October 20, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/conquest-of-the-useless/","section":"Posts","summary":"Yesterday we went to see Werner Herzog read from his own work in ‘Erroberung des Nutzlosen’ at the Volksbühne. While an impressive display of authorship my enjoyment of the performance was hampered by me having no knowledge of his movies and a recent aversion towards the theater.\n","title":"Conquest of the Useless","type":"posts"},{"content":"Last Saturday I made it out to the penultimate day of the exhibition of the Selim Varol Collection in the me collectors room here in Berlin. I\u0026rsquo;m glad I did. This was one of the most complete and stunning collections of contemporary toys and subversive art on display anywhere.\nMost of the fun is in the sheer completionism of certain walls and cabinets. Acquiring everything past the point of simple fun. Add to that trying to recognize what everything is about, what the references and twists in the various works are.\nWhat adds to the power of a well done private collection such as this one is its lack of fear. It doesn\u0026rsquo;t need to be backed up artistically, there\u0026rsquo;s no curator hedging their bets or trying to cultivate relations, it isn\u0026rsquo;t afraid not to be taken for full and in short: it isn\u0026rsquo;t uptight (modern art take note).\n","date":"October 19, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/the-selim-varol-collection/","section":"Posts","summary":"Last Saturday I made it out to the penultimate day of the exhibition of the Selim Varol Collection in the me collectors room here in Berlin. I’m glad I did. This was one of the most complete and stunning collections of contemporary toys and subversive art on display anywhere.\n","title":"The Selim Varol Collection","type":"posts"},{"content":" Brief weeknotes for last week: closed off Pig Chase with the prototype test in the stables. I got to start building a playable prototype for sake, more on that later.\nA large part of the rest of the week I spent in various states of bureaucracy trying to get everything in order to be able to request a visa for China. I think I\u0026rsquo;ve spent about as much time getting the requested papers as I will be in Beijing proper.\nDuring the off hours of this week I started a small project to check the Dutch laws into github over at Staten Generaal (write-up).\nSome nice responses to that: https://twitter.com/steeph/status/254579913183596544 https://twitter.com/thijsniks/status/254581291545141248 https://twitter.com/opendatanl/status/254581990827913216 https://twitter.com/alexandernl/status/254586159701831680\nBut the real work has only just begun and we need to figure where the project should actually go to.\nThe Beestenbende project page went online, an iPhone game I coded: http://whatsthehubbub.nl/projects/beestenbende/\nAnd I got added to the Praxis Berlin website which is the web presence of my current studio.\nAnd I spent quite a bit of the weekend at the JSConf parties. It was fun to meet lots of people I hadn\u0026rsquo;t seen in quite a while and the conference was quite excellently organized.\n","date":"October 14, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-290-projects-finished-visa-jsconf/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Week 290: projects finished, visa, JSconf","type":"posts"},{"content":"I recently discovered the fan fiction Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by the esteemed Eliezer Yudkowsky (I used to read his friendly AI stuff back in the day) and having never read any Harry Potter 1 I still immensely enjoyed this.\nIn science our powers wax by the year.\nI don\u0026rsquo;t want to rule the universe. I just think it could be more sensibly organised.\nStar Wars was the only universe in which the answer actually was that you were supposed to cut yourself off completely from negative emotions\neveryone in the wizarding world is completely stupid.\nThat your strength as a rationalist is your ability to be more confused by fiction than by reality\n\u0026ldquo;If you have not dealt with journalists before, take it from me that the world gets a little brighter every time one dies.\u0026rdquo;\nBut then human beings only understood each other in the first place by pretending.\nand so it might not have occurred to you that to respect the truth, and seek it all the days of your life, could also be an act of grace.\nSo why would anyone possibly think any thought so silly as that death is a good thing? Because you\u0026rsquo;re afraid of it, because you don\u0026rsquo;t really want to die, and that thought hurts so much inside you that you have to rationalize it away, do something to numb the pain, so you won\u0026rsquo;t have to think about it -\nI\u0026rsquo;m certainly becoming a bit frustrated with\u0026hellip; whatever\u0026rsquo;s going wrong in people\u0026rsquo;s heads.\nThe Earth was what made the stars significant, made them more than uncontrolled fusion reactions, because it was Earth that would someday colonize the galaxy, and fulfill the promise of the night sky.\nAs though there\u0026rsquo;s something in science like the shine of the Patronus Charm, driving back all sorts of darkness and madness, not right away, but it seems to follow wherever science goes.\nThat was what it meant to be used by a friend, that they would want the use to make you stronger instead of weaker.\nI see little hope for democracy as an effective form of government, but I admire the poetry of how it makes its victims complicit in their own destruction.\nA lot of common wisdom like that isn\u0026rsquo;t just mistaken, it\u0026rsquo;s anti-epistemology, it\u0026rsquo;s systematically wrong.\nOr rather, cheating is what the losers call technique\nHe\u0026rsquo;d been struck, even then, by an essential emptiness in the indignation of politicians - though he hadn\u0026rsquo;t had the words to describe it, at that age - a sense that they were trying to score cheap points by hitting at the same safe target as everyone else.\nHow very sad, how very hollow the indignation, of those who refuse to say that money and life can ever be compared, when all they\u0026rsquo;re doing is forbidding the strategy that saves the most people, for the sake of pretentious moral grandstanding\u0026hellip;\nHogwarts students don\u0026rsquo;t actually know enough cognitive science to take responsibility for how their own minds work.\nAnd you have already witnessed, I wager, that their fondness vanished like dust in the wind once it was no longer in their interest to associate with you\u0026hellip;\nAnd now it\u0026rsquo;s waiting until new chapters arrive, a pleasure and torture at the same time.\nI watched the movies.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"October 11, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-from-harry-potter-and-the-methods-of-rationality-until-chapter-85/","section":"Posts","summary":"I recently discovered the fan fiction Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by the esteemed Eliezer Yudkowsky (I used to read his friendly AI stuff back in the day) and having never read any Harry Potter 1 I still immensely enjoyed this.\n","title":"Highlights from Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (until chapter 85)","type":"posts"},{"content":"I read this pamphlet (at Gutenberg) by Thomas Paine a while back on a mountain. However short it may be it packs a massive punch and is brimful with powerful rhetoric. It also contains a rather definitive argument against monarchy. Highly recommended.\nFirst, Because it tends to the decrease and reproach of all religion whatever, and is of the utmost danger to society to make it a party in political disputes.\nAnd the very publishing it proves, that either, ye do not believe what ye profess, or have not virtue enough to practise what ye believe.\nWe fight neither for revenge nor conquest; neither from pride nor passion; we are not insulting the world with our fleets and armies, nor ravaging the globe for plunder.\nthat either the doctrine cannot be refuted, or, that the party in favour of it are too numerous to be opposed.\nNo going to law with nations; cannon are the barristers of Crowns; and the sword, not of justice, but of war, decides the suit.\nI have frequently amused myself both in public and private companies, with silently remarking, the specious errors of those who speak without reflecting.\nTo unite the sinews of commerce and defense is sound policy; for when our strength and our riches play into each other\u0026rsquo;s hand, we need fear no external enemy.\nFor as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law OUGHT to be King; and there ought to be no other.\nwhere a republican government, by being formed on more natural principles, would negotiate the mistake.\nEngland consults the good of THIS country, no farther than it answers her OWN purpose.\nIn no instance hath nature made the satellite larger than its primary planet\nthere is something very absurd, in supposing a continent to be perpetually governed by an island.\nThis is my favorite:\nInterested men, who are not to be trusted; weak men, who CANNOT see; prejudiced men, who WILL NOT see; and a certain set of moderate men, who think better of the European world than it deserves;\nThe first king of England, of the present line (William the Conqueror) was a Frenchman, and half the Peers of England are descendants from the same country; therefore, by the same method of reasoning, England ought to be governed by France.\nwe forget the narrow limits of three hundred and sixty miles (the extent of England)\nBut Britain is the parent country, say some. Then the more shame upon her conduct. Even brutes do not devour their young, nor savages make war upon their families; wherefore the assertion, if true, turns to her reproach;\nher motive was INTEREST not ATTACHMENT; that she did not protect us from OUR ENEMIES on OUR ACCOUNT, but from HER ENEMIES on HER OWN ACCOUNT, from those who had no quarrel with us on any OTHER ACCOUNT, and who will always be our enemies on the SAME ACCOUNT\n","date":"October 4, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/highlights-from-common-sense/","section":"Posts","summary":"I read this pamphlet (at Gutenberg) by Thomas Paine a while back on a mountain. However short it may be it packs a massive punch and is brimful with powerful rhetoric. It also contains a rather definitive argument against monarchy. Highly recommended.\n","title":"Highlights from Common Sense","type":"posts"},{"content":"Last week I built a new version of the Pig Chase client for the final test in the stables (more on which later).\nSpent some time writing proposals. Setup my own personal tent at: https://alper.tent.is/ for whatever good that may be.\nI also managed to catch the last day of PIVOT at leap and wrote something brief about it.\nAlso because it was the end of the month I finally moved all of my stuff out at the old office. Friday night there was another digital salon at the HIIG offices. I don\u0026rsquo;t think people like us are the target audience of these events. The discussion focused mostly on the incredibly mundane aspects of digital technology.\nhttps://twitter.com/alper/status/251732138322440193\nhttps://twitter.com/alper/status/251734369587326976\nFriday night was also the opening of work by Casey Reas at [DAM] Berlin. And after that a birthday party at Panke which for me felt like a more accessible/steampunk version of cbase. Anyway.\nI started doing some game design of myself. And built an election game using Game-o-Matic: The Emile Game.\n","date":"October 2, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-289-moving-out-moving-on-and-some-small-events/","section":"Posts","summary":"Last week I built a new version of the Pig Chase client for the final test in the stables (more on which later).\n","title":"Week 289: moving out, moving on and some small events","type":"posts"},{"content":" Monday I was given a Clever coffee maker and a Hario grinder to be able to make slow coffees at the office. Thanks Kars and Lea for being so attentive. I also made a start moving my books over but more and more having a professional 1 physical library is feeling like a huge dead weight.\nI would like to have these books in digital form but I\u0026rsquo;m sure as hell not going to pay for them all again at ebook markups. No way in hell. Bittorrent seems like a better option.\nWe\u0026rsquo;re very proud of Beestende being a game that actually does what it promises and we submitted it to the Dutch Game Awards.\nA trailer for a reality show that I participated in about a year ago was released under the title Heetsel. Doing anything for tv or tv-like media feels intensely surreal and judging from the final edit that surreality is conveyed quite well by the delivered product.\nI published the video and brief write-up of my NEXT Berlin talk about love and gamification over at Hubbub.\nOn Wednesday I did random administrative stuff and prepped my visit to Munich the next day.\nOn Friday I had coffee with Chris Eidhof at the new Barn which is a stunning large venue with a roaster and a very large coffee desk. The coffee is the same quality we\u0026rsquo;re used to but it\u0026rsquo;s policies are a bit more restrictive. I won\u0026rsquo;t talk about the online tumult caused by this, but I hope they can sort it out quickly and then focus again on what they do best: brewing awesome coffee.\nAnd finally I had a cup with Mustafa at the Five Elephant. Mustafa is an all-star programmer who has recently moved to Berlin to build a startup. Another too little publicized —soon to be— success story in the local scene.\nhttps://twitter.com/codesurgeon/status/249182833111867393\nI already immolated my personal library several moves ago.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"September 28, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-288-settling-in-and-munich/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Week 288: settling in and Munich","type":"posts"},{"content":"I biked over tonight to see the installation PIVOT by Jacob Kirkegaard at the leap in Berlin 1 before it finishes tomorrow.\nYou can read what the author wrote and see his or my pictures. It is a very nicely done curved projection from the Fernsehturm with recorded sound from the pivot mechanics of that same tower. Impressive and imposing.\nWhat struck me most was that the whole thing seems to move so very slowly, deceptively so. When you allow yourself to get engrossed with one part of the video, one part of Berlin before you know it you have lost track of where you were and the entire thing has moved on. So much of Berlin to see in there.\nTomorrow it\u0026rsquo;s off to the opening of the Casey Reas show at DAM.\nIn the Berlin Carré, which is quite a bit different from the Amsterdam Carré. That I can assure you.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"September 27, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/pivot-over-berlin/","section":"Posts","summary":"I biked over tonight to see the installation PIVOT by Jacob Kirkegaard at the leap in Berlin 1 before it finishes tomorrow.\n","title":"PIVOT over Berlin","type":"posts"},{"content":"Work on the Pigs continues though my part is sort of finished now. The rest of the team is very busy getting the thing into the stable.\nOn Tuesday I dropped by Open Tech School to do a bit of Python coaching. The entire week I spent a great many hours on kohi getting both the iPhone client and the django server into usable shape. It has advanced to the point where I am using it regularly on the go and it works without too many hickups.\nI also wrote the new services overview for Monster Swell. A realign had been in order for a while now.\nOn Friday Dirk van Oosterbosch dropped by Praxis. A good Amsterdam friend and a notorious hardware hacker.\nAlso the German net community wants to do something about the Leistungsschutzrecht which is a truly ridiculous piece of legislation. My response to their petition: https://twitter.com/alper/status/246181714177695744\n","date":"September 17, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-287-kohi-praxis/","section":"Posts","summary":"Work on the Pigs continues though my part is sort of finished now. The rest of the team is very busy getting the thing into the stable.\n","title":"Week 287: kohi, praxis","type":"posts"},{"content":"I just pulled out this stuff from my weeknote into a separate post because I think it merited it.\nI was already in the Hague Saturday when the event that prompted my visit happened: we held Apps voor Democratie, a Hack de Overheid hackathon in the Dutch parliament building on invitation by the chairwoman Gerdi Verbeet of our parliament. For this event they also for the first time opened most parliamentary proceedings.\nI cannot stress how nice it was to be welcomed into the highest institution of the Netherlands and then hear that institution say that they realize now that openness with their data is the way to go. The atmosphere of the entire day was incredibly positive and uplifting. This event has been a world premier and has set a high bar. But don\u0026rsquo;t let that stop ups from doing even better.\nhttps://twitter.com/Lisadichtbij/status/244398354044440576\nhttps://twitter.com/AlexanderNL/status/244443168869851136\n","date":"September 11, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/hacking-dutch-parliament/","section":"Posts","summary":"I just pulled out this stuff from my weeknote into a separate post because I think it merited it.\n","title":"Hacking Dutch Parliament","type":"posts"},{"content":"I didn\u0026rsquo;t make it out to dConstruct which I\u0026rsquo;m a bit torn about. I\u0026rsquo;ve been to the conference some three times and this year other priorities trumped it and going to conferences in general. But the program this year was even more stellar than regular years. Seeing either Ben Hammersley, Tom Armitage or James Burke (!) present would be worth the ticket price alone without exaggerating a lot.\nWhen the theme ‘Playing with the Future’ was announced I was already thinking that Paul Virilio should feature in it. Can somebody confirm to me whether he has been referenced at all? Too often designers put their belief wholesale into the notion of progress and a heavy-weight counterpoint to that thinking would be more or less essential.\nAnd best of all was hearing from a distance about Tom Armitage\u0026rsquo;s presentation which seemed to be really good and focuses on the same things we do in our practice: play and making.\nhttps://twitter.com/monkchips/status/244104752739266560\nAs fellow game makers that very notion is at the heart of many of the things we do and it is a talk I will definitely be catching on the conference recordings which are already online.\n","date":"September 11, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/dconstruct-on-the-future-progress-and-play/","section":"Posts","summary":"I didn’t make it out to dConstruct which I’m a bit torn about. I’ve been to the conference some three times and this year other priorities trumped it and going to conferences in general. But the program this year was even more stellar than regular years. Seeing either Ben Hammersley, Tom Armitage or James Burke (!) present would be worth the ticket price alone without exaggerating a lot.\n","title":"dConstruct on the future, progress and play","type":"posts"},{"content":"A massively eventful week that for me took place mostly in Amsterdam where I had tons of catching up to do after a holiday absence of I believe over two months. In between moving offices and traveling, work on kohi moved on apace. We may have something usable by a slightly wider audience somewhere in the next week.\nOn Tuesday I took the train to Amsterdam and landed at our Amsterdam offices to catchup with Lex Slaghuis and friends about the current state of Open State and upcoming events.\nTuesday was also my sixth twitterversary: https://twitter.com/clclt/status/242982186037411840\nWednesday I had planned to give a programming lesson. I dropped by at Johan Schaap\u0026rsquo;s offices to prepare some stuff and also managed to finally make it to the Stadsbranderij Noord (in our office building) where Kees Kraakman has been brewing the finest coffees of Amsterdam for the past couple of months.\nI pulled something together based on my presentation at the last Hack de Overheid and the tutoring I\u0026rsquo;ve been doing in Berlin at Open Tech School. The event I made on Gidsy for that sold out pretty quickly and Peer Reach (thanks Zlatan!) offered to let me use their offices, so that came together rather rapidly. On a side note: big data and semantics related startups seem to be statistically overrepresented in Amsterdam right now.\nThe evening itself went by in a flurry of code and learning. I decided to use Javascript because that runs in everybody\u0026rsquo;s browsers and there is a readily available graphical environment to work with: Processing.js. There were quite some snags, but everybody managed to work through the exercises and claimed to have learned a lot.\nhttps://twitter.com/erwblo/status/243393487825952768\nhttps://twitter.com/erwblo/status/243448305923813377\nhttps://twitter.com/jerryvermanen/status/243447862527135744\nhttps://twitter.com/kooistra/status/243442967061356544\nI really enjoyed giving the class and I mostly wanted to know how much interest there would be for something like that in Amsterdam. Seeing as it sold out rather quickly and that everybody I mention this to says that they too would like to participate, it seems that interest is about as high as in other European countries, but that nobody is doing something yet. I\u0026rsquo;m strongly considering pursuing this further and create something more sustainable. If that is something you would be interested in, get in touch with me. Thursday was spent in Utrecht where the awesome people of the Village smothered me with great coffee and merchandise. Always a pleasure to hang out in their store and see their enterprise maturing. Kars and I spent the day discussing strategies past and future for Hubbub and we managed to get the entire team together to celebrate the delivery of Beestenbende with a glass of champagne.\nThat same night I had the pleasure to catchup with most of the rest of Amsterdam\u0026rsquo;s hackers at the Hackers and Founders meetup.\nOn Friday I caught up with my agent Tessa Sterkenburg of the Next Speaker about digital things and where the current attention of the market is focused. It seems that our thinking is —as always— a bit ahead of the curve which may make it somewhat difficult to market, but we would not want to be anywhere else.\nI quickly visited the Humans next door who are working on their own very nice health tracking app. Then it was another visit to the Open Coop, a visit to my accountant, some work at my old office and then off to the Hague to celebrate the graduation of up and coming GIS engineer Simeon Nedkov.\nThen on Saturday we were in the Hague to do a hackathon in Dutch parliament. More on that in a separate post. And Sunday it was back in the train to Berlin.\n","date":"September 10, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-286-amsterdam-visit-programming-lessons-and-hacking-parliament-from-within/","section":"Posts","summary":"A massively eventful week that for me took place mostly in Amsterdam where I had tons of catching up to do after a holiday absence of I believe over two months. In between moving offices and traveling, work on kohi moved on apace. We may have something usable by a slightly wider audience somewhere in the next week.\n","title":"Week 286: Amsterdam visit, programming lessons and hacking parliament from within","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;ll include here Hubbub\u0026rsquo;s two reasons for celebration which were also reasons for me to celebrate and I\u0026rsquo;ll add a third in a bit. These really are the weeks when a lot of stuff is happening, being built and delivered. Not that much time for idle talk and reflection, though that too will return.\nI also booked my ticket to Australia for the end of October. I\u0026rsquo;m flying in on Melbourne via Beijing and flying out of Sydney some three weeks later. I always thought I had to see the economic miracle of China for myself, so I\u0026rsquo;ll be stopping over there for a couple of days before going on serious surfing/hiking/diving in Oz.\nI also launched an activity on Gidsy to teach programming to absolute beginners which —I am glad to say— has been fully booked by now. Strangely enough this is a topic that is massively underrepresented in the Netherlands while in other countries there are groups popping up left and right. I hope to play some part in spreading knowledge of programming, but I cannot do this by myself and it should spread out to be a wider movement.\nThursday afternoon I spent two and a half hours outputting two and a half thousand words for the book I\u0026rsquo;m planning to write on the future of client based creative work. I believe this is a topic that does not get enough attention or love from the people who are active in this conversation. There are still a lot of people who have not made the transition from client work into product work and that kind of work will probably always exist. I think it is time to redeem working for clients and show a way to do it that maintains both dignity and fun.\nThat same night I went to the iOS meetup in Berlin and presented a sneak peek of Beestenbende to my colleagues iOS programmers. I was glad to see that our app was well received by those present.\nAnd Friday finally we had a full on integration of the Pig Chase game running remotely from the Berlin studio to Utrecht. That was a pretty difficult nut to crack and very nice to finally have working. You don\u0026rsquo;t see a lot of games doing stuff with real-time video and remote real-time action because it\u0026rsquo;s pretty damn difficult. Fortunately that is our recipe for broad succes: pick difficult problems and solve them properly. Then I dropped by at my friends over at HIIG where they were taping yet another radio show about the internet: And finally I rode with the Berlin Critical Mass on Friday night. Quite the experience and I\u0026rsquo;ll be looking to repeat that soon again. I spent most of Saturday afternoon tutoring Python as part of the Open Tech School workshop to get people into programming. That was very fun and utterly draining.\nThen after spending the day teaching people to program with a dangerously low blood sugar level I moved over most of my stuff from Adalbertstraße to Oranienstraße proper. Notifications of address changes and invitations for office warming drinks are forthcoming.\nThen for the rest of the weekend I did a lot of nothing during the day and lots of programming during the night which resulted in the first private release of kohi. Get in touch with me if you want to be a part of the initial group of users and I\u0026rsquo;ll include you as soon as we have something more substantial to share.\n","date":"September 4, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-285-dots-connected-games-demoed-book-proposals-written-programming-taught-apps-prototyped/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’ll include here Hubbub’s two reasons for celebration which were also reasons for me to celebrate and I’ll add a third in a bit. These really are the weeks when a lot of stuff is happening, being built and delivered. Not that much time for idle talk and reflection, though that too will return.\n","title":"Week 285: dots connected, games demoed, book proposals written, programming taught, apps prototyped","type":"posts"},{"content":"Last week was rather eventful. I popped over to Praxis to sign my lease there and I was scheduled to present a workshop at Campus Party on a topic near to my heart about which I have presented often already in one form or another: Civic Hacking.\nOn Tuesday I attended the django meetup organized by my good friends from Gidsy. It\u0026rsquo;s always a pleasure to touch base with the current technological state of the art and best practices in web development, though I am not a web developer pur sang anymore.\nOn Wednesday I dropped by at the Campus Party venue which at the vast Tempelhof area was as impressive as expected and spent the rest of the time preparing my workshop.\nOn Thursday evening I presented the points of view we have on the topic as the last entry on a full Free Software Stage. The idea is that programmers and other makers can use their skills to make things and by doing so create a free world (necessary for free software).\nhttps://twitter.com/karstenkneese/statuses/238701118513893376\nhttps://twitter.com/FrauLea/statuses/238700483097808896\nA picture by Gulius Caesar: On Friday it was back to the Campus Party to see the presentation by the Rails Girls Berlin. On the whole Campus Party was a great event with so much interesting stuff happening (a bit too much at times), but with also a lot of odd kinks in the organization which are neatly summarized over at Silicon Allee.\nAnd after that to see a bunch of pro gaming going on at the arena where I saw a bunch of interesting Star Craft II cast by Kaelaris and witnessed my first bit of League of Legends 1. Witnessing the high level sc2 players up close and seeing their actual APM is rather bizarre.\nI have already been watching a bit of sc2 by Husky after which Frank Lantz started writing his Drinking Man\u0026rsquo;s Guide to Watching Starcraft, which I can recommend to everybody wanting to get into the sport.\nSome kind of strange Diablo cum Warcraft mix and mash where people click-click-click on each other.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"August 28, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-284-new-beginnings-campus-party/","section":"Posts","summary":"Last week was rather eventful. I popped over to Praxis to sign my lease there and I was scheduled to present a workshop at Campus Party on a topic near to my heart about which I have presented often already in one form or another: Civic Hacking.\n","title":"Week 284: New beginnings, Campus Party","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik was vanmiddag in de American Book Centre en ik heb een boekje uit de Teach yourself-reeks “Arabic” gekocht. Het is een fijn en vlot boek met een redelijk niveau en veel voorbeelden. Daarnaast was het een beetje gehavend en daarom mocht ik het meenemen voor €9,95 wat niet echt geld is.\nArabisch schrift leren lezen is even moeizaam maar na een half uurtje begint de herkenning wel te komen. Daarna is het als het ontcijferen van een geheimschrift waar je de sleutel van hebt. Het zal nog wel even duren voor ik het vloeiend kan lezen maar het gaat aardig.\nDe taal ziet er voor de rest redelijk makkelijk uit. Het aantal leenwoorden uit het Turks is nog groter dan ik al had gedacht, dus veel herkenning.\nDingen die wel lastig zijn:\nWoorden worden geschreven zonder veel klinkers. Daarom moet je al veel herkenning hebben wil je een tekst vlot kunnen lezen 1. De medeklinkers staan genoteerd en je moet dan zelf de meest logische klinkers invullen. Arabisch schrijven op een computer kreeg ik voor dit bericht niet even snel uit mijn mouw geschud. De ligaturen zijn voor computers niet goed te tekenen. Verder is het lastig om de juiste vorm van elke letter te krijgen wanneer je die wil. Er zijn vast handige manieren om Arabisch te schrijven maar ik ken ze nog niet. Het arabische schrift is al een soort van handschrift wat ik nu leer in een bepaald lettertype. Het duurt even voor je doorhebt waar de ene letter begint en de volgende ophoudt. De minimaal onderscheidende eigenschappen per letter zijn me al een beetje helder. Het loopt alleen een beetje in de soep als je teksten ziet in andere lettertypes, handgeschreven of gestileerd op drukwerk. De uitspraak is niet echt te leren uit een boek. Veel klanken hebben equivalenten in het Engels of in andere talen 2 maar er zijn er ook bij die specifiek arabisch zijn 3. Wikipedia biedt een beetje uitkomst 4 maar ik moet maar een arabier regelen om dingen een keer voor me uit te spreken. Achteruit lezen went snel.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nBijv. de harde Nederlandse ‘g\u0026amp;rsuo; uit het woord negen werd als voorbeeld aangevoerd.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nLetters zoals de :ayn en de hamza.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nVoiced pharyngeal fricative iemand?\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"August 24, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/leer-jezelf-arabisch/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik was vanmiddag in de American Book Centre en ik heb een boekje uit de Teach yourself-reeks “Arabic” gekocht. Het is een fijn en vlot boek met een redelijk niveau en veel voorbeelden. Daarnaast was het een beetje gehavend en daarom mocht ik het meenemen voor €9,95 wat niet echt geld is.\n","title":"Leer jezelf Arabisch","type":"posts"},{"content":"A delayed picture in picture from me presenting in Helsinki: Some of my writing got some renewed attention. The play Ten Billion was picked up by a Dutch daily and my review got a wholly forgettable comment, which did force me to clarify some points myself. But I\u0026rsquo;m afraid that most of the abstract thought I\u0026rsquo;m riffing off these days from Ribbonfarm does not translate well to the continental European context both in terms of culture and complexity.\nhttps://twitter.com/dannie/status/235373465295798273\nI also finished my piece about the BMW Guggenheim Lab that took place in Berlin this summer. The event was well done, the program had something for everybody and some of the web components I got to play with were really nice. Though there was still a lack of real engagement and therefore a lack of real change.\nci·ty·jerk (noun, portmanteau of city and circlejerk): high modernist gathering of architects and designers talking about urban experiences from which they are wholly detached\nLots of work this week on Pig Chase getting the iPad client version to work for initial prototyping.\nI visited the Berlin Google offices to attend a lecture by Ben Scott about the potential of the internet. An absurdly self-serving piece of rhetoric that briefly summarized said: Germans are stupid to be wary of the internet and it is in fact holding them back. If they manage to trust the web and open up to its promise, everything will be fine and dandy.\nFriday I had beers over at Praxis which will be my new offices from September onwards.\nI\u0026rsquo;m also working on a proposal and subsequent script for a privacy based Nordic LARP. It\u0026rsquo;s going to be interesting and uncompromising and I could use help.\n","date":"August 22, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-283-pigs-other-animals-cities-and-the-internet/","section":"Posts","summary":"A delayed picture in picture from me presenting in Helsinki: ","title":"Week 283: Pigs, other animals, cities and the internet","type":"posts"},{"content":" Last Monday was the end of the holiday with a leisurely train ride from Munich to Berlin during which I managed to chew through a lot of e-mails and revise a bunch of maths.\nThe rest of the week was spent mostly working through e-mails, meetings and social calls. Netzpolitik celebrated their birthday in C-Base with some nice drinks.\nAnd rather quickly Kars Alfrink arrived in Berlin for the Play Publik festival. You\u0026rsquo;ll notice some similarities between my personal weeknotes and the general Hubbub weeknotes for last week.\nVirtueel Platform published the videos of our talks in Helsinki, so there you have me talking about open data: With our Hubbub strength over at the Berlin studio doubled on Wednesday we finished saba. After that it was straight on working on buta all the while playing games at the festival.\nOn Friday I had another additional studio guest with Sebastian Deterding. That was also the day that I experienced the beautiful Our Broken Voice at Ostbahnhof.\nThe rest of the weekend was spent working on buta and playing games at Play Publik with nary a moment\u0026rsquo;s rest in between. It was nice to be finally able to play Starry Heavens by Eric Zimmerman. I and a lot of people had a lot of fun with Hit Me.\nThe final day there was a presentation by Kevin Slavin and we closed off the event with a massive game of Charge of the Rubber Ball Brigade. There are many awesome pictures online over at Facebook (which is a shame).\n","date":"August 18, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-282-back-in-berlin-street-games-at-play-publik/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Week 282: back in Berlin, street games at Play Publik","type":"posts"},{"content":"Geconfronteerd met het feit dat de meeste dertigers die in de stad wonen geen auto meer willen hebben en veel twintigers niet eens meer hun rijbewijs halen, zetten automakers zichzelf opnieuw in de markt. Ze zijn niet meer verkopers van een statussymbool, maar aanbieders van vervoersoplossingen in een toekomstvisie waarin de auto een plek heeft naast de fiets, het openbaar vervoer en alle andere dingen die steden leuk maken. Audi komt in Londen binnenkort met haar Audicity en BMW toert in samenwerking met het Guggenheim langs de wereld met haar lab. Eerst New York, nu Berlijn en straks in Mumbai. (Daimler is MIA.)\nIn een anderhalve maand lang durend programma haalt BMW ongeveer elke spreker uit het TED/nieuwe media/architectuur-circuit naar de locatie. Er worden presentaties gegeven, gesprekken geïnitiëerd en workshops gedaan. Dit alles in een keet op een leeg stuk grond met wat schermen, krijtborden en post-its. De standaard-ingrediënten van co-creatie. Het woord ‘lab’ zelf is een excuus voor grote bedrijven om iets onafs te kunnen presenteren. ‘Het is geen zooitje, het is een lab.’\nAanvankelijk wilde de organisatie het Lab op de Spree-oever in Kreuzberg neer zetten. Dat bleek —zoals zoveel in Berlijn— omstreden. Lokale autonomen waren bang dat het lab de gentrificatie verder zou versnellen en dreigden met geweld. In overleg met de stad week BMW toen uit naar het toeristische Pfefferbergcomplex in Prenzlauerberg, een deel van de stad dat niet verder gentrificeren kan.\nBMW die stedenbouwkunde predikt is een beetje als McDonald\u0026rsquo;s die de Olympische Spelen sponsort. Het kan maar het heeft iets potsierlijks. Berlijn kan een gesprek over zichzelf op dit moment goed gebruiken. Het goedkope paradijs waar ze bekend om stond is grotendeels weg, huurhuizen worden in rap tempo geliberaliseerd, panden verkocht aan speculanten die hun geld niet meer op de beurs kwijt kunnen en de lege plekken die over zijn opgevuld met bouw- en supermarkten. Het stadsbestuur is te druk met zichzelf en talrijke schandalen om een coherente visie over de stad te vormen dus moeten anderen het maar doen.\nBMW weet dat helaas niet te leveren. De professionele forumbezoekers op het lab hebben andere belangen dan de Turkse dames op Kotti die protesteren voor sociale huren. De belangen van alle betrokkenen zijn te groot om de gesprekken relevant te maken. Het resultaat ziet er gelikt uit maar de angel is er bij voorbaat al uit. Jammer, want in deze stad waar mensen elkaar aan het verdringen zijn zou wat meer Jane Jacobs geen kwaad kunnen.\n","date":"August 17, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/het-bmw-guggenheim-lab-in-berlijn/","section":"Posts","summary":"Geconfronteerd met het feit dat de meeste dertigers die in de stad wonen geen auto meer willen hebben en veel twintigers niet eens meer hun rijbewijs halen, zetten automakers zichzelf opnieuw in de markt. Ze zijn niet meer verkopers van een statussymbool, maar aanbieders van vervoersoplossingen in een toekomstvisie waarin de auto een plek heeft naast de fiets, het openbaar vervoer en alle andere dingen die steden leuk maken. Audi komt in Londen binnenkort met haar Audicity en BMW toert in samenwerking met het Guggenheim langs de wereld met haar lab. Eerst New York, nu Berlijn en straks in Mumbai. (Daimler is MIA.)\n","title":"Het BMW Guggenheim Lab in Berlijn","type":"posts"},{"content":"In the performance “Ten Billion” at La Chartreuse de Villeneuve-lès-Avignon Stephen Emmott, a scientist, performed a soliloquy about the state of the world and the environment. He took a message we already have known since the Club of Rome and rehashed that in front of a theater audience over the course of ninety minutes.\nStanding in a reproduction of a contemporary scientist\u0026rsquo;s office, Emmott did a reasonable Al Gore impersonation. He monotoned a large barrage of numbers supplemented by custom projections with moving graphics and graphs. The entire thing was put together to a high standard but that did not prevent it from devolving into a standard university lecture. Emmott stood there saying mostly: “Look at me. Aren\u0026rsquo;t my numbers big!?”\nThe performer started by disclaiming that he is not an actor but a scientist. That needn\u0026rsquo;t be a big problem. For this kind of non-fiction presentation having actual knowledge about the topic is much more valuable than any kind of acting skills you could bring to the table. The piece then only came alive in those moments where Emmott made some off the cuff remarks or recounted a personal experience. Techniques from page zero of Presentation Zen that weren\u0026rsquo;t used (intentionally?).\nTargeting this kind of broad audience, it turns out it is altogether too easy to fall into the trap of patronization. ‘We may not have heard’ some things, discounting that we may have and simply reached different conclusions about them. I\u0026rsquo;m not detracting from the truth or importance of the message presented. In the Q\u0026amp;A afterwards some people influenced by Russian propaganda in fact disagreed. This is a message that bears repeating, but for those that already know it, this play does not offer anything new. Scaremongering does not seem the best way to get people to act where earlier scaremongering has failed.\nI have been thinking about the possibilities of collapse and thrivability myself recently and I came upon this model by Venkatesh Rao that I think very effectively captures many of the things we are trying to do with society. Faced with uncertainty, the most rational outcome is to create social/economic structures that feed on that uncertainty to become more resilient. I agree with Emmott that many of the global systems currently are too fragile, but that is a solvable problem.\nEmmott himself discussed the two solutions in the top quadrants: behaviour change (the Spore narrative) and technological progress (the Hydra narrative). He dismissed both rather summarily. So the play consists of presenting an audience somewhat convincingly with a well-known fact and then not giving them an actionable solution. All this in the hope that people will be so disconcerted that they will become wholesale activists when they get home.\nThis seems something of a leap of faith to me stemming from a partial understanding of the underlying problems. Emmott said that he did not know why people faced with these insurmountable truths do nothing. Current thinking on cognitive theory, communications and behavioural economics quite competently explains this behaviour. If you ignore that, you may well throw up your hands into the air and reach the conclusion Emmott reaches (the Dark Euphoria narrative): that anything we attempt right now will either not work or be too late.\nI\u0026rsquo;m an optimist myself out of necessity, but not a ‘rational optimist’ as described by Emmott. I count on the pools of irrational illegibility both in the world\u0026rsquo;s systems and future developments to work together cushioned by social measures and capitalist balancing of supply and demand. When talking about Hydras we are not talking about purely technological solutions (that are indeed easy to dismiss), but about a complex set of systems in media, politics, science, technology and the arts that work together in blind concert to deal with system problems. It may not be pleasant, but it is too early for despair.\n","date":"August 14, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/ten-billion-by-katie-mitchell-and-stephen-emmott/","section":"Posts","summary":"In the performance “Ten Billion” at La Chartreuse de Villeneuve-lès-Avignon Stephen Emmott, a scientist, performed a soliloquy about the state of the world and the environment. He took a message we already have known since the Club of Rome and rehashed that in front of a theater audience over the course of ninety minutes.\n","title":"Ten Billion by Katie Mitchell and Stephen Emmott","type":"posts"},{"content":" The last two weeks, after the brief trip to present in Helsinki were mostly spent on holiday in Avignon and the Alps (with some short stops in La Ciotat and Finale Ligure).\nFun was had. Relaxation not so much, but nevertheless, normal service has continued here again this week.\n","date":"August 10, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/weeks-280-281-traveling-and-vacation/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Weeks 280-281: Traveling and vacation","type":"posts"},{"content":"I spent two days in Ghent a Belgian city that is lovely in its own right, but really shines for a long week every summer when it has its own festival: the Gentse Feesten. I\u0026rsquo;d been there once before some ten years ago and had a lot of fun there. So Tourism Flanders gave me the chance to revisit.\nGentse Feesten is probably my favorite city festival / large scale celebration around. It manages to string together a wildly varied program in a nice city in a convivial atmosphere. It is nice to see how a festival can offer something for many ages and tastes and be an all round positive experience.\nThis visit was marred a bit by the rainfall plaguing most of Northern Europe this summer which put something of a damper on visitor numbers, but even in the pouring rain, many stages drew crowds and the after hours celebrations on the Vlasmarkt were as special as promised.\n","date":"August 8, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/gentse-feesten-a-fantastic-city-festival/","section":"Posts","summary":"I spent two days in Ghent a Belgian city that is lovely in its own right, but really shines for a long week every summer when it has its own festival: the Gentse Feesten. I’d been there once before some ten years ago and had a lot of fun there. So Tourism Flanders gave me the chance to revisit.\n","title":"Gentse Feesten: a fantastic city festival","type":"posts"},{"content":" During my stay in Ghent there was so much rain, I managed to do some work on kohi in the hotel room. This being a self-commissioned project, it can hardly be named work in any of the regular meanings of the word.\nTuesday I travelled onwards to my AirBnB in Paris in the area of Porte de Saint Ouen. A neighborhood far away enough from the city center to be cheap and colorful (a bit like Delfshaven), but just inside the Péripherique boundary so not too threatening.\nOn Wednesday in Paris I went to La Gaîté Lyrique where a Joust tournament was due to take place. We had a lot of fun playing for an hour or so with all comers. I was going to visit la Gaîté anyway to see the games by Eric Zimmerman and Babycastles and as a nice addition I got to play Fez on one of the consoles they had on display.\nLa Gaîté Lyrique has as their tagline: ‘Révolutions Numérique’ which translates to Numerical Revolutions and nicely symbolizes the time we are living in right now. The venue hosts a number of events based in art, games, music and net culture that seem to be perfectly in tune with the Zeitgeist but also have the production values to appeal to a large audience. I wish a reboot of the Dutch electronic culture venues may approach this level.\nOn Thursday I did some preparations for my presentation in Helsinki at the end of the week in some beautiful but horribly expensive Paris cafés like Les Arts et Metiers and in the evening I met Peter Robinett and his sister at the University of Chicago\u0026rsquo;s Paris Center. There we listened to a lecture on Baudelaire and the bourgeois experience of the city in the 19th century.\nI will also be giving a small workshop on Civic Hacking at the Campus Party where I will be sharing all the tricks we used with Hack de Overheid in the Netherlands and which we hope to deploy across Europe to make government more accessible and accountable using the internet.\nFriday I flew to Helsinki for my first time over there. Helsinki is a lovely city though a bit empty in July and the Pavilion for the World Design Capital is a beautiful venue.\nAlso the video report of our last hackathon in the Smart Project Space in Amsterdam was posted: Saturday we attended the presentations on Transmedia storytelling with again a great report by Jasper Koning on VPRO\u0026rsquo;s Netherlands From Above project and on Sunday we presented for the social cities program.\n","date":"July 30, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-279-paris-numerical-revolutions-helsinki-dutch-eculture-days/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Week 279: Paris, Numerical Revolutions, Helsinki, Dutch eCulture Days","type":"posts"},{"content":"I am repeating regularly these days that I am through with theater. I thought I\u0026rsquo;d see a couple of plays here at the Festival d\u0026rsquo;Avignon and then decide for myself whether this position is justified. Avignon has the reputation for programming the best theater of Europe. A reputation that turns out to be mostly unfounded.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve seen four pieces here of which three turned out to be very poor. Yesterday I walked out of both plays that I had for that day, of which the first was boring as fuck and the second piss poor (see the Guardian about La Mouette) and without English surtitles 1. This from a festival that deems itself an international theater festival, where international means the rest of the world is allowed to cater to a French audience.\nI think I am allowed to judge theater because I have seen a ton of theater (most of which poor) and critically I am rather close to one of the Netherlands\u0026rsquo; leading theater critics. Added to that my media consumption is not that of the geriatric theater audience. My current point of view increasingly is that things that are not interactive are more or less broken.\nThe discipline of theater is changing, but not quickly enough. The current European funding cuts will be good in so far as they expedite change. There are some things things that still work in plays:\nLarge scale plays by some well-known European auteur-directors (Luk Perceval, Kornél Mundruczó, Johan Simons, Theu Boermans, Gisèle Vienne) who break new ground and stage interesting treatments of old and new plays and draw large audiences. Figuring out who these are at any point in time is the difficult part. I have been pleased with what I\u0026rsquo;ve seen and heard of the names above. Performances such as musical theater, opera, dance or regular theater with music integrated add a much needed liveliness and reduce boredom for audiences that are used to sophisticated media mixes. Most music will have an effect, but here too you see famous electronic musicians combine with the directors above: Sun O))) with Gisèle Vienne, Ben Frost with Falk Richter, Junkie XL with Ivo van Hove. Mixed media is underused in almost all plays, but when done well it achieves dramatic parity with the actors. Projections are only one form and much more work needs to be done still in this area. Traditional directors are however very squeamish when it comes to time-based media and computerization of stagecraft. I will be far more reticent in visiting theater from now on. I have enough to do not to spend my money to rid myself of free time.\nI tried to get my money back to no avail. The English website does not list a language for the play which obviously means it is in French. Obviously.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"July 27, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/final-tally-of-theater-after-avignon/","section":"Posts","summary":"I am repeating regularly these days that I am through with theater. I thought I’d see a couple of plays here at the Festival d’Avignon and then decide for myself whether this position is justified. Avignon has the reputation for programming the best theater of Europe. A reputation that turns out to be mostly unfounded.\n","title":"Final tally of theater after Avignon","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ever since the recent re-enactment of Hamlet by Luk Perceval, I have wanted to see something by the Hamburg Thalia theater. Last year I saw Luk Perceval stage Disgrace at TA which was a good display by itself, but still the Thalia remained elusive.\nYesterday night then finally, I saw Die Kontrakte des Kaufmanns at the Festival d\u0026rsquo;Avignon in the courtyard of a French Lycée. A play treating the world financial crisis based on a recent text by Elfride Jelinek. This is a topic whose absurdity and scale are still baffling and which has not seemed to reach a reasonable conclusion, even though everybody thought things would change (read this interview of an employee of a ratings agency by Joris Luyendijk).\nInstead of a headlong approach that bored us to death (like Ten Billion), yesterday\u0026rsquo;s ensemble was very well aware of the challenges brought forth by such a complex theme and a vague but terse text by Jelinek. We were encouraged by Nicolas Stemann to step in and out during the play to get a drink at the bar in the garden. That made the entire ordeal of three and a half hours rather bearable.\nThe play progressed through all the stages we have gone through with the financial system. The naiveté, the promises made, the excuses, the horror at capital evaporating, the shamelessness and reach-arounds, the hope of a united Europe, the anger, so much anger.\nThe actors perform pornographic routines, confidence tricks, laments and lullabies. They tell us that we didn\u0026rsquo;t have a lot of money but that it did make them so happy when it burned. That our insecurity is their security. That they don\u0026rsquo;t know what to make from the flesh of our children. Shall they turn it into sausages? That the money may come back but that it will be too small to recognize. That it may come back to somebody else. That the most important part of making money is believing. That we need to keep the faith. We have to believe. That that is what is important about money.\nWe, the audience, have to sing that we are all so very individual. We sing that the rest of us is the bank. There is more music. Post-rock instrumental soundscapes combine with chorals lyricizing about the state of our finances. Gainsbourg\u0026rsquo;s song turned into: J\u0026rsquo;achète. Non, je n\u0026rsquo;achète rien. Heal the banks, make them a better place, for you and for me and the entire European race. That may be the best summary of the play: it is an elongated Ne me quitte pas for the capital that has forsaken us.\nAt the beginning along with introductions we are given a countdown very similar to the progress indicators in ebooks. It starts at 99 and shows the number of pages left in the script. This was a very useful aid to pace visits to the bar with. At the end of it those who have sticked around —with some pride for having accomplished that— have witnessed a tour de force that makes twisted sense of the capitalist experience.\n","date":"July 26, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/die-kontrakte-des-kaufmanns-by-nicolas-stemann-thalia/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ever since the recent re-enactment of Hamlet by Luk Perceval, I have wanted to see something by the Hamburg Thalia theater. Last year I saw Luk Perceval stage Disgrace at TA which was a good display by itself, but still the Thalia remained elusive.\n","title":"Die Kontrakte des Kaufmanns by Nicolas Stemann \u0026 Thalia","type":"posts"},{"content":"I just went to see “The Coming Storm” at the Festival d\u0026rsquo;Avignon. In an interesting open setup, bits and pieces of stories are performed by the ensemble who continually interrupt each other. While one actor is telling a story the others perform variety like diversions using props, music and each other.\nThe stories initially do carry some novelty and absurdity and are performed adequately. After a while unfortunately they become repetitious and there isn\u0026rsquo;t a lot funny about them (though the easily excitable French audience seemed to disagree). Half an hour before the end I concluded that this was the tritest thing I\u0026rsquo;d seen on stage in years without any hope for salvation. That was €22 and an hour of free time wasted.\n","date":"July 26, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/the-coming-storm-by-tim-etchells/","section":"Posts","summary":"I just went to see “The Coming Storm” at the Festival d’Avignon. In an interesting open setup, bits and pieces of stories are performed by the ensemble who continually interrupt each other. While one actor is telling a story the others perform variety like diversions using props, music and each other.\n","title":"The Coming Storm by Tim Etchells","type":"posts"},{"content":"A busy week after a quiet weekend. Monday evening I attended a preliminary meeting with fellow coaches for the Berlin Python classes. After that I attended the Iron Blogger regular meetup to have beer with my fellow Berlin bloggers. Later that week I also attended the regular Campus Party drinks.\nAlso it was announced that we will be presenting in Helsinki on the Dutch E-Culture Days (here\u0026rsquo;s a summary).\nTuesday afternoon we met up with some fellow digital urbanites at the HIIG to discuss research avenues for data in the city. As practitioners we all do not have much time to busy ourselves with formal research, but it is good to update those that do with some of our actual concerns from the field.\nThe authority of the HIIG may be a useful instrument in reconstructing our governance models in the light of digitization. They are failing on almost every level because of the inherent complexities of network technology. We need to educate scholars, policy makers and pretty much everybody.\nAlso my NEXT Berlin talk recording was published. A fun event where I tried together love and games by frantically pointing at things while stepping just shy of innuendo.\nFriday I put the final touches on Beestenbende (see these weeknotes over at Hubbub) and visited some sessions at the Guggenheim Lab about real estate politics.\nThen the last day of last week it was time to pack up everything and embark on a somewhat long trip. First stop: Ghent.\n","date":"July 25, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-278-talking-finishing-and-traveling/","section":"Posts","summary":"A busy week after a quiet weekend. Monday evening I attended a preliminary meeting with fellow coaches for the Berlin Python classes. After that I attended the Iron Blogger regular meetup to have beer with my fellow Berlin bloggers. Later that week I also attended the regular Campus Party drinks.\n","title":"Week 278: talking, finishing and traveling","type":"posts"},{"content":"A rather interesting capitalist reflection on Facebook by Rob Horning at The New Inquiry and why online activism never changes anything.\nThus, according to Read, a fundamental problem for capitalism is how to maintain a supply of workers who are (a) flexible, creative, and motivated at the same time they are (b) manageable, controllable, and predictable. That seems to explain social media’s underlying ideological function. Not only do social media provide a basis for neoliberal subjectivity, affording us hands-on experience of neoliberal prerogatives and pleasures: branding ourselves, proving our flexibility, maneuvering ourselves into less precarious places in always-reconfiguring networks, and so on; they also serve to contain that subjectivity and neutralize it.\n","date":"July 24, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/neutralizing-your-politically-aware-subjectivity/","section":"Posts","summary":"A rather interesting capitalist reflection on Facebook by Rob Horning at The New Inquiry and why online activism never changes anything.\n","title":"Neutralizing your politically aware subjectivity","type":"posts"},{"content":"The Willem de Kooning Academy published an ebook that contains the lecture I gave there about digital design and the new aesthetic. I\u0026rsquo;m quite pleased that little piece of conceptual remix is getting so much airtime.\nThis week I put in quite some work on kohi doing full stack development both on the iPhone client and on the backend.\nOn Tuesday I had lunch at Gidsy. Any visit to the Makers Loft is fun but I go up there infrequently enough that every time I visit, the company has grown leaps and bounds. I also had a good time meeting up with Rainer Kohlberger, a good Berlin friend.\nI did some final work on Beestenbende and made arrangements to visit Helsinki next week to present on an event organized by Virtueel Platform for its World Design Capital program.\nAt last we also are doing internal work at Open State / Hack de Overheid both on the design front 1 and on strategy to prepare us for a next phase that will entail considerable growth as well as maturation for the foundation.\nAnd not something that we did, but still nice to hear that KiesBeter.nl has started publishing data. Ton Zijlstra and I gave a workshop there last year to show them the potential of open data and after the required time to process these things internally, it has happened.\nAnd that Friday it was off to Wartin with a whole bunch of awesome Berlin people on a weekend organized by the kind people of Third Wave. We had our fill of good conversations, nature and late night werewolf. Procuring a new identity of course.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"July 17, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-277/","section":"Posts","summary":"The Willem de Kooning Academy published an ebook that contains the lecture I gave there about digital design and the new aesthetic. I’m quite pleased that little piece of conceptual remix is getting so much airtime.\n","title":"Week 277: remaindered connections","type":"posts"},{"content":"It took a bit to get going again back from Greece.\nMore work on Beestenbende which had a push to finish everything on the deck. I had talks with Netzpolitik and Invisible Playground.\nI briefly visited an event by Platoon about the interplays between gentrification and graffiti which was about as absurd as it sounds.\nI published my notes on the Greek situation.\nI received my copy of Chouinard\u0026rsquo;s new book ‘The Responsible Company’: Very much looking forward to reading that and applying it here.\nSunday I did a bunch of work on the kohi prototype. kohi prototype\n","date":"July 11, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-276-back-from-holidays/","section":"Posts","summary":"It took a bit to get going again back from Greece.\n","title":"Week 276: back from holidays","type":"posts"},{"content":"A couple of days ago I got an answer on behalf of Ms. Neelie Kroes with regards to my inquiry about computational literacy (which I asked during her visit to Berlin during re:publica): OCR\u0026rsquo;d it says:\nDear Mr. Çugun,\nI would like to thank you for your message to Mrs. Kroes. She has asked me to respond to you on her behalf.\nI fully share your views that educating our children to become computationally literate is an important topic which should be taken into account in our educational systems. We are indeed aware of the recent debate in the UK, and the studies and discourse papers published on suggesting reforms so as to give a higher prominence to information and communication technology (ICT) in the school curriculum, including programming skills.\nAs part of the Digital Agenda for Europe, we have been promoting the vision of Every European Digital and the mainstreaming of ICT int he national education systems as a catalyst of innovation and modernisation of education. There are good examples in Europe in this regard, but still much needs to be done before we would see our children widely taught and working wit the new technologies in every course. This would in itself provide a good level of ICT skills to our pupils.\nFor the future, ICT and learning are high on te Digital Agenda, and we are committed to contributing to educating our European youngsters with the ICT skills they need to succeed in the 21st century.\nYours sincerely, Khalil Rouhana\nWe have a long way to go, but we need to push this in every way possible.\nAlso if you haven\u0026rsquo;t read it yet, Maurits Martijn has written a very good interview (in Dutch) with Neelie Kroes in a recent Vrij Nederland.\n","date":"July 3, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/computational-literacy-in-the-european-commission/","section":"Posts","summary":"A couple of days ago I got an answer on behalf of Ms. Neelie Kroes with regards to my inquiry about computational literacy (which I asked during her visit to Berlin during re:publica): ","title":"Computational Literacy in the European Commission","type":"posts"},{"content":"The week before last I spent in Athens mostly hanging out, going to the beach and getting some work done.\nThat was also the week that I upgraded my Things client to to the Things Cloud Beta. I think I\u0026rsquo;m not supposed to say anything about it, but let me just say: ++. I have started moving large parts of my workload to Asana, so it remains to be seen if native apps like these continue to be a good fit for what is an inherently collaborative effort.\nIn Athens I crashed the local hackers event at the Colab Workspace Athens where the Ruby group were discussing the organization of the next Euroku. And another day I found the O.M.G. event, short for Overclocking, Modding and Gaming where lots of people gathered to play Call of Duty 4.\nI wrote up a longer report of my experiences in Greece last week.\n","date":"July 2, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-275-athens/","section":"Posts","summary":"The week before last I spent in Athens mostly hanging out, going to the beach and getting some work done.\n","title":"Week 275: Athens","type":"posts"},{"content":"Gisteren met wat Flickr gebruikers afgesproken op de NDSM-werf en daar de hele boel vastgelegd.\nHet hele resultaat staat hier.\n","date":"June 29, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/flickr-op-ndsm/","section":"Posts","summary":"Gisteren met wat Flickr gebruikers afgesproken op de NDSM-werf en daar de hele boel vastgelegd.\n","title":"Flickr op NDSM","type":"posts"},{"content":"I spent last week in Athens because Lea was at work at the Athens \u0026amp; Epidaurus festival where the Schaubühne staged two plays. I spent the week relaxing, working and taking in the Athens air.\nAthens Terrace Life # The temperature of 32-36C during the entire week was a good reason to spend all my time outdoors in the shade. Athens, being accustomed to this weather, has ample options to choose from to spend your time, from garden patios, terraces all over the place, drink and food stands and lots and lots of iced cappucini and espressi.\nInterestingly almost every restaurant, café and terrace in the city has WiFi. One place near the hotel where we went regularly, Ambrosia, excused themselves for not having it saying ‘they were old.’ Given the proliferation of internet, I hardly saw any laptops in the various cafés neither during the day or night time. I\u0026rsquo;m guessing the WiFi is being used by smart phone users to supplement their limited data plans.\nOddly during the so-called economic crisis, almost everything at terraces was still pretty expensive (Amsterdam prices). Iced coffees went for €4 and cocktails from €9 upwards also beers were definitely not cheap. I didn\u0026rsquo;t see a lack of visitors either. Many of the very upmarket establishment where I was rubbing shoulders with the Athens 1% were bustling. Those that have managed to set aside enough savings (wherever they got the money) look to be casually riding out the current storm. I have no idea how those who are less well off are weathering this.\nA lot of real estate around town looked to be for let with “Enoikiazetai” plastered on too many buildings to count. This seems to stem from a similar price locking where property owners will not cut their prices even though the market cannot support it.\nStrolling around the city I saw parties and preparations happening everywhere. A party would consist of a DJ, a couple of speakers, electricity tapped from a nearby distributing box and a couple of coolers filled with beer. The best of these was one evening in a derelict construction site where in a gallery space artists were at work and downstairs a rave was taking place. Tons of people were drinking and partying on the street. At least crises are good for parties.\nThe Theater Festival # I dropped by the theater festival after the opening night to have a drink. This festival like so many others was located on the location of evaporated industry. Where there once were jobs, there now are cultural venues. The Peiraeus 260 complex was a rather successful example of this development. High profile theater festivals such as this one are almost exclusively frequented by a kind of elite who have an old-fashioned and status sensitive cultural taste. I briefly skimmed the program, but I could not find anything I wanted to spend my time on.\nOn that opening night, the location served Berlin beer, locally brewed but with a proper bear logo on it. All of the Schaubühne shows at this festival (and at the previous one in Athens a couple of weeks ago) had sold out even on the night that Germany was playing Greece in the EC. Greek people even were boastfully demonstrating their German language skills at anybody they could find. It looked to me as if the ruling class of Athens —fully aware where their money comes from— was cozying up to their new German masters.\nThis all is a bit surreal if you read reports about Greek ressentiment against Germans. We did not see anything of the sort here. If anything, in parts of Greek society Germany seems to be an aspirational value.\nThe Engaged # At the port of Peiraeus I saw a banner by SYRIZA claiming that the necessary changes in Greece have been made. I hope they don\u0026rsquo;t believe it themselves.\nThen at the local Ruby programmers meetup they were discussing organization of the next Euroku, a rather large event in this scene. And like anywhere in the world programmers are in such short supply that they cannot lift their heads for the amount of work on their plate. This is good for them, but that same short supply means that they will not be able to change a lot.\nNear the end of my stay I found Exarcheia square which seems to be the focus of the counter-cultural movement. No riots to be found, just a bunch of banners obscuring the square and a collection of nice cafés and restaurants that are a bit less glossy than those in city center. Probably the place where normal Athenians hang out. At night a large group of people gathered on the square. Music from a DJ and banners professing sympathy for Turkish anarchists accompanied the revelers who were mostly occupied trying to deplete the beer supply of the local drink stand.\nWhatever you may think of it, the protestors, the politicians, the programmers are all busy doing things. At least they do not spend their days idling on terraces sipping pricy beverages.\nThe End # My final impression is that of a country locked in a strange kind of socio-economical stasis, very much resigned to the current situation and deeply divided on many levels. Change looks to be far away either going to require a long time or the breaking of a great many things. However difficult the Greek relationship with Europe may be, it has been the source of a lot of the local prosperity.\nOn my last day there I had my wallet pick-pocketed from me while returning from the beach. This is a common enough occurrence in the tourist centers of the mediterranean. Fortunately I suffered no worse damage than having to replace a stack of plastic, having no money on me to donate to the Greek cause.\n","date":"June 27, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/greece-a-society-undergoing-stockholm-syndrome/","section":"Posts","summary":"I spent last week in Athens because Lea was at work at the Athens \u0026 Epidaurus festival where the Schaubühne staged two plays. I spent the week relaxing, working and taking in the Athens air.\n","title":"Greece, a society undergoing Stockholm syndrome","type":"posts"},{"content":"During my visit to Copenhagen I tried to make use of the Copenhagen City Bike system. Although eventually successful, it turns out bicycle sharing systems without a digital component can lead to frustrations.\nWhere London\u0026rsquo;s Boris Bikes provide a digital readout of station occupancy in Copenhagen you need to walk around and see which (if any) station still has a bike in it. Late afternoon this turns up empty most of the time because it seems many tourists get one and then camp on their bike for the rest of the day or their stay.\nAs in any bicycle heavy city, spots for parking your bike are always scarce and underused bike share parking will be quickly appropriated.\nAfter seven or eight empty stations (which when empty are rather hard to spot too) I finally found a somewhat functioning bike to take a tour of the city with. The map affixed to the bike shows the region with bikes and where you can take them (within the lakes and Christianshavn roughly). The bike itself is rather nice and can be made to perform adequately.\nSome people also lock the bikes either short term or long term similarly to what happened to the Dutch attempt at White Bicycles for everybody to use pioneered by the Provos. Without accountability enforced by security measures it turns out any such material sharing system quickly falls prey to the tragedy of the commons. I am right now reading Bruce Schneier\u0026rsquo;s “Liars and Outliers” which treats exactly these kind of dilemma\u0026rsquo;s between individual benefit and social benefit and how to create systems which create globally optimal outcomes to support our complex societies.\n","date":"June 21, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/copenhagen-bikes/","section":"Posts","summary":"During my visit to Copenhagen I tried to make use of the Copenhagen City Bike system. Although eventually successful, it turns out bicycle sharing systems without a digital component can lead to frustrations.\n","title":"Copenhagen Bikes","type":"posts"},{"content":"On Monday I got back into work after the couple of days in Copenhagen. I also discovered that the talk I gave in Rotterdam “Designing in the Face of Defeat” about the New Aesthetic has been recorded and you can watch it above.\nI spent the entire day working on saba and then rushed over to the A.Maze Indie Meetup. It\u0026rsquo;s always good to see the usual suspects and the games they\u0026rsquo;ve been working on.\nOn Tuesday we kicked off the implementation stage for the Playing with Pigs project. In the evening I dropped by at the Upfront UG in the same building as where I work.\nOn Wednesday I started adding sound to saba. It is amazing how transformative an addition sound effects are to a game. That night at the Maker\u0026rsquo;s Loft we saw the Netherlands losing from Germany, which was made a little less painful by doing it in the company of a lot of Berlin friends.\nOn Thursday I took the train to Amsterdam and ran into Wilg and Timan who demoed me the custom heigth maps they are doing for Snowciety. If you\u0026rsquo;re into winter sports, you should definitely check out their app which looks excellent.\nFriday I spent at our Hack de Overheid offices at the Open Coop where I spent the day preparing my lesson in programming for beginners I would give at our hackathon.\nThat hackathon was the main reason I came back to the Netherlands. We did the annual spring hackathon we do with Hack de Overheid to promote open data, civic applications and be a place where people can go to connect over these causes. The event was a resounding success thanks to the help we got in organizing it and all the people who showed up. The great Michelle Thorn gave a great keynote where she made some good analogous to help structure the activistic work we are doing. A great help to all of us to see the bigger picture and keep firmly in mind the goals we are aiming for.\nSo much data was opened up again and so many ideas to improve the Netherlands were shared and built upon. The institutions giving away their data is such a stark difference from the attitude I have witnessed in Germany these past months. It is as though both countries are in different world: one in the modern, sharing world where developer mindshare and providing excellent services to your citizens is foremost, and the other in a traditional authoritarian nightmare where permission needs to be asked for everything and is rarely granted by the autocrats. It is probably clear which is which. More information about the hackathon and its follow-ups will be on our blog soon.\nMy workshop on learning to program was received well, even with the ridiculously short 45 minutes we had to explain algorithmic thinking and rudimentary programming. It can be done. With a bit more time, we could have had everybody do something for themselves too to hammer home the concepts. I will be posting the slides soon and organizing follow-up events in Berlin and Amsterdam to get more people programming. If you are interested, let me know here or on twitter.\nFinally we saw the opening of the swinging garden in front of our office, which when the sun is out has turned into a right little piece of heaven. Amsterdam North is seeing a positive development with a speed that I could not have imagined a couple of years ago. It\u0026rsquo;s affordable, spacious and friendly, totally the opposite to what is normal in city across the water.\n","date":"June 19, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-274/","section":"Posts","summary":"On Monday I got back into work after the couple of days in Copenhagen. I also discovered that the talk I gave in Rotterdam “Designing in the Face of Defeat” about the New Aesthetic has been recorded and you can watch it above.\n","title":"Week 274: programming for n00bs, meetups, matches and hackathons","type":"posts"},{"content":"This article by Good about people my age and younger driving less strikes me as very true. Just one point: I have a driving license, but I\u0026rsquo;ve never owned a car. My brother does not even have a driving license because if you never leave Amsterdam having a car is ludicrous. I try to minimize my driving except for the occasional road trip because I think my time is too valuable to spend many hours doing something unnecessary.\nBut even more striking is the following paragraph that positions this change as one of the factors that influences the change of population within certain cities:\nWhen the Millennial generation’s desire for more public transit and walkable neighborhoods clashes with political/policy gridlock, the result is skyrocketing real estate prices in the nation’s few non-car-centric cities. This can have a powerful displacement effect on lower-income residents. The more walkable a neighborhood, the more expensive it is. (Consider Manhattan, San Francisco, the District of Columbia, large swaths of Brooklyn, and Center City Philadelphia, among others.) This forces low-income and immigrant communities into the suburbs where, paradoxically, those least able to afford a car may be forced to get one. — GOOD\nPublic transport here of course is complementary with walkable neighborhoods but also with a lively urban fabric with enough cultural, leisurely and other things to do within easy reach. In short people who can afford it want to live in the nice parts of the city (and who can blame them). This proces has already happened in Amsterdam and is now taking place in Berlin (see the previous piece on the protests) somewhat more violently.\nTheoretically political/policy gridlock is fixable, but I\u0026rsquo;m bearish on political change in Europe and Germany where all our attention is directed towards the maladies plaguing the continent and the political system is historically autocratic and unresponsive.\n","date":"June 12, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/no-cars-for-life/","section":"Posts","summary":"This article by Good about people my age and younger driving less strikes me as very true. Just one point: I have a driving license, but I’ve never owned a car. My brother does not even have a driving license because if you never leave Amsterdam having a car is ludicrous. I try to minimize my driving except for the occasional road trip because I think my time is too valuable to spend many hours doing something unnecessary.\n","title":"No cars for life","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;ve been into something of a speculative realism binge lately reading quite some books and even more blogs from the field of current day philosophy. Last Monday I finished Ian Bogost\u0026rsquo;s Alien Phenomenology which is highly recommended if you want to read up on object oriented ontology.\nPreparations for our Hack de Overheid hackathon are entering their last weeks and things are speeding up. If you want a nice day of civic hacking with friendly people and good food and drinks, I\u0026rsquo;ll say head on over to our signup page.\nGetting some work done and then it was off to Copenhagen with the Tuesday night train. Travelling that way with your own bedroom, going to sleep in one city and waking up in another is by far the most relaxing way to go (except when the train has a two hour delay before your 00:32 departure).\nI visited Copenhagen for the European Data Forum to see what the data driven discussions were about on the European level. We got informed about a lot of European programs, a lot of talk about Linked Data and not very much pertaining to the stuff we do from day to day. Some friends from the open data movement were present and the event was quite informative all in all.\nThe focus on Linked Data in many of the participants is heartening and understandable but ultimately it is a doomed approach. I got into an argument about this during lunch with some developers. There are problems on two levels. On the low level, Linked Data does not solve any actual problems for developers but it does cause many for them because of lack of tooling, learning curves, interoperability costs etc. This is both a problem in proposition and marketing but it is not seen as such by the Linked Data community. Until that is recognized, adoption of Linked Data technologies will remain as dismal as it is right now.\nOn the higher level, the fact that there is so little interoperation and so much problems standardizing and getting things to work together may be symptoms of the fact that the models of the world being aimed for are too complicated. Engineers will always mistake the map for the territory, but it is curious that they would be able to sell that many other people on it. The engineers\u0026rsquo; answer to the fact that things do not work yet is of course: that they need more time/money/resources thrown at the problem. The fact that the cost/benefit ratios have gone completely skewed is not being noticed because it is in no one\u0026rsquo;s best interest to do so.\nFortunately people on the ground doing real work in open data, such as us and the Open Knowledge Foundation, are encountering these problems and fixing them because in the real world we have no other choice. Rufus Pollock presented about the folly of perfect models and APIs and he\u0026rsquo;s right on both counts (I presented about this myself before).\nGovernment agencies that can\u0026rsquo;t release their data on a website properly, are probably not ever going to have APIs that are usable or stable enough for anybody to build something serious on. They would better dump the data and have the developers with a vested interest build their own APIs or whatever they need. Similarly Rufus argued against overmodeling againts a room of European funded academics. I\u0026rsquo;m not very hopeful but some of it may have changed some hearts and minds.\nThe same day Berlin celebrated its own open data day, which I unfortunately had to miss. I hear that a lot of people showed up which is good because a lot of work is still to be done in that field. A list has been started to discuss open data in public transit, which should be a high priority. After having gone around Copenhagen for a couple of days with its Google Transit support, not having such a transit facility in a city is such an annoyance and cause of opportunity cost that it should be counted as a criminal offense on part of the transit operators.\nAfter two days of talking about data I also visited the Metropolis Lab at the Overgaden art institute where they were having talks about developing the creative city. It was a nice and cozy event, pretty much the complete opposite of the previous one I had visited where artists, architects and festival curators were discussing their work. Given the description of the event I had expected a bit more about games and other procedural media/systems.\nI did see Tor Lindstrand present about architecture and I must say that was an awesome experience.\nThe rest of the time in Copenhagen I spent eating and drinking quality things. Coming back to Berlin that was one of the most important differences I noticed, the fact that food and drinks in Copenhagen were about three times as expensive but also at least twice as good than I had in Berlin.\nThe other is that the opulence and organization of a Nordic capital is a stark difference to what we are used to in Berlin. It is nice being in a city that is not destitute for a while though Copenhagen may be too polished to live in for any amount of time.\nI also browsed the Avignon festival website which I will be visiting in July and came across this item on the programme by Sévérine Chavrier who is staging a play “Plage ultime” inspired by the works of J.G. Ballard. I will be arriving just too late to see that, but I do wish that more theater makers would take note. My current experience indicates that France is doing well in theater innovation (Gisèle Vienne is another name to watch out for) and Kornél Mundruczó is also showing a work “Disgrace” at Avignon (who I saw before in Rotterdam).\nAnd then it was back to Berlin on Friday night.\nEnd of the week we also got surprised by the all new Foursquare, with a major update to both the mobile client and the website. I have to say that I absolutely love the new engagement that this view allows. The main timeline that you now see, though noisy can stand up to the best that either Facebook or Path or Instagram have to offer and that showdown is clearly the direction that Foursquare is headed. Engagement around pictures, likes and comments is high and this update may very well increase that.\nI have been a bit annoyed by some changes, but then again I may very well be too much of a power user while they are going for a mass market appeal. For most users what they have changed is an improvement.\nFor some others like myself and Tantek Çelik, the lack of a local friends view is a bit of an annoyance, especially if —like me— most of your friends live somewhere else. I quite like knowing what everybody in Amsterdam has been up to, but it does not have to be front and center to my experience because I can\u0026rsquo;t act on it (except in virtual ways).\nFor most users this is unlikely to be an issue because all of their friends will be in the same city anyway. Because I thought complaining is only going to fix that much, I made a single serving view of foursquare with only the people within a 50k radius: Old Fashioned Checkins.\nThis was very easy to do because of Foursquare\u0026rsquo;s excellent developer APIs and support. Another feature missing from the mobile client right now is being able to explore for venues that you have not visited yet. If I look around my house now, I almost only get to see places that I have already been to. Not much serendipity in that. These are undoubtedly things that are going to be improved upon on future updates, but this has been one of the first changes in foursquare that has been so jarring.\nThen the rest of the week work to finish saba has continued apace as well.\n","date":"June 10, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-273/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’ve been into something of a speculative realism binge lately reading quite some books and even more blogs from the field of current day philosophy. Last Monday I finished Ian Bogost’s Alien Phenomenology which is highly recommended if you want to read up on object oriented ontology.\n","title":"Week 273: Objects, Hack de Overheid, Copenhagen, European Data Forum, Linked Data, Metropolis Lab, all new Foursquare","type":"posts"},{"content":"A nice and quiet week in which I got a lot of stuff done that needed doing for a while.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve been working on a personal transit app that has a different take on things than most apps. That has taken quite some time and attention but it is progressing rapidly. The state of open transit data around the world, however, is still disappointing.\nI finished the Prince of Networks and published my notes here as wel as excerpts from an interview with Harman.\nOn the other hand I am also putting the final touches on the game we\u0026rsquo;re making for saba. That is coming along rapidly and we should be able to submit that to the App Store in the near future. It looks like I\u0026rsquo;m becoming something of an iOS programmer.\nOn Wednesday I visited the encampment near my office protesting the liberalization of rents and wrote some thoughts about that. Similar protests are going on where I live.\nI also have gotten quite busy arranging stuff for our upcoming Hack de Overheid in Amsterdam on June 16th. I will be holding a workshop demystifying programming for people who don\u0026rsquo;t know how to program yet. You are very welcome to join us if also want to get your feet wet with code, data journalism or open data.\nI also briefly wrote up the launch of Politwoops in the USA with help from our friends from Sunlight.\nMy bicycle got a second brake which is a requirement in the highly responsible Germany. Talking about bicycles, I started a Tumblr to document the miserably state of cycle paths in Berlin. Then it was also off to the Campus Party Housewarming Party and the day after the mediaboard of the region organized a Gamersnet summer meeting in a videogame arcade lounge. The Berlin gaming scene is still rather nascent but there may be some potential here. The city is still too artist heavy and engineer thin which will need to change for more stuff to be built. On Friday everything continued apace with a special anniversary visit to the local Cafe CK who are providing us with the only drinkable coffee within a literal mile.\nThe coming week it\u0026rsquo;s off to Copenhagen for a brief visit to the European Data Forum (open data) and to the Metropolis Laboratory (urban games).\n","date":"June 7, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-272-speculative-realism-iphone-development-event-visiting-and-preparation/","section":"Posts","summary":"A nice and quiet week in which I got a lot of stuff done that needed doing for a while.\n","title":"Week 272: speculative realism, iPhone development, event visiting and preparation","type":"posts"},{"content":"Last weekend I finished the Prince of Networks (which is in fact available for free online and I recommend you read it, though Alien Phenomenology may be a more concise and lighter introduction into speculative realism) by Graham Harman.\nI must say I\u0026rsquo;m quite impressed by the clarity and breadth of thought that Harman and many of the philosophers in that current express. This interview (my excerpts from it) with him contained some insights and phrases that I had not seen expressed before.\nMore generally speaking whether it is Harman or Bogost or DeLanda or any of the others, it is particularly nice to be reading the current philosophers of our age who right now are relevant, alive and online. This last bout of reading has finally made me reach the long overdue realization that philosophy need not be a dead pursuit nor that writings on philosophy need to be obtuse.\nSo here are my notes from the book which is filled with brilliance:\nthe engineer must /negotiate/ with the mountain at every stage of the project, testing to see where the rock resists and where it yields, and is quite often surprised by the behaviour of the rock.\nit is impossible to derive one thing instantly from another without the needed labour\nActors become more real by making larger parts of the cosmos vibrate in harmony with their goals, or by taking detours in their goals to capitalize on the force of nearby actants.\nIt is never the actant in naked purity that possesses force, but only the actant involved in its ramshackle associations with others, which collapse if these associations are not lovingly maintained.\nHarmony is a result, not a guiding principle.\nSystems are assembled at great pains, one actant at a time, and loopholes always remain.\nTo see something ‘directly’ means following a lengthy chain of transformations from one medium into another and on into another.\nTheir main difference is that Plato\u0026rsquo;s metaphysics seeks reality at a layer deeper than all articulation by qualities, while Latour thinks there is no reality outside such articulations.\nYet they are allowed to enter only by virtue of their effect on other things, since Latour holds that there is never anything more to them than this.\nThe question is only whether we grant sufficient reality to objects when we say that a thing is not just /known/ by what it ‘modifies, transforms, perturbs or creates’, but that it actually is nothing more than these effects. If the pragmatism of knowledge becomes a pragmatism of ontology, the very reality of things will be defined as their bundle of effects on other things.\nLatour does not mind defining an actor by what it affects, but he does not allow an actor to borrow its effects in advance. Payment in real time is demanded at every stage of the translation.\nIf not for this basic asymmetry between an actor\u0026rsquo;s components and its alliances, we would have a purely holistic cosmos. Everything would be defined to an equal degree by the actors above it as below it, and there would be no place in reality not defined utterly by its context.\nMonisms are too pious and sugary in their holism, dualisms too static in their trench warfare, and triads too smug in their happy endings. But fourfold structures allow for tension no less than plurality, and hence we find Empedocles, Plato, Aristotle, Scotus Eriugena, Francis Bacon, Vico, Kant, Greimas, McLuhan, and others chopping the world into four.\nInstead of an objective nature filled with genuine realities and a subjective cultural sphere filled with fabricated fictions, there is a single plane of actors that encompasses neutrinos, stars, palm trees, rivers, cats, armies, nations, superheroes, unicorns and square circles. All objects are treated in the same way. Latour justifies this with his broad conception of an actor as anything that has an effect on other things. […] Latour adds that if all entities are equally real, all are not equally /strong/. Fictional characters and myths have weaker legions of allies testifying to their existence than do lumps of coal. Hence, we can democratize the world of actors and still avoid the free-for-all of social construction.\nIn this sense, an object is a sort of invisible railway junction between its own pieces and its outer effects. An object is /weird/—it is never replaceable by any sum total of qualities or effects. It is a real thing apart from all foreign relations with the world, and apart from all domestic relations with its own pieces.\n","date":"June 3, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/the-prince-of-networks-notes/","section":"Posts","summary":"Last weekend I finished the Prince of Networks (which is in fact available for free online and I recommend you read it, though Alien Phenomenology may be a more concise and lighter introduction into speculative realism) by Graham Harman.\n","title":"The Prince of Networks Notes","type":"posts"},{"content":"This interview with Graham Harman is filled with valuable tidbits, some of which I wanted to collect and share for your reading pleasure as much as mine:\nAnd like it or not, Apple and Amazon are stirring up more interest, even among intellectuals, than most academic critiques of capitalism. Is that just because we are all a bunch of brainwashed idiots locked in on our own trivial conveniences? Hardly. It’s because these companies are also doing something exciting that addresses where consciousness really is today, and which it didn’t know that it wanted. Did I know in advance that my brain would catch fire as soon as I had a smartphone and a tablet computer? Not at all. I initially thought both of these things were consumerist pseudo-needs, just like the academic Left still does. But I was wrong, and so were they. To have the right electronic device in your hands can sharpen your brain as much as the discovery of an important new author.\nLife has to be optimistic, or it becomes merely reactive. And I really fear that the Left is becoming the permanent homeland of the critics and the grumblers.\nIt is frankly a failure of imagination to try to explain away 1989 by griping about how Central Europe was simply recuperated into a banal consumer capitalism and nothing changed, or that at least political discourse mattered behind the Iron Curtain before ’89, and so forth.\nAnd just goes on and on. The entire thing is worth reading and positions Harman as one of the more notable thinkers and philosophers we have right now.\n","date":"June 2, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/an-interview-with-graham-harman/","section":"Posts","summary":"This interview with Graham Harman is filled with valuable tidbits, some of which I wanted to collect and share for your reading pleasure as much as mine:\n","title":"An interview with Graham Harman","type":"posts"},{"content":"Today I wandered over to the rent increase protest camp on Kottbusser Tor. Some initial unformed thoughts.\nIt seems that the occupy style encampment has become quite a popular way of making a point. The crop of professional protesters and squatters that congregate around these camps are not very inviting towards deeper engagement. If you have no deep interest in the issues at hand, you might go over and read a couple of the pamphlets, but probably not much more.\nThe creative workers I know who like myself work and/or live in Kreuzberg are not very concerned with the issues plaguing these people. Most of them are in fact in direct competition with these people whose home rents are being spiked and liberalized. As soon as the renters are moved out, their houses are very rapidly turned around, sold on the overheated Berlin real-estate market to investors and then rented out at several times inflated prices.\nThis agrees with my personal experience that rents in Kreuzberg are on the rise and not at all slowly (they may be the only thing in Germany that indeed does change rapidly). The urban tides are shifting and most of these people have no footholds to stay in what was their home for the past decades. Those that know how and why things are changing closely guard that knowledge. The housing corporations have refused talks with afflicted renters and their organizations. In Germany knowledge translates quite directly into power and those that possess it are usually not very squeamish about employing it for personal gain.\nUpdate: Just to support some of the writing here with this quote I came upon from Tagesspiegel (via Slow Travel Berlin):\n“It is not the fault of foreign artists or party tourists; they too would prefer to pay less rent. It is caused by the mass sell-off of publicly-owned apartments, combined with the deregulation of rent prices.”— Joel Alas\n","date":"May 30, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/protests-on-kotti-against-rent-rises/","section":"Posts","summary":"Today I wandered over to the rent increase protest camp on Kottbusser Tor. Some initial unformed thoughts.\n","title":"Protests on Kotti against rent rises","type":"posts"},{"content":"Quickly this last week. Work on our own iPhone transit application is progressing nicely. The iPhone has an exquisite palette of operations to work with.\nI met the great people from Campus Party who are going to hold an event in Berlin at the end of August. More to follow in the light of hacking, programming and opening up the things that should be open.\nTuesday Eric Zimerman and Nathalie Pozzie gave a lecture at the Universität der Kunsten as an introduction to their residency here. It is very nice to have them over for the summer and I\u0026rsquo;m curious what will come out of it.\nWork is revving up for the next Hack de Overheid event on June 16th which is going to be a lot of fun. Wednesday we saw Ignite Berlin which had a very nice line-up of talks.\nThursday I met Julianne from Social Media Week Berlin and went to the School of Data meetup by the Open Knowledge Foundation.\nFriday I met up with Chris Eidhof, fellow Dutchman and iOS developer here in Berlin. Always a pleasure, and then it was off to the massive Karneval der Kulturen street festival.\n","date":"May 27, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-271-lots-of-events-and-event-preparations-with-some-making-in-between/","section":"Posts","summary":"Quickly this last week. Work on our own iPhone transit application is progressing nicely. The iPhone has an exquisite palette of operations to work with.\n","title":"Week 271: lots of events and event preparations with some making in between","type":"posts"},{"content":"Last week was a week for some work in the Netherlands and some much deserved catchup with friends and colleagues over there.\nOn monday the protocol of the meeting we had in the Berlin parliament about open transit data was published. It contains all the proceedings and slides.\nOn Tuesday I went to Hilversum to give a workshop on journalistic data visualization over there. It\u0026rsquo;s always fun to give these and it\u0026rsquo;s going to be even more fun to see the results coming out of it.\nAfter that I bounced over to Utrecht to relax a bit in the Village. It had been too long ago and it\u0026rsquo;s still the best coffee store in the Netherlands. After that I went to Hubbub headquarters for some future planning with Kars Alfrink.\nOn Wednesday we had a lot of stuff to do with the (Open State) foundation (more on which later). That same evening we had a board meeting.\nOn Thursday I had a nice lunch with Tim de Gier and finished my next game review for the paper.\nThis is the view from the Amsterdam office. Pure luxury for that city.\nAlso I had to buy the new book “Koorddansen in de Kaukasus” by Olaf Koens about his adventures in the Caucasus. It is a fast paced collection of stories in this very bizarre part of the world.\nI also managed to visit the newly opened EYE movie institute on the IJ shore. A beautiful building with a stunning view, heralding in a new era for this part of Amsterdam.\nNext it was the train back to Berlin and prototypes for some new applications.\n","date":"May 21, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-270-amsterdam-encounters-data-visualization-foundational-work/","section":"Posts","summary":"Last week was a week for some work in the Netherlands and some much deserved catchup with friends and colleagues over there.\n","title":"Week 270: Amsterdam encounters, data visualization, foundational work","type":"posts"},{"content":"The Hybrid Talk I gave the week before is up on Soundcloud. You can listen to it here and see if you agree with our ideas about how a client driven organization can operate without being rubbish.\nThe rest of the week was spent preparing the presentation for NEXT Berlin about Love in Times of Gamification. It went well (1, 2, 3, 4) and should be online shortly. It was an honour to be invited and to share the stage with James Bridle, David Bausola and the many others present at the event.\nAfter that it was time to unwind and meet a lot of nice people and go for a nice dinner.\nRT @ Bopuc: OH: \u0026ldquo;my girlfriend learned to code Ruby\u0026hellip; She was jealous of my lifestyle.\u0026rdquo; @ alper\n— Thomas Madsen-Mygdal (@mygdal) May 9, 2012\nNext came the recovery part of the week. Also Iskander Smit wrote a nice recap of NEXT.\n","date":"May 17, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-269-talks-given-and-posted/","section":"Posts","summary":"The Hybrid Talk I gave the week before is up on Soundcloud. You can listen to it here and see if you agree with our ideas about how a client driven organization can operate without being rubbish.\n","title":"Week 269: Talks given and posted","type":"posts"},{"content":"This week was marked by a massive sprint on saba which made me miss this year\u0026rsquo;s Myfest in Kreuzberg, which is annoying but survivable. I did manage to see Ryoji Ikeda\u0026rsquo;s Data Anatomy on its last day in Tresor. A visually spectacular but thematically flat affair.\nThe next day Stefan Wehrmeyer and I went to the Abgeordnetenhaus Berlin to present on the subject of open transit data.\nThe situation here when it comes to opening up data is rather shameful. It seems hard for transit operators to realize that information about their services is an intrinsic part of their services. People who don\u0026rsquo;t know how to get somewhere, will also not buy any tickets.\nThis seems counter productive if you assume that transit operators actually want to transport people which it seems they do not. They want to serve the terms of their contract as cheaply as possible and as long as open transit information is not stipulated within that contract they will not do it. Thankfully Berlin politics is moving on the subjects (because the next tender is not due for many years).\nOn Thursday I prepared and gave my talk for Hybrid Talks at the Berlin University of the Arts on the Heist Model which went quite well. I am going to write that particular presentation up on the Hubbub blog soon because I think it has a lot of mileage still. Most of the ways of organizing work that are doing the rounds assume you are a company selling a product, not a company doing work for clients.\nOn Friday I went to re:publica with a familiar theme. In any case it was a good opportunity to meet some people I hadn\u0026rsquo;t talked to in a while and to see the narratives being told in German about the internet.\nAfter the keynote by the Vice President of the European Commission Neelie Kroes, I got the opportunity to meet with her and discuss pressing issues when it comes to the digital agenda. I decided to step out of my immediate day to day worries and speak out for programming education for all school children (more on this soon, I hope). This struck a cord with her, but somewhat confused many of the other attendants who were more keen to push their pet agendas.\nTalking with @ NeelieKroesEU, @ lorz says the collected German digerati are not interested in startups or education. Your problem right there.\n— Alper Çuğun (@alper) May 4, 2012\nAfter that I rushed over to Markthalle IX for the book launch of A Smart Guide to Utopia.\nMost of the weekend after that was spent preparing my presentation for NEXT this week.\n","date":"May 12, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-268-presenting-on-transit-and-work-talking-with-neelie-kroes/","section":"Posts","summary":"This week was marked by a massive sprint on saba which made me miss this year’s Myfest in Kreuzberg, which is annoying but survivable. I did manage to see Ryoji Ikeda’s Data Anatomy on its last day in Tresor. A visually spectacular but thematically flat affair.\n","title":"Week 268: presenting on transit and work, talking with Neelie Kroes","type":"posts"},{"content":"I lost my Fitbit today. This was bound to happen and I\u0026rsquo;m surprised I managed to hold on to it as long as I did. So one minute I was getting off the tram and the next I didn\u0026rsquo;t have it anymore.\nSome findings:\nThe fitbit as a hardware device is very well designed. It works, it\u0026rsquo;s polite and you don\u0026rsquo;t have to do anything really. It\u0026rsquo;s quite easy to get into a habit with it. The website has some glitches and takes a whiles to fully propagate updates here and there, but I have the feeling that\u0026rsquo;s improving. Everybody I show one wants to get one.\nOn a negative bent: the entire premise of the devise is offensively US-centric. Everybody here in the Netherlands is somewhat peeved that it does not ‘do’ biking. This is of course understandable when a device has the cultural assumption in it that you take your car to a mall, you plod through said mall and then get back into your car. For genuine global appeal these devices need to be more adaptable still.\nFinally: my fitbit was already showing some tears in the plastic and it\u0026rsquo;s far too easy to lose. I\u0026rsquo;m too wrapped up in my day to day activities to ‘take care’ of yet another device. It\u0026rsquo;s all I can do to keep my iPhone in one piece as it is. Also it being so easy to lose or break, needing to get another one at $99 is too convenient a profit strategy. I think I\u0026rsquo;ll pass.\n","date":"May 5, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/fitbit-lost-and-findings/","section":"Posts","summary":"I lost my Fitbit today. This was bound to happen and I’m surprised I managed to hold on to it as long as I did. So one minute I was getting off the tram and the next I didn’t have it anymore.\n","title":"Fitbit lost and findings","type":"posts"},{"content":"I got a bunch of accessories for the office among which a bike stand: On Monday I also finished the Thinkup hack I wanted to present at the Berlin Hack \u0026rsquo;n Tell.\nTuesday was another long sprint on saba and then off to the event. The presentation went quite well and I think I managed to hit both the technical rationale behind the hack as well as its longer term implications. On Wednesday I wrote up the Thinkup thing over at Monster Swell: “A full Twitter index in your Thinkup” and requested my full history from Twitter.\nMore saba. On Thursday I went to a book presentation by Jonas Westphal at the FES about the society amidst digital change. It is good that these kind of books are being written to make palatable the socio-technical changes to people not so well versed in these developments. I have several similar reports like this at the studio by the WRR, RMO and by Rathenau.\nI also embarked on my first experiment in Taobao shopping (inspired by Jan Chipchase). If this is succesful, I\u0026rsquo;m quite sure this will be the first of many more.\nAnd finally on the weekend it was the gallery weekend here in Berlin and I took the chance to visit half a dozen in half an hour.\n","date":"May 4, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-267-hack-and-tell-thinkup-gesellschaft-im-digitalen-wandel-taobao-and-gallery-weekend/","section":"Posts","summary":"I got a bunch of accessories for the office among which a bike stand: ","title":"Week 267: Hack and Tell, Thinkup, Gesellschaft im digitalen Wandel, Taobao and Gallery Weekend","type":"posts"},{"content":"A long week sprinting on saba. On Monday I got a nice desk chair: On Tuesday I went to the Django meetup which was a lot of fun: On Wednesday I spent the whole day hacking Thinkup and after went to see Brecht in the Schaubühne.\nOn Thursday I went to a lecture by Quentin Meillassoux which was terse but interesting. Meillassoux circumvents the problem of the correlational circle to access the absolute by taking the circle itself to be the absolute. That absolute is the contingent nature of everything (contingent, to fact to artifact). What there is is only discoverable by experience. Meillassoux wants to demonstrate that the empiricist is absolutely right. And I spent most of the weekend writing: ","date":"May 1, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-266/","section":"Posts","summary":"A long week sprinting on saba. On Monday I got a nice desk chair: ","title":"Week 266: Django, iPhone programming and Quentin Meillassoux","type":"posts"},{"content":"The week before last (I\u0026rsquo;m running one week behind), was a good weak. Easter Monday was spent cleaning up the house which is now finally fully operational and fit to live in.\nTuesday was spent getting back on top of work.\nIn the evening I got tipped of by Mathias Schindler that there would be a talk in St. Oberholz about the value of free knowledge. I visited it but it was more of a free for all with the writer spouting their well trodden arguments (and quite a bit of gibberish) and Mathias doing much of the same.\nI have written before about how copyright in Germany is locked up in a fierce protectionist policy that benefits only those that have something to lose and not those with something to gain. Germany\u0026rsquo;s cultural production is not even that interesting for the world at large, but the biggest reason to maintain it: it employs a lot of people. The debate right now is strangely being dominated by ‘Tatort-autoren’ which is odd since the show is on public television and quite dull.\nThe transition to more dynamic (i.e. not as strictly regulated) copyright is underway and the more the powers try to protect copyright, the more they expedite its demise. It still must be painful for the Tatort man and all those in his camp to be so very much on the wrong side of history.\nAlso, I\u0026rsquo;m going to talk about our agency working model —the “Heist”model— at an upcoming Hybrid Talks.\nTalking about copyright, on Wednesday the Pirate Party hit 13% in a national poll. I\u0026rsquo;m also going to present about open transit data in the Abgeordnetehaus Berlin alongside Stefan Wehrmeyer and other notables on an invitation by the Greens.\nAt the end of the week I went to DAM to see the Blind Sequence Trust exposition by Joan Leandre. I wrote about my impressions of that exposition which is very much recommended seeing.\nI also wrote quite a bit about theater that week it seems. A piece about what you should see in the Schaubühne and a piece about the German/Dutch theater debate I attended at the Deutsches Theater some time ago.\nI also fixedbetter Tijs\u0026rsquo;s version of the Anobii to GoodReads exporter and moved my books over there where you can find my reading. And I wrote a bit about how Jan Chipchase\u0026rsquo;s experiment pertains to the design of withdrawn objects.\nThe end of the week was marked by an impromptu visit by prof. Scheiber to Berlin which was celebrated with pints of Augustiner and Korean food.\n","date":"April 23, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-265-tatort-debate-presentations-writing-about-theater-reading/","section":"Posts","summary":"The week before last (I’m running one week behind), was a good weak. Easter Monday was spent cleaning up the house which is now finally fully operational and fit to live in.\n","title":"Week 265: Tatort debate, presentations, writing about theater, reading","type":"posts"},{"content":"Jan Chipchase\u0026rsquo;s ‘Red Mat’ design experiment is brilliant by itself, but is goes much further than being just a design experiment.\nThe opening of the essay that sets the contextual framework for the project is for me the most interesting part:\nBy now there are very few people left on the planet that aren’t in some way impacted by globalisation — as producers and consumers — those few who make a decision to opt-out must do so consciously. Yet our touch points to this interconnected system that churns out ever more, ever faster inherently limits our understanding of the whole. We can talk about globalisation, buy into it, buy from it, demonstrate against it, but for most of us its scale and complexity defies comprehension. Part of the machine is dedicated to designing, prototyping, testing and pushing to market connected products and services that know more about us, than we ever will about them.\nIt’s as if we were standing on the top of a hill and are now running at full pelt into the fog below — not quite knowing what lies ahead, letting gravity and momentum carry us, and doing our best to avoid the silhouettes of objects as they loom into view, chased by the fear of stopping.\nWe are living in an increasingly interconnected, and increasingly automated world. The consequences of our actions may be road-mapped, extrapolated, scenarioed, but ultimately, at best it is smart guesswork.\nChipchase posits products and services as withdrawn objects that are unknowable to us by their scale and complexity but both of those are just symptoms of the unknowability of objects in general. This is in line with most of the current thinking on objects in speculative realism.\nFor us designers, makers the question then is: given such a bleak view of knowability in the world at large and of objects in particular, what are successful strategies for creating these products and services. More succinctly: How do we design in the face of defeat?\nThe writing about the new aesthetic that has reached a tipping point in the last week is one way of dealing with —or at least cataloging— the algorithmic complexity in the world around us, but as Chipchase\u0026rsquo;s welcome mat shows, all objects carry with them so much weight that even the simplest ones become unfathomably complex.\nI\u0026rsquo;m mulling over how to proceed. One preliminary idea: we should do away with all strategic design and business theory and just make things. But then again, we were already doing that.\n","date":"April 22, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/designing-in-the-face-of-defeat/","section":"Posts","summary":"Jan Chipchase’s ‘Red Mat’ design experiment is brilliant by itself, but is goes much further than being just a design experiment.\n","title":"Designing in the Face of Defeat","type":"posts"},{"content":"De serie video\u0026rsquo;s Blind Sequence Trust van kunstenaar Joan Leandre speelt in DAM nog tot en met 5 mei.\nLeandre is een kunstenaar die al decennia lang bezig is met het gebruiken van computer 3D engines van allerlei vormen om verhalen te vertellen en emoties op te roepen. Het werk zoals dat in DAM te zien is, is lastig te plaatsen, maar zowel de beelden als de muziek zijn bijzonder goed uitgevoerd waardoor 1 dingen die niets met elkaar te maken lijken te hebben, toch weten te boeien.\nDe geavanceerde 3D engines die nu beschikbaar zijn maken het ogenschijnlijk makkelijk om complete werelden te schetsen en te manipuleren. Werelden die zich alleen niet houden aan de regels van de werkelijkheid maar er zelf eentje creëeren waarin alles kan. Leandre put uit science-fiction en de natuur voor zijn werk en maakt daar uitgebreide bewegende collages van.\nHet hergebruiken van deze 3D engines zorgt voor een verwarrend resultaat. De artefacten van 3D engines zijn terug te zien net zoals de billboards waarmee bomen worden gerendered en de particle systems die normaal gesproken zorgen voor explosies, rook en vuur. Buiten de game-logica geplaatst krijgen deze effecten een totaal andere lading.\nDe artiest zelf geeft in dit Rhizome-interview allerhande verklaringen voor zijn werk maar zoals zo vaak bij dit soort dingen, klinkt het naar wartaal. Beter is het om zelf naar het werk te kijken en je te laten meevoeren.\nHet lijkt een beetje op Landscapes without Memory van Joan Fontcuberta dat in FOAM te zien was, maar dan beter.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"April 12, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/blind-sequence-trust/","section":"Posts","summary":"De serie video’s Blind Sequence Trust van kunstenaar Joan Leandre speelt in DAM nog tot en met 5 mei.\n","title":"Blind Sequence Trust","type":"posts"},{"content":"Yesterday night I went to see Maß für Maß (Measure for Measure by Shakespeare) at die Schaubühne here in Berlin and it marked the first occasion where I saw a play directed by the intendant of that theater Thomas Ostermeier himself (see this Guardian piece for a bit of background).\nPicture by Arno Declair\nUp until that moment I had seen lots of pieces by other directors at the same house which were —I\u0026rsquo;m afraid to say— quite boring, almost all except for this one: Die Macht der Finsternis by Michael Thalheimer. The dance pieces that Falk Richter makes together with Anouk van Dijk are also very much worth watching, but not theater really.\nMaß für Maß has its issues of course but as said it is astonishingly better than the other plays at the same venue. It is one of Shakespeare\u0026rsquo;s predictable problem plays. So predictable in fact, that you could remove the final half hour and you would not want for closure in the story. At times this performance is too much aimed at the aged and distinguished Schaubühne audience whose tastes and sense of humor diverge somewhat from ours, but that is to be expected. What was most refreshing was the uncompromising physical brutality of several scenes. A welcome breath of fresh air, not to mention the splashes of water, in a local theater climate that prides itself on stuffiness.\n","date":"April 12, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/what-the-schaubuhne-is-about/","section":"Posts","summary":"Yesterday night I went to see Maß für Maß (Measure for Measure by Shakespeare) at die Schaubühne here in Berlin and it marked the first occasion where I saw a play directed by the intendant of that theater Thomas Ostermeier himself (see this Guardian piece for a bit of background).\n","title":"What the Schaubühne is about","type":"posts"},{"content":"A week or two ago I attended a discussion at the Deutsches Theater ‘Holland in Not’ that was organized because of a recently published book “Der Kulturinfarkt, vom Allem zu viel und überall das Gleiche” that proposed to close half of all theaters in Germany.\nThat prompted quite a bit of debate in the German cultural scene as well as the discussion at the DT. The event hosted by the Deutsches Theater brought together notables from the German theater scene and invited Alize Zandwijk (head of the Ro Theater) and Johan Simons (intendant of the Münchner Kammerspiele) to explain the Dutch situation to the gathered Germans.\nWhat had to be laid out again for the audience is that German and Dutch theater are organized very differently. In Germany the theaters have their own ensembles that play a broad range of repertoire in their own house but seldom or never visit other houses in Germany. That means that in a certain area you know what you will get, but you will also never get anything else. In the Dutch situation, groups are separate from theaters (though some have their home venues) and each play is performed on tour through the Netherlands. Theaters are free to program whatever they want. When it comes to funding and entrepreneurship, the Dutch systems is already operating quite lean with a lot of free groups and experiments creating a lively theater scene (most of which is going to disappear). In Germany theater is concentrated in monolithic houses that are endowed lavish budgets.\nExplaining just those differences, which some panelists also had to come to terms with, took a lot of time. The rest was filled with rallying the known entities against the barbarians outside of the gates. No amount of misrepresentation or reassurance was spared to achieve that goal. Alize Zandwijk and Johan Simons played their role of cultural asylums seekers well 1 supported by the Germans proclaiming loudly that they will never let it go so far.\nWhat happened in the Netherlands (the Times has also picked it up) was inevitable in retrospect. I wonder if none of our artists have ever read The Art of War. It stands to reason that if you neglect your allies, let your supply lines wither and do not maintain your fortresses, you open yourself up to attack from any rag-tag band of marauders that happen to be in the area (or in government). That is what has happened to an arts sector that had become utterly complacent and lax thinking that they were beyond dispute. Such arrogance will and should be punished.\nThings move much more slowly in Germany and abrupt cuts will probably not happen. Some budgetary restrictions and reorganizations might well benefit the theater landscape here if employed with vision but even that seems unlikely. The Dutch example is useful to scare off critical discussion of the scene here.\nAlize Zandwijk made a defeated impression and was quite incoherent. Simons remarked that as an intendant he enters into a dialogue with the city, develops a discourse and as such has a lot of authority but if he has to leave, his institution will not be diminished. The intendant of the Deutsches Theater showed that he is on the ball and wants to nip sentiments such as the ones in the book in the bud.\nHowever well intentioned the debate was, it did at no point leave the realm of cliché and touch the real issue at hand: the devaluation of authority everywhere in society. Authority that intendants in Germany are used to having and will probably have for decades to come because of inflexibilities built into German society. In the Netherlands that same authority has evaporated and none of our culture heads know what to do without it.\nOne panelists said the audience based grants that are planned in the Netherlands will be the purest form of commercialization of the arts. You could call it that, but you may just as well call it a democratization that has been long overdue. Not trusting people to be able to make the right choices is rarely a good idea. Telling them that you know what is best for them based on an authority that is no longer justified in this day and age is a sure fire recipe for disaster.\nAs if to emphasize that notion, the gathered audience —having listened to over an hour of turgid debate— was not allowed to interject afterwards. With such an attitude the fortresses of high culture in Germany may be stormed as well.\nPost Scriptum # The last couple of years I have seen an insane amount of theater compared to everybody I know. I should be one of theater\u0026rsquo;s staunchest defenders but having seen so much with so little change, risk and openness I find myself being their biggest detractor. Simons mentioned that the Brandhaarden they played in Amsterdam had been fully booked 2. If anywhere in the Netherlands there is still a market for the arts and left liberal politics it is indeed there.\nFrom that same festival I had recommended the Kane trilogy to a friend but given it\u0026rsquo;s rather high ticket price and the fact that theater is a hit and miss affair, I found myself advising spending that time and money playing Mass Effect 3 (at the price of two theater tickets) as a better investment overall.\nIt is no secret that I think games are the most important cultural carrier of our age but my issues run deeper. A sector that says it creates culture of societal importance, but that cannot mount a viable defense for itself refutes the premise. It shows that what you pay for as a spectator and a tax payer is not much more than self-importance.\nThough it remains to be seen whether the German theater professionals should be happy with the Dutch coming to take their jobs.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nI had tickets to a show myself which I happily passed on to a friend because of logistics issues.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"April 11, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/a-dutch-theater-debate-in-berlin/","section":"Posts","summary":"A week or two ago I attended a discussion at the Deutsches Theater ‘Holland in Not’ that was organized because of a recently published book “Der Kulturinfarkt, vom Allem zu viel und überall das Gleiche” that proposed to close half of all theaters in Germany.\n","title":"A Dutch theater debate in Berlin","type":"posts"},{"content":"Last week was crazy hectic, notwithstanding the fact that I was ill at the same time. Sickness and deadlines are not fun, but thankfully both were survived.\nWhat had to be done was the prototype iPhone app for the first playtest of saba. Which was finished in the nick of time with programming sprints that ended later and later into the night.\nThen it was a train on Friday to Amsterdam for the Open State board meeting followed by the more general strategy day on Saturday. A lot of fun was had and important things were discussed during the weekend (see this write-up by Natasja Trifkovic), which makes it all worthwhile, but some downtime would be welcome at this point.\n","date":"April 11, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-264-playable-prototypes-and-open-state/","section":"Posts","summary":"Last week was crazy hectic, notwithstanding the fact that I was ill at the same time. Sickness and deadlines are not fun, but thankfully both were survived.\n","title":"Week 264: playable prototypes and Open State","type":"posts"},{"content":"Last week commenced with preparing my presentation for the CrossLab event in Rotterdam. On Tuesday I took the train from Berlin and got there nicely in time.\nThe face of Rotterdam is changing massively and visibly right now with the construction of a new central station that is going to be architecturally impressive: Glad to see so many friends out for the event it was great to present a new aesthetic, algorithmic design (\u0026amp; peril) presentation to the audience of Rotterdam designers.\nWednesday it was off to meet a client in the Bijlmer and then a workday at the Coop. Thursday I called at Utrecht among other things to celebrate the first anniversary of The Village Coffee and Music. Their continued presence makes working in Utrecht more than bearable.\nThe other pleasure is hanging out all day at Hubbub base where a lot of things are on the burner waiting to get shipped. I got to play Hokra at Tweetakt which is one of the social games that are programmed there. The other Joust is pictured below and got a lot of play time: ","date":"April 3, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-263-short-trip-to-the-netherlands/","section":"Posts","summary":"Last week commenced with preparing my presentation for the CrossLab event in Rotterdam. On Tuesday I took the train from Berlin and got there nicely in time.\n","title":"Week 263: short trip to the Netherlands","type":"posts"},{"content":"We live in perhaps one of the nicest parts of Berlin I am finding out. It has every thinkable amenity: highly specialized stores, a diverse assortment of restaurants and cafés with some real gems. Our house is smack in the center of this in walking distance of three major U lines. If you talked to me recently you probably know where this is at, but for the purpose of this blogpost I\u0026rsquo;m going to play mum.\nTourists are few and far between and those that make it out here seem to have a purpose about them. It was noticeable when I took some Dutch friends for breakfast around here that the proprietors\u0026rsquo; reactions bordered on the annoyed. Rightly so. The part of Berlin where I\u0026rsquo;m living has been doing fine and does not need to become a tourist/expat infested over-gentrified hipster slum.\nWe invite new arrivals to go to the same places everybody else is settling in —I hear Wedding is going to be the next big thing— and please don\u0026rsquo;t bother us. We may hold out another comfortable ten years over here.\n","date":"April 2, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/unnamed-is-the-best-kept-secret-of-berlin/","section":"Posts","summary":"We live in perhaps one of the nicest parts of Berlin I am finding out. It has every thinkable amenity: highly specialized stores, a diverse assortment of restaurants and cafés with some real gems. Our house is smack in the center of this in walking distance of three major U lines. If you talked to me recently you probably know where this is at, but for the purpose of this blogpost I’m going to play mum.\n","title":"[unnamed] is the best kept secret of Berlin","type":"posts"},{"content":"Culture flat rates are named both in the Netherlands and in Germany as a solution to the problem of copyright piracy.\nThe idea is to have everybody pay a set amount of money each month so that they can download all they want and redistribute that money among copyright holders to compensate them for their work.\nThis stems from the notion that copyright holders deserve some payment for their work and that the current repression being employed to uphold the dysfunctional copyright system, is unacceptable.\nIt is a horribly bad idea on a great many levels.\n1. It cedes to the copyright industry that piracy is an actual problem. It is not. Current piracy does not in any way threaten the creation of new works and in many ways is expediting the switch to new ways of producing culture and new business models.\n2. A (semi-)government run systems such as this one removes all entrepreneurship from the production of cultural products and in doing so also removes all innovation. The mediocre will be best served by such a system and those who want to go the extra mile or go into wholly new areas will be hurt.\n3. A tariff system by its design works in favor of the old and not the new. New entrants will not have made their arrangements to participate and may never do so because of other inhibiting conditions. People creating wholly new cultural works (DJs, mashups, all manner of interactive experiences and games) may find themselves falling outside of the categorizations on offer. This while the old sit back and reap the rewards for efforts form the past.\n4. What should be the most important consideration but is usually left as a detail to deal with later: organizing such a system is practically intractable. Who will compensate the Americans, the Chinese, the Japanese, the Brazilian underground movie industry, the bloggers for their writing and the musicians on Soundcloud for their music?\nThe current organizations tasked with redistributing these tariffs on music played on the radio or in cafes (BUMA/STEMRA in the Netherlands, SEBAM in Belgium) have proved themselves to be mostly corrupt, opaque, poorly organized and exclusionary. It is an illusion to think that a newly established organization will fair any better.\nUpdate: After thinking it over a bit more and reading more misguided German business model ideas for creative production, I think the next three requirements could be used to make a culture flat rate work:\nBlanket. A culture flat rate would need to be truly blanket to solve a lot of problems. If it is not, the difference with Spotify or Netflix streaming is zero and it would seem odd to codify into law what is in fact just another business. On the other hand, if the goal is to solve the copyright problem for everybody, a flat rate scheme should ensure that I cannot be sued anymore for any copyright infringement. That was after all the problem to be solved. With current international intellectual property and trade treaties this seems unlikely to happen. Voluntary. A flat rate should be voluntary. I should not be forced to pay into a scheme I don\u0026rsquo;t want to or which is of no use to me (like the GEZ). Styled this way, the flat rate would be a kind of legislative insurance for users to prevent getting sued for nonsense and the funds collected could be used to support a couple of starving artists. Though there seem to be altogether too many of those in Germany. This approach would also demonstrate actual market fit of the scheme. Cheap. A hard requirement on any scheme would be that a flat rate needs to be cheap, cheaper even maybe than the current tv license. That is the only way to ensure incentives for creators to create new products and new business models. If the flat rate is set too high, it risks becoming a cash cow for a sick industry and further stagnate developments in an already conservative country. Will any of those happen? Reading the proposed business models on an upcoming event, I\u0026rsquo;m rather pessimistic.\n","date":"March 31, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/culture-flat-rates-are-a-horrible-idea/","section":"Posts","summary":"Culture flat rates are named both in the Netherlands and in Germany as a solution to the problem of copyright piracy.\n","title":"Culture flat rates are a horrible idea","type":"posts"},{"content":"The train just had its stop in Bad Bentheim entering Germany. At that stop we usually get a short break, a new locomotive and the German border police checking the train. Border police? Didn\u0026rsquo;t the Schengen Agreement abolish checks at the signing countries\u0026rsquo; borders?\nIt did, but these informal spot checks are still being held by some countries. Even worse, they are not random by any degree. The German Bundespolizei deliberately checks those with a dark skin and hardly any others. Normally such an observation could be attributed to me being cynical. Here it unfortunately cannot.\nIt is a practice being supported up until the administrative court of Koblenz where a case relating to this policy came to trial recently. The judge maintained the obligation of the police to use ‘situational insight’ and ‘relevant border police experience’ (‘entsprechende “Lageerkenntnisse”und “einschlägige grenzpolizeiliche Erfahrung”zugrunde zu legen’). Lawblog.de writes it up with the obvious title “Der Neger ist verdächtig” and the post has over four hundred comments.\nI didn\u0026rsquo;t get checked this time but sometimes they do check my passport. It probably depends on how foreign I happen to look on a specific day or if I have shaven recently. I can shrug it off easily as probably most people can who don\u0026rsquo;t deal with racism on a day to day basis. But when I see a black family of four traveling and being checked as the only ones in the compartment, I wonder what kind of an impression that gives their children about the justness of the society they are growing up into.\n","date":"March 30, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/racism-at-the-border-or-not-so-schengen-after-all/","section":"Posts","summary":"The train just had its stop in Bad Bentheim entering Germany. At that stop we usually get a short break, a new locomotive and the German border police checking the train. Border police? Didn’t the Schengen Agreement abolish checks at the signing countries’ borders?\n","title":"Racism at the border, or not so Schengen after all","type":"posts"},{"content":"The week started with development on saba in phonegap. I got that to work with backbone.\nI created a template to send invoices from German. Unfortunately at this point the amount of text that needs to be on there (numbers in both languages, custom phrases for the tax service) makes any attempt at whitespace impossible. I\u0026rsquo;m just glad if everything fits onto one page and I can send that.\nThere was a flurry about the BMW Guggenheim laboratory that was supposed to call in Kreuzberg on its world tour. Some extremists threatened it with violence because they have issues with gentrification, see Peter Bihr\u0026rsquo;s write-up. The most recent news that reached us was that it was rescheduled for Prenzlauerberg, but now there is yet another piece in Freitag about the lab.\nIf the goal of the lab was to provoke discussions about the future, it has been quite successful at that, though probably not in the clear-cut fashion that its organizers imagined it would. The discourse about gentrification is often hijacked and skewed and lacks representation and realistic courses of action. Anybody who has read their Jane Jacobs would say that it is inevitable that neighborhoods change. You can prevent them from overheating by releasing development pressure to other areas with targeted development. Freezing time is not a solution. Neither is socialism.\nI attended a work session at Fraunhofer FOKUS about a report on open data in Germany. We touched upon most of the points that I have discussed about in the UK an the Netherlands already these past years so with all of that prior art, the Germans should be able to follow a clear path to open data.\nPhonegap development continued in earnest but it turned out on the iPhone DOM manipulation is ridiculously slow even for the simplest of operations. Instead of trying to optimize a dog of an application I switched to native iOS development which should be a challenge, but the clear definition is a refreshing change from the relativity of web development.\nOn Friday I received a shipment of tyres and I could build up my bike again to tear through the city. That was a beautiful day.\nFriday night I attended a discussion at the Deutsches Theater about the culture cuts in the Netherlands and how they could/would be applied to Germany. I piece about that is forthcoming as soon as I get around to writing it up.\n","date":"March 29, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-262/","section":"Posts","summary":"The week started with development on saba in phonegap. I got that to work with backbone.\n","title":"Week 262: native iPhone development, gentrification clashes, Fraunhofer, Deutsches Theater and fixie riding","type":"posts"},{"content":"Running behind two weeks and off to the Netherlands tomorrow (for a talk at a Crosslab event in the Unie). Oh how time flies! This was a fun week.\nOn Monday development for saba started in earnest and there was much hacking in Phonegap. Or Cordova, or whatever the project is called these days. By now we have abandoned that approach for reasons that are forthcoming but it was fun while it lasted.\nOn Tuesday I went to Gobsquad\u0026rsquo;s Kitchen mostly on a recommendation from Kevin Slavin. That was a very entertaining show.\nI finally found a Steuerberater here who seem to be good at what they are doing and friendly.\nOn Friday I accompanied Alexander and Ernst-Jan who were visiting Berlin on a tour of the former Stasi remand prison in Hohenschönhausen.\nHack de Overheid now has a Google Group where everybody can have their say. It still needs a bit of a startup, but these things always do.\n","date":"March 26, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-261-phonegap-gobsquad-and-hohenschonhausen/","section":"Posts","summary":"Running behind two weeks and off to the Netherlands tomorrow (for a talk at a Crosslab event in the Unie). Oh how time flies! This was a fun week.\n","title":"Week 261: Phonegap, Gobsquad and Hohenschönhausen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Work continues apace. New websites are forthcoming.\nWith some heavy lifting in the U-Bahn, I managed to reassemble my library. I eagerly anticipate when I can digitize everything here and not worry about the physicality of my external brain anymore.\nMachiavelli (or Ohne Furcht und Adel or Citadels) is awaiting its first play at the studio the first free Friday we can find.\nThe Apps für Deutschland price winners have been announced. We had nothing to do with this competition, but it is interesting to see how this develops alongside the Netherlands.\nOn Wednesday I went to co.up to watch the Stevenote: I got to catch Jeroen Visser and Robert Jan Verkade in Berlin after they had just given a workshop. Dutch website all-stars if ever there were some.\nAfter which I went to the Mart Stam talks in the Dutch embassy in Berlin. Getting a tour of Koolhaas designed building was a nice addition to the event.\nThe tour made clear two important parts of the building about which a lot probably has been written but which I\u0026rsquo;ll add here nonetheless:\nOur tour guide continued to explain how unpractical various quarters in the building were, how they were not used as much as you would want or expect and how a lot of things had to be patched up after delivery. During the tour one of the very nice looking skewed doors fell apart as if to emphasize this again. In more than one place cables were added because the normal connections were not suitable or were too hidden away.\nThat very unsuitability for human inhabitation and work is a form of power projection. The fact that a government can afford to place an exorbitant impractical building in the middle of another nation\u0026rsquo;s capital to sit there and impress guests is another form of functionality, though at considerable expense.\nAdd to that the Germans\u0026rsquo; reactions to the modernity of the building. Many of the (old) people on the tour were very vocally amazed with the material use, furniture and architectural tricks in the building. The building is radical departure from the Berlin tendency towards historicist architecture. Taking both those points, the embassy is ultimately an elaborate joke played by the architect on the German and Dutch people.\nLast week also our company names (all three of them!) were mounted on the wall at the office which gives our residency in Berlin a more official air.\n","date":"March 18, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-260/","section":"Posts","summary":"Work continues apace. New websites are forthcoming.\n","title":"Week 260: books, games, keynotes and Koolhaas","type":"posts"},{"content":"Last weekend I saw Husbands by Toneelgroep Amsterdam director Ivo van Hove in the Schaubühne in Berlin. I was not unequivocally enthusiastic about the play, though it has a boisterous quality that has stayed with me these past days.\nPicture © Jan Versweyveld\nThe Germans on the other hand have not deigned to give the play five minutes before deciding it is trash, see Jule Löffler for Freitag and Sascha Krieger. They stumble over each other and their poorly worded mischaracterizations to denounce the play, calling it boring, grotesque and poorly founded.\nThis seems to be another case of German traditionalists having a hard time dealing with modernity. Husbands is more entertaining than quite some plays I have seen at de Schaubühne —some of which were ordeals to sit through 1.\nThe play is an adaptation of the movie by John Cassavetes which most of us will never get around to seeing 2. The stage design is in the modern style that we\u0026rsquo;re used to from Versweyveld and the ensemble gives it a high octane raucous (as in ‘fuck yeah!’) treatment.\nEach actor also has a head mounted camera that is displayed intermittently above the stage, translating the cinéma vérité to the theater. Translating it so well that for me the first person view on the screen was more compelling to watch than the overview below.\nMusic, especially music by Bruce Springsteen, also plays a large role in this adaptation. The Boss perfectly exemplifies that feeling of being a son of the most powerful country in the world that also happens to make the best music in the world. You would think Germans were more familiar with this American Exceptionalism even if from the receiving side.\nBeing in that position and then confronted with mortality offers some hints to the husbands\u0026rsquo; behaviour but they seem mostly the mannerisms of old men. Main stage theater in the Netherlands seems rather obsessed with the middle-aged. I couldn\u0026rsquo;t care less for them, but theater seems as shaped by market forces as anything.\nEugen Onegin, anyone?\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nJudging from the movie\u0026rsquo;s trailer it is in fact an excellent adaptation.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"March 13, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/toneelgroep-amsterdam-husbands/","section":"Posts","summary":"Last weekend I saw Husbands by Toneelgroep Amsterdam director Ivo van Hove in the Schaubühne in Berlin. I was not unequivocally enthusiastic about the play, though it has a boisterous quality that has stayed with me these past days.\n","title":"Toneelgroep Amsterdam - Husbands","type":"posts"},{"content":"Yesterday evening I saw The Day Before the Last Day in die Schaubühne as a part of the F.I.N.D. festival.\nThe Company plays a straight-forward critique and pastiche of religion that covers a broad swath but mainly stays in the realm of non-complicated comedy. The opening in particular is a miserable slapstick routine that seems to hit a chord with the German audience. Fortunately the rest of the play is better.\nWhat ‘The Day Before…’ amounts to is a series of entertaining religious sketches interspersed with some more serious notes. Some of them are really good and manage to hit home, but given the theme the treatment is rather tame. Maybe this is risqué in Israel or Germany (with the obligate Nazi joke), but with this theme and YouTube to draw from (as we can see in the projections), a more visceral exploration of religion and humanity should have been possible.\nBiting off a theme of this size does give a lot to chew on, too much probably. Add to that the piece also adding meta commentary to itself and the demands on the writing become ridiculously high. Demands that are not met. The internet is incorporated and provides a rich source of material but it remains at arm\u0026rsquo;s length. Given the contemporary nature and theme of the piece, a higher degree of network realism should have been possible. Tuning the sketches to current events should not be too difficult and it would have added a much needed poignancy.\nSurprisingly entertaining but the content falls a bit short of the ambition. (3/5)\n","date":"March 8, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/yael-ronen-and-company-the-day-before-the-last-day/","section":"Posts","summary":"Yesterday evening I saw The Day Before the Last Day in die Schaubühne as a part of the F.I.N.D. festival.\n","title":"Yael Ronen and Company - The Day Before the Last Day","type":"posts"},{"content":"Briefly written notes for last week. It was one of the first proper weeks at the office for which I am grateful. German administration remains a challenging affair as my blog post and quoted Times article also testify.\nWe put a small Tumblr called “Ramen Hunter” online on which we document our peripatetic consumptions of the Japanese manna called ramen.\nAlso the news that I will be speaking at NEXT Berlin on a topic near to my heart “Love in Times of Gamification”. Not only is that turning out to become a huge and important subtopic within gaming, it is also going to be a lot of fun. The Dutch newspaper NRC featured an article (link for subscribers) about the Social Cities of Tomorrow conference in which I am also quoted talking about Hack de Overheid and Apps for Amsterdam.\nAnother German copyright issue arose because Open Köln republished a series of government documents on their own website. I wrote up the chain of events and the chilling effects that are bound to follow.\nI went to an event called Zukunftgespräche about the future of creative and innovative work in the city. That was mostly a disappointment with commonplaces being trodden over and Zeit articles being quoted near verbatim. It seems these kind of events in Germany are too institutional and manage to invite exactly the wrong people 1.\nThe rest of the week was spent hauling my library to the office, writing up some proposals and Skype-ing with the homefront. I also submitted our research initiatives from Open State to Virtueel Platform. And I could finish off the week having a beer at Soundcloud Rebase which turns out to be a pretty good way to end a week.\nOn Sunday I read up on the Liquid Democracy software platform used by the Pirate Party to decide upon their points of view (read a good Spiegel overview here: “Web Platform Makes Professor Most Powerful Pirate”).\nTechnologically I have quite some issues with the implementation which is brilliant at places and patchwork on others 2, but those are mostly besides. It works and it does what it needs to do. The main Pirate Party implementation lives here: https://lqfb.piratenpartei.de/ and is publicly browsable. A cursory glance reveals a lot of interesting things.\nFirst and foremost, it is interesting and essential to build a web native application for the processes of politics. Most parties if they would start anew today would not end up at this exact point, but this is obvious if like the Pirates your pedigree is digitally native. Being able to participate in a more accessible and equally footed arena, without having to go to party congresses is something other parties should learn from and the open democratic process is reminiscent of the Occupy general assemblies. Even more importantly, codifying the democratic process in software and opening that up for evolution by means of open source contributions, looks like the the future of political systems in the digital age.\nMore worrisome are the non-digital points of view proposed on the platform. Besides a proposal for Open Government Data being approved 3 there are also proposals for a base income for everybody and many other wish-list utopian social measures. None of those seem to be predicated on fiscal solvency. Many of the measures rely on more government to improve society. That is oddly reminiscent of the modeling paradox: a better model does not guarantee better outcomes. The same with government, the current government here is not very small but already rather dysfunctional.\nThe free for all democracy of Liquid Feedback might easily lead to a California-like situation where proposition after proposition has lifted taxes so far that it has bankrupted the state. This is the biggest risk with general assembly and other referendum type decision making processes. It is too easy to demand everything if there are no consequences attached to it. Thankfully the Pirate Party will never hold a majority in German government because if they did, they would probably bankrupt the nation within a week.\nI thought panels in the Netherlands were horrible, but it seems totally new depths are reachable.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nBack button breaking javascript on the site, a backend patched together using PL/pgSQL and a CMS in Lua.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nDemanding the horrible horrible RDF which we could do without.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"March 7, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-259-office-work-publicity-copyright-and-liquid-feedback/","section":"Posts","summary":"Briefly written notes for last week. It was one of the first proper weeks at the office for which I am grateful. German administration remains a challenging affair as my blog post and quoted Times article also testify.\n","title":"Week 259: office work, publicity, copyright and liquid feedback","type":"posts"},{"content":" A bit shorter weeknotes compared to last week\u0026rsquo;s. I spent most of the week in Madrid to do some fact finding and relax in the sun. I hadn\u0026rsquo;t expected the internet in the hotel and various venues to be as disastrously poor as it was, so I didn\u0026rsquo;t get as much done as I had hoped to. So the week was spent mostly lounging in the Madrid sun, eating various things 1.\nThe hotel was next to the Madrid RIO park, so I managed to do an intensive investigation of the terrain.\nMy visit was just too short to attend the Madrid Hacks and Hackers chapter but I did meet-up with the organizer Ana Ormaechea. Talking about the Spanish situation with regards to openness and participation it was clear the country is on the cusp of a transition.\nI was back home at 01:00 late night on Thursday so the following Friday was a bit broken, but I did manage to catchup a lot of stuff and do the necessary Skype calls.\nAmong these things there were hardly any vegetables to be found.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"February 27, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-258-madrid-rio/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Week 258: Madrid, RIO","type":"posts"},{"content":"Last week Peter Robinett sent me a link to this Times article that would seem a bit far fetched if it wasn\u0026rsquo;t mostly true. The headline (“a Limp Domestic Economy”) doesn\u0026rsquo;t really cover the article because it describes how massively things have improved in Germany. If I can believe stories, the situation here used to be far far worse. That however is no excuse.\nRule fucking (the Dutch ‘regelneuken’), protectionism and arcane laws still apply and add up to create:\nThis economy is overregulated, intended to insulate insiders from competition and deeply resistant to change.\nBut mostly we\u0026rsquo;re ok. And there lies the exact problem. If indeed the current positive climate preempts further reforms, that will be institutionally stupid.\nI was mostly going to blow this off until last week upon returning from Spain I got a letter from the Finanzamt asking me why exactly I needed a Umsatzsteuer-Identifikationsnummer (USt-IdNr.). I had submitted a form for my personal incorporation here in Germany and checked the box that said ‘I need a USt-IdNr. for doing business within the European Union’ 1.\nThen, as if the fact that I checked that box would not be enough reason by itself, as if there is a scarcity of natural numbers (℅) in the German administration, as if both the people working at the Finanzamt as myself have nothing better to do than spend time on these minutiae I had to get in touch again to confirm that ‘Yes, I really want and need that number.’\nThis is shameful and if the German administration manages to complicate even the simplest of interactions, I don\u0026rsquo;t want to know what they do to the rest.\nIn the Netherlands the corporate tax number is the same as your BTW/VAT number.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"February 27, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/administrative-no-ops/","section":"Posts","summary":"Last week Peter Robinett sent me a link to this Times article that would seem a bit far fetched if it wasn’t mostly true. The headline (“a Limp Domestic Economy”) doesn’t really cover the article because it describes how massively things have improved in Germany. If I can believe stories, the situation here used to be far far worse. That however is no excuse.\n","title":"Administrative No-ops","type":"posts"},{"content":"Writing these notes on a Sunday afternoon wit a mug of steaming coffee within reach as they are meant to be written.\nThis Monday I finally made it out to the Finanzamt with a fully filled in form for Steuerliche Erfassung (or something). After that I went to the Agora Collective to get my stuff. It is a great place, but I don\u0026rsquo;t want to be fixed in a coworking space. There are a myriad reasons why that is not a great fit, but being able to shape and own your own workplace is built-in in most offices and is purposefully left out of coworking.\nThen I moved into the contur \u0026amp; konsorten office on Adalbertstraße with my stuff. A Burogemeinschaft with 10 people where everybody has their own independent desk, with its own walls and bookshelves, a place to put my professional library and hang my posters. In short: a place to call my own. In a total coincidence I am now a staircase neighbour of my friends at the Maker\u0026rsquo;s Loft which could lead to more serendipity in the future.\nThe office is smack on Kotti, the most important urban maelstrom in Berlin. It is a place where many large streams of traffic and people meet with the U-bahn transport hub (connecting U1 and U8) and the roundabout connecting the main thoroughfare of Skalitzer Straße with the Kottbusser Damm. Betahaus, co-up, the Maker\u0026rsquo;s Loft and many other creative places are within throwing distance and the area sports equal amounts of hipster cafés and Turkish eateries with the addicts holding their own on the main square. They can be a hassle, but their presence is inseparable from the conditions that made that part of Kreuzberg exactly what it is: a free-haven for people looking for cheap housing be they immigrants or artists —or both.\nTuesday was spent at the new office in presentation prep with the evening closed off by meeting with the local Open Knowledge Foundation chapter. It was a fruitful discussion exchanging various ideas on how to boost the openness movement in Berlin.\nOn Wednesday, I took a leisurely train ride to Amsterdam which seems to feel shorter and shorter the more I get in the rhythm. That day the long awaited Code 4 video launched. I\u0026rsquo;m immensely proud of the work we did and I don\u0026rsquo;t think there\u0026rsquo;s anybody who has pulled off a game like that anywhere in the world, so it might be well worth a look:\nA more detailed write-up on that project is forthcoming.\nThursday I continued working on my presentation at the Open Coop. I also ripped the video of minister of economic affairs Maxime Verhagen endorsing open data from the NOS site, because their site sucks.\nFriday was the big day of Social Cities of Tomorrow where I got the honor to be the first to present our case of ‘Apps for Amsterdam’ to the assembled audience. It was a wonderful event put together by our esteemed friends and colleagues of the Mobile City: Michiel de Lange and Martijn de Waal who have been leaders in this field for the better part of the past ten years. The keynotes by Usman Haque, Natalie Jeremijenko and Dan Hill were superb and they remain a source of inspiration for our creative work.\nI feel like I have to remark on two things that I thought of during the conference:\nThe entire day was infused with a critical stance against open data and transparency within government. Usman Haque served the opening volley with a criticism of indiscriminate data transparency and an approach to further civic engagement by giving people the tools to collect data themselves. After that Dan Hill also added some criticism against traditional methods of social change.\nI agree with their points and criticisms and I would have liked to address them but that was impossible in the time given to me to present our case. I would like to say that if anybody in the Netherlands has been deeply involved on all levels in the government transparency movement and is acutely aware of the problems, issues and realities of data transparency, it is probably us 1. Besides that we have employed most of the techniques Dan Hill presented during the last couple of years: shaping decision making processes, deploying long lasting interventions and using the sleights of hand required to realign large organizations and work with far too many people.\nWe have been and will be hard liners for the cause of government transparency out of necessity and conviction. I will always defend that data that has already been collected by government and carries no issues of privacy or national security with it, belongs to the public and should be accessible by the public.\nThe other issue is that the conference should was probably most valuable to the people in the Netherlands who are not as current on design and technology as I have come to take for granted. The lack of reflection was painfully clear in some of the questions asked by the audience. This is a common issue, but I have seen it often in the past during Mobile Mondays or the lecture Manuel DeLanda gave in Amsterdam.\nDan Hill talked about going from the matter to the meta level and back again and all three keynoters showed that they are very capable of doing that. In the Netherlands I have found that many practitioners struggle a lot with the matter and they don\u0026rsquo;t have the time or the interest to ascend to the meta level, even though that would feed back positively into their material undertakings.\nI have been looking for collaborators in the Netherlands who look beyond their narrow field and manage to recombine multiple theoretical and practical strands back into their work but there are very few. I hosted the UX Book Club Amsterdam a while, but found that most attendees there took their field of design too narrowly and the field of UX too seriously. Similarly the Berlage Institute is doing a postdoctoral course ‘to explore the forces that shape the built environment in the contemporary world’ which is limited to architects. I don\u0026rsquo;t know anybody who believes that the problems that will plague our cities in the next fifty years will be solved drawing from the monoculture of architecture school.\nIt is as if most people in the Netherlands are trapped within the operational closure of their own practice.\nI don\u0026rsquo;t know where I would fall, but I struggle every day with striking a balance between theory and practice and I think if you do not feel that struggle you should take a long hard look at what it is you are doing.\nAfter Social Cities of Tomorrow we had a party at our offices in the Open Coop because they officially incorporated as a cooperation and are set to do great things. The party was rather tremendous and good parties are key to getting things done in Amsterdam.\nAnd now it is Sunday while I am typing these notes and because of a lack of gourmet coffee, it is off to the Hubbub studio in Utrecht to be the murder board for Kars\u0026rsquo;s LIFT presentation.\nFor a primer on the issue, read danah boyd\u0026rsquo;s “Six Provocations for Big Data”.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"February 19, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-257-moving-office-kotti-to-amsterdam-again-open-coop-kicking-it-off-social-cities-of-tomorrow-and-explorations-in-theory-and-practice/","section":"Posts","summary":"Writing these notes on a Sunday afternoon wit a mug of steaming coffee within reach as they are meant to be written.\n","title":"Week 257: moving office, Kotti, to Amsterdam again, Open Coop kicking it off, Social Cities of Tomorrow and explorations in theory and practice","type":"posts"},{"content":" Last week was cut a bit short by a commute to Amsterdam at the end (touching on that in a bit).\nMonday I settled in at the Agora Collective for the week to work from there. I mentioned before that I really needed a fixed studio space to work from. I wasn\u0026rsquo;t really aiming for a coworking space, but Agora is a great place to be at.\nI spent more of the week in XCode and playing around various iPhone development ins and outs.\nWednesday I viewed an office at Kottbusser Tor and then made my way to the HIIG for a discussion on how the internet changes democracy (about which I wrote ‘A deeper simulation fever’).\nThursday I had to go to the Netherlands early to attend the closing event for ‘Nederland van Boven’ a VPRO series featuring aerial videography and data visualizations. The production team spent a lot of time getting at data to be able to show it on television. I was invited to debate for the cause of open data alongside Alexander Klöpping against the sceptic positions of Marleen Stikker and Arco Groothedde.\nOn my visit I briefly dropped by the Open Coop and on Friday morning I skated a bit across the canals of Amsterdam before jumping into the train back to Berlin again.\n","date":"February 15, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-256-agora-hiig-nederland-van-boven-and-ice-skating/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Week 256: Agora, HIIG, Nederland van Boven and ice-skating","type":"posts"},{"content":"We\u0026rsquo;re seeing this more and more among the edgiest of shops. The Netherlands has already had a massive shift towards freelancers (ZZP\u0026rsquo;ers). It is only natural that they would band together regularly to accomplish company level work but without the ties and inertia normally associated with employment.\nAnil\u0026rsquo;s last point in “Upgrades” triggered me to write this, because this is the way we\u0026rsquo;ve (i.e. Hubbub or Monster Swell) been working together for a while now (and yes Spry Fox is great!) and trying to figure out what the best way moving forward is.\nTrying to recruit people seems to me to be a fool\u0026rsquo;s game. I always feel a bit sorry if I see good people posting jobs or people posting good jobs, because I know how hard those are to fill. At this stage in my life, I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t work for a company unless they were ridiculously special and made me an extremely good offer. If I look around I don\u0026rsquo;t know anybody with skills looking for a job.\nIn short: I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t want to work with anybody who would work for me.\nThis isn\u0026rsquo;t to say that people who work at companies don\u0026rsquo;t have skills, but those that do are highly sought after and usually have no trouble shaping their own career paths without help from online job postings or head hunters. Of course there are exceptions and if you are serious about hiring and growing a company that way, you would do well take a look at Netflix\u0026rsquo;s playbook.\nReally Networked # The way we have to do it both practically from an overhead, financial risk and skill mix point of view as from a conceptual stance where project demands and excellence drives organizational structure is a kind of networked agency. But as Spry Fox explains, this is a newfound model compared to the old networked agency. Which used to be mostly agency cores supplemented by more than occasional freelancers.\nThe way to work with the best of the best: usually fluid usually creative partnerships, open for repeats, trust and transfer of agency. People need to be rewarded both financially but also with work that is worthwhile. Trust means accepting the edges of your collaborators as a tradeof for their ability and trusting that what they do will be the best to all your ability\nTo be able to do this, some basic structures need to be in place both physically, infrastructurally but also conceptually. Aligning cognitive wave lengths with a suitable group of people and keeping hold of freelancers with meaningful availability is hard enough as it is.\nWhat seem to me to be important ingredients for building these structures are:\nA strong thematic focus so that everybody participating knows what it is you are doing and why you are doing it. A repeatable but also scalable back story. Buy-in. Ensure that everybody has enough skin in the game for it not to be a 9-to-5 commitment. The success of the project is shared success. They are partners not employees or outsourcing shops. There are tons of issues which I\u0026rsquo;m going to leave out for now. I don\u0026rsquo;t have the time or the ability right now to write the end-all on this subject and we\u0026rsquo;re inventing most of this as we go along anyway. Your experiences and questions would be helpful.\nUpdate: after a late night conversation, we dubbed this the Heist model of collaborating.\nUpdate: James Governor points to a Business Week article on the same trend “Entrepreneurs: Struggling to Recruit Software Engineers” (without much of a solution though).\n","date":"February 15, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/not-hiring-anybody/","section":"Posts","summary":"We’re seeing this more and more among the edgiest of shops. The Netherlands has already had a massive shift towards freelancers (ZZP’ers). It is only natural that they would band together regularly to accomplish company level work but without the ties and inertia normally associated with employment.\n","title":"The Heist Model: Not hiring anybody","type":"posts"},{"content":"Last Wednesday I was at a gathering by the Institue for Internet and Society here in Berlin in collaboration with Deutschlandfunk called “Berliner Gespräche” about how the internet influences society.\nWhat struck me mainly was that both a professor from the panel and a commenter from the audience held the position that the internet is in fact nothing new. That it is just another medium/channel for people to communicate through. Citing Clay Shirky, I would say that more and faster information flows are in fact different. More fundamentally the internet is the manifestation of a vast new kind of object that interacts with other objects (such as us) in a myriad ways. That alone makes it something new and very significant.\nI was asked by somebody from Deutschlandfunk to comment on the proceedings of the evening and I gave them my superficial outsider\u0026rsquo;s view about privacy and journalism and how the status quo of both is vastly different in the Netherlands.\nOn the way home what stuck with me most is that every online entity comprises within itself a subjective view of how reality works and how it wishes to interact with that reality. Facebook has notions about the desirability of privacy that permeate through all of its interactions with its users. This is the same for any websites. They are simulations that run on a subjectively chosen subset of reality just like games do.\nThe tool that we often employ when talking about games is Ian Bogost\u0026rsquo;s concept of ‘simulation fever’ that says that subjective simulations cause people to either accept or reject the simulation based on their position. The critical alternation (or altercation if you will) between acceptance and rejection puts the user in a moral frenzy termed simulation fever.\nThe subjective values that websites impose most clearly on users right now are their views when it comes to privacy but there are a slew of other values that are inherent in any web application which users may or may not accept when using them. If you must generalize 1 —as a populace— the Dutch mostly accept those subjective realities while the Germans mostly reject.\nThe Dutch use sites as means of communication and self-expression while grosso modo ignoring the consequences of corporate ownership. While Germans forced by social pressures to use sites such as Facebook, try to mitigate their complicitness by employing sabotage and other defensives strategies 2.\nThere is in both countries a minority of people who are aware of the issues and use these services critically. For any meaningful discussion about the internet, they the most likely people to turn to.\nWhich I unfortunately must while I recount my experiences as as newcomer in Berlin.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nUsing fake names, logging themselves out.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"February 14, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/a-deeper-simulation-fever-at-the-berliner-gesprache/","section":"Posts","summary":"Last Wednesday I was at a gathering by the Institue for Internet and Society here in Berlin in collaboration with Deutschlandfunk called “Berliner Gespräche” about how the internet influences society.\n","title":"A deeper simulation fever (at the Berliner Gespräche)","type":"posts"},{"content":"I just read the double interview in Amsterdam Weekly with Johannes van Dam and Undercover Glutton. It is a lovely interview and their combined knowledge of food is certainly impressive. What I am a bit less impressed with is their knowledge of metropolitan cuisine. At one point in the interview van Dam extolls the culinary variety in Amsterdam and there I must take offense. I have traversed the city far and wide and I have come up empty more often than not for many a dish. Eventually I gave up and moved to warmer culinary climes.\nUnfindable Treats # The problem in Amsterdam first and foremost is that many dishes and types of food lack proper representation. There are even entire cuisines missing. It is a long list, but below follows an attempt to distill my years of disappointment:\nBreakfast Try to find a place in Amsterdam to have a decent meal 1 at 08:00 and you\u0026rsquo;ll come up empty. This is tied mainly with the departure of blue collar work from the city and the city getting a more languid touristy character. There\u0026rsquo;s the mad commute around 08:00, but nobody goes in for breakfast except a take-away coffee and croissant.\nBrunch of any type Tied to the previous, there is hardly a brunch offering to speak of. This is a ridiculous poverty compared to San Francisco or even Copenhagen. Most Sunday\u0026rsquo;s are highly improved by this type of food, though it can also very quickly degenerate into a fad.\nFull English breakfast and the British kitchen There are a couple of touristy places offering something like the Full English and there\u0026rsquo;s one lunch place that does a meagre version, but the city all in all lacks greasy spoons. The British have elevated eating disgusting things to an art and we should take notice. With the breakfast already unattainable, don\u0026rsquo;t even look for more specialty offerings such as the Scottish Egg or Welsh Rarebit. Relatedly I have not been able to find a reliable and affordable source of Eggs Benedict in the city in my years.\nBBQ London has recently been treated to the best BBQ this side of the pond with the opening of Pitt Cue but Amsterdam doesn\u0026rsquo;t even sport an attempt at this discipline. The festival of the Rolling Kitchens had some attempts in this direction, but the quantities were not enough for the appetite of the audience and an availability of one week a year does not amount to much.\nEast-European or Russian cuisine In the Netherlands we pretend that Eastern Europe does not exist, except for Polish people who we use for scapegoating or when our pipes are clogged. The Slavic treats of Borsht, Perogi and the likes, are impossible to find and in the whole of Amsterdam there is not even one Russian or similar restaurant.\nRamen There is currently one location in Amsterdam that does Tonkotsu Ramen and does it excellently but it only serves them a handful hours every week. You do not need to be a nippophile to be hit by a sudden ramen craving, but you will be coming up empty.\nBurrito There is also now only one place in Amsterdam that does an acceptable burrito and it is swamped on Sunday evenings. It isn\u0026rsquo;t Californian, but that is a minor detail.\nProper Coffee Coffee in Amsterdam has been improving and there are some players that have upped the city\u0026rsquo;s game reliably. That success has however prompted a lot of douche places that look nice, but where the coffee is undrinkable. Add to that, some places (outside of the center) ask €2,50 for a mediocre cappuccino. Kees Kraakman is about to open up North any day now which will give that area a much needed caffeine boost but overall it is not enough.\nPasteis de Nata Here in Berlin you are nearly smothered in this treat at an affordable price (the same in London). In Amsterdam, they are near unfindable and expensive when you do. The general pastry situation is laughably poor compared to either Lisbon or Paris.\nTaco adds the following:\n@alpercugun Add to lacks: really good tapas, more than one korean restaurant, authentic schezuan, good southern US style BBQ — Taco Ekkel\nI treated the BBQ above. I can agree about the Korean offerings which are few and too expensive. I rarely ate tapas because most taperias are ballententen. And I have never had Schezuan, so I can\u0026rsquo;t comment on that.\nProblems in the Fabric of Eating # The shortcomings above may be fixed in the future, but progress will be slow and incomplete because the Amsterdam culinary scene is broken on a deeper level. I can best explain that using two factors:\nNo 24 hour availability Peter reminded me of this one, which is pretty important. I have long bemoaned the lack of a 24h diner in Amsterdam. I would take any diner by now, but for a city pretending to be international, the lack of food options for a traveller touching down on Schiphol between 02:00 and 07:00 is rather dismaying. Amsterdam is not ‘the city that never sleeps’, so much is clear, but allowing the people that don\u0026rsquo;t sleep to cater for themselves, would be tolerant for a start.\nThis is a symptom of the Dutch mentality to create rules for everything, even the things that would otherwise sort themselves out. Dutch regelzucht nips a lot of otherwise nice things in the bud. This has effects on the opening times of restaurants, but also on the (im)possibility of food carts and other displays of eating and drinking outdoors, but probably also on the ways you can prepare food and who you can hire to do that. I\u0026rsquo;m not advocating total abandon of rules here, but I am quite sure the Dutch implementation errs too far on the side of caution.\nAbsurdly poor price/quality ratio The rampant inflation of housing in the city also has had an effect on culinary offerings. People paying upwards of €1200/month in rent, don\u0026rsquo;t quaff at a single sit-down dinner costing around €20 for the simplest of meals 2.\nMany of those people are new entrants to Amsterdam which is the biggest city they have experienced thusfar. These people are really nice and they mean well, but they are still hicks who are easily impressed by the trappings of the big city village that Amsterdam is. Their newfound abundance in cash and lack of taste spoils the market and makes good options for the discerning eater, harder to find.\nConclusion # The fact that Johannes would not mention these issues and he gives Turkish charcoal grill after charcoal grill 9 marks every week 3, testifies to his age and his local knowledge. Most of the people I know consume food with a global or at least an European perspective and given the best there is on offer there, Amsterdam cannot compete.\nI know the scene is improving and ever in flux, so some of the things I have mentioned above may no longer be true, but I haven\u0026rsquo;t even been gone two months yet. Additions and discoveries are of course welcome here or via more private channels.\nNone of this granola/muesli crap, eggs at least.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nI pay half that in Berlin.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nNothing wrong with that, I love ocakbasi.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"February 9, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/amsterdam-culinary-desert/","section":"Posts","summary":"I just read the double interview in Amsterdam Weekly with Johannes van Dam and Undercover Glutton. It is a lovely interview and their combined knowledge of food is certainly impressive. What I am a bit less impressed with is their knowledge of metropolitan cuisine. At one point in the interview van Dam extolls the culinary variety in Amsterdam and there I must take offense. I have traversed the city far and wide and I have come up empty more often than not for many a dish. Eventually I gave up and moved to warmer culinary climes.\n","title":"Amsterdam Culinary Desert","type":"posts"},{"content":"Last week featured some taxes, and a write-up of our gamejam efforts in nrc.ne xt post-published on Bashers: The Making of Nakatomi Rider.\nOn Tuesday I went to c-base for Hack and Tell which featured some rather interesting hacks, a low douchebag count and some nice pizza. On Wednesday I did the last work on a project from last year. Then I went to see a shared office in Kreuzkölln before going to the Games Culture Circle (sort of similar to Gamelab in Amsterdam).\nOn Friday I went to see Agora based on a tip by Peter Bihr and I decided to setup shop there for the time being. Having a studio increases my productivity some four times. The rest of the day and weekend was spent getting back into XCode and into the iOS deployment process.\nI also blogged about the 2012 Q1 events schedule both personally and professionally.\nOn Saturday I did make it out to the Haus der Kulturen der Welt to get a taste of the Transmediale, but I was a bit overwhelmed by the quantity and unclarity of the program so I didn\u0026rsquo;t do more than take a look around. I think the entire obscurantist tendency surrounding net art is highly problematic and negates any relevance the field may have. I did catch the Graham Harman keynote on the live stream which would have been worth admission by itself.\n","date":"February 8, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-255/","section":"Posts","summary":"Last week featured some taxes, and a write-up of our gamejam efforts in nrc.ne xt post-published on Bashers: The Making of Nakatomi Rider.\n","title":"Week 255: Games, hacks, art and coworking","type":"posts"},{"content":" Last week started with recuperating from the second massive move we did getting massive wood furniture from Saxony. That was spent with a long overdue first visit to the Barn here.\nThe next day I peeked in a bit with the game design process at Hubbub. Then I went to the Django meetup in Berlin organized by Jannis Leidel over at The Maker\u0026rsquo;s Loft.\nI was also pleased with this write-up by Kevin Slavin of the Social Cities of Tomorrow conference over on his Tumblr (which is pure gold by the way).\nThe event Social Cities of Tomorrow is also intended as an alternative to the increasingly popular idea of ‘smart’ or ‘intelligent’ cities.\nIt is good to see our friends from the Mobile City to be so well attuned with the international cutting edge when it comes to smart city rhetoric.\nWednesday I visited the Daten \u0026amp; Journalisten meetup at the taz headquarters here in Berlin and I presented some of the data journalism projects we did both with Hack de Overheid and with Monster Swell.\nOn Thursday I dropped by Praxis, the office of Rainer Kohlberger and worked there for a bit. That day also marked the awards ceremony for the Apps voor Nederland contest and the success allowed us to get our minister of economic affairs to side with open data on television.\nOn Friday I was off to Friedrichshain to receive my team for the gamejam and that ended the week. Results of the gamejam are in this event write-up.\n","date":"February 5, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-254-game-designing-data-journalism-django-praxis-and-game-jam/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Week 254: game designing, data journalism, django, Praxis and game jam","type":"posts"},{"content":" I\u0026rsquo;m revising my working theory for Germany based on experiences from last week and other things that have happened. My old one on Germany\u0026rsquo;s attitude towards modernity still holds, but talking with open government activists and my experiences with government here, have prompted the following.\nOne of the biggest mysteries for me is why Germany is so far behind when it comes to open government compared to the Netherlands. With Hack de Overheid we have been on a roll last year with nearly every institution coming forward and pushing towards more openness. We even got Minister Verhagen on television to pledge to our goal. All of this does not mean we have won yet, but it does show a momentum into the right direction.\nThe German situation in comparison beggars belief. The very fact that it is a good thing for government to open up their data in a machine-readable fashion, still seems to be up for debate in many circles. The open government movement itself is denied outright and not heard in official proceedings even when it would be total common sense to take their input.\nI have no clue how in this day and age such an opinion is tenable, but I will wager two possible explanations:\nGerman goverment is hideously complex. There are tons of layers of government because of the federal system and the scale of the country 1. There are also parallel governments and institutions that are similarly layered, so for each and every query you have, you may be pointed any way up, down or sideways into the hierarchy. This is a very easy way to get sent in endless loops 2 and for the entire system to hold itself in gridlock. This one is more subtle: German government is very bureaucratical. The promise of open data and open government is ultimately to replace well defined bureaucratic systems with automation. At a point it no longer matters whether you send a physical form into government for human processing or whether you fill something in online and a computer performs the same operation. Whether they realize it or not, by filibustering openness in government, the civil servants are ensuring that they will still have a job in twenty years\u0026rsquo; time. And before you say the above is an unfair characterization of the ruling elites in Germany, you only have to read this recent missive by CDU Bundestag member Heveling (outtakes by Peter Bihr here) to confirm the ruling class\u0026rsquo;s difficult relation with the internet. Heveling has caused quite the uproar here. Though I wonder if the German twittersphere may let themselves be baited too easily. If we in the Netherlands went batshit crazy every time somebody from the CDA said something stupid about the internet, we would get nary a thing done.\nCompared to the Netherlands where there is only the municipal level and the national level. Nobody gives a shit about the couple of things in between.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nIn Dutch we say: ‘van het kastje naar de muur sturen’.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"February 3, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/working-theory-regarding-bureaucracy/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Working theory regarding bureaucracy","type":"posts"},{"content":"The year has started nicely and the event line-up is already brimful.\nThursday a week ago saw the iBestuur Congress in the Netherlands where the winners of the Apps voor Nederland competition were announced. I\u0026rsquo;m happy to see this last app competition to a succesful end and I look forward to what more we can bring. See a write-up of them over at the Hack de Overheid site.\nLast weekend I was joined here by fellow game makers from the Netherlands to participate in the Berlin Global Game Jam. We fought hard and managed to crank out the unparalleled Nakatomi Rider. Niels wrote it up for the papers (available over at Bashers).\nThis week in Berlin the Transmediale takes place to which I hope to go in the following days. I have a difficult relationship with art, especially when it is in the domain of media, but watching the Graham Harman lecture tonight and the introduction to it, it was clear to me that Transmediale is as on top of current developments and artistic relevance as they can be.\nUpcoming # There will be a night in Pakhuis de Zwijger to celebrate the Nederland van Boven television series that the VPRO produced in the Netherlands 1. I will be joining the esteemed panel there as a board member of Hack de Overheid to talk about issues of democracy, participation and truth in cartography.\nWith Martijn de Waal happily having gotten his PhD 2, it\u0026rsquo;s now full steam ahead for the conference he is organizing together with Michiel de Lange called “Social Cities of Tomorrow” 3. I will be speaking in a brief time slot about Apps for Amsterdam and how data commons happen.\nI will probably be attending LIFT to see a certain person speak.\nFinally in the near future there is also an undisclosed Berlin event for which I will be speaking which will be my first abroad since I left the Netherlands.\nBorrowing conceptually from Britain from Above among others.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nWhose thesis I am very much looking forward to read, which is something of an exception when it comes to theses.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nAs luck will have it last year I travelled from Amsterdam to Berlin for a virtual urbanism conference and this year I will do the reverse (though with a brief trip to Madrid tacked to its end).\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"February 3, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/early-2012-events/","section":"Posts","summary":"The year has started nicely and the event line-up is already brimful.\n","title":"Early 2012 Events","type":"posts"},{"content":"Last week we got the DSL at home to work (in two tries). It feels good to have that after something of a month of bureaucracy and false starts to deal with.\nThen I went to PROGRAM\u0026rsquo;s last event on German/Turkish Material Exchange. An inspiring and eclectic evening and a shame to see the venue being wrapped up. I met Peter Wollring, a videographer who has made the crossing to Berlin a long time ago, Peter Tegelaar, a startup veteran from Amsterdam and with Third Wave.\nFinally I got the correct form te become self-employed today from the Finanzamt: The studio is still elusive, so the kitchen table is where it is at. ","date":"January 25, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-253/","section":"Posts","summary":"Last week we got the DSL at home to work (in two tries). It feels good to have that after something of a month of bureaucracy and false starts to deal with.\n","title":"Week 253","type":"posts"},{"content":"Going over the list of services that the municipality of Amsterdam offers this week, I couldn\u0026rsquo;t help but notice this:\nthe option to change your date of birth (without a foreign certificate)\nThis is a very interesting option. I am not aware of the reasons one could assert to change their date of birth, but the fact that the option is listed, says something. In any case, it shouldn\u0026rsquo;t be too difficult to come up with a reason that fulfills official requirements.\nWhy would you want to do this?\nI am reasonably sure that most statistical inference methods on databases are pinned fairly rigidly on the fact that somebody\u0026rsquo;s date of birth never changes. The various parts of your name can be mismatched, but if you do not have an id for somebody (like a social security number), the date of birth is your best bet to reduce the number of possible matches.\nIf you manage to change your date of birth if only by a day and re-register with that everywhere, you will have shed your privacy tail and can start anew. That by itself, struck me as a hopeful thought. Now just to have somebody try it out.\nPost scriptum: I talked about this with Rejo and he suggested I FOIA the number of times this occurs and the reasons why it happens. I put that on my list, for some time in the future.\n","date":"January 19, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/regain-your-privacy/","section":"Posts","summary":"Going over the list of services that the municipality of Amsterdam offers this week, I couldn’t help but notice this:\n","title":"Regain your privacy through bureaucracy","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;m reading up on German tax and trade rules because I\u0026rsquo;m going to incorporate here this month and most of the things I read do not make me very happy. They look like they are more suited to a 19th century gentry than to creative workers in the multipolar 21st.\nOne such thing 1 is being a Freiberufler. The Freiberuflich status, which means you work in a free profession, strikes me as an archaic oddity.\nIn the Netherlands we had the same for doctors, engineers and other learned individuals which meant you did not need to register at the Dutch Chamber of Commerce. You could just apply for a VAT number at the tax service and be in business. In the Netherlands this status got abolished and everybody was forced to register at that terrible excuse for an institution: the KvK.\nIn Germany being Freiberuflich rests on the same foundations but it also means you get a special tax cut (you don\u0026rsquo;t pay Gewerbesteuer) that other self-employed don\u0026rsquo;t get. This would seem to be along the division between people who create stuff from their knowledge and people who work in manufacture/trade.\nThat tax cut means that the Finanzamt examines your status a bit more stringently, because more people try to apply for the Freiberuflich status. There are a bunch of bizarrely outdated catalogue professions for which the decision has already been made. These number: blood type tester, ship compass rejiggerer and various other untranslatable things. In the digital professions the divisions are not very clear. A designer (in most cases) seems to be free, but a programmer (called by the humorous EDV —Elektronische Datenverarbeitung— term) usually not.\nThere are mainly two things wrong here.\nThe tax cut and the mostly arbitrary divisions that it entails seem unnecessary to me. For any enterprise, the difference between the cost you incur and the amount of money you can turn your time into, is your value add for which you already pay a VAT. Why then complicate matters 2 with another tax designed especially to hurt the lower educated 3?\nMore principally, the division between being a free profession and not, at its core rests on whether somebody has undertaken higher education. Something you do for which you have been educated 4 may be a free profession, while if you don\u0026rsquo;t have the education for it, this may become an issue. While in most cases, upon examination it won\u0026rsquo;t be an issue at all, the fact that this division exists and could have repercussions for your tax status, potentially has a chilling effect. It implies that your tax system and in effect most of your society is not based on merit, but on if you managed to pass this or that (university) gate. That strikes me as a very unhealthy signal.\nI could go on and on but this is a bigger one.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nOh yeah, in Germany there is also a special Church tax and a solidarity tax for the unification. Really, why would you complicate matters…\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nManual laborers, grocers, butchers and such.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nFor instance being a photographer who has finished an art academy.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"January 18, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/starting-up-self-employed-in-germany/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’m reading up on German tax and trade rules because I’m going to incorporate here this month and most of the things I read do not make me very happy. They look like they are more suited to a 19th century gentry than to creative workers in the multipolar 21st.\n","title":"Starting up self-employed in Germany","type":"posts"},{"content":"Last week was a week in Amsterdam (and what a week it was!).\nMonday I was in the train, which seems to take shorter and shorter because of the worklfow achieved there. I dropped in straight to the Open Coop to push the stuff I had created online (among which a professional summary of 2011) and then went off to the Mediamatic Schommelclub where I saw most of the regulars and a great performance: Tuesday I hung out with my friends from the Village before heading to Hubbub central for a bit of metagaming 1 (arguing pro) and the kickoff for project saba. I also blogged about our Berlin plans on Hubbub and installed Unity on my laptop for some heavy duty game development.\nThe project is going to be great if only judging from the concept art that was produced during that afternoon.\nWednesday was filled wit back to back meetings with Justus Bruns, hanging out at the awesome Brainsley offices, having lunch with lovely Tim de Gier, talking game design shop with Christine Fountain and then having dinner and going to a play with Oliver Verver.\nThursday I spent cooped up at the Open Coop all day working on various Open State stuff and then it was off to the annual ISOC Chairperson\u0026rsquo;s Dinner and New Year\u0026rsquo;s Drinks. I discussed the option to change your date of birth with some of the more privacy minded attendees and that sparked this pos t.\nAnd Friday it was a brief bit at the Coop to pack up my office and then jump on the train back to Berlin. I am now also a part of the Iron Blogger Berlin network to insure blog frequency.\nI want a metagame deck, but the shipping is so steep!\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"January 18, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-252/","section":"Posts","summary":"Last week was a week in Amsterdam (and what a week it was!).\n","title":"Week 252","type":"posts"},{"content":"Talking to two young theater makers yesterday, I remarked that the majority of the Dutch plays I see don\u0026rsquo;t deliver the relevant and socially engaged experiences I would want them to. To which they asked why I still bothered going to the theater, a question I hear regularly from those in the more modern performing arts. They themselves hardly ever go and they make participatory theater, not the stage dramas that first come to mind. That is a response I get more often: that theater is boring, irrelevant and really ‘Why would anybody want to go?’\nI often think the same on my obligatory trips to the Stadsschouwburg Amsterdam and other venues. What I need in theater is a visceral quality, acute social relevance and deep street savvy. One of those is hard enough to find most of the time, let alone all three. I went to 33 plays last year and only a handful of them delivered. The few that did, redeemed the boring, too long, too simple plays I\u0026rsquo;ve been to, but I think that there are irresolvable obstacles preventing the quality of theater from increasing.\nOn most of my visits I\u0026rsquo;m struck by how narrow a demographic (by age and social-economic status) frequents most theaters. This cannot but influence the performances to cater to the audience. The audience\u0026rsquo;s wishes notwithstanding, artistic autonomy would require boundaries to be pushed, but that too doesn\u0026rsquo;t happen all too often (see also ‘De studio uit, de wereld in’).\nHaving said that, the theater makers I would go to blindly in the Netherlands are:\nTheu Boermans 1 Thibaud Delpeut Eric de Vroedt Ivo van Hove Now having just moved to Berlin, I\u0026rsquo;ve seen a bunch of plays at die Schaubühne 2 but nothing very titillating yet. That may be in part because I am yet to see something by Thomas Ostermeier, but it does beg the question why a theater would stage such wildly varying material and why the room still is full most of the nights. Answers to those questions are forthcoming after a more thorough sampling.\nOf epic Theatercompagnie fame, now making a glorious return as head of het Nationaal Toneel.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nVisits to HAU, Ballhaus Naunynstraße and die Volksbühne are planned.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"January 17, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/whither-the-theater/","section":"Posts","summary":"Talking to two young theater makers yesterday, I remarked that the majority of the Dutch plays I see don’t deliver the relevant and socially engaged experiences I would want them to. To which they asked why I still bothered going to the theater, a question I hear regularly from those in the more modern performing arts. They themselves hardly ever go and they make participatory theater, not the stage dramas that first come to mind. That is a response I get more often: that theater is boring, irrelevant and really ‘Why would anybody want to go?’\n","title":"Whither the theater?","type":"posts"},{"content":"When I just got into Germany we managed to pin point something I had noticed before. It is striking how conservative people in Germany are when it comes to the internet and especially people who work in cultural positions. Compared to that, the Netherlands of the past five years has gone through a rather tumultuous revolution.\nThis was prompted a bit by responses are to the new play “Edward II” directed by Ivo van Hove at the Schaubühne here. I am yet to see the play, but I hear it\u0026rsquo;s pretty good. Judging from the set pictures and the trailer it is one of the more modern pieces at this particular theater 1. It seems to have been rather poorly received in the papers, which have treated it not really on merit, but with thinly veneered hatchet jobs where critics employed their position to jab at this or that enemy in the German cultural landscape. One particular critic even projected his own frustrations and personal perversions onto the play in a national daily. Germany still seems to be that place where personal gripes are written down and nailed to a door somewhere.\nThe modern look of the play seemed to draw particular ire and especially the liberal use of video projections on the stage (a staple at Toneelgroep Amsterdam). It seems that German theater viewers cannot deal with mixed media and are either confused on where to look or too closed minded to accept projected images alongside the action happening live on the stage. This is one symptom of a lack in media literacy.\nIvory towered gentlemen with a strangle hold on culture may be one extreme, in the Netherlands we suffer from the other. Reviews of works of culture in the papers are oftentimes as thin as the paper they are printed on. Usually they superficially treat a work and tack on a bit of buyer\u0026rsquo;s advice. It is painfully obvious that they are written by people who have to write twenty such pieces a day lest they are fired. I write video game reviews in Dutch periodical nrc.next myself, but looking for my piece in the paper one day, I read a review for a movie I\u0026rsquo;d been to that was so bad, it brought tears to my eyes. Theater reviews have held their own, but they are hit and miss and you\u0026rsquo;re better off reading only those written by Simon van den Berg.\nAs I see it a piece in a newspaper treating a work of culture should be some parts of either a review or a critique and probably a bit of both. A review is a brief summary of a piece without giving much away, explaining how it will fulfill the expectations of a prospective audience so they can decide whether to go/buy/use it or not. A critique should be a deep diving treatment of that piece, how it compares to all other works and how it is relevant to society in any subset that the critic deems relevant. Such a critique should contain judicious amounts of post-modern literary theory, internet savvy remix, unit operational analysis and it should bridge clefts of continuity, medium, style and social stratum. Above all both reviews and critiques must be entertaining to read and they must bring something new to the table.\nI get to write 80 words or so for the paper and in that little space I try to do the above because we want to further discourse around video games in the Netherlands. As we see it procedural media 2 are busy upending the entire traditional cultural landscape and strict divisions of any kind in culture and art will not be tenable in the future. The institutions are crumbling and that is a good thing. This is unfortunately a radical notion even in the Netherlands, I have no clue how it will hold up in Germany where institutions are even more conservative and society is much more stratified.\nIn any case we cannot fill the entire newspaper by ourselves, nor should we want to. We can only strive to educate and elucidate by writing and talking about media in this particular way and hope that it catches on. I\u0026rsquo;m interested to see if my notions are at all true and if the German or Dutch discourse can be inched forward in the coming year with some choice interventions. Help to achieve that or explanations in how I am completely wrong are always welcome.\nSave perhaps Trust that I saw this week by Anouk van Dijk and Falk Richter. A bit long in the tooth, but still a very successful interdisciplinary collaboration.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nNot only games but anything that encompasses a system and can be delivered at scale.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"January 15, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/cultural-criticism-without-borders/","section":"Posts","summary":"When I just got into Germany we managed to pin point something I had noticed before. It is striking how conservative people in Germany are when it comes to the internet and especially people who work in cultural positions. Compared to that, the Netherlands of the past five years has gone through a rather tumultuous revolution.\n","title":"Cultural Criticism Without Borders","type":"posts"},{"content":" Last week was my first week in Berlin in earnest and I was more than a bit eager to get back on the horse. On Monday I visited four coworking spaces, on Tuesday I met Marguerite Joly from the Hybrid Plattform and on Wednesday I visited a bunch more. Like I write over at Hubbub, I am looking for a studio space and much much more here in Berlin.\nOn Thursday I booked a spot at the beta breakfast at Betahaus through Gidsy where I met old friends and some interesting new people.\nOn Friday I had lunch with Rainer Kohlberger and then worked at betahaus for the rest of the day. I ended the week with drinks with the Gidsy and Third Wave crews.\n","date":"January 14, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-251/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Week 251","type":"posts"},{"content":"In 2011:\nI taught a minor in data visualization at the Willem de Kooning Academy. I built bespoke cartography for the PvdA and for the AUB. I presented at /dev/hague, ODEC, CHI sparks, Ignite Amsterdam. I presented on cities and games for Virtueel Platform. I gave several radio interviews. I ran workshops at the ROOSdagen, the RIVM and the NOS. I taught at the Hogeschool van Amsterdam. I published a book review in Vrij Nederland. I wrote a handful of game reviews in nrc.next. I visited dConstruct, FOSDEM, the Infographics congress and Playful. I got an iPhone 4. I made journalistic visualizations for de Groene Amsterdammer and Sargasso. I moved house twice, once across the city and the next time across Europe. I launched a web store with the freshest graphics in the Netherlands. I judged one app competition and chaired the proceedings of another. I learned iOS programming. I participated in a pilot for a interactive design television show. I went to the Alps for the first time. I joined the Next Speaker. I raised funds for Bits of Freedom. I created a glanceable display for transit in Amsterdam. I wrote code for a theater play. I moved studio from Volkskrantgebouw to the Open Coop and got the keys to another. I taped a video report on the Utrecht game scene. I was cured from my infatuation with Android. I participated in a workshop with Manuel DeLanda. I went to Berlin five times, the last time for good.\nWe launched the new Hack de Overheid site. We created a large scale serious game for organizational change called Code 4. We conceived and ran: Apps for Amsterdam, Apps for Noord-Holland and Apps voor Nederland We created a bespoke platform for cartographic visualization called Statlas. We organized five hackathons, among which Hack de Overheid, Nederland van Boven, a hackathon on a historic fortress island, an Open Data Bazaar and Code Camping Amsterdam where hundreds of people came to program dozens of civic applications. We went to Cognitive Cities and rocked Berlin. We merged Hack de Ovenheid and het Nieuwe Stemmen into a new entity called the Open State Foundation.\n","date":"January 9, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/work-in-2011/","section":"Posts","summary":"In 2011:\n","title":"Work in 2011","type":"posts"},{"content":"I dived into my log to make the yearly tally of what I did and saw. All in all 2011 has proven to be a good year.\nIt was a bit of a slow movie year though. I only saw 56, the best of which were: \u0026ldquo;Drive\u0026rdquo;, \u0026ldquo;Melancholia\u0026rdquo;, \u0026ldquo;Once Upon a Time in Anatolia\u0026rdquo;, \u0026ldquo;Blue Valentine\u0026rdquo;, \u0026ldquo;Norwegian Wood\u0026rdquo;, \u0026ldquo;True Grit\u0026rdquo;, \u0026ldquo;Almanya\u0026rdquo;, \u0026ldquo;Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;Kosmos\u0026rdquo;.\nI went to 32 plays in 2011. The best ones:\n\u0026ldquo;Die Macht der Finsternis\u0026rdquo; in die Schaubühne \u0026ldquo;Het meisje dat teveel van lucifers hield\u0026rdquo; by NTGent in Frascati WG \u0026ldquo;Songs at the End of the World\u0026rdquo; by Wunderbaum in SSBA \u0026ldquo;De Russen!\u0026rdquo; by Toneelgroep Amsterdam at the Holland Festival \u0026ldquo;This is how you will disappear\u0026rdquo; by Gisèle Vienne in Stadsschouwburg Utrecht (back at the Kaai in February!) \u0026ldquo;Langs de grote weg\u0026rdquo; by de Vere in Frascati I read 21 books in 2011. The most notable of those were:\n\u0026ldquo;The Life and Death of Great American Cities\u0026rdquo; by Jane Jacobs \u0026ldquo;The City \u0026amp; The City\u0026rdquo; by China Miville \u0026ldquo;De kaart en het gebied\u0026rdquo; by Michel Houellebecq \u0026ldquo;Super Sad True Love Story\u0026rdquo; by Gary Shteyngart \u0026ldquo;Cloud Atlas\u0026rdquo; by David Mitchell \u0026ldquo;The Sun Also Rises\u0026rdquo; by Ernest Hemingway \u0026ldquo;Unit Operations\u0026rdquo; by Ian Bogost I started tracking the games I played around halfway through the year, so this is not an exhaustive list, but five games I really enjoyed last year were: \u0026ldquo;Where is my Heart?\u0026rdquo;, \u0026ldquo;Nidhogg\u0026rdquo;, \u0026ldquo;Space Alert\u0026rdquo;, \u0026ldquo;The Binding of Isaac\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;The Resistance\u0026rdquo;.\n","date":"January 5, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/cultural-consumption-2011/","section":"Posts","summary":"I dived into my log to make the yearly tally of what I did and saw. All in all 2011 has proven to be a good year.\n","title":"Cultural Consumption 2011","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik heb hier wel vaker geschreven over de beroerde webstreams beschikbaar voor Radio 1 bij de omroep. Daar is nu verandering in gekomen en het is nu af te spelen in Windows Media, Quicktime of Real.\nReden tot blijdschap dus, maar nog steeds vreemd waarom ze niet gewoon één MP3-stream 1 hebben opgezet die volgens mij door alle drie die players 2 probleemloos kan worden afgespeeld.\nUpdate: Blijkbaar is dit een hele populaire post en ik luister redelijk wat radio via iTunes. Hoe je dat doet is als volgt, onder Advanced staat een optie Open Audio Stream (Command-U) en daar kun je de URL van een stream in plakken. Bijvoorbeeld: Radio 1: http://shoutcast.omroep.nl:8100/listen.pls Kink FM: http://81.173.3.20/listen.pls Studio Brussel: http://mp3.streampower.be/stubru-high.mp3?rand=644\nDe URL die ik heb van 3FM doet het niet meer, maar die mis ik toch niet zo.\nUpdate: Voor streaming heeft Radio 1 nu een pagina die niet direct vindbaar is vanaf de site zelf: Luister online naar radio 1\nSHOUTcast ofzo ook al heb ik geen idee hoe dat schaalt.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nEn eigenlijk door bijna elke fatsoenlijke MP3-speler.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"January 4, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/eindelijk-radio-1-luisteren-op-de-mac/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik heb hier wel vaker geschreven over de beroerde webstreams beschikbaar voor Radio 1 bij de omroep. Daar is nu verandering in gekomen en het is nu af te spelen in Windows Media, Quicktime of Real.\n","title":"Eindelijk Radio 1 luisteren op de Mac","type":"posts"},{"content":"In the beginning of the week I spotted an interesting dataset on Sargasso, requested to play with it and got the following visual published the next day (our write-up).\nThen it was off to Berlin to finalize things with the appartment and prepare the move.\nMy review of “Where is my Heart?” was also published in the nrc.next that week (tweet): Finally my proposal to present on the Apps for Amsterdam project on the Social Cities of Tomorrow conference was aspected and I will be attending and presenting at that conference in Amsterdam. Data commons are a topic that is very near to our practice and I look forward to exchanging ideas with those attending.\n","date":"January 3, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-249/","section":"Posts","summary":"In the beginning of the week I spotted an interesting dataset on Sargasso, requested to play with it and got the following visual published the next day (our write-up).\n","title":"Week 249","type":"posts"},{"content":"Some remaindered weeknotes that have been the casualty of an international move.\nThis week marked a strategic planning session for the coming year out of which a lot of opportunity flowed. I also finished ‘Where is my Heart?’ for an upcoming nrc.next review. It is a spectacular piece of work and a total mind altering experience. A well deserved five stars.\nNext we did some project planning for a fun little thing (saba) we\u0026rsquo;re going to build in 2012Q1. And then we played Quarriors which I won against all odds 1.\nThe rest of the week was spent actually writing the review. A lot of time goes into writing a good review. Too much for the regular press to do much of it as I\u0026rsquo;ve written here about Cultural Criticism. I was very pleased with Niels\u0026rsquo;s criticism and how the thing turned out (though it would of course have been better with another week spent on it).\nThursday I went to the Dialogues House to see Yochai Benkler present on his work and books. The clarity with which he presented complex concepts of value and organization was expected but still good to witness. The Dialogues House though situated a bit unluckily is really a vibrant and creative place.\nThen on Friday it was tying off some odds and ends (I added a view back and forward for Fast Moving Targets year end project) and preparing for the Open Coop party.\nMe writing this is still a bit of residual fiero.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"January 2, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-248/","section":"Posts","summary":"Some remaindered weeknotes that have been the casualty of an international move.\n","title":"Week 248","type":"posts"},{"content":"I think most of the thinking around The Filter Bubble comes from people who are not very procedurally literate to begin with. That is to say they are not very adept at understanding the rules that govern interactive systems nor are they well equipped at reconfiguring them to suit their ends. I touch on this because the same tired argument was parroted in this Zeit interview with Miriam Meckel, a leading German communication scientist 1. It starts off with some very sensible sentiments but then it quickly derails on the topic of algorithms and concludes on several sidelines.\nThere is a clear need for caution when it comes to algorithms, as has also been expressed by algoworld expert Kevin Slavin in his TED talk ‘How algorithms shape our world’ but there is no need for the undue fear being mongered by Eli Pariser 2 and his pack. Meckel says the following (as also remarked by Basti Hirsch):\nEs gäbe keinen kritischen Diskurs mehr, und damit würde unser System auseinanderfallen. Informationen sind der Kitt, der unsere Gesellschaft zusammenhält. In meinem Buch treibe ich diese Idee auf die Spitze: Die Menschheit schafft sich durch die Perfektionierung der Algorithmen selbst ab.\nBei manchen durch Algorithmen betriebenen Werbeangeboten hingegen bekämen Sie diesen Artikel gar nicht erst zu sehen.\nWhile deploring the extremism prevalent in German discourse on the topic of the internet. She herself now takes an extremist and poorly nuanced position herself. The Filter Bubble argument that is currently in vogue (see this treatment by Alexander) is mostly hollow and it creates understanding on the back of fear. I work for the internet and I am sick of hearing this nonsense time and time again.\nThe Filter Bubble contrasts a previously filtered situation of redacted mainstream media with the new filtered situation of personalized online content and plays off of people\u0026rsquo;s fears 3. There are two main differences in the new situation.\nThe first difference is that the filters personalize content spheres for each person. I don\u0026rsquo;t think this is all that problematic. Having trained machine learning algorithms myself, I have seen how coarse they turn out no matter what amount of training. Training which is somewhere between a dark art and trying to hit a subjective target somewhere. Algorithmic filters resemble fractal surfaces more than they do smooth bubbles and personalization will never provide a perfectly sealed off environment. This means that as soon as you get into the technical details the whole thing very quickly falls apart 4.\nThe second difference is that filters are being applied by algorithms instead of editors now. Both are enigmatic creatures, but judging from the cold reception algorithms get, it seems that the traditional humanities are better equipped to deal with human entities than they are with the algorithmic variety. There is nothing new under the sun. Large scale social segregation and associated detrimental effects also happened using traditional media with people logging into their own newspaper or radio station. One of the most visibly polarized societies right now is the USA where the ‘debate’ between the right and the left is raging on talk radio, 24 hour news networks and, yes, also online. If anything the filters may help by making the groups of like minded people too small and too busy to be harmful to society.\nMy second problem is that while complaining about the lack of technical literacy in the general populace, her discipline and her research does not come over as very technically literate. She says:\nUnser Land ist tendenziell eher technikfeindlich eingestellt.\nThe interviewer then adds that she draws from literary and philosophical sources. Those are interesting but hardly enough to thoroughly treat a subject. Deep talk about about information technology should draw from philosophy but it should also bring a literacy of the field itself. That means knowledge of its technical workings and affordances, the design practices inherent in the creation of technical artifacts and the procedurality and interaction that is so key to them.\nSo yes I very much agree that we need to instill a large scale procedural, data and media literacy in people and we may well need to start with the humanities. That may be the only way to fix their relevance problems when it comes to digital things (see also Ian Bogost\u0026rsquo;s two part essay ‘Beyond the Elbow-patched Playground’ on that).\nSo with those skills in hand, we could discuss the filter bubble drawing from applied research. One finding I would like to see is a technical assessment of the feasibility of trapping people in filter bubbles and measurements of the amount of information isolation that can be achieved. Another would be to research real life internet users and see if in fact they shut themselves off more from other influences and how far this affects their world views. Only with a praxis firmly based in reality can we talk about this subject in a way that is not gratuitous.\nUpdate: This review of the Filter Bubble by Olga Goriunova in Computational Culture mostly vindicates my argument and I agree that we need more writing, not less to bridge the gap of literacy that stands ahead of us.\neine Koryphäe ihres Fachs\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nWe\u0026rsquo;ve had the same thing by Nicholas Carr and Andrew Keen and we will have many more.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nStill a good recipe if you\u0026rsquo;re in the business of selling print.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nWhich is why you can say: ‘Making things keeps people honest.’ or why you should distrust those who do nothing but talk.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"January 1, 2012","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/scepticism-on-the-filter-bubble/","section":"Posts","summary":"I think most of the thinking around The Filter Bubble comes from people who are not very procedurally literate to begin with. That is to say they are not very adept at understanding the rules that govern interactive systems nor are they well equipped at reconfiguring them to suit their ends. I touch on this because the same tired argument was parroted in this Zeit interview with Miriam Meckel, a leading German communication scientist 1. It starts off with some very sensible sentiments but then it quickly derails on the topic of algorithms and concludes on several sidelines.\n","title":"Scepticism on the Filter Bubble","type":"posts"},{"content":"I have been in Berlin for a couple of hectic days now and I\u0026rsquo;m trying to come to terms with my surroundings. I have got a new working theory to use for the foreseeable future. Let\u0026rsquo;s see how well this holds up:\nGermany has not quite recovered from their catastrophical experiment with modernism in the ’30s-’40s. This caused them to fall back and get stuck in a sort of classical romanticism. This stuckness has caused them to skip post-modernism and the developments that came after and is the main reason why its cultural velocity is slow. Some individuals have modernized to a greater or lesser extent and the developments of ’68 have had an effect, but the institutional parts of the country remain firmly entrenched in the past.\nAs I said, I\u0026rsquo;m new here and this is two days\u0026rsquo; worth of rumination thinly sliced. Comments for amending it are very welcome.\n","date":"December 24, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/working-theory-for-germany/","section":"Posts","summary":"I have been in Berlin for a couple of hectic days now and I’m trying to come to terms with my surroundings. I have got a new working theory to use for the foreseeable future. Let’s see how well this holds up:\n","title":"Working theory for Germany","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik zou nog schrijven wat de conclusie was van het cameratoezicht op mijn gestolen fiets uit het vorige bericht. Daar stond al hoe je voor dit soort zaken van het kastje naar de muur gestuurd wordt. Ik had nagelaten dit op te schrijven door drukte en frustratie met hoe het gaat in de stad, maar gelukkig herinnerde Rejo Zenger van Bits of Freedom me eraan.\nBijkomend voordeel is dat ik met behulp van ThinkUp mijn tweets van toen kon terugvinden en het verhaal weer aan elkaar kon puzzelen.\nIk had het een beetje opgegeven. Ik moest mijn aangifte afmelden bij een hulpzame agent van het lokale bureau. Toen ik hem vertelde dat er een camera op het plaats delict stond stuurde hij even een patrouille langs die ‘eyes on the scene’ deden en navroegen bij Stadgenoot.\nKort daarna wist hij me te vertellen dat de camera wél van Stadgenoot is ondanks dat Stadgenoot dat ontkende. Alleen volgens Stadgenoot was de camera niet aangesloten en hadden ze dus ook geen beelden van de diefstal 1.\nDaardoor konden we niet anders dan mijn aangifte onverrichter zake sluiten. Als je ergens een fixie ziet met een doorgeroeste Paddy Wagon wielset en eventueel twee spoke cards van de Pariah alley cat, dan is die van mij.\nVragen die blijven naar aanleiding van dit incident:\nWaarom vertelt Stadgenoot in eerste instantie onwaarheid over hun camera (tweet)? Is dat omdat ze niet beter weten? Hebben ze geen zin in gedoe? Of is het kwade opzet? Kan iedereen een camera plaatsen die gericht is op de openbare weg en dan erbij zeggen dat deze niet functioneert? Wie controleert dat de camera echt niet aangesloten is en blijft (tweet)? Wat blijft:\nEr is geen register van camera\u0026rsquo;s in de openbare weg en wie ze beheert. Dit maakt het makkelijk voor instanties om je van het kastje naar de muur te sturen zoals Stadgenoot deed. Elke camera die op de openbare weg gericht is zou een vergunning en registratie moeten hebben of deze nu werkt of niet. Aangezien de functionaliteit van een niet door het normale publiek te controleren is.\nDit is het geval met heel veel beveiligingscamera\u0026rsquo;s aan de hand is, omdat het aansluiten en het onderhouden van de technische installatie vaak te kostbaar blijkt.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"December 24, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/cameratoezicht-conclusie/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik zou nog schrijven wat de conclusie was van het cameratoezicht op mijn gestolen fiets uit het vorige bericht. Daar stond al hoe je voor dit soort zaken van het kastje naar de muur gestuurd wordt. Ik had nagelaten dit op te schrijven door drukte en frustratie met hoe het gaat in de stad, maar gelukkig herinnerde Rejo Zenger van Bits of Freedom me eraan.\n","title":"Cameratoezicht conclusie","type":"posts"},{"content":" Forgot to post the notes for week 246, so here they are briefly.\nCode Camping Amsterdam was featured in the news: Article text Then I was off to Berlin to house hunt and visit our friends over at The Makers Loft and Mozilla and I hung out with some Berlin Game Developers.\n","date":"December 14, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-246/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Week 246","type":"posts"},{"content":"Another week and another change at the office. One thing that does define the Open Coop is that everything is in a constant state of flux adding jitter so none of us remain stuck in a local optimum. The global optimum we are shooting for in and around our location in North is rather ridiculous but best not shared in public. I flew into Amsterdam on Monday morning (takeoff Schönefeld at 07:20) to a rather broken working day. My locative transgressions leaving at least Peter Robinett confused enough to do something about it. He built me a personal glanceable: Where\u0026rsquo;s Alper? (write up). That is the best reason to build software: because you need it.\nAttended to it by my speaking agent Tessa, I submitted a talk brief to NEXT12 about Love in Time of Gamification. And I registered at Hybrid Plattform in Berlin, looking to see what kind of collaborations come from that.\nThe rest of Monday and Tuesday were spent preparing a workshop for the Dutch broadcasting corporation the NOS on the topic of data visualization using off the shelf tools. The course was mainly focused on Google\u0026rsquo;s tools such as Motion Charts, other charts APIs and Fusion Tables but we also managed to touch on some theoretical and ethical questions during the workshop.\nFor me it was great to see how far Google\u0026rsquo;s Fusion Tables offering has come since last I looked at it, becoming a proper tool for big data analysis and visualization for those with the right skills and inclination. Though the data import/export as well as the ties to Google are problematic for corporate customers. It is also very promising how a web savvy group of people as those at the NOS can use the data they have at their disposal to create public facing interactive products. That is the aim and I am very curious what comes out of the NOS during the next year when it comes to data.\nAfter the course I got the obligatory television studio tour and despite having foresworn television some years ago, I could not help but be awed by the studios, the proceedings and the massive disconnect between what happens in physical space in Hilversum and how it is experienced throughout the country. The process of media power at play is an impressive thing to behold.\nI met with Erik Kroesto talk about the intersection of photography and the internet. And then I went to a lecture in the Facing Forward series by Amber Case and Manuel DeLanda. I had read this piece about Case before and the talk contained not much new and DeLanda who I had got pointed to by Matt Jones very recently took his time to introduce us to genetic algorithms as form finding functions. A laypersons introduction to genetic algorithms for me does not contain anything novel either, but DeLanda delivered it with intelligence and wit, which made it still immensely bearable.\nMost surprised I was still at the relative novelty the audience experienced for material that has been old hat in my social sphere for the last couple of years. Tellingly in a room of hundreds there were only a handful of people who had even mentioned the event on Twitter let alone who participated in any kind of discursive backchannel.\nI was and still am more interested in DeLanda\u0026rsquo;s book on simulation. The next day I participated in a workshop in W139 where DeLanda gave me and a bunch of art students an introduction into Realist philosophy as opposed to the other branches.\nWe ended the week with talking about the communications plan and the merger for Open State (the future foundation into which all of Hack de Overheid and het Nieuwe Stemmen are to be combined).\nThis was accompanied with a bunch of festivities among which a Coop party on Thursday, constitutionary drinks on Friday and then off to Utrecht for the Hubbub studio warming. Kars Alfrink has crafted himself an ultra fine place of work and I count myself lucky to be allowed to work there from time to time.\n","date":"December 11, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-247/","section":"Posts","summary":"Another week and another change at the office. One thing that does define the Open Coop is that everything is in a constant state of flux adding jitter so none of us remain stuck in a local optimum. The global optimum we are shooting for in and around our location in North is rather ridiculous but best not shared in public. ","title":"Week 247","type":"posts"},{"content":"Kevin Slavin klaagt op onnavolgbare wijze het bestuur van zijn universiteit de Cooper Union aan waar hij tegenwoordig ook les geeft.\nDe Cooper Union is een topuniversiteit in de Verenigde Staten waar het onderwijs altijd gratis is geweest (zie Wikipedia). Dit gratis onderwijs werd gefinancierd door donaties en rendement op het eigen vastgoed. Nu is door schimmige beleggingspraktijken en een intransparant en waarschijnlijk corrupt bestuur de voortzetting van dat gratis onderwijs niet meer zeker.\n“So as an investor, I challenge you, President Bharucha, the Board, I challenge you to find the real and sustainable resources — transparency, communication, trust, and integrity — resources that can be renewed endlessly. I’ll break my back to build on those and I know that’s true of everyone here.\nDo not allow our investment to fail.”— Kevin Slavin\nHet lijkt er nu op dat vastgoed-hobbyisme niet alleen in Amerika een nevenactiviteit van universiteitsbesturen is geweest. Bij mijn oude universiteit, de Technische Universiteit van Delft is iets soortgelijks aan de hand. Het NRC bericht dat het goed mis is met de integriteit, de beloningen en de vastgoedportefeuille. De universiteit antwoord met ontkenning en spin (én slechte PR).\nHet verbaast ondertussen niemand meer. Het gebrek aan integriteit en transparantie bij mensen die aan de top van grote instituties staan lijkt zich door de gehele samenleving te hebben uitgezaaid. Ik ben afgestudeerd en niet meer persoonlijk betrokken bij mijn alma mater. Maar jammer is het wel.\n","date":"December 8, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/occupy-hoger-onderwijs/","section":"Posts","summary":"Kevin Slavin klaagt op onnavolgbare wijze het bestuur van zijn universiteit de Cooper Union aan waar hij tegenwoordig ook les geeft.\n","title":"Occupy hoger onderwijs","type":"posts"},{"content":" On Monday we ran through the day\u0026rsquo;s schedule for Code Camping Amsterdam and I did a bunch of work on guadalupe.\nThat night DUS had an evening about re-imagining architecture at the Coop. Tuesday I worked at the Brainsley offices and went to the Bits of Freedom drinks in the evening. The Next Speaker now also carries my English profile if you need a speaker on the overlap between technology, design and society.\nI submitted a proposal about data commons to the conference on the Social Cities of Tomorrow by the Mobile City.\nFriday was for the final preparations for Code Camping Amsterdam (write-up here), our largest Hack de Overheid event to date. We had the entire day hacking at the derelict Shell Tower —I wrote about it before— across the water in Amsterdam with great food and coffee and a party at night for another several hundred people.\n","date":"November 30, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-245/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Week 245","type":"posts"},{"content":"I had a great time last week working at the Makers Loft in Kreuzberg while our friends of Gidsy were out and about in San Francisco.\nIt was interesting arranging stuff for Apps voor Nederland from Berlin, but eminently doable thanks to modern communications.\nI also went to see the play ‘Einsame Menschen’ at the Schaubühne. Which was an interesting experience all in all.\nI also had an experience with Android that probably forever cured me from the platform. What a horrible mess that is. Tuesday evening I took the train back to Amsterdam while making two presentations.\nBecause on Wednesday I did a project presentation at the Stimuleringsfonds voor de Pers and after that the same night I did an Ignite on Hack de Overheid at Mediamatic (see this picture of me speaking about transparency and see the picture on the projector). Both presentations went very well.\nMediamatic is currently doing studies in fungus of which this wall is an example: Thursdays was a bit more of a slow day after the 12 hour ordeal of the day before, starting off with doing e-mails at the Village, my favorite hangout in the Netherlands.\nI asked Vlambeer about any indie game developers in Berlin and they came up pretty short on that count. Anytime I inquire about the Berlin game scene I get Wooga 1 and if people really know what they are talking about they mention the great people at Spaces of Play. In any case, the Berlin scene seems thin and ripe for disruption.\nAfter that it was off to Lieke\u0026rsquo;s viva. A smashing display of science if ever there was one: Friday we did some business development for Hubbub with Kars Alfrink visiting over at the Coop and we paid a brief visit to the Super Mario Experience.\nAnd oh yeah, on Sunday I moved my office from the Volkskrantgebouw to the Open Cooperatie which has already been my main base of operations for a while now, so I thought I\u0026rsquo;d make it official.\nWho are probably ace but hors concours for the kind of stuff we are doing.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"November 23, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-244/","section":"Posts","summary":"I had a great time last week working at the Makers Loft in Kreuzberg while our friends of Gidsy were out and about in San Francisco.\n","title":"Week 244","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;m incredibly proud of the team and events coming together in our organization of the biggest Hack de Overheid feature yet. Looking back on the past year, it has been an incredible ride with the various Apps for… competitions and no small amount of personal and professional changes.\nAt the end of this month, on Saturday the 26th, we\u0026rsquo;ll be holding a Hack de Overheid event like you\u0026rsquo;re used to with some notable additions that are going to blow everybody\u0026rsquo;s mind. The event is called Code Camping Amsterdam, it is part of the Apps voor Nederland program in collaboration with Waag Society and you can register on the bottom of the page.\nWe\u0026rsquo;ll be having three internationally renowned speakers whose work alone speaks for itself, let alone their presence on our event. Marietje Schaake is our most favourable representation in the European Parliament but as far as I know a politician of her stature has never before spoke in front of an audience of Makers in the Netherlands before. Marius Watz\u0026rsquo;s visual art inspires awe and wonder and I have used his software on several occasions in my work for Monster Swell. Matt Biddulph\u0026rsquo;s work and shipped products have been used by most of the people I know and inspired me and I think many more programmers to build more and better.\nThe location in the derelict Toren Overhoeks 1 is a culmination both of convenience and inconvenience. Just across the central train station, but without any facilities left in the building 2 it exemplifies a once and future state of our cities. Remnants of an age gone by where hackers gather with makeshift facilities to create something better.\nAfter the event there is going to be a party by the Eddie the Eagle Museum a formation famous in their own right for holding the most out there awesome parties in the city 3. It is a privilege working together with people this competent when it comes to fun and so creative when it comes to convention. See their party description:\nThe future has found us! And its leader is a code. Our digitally hypnotised desire has led to a world without mistakes, governed by spyware and malware. Humanity is an experiment proved inferior. Let’s crack the code to correct it. Enter the Hackathon and exuberantly celebrate a world without errors! With high, low and no-tech, we are the new Trojan Horses marching in, ritually erasing the failings of the past. Let’s roughly and frantic lose our last human bit with a codefest in the Tower of the Shell.\nFinally as I have hinted before, the currency for application contests is diminishing along with the consolidation of the open data platforms and the publication of more and more datasets. If after Apps voor Nederland is over, you follow-up with another cookie-cutter competition, that would be missing the point. That also means that this competition is the best moment to get your datasets out and get attention for them in the ecosystem as it is right now. What will be next? We have some ideas, but we don\u0026rsquo;t know anything for sure yet. The only thing that is certain: you\u0026rsquo;d better be there next Saturday!\nFormerly known as the Shell Tower as it was the location from which Shell\u0026rsquo;s infamous post-colonial regime was directed from.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nThose were all torn out by Shell when they left. Such pleasant people…\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nAnd I\u0026rsquo;m not exaggerating when I say that. Their work is legendary.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"November 18, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/code-camping-amsterdam-imminent/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’m incredibly proud of the team and events coming together in our organization of the biggest Hack de Overheid feature yet. Looking back on the past year, it has been an incredible ride with the various Apps for… competitions and no small amount of personal and professional changes.\n","title":"Code Camping Amsterdam Imminent","type":"posts"},{"content":"It has become even easier to find your way to our office in the Coop. Just follow the green yellow line. And we are accruing more and more birds: The start of the week was busy with preparing and presenting at the RIVM, the Dutch institute for public health and the environment about their consumer portal Kies Beter. Kies beter is effectively a public resource for authoritative healthcare information. It will be interesting to see what role it will play in the coming process of opening up such data. It was a great opportunity to talk and work with the team and see how they see their role.\nAlso the movie I shot for Fast Moving Targets with my quick note from the Dutch Game Garden was published: I met with Jaap Stronks of Johnny Wonder and with some friendly people from Dutch broadcasting company NCRV all about the open data revolution and how it can work for them.\nApps voor Nederland continues apace and the event is rapidly approaching right now.\nI am in the process of liquidating my superfluous effects in the Netherlands as well as my office in the Volkskrantgebouw. It\u0026rsquo;s an odd coincidence that just with my leaving (and with the announcement of the re-development of the VKG as a hotel in a couple of years) a bunch of friends and esteemed colleagues are landing in the building. I would have loved to have shared the building with them for the past two years but for me it is onwards and upwards!\nI had a chat with Casper Koomen who is very active with Pachube\u0026rsquo;s Dutch development efforts. Among other things with an event this Friday called “Breathe Amsterdam”. And I\u0026rsquo;m preparing an Ignite presentation for next week.\nAlso my long form review of Phone Story which had been published in the newspaper before has now been published on Bashers in Dutch: ‘Phone Story — Gamedesign als kritiek op onze gadgetlust’ The comments are predictable but I had wished for a bit more in depth response to the problem I see where platform builders as Apple become governments of the space they created. Which is problematic in this case because they tightly regulate expression within their platform that would be legitimate in any other public space.\nThe winter sun hitting the backyard of our North office, makes for some striking pictures: And then it was off to Berlin to make some more arrangements for the move over there come the new year.\nWe strolled from Neukölln to the South back to Kreuzberg\u0026rsquo;s Südstern and Bergmannkiez via the former airport of Tempelhof. That part of Neukölln is developing but before there is anything approaching a comfortable urban fabric, it will be another five years.\nTempelhof Airport itself is becoming a great example of how creating a hole in a vibrant urban area can make space for all kinds of impromptu and impermanent use. The urban gardening plots are just one example of that. The business on a Sunday even with winter approaching is massive with al kinds of wheeled and/or wind based activities taking place. There seem to be plans to build along the airfield, but that would be very bad obscuring the current urban views into the emptiness. If building is necessary, I would propose to put the buildings on stilts so we can still peer into the Loch.\nI deleted my Klout account after reading the polemic by Charlie Stross: ","date":"November 15, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-243/","section":"Posts","summary":"It has become even easier to find your way to our office in the Coop. Just follow the green yellow line. ","title":"Week 243","type":"posts"},{"content":"That moment where you\u0026rsquo;re texting somebody for the first time and the Send button turns blue. The expectations conveyed with that small indicator about the time to response as well as the type of person on the other side.\n","date":"November 11, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/a-blue-button/","section":"Posts","summary":"That moment where you’re texting somebody for the first time and the Send button turns blue. The expectations conveyed with that small indicator about the time to response as well as the type of person on the other side.\n","title":"A blue button","type":"posts"},{"content":"Going on with Apps voor Nederland and culiacan (which is almost done by now). Also did a brief intermediate scripting and rendering moving text for a TA theater piece.\nWent to the launch of Vice Netherlands\u0026rsquo; web strategy. A nice event, but a bit too reminiscent of the nineties. After that I briefly visited the Hackers and Founders event as well.\nPreparing my move out of the Volkskrantgebouw as well. My home base in Amsterdam will be our office at the Open Cooperatie for the foreseeable future.\n}\nFriday, I recorded a message from the Dutch Game Garden for Fast Moving Targets, a Dutch online tech news show. I think the things happening at the DGG deserve to be communicated much wider and if I can contribute to that by doing this, I will.\nAfter that we went for a board game night at the garden with ample games of Space Alert and Nidhogg.\nI will be speaking at the next ignite at Mediamatic on the topic of ‘Hacking for Social Justice’ (the thing we do at Hack de Overheid).\nSunday we started what could be a nice tradition: a brunch time serving of Tonkotsu Ramen at one of the best Japanese places in the city with some very smart people. If it\u0026rsquo;s up to me, that is going to be a regular occurrence.\n","date":"November 10, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-242/","section":"Posts","summary":"Going on with Apps voor Nederland and culiacan (which is almost done by now). Also did a brief intermediate scripting and rendering moving text for a TA theater piece.\n","title":"Week 242","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik doe recentelijk een stukje over games voor Fast Moving Targets en wat beter te vertellen dan mijn ervaringen uit de Dutch Game Garden. Het is een leuke plek in Utrecht, waar veel gebeurt, maar wat in Amsterdam bijna niet aankomt. Een poging om een brug te slaan: We doen het in het vervolg elke keer uit een andere studio (dat moet ook wel lukken met 30 game bedrijven) met korte interviewtjes.\n","date":"November 8, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/bericht-uit-de-game-garden/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik doe recentelijk een stukje over games voor Fast Moving Targets en wat beter te vertellen dan mijn ervaringen uit de Dutch Game Garden. Het is een leuke plek in Utrecht, waar veel gebeurt, maar wat in Amsterdam bijna niet aankomt. Een poging om een brug te slaan: ","title":"Bericht uit de Game Garden","type":"posts"},{"content":"Apps voor Nederland continues apace as it keeps on doing.\nTalks about open data and data journalism are ongoing at a number of Dutch parties. After last year\u0026rsquo;s attention, it seems that this year various parties are indeed getting serious about it.\nThen I went to a talk by Michael LaFond at ARCAM in Amsterdam about the Berlin co-housing movement that he started in part 1. All the more interesting because I am moving to Berlin in January of next year and we\u0026rsquo;re already registered at several projects on Wohnportal Berlin, the site he setup. Several of the projects he showed during the evening also have our attention as prospective Berlin living space. My notes for the evening and a more elaborate write-up of the Q\u0026amp;A are up on this blog.\nI built a next iteration for guadalupe that is indeed becoming more playable as we speak. I am very eager to invite more people to that play experience sometime soon.\nWednesday we announced the first speaker for Code Camping Amsterdam: Matt Biddulph. We\u0026rsquo;re really excited to have Matt come over to Amsterdam again.\nWent to Booreiland to work on culiacan.\nAt long last I posted the pictures I took of people visiting our office with my Yashica medium format camera.\nMy review of The Binding of Isaac was published in nrc.next.\nSunday we had a marathon meeting for the constitution of the merged foundation that is going to be the greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts Hack de Overheid and Het Nieuwe Stemmen. I am very excited for the potential of the new organization.\nFor some reason many of the new thing happening in Berlin seem to be started by non-locals, but maybe that\u0026rsquo;s a normal thing everyweher.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"November 4, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-241/","section":"Posts","summary":"Apps voor Nederland continues apace as it keeps on doing.\n","title":"Week 241","type":"posts"},{"content":"This was a short week. Work on Apps voor Nederland and then off to Playful.\nNice to see that Peter Robinett is running AMStransit in his office on a spare screen: Hack de Overheid announced Code Camping Amsterdam which is going to be our biggest event yet in a derelict office across the IJ in Amsterdam. Everything is in full effect to organize that.\nPlayful was great and it\u0026rsquo;s always nice to be in London for a short stretch. It was a while that I was last in Conway Hall but it was nice to be back. Niels and Kars have written detailed accounts about the day on Hubbub and Bashers.\nThen in the same weekend (flying into Schiphol in the morning, directly in the car to Germany) it was off to the Ruhrgebiet in Germany to visit among others the Jahrhunderthallen and the Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord.\n","date":"November 1, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-240/","section":"Posts","summary":"This was a short week. Work on Apps voor Nederland and then off to Playful.\n","title":"Week 240","type":"posts"},{"content":"To all you who have won awards (and to all you who haven\u0026rsquo;t):\nawards handed out by its organiser who wants to be seen handing out awards to people who want to be seen receiving them. It’s a simple formulae, but unsustainable in a world where more of the demographic that attends communicates over the back-channel. — Jan Chipchase\n","date":"November 1, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/awards-and-power/","section":"Posts","summary":"To all you who have won awards (and to all you who haven’t):\n","title":"Awards and Power","type":"posts"},{"content":"This summer I shot a roll of color film I had lying around using my trusty Yashica D medium-format camera. The subjects were passers-by in our Amsterdam office. The results were better than expected.\nTies shines on this classic laptop shot (the stickers do add a nice touch): Martijn in a similar stance has a razor sharp glance (and curls): James\u0026rsquo;s essence is captured quite nicely in this picture: Peter came out a bit under-exposed but turned out nicely with some brushing up (and burning): The tallest of former coworkers Tim comes out nicely too: All in all, that is five usable frames from twelve shot which is a more than decent score. It looks like I should shoot more portraits. Any volunteers?\n","date":"October 30, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/geeks-of-ouroffice/","section":"Posts","summary":"This summer I shot a roll of color film I had lying around using my trusty Yashica D medium-format camera. The subjects were passers-by in our Amsterdam office. The results were better than expected.\n","title":"Geeks of @ouroffice","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ian Bogost, videogame-filosoof, publiceerde een tijdje geleden een kritiek op de geesteswetenschappen (http://bogost.com — “Beyond the Elbow-patched Playground”) die moeite hebben uit te leggen waar ze voor dienen (deel 1) en niet weten wat ze met het internet aan moeten (deel 2). Bogost rekent af met academici die zich afzonderen in de ondoordringbare vestingen van hun vakgebied en te weinig relevant zijn voor mensen daarbuiten. Bas Heijnes recent verschenen essay ‘Echt zien’ past eenzelfde redenering toe op de ‘zieke’ roman. Het is nuttig om deze twee redeneringen tegen de kunst- en cultuursector aan te houden. Na de debatten heeft die zich teruggetrokken maar —het lijkt— geen echte lessen getrokken.\nDe kunsten staan onder druk en hadden bij de bezuinigingen net zulke moeite om hun bestaan te rechtvaardigen. Betogers kwamen niet verder dan waardeloze tautologieën “Een samenleving zonder kunst is geen samenleving.” Onzin die alleen werkt bij mensen die dat al vinden. Echte maatschappelijke of economische waarde voerde niemand aan omdat die vaak ontbreekt of omdat kunst die nuttig of populair is, niet serieus genomen wordt.\nBogost stelt in zijn redenering dat de geesteswetenschappen het publiek minachten. Dat had je over de kunsten niet kunnen zeggen tot de ‘Mars der Beschaving’ plaatsvond. Die liet pijnlijk zien hoe verziekt de relatie tussen de sector en het brede publiek is. Een kleine groep mensen wil blijven doen wat ze altijd al deden zonder daar verantwoording over af te leggen tegen de samenleving waar ze afhankelijk van is.\nVerder heeft niet alleen de roman moeite met de (digitale) media zoals Heijne beschrijft, maar vrijwel alle instituties. De kosten om dingen te maken en uit te proberen zijn nog nooit zo laag geweest. Iedereen kan optreden en zichzelf presenteren hoe ze maar willen. Natuurlijk is dat amateuristisch, maar vaak is het wél goed of goed genoeg voor de betrokkenen. Het is niet meer te verkopen dat een kleine groep de artistieke middelen monopoliseert en daar weinig meer mee doet dan een iets grotere elite te bereiken.\nAls de kritieken passen, ligt het voor de hand dat de oplossingen dat ook doen. Bij beiden is dat dat kunst die zich wil beroepen op maatschappelijke waarde met beide benen in de samenleving moet staan en daar relevant moet zijn. Kunst moet de geheimen van de wereld blootleggen en ons dingen leren over onszelf. Daar heeft het helaas te lang aan ontbroken.\nEen correctie was noodzakelijk maar dat die zo hard aankomt ligt meer aan de sector dan aan de staatssecretaris. Het lijkt erop dat mensen er liever voor kiezen om irrelevant te worden dan om met hun tijd mee te gaan. Maar een culturele bosbrand is gelukkig geen ramp. Waar er mogelijkheden zijn zullen behoeftes altijd vervuld worden. Des te makkelijker zelfs zonder de drukkende last van het verleden.\n","date":"October 27, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/de-studio-uit-de-wereld-in/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ian Bogost, videogame-filosoof, publiceerde een tijdje geleden een kritiek op de geesteswetenschappen (http://bogost.com — “Beyond the Elbow-patched Playground”) die moeite hebben uit te leggen waar ze voor dienen (deel 1) en niet weten wat ze met het internet aan moeten (deel 2). Bogost rekent af met academici die zich afzonderen in de ondoordringbare vestingen van hun vakgebied en te weinig relevant zijn voor mensen daarbuiten. Bas Heijnes recent verschenen essay ‘Echt zien’ past eenzelfde redenering toe op de ‘zieke’ roman. Het is nuttig om deze twee redeneringen tegen de kunst- en cultuursector aan te houden. Na de debatten heeft die zich teruggetrokken maar —het lijkt— geen echte lessen getrokken.\n","title":"De studio uit, de wereld in","type":"posts"},{"content":"Running dreadfully behind with these weeknotes so this would have to be a short one.\nI lost my fixie which was something of a blow. Feeling a bit hurt and crippled from this loss. Going to look for a new ride come spring.\nI had lunch with Alexander Zeh and Peter Robinett of Mio Giro.\nThere is some space shortage at the Open Cooperatie but spirits at Hack de Overheid were high: I participated in a knowledge gathering session organized by Info.nl about the future of the tax system in a fully networked society. There were some very interesting people present but always, talking with people who don\u0026rsquo;t make anything is a waste of time.\nAlso conceived of a special event for the playful people of the Netherlands. Stay tuned for updates on that.\nSargasso is very kind to us and says that Hack de Overheid approach is the new way of changing the world. We are very humbled (but would tend to agree).\nI was a bit annoyed by voices against the ‘Creative Class’ and wrote a retort: “Stop Kicking the Creative Class”\nI put the very modest advice work I did on the new Vrij Nederland site on my portfolio. I am glad I got the right people together, could help out some friends and that the result is so excellent.\nI wrote a review of the Binding of Isaac for nrc.next due to be published soon. It is a deceptively deep and addictive game.\nI had coffee with our good friend Toine Donk who is doing very interesting things with books. And I worked the rest of the afternoon at the offices of Brainsley. Besides good friends, they are my hope for innovation in Dutch publishing.\nIanus Keller and other friends were at Design by Fire (which seems to have been very good) and they give me hope with the following tweet:\n@ianus\n!ianus keller There\u0026rsquo;s hope for @ alper we need people to interpret big data @ Geertekerk http://t.co/GI8egdhO\nOct 14 via InstagramFavorite Retweet Reply\nBrainsley had their office warming party on Saturday which was a fantastic convention of internet, fashion and assorted other people: ","date":"October 26, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-239/","section":"Posts","summary":"Running dreadfully behind with these weeknotes so this would have to be a short one.\n","title":"Week 239","type":"posts"},{"content":"I was at an event organized by ARCAM tonight concerning co-operative housing projects which are already very popular in Berlin but are rapidly expanding to other cities. Amsterdam is busy launching its own initiative and Michael LaFond from Berlin presented their experiences with this way of building.\nIt was an interesting evening to attend. The slides were poorly visible from the back, but I managed to jot down a large part of the Q\u0026amp;A where most of the action was. It is interesting to see how eager for knowledge the Amsterdam crowd is. It strikes me as odd that building a house yourself would be novel, but given the market as it is, it is. Also: the Dutch with their capacity for trade and organization should be pretty good at this thing. If that will be so, remains to be seen.\nNotes first quoted:\nMuni of Amsterdam is going to emit a bunch of self building plots\nThere\u0026rsquo;s going to be an event this weekend in Houthaven for the first batch of plots.\nMichael LaFond, American Architect living and working in Berlin id22, Institute for Creative Sustainability\nstarted Wohnportal-Berlin\nfocus on co-housing, community organized housing projects\ndaz - köpenickerstraße\nlocal innovation, community baugemeinschaften, hausvereine\nemphasizes participation in cooperative and community oriented designs organize Wohnportal, platform for architects and housing activists to get their project out there\nlast year: started working with people in other European cities\norganizing a tour of the creative sustainability projects around the city\nAn increased demand even in participation.\nBerlin: 1.9M housing units / 3.5M residents 1.82 person/unit 70m2/unit 40m2/person Weak presence of corporations on the market though everybody leases.\nSince 2009 Berlin offers land to Baugemeinschaften at fixed prices. The best concept and not the highest bidder wins. Criteria: 1. Neighborhood and community orientation 2. Architecture and urban design 3. Sustainability and ecology 4. Financing\nChange in economy and demography forces Berlin like Amsterdam to look at the concept of building houses yourself.\nBaugemeinschaften started in Tübingen and Freiburg\nList of examples among which: \\* Möckernkiez, public access \\* Spreefeld Berlin, secured a road to the land and got the land cheap from the Federal Government, some of the best architects in Berlin \\* AH+, outside of the city center, buildings will produce more energy than they consume\nBaugemeinschäfte are growing larger to the 100 and more houses per project\nCo Housing Cultures book due to be out\nblok0.nl amsterdam.nl/zelfbouw\nManifestation this weekend with the release of 300 plots.\nInitiator of the Vrijburg Project, landscape architect also present. Vrijburg has failed in collaborating with Nuon to create sustainable energy projects.\nNow the questions as much as I could transcribe them:\nQ: How do you manage people who want to rent? Or people with unequal incomes. LaFond: 3 of the projects are affordable housing, some in re-adapting existing buildings. People pay €5-6/m2. There are examples of non-profit cooperations. People that really don\u0026rsquo;t have any money, can\u0026rsquo;t live there.\nQ: The real-estate market in Amsterdam is rather transparent. Transactions are being done between housing corporations, developers and the city. Can co-housing create more transparency in the housing market? So that fairer pricing of land becomes a possibility? LaFond: By making the scale of projects smaller that becomes easier. For democracy, the equal distribution of land is very important.\nQ: The self-build aspect? Who carries the risk if the plan fails? LaFond: You can have affordable houses from non-self-organized projects and vice versa. People that do have money: a core group forms and they look for a piece of land with or without an architect, or they apply to a city land auction, with a group facilitator. They identify the concept and organize a Baugemeinschaft. People bring their own money and they need to go to the bank themselves for credit. The ones without money need to get support from a foundation or other organization. The main reason that projects don\u0026rsquo;t succeed is because they can\u0026rsquo;t find any affordable land.\nQ: How important is the role of the architect? LaFond: If you want to emphasize the group or community, the focus should be with them. There\u0026rsquo;s always the combination of the future inhabitants, the architect and the moderator. The most important thing in Berlin is that people adhere more strictly to the division of roles and don\u0026rsquo;t try to play multiple parts.\nQ: Do the architects design the energy systems? LaFond: Almost always there will somebody extra working on that.\nQ: How do people find it? LaFond: There\u0026rsquo;s the website. The events where people come together and word of mouth about the project. Some architecture firms have their own waiting lists for people who want to be on the next project.\nQ: What\u0026rsquo;s the role of the moderators? LaFond: There\u0026rsquo;s no investor/developer for these projects, that\u0026rsquo;s why they are more affordable. Btu that\u0026rsquo;s also why it demands more intensive participation. They need to understand people and organize them. Manage relations. Sometimes have to protect participants from the architects. There are not that many people who can do this and want to do this. Most architects can\u0026rsquo;t or don\u0026rsquo;t want to do this. (There seem to be companies specialized in this.)\nBob van der Zande (stad Amsterdam, Zelfbouw) also present.\nQ: Is the municipality thinking about social housing in the next 10 years? Van der Zande: We are hoping that there are so many different houses being planned that the option of social housing will materialize.\nLaFond: Some of the co-operative projects will give people the money they invested back but they cannot sell or speculate on the house themselves. This changes the house from a property on the market into something that is there to use. More projects like that are needed to guarantee affordable housing in a city on the long term. If people can make money on their property and there\u0026rsquo;s nothing to prevent it, it is not odd that they will do so.\nQ: How is the other obstacle (that of financing) being tackled? LaFond: Constructions take some time to develop. Umweltbank and GLS bank are very important for these projects. They make less money from the interest and they have a greater desire to support ecological and social projects. It happens that people can collectively apply for money to get credit so not everybody needs to have the same amout of money. GLS is the best example in Germany. They offer different kinds of Burgschaften, you need to have a combination of money, income, property, or a relative who has money. Now also Kleinburgschaften: 25 people can all risk €3000 to join together and cover the risk. Das Miethäusersyndicat (started in Freiburg) exists to help housing groups to buy their buildings and renovate them. Because they have so many buildings now they can get credit to do more buildings. These structures took 20 some years to develop. Stiftung Trias and Edith Marien Stiftung don\u0026rsquo;t like private ownership much. They work to take land away from the market. Community land trusts.\nVrijburg architect: In Amsterdam one bank is interested in these projects: the Rabobank. All the other banks are running away.\n","date":"October 24, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/michael-lafond-berlin-co-housing/","section":"Posts","summary":"I was at an event organized by ARCAM tonight concerning co-operative housing projects which are already very popular in Berlin but are rapidly expanding to other cities. Amsterdam is busy launching its own initiative and Michael LaFond from Berlin presented their experiences with this way of building.\n","title":"Michael LaFond - Berlin Co-Housing","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik was twee weken geleden op een bijeenkomst van de STT over serious games en ik was een beetje teleurgesteld dat de enige kritische reflectie op het onderwerp van de dag —kansen in serious games en gamification— kwam van super-filosoof Jos de Mul. Hoe goed zijn kritiek dan ook was, kritiek van een filosoof is te gemakkelijk weg te wuiven door mensen uit de praktijk. Nederland blijf een land van handelaars en nering is hier de makkelijkste manier om de handen op elkaar te krijgen.\nWij blijven serieuze reserveringen houden bij het klakkeloos doorvoeren van gamification. We denken dat een fijnzinnigere aanpak wenselijk is omdat de problemen ingewikkeld zijn en deze spellen dagelijks door echte mensen gebruikt worden. In onze praktijk bij Hubbub maken we serious games en dat doen we tot tevredenheid van klanten en spelers al zeg ik het zelf. Waar het gamification betreft ben ik één van de eerste aanjagers van Foursquare in Nederland. Ik ben me dus terdege bewust van de mogelijkheden en beperkingen van deze aanpak.\nIk wil mensen en organisaties die iets willen doen hiermee oproepen om professionele hulp in de arm te nemen. Je wilt mensen die een track record hebben in het maken van spellen die werken voor de mensen die ze spelen én voor de bedrijven die ze inzetten. Dat betekent in dit geval Hubbub of andere bedrijven die werken met echte spelontwerpers. Wij zitten niet exact te springen om meer te doen, maar we zien tegelijk wel een acute behoefte aan ervaring uit de praktijk.\nCommunicatie- en interactieve bureau\u0026rsquo;s doen nu een paar slides over gamificatie in hun strategie-pitches om het concept ‘meegenomen te hebben’ maar ze zijn zich vrijwel nooit bewust van de complexiteit en nuances van games en systemen.\nHet zijn goedbedoelde pogingen, maar ze slaan bijna altijd de plank mis. Als je echt duurzame waarde wilt creëren kun je beter direct bij een goede partij aankloppen.\n","date":"October 18, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/wat-moet-je-doen-met-gamification/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik was twee weken geleden op een bijeenkomst van de STT over serious games en ik was een beetje teleurgesteld dat de enige kritische reflectie op het onderwerp van de dag —kansen in serious games en gamification— kwam van super-filosoof Jos de Mul. Hoe goed zijn kritiek dan ook was, kritiek van een filosoof is te gemakkelijk weg te wuiven door mensen uit de praktijk. Nederland blijf een land van handelaars en nering is hier de makkelijkste manier om de handen op elkaar te krijgen.\n","title":"Wat moet je doen met gamification?","type":"posts"},{"content":" Another piece on an interesting game published in nrc.next. This week a critical review of the selective enforcement of the App Store guidelines in the case of Phone Story a game that is itself a critique of the iPhones it runs on. An indictment of Apple makes for an easy piece to write.\nGeodata hero, Simeon Nedkov at the Open Data Bazaar with a very appropriate t-shirt: Tuesday saw the Hack de Overheid event called the Open Data Bazaar. It was a massive success with well over a hundred people from all over the Netherlands. Lots of students were present and lots of hacking went on throughout the day. There was also a brimful workshop program where birds of a feather discussed the current state of open data in the Netherlands.\nDuring the bazaar I worked together with Dirk van Oosterbosch to make an Arduino driven matrix display that shows the departure time of the next bus from the venue. It doesn\u0026rsquo;t get more situated than that and I\u0026rsquo;m glad we can whip something like that up in a couple of hours. It shows that we have come quite a way since first we started with this stuff.\nWednesday I visited OTB at Delft, University of Technology. OTB is the research institute for the built environment, the theoretical backing for the faculty of Engineering, Policy and Management (at which I got a minor in Management of Technology during my studies). I will be consulting with geodata experts in the Netherlands on developer relations so the data and standards they are working on are such that they will be easy to develop with.\nI also visited my old faculty which has been taken over by architecture students after their building burnt down. I must say I have never seen our buildings in better order.\nIn the afternoon we paid a site visit to what is to be the location of the next Hack de Overheid event “Code Camping Amsterdam”. Some of you may already have surmised where it is going to be. Announcements are due next week but suffice it to say that it is going to be massive. We are going to be coinciding with a massive Eddie the Eagle Museum party on the same venue after our event. Something of a departure from previous years but one which should prove to be very fun.\nThursday I spent all day at Bits of Freedom to help them with the #doyourbit fundraiser. Being an independent organization BoF are more dependent on private donations. We love them to death and Hack de Overheid is more than a bit complementary so I try to help them out whenever I can. That Thursday I spent all day at their offices and tweeted like wildfire with a bunch of other volunteers to reach the Dutch internet and get them to donate.\nThat same night there was an event about games in the Stedelijk Museum. It was somewhat problematic testified to by these pieces written by Arjen and Niels. Arjen\u0026rsquo;s piece quite precisely mirrors my qualms about the evening (see also my comment).\nFriday was something of a write-off due to the volume of activities that had happened during the week. Fortunately the symposium of the STT. The day was a nice get-together with most people in the Netherlands active in the field of gaming.\nGamification interlude # What was disappointing though not very surprising was the fact that all of the critical reflection on the day\u0026rsquo;s topic —opportunities in serious games and gamification— came from philosopher-hero Jos de Mul. Which solid as it was, coming from a philosopher, may be too easy to dismiss. The rest was profiteering. The Dutch remain a merchant nation at heart and anything that generates income will be applauded however morally dubious it may be.\nThe issues that we have with both of these concepts are real and they need a considered and nuanced approach. In our practice we make serious games and we seem to be doing quite ok if I may say so myself. When it comes to gamification, I am one of the principal instigators of Foursquare in the Netherlands so I am intimately aware with both the methods and their shortcomings.\nGiven that, I would urge people and organizations who want to do something in this field to seek professional help. That means get in touch with us or with other organizations that employ bona fide game designers. We are not exactly shy for more things to do but there is a clear need for guidance in this field. In any case make sure to work with people who have a track record in designing playful experiences that cater both to the wishes of the humans playing them and to the goals of the businesses commissioning them.\nAgencies are currently including gamification as a slide in their strategy deck, paying lip service to the concept to make a quick buck. If you want to enable them doing that, you are free to do so. But if you want to create real value, why take the long way round?\nInterlude over. That Saturday I went to the movie night at Filmhuis Cavia organized by the guys from Popup City. I wrote about that on this blog at: Stop Kicking the Creative Class.\nAnd I also procured a Huawei X5 to play around with. This seems to be the first Chinese manufacturer that has found a low price point for a device that is still highly capable. The Kenyan market has been flooded with the €99 little brother of this phone, the X3.\n","date":"October 17, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-238/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Week 238","type":"posts"},{"content":"Onlangs zijn de wielen van mijn racefiets gestript toen deze over het weekend geparkeerd stond op de Korte \u0026rsquo;s-Gravezandestraat in Amsterdam.\nIk heb aangifte gedaan van de diefstal en er staat een camera op het terrein van Stadgenoot gericht op de openbare weg waar mijn fiets staat. Ik probeer te achterhalen van wie die camera is om te zorgen dat die beelden bewaard worden en beschikbaar zijn voor het politie-onderzoek.\nIn principe ben ik tegen camera\u0026rsquo;s in de openbare ruimte maar als ze er hangen ben ik wel voor transparante en heldere informatie over van wie ze zijn en wanneer je bij de beelden mag. Dat het hier slecht gesteld is met die informatie bewijst de volgende rondgang:\nStadgenoot ontkent dat de camera van hen is en zegt dat bewoners niet zomaar camera\u0026rsquo;s aan hun huis mogen bevestigen. Ze zeggen dat deze waarschijnlijk van de politie is.\nHet politiebureau dat erover gaat zegt ook niks te weten van deze camera en verwijst door naar de gemeente.\nDe gemeente weet na herhaaldelijk bellen en talloze malen doorverbonden te worden uiteindelijk te achterhalen om welk stadsdeel dit precies gaat en dat team handhaving van stadsdeel Centrum zou moeten weten van wie die camera is. Dit team is \u0026rsquo;s ochtends tussen 9 en 10 op kantoor waarna ze de straat op gaan. Dus morgenochtend wordt dit vervolgd.\n","date":"October 13, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/cameratoezicht-op-mijn-fiets/","section":"Posts","summary":"Onlangs zijn de wielen van mijn racefiets gestript toen deze over het weekend geparkeerd stond op de Korte ’s-Gravezandestraat in Amsterdam.\n","title":"Cameratoezicht op mijn fiets","type":"posts"},{"content":"I was at a meeting this weekend by the Pop-up City and the documentary displayed about urban development fits into a wider recent trend where people kick the creative class and blame them for society\u0026rsquo;s ills. Usually the dreaded specter of gentrification is pulled out to show how apathetic and different and outright bad the Creative Class 1 are.\nThe documentary shown last weekend “Creativity and the Capitalist City” by Tino Buchholz actually showed an interesting and nuanced picture of urban development. Unfortunately this was marred by the rabid and insubstantial left-wing outings of the movie maker afterwards. That discussion did oust a lot of resentment that I think needs to be addressed more openly and more honestly than it currently is.\nAs was remarked in die Zeit recently about the same issue in Berlin: the only thing worse than gentrification is no gentrification. The debate is a lot more heated over there because of the massive influx of hipsters and their friends from all over the world into an impoverished city. A trust fund takes you a lot further in Neukölln than it does in Bushwick, but it also sparks xenofobic pamflets and immolation of vehicles.\nI am a part of that same creative class —if you want to use a blanket term— and probably also a cause of gentrification. But I am sick of apologizing for our success. We picked a profession, we worked hard, we created value (we are not bankers) and now we are winning. Well I can tell you: it feels good to be winning.\nIt is perverse to rest the blame of society\u0026rsquo;s ills on those people actually doing something with their lives. I have had this problem before. If you\u0026rsquo;re a successful migrant in the messed up social debate in the Netherlands, you were nearly forced to apologize for your own success to the rest who were not. I sure as hell wasn\u0026rsquo;t going to do that. The only solution is to ignore the naysayers. It always is of course.\nI can do what I am doing because of a lot of hard work and perseverance. The field of study I got a Masters in is definitely not one of the easier ones at my university but it does guarantee you a job in a wide number of techno-creative fields. For some strange reason people still are not lining up to go to technical universities, and most that do go do not finish it. Complaining to somebody else must be easier than actually working to secure your own future.\nIt is hard enough already in the attention starved world to stay up to date with your close ones without having to take into account every other person. Even more so if your outlook is international and you want to participate and compete on a trans-national level. A rare enough thing as it is. Should we do stuff for our neighborhood? Sure, but who should bear the onus? Shouldn\u0026rsquo;t the people who want to do stuff, maybe start something themselves and see where it goes?\nWorking in a creative profession is subject to taste but it is in many ways also highly meritocratic. Those with affluent parents and large networks will divide a larger piece of pie among themselves. But if you work hard and put in the effort with just a spark of vision, it will most certainly amount to something in the long run. If it doesn\u0026rsquo;t, change yourself and try something else. Keep trying until you find something that works. Is that difficult? Maybe, but it is also the only way.\n“Opportunity is missed by most people because it comes dressed in overalls and looks like work.”—Thomas Edison\nThere are a ton of jobs in technology right now. Amsterdam cannot find itself enough interaction designers, interface designers, front-end engineers and programmers to fill current jobs. The shortage is large enough that a lot of growth opportunities are being hampered by it. Literally all comers will be able to get a job. So get at it. Teach yourself something, find a course and persevere for a couple of years. You may strike gold.\n“You can tell yourself anything is too difficult, or you can just do it. You just need to be hungry.”— http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/09/opinion/sunday/i-went-back-to-the-land-to-feed-my-family.html?_r=2\u0026amp;pagewanted=all\nWe, the employed, already pay taxes. As a base that should be enough. If anybody out there is failing to keep up their end of the bargain, it\u0026rsquo;s the government we are paying the taxes to. They are bailing out the rich and keeping the poor ignorant with well meant institutional schemes that rarely amount to anything (just look at the Wire). Government should change and if the recent occupy movements serve as a wake-up call to do that, all for the better. Though experience does not make me very optimistic on that front.\nIf there is anything we shouldn\u0026rsquo;t do in the Netherlands, it is to pretend that things here are as bad as in the US or anywhere in Europe. We have the lowest unemployment in the Eurozone. We have an egalitarian society, cheap education, social security and mobility. Pretending otherwise is disingenuous and self-serving. You can do pretty much everything you want in this country and I say that not being white, not being privileged. I sincerely believe all it takes is for you to get out and make something. So do it.\nA horrible term, but the one we got to work with.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"October 12, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/stop-kicking-the-creative-class/","section":"Posts","summary":"I was at a meeting this weekend by the Pop-up City and the documentary displayed about urban development fits into a wider recent trend where people kick the creative class and blame them for society’s ills. Usually the dreaded specter of gentrification is pulled out to show how apathetic and different and outright bad the Creative Class 1 are.\n","title":"Stop Kicking the Creative Class","type":"posts"},{"content":" Last week\u0026rsquo;s weeknotes were still due. I built a small public transportation exploration called: AMStransit which is a dynamic glanceable display for nearby public transit in Amsterdam: example.\nWork on Apps voor Nederland and culiacan continues apace.\nVisited Gamelab to see contributions by all-stars Karel Millenaar, Niels \u0026rsquo;t Hooft and David Nieborg.\nAlso an interview I gave about Hack de Overheid was published under the great title “How to Make the Skunk Work With Open Data” (tweet).\nFinally I went to /dev/haag to present about the current state of Hack de Overheid (which is really pretty good).\n","date":"October 9, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-237/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Week 237","type":"posts"},{"content":"Mensen die mij kennen weten dat ik nooit echt dingen retweet en me bezig hou met goede doelen. Alleen één keer per jaar maak ik een uitzondering voor Bits of Freedom omdat ik wat ze doen echt heel belangrijk vind en omdat ik weet dat ze het heel goed doen.\nBits of Freedom komt op voor een open en vrij internet in Nederland en Europa en ze doen dat buitengewoon effectief. Als je je privacy wilt bewaren en een ongefilterde toegang tot het internet wilt houden ga je vandaag naar “Do Your Bit!” en doneer je €5 in vijf minuten. Je krijgt een t-shirt en een goed gevoel.\n","date":"October 6, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/do-your-bit/","section":"Posts","summary":"Mensen die mij kennen weten dat ik nooit echt dingen retweet en me bezig hou met goede doelen. Alleen één keer per jaar maak ik een uitzondering voor Bits of Freedom omdat ik wat ze doen echt heel belangrijk vind en omdat ik weet dat ze het heel goed doen.\n","title":"Do your bit!","type":"posts"},{"content":"I thought this piece: “Amazon and the reintermediation of the spectacle” my Michael Smethurst was well worth reading. Here are some choice excerpts, but these are mainly for me. You should read the entire thing.\nSoftware is what we write to extract information from data. The worse your data model is, the more software you have to write.\nThe fact that we will not enter a Golden Age of Reading because of corporate control, may be the greatest loss (in opportunity cost) the digitization of books will bring us.\nI can’t help but wonder what it would be like to hack with that kind of data. What could you build around community reading groups, formal education, adult literacy? At the very least it would save me the chore of ticking homework diaries. But I doubt we’ll get that chance.\nThe following is one of the reasons that privacy is not going to be salvagable in the future.\nThe most important issue for user experience people to grapple with is informed consent. More and more web services are dependent on user contributed content and data. Every time you make a contribution (explicit or implicit) you’re trading convenience for privacy. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing; it’s something we do everyday in real life from mobile phones to loyalty cards. But as the web moves out of the browser and into smart objects, the trade-offs we’re making need to be made explicit so people can make informed choices about when to get involved and when to back away.\nBecause Amazon are light years ahead of the game we think we’re playing.\nWith the digitization of everything and the scale required, we are becoming the victims of Extremistan or rather of its overlords: Apple, Google and Amazon.\n","date":"October 3, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/victims-of-extremistan/","section":"Posts","summary":"I thought this piece: “Amazon and the reintermediation of the spectacle” my Michael Smethurst was well worth reading. Here are some choice excerpts, but these are mainly for me. You should read the entire thing.\n","title":"Victims of Extremistan","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik probeer mijn literaire vrienden aan het verstand te brengen dat door de technologisering van de samenleving science-fiction een niet meer te negeren onderdeel van de cultuur aan het worden is.\nBoeken zoals ‘Super Sad True Love Story’ van Shteyngart en ‘De kaart en het gebied’ van Houellebecq zijn feitelijk al science-fiction. Aan de andere kant is er science-fiction die de rand van het nu mogelijke bewandelt en ons laat zien hoe de nabije toekomst eruit zou kunnen zien.\nDie ‘edge’ science-fiction is de leukste en elk jaar is er wel een boek te vinden dat precies het nu vangt. Vorig jaar was dat Zero History (mijn recensie op de Republiek, fragmenten) en dit jaar is het dankzij de Londense rellen The City \u0026amp; the City van China Miéville 1.\nKars heeft er voor zijn praatje op dConstruct ook stevig uit geput. Ik moest het toen nog lezen maar heb hem vorige week in anderhalve dag (3 uur en 35 minuten volgens Readmill) doorgeknald.\nHet boek gaat over twee steden Besźel en Ul Qoma die gescheiden worden niet door fysieke barrières maar door conventie. Beide steden liggen op dezelfde plek waar sommige delen grond bij de Besźel horen, en andere bij Ul Qoma.\nWaar het ingewikkeld wordt is dat er delen grond zijn die gearceerd zijn, die bij allebei horen 2. In Miéville\u0026rsquo;s boek negeren mensen die zich op zulke gebieden bevinden de inwoners van de andere stad. Dit is geen keuze, maar een sociale conventie die diep geworteld is van kinds af aan en ook bekrachtigd wordt door een speciale politie-eenheid genaamd ‘Breach’.\nMensen zien de inwoners van de andere stad lang genoeg om niet met ze te botsen maar ontzien ze dan direct (letterlijk). Bewust zijn van wat er in de andere stad gebeurt is een strafbaar sociaal taboe. Beide steden zijn uit elkaar te houden door hun eigen kleuren, architectuur en lichaamstaal die je wel mag zien maar toch ook weer niet.\nWat dat betreft is het een dankbare achtergrond waar allerhande allegorieën zich opdringen. Maar we hoeven niet terug te grijpen op Berlijn of Baarle. We leven effectief al in de meeste grote steden op de manier zoals beschreven door Miéville. The City \u0026amp; the City is een amusante detective-roman met samenzweringen à la de Illuminati en het verlies van één man. Maar belangrijker nog zet het zoals goede science-fiction hoort te doen aan tot denken over de wereld waarin we leven.\nNu aan het lezen Rule 34 van Stross (naar het meme) en daarna Reamde van Stephenson.\nChina is een man in tegenstelling tot wat een schrijver in de boeken van NRC afgelopen week ook dacht.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nEn delen die betwist zijn, de dissensi, en ook misschien delen waarvan de ene stad denkt dat ze bij de andere horen en andersom, maar daarover meer in het boek.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"September 28, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/de-science-fiction-van-nu/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik probeer mijn literaire vrienden aan het verstand te brengen dat door de technologisering van de samenleving science-fiction een niet meer te negeren onderdeel van de cultuur aan het worden is.\n","title":"De science-fiction van nu","type":"posts"},{"content":"Monday\n@polledemaagt An account manager is the clearest sign that you are paying too much. — @alper\nThinking of stuff to do while in Berlin and underemployed (in the beginning maybe).\nLast week\u0026rsquo;s Pirate Party victory in Berlin where they got 10% of the vote should serve as a wake-up call to left-ish political parties that are paying lip service to the internet. There is a massive untapped populace who are completely disillusioned with the out of touch politics of today. GroenLinks and D'66\u0026rsquo;s only luck right now is that the Dutch Pirate Party is so incompetent for now.\nAnd it seems that time travel maps are still popular while we still don\u0026rsquo;t have access to the data. Here\u0026rsquo;s a project being executed by my office mate Arjan Scherpenisse: Skimmed this book by the Council for Social Development (RMO) about the public debate in the age of the internet: Tuesday\nOur friends at Two for Joy Coffee Roasters have opened their second store in Amsterdam. It\u0026rsquo;s a new favorite place to work and meet: Kars put the slides for his dconstruct talk on the Transformers online. Well worth a read for a realistic view on the city and games.\nWork on Apps voor Nederland and culiacan working at pace. I\u0026rsquo;m very proud of the community that is coming together.\nWednesday\nI dropped by Ernst-Jan Pfauth and Ward Wijndelts who are settling in their new offices for their startup: I concluded the day by chairing the jury deliberations for Apps for Noord-Holland. The day was concluded with the award ceremony and festivities.\nThursday\nFinished reading The City \u0026amp; The City by China Miéville. A poignant book. The science-fiction book for this year. I read it on Readmill which is a pleasant enough reading experience but I don\u0026rsquo;t know yet if it will be the home of my future library.\nDropped by the great design team at Buro Pony in Rotterdam to discuss the future of the specialty design store: Dufarge.\nMet with Christian Friedrich at Rotterdam\u0026rsquo;s new espresso bar Hopper. Caught up a bit on the Fyra back with Yuri van Geest. A pleasure as always.\nFriday\nFriday was concluded in Utrecht with more writing and working at the Hubbub studio.\nWe had a great time playing The Resistance a mashup between Mastermind and Werewolf.\nYes, that is the best we have found thusfar for a Microsoft Surface Table.\nCatching up on the news of the week in die Zeit, here a profile of all the elected Pirates: Most of them have either studied sciences or work in IT (or both). Politicians who can do maths. That may be an actual solution to the economic crisis we are in.\nAnd an editorial about the lack of responsibility in society both on the macro as in the microscale: ","date":"September 27, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-236/","section":"Posts","summary":"Monday\n","title":"Week 236","type":"posts"},{"content":"An idea I had while browsing through Instagram and easily executed, a Turkish Dutch mashup flag: ![](/img/Turks-Nederlandse Vlag.svg)\n","date":"September 22, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/a-dual-national-flag/","section":"Posts","summary":"An idea I had while browsing through Instagram and easily executed, a Turkish Dutch mashup flag: ![](/img/Turks-Nederlandse Vlag.svg)\n","title":"A dual national flag","type":"posts"},{"content":"So this was announced: A Netherlands wide apps competition called Apps voor Nederland was announced by several ministries today at PICNIC. Minister for the interior Donner delivered a video message as well.\nThe organization I\u0026rsquo;m involved with, Hack de Overheid will be organizing two events end of this year with the first one being an open hacking event on October 4th and the second being a Code Camp in Amsterdam end of November.\nThe message I am promoting is that this is the time to get on board and get your data out and start building civic apps. This is the last moment in the cycle that any of this is going to be at all special, innovative or unboundedly fun. After we\u0026rsquo;re done with this event most of the ground will be covered, hearts will be won and anybody talking about open data will be hailed with a ‘Been there, done that!’\nOf course there will still be a dozen years of hard work for a great many people to change our institutions, build businesses on top of usable humane applications and educate a populace. There may even be fun to be had here and there, but you would be a fool not to get on board right here right now and help us kick this off.\nSee you October 4th.\n","date":"September 15, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/apps-voor-nederland/","section":"Posts","summary":"So this was announced: A Netherlands wide apps competition called Apps voor Nederland was announced by several ministries today at PICNIC. Minister for the interior Donner delivered a video message as well.\n","title":"Apps voor Nederland","type":"posts"},{"content":"On Monday I let go a bunch of stalling side projects which were not going anywhere.\nBlogged about the Foursquare screen we made with a video which finally wrapped up that project (try to find a slot between 12:00 and 17:00 to make it to Leidseplein on a workday).\nInteresting bit of news that TfL is implementing systems to prevent Oyster overcharging. This is where the transit card in the Netherlands is used as a way to surreptitiously draw money from unsuspecting travelers.\nFound this random shirt design site: Zufallsshirt.de\nWrote a small review in Dutch of the theater experience De Club we went to last week. It aims to be an engine for social change instead of a traditional play, but in that respect it is somewhat lacking still. We are somewhat interested because this —creating systems that yield interesting experiences— is our work.\nTuesday I finally got to see this video from our visit to the fortress: We are quite busy planning the next events for Hack de Overheid.\nWednesday was spent working in Utrecht and I got featured in an interview where I called out gamification for the bullshit it is at Virtueel Platform: “De keerzijde van gamification”\nThursday my profile got featured on The Next Speaker where you can now hire me to present at your event.\nAmsterdam is also increasingly getting more machine readable: We are also very glad with the funding of Venus Patrol a publication that we hope can shed a new light on the relation of games and culture.\nI was present at the launch of a new Dutch Literature Magazine: Das Magazin (yes, German name…).\nFriday after breakfast with Dirk van Oosterbosch en Alexander Zeh, I helped out with painting the Open Cooperatie.\n","date":"September 13, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-234/","section":"Posts","summary":"On Monday I let go a bunch of stalling side projects which were not going anywhere.\n","title":"Week 234","type":"posts"},{"content":"The weekend before last we were on a fortress (part of the defense works of Amsterdam) to spend a day on hacking civic data for Apps for Noord-Holland.\nDuring that day I was interviewed by Netwerk Democratie about open data and digital democracy. The resulting video is here below:\n","date":"September 7, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/democracy-on-a-fortress/","section":"Posts","summary":"The weekend before last we were on a fortress (part of the defense works of Amsterdam) to spend a day on hacking civic data for Apps for Noord-Holland.\n","title":"Democracy on a fortress","type":"posts"},{"content":"Another long form weeknote, history recapping brought by the fantastic Memolane service which aggregates my various media chronologically so I can quickly write this overview.\nOn Monday busy finishing a bunch of stuff and exercising my bureaucracy muscle by writing different varieties of administrativa.\nGot started using Amen which is a ridiculous amount of fun. Any such service that relies on human input will need to be fun to start with to garner any amount of critical mass. I have some invites left for those that want them.\nAlso saw this zombie themed ARG running in Amsterdam throughout the week: Tuesday saw the happy celebration of the Eid al Fitr (in our language called the şeker bayramı) along with work on culiacan.\nThis video regarding the internet and physical shutdowns of the SF BART is not to be missed: Note the concept of a common carrier which is something we should have in Europe as well.\nAlso found this fab produced bike fender the “Fendor Bendor” (by Wit Industries) at the other office sitting in a rack: Wednesday saw a day in Utrecht preparing for the trip to dConstruct to see Kars Alfrink speak about the Transformers.\nRegarding the discussion that came back again: I do think that designers should code, but that answer should be a bit obvious seeing as I am a creative technologist. It does deserve a blogpost of its own.\nThursday saw travel to the UK with a direct transfer to the Moo party taking place in Shoreditch. The expected group of hipsters and old friends had congregated on a parking lot (which was more fun than I make it sound right now). Met some interesting people doing similar things in the UK as we are over here (such as the organizer of the Mozilla festival).\nAlso read the shocking announcement that the prices for Google App Engine are going to increase some 30 times when the service goes out of preview (they call it a ‘new pricing model’). It was a formidable place for quickly developed applications that need to run solidly with little attention. I even gave a presentation how it is *better* than Django for a certain class of developer needs. Now I do feel forced to cancel any subscription I have running there and to stop investing in that particular platform because running any serious application would be unsustainable at current pricing.\nBashers launched a linklog Beat for everything game related, which is worth browsing through on occasion.\nOn recommendations from highly regarded friends I bought The Information by James Gleick though I already get the feeling that I am not going to read a lot of new things in there (seeing as our history of informatics, science philosophy and information theory classes in university were pretty thorough): Upon entering the UK I was hit by some encounters still reminiscent of the social problems that just recently plagued London. That and the general grittiness of the parts of London we went through gave me a lot of misgivings about the city. I am pretty sure I\u0026rsquo;m not going to go to London ‘for fun’ anytime soon and I found myself very glad to be living in Amsterdam.\ndConstruct contained some gems and some platitudinous talks as was expected. Me and my friends appreciate a different talk than the agency based web people that also attend which must put conference organizers in something of a bind when programming.\nIt was a lot of fun to hang around with my crew of Iskander Smit, Taco Ekkel and Kars Alfrink (who gave a terrific and hard hitting presentation) and to meet people such as Ben Bashford, Sjors Timmer, Marrije Schaake, Albert de Klein and many others I forget to name.\nSaturday was spent recuperating from the trip and on Sunday more of the same. I celebrated my fifth Twitterversary and both of the offices I keep in Amsterdam (the Volkskrantgebouw and the Open Coop) were featured in the Parool magazine: ","date":"September 6, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-233/","section":"Posts","summary":"Another long form weeknote, history recapping brought by the fantastic Memolane service which aggregates my various media chronologically so I can quickly write this overview.\n","title":"Week 233","type":"posts"},{"content":"Je gaat een verlaten loods in waar je verwelkomd wordt. Je mag de ontmoeting met de ander aangaan voor een persoonlijke ervaring en voor een hoger doel. De bedoeling wordt gaandeweg duidelijk en het uiteindelijke aanbod is lidmaatschap van een club, van dé Club.\nVeel mensen worstelen door het wegvallen van traditionele structuren met vragen over zingeving en hoe we de samenleving moeten inrichten. Met de crisissen waar we de laatste tijd door geplaagd worden zijn die vragen urgenter dan ooit. Elke moeilijke tijd heeft mensen nodig die nieuwe dingen verzinnen en uitvinden hoe het verder moet. De Club is een mengvorm van kunsten, mensen en thema\u0026rsquo;s die hen zoekt en verbindt.\nElke avond is anders. Iedere deelnemer haalt eruit wat ze erin stopt, op de avond zelf en daarna. Wat het wordt, dat weet niemand maar de uitnodiging staat open en de noodzaak is duidelijk. Het enige wat er te verliezen (en te winnen) valt is een alternatief.\nDe Club speelt zich nog tot 25 september af in Roest Amsterdam en daarna in Eindhoven en Gent. http://de-club.nu\n","date":"September 5, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/ik-ben-bereid/","section":"Posts","summary":"Je gaat een verlaten loods in waar je verwelkomd wordt. Je mag de ontmoeting met de ander aangaan voor een persoonlijke ervaring en voor een hoger doel. De bedoeling wordt gaandeweg duidelijk en het uiteindelijke aanbod is lidmaatschap van een club, van dé Club.\n","title":"Ik ben bereid","type":"posts"},{"content":"A new experiment, extended weeknotes combined with assorted reading and outtakes. I think this may be more fun for me to write and more fun for you to read.\nHad a meeting for tlaquepaque to finalize the starting details of what is going to be an exciting roller coaster for Hack de Overheid. Also did some sketching on tlalnepantla.\nThe increased activity on Hack de Overheid also means that we will be working together more tightly and on location more often. The fact that we have a brilliant office space in the Open Coop in beautiful Amsterdam Noord does help.\nCuliacan is moving forward steadily.\nMet with Tessa from the Next Speaker and whipped my /about and /speaking pages into shape to be a bit more representative.\nWe had Hack de Overheid drinks near the office for people that have made an app in one of our contests before and after that was dinner with Chris Taggart.\nThe friendly people from DUS architects that we are sharing an office with won the most important Amsterdam art award and held a party to celebrate: And then finally on Saturday we celebrated Apps for Noord Holland or we could better say: ‘Apps on a Fortress’. It was a great event on a superb location with a full roster of people present. Solid progress was made on hacking civic applications and we are curious to see what the final entries in the contest will be.\nI made two small sketches for Monster Swell visualizing some of the released data sets and chaired the demos of the days hacks.\nA visualization of vacant office spaces in and around Amsterdam: And the locations in the SOAP data dump of the NDW measurements files we got (this is a very obtuse goldmine): Elsewhere on the internet:\nTalking about app contests, I came upon this old piece by Andy Oram about the sustainability of app contests: “App outreach and sustainability” to which I wrote a reply “Hackathons as gateways to more and better open data” without knowing that it had already been replied to at Radar by Alex Howard: “Everybody jumped on the app contest bandwagon. Now what?”\nThe same issue was touched upon here in Londen as well. People are wondering what sustainable results have ever resulted from a hackday/unconference other than some incidental learning. The learning itself may already be a good thing, but the expectations that are raised are somewhat higher. There are at least movements going to merge several initiatives to try to get at least some programmers working together with designers and product manager type people to create a viable offering. On the other hand we are working with Hack de Overheid to persuade government to be more open to adopting these initiatives.\nThe issues of gentrification and how a city\u0026rsquo;s development can work to stifle itself was touched upon in several pieces last week. The Times article “Revelers See a Dimming in a Capital’s Night Life” tells how the nightlife of Paris is being banished by its new affluent class of complainers. A similar movement is going on in Amsterdam now again under the moniker ‘Jordaanoproer’ where people who have bought dearly into one of the city\u0026rsquo;s most expensive neighborhoods expect some peace and quiet at night (to little avail). And there\u0026rsquo;s a story in Taz “Das Leben ist kein Ponyschlecken!” that counterbalances the current gentrification panic by calling the people writing those stories ‘hormone guided journalist moms and dads who want to raise their children in a Bullerby idyll.’ A large city will inevitable have some rough edges that should not be exaggerated (and Berlin is producing some nice stuff).\nAdam Greenfield wrote the great: ‘Perilous asymmetries: Playing with trust in the “smart city”’ which is well worth reading:\nOur wager with Farevalue is that a relatively minuscule informational intervention — amounting to a single line of copy, presented in the right voice, in the right place and time — has disproportionate power to transform our encounters with the pervasive networked infrastructure that now undergirds so much of urban life.\nI saw the new movie by Nuri Bilge Ceylan: “Once upon a time in Anatolia”and wrote a small review about it.\nIan Bogost writes an interesting reflection on the digital humanities: Beyond the Elbow-patched Playground part 1: The Humanities in Public:\nHumanist intellectuals like to think of themselves as secular saviors working tirelessly in the shadows. But too often, they\u0026rsquo;re just vampires who can\u0026rsquo;t remember the warmth of daylight.\nAnd part 2: The Digital Humanities:\nThe digital humanities must decide if they are potting their digital plants in order to prettify the office, or to nurture saplings for later transfer into the great outdoors. Out there, in the messy, humid world of people and machines, it\u0026rsquo;s better to cast off elbow patches for shirt-sleeves.\nBogost\u0026rsquo;s thinking is I think also highly applicable to the Dutch culture scenes and recent protests against the cutbacks. As with the humanists all too often you get a sense that they bear active disdain for their audiences or the general public and that they are far too little oriented towards the public and active participation in the world:\nThe humanities should orient toward the world at large, toward things of all kinds and at all scales. The subject matter for the humanities is not just the letters and arts themselves, but every other worldly practice as well. Any humanistic discipline can orient itself toward the world fruitfully, but most choose to orient inward instead, toward themselves only.\nJust like Bogost says that humanists should be private educators and public spies, the arts should be critics of the human condition both in the small and in the large. To do that, they need to be a bit more relevant and inclusive than they have been thusfar. Both pieces are well worth reading and its staggering how far the analogy keeps.\nThe article about plastic surgery in Brazil is not to be missed: “A ‘Necessary Vanity’”:\nThis notion of a right points to a potential problem with rights during a period when consumers are becoming a more powerful political force. When a good life is defined through the ability to buy goods then rights may be reinterpreted to mean not equality before the law, but equality in the market.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s interesting to see how in the run-up to hurricane Irene the NYC government\u0026rsquo;s site buckled but the office had enough web savvy to switch to proven scalable websites such as Dropbox and Facebook to be able to continue spreading disaster information to the general public. Government should have its information services in order but being able to switch flexibly in the face of adversity is definitely a bonus.\nThis API to the displays on Times Square is hugely exciting from an interactive displays point of view. If you want to learn how to program for such a thing, you could do worse than start off at the courses from Codecademy.com.\nDe Club (we do not talk about the club) is doing a run of performances these weeks in Amsterdam. I don\u0026rsquo;t know what it is about yet, but still I think you should go if you\u0026rsquo;re into gripping theatrical experiences.\n","date":"September 3, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-232-extended/","section":"Posts","summary":"A new experiment, extended weeknotes combined with assorted reading and outtakes. I think this may be more fun for me to write and more fun for you to read.\n","title":"Week 232 - extended","type":"posts"},{"content":"I think it\u0026rsquo;s time to archive the hagiography that was on my About page. I apologize if you were duped or offended by it. Anyway, you should know better than to take any piece of text containing the phrase ‘thought leader’ seriously.\nI think it\u0026rsquo;s still pretty fun, so I\u0026rsquo;m archiving it here as a quote:\nAlper Çuğun is an engineer of the user experience specialized in cutting edge web technology, data viualization, physical interaction, game design and location based services.\nIncredibly well connected within the tech scene but also always looking beyond the edges. He is known and respected among his peers, the most innovative web denizens, both locally and abroad and is responsible for startups, high quality writing, business innovation and winning numerous competitions.\nEducation # He graduated from Delft, University of Technology —a no nonsense engineering university colloquially known as the school of Getting Things Done— on the topic of crowd-sourcing avant-la-lettre. His curriculum of Media and Knowledge Engineering was comprised of a thorough foundation of computer science, signal processing, compression, computer graphics, data visualization, statistics, data mining, information retrieval, 3d programming and assorted other courses along with a solid minor of business courses in Management of Technology.\nThis solid grounding at one of the most respected technical universities of the world and the manner of thought acquired there have continued to serve Alper well throughout his professional and personal endeavours.\nEarly career # Already being well situated in the local and European web scenes after finishing university Alper went straight into freelancing for Aardverschuiving Media without an intermediate period of corporate mind numbing. Trying to find a good position to innovate the web from Delft, he also opened a coworking office for a year that became a hub for the local freelance community —he also started Dutch coworking map Coworker.nl together with Robert Gaal— shortly after which he moved to the greener pastures of Amsterdam.\nAlper is also a founding member of Dutch finance startup Tipit.to a small corporation that has transformed thinking on crowdsourced micropayments and despite struggles with Paypal has financed Wikileaks among other public initiatives.\nThought leadership # Alper regularly exchanges ideas with industry thought leaders both in and out of Europe by visiting the best conferences and meeting up with the acest of web people.\nThe blog Alper writes on this site is a long running mainstay of the Dutch blogosphere and it continues to be a widely respected peripatetic rumination on the intersection of design, technology and society in the broadest sense.\nAlper and Robert Gaal\u0026rsquo;s nose for up and coming web trends enabled them to scout the fresh startup Foursquare and bring it to its first international outing in Amsterdam shortly after its 2009 SxSWi launch. They both remain set to this day both on founding, finding and befriending the web\u0026rsquo;s next hottest startups.\nAlper\u0026rsquo;s newest foray is Monster Swell an agency to aid people, corporations and governments in making sense of vast quantities of data using statistical analysis, user experience design and data visualization. Never content to settle for yesterday\u0026rsquo;s status quo Alper is determined to stay at the forefront of the technological wave.\nExtra curriculum # An avid cultural consumer of the most eclectic of offerings as well as a longtime runner, capoeirista and occasional surfer, Alper Çuğun is a modern day renaissance man in both mind and body.\nAlper is also well represented on the following web properties: Twitter, LinkedIn, Flickr, Anobii, Dopplr, last.fm and Delicious.\n","date":"August 25, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/new-year-new-about/","section":"Posts","summary":"I think it’s time to archive the hagiography that was on my About page. I apologize if you were duped or offended by it. Anyway, you should know better than to take any piece of text containing the phrase ‘thought leader’ seriously.\n","title":"New year, new about","type":"posts"},{"content":" De film “Once Upon a Time in Anatolia” begint met wijdse Anatolische vergezichten over de zo herkenbare landschappen van mijn jeugd waar drie auto\u0026rsquo;s zich over dorpsweggetjes van bron naar akker begeven.\nDe kwestie waar het om draait is het vinden van een lijk. De vermeende moordenaar zit in een van de auto\u0026rsquo;s omringd door een dokter, twee agenten en een chauffeur. De dikkige kale mannen die de auto vullen en hun banale verhalen over yoghurt en andere alledaagsheden zouden het een knusse rit maken als het een ander doel betrof.\nDe dialogen tijdens de zoektocht en de koddige situaties hier en daar doen denken aan de karakteristieke scène\u0026rsquo;s die Tarantino en de Coen broers hebben neergezet maar met meer dan een vleugje mystiek. Nuri Bilge Ceylan zet een typisch Turks platteland neer met zinsnedes die er niet om liegen (en matig vertaald zijn). De wijdse shots over het landschap en het licht \u0026rsquo;s nachts zijn indrukwekkend waar de scène\u0026rsquo;s overdag een beetje flets bij afsteken.\nDe lijkvinding schiet niet op net zoals de films van Ceylan. Tergende traagheid lijkt zijn handelsmerk, al is dat in deze film nog draaglijk. In langzame shots van dromen, rollende appels of simpelweg close-ups van de hoofdrolspelers worden dingen gevat die niet in woorden uit te drukken zijn.\nDe missie zelf lijkt hopeloos en verzandt in een dorpsklucht. Ondertussen doodt men de tijd met verhalen, het uiten van klein en groot zeer naar elkaar, het stelen van groente en fruit en het mijmeren over de wendingen die het leven genomen heeft.\nEr is een apocrief verhaal dat de naam Anadolu (Anatolië in het Turks) een samenstelling zou zijn van ‘Ana dolu! Dolu Ana!’, wat zoveel betekent als: ‘Moeder vol! Het is vol moedertje!’ Een groep soldaten was naar verluid door dat deel van Turkije aan het trekken toen ze verdwaald en geplaagd door dorst ten einde raad waren. Ze kwamen op een gegeven moment een vrouw tegen die ze hielp en hun flessen zo ver vulde met water (of ayran) dat ze moesten zeggen: ‘Het is al vol moeder.’\nEenzelfde iets gebeurt in deze film waar de dochter van de burgemeester als een engel in de duisternis licht, thee en cola brengt en alle mannen als betoverd achterlaat.\nNadat het lijk gevonden is, verandert de film en verplaatst de focus zich naar de hoofdpersoon. De film krijgt dan iets tergends, wat toepasselijk is gezien de dodelijke vermoeidheid na een nacht doorwerken. Het echte leven gaat door na de nachtmerrie. Alles wordt afgehandeld, er is ruimte voor compassie maar feitelijk verandert er niks.\nGezien zaterdag 20 augustus in Rialto op het World Cinema Amsterdam festival. In de reguliere Cineville te bekijken in het najaar van 2011.\n","date":"August 23, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/film-once-upon-a-time-in-anatolia/","section":"Posts","summary":" De film “Once Upon a Time in Anatolia” begint met wijdse Anatolische vergezichten over de zo herkenbare landschappen van mijn jeugd waar drie auto’s zich over dorpsweggetjes van bron naar akker begeven.\n","title":"Film: Once Upon a Time in Anatolia","type":"posts"},{"content":"A bunch of work on finalizing Code 4, work on culiacan continues steadily nearing a launch sometime soon, and kicking off ideation and sketches for tlalnepantla.\nNice to get recognition for writing from long long in the past. James linked to an old piece I wrote about getting stories from your database.\nApps for Noord Holland (saltillo) is this coming Saturday and signups are shaping up nicely. How could they be otherwise for the opportunity to spend a day programming and learning together on a fortress from the defense works of Amsterdam. There are still some spots open, so sign up if you want to make it an awesome experience.\nI was over at Utrecht last week just to escape the many meetings plaguing me in Amsterdam. A new rule which I will try to adhere to: I will participate in a maximum of one hour of meetings every week. My review of the Cat and the Coup (a documentary game) was published over at Bashers and I wrote a short Jane Jacobs inspired piece lamenting the narrow sidewalks of the area I live in.\n","date":"August 22, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-231/","section":"Posts","summary":"A bunch of work on finalizing Code 4, work on culiacan continues steadily nearing a launch sometime soon, and kicking off ideation and sketches for tlalnepantla.\n","title":"Week 231","type":"posts"},{"content":"The sidewalks of the newly renovated Marnixstraat: These are too narrow to accomodate people walking along them side by side, let alone when the sidewalk is obstructed by plants, bikes, scooters, furniture and other things.\n“Sidewalk width is invariable sacrificed for vehicular width, partly because city sidewalks are conventionally considered to be purely space for pedestrian travel and access to buildings, and go unrecognized and unrespected as the uniquely vital and irreplaceable organs of city safety, public life and child rearing that they are.”—Jane Jacobs\nAdd to that the fact that Amsterdam city politics is hostage to the car and you get this.\n","date":"August 21, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/sidewalks-on-the-new-marnixstraat/","section":"Posts","summary":"The sidewalks of the newly renovated Marnixstraat: ","title":"Sidewalks on the new Marnixstraat","type":"posts"},{"content":" The first week after the holiday and therefore somewhat slow. Some work on Code 4, Choke Point Project and our own internal game project guadalupe.\nIt was fun to help our friends from Hubbub move into their new offices. A bit bare at first, but shaping up nicely.\n","date":"August 18, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-230/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Week 230","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;m right now reading The Death and Life of Great American Cities, the seminal volume on city planning by Jane Jacobs, for the first time.\nThe experience is a warm bath unlike any other. Reading the first part on ‘The Peculiar Nature of Cities’ I could not help notice the urban fabric everywhere around me realized by the people that make up the streets here in Westerpark, Amsterdam.\nThen reading the second part ‘The Conditions for City Diversity’ brought home how and where those conditions are lacking currently in Amsterdam.\nReading this book was long overdue for me. So many of my own ideas about city planning and urbanism are mirrored, most probably from the osmosis and inspiration I have gotten from friends over the years. It is quite uncanny. But there is still a lot to learn from Jacobs\u0026rsquo;s book and it should be compulsory reading for all council members of Amsterdam and other cities.\nTwo issues that are particularly striking right now:\n1. # In chapter 13, ‘The Self-destruction of Diversity’, Jacobs talks about how when an area becomes diverse enough that it starts to attract people, the attraction and the increasing prices that generates may price out the very factors that made it attractive in the first place.\nThis is taking place right now in the central areas of Amsterdam. Most apartments are affordable only for the high double incomes or they are split up into rooms and let out to students and young professionals at a high markup. Along with the pressure that tourism puts on the city center and the lack of attractive areas outside of the A10 perimeter, this makes for high pressure on real estate prices. Where house prices are on the decline pretty much everywhere in the Netherlands, they are sharply on the increase in Amsterdam.\nThe issue as it is identified by Jacobs is that there is a high influx of people looking to live in Amsterdam but there are not enough attractive quarters for those people to choose from. This puts all the pressure on the city center, whereas vast spaces outside of the A10 perimeter are (rightly) considered unattractive. This is a blatant failing of city government to create a supply of attractive living quarters to service demand.\n2. # Jacobs talks about ‘the need for primary mixed uses’ and ‘the need for aged buildings’ to create diversity. Those two needs make it abundantly clear why a city development such as IJburg cannot be a worthwhile place to settle for the next thirty years.\nFirst IJburg contains no necessity for people to go there except to leave the island for work in the morning and to go back home in the evening. Footfall is near zero. I myself have only been there three times maybe in the last two years (and that still is three times more often than most people in Amsterdam). That makes it dead and unattractive for stores and other facilities to open. Those that try, cannot make ends meet and usually close down again quickly making for a rapid succession of tenants and lots of empty storefronts.\nSecondly, because it is all new development, rents are too high for many essential neighborhood facilities to take root. IJburg will not have a Turkish grocer or a coffee house because those kind of stores need older, more run down (and therefore cheaper) buildings to settle in. Moving there means giving up access to those tiny neighborhood stores and in fact on lively neighborhood life altogether.\nOne has to wonder, what were the architects, the council and the developers thinking (if at all)?\nUpdate: Read more playful reflections on the pertinence of Jane Jacobs to the Dutch urban fabric over at Hubbub: New ideas must use old buildings\n","date":"July 27, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/jane-jacobs-and-the-city-of-amsterdam/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’m right now reading The Death and Life of Great American Cities, the seminal volume on city planning by Jane Jacobs, for the first time.\n","title":"Jane Jacobs and the city of Amsterdam","type":"posts"},{"content":"Monday I went off exploring a fort for an upcoming Hack de Overheid event. The industrial scenery and weather at the sea locks of IJmuiden was positively apocalyptic that day.\nThe week was spent a bit catching up from a cold and ticking off stuff before a week of Berlin (staying at Your Neighbours) and a week of off the grid R\u0026amp;R in the Alps. So a frantic pace here and there.\nTuesday we went for a technical house call in the Hague: Kilian wrote up his work on Statlas. Expect more on that after the Summer lull.\nMy presentation on CHI Sparks 2011 was put online (thanks Yohan Creemers) and quite pleased with how that turned out:\nChi Sparks 2011: Code 4 - A large scale game for organizational change from Chi Nederland on Vimeo.\nThere seems to be a VOLUME magazine out in which are incorporated our contributions about how architecture and the ‘internet of things’ should mesh. I haven\u0026rsquo;t had a chance to read it yet, but I\u0026rsquo;m curious as to the results.\nJames Burke and I made plans about the Chokepoint Project and an upcoming visit to the CCC Camp in Finowfurt.\nA review I wrote for nrc.next about the documentary game: The Cat and the Coup (about the British/American coup d\u0026rsquo;état in Iran) saw print in a strongly reduced form. Expect a more elaborate version of that to hit Bashers in the next month.\nI wrote a brief thing about how my ideas about Amsterdam urban development are supported by Jane Jacobs seminal work: “Jane Jacobs and the city of Amsterdam” and also wrote a small something over at Monster Swell to commemorate the 10e6 Foursquare users milestone and Amsterdam\u0026rsquo;s small role in that.\nWith all of that done, it was into the night train to Berlin for a Friday very early morning arrival.\n","date":"July 25, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-227/","section":"Posts","summary":"Monday I went off exploring a fort for an upcoming Hack de Overheid event. The industrial scenery and weather at the sea locks of IJmuiden was positively apocalyptic that day.\n","title":"Week 227","type":"posts"},{"content":"Last week a bunch of visual progress was made on culiacán. Expect an August release on that.\nAlso a longer version of my review of Inside a Star-filled Sky was posted to Bashers. Seemingly any post that does not contain meta-criticism has a hard time attracting comments over there (maybe everywhere). More stuff was published also about Jason Rohrer, especially of note the Wired piece about Chain World.\nMid-week marked the first deployed iteration of guadalupe. If development on that goes the way we want it, expect private alpha invites to become available also in August.\nEnd of the week we spent a bunch of time doing a submission to SxSWi to talk about the Heist Model. It\u0026rsquo;s an edgy philosophy and a fun way of working, which we look forward to expound in Austin accompanied by friends, margaritas and BBQ.\nFriday there was Ball Invasion (with friends): After which I managed to get stuck with a car and drive it up North to the Appsterdam HQ for the iOS Devcamp that was in progress.\nThe weekend was marked by rainy misery and a short piece of writing about open data becoming a normal practice of Amsterdam City-Center.\n","date":"July 18, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-226/","section":"Posts","summary":"Last week a bunch of visual progress was made on culiacán. Expect an August release on that.\n","title":"Week 226","type":"posts"},{"content":"Last Monday I paid an information architecture house call at a friend at one of the beleaguered (a somewhat redundant word when discussing print publications here) Dutch weeklies. Looking forward to advice taken to heart and maybe some online Dutch media that I can consume with pleasure.\nTuesday I coworked at Hack de Overheid\u0026rsquo;s offices in the Open Coop in the newly fangled hip(ster)ness of Amsterdam North. Williamsburg it ain\u0026rsquo;t, but it is a place where one can breathe and build pyramids: And then it was off to our friends over at Booreiland also in North to finalize work on a fun project we\u0026rsquo;re doing. See a pattern here?\nWednesday we kicked off an exciting new project that we\u0026rsquo;re running over the Summer break with Hack de Overheid. Look for some beach side entertainment announced soon.\nThursday it was off to the Open Data Experiences Conference in Rotterdam to serve as a milestone for open data development in the city of Rotterdam. I presented there on a track to supplement the heroic presences of both Toby Barnes and Tom Steinberg over from the UK to witness the great progress that is being made here.\nI strayed a bit from the brief to give a hard technical talk and talked more about the open problems that we technologists should be solving. The technologists (developers/designers) I think are our only hope to break open things with functional interventions. I have had my fill of seeing people talk and do nothing much more than talk. There are more than enough thorny interesting problems for us to solve still, so we should be doing that.\nOn the highest level I identified three moral issues which I think is something of a nice niche on events such as these. I very much hope people took something away from these:\nThe rationale for opening up data is usually stated in terms of efficiency and effectivity. This may be necessary to sell open data to bean counters, but it is too inhuman a formulation of why we are doing this. We are doing this to see if we can improve the lives of normal humans a bit, to make sure that the uses that open data is being put to create experiences that are interesting, useful and beautiful.\nWe should make sure that the data that is being opened up and its uses are inclusive in a broad sense. If we manage to open up all of the data we want to and the smartest/fastest/evilest people take off with it and manage to build stuff for their own ends to the (partial) exclusion of others, we will have managed to switch out one power structure (an archaic but institutional one) for a new power structure of cowboys and parvenus. We will seem to have won, but we will have failed.\nFinally, the main point that Michal Migurski made at a panel at EYEO about the book Seeing Like a State. That the reductionism inherent in recording data (and the subsequent opening it up) manages to lose the essence of things and creates the high-modernist idea that that view of things is the right view (see also: “All Watched Over: on Foo, Cybernetics and Big Data”). Michal says:\nMy response to all this is something to the effect that people should help other people to see and represent their world usefully and accurately.\nWhich I paraphrased to say that we should make tools to help every person see as a state of their own and be able to decide better for themselves and others how to organize their lives, to in effect become better states themselves.\nThe next day (Friday) we did a big stint in Utrecht to plan things for project SABA and another secret project that is more on our own brief to unite games and television in an interesting way. Look forward to the first playable prototypes for that hitting this week.\nAs always proceedings in Utrecht are supported by superb coffee (four shots to start the day!) from the fine lads at the Village. Here we\u0026rsquo;re taking care of their pies: And as usual Sunday nights are closed off at the kitchen table catching up with the week to come and doing some iOS development: ","date":"July 11, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-225/","section":"Posts","summary":"Last Monday I paid an information architecture house call at a friend at one of the beleaguered (a somewhat redundant word when discussing print publications here) Dutch weeklies. Looking forward to advice taken to heart and maybe some online Dutch media that I can consume with pleasure.\n","title":"Week 225","type":"posts"},{"content":"Monday I spent all day planning the Statlas release and encountered some showstoppers still. That night I went to Utrecht for This Happened.\nTuesday was another day spent in Utrecht and in between things I pushed out the releases for Statlas with posts in Dutch and English.\nAlso I managed to bait (thread) Dutch member of parliament Jeanine Hennis on the topic of her party\u0026rsquo;s (the VVD) entanglement with large corporate interest when it comes to copyright law (or any internet related law). There is a lot more to be said about this topic and I don\u0026rsquo;t know how effective this is as a strategy, but somebody should do this.\nThursday there was a meeting about game journalism at the Waag (and a flurry of coverage of the topic this week), by Niels and David: That and other engagements however did mean that I had to miss the Cognitive Cities Salon (though I heard it was most ace).\nFriday was spent doing iPhone tutorials all day and night to get up to speed on this medium and to create some interesting interface experiments in the near future.\nThe entire weekend was spent working unfortunately. Saturday we talked about the potential merger of Hack de Overheid and het Nieuwe Stemmen to formalize an already ongoing collaboration and create a more robust organization.\nSunday I acted as the jury member in a pilot for an interaction design television programme. It\u0026rsquo;s not clear yet whether it will be produced, but it would be a good step forward popularizing the more functional design disciplines.\n","date":"July 6, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-224/","section":"Posts","summary":"Monday I spent all day planning the Statlas release and encountered some showstoppers still. That night I went to Utrecht for This Happened.\n","title":"Week 224","type":"posts"},{"content":"We zijn al een tijdje bezig met Statlas en het is de hoogste tijd dat een eerste versie het daglicht ziet om te laten zien wat voor iets tofs we hebben gemaakt en te horen wat jullie ervan vinden. Dus voor jullie ogen: Statlas\nStatlas is een gereedschap voor iedereen die makkelijk kaarten wil kunnen maken, en verspreiden. Voor een verzameling regio\u0026rsquo;s kun je waarden invullen (cijfers, kleuren, labels) en er wordt dan een kaart gemaakt die je vervolgens kunt delen, embedden en afdrukken. Een persoonlijk kartografisch platform waar er al meerdere van zijn maar volgens ons nog niet één die zo makkelijk is in het gebruik als deze.\nWe hebben Statlas gemaakt naar aanleiding van experimenten vorig jaar om geografische gegevens op het internet weer te geven. Die ideeën maar dan generieker en simpeler (en bedoeld als gereedschap) hebben geculmineerd in Statlas. Dit past tegelijkertijd ook in de NoGIS trend om traditioneel moeilijke technologie zoals GIS te ontsluiten via het internet.\nVerder praten we met Hack de Overheid geregeld over data-journalistiek, maar waar we steeds tegenaan lopen is dat er niet genoeg gereedschappen zijn waarmee journalisten en andere niet-techneuten uit de voeten kunnen. Wij zeggen dan telkens dat die gereedschappen er gaan komen maar de beste manier om dat voor elkaar te krijgen is uiteraard om ze zelf te bouwen.\nStatlas is gebouwd met financiering van het Stimuleringsfonds voor de Pers, in samenwerking met Fluxility en Alexander Zeh en is uiteraard open source. Voor volledige credits, zie het colofon.\nEn verder # Deze versie voldoet aan alles wat je zou willen hebben van een simpel stuk gereedschap. We hebben natuurlijk allerlei ideeën om dit technisch voortreffelijker en functioneel spectaculairder te maken maar dit is het fundament. Laten we eerst maar zien welke van onze ideeën het contact met de werkelijkheid overleven en dan wordt vanzelf de richting voor verdere ontwikkeling duidelijk.\nWat er in ieder geval aan toegevoegd gaat worden zijn meer regio\u0026rsquo;s. Er zitten er nu een handjevol in en meer staan er gepland. Verzoeken voor nieuwe gebieden (het liefst met een idee ook waar we de geometrie kunnen vinden) maar ook andere ideeën, bugs enz. zijn welkom bij ons op Monster Swell.\n","date":"June 28, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/statlas-beta-versie/","section":"Posts","summary":"We zijn al een tijdje bezig met Statlas en het is de hoogste tijd dat een eerste versie het daglicht ziet om te laten zien wat voor iets tofs we hebben gemaakt en te horen wat jullie ervan vinden. Dus voor jullie ogen: Statlas\n","title":"Statlas, bèta versie","type":"posts"},{"content":"Monday I did some support and then went off to the UvA to present on data journalism together with Stef. Tuesday I was in Utrecht to work on the Code 4 presentation for CHI Sparks. Working at the garden again was a very enjoyable experience made more so by the unexpected visit of Christine who\u0026rsquo;s making forays into game design herself.\nA lot of the rest of the week was occupied with testing and preparing Statlas for a launch this week, which it did, so you can check it out and read more about that in next week\u0026rsquo;s notes.\nMr. Morozov visited the Netherlands which made for an interesting night out along with a very unexpected meetup with Babak and Ulla. My takeaway from Evgeny Morozov can be summarized in this tweet:\nConclusion of a night with @evgenymorozov: government meddling on the internet doesn\u0026rsquo;t do us any good and can only hurt us in the long run.\nGovernment control of the internet\u0026rsquo;s technologies seldom nets anything and is usually implemented on the back of scare tactics about terrorism or child pornography. When things turn sour, the systems that were deployed can be used to a very great effect against the entire population without much effort. This means it is imperative to maintain a free and open internet to safeguard freedom.\nThursday it was off to Arnhem to present at the CHI Sparks conference. The place where all seriously academic HCI people get together to present their findings. I presented on a serious game we made with Hubbub in the Games and Play track. Thanks to the organization for giving us the stage and thanks for the kind support from friends in the audience. I hope our presentation was worth your while.\nAnd that was that, like I said, this week is even more exciting and with the return of Kars from the Land of the Rising Sun, it promises to become a hot Summer.\n","date":"June 28, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-223/","section":"Posts","summary":"Monday I did some support and then went off to the UvA to present on data journalism together with Stef. ","title":"Week 223","type":"posts"},{"content":"The week was mostly spent doing stuff for either Statlas or for another project on the essence of architecture.\nWe also submitted the final version of the paper that we are presenting on Chi Sparks next week in the Games and play track.\nFriday a brief review I wrote the week before of Inside a Star-filled Sky was published in nrc.next. This may become a more regular fixture.\nThe afternoon was spent together with Lex at the Waag concepting the tentatively titled ‘Apps on the Beach’ event.\n","date":"June 20, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-222/","section":"Posts","summary":"The week was mostly spent doing stuff for either Statlas or for another project on the essence of architecture.\n","title":"Week 222","type":"posts"},{"content":"Belayed notes for the week before last but right now I\u0026rsquo;m bored out of my skull so it\u0026rsquo;s as good a time as any other.\nHack de Overheid made an overwhelming presence at the Spring Break of the Stimuleringsfonds voor de Pers to promote the cause of data-journalism in the Netherlands.\nReal estate-wise we arranged to add two adjacent rooms in the Volkskrantgebouw. One of the rooms will be occupied by the lovely chaps of Bottlenose and the other one will be used as a meeting/project room.\nAdding additional region sets to Statlas was succesful with some extra work. Projection conversion for Shapefiles is a rather difficult affair even with the EPSG Registry and the Spatial Reference.\nAlso visited the Djangocon EU, home of the faithful Django programmes. Django is still a venerable workhorse for many many of our projects. Attended a lecture by Alain de Botton and his new book has a stance of using the cognitive psychology inherent in religion to improve secular life. Something which also the most ambitious design pieces do.\nFriday was an interesting day and it was closed off by us having drinks at Ouroffice: ","date":"June 20, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-221/","section":"Posts","summary":"Belayed notes for the week before last but right now I’m bored out of my skull so it’s as good a time as any other.\n","title":"Week 221","type":"posts"},{"content":"Sommigen hebben het al gezien, ik heb een kleine site gemaakt waar ik een fotoportfolio kwijt kan.\nEen paar templates, een invoerbestand met de foto\u0026rsquo;s en beschrijvingen en een script draaien de boel uit. Ik heb gisteren ook nog even de links naar Flickr toegevoegd en categorie-overzichtspagina\u0026rsquo;s gemaakt.\nVeel simpeler kan het niet echt, veel ingewikkelder hoeft het van mij op dit moment ook niet.\n","date":"June 16, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/portfolio/","section":"Posts","summary":"Sommigen hebben het al gezien, ik heb een kleine site gemaakt waar ik een fotoportfolio kwijt kan.\n","title":"Portfolio","type":"posts"},{"content":"Lifting choice quotes from the proceedings of the Berkman Hyperpublic event graciously compiled by Ethan Zuckerman.\nHere about privacy and how it should be a forward thinking discipline instead of a reactionary one:\n“I don’t like privacy. It tends to be too closely associated with fear, and it always seems like a rear-guard action against technology.”Instead, we should work on the architecture of the public space and ensuring we architect for private space. — Charlie Nesson and a new vision of the public domain\n","date":"June 14, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/a-new-vision-of-the-public-domain/","section":"Posts","summary":"Lifting choice quotes from the proceedings of the Berkman Hyperpublic event graciously compiled by Ethan Zuckerman.\n","title":"A new vision of the public domain","type":"posts"},{"content":"Seeing this presentation in Amsterdam as the culmination of Mobile Monday, was something great. The far reaching vision and reality based optimism Kevin Slavin lays down (his comments) are something we should aspire to. It is worth watching and watching again.\nSome choice quotes, though we should just hope that he finishes that essay:\nReality is augmented not when it looks different but when it feels different.\nMaybe the aspiration to 3D optical AR starts to feel a little bit like pornography. Like a thin veneer of the actual experience that is flattened for the eye, that\u0026rsquo;s rendered for the eye which is the one sense most easily fooled to begin with.\nNobody knew better than me and the other people in that room that this was just computer code but it felt like a spirit had moved through the room and knocked all these phones off the table.\nFor pilots there is no reality except the one right in front of them.\nSingular focus in which the eye is looking at rather than around. It diminishes reality. It closes it down. Because as it turns out for the driver as for most everybody here, reality is understood to be the whole world around us, not just that thing in front of us.\nThey\u0026rsquo;re inventing new ways to see, rather than new things to look at. And rather than inventing new places to go, they are inventing kind of new ways to travel. Because the whole thing is there\u0026rsquo;s no shortage of stuff in the world and things to see and enjoy. Reality is plenty, thanks.\n","date":"June 10, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/throwing-my-chips-in-with-the-reality-based-crowd/","section":"Posts","summary":"Seeing this presentation in Amsterdam as the culmination of Mobile Monday, was something great. The far reaching vision and reality based optimism Kevin Slavin lays down (his comments) are something we should aspire to. It is worth watching and watching again.\n","title":"Throwing my chips in with the reality based crowd","type":"posts"},{"content":"We read Thoughts on Interaction Design 2nd edition as the fifth book for the UX Book Club Amsterdam and reviewed it yesterday. Here are my noteworthy passages from the book, which is not without its issues, but it does give a credible philosophical foundation for our practice.\np.34 A mature designer respects and embraces the often ill-structured nature of the process and —because he knows to expect messiness during the act of creation— he promptly forgets about it completely. Process becomes innate, and the phenomenon of design intuition takes over.\np.37 This view might be informed by an understanding of culture, or an intricate care and love of society.\np.55 When viewed under the guise of language, these products become the fabric of society and allow people to express themselves, to communicate with others, and tho shape their environment in unique ways.\np.57 designers must both realize and control the rhetoric of their designs.\np.72 Some have become wise to the farce, and no amount of decoration can lure these consumers into the trap. They select only handcrafted objects of beauty, and they\u0026rsquo;ve learned to judge good design and honest labor.\np.73 Consider, then, that designers can focus on supporting authentic human experiences with their work in a less forceful, controlling manner. Rather than striving to control every aspect of a time-based set of interactions, and rather tan attempting to shepherd people through a contrived set of experience gates, designers can support the authenticity that occurs naturally in life by producing incomplete or partially produced design artifacts.\np.77 A poetic interaction can generally be characterized as having or encouraging, three main elements: honesty, mindfulness, and a vivid refined attention to sensory detail.\np.83 Yet if designers focus only on the low-hanging fruit of functionalism or usability, the human experience with designed objects is destined to a level of banality.\np.88 The pursuit of a creative solution is not an easy activity, yet the difficulty —the sense of accomplishment that occurs when completing a difficult task— can be thought of as one of the main attractors to participants in the design process.\np.88 There is more to life than usability.\n","date":"June 8, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/notes-about-thoughts-on-interaction-design-by-john-kolko/","section":"Posts","summary":"We read Thoughts on Interaction Design 2nd edition as the fifth book for the UX Book Club Amsterdam and reviewed it yesterday. Here are my noteworthy passages from the book, which is not without its issues, but it does give a credible philosophical foundation for our practice.\n","title":"Notes about Thoughts on Interaction Design by John Kolko","type":"posts"},{"content":"A massively busy week this last, and going on a probably well deserved surfing trip to Bilbao next week so expect things to quiet down a bit here.\nMonday was spent at the Dutch Game Garden doing maintenance on PLAY Pilots and brainstorming for a pitch.\nTuesday I spent the day coaching students of the HvA develop their concepts for the course City Discourse. In this course students think about how information technology and open data can enrich the urban experience.\nWednesday was the Apps for Amsterdam awards ceremony. I wrote about the proceedings leading up to that event. The event was packed with a great vibe of appreciation for developers and a celebration of open data. We should do it more often if only for that and we probably are. Bigger and better things are forthcoming.\nThursday was wholly spent making presentations for firstly a Virtueel Platform expert meeting on Cities, Games and Data and for a break-out session at the What Design Can Do conference on data driven design. Both presentations were well received and with some added polish they may see wider dissemination.\nFinally Friday was closed having drinks over at our friends from Bits of Freedom celebrating their new office space.\nUpdate: A great write-up of the City_Play_Data expert meeting was posted at The Mobile City.\n","date":"May 29, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-219/","section":"Posts","summary":"A massively busy week this last, and going on a probably well deserved surfing trip to Bilbao next week so expect things to quiet down a bit here.\n","title":"Week 219","type":"posts"},{"content":"Things are speeding up and these are taking too much time so I won\u0026rsquo;t know if I can keep it up. Still I think there is a lot of value in creating an archive of our work. And I think these have netted the most consistently positive response compared to other blogposts here.\nThis is the one not of this week, but of the one before (starting May 16th with me being sick for a day). A lot of stuff happened but most if it wasn\u0026rsquo;t directly work pertaining or publicly relatable.\nAlice Taylor\u0026rsquo;s lecture at the HKU faculty in Hilversum was inspiring stuff. I don\u0026rsquo;t think many students get it, but as an entrepreneur in the same area her work resonates profoundly and she looks poised to pull it off.\nFriday we had a launch meeting for Statlas at the Fluxility offices. Statlas should be in public beta by June 6th.\n","date":"May 29, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-218/","section":"Posts","summary":"Things are speeding up and these are taking too much time so I won’t know if I can keep it up. Still I think there is a lot of value in creating an archive of our work. And I think these have netted the most consistently positive response compared to other blogposts here.\n","title":"Week 218","type":"posts"},{"content":"I witnessed a discussion yesterday that stated that for creative industries to catch root in a certain area there is the need for trendy coffee shops. While that is a necessary condition indeed, it is not sufficient. The coffee produced in said shops also needs to be of excellent quality or at least miles better than whatever most stores in the Netherlands are pouring. The lovely folks over at BERG also have a post about it.\nIn Utrecht studio proceedings are supported by the Village which may quite well pour the best coffee in the Netherlands. This is how they do it:\n","date":"May 19, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/coffee-magic/","section":"Posts","summary":"I witnessed a discussion yesterday that stated that for creative industries to catch root in a certain area there is the need for trendy coffee shops. While that is a necessary condition indeed, it is not sufficient. The coffee produced in said shops also needs to be of excellent quality or at least miles better than whatever most stores in the Netherlands are pouring. The lovely folks over at BERG also have a post about it.\n","title":"Coffee Magic","type":"posts"},{"content":"Lots of writing last week. We submitted the maguro project as a practice report to the DiGRA conference. Also wrote a bit of damage control on the Apps for Amsterdam contest regarding the implications of a certain submission: “Dude! Where\u0026rsquo;s my car?” Decisions made border on the ludicrous and it falls upon us as Hack de Overheid to choose the side of sanity. Finally I punched out some meta-writing about the conundrums of writing (or trying to write) for larger audiences: “Why write about games?”\nReal estate wise it looks like our space in the Volkskrantgebouw may double and we will be able to expand our own activities and invite in friends. That will be awesome and add greatly to the dynamic of the studio. Stay tuned!\nTuesday saw the long expected completion of the Dufarge web store, a favor to our kind friends —nay! design superheroes— over at Buro Pony. Quite pleased that we managed to pull that one off in the in between hours.\nWednesday we had a Foursquare meetup here in Amsterdam with Naveen of Foursquare fame and a bunch of local enthousiasts. Lots of ideas still to do cool stuff with Foursquare but not much time.\nThursday we gave an interview about the upcoming Statlas launch due soon to be online over at our friends of the Stimuleringsfonds. After that it was an open night at many venues for Creative Amsterdam and I went on a tour d\u0026rsquo;Amsterdam with Edial and we hit: Grrr, Foam and steim among other venues.\nAlso some robots, just for good measure: ","date":"May 17, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-217/","section":"Posts","summary":"Lots of writing last week. We submitted the maguro project as a practice report to the DiGRA conference. Also wrote a bit of damage control on the Apps for Amsterdam contest regarding the implications of a certain submission: “Dude! Where’s my car?” Decisions made border on the ludicrous and it falls upon us as Hack de Overheid to choose the side of sanity. Finally I punched out some meta-writing about the conundrums of writing (or trying to write) for larger audiences: “Why write about games?”\n","title":"Week 217","type":"posts"},{"content":"Some of my own misgivings about whether to write about games and related phenomena or not are reflected in the critique of game criticism at Lost Garden.\nI have done some effort to try to raise discourse about games in such publications as Bashers, nrc.next and VN with mixed results and many frustrations.\nI have a (multi-media focused) computer science degree, I develop games at Hubbub, I have played games on and off for the past 20 years, I am a self-taught designer practicing interaction design and product management and I dabble in media philosophy/theory. In short I think I may be somewhat qualified to write about the subject.\nThis is also what Dan says:\nWe need writers who are more deeply educated in the art, craft and science of games.\nI also think I have something to say about the relationship between reality and games, how games should draw more from reality (not the other way around), about the potential of games to become a more potent expressive medium than anything we have ever seen before and about society\u0026rsquo;s role to welcome and channel this development correctly.\nQuoting Dan again:\nGoal: Advance the art and science of games. Simply looking at what exists is not enough. Instead, we leverage what exists in order to to ask what is next and create the conceptual language and tools that get us there.\nDilemmas # My biggest dilemma in pursuing writing is that my time is limited and I may want to spend most of that time making games not writing about them. There is a large class of people (writers, journalists, academics) whose work actually is just writing but most of them have no experience with the craft which Dan identifies as a weakness. Whether it is because that lack of experience or because of the lowest common denominator approach dominant in Dutch publishing, most writing on games in the Netherlands makes me cringe.\nMy second dilemma is that any writing for a major periodical needs to dumb the content down to a level that it kills the possibility for any meaningful discourse. Some publications welcome pieces full of expletives to appeal to a younger audience, others reduce any thought to a sound byte to cater to the shortest of attention spans.\nAnother dilemma is that writing properly such that I myself would like to read it and doing the necessary contextual research for a piece takes an inordinate amount of time. Time (days upon days really) I could spend developing a game that has more substance, relevance and value than a piece of writing that will be in the litter the next day.\nAnd finally there is the dilemma what kind of medium has the largest impact, whether to write in Dutch or English, to aim for print or online or forego writing for other ways of making a point such as debates and presentations.\nWay forward # I talked about this with friends in media and publishing on and off to see whether writing has benefits that make it worth the effort. Everybody agrees that writing in and of itself is definitely not worth it, but reaching a wider audience can have benefits that make it worthwhile.\nI am going to keep at it because that is the responsibility of an engaged developer: making sure that any work you produce falls upon fertile soil and that your future work is appreciated not only on its merits but also on its and your contributions to the wider discourse.\nNow remains the task of seeing what it is I should write about first and where it will have the largest punch. Your suggestions welcome.\n","date":"May 17, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/why-write-about-games/","section":"Posts","summary":"Some of my own misgivings about whether to write about games and related phenomena or not are reflected in the critique of game criticism at Lost Garden.\n","title":"Why write about games?","type":"posts"},{"content":"Adam Greenfield\u0026rsquo;s keynote at Cognitive Cities prompted several thoughts about the nature of public space.\n1. There is no public space online. There are expectations of public space by people using online services, but each service is very strictly controlled either by a company with a bottom line or by a (semi-)government agency that is difficult to make accountable.\n2. Online is permeating the offline world. The built environment is getting digital. Our behaviours are increasingly controlled by systems and structures built out of information and code.\n3. Through that mechanism the values that are inherent in online services (such as corporate control, chokeable infrastructures) impose themselves upon the offline world and upon the public space that we were accustomed to.\n4. Public space came about through public discourse around behaviour, expectations, rights and justice in our environments and was codified in social practice and law. A similar codification is taking place in the digital realm, but now in code which is often arbitrarily drafted and rigidly applied.\n5. Discourse on this subject is ill-informed and superficial both in policy makers, the public and in whatever remains of the fourth estate. Discussions are easily hijacked to ends that serve particular interests but not any overall good.\nSo how do we fix this trend? How do we inform people at scale? Your ideas welcome.\n","date":"May 14, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/publics-and-digitals/","section":"Posts","summary":"Adam Greenfield’s keynote at Cognitive Cities prompted several thoughts about the nature of public space.\n","title":"Publics and Digitals","type":"posts"},{"content":" Last week got off to a good start with victory dinner by team maguro. Good times were had. Plans for world domination were forged.\nWrote up the project we did for the Amsterdam UIT Bureau: Foursquare map display for Amsterdam nightlife. We are very happy to have been able to do this project and we look forward to its debut in the ticket shop.\nI also published the slides for my talk at /dev/haag: Slides for ‘Fixing reality with data visualization’\nAnd the week was closed off with @ouroffice drinks on the roof terrace. Odds are good that we may be expanding our floor surface within the building, parts of which are already spoken for, but others still open. If you have an idea or would like to join us, do get in touch.\nThat Friday however did not conclude the week. Saturday we had a workshop as internet experts with VOLUME architecture magazine (co-organized by our friends from VURB). They are planning to do an issue on ‘Internet of Things’ though the internet\u0026rsquo;s ramifications for architecture go much much further than that most practical layer.\n","date":"May 9, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-216/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Week 216","type":"posts"},{"content":"Is it Wednesday already? We\u0026rsquo;re a bit in a production down cycle, but you wouldn\u0026rsquo;t notice for the lack of administrativa that needs dealing with.\nBlogged about project potosi: Interactive Infographic for de Groene Amsterdammer also blogged about hermosillo: Mapping voter sentiment in the Netherlands\nWe did a bunch of writing among which some proposals for academic conferences where we are going to drop some knowledge \u0026amp; praxis.\nCuliacan and Statlas are moving forward at a steady pace.\nA large part of last week was spent preparing the presentation for /dev/haag ambitiously titled “Fixing Reality with Data Visualization”. The slides of which are forthcoming in long form.\nThis week we will be at Mediamatic\u0026rsquo;s Data Visualization Barcamp t, probably presenting some new work and also at a workshop hosted by VURB and VOLUME with architects and programmers. If you see us at either, do say hi!\n","date":"May 4, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-215/","section":"Posts","summary":"Is it Wednesday already? We’re a bit in a production down cycle, but you wouldn’t notice for the lack of administrativa that needs dealing with.\n","title":"Week 215","type":"posts"},{"content":"Een rare lijst via Kottke, maar er staan wel wat goede boeken op (dat kan ook niet anders als je 1001 boeken op een lijst zet). Ik kom op 33.\nEverything is Illuminated — Jonathan Safran Foer* Atonement — Ian McEwan* Life of Pi — Yann Martel* House of Leaves — Mark Z. Danielewski Cryptonomicon — Neal Stephenson* Disgrace — J.M. Coetzee* The Discovery of Heaven — Harry Mulisch American Psycho — Bret Easton Ellis Love in the Time of Cholera — Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez The Wasp Factory — Iain Banks The Unbearable Lightness of Being — Milan Kundera Neuromancer — William Gibson Waiting for the Barbarians — J.M. Coetzee* The Crying of Lot 49 — Thomas Pynchon Cat’s Cradle — Kurt Vonnegut* Stranger in a Strange Land — Robert Heinlein Catch-22 — Joseph Heller 1 The Lord of the Rings — J.R.R. Tolkien Lolita — Vladimir Nabokov Lord of the Flies — William Golding The Old Man and the Sea — Ernest Hemingway The Catcher in the Rye — J.D. Salinger Nineteen Eighty-Four — George Orwell Animal Farm — George Orwell The Hobbit — J.R.R. Tolkien At the Mountains of Madness — H.P. Lovecraft Brave New World — Aldous Huxley* The Trial — Franz Kafka 2 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn — Mark Twain Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There — Lewis Carroll Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland — Lewis Carroll Max Havelaar — Multatuli 3 Metamorphoses — Ovid 4 Favorieten heb ik ook met een asterisk gemarkeerd.\nBoeken die ik ben begonnen maar niet heb afgemaakt:\nThe Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy — Douglas Adams 5 Ulysses — James Joyce Tristram Shandy — Laurence Sterne Ik zet hem er alvast op omdat ik hem in een week of twee ga lezen. Ligt bovenop mijn stapeltje.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nIn het Duits.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nIk heb medelijden met de niet-Nederlanders die dit gaan lezen.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nWat verhalen gelezen in het Latijn.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nNiet grappig.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"April 29, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/1001-boeken-die-je-gelezen-moet-hebben/","section":"Posts","summary":"Een rare lijst via Kottke, maar er staan wel wat goede boeken op (dat kan ook niet anders als je 1001 boeken op een lijst zet). Ik kom op 33.\n","title":"1001 boeken die je gelezen moet hebben","type":"posts"},{"content":"A busy week, maguro got completely finished and delivered to client. Culiacan managed to overcome the horrible Media Temple hurdle.\nI spent a day working on potosi on site at de Groene Amsterdammer at their swanky new pad on the Singel which went live that very same day.\nMerida went into its final sprint and is almost ready for prime time.\nAlso talks about studio++ began to coalesce and the real estate search is about to start in earnest as soon as I tie up the last loose ends of my own move.\nBlogged one piece about the open data victory over the Dutch Railways: “Dutch Train Times are open”\nAlso posted my obligatory iPhone trail of the past half year: ","date":"April 25, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-214/","section":"Posts","summary":"A busy week, maguro got completely finished and delivered to client. Culiacan managed to overcome the horrible Media Temple hurdle.\n","title":"Week 214","type":"posts"},{"content":"Two years after I harrangued the Dutch national railways on radio about their closed data policy and debunked all their arguments why they would not open up this data.\nThis month the NS opened up their data via an official API. And one of the first applications is this live train map of the Netherlands which is just wonderful. It simply exposes something that we knew implicitly and displays it very fluently.\nThis is just one of the many open data dominoes falling this year, but a very nice one and yes it looks like victory is within our grasp.\n","date":"April 22, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/dutch-train-times-are-open/","section":"Posts","summary":"Two years after I harrangued the Dutch national railways on radio about their closed data policy and debunked all their arguments why they would not open up this data.\n","title":"Dutch Train Times are open","type":"posts"},{"content":"The weekly bit of media consisted of a brief Radio 1 excerpt about the issue of new anti-piracy legislation. This is of course futile and I did my best to explain such in a couple of minutes and a blogpost.\nThen did some setup work on culiacan. The rest of the week was filled with notable progress on Statlas and the rounding up and finishing of maguro.\nAlso inbetween all of this, I painted a room and moved house. Notifications of the new address and inaugural drinks forthcoming.\n","date":"April 19, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-213/","section":"Posts","summary":"The weekly bit of media consisted of a brief Radio 1 excerpt about the issue of new anti-piracy legislation. This is of course futile and I did my best to explain such in a couple of minutes and a blogpost.\n","title":"Week 213","type":"posts"},{"content":" There is a vibe floating around at the office about studio++. I have had lots of ideas, visions, hopes and ambitions for the future studio, but most importantly: it should be similarly (de)central, be about twice as big and we should have a full kitchen to our disposal. Too much to ask for in Amsterdam\u0026rsquo;s slumping professional real estate market? I think not. The search starts in earnest sometime after I move house this weekend.\nFinalizing maguro, doing onsite work with Kilian Valkhof on Statlas, talking with old school publishers, putting the final touches on mérida.\nAnd in between all of this, trying to produce some original writing on the subject of games.\nAlso I cannot stress how instrumental the lovely guys at the Village in Utrecht are for keeping us caffeinated (and by extension sanely productive): ","date":"April 12, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-212/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Week 212","type":"posts"},{"content":"Update: Het staat al online!\nIk werd vanochtend gebeld voor Radio 1 vanwege het nieuws dat Fred Teeven het downloadverbod wil doorzetten. Nu is een paar minuten op de radio natuurlijk te kort om een genuanceerd argument neer te zetten, dus hier een kleine uitbreiding:\nDownloaden is nu niet illegaal. Teeven wil downloaders ook niet vervolgen maar het criminaliseren van downloaden is nodig om mensen die bestanden aanbieden (en links naar bestanden verzamelen) beter aan te kunnen pakken dan nu gebeurt.\nDit verbod staat al een hele tijd op de wensenlijst van de auteursrechtenlobby die de deur bij onze bewindvoerders platloopt. Met dit kabinet hebben ze eindelijk beet. Consumenten-organisaties hebben niet alleen geen vergelijkbare vertegenwoordiging, maar ze worden zelfs actief geweerd door het kabinet.\nHet is een beetje onzinnig om downloaden te verbieden als er om films te kijken geen goede legale alternatieven zijn (de noodzaak daarvoor stond in een versie van dit voorstel). Dan moeten zelfs mensen die geld wí­llen betalen, het wel illegaal halen. Mensen met meer tijd dan geld downloaden, mensen met meer geld dan tijd doen dat liever niet als het makkelijk legaal kan.\nTeeven wil een internetfilter instellen om dat soort aanbiedende sites in zijn geheel van het internet te halen. Dit soort filters werken ook niet. Mensen die eromheen willen lukt het toch wel. Maar nog een stap verder: dit soort filters worden ook gebruikt in China, Iran en andere onderdrukkende regimes (daar is onze regering ook tegen). Maar hier ook zullen zulke filters slecht te controleren zijn en vrijwel zeker voor meer doeleinden worden gebruikt dan waar ze eerst voor waren bedoeld (‘als we ze toch hebben…’).\nMaar het belangrijkste punt:\nHet copyright-contract is verlopen # Copyright is een monopolie op het uitbaten van auteursrechtelijk materiaal voor de producent. Dit monopolie wordt verstrekt omdat het idee is dat mensen meer werk produceren als ze een vergoeding krijgen.\nDat heeft enige tijd gewerkt (vanaf midden 20e eeuw tot en met de jaren 90) maar het uitgangspunt is nu niet meer geldig.\nVijftien jaar downloaden van muziek heeft laten zien dat de creatie van muziek niet op zijn gat ligt. Er is zelfs meer en betere muziek makkelijker toegankelijk dan ooit tevoren. Voor de consument is dit prima en er zijn ook weinig (nieuwe) muzikanten die klagen over deze gang van zaken. De enigen die klagen zijn oude muzikanten die dachten te kunnen rentenieren en platenmaatschappijen die hun relevantie kwijt zijn.\nEr zijn talloze studies die aantonen dat de opgerekte copyright termijn helemaal niet zorgt voor meer nieuw werk. Het internet heeft ook de distributie, creatie, het remixen en de financiering van media en cultuur zodanig veranderd dat de oude modellen niet meer werken. Daarom is de hele premisse van copyright aan herzien toe.\nVerder: dieper en juridischer bij 3voor12. Maar een heffing op elke internetverbinding die op troebele wijze herverdeeld wordt onder auteursrechthebbenden is ook bijzonder slecht en marktverpestend. Laten we niet die kant op gaan.\nOok: Hier een sterke reactie op Tweakers wat er allemaal nog meer mis is met dit voorstel.\n","date":"April 11, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/downloadverbod-op-radio-1/","section":"Posts","summary":"Update: Het staat al online!\n","title":"Downloadverbod op Radio 1","type":"posts"},{"content":"It looks like the past period of turbulent ascent is over and the plane is going to be level for a bit. That does not mean that there isn\u0026rsquo;t an awful lot of awesome stuff on deck waiting to be published nor that there aren\u0026rsquo;t a bunch of new prospects on the horizon. More on those in due time.\nLots of work this week on Statlas also a bunch for the Groene Amsterdammer. Maguro got finished with a large scale finale event which they tell me was all the rage. Also our work on acapulco got finished, pictures for which are due soon.\nVisited Mobile Monday. Prepared various proposals to do work on the border between computer science and architecture.\nAlso our friends from the Village in Utrecht opened their coffee store. Needless to say a lot of the work we do over there is fueled by quality caffeine and we will be paying them more than regular visits. I suggest you do the same.\nFriday we of course also had our regular drinks at @ouroffice. You are welcome for any of our next installations.\nAnd as if the week was not filled enough with highlights, I also got to play my role as the Design Misanthrope: ","date":"April 4, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-211/","section":"Posts","summary":"It looks like the past period of turbulent ascent is over and the plane is going to be level for a bit. That does not mean that there isn’t an awful lot of awesome stuff on deck waiting to be published nor that there aren’t a bunch of new prospects on the horizon. More on those in due time.\n","title":"Week 211","type":"posts"},{"content":" Updated maguro and setup new branches and development environments. Finished the latest bits of acapulco.\nTuesday went to our friends at Adaptive Path to listen to a lecture by Andrew Devigal.\nSpent a day working at Buro PONY. The guys who also made this very nice avatar for Monster Swell: Wrote a post on Nicholas Carr “Carr\u0026rsquo;s self-interest” and another one on Color.\nFixed up my fixie and worked a day at the friendly people of Booreiland.\nAlso managed to finish Reality is Broken to start directly in Players Unleashed!\nSunday migrated hermosillo to ep.io because djangy despite having promised to run until the end of this month started flaking out already.\n","date":"March 29, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-210/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Week 210","type":"posts"},{"content":" I so wish that the icons in the app made more sense and that the flow between states was clearer, but my wishes really don\u0026rsquo;t matter that much.\nColor has flow. You can just keep doing stuff and you go fluidly from one screen to the other even though it may not be clear what every screen is for or why the various elements on the screens are where they are. You can do a lot, it all moves and feels rather magical. It\u0026rsquo;s more like a game than anything else.\nBetter yet, the spatial dislocation forces you not to be anal about organizing or sharing or any of the other features photo sharing apps would normally bother you with (and force you to learn). Indeed that is the promise they make: don\u0026rsquo;t find/add your friends, don\u0026rsquo;t organize your pictures, just snap away as you will and Colour will take care of all the rest.\nThis is smart, gutsy, well executed, it promises to Not Make Me Think and I\u0026rsquo;m almost ready to let go. Almost.\n","date":"March 28, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/colour/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Colour","type":"posts"},{"content":"There\u0026rsquo;s a bunch being said about Nicholas Carr\u0026rsquo;s book “The Shallows”. Most notably a lot of print media jumping onto the the Ever-Betters bandwagon. Obviously Carr stating that reading long form print is being drowned out by the internet is right up the alley of the old media in their death throes.\nThat clinging of the moribund is however just a side-effect.\nCarr\u0026rsquo;s argument is wholly one of self-preservation. If you are an old media and old academia educated intellectual, you will be passed by left and right by those that are able to strike the right balance between the old and the new. Those that use Twitter and Wikipedia to their full extents while still reflecting on their relative merits, those that can process megatons of information every day while doing their best jobs and retreat from time to time still to read a book or write a piece.\nIn short: Carr has nothing on us and he knows it. The Shallows is a desperate attempt by the older generation to remain relevant in a new world. Ultimately futile of course, but it should still provide Mr. Carr with some temporary currency.\nUpdate: Or as James Bridle puts it in part one of his seven part futurist tome (better than I can, but I hope I may be excused):\nI am paying attention, but I am paying attention to everything, and even if my knowledge is fragmented and hard to synthesise it is wider, and it plays in a vaster sphere, than any knowledge that has gone before. — “Stop Lying About What You Do”, James Bridle\n","date":"March 25, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/carrs-self-interest/","section":"Posts","summary":"There’s a bunch being said about Nicholas Carr’s book “The Shallows”. Most notably a lot of print media jumping onto the the Ever-Betters bandwagon. Obviously Carr stating that reading long form print is being drowned out by the internet is right up the alley of the old media in their death throes.\n","title":"Carr's self-interest","type":"posts"},{"content":"Door het falen van de ov-chipkaartterminals van het GVB ben ik iets vaker dan me lief is €4 kwijtgeraakt. Nu heb ik geen flauw idee hoe vaak dat gebeurd is of wanneer en dat kan ik ook niet opvragen op de ov-chipkaart.nl site.\nHieronder het antwoord wat ik kreeg:\nGeachte heer/mevrouw,\nDank u wel voor uw reactie van 21-3-2011. Uit uw vraag vernemen wij dat u wilt weten hoe u transacties van vóór uw toestemming, alsnog kunt inzien.\nHet is zoals eerder vermeld, helaas niet mogelijk transacties in te zien of toegestuurd te krijgen, van vóór het moment van toestemming. Momenteel wordt er hard gewerkt aan de optimalisatie van het transactieoverzicht. Houd hiervoor onze website in de gaten.\nU kunt via de websites van de OV-bedrijven of via www.9292ov.nl uw reizen opzoeken en de kosten ervan noteren. Ook kunt u bij servicebalies van NS en andere OV-bedrijven de laatste 10 transacties uitprinten. Wij willen onze excuses aanbieden voor eventueel ervaren ongemak.\nWij vertrouwen erop u hiermee voldoende geïnformeerd te hebben.\nMet vriendelijke groet,\nBas Bos Klantenservice OV-chipkaart\nIk kan dus niet bij mí­jn gegevens (die wél twee jaar bewaard worden) en daardoor ook niet het geld terugvragen wat van mij is. Updates volgen, ik ben nu op zoek naar een manier om alle gegevens over mij die bekend zijn bij OV-chipkaart/TLS/GVB op te vragen.\nUpdate: Je kunt bellen met TLS op nummer: 033 - 467 20 00. Ze kunnen je daar niet verder helpen met je gegevens, maar ik zou toch even bellen.\nUpdate 2: Je kunt ook een brief sturen naar: Klantenservice OV-chipkaart, Postbus 365, 3800 AJ Amersfoort. Alleen dan ook niet vergeten een kopie van een legitimatiebewijs mee te sturen. Niemand kan je vertellen of je verzoek dan ook gehonoreerd wordt, maar schrijven mag.\nUpdate 3: Volgens het register van het CBP meldingsnummer 1277300 is het Trans Link Systems die mijn gegevens opslaat teneinde de doeleinden daargenoemd te bereiken. Volgens Bits of Freedom mag ik die gegevens ook hebben (artikel 35 WBP).\nUpdate 4: Nogmaals bellen leert dat ov-chipkaart.nl gemaakt wordt door TLS dus dat mijn brief naar bovenstaand adres uiteindelijk bij hen terecht komt. Dus de volgende stap is schrijven. Updates volgen.\n","date":"March 24, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/diefstal-van-gegevens-en-geld/","section":"Posts","summary":"Door het falen van de ov-chipkaartterminals van het GVB ben ik iets vaker dan me lief is €4 kwijtgeraakt. Nu heb ik geen flauw idee hoe vaak dat gebeurd is of wanneer en dat kan ik ook niet opvragen op de ov-chipkaart.nl site.\n","title":"Diefstal van gegevens en geld","type":"posts"},{"content":"Last week Monday we saw the final work presentations at the Willem de Kooning Academy. It was a great experience and I was really blown away by the breadth of some of the work presented. Nevertheless it remains a challenge to fit a full data visualization curriculum within the course of 4 weeks. Given the time we had I am very proud of the progress made.\nI met an old friend from Delft to talk about aiding him in his architectural PhD doing information architecture and visualization of the concepts in his research. This looks like a great opportunity to bring into practice my thinking and engagement in the field of architecture.\nFinally, I rushed over to the TMG building to give an interview for Dutch Radio 1 during WNL\u0026rsquo;s Avondspits show. I ripped and uploaded the interview (in Dutch) to Soundcloud. You can listen to it below: WNL Avondspits - Hack de Overheid by alper\nThose that know me may be surprised by my parliamentary tone (which is a discipline that comes in handy from time to time).\nI also put the last touches to the article on Hack de Overheid recapping our event and its success.\nMaguro is running strong during its pilot, though small inbalances forced us to do some run-time tweaks. All in a day\u0026rsquo;s work.\nWednesday, I made my way out to Ermelo to give a workshop for the journalists of the regional broadcasting corporations, the ROOS-dagen. My subject matter —data journalism and visualization— is rather edgy for this crowd which was visible in the turnout. Those few who are willing to run with it, may find though that at the local and hyperlocal levels, a little data goes a long way.\nMade it back just in time to congratulate Alexander Klöpping on the book he wrote “Wikileaks: Alles wat je niet mocht weten”.\nThursday we celebrated our friends\u0026rsquo; achievement in organizing the tenth This Happened Utrecht. Organizing ten editions of any event is a feat in and of itself, organizing ten This Happened Utrecht events to the consistent high quality standard of curation, facilitation and audience that Kars, Alexander and Ianus have, is nothing less than formidable.\nThrough Kars\u0026rsquo;s curation there are also a number of very nice interactive installations on display to play with on the Neude square for the Tweetakt theatre festival. I encourage you to drop by (free!) and try them out.\nWorked a bit more on acapulco, some projects should receive more attention (and this one certainly will). Frideay we also received our soon to be new office mate Joris Machielse.\nStatlas is running up to its first public release. Very soon now.\n","date":"March 22, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-209/","section":"Posts","summary":"Last week Monday we saw the final work presentations at the Willem de Kooning Academy. It was a great experience and I was really blown away by the breadth of some of the work presented. Nevertheless it remains a challenge to fit a full data visualization curriculum within the course of 4 weeks. Given the time we had I am very proud of the progress made.\n","title":"Week 209","type":"posts"},{"content":"A busy and monotonous week with deadlines for many long running projects.\n1. Monday saw my last official lecture at WdKA. Students will present their work next week which I\u0026rsquo;m looking forward to greatly.\n2. Worked the entire week for maguro which is going into a pilot run as I am typing this.\n3. Acapulco saw an initial release but needs a bit more touching up.\n4. Hack de Overheid: Apps for Amsterdam edition was this Saturday. I was the host of this event we had been preparing for a long time was every bit the succes we had hoped it would be. We had lots of friends come over and useful applications were created.\nI visited the Virtueel Platform book presentation and the Big Brother Awards on Wednesday. Both e-culture and privacy in the narrow sense remain difficult but relevant concepts for me.\n","date":"March 14, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-208/","section":"Posts","summary":"A busy and monotonous week with deadlines for many long running projects.\n","title":"Week 208","type":"posts"},{"content":"Maguro got its next test and nicely stood up to everything thrown at it.\n‘PvdA — Altijd in de buurt’ (hermosillo) was put live just before the elections and was announced here and there.\nI got called an ‘open data goeroe’ by the VPRO on their hackday report, which I don\u0026rsquo;t know what to think about. The rest of the week was spent finalizing maguro functionally and Friday I briefly visited the Infographics congress which was ahem revealing in all its traditional glory. Let\u0026rsquo;s keep it at that.\n","date":"March 7, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-207/","section":"Posts","summary":"Maguro got its next test and nicely stood up to everything thrown at it.\n","title":"Week 207","type":"posts"},{"content":"We spent last weekend having a veritable blast at the Cognitive Cities conference. It was a great spectacle of familiar faces, a nicely curated program and full frontal confrontations with the city of Berlin.\nI cannot stress enough how much I enjoyed Cognitive Cities. It was crammed with beautifully designed views onto the city and a chance to catchup with old friends from all over Europe. The Copenhagen crew were present, Rebooters came back from withdrawal and we could congratulate Your Neighbours and Third Wave with their tremendous success in organizing such a conference.\nBut in the abstraction a lot of the reality was lost, I\u0026rsquo;m afraid. We are all of course striving to make our ghost boxes better but design cannot be a sterile, clean handed affair. Kars writes a fuller more balanced recounting of the conference, but my feelings are the same.\nWalking around in the real cognitive city of Berlin and seeing the street kids in Neukölln and the party-goers in Berghain, I feel they are not within the myopic view of our design chique clique nor we in theirs. The street is a very messy and creative affair and it must not be disconnected from our digital cognition of it. At least not if we want to have any relevance and create real meaning for a significant number of people.\nIdeas how to do this in quality and at scale are forthcoming, but like everything it should of course start with awareness.\n","date":"March 4, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/a-more-messy-city/","section":"Posts","summary":"We spent last weekend having a veritable blast at the Cognitive Cities conference. It was a great spectacle of familiar faces, a nicely curated program and full frontal confrontations with the city of Berlin.\n","title":"A more messy city","type":"posts"},{"content":"Busily so briefly.\nMonday as a fixture was the third session of my course over at WdeKA concerning itself with the basics of information and visualisation design.\nStatlas development kicked into gear.\nThe rest of the week was spent working on hermosillo and maguro. The first was launched as http://www.pvda-altijdindebuurt.nl just before the elections of yesterday as the first version of an electoral monitoring platform. A full write-up on which is forthcoming at Monster Swell.\nThen with everything done it was off to Berlin with partners in crime Kars Alfrink and Alexander Zeh for a weekend of Cognitive Cities and leveling up our skills at that particular city. The conference was ace as was the weekend.\n","date":"March 3, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-206/","section":"Posts","summary":"Busily so briefly.\n","title":"Week 206","type":"posts"},{"content":"Mijn stukje over de trailer van Dead Island die we vorige week zagen staat online bij Bashers (mijn debuut). Zie verder ook de comments.\n","date":"February 22, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/ontsnappen-van-het-dode-speleiland/","section":"Posts","summary":"Mijn stukje over de trailer van Dead Island die we vorige week zagen staat online bij Bashers (mijn debuut). Zie verder ook de comments.\n","title":"Ontsnappen van het dode speleiland","type":"posts"},{"content":" On Monday I gave week 2 of my course and then went on to fourcehub to prepare the maguro playtest. Which playtest took place on Tuesday and was totally awesome.\nI sent some talking points to Dutch politics about open data. Here they are reproduced in Dutch:\n- Het parlementaire informatie aanbod De informatievoorziening van ons parlement is om te janken zo slecht. Voor een klaagzang hierover kun je terecht bij @steeph. Stemmingen, stukken etc. zijn allemaal nauwelijks op te vragen en zeker niet machine-leesbaar op te vragen (vaak allemaal suffe PDFs).\n- Overheid als platform Al genoemd. De overheid verzamelt al heel veel informatie om haar eigen taken uit te voeren. Er is geen enkele reden dat anderen dan ook moeite zouden moeten doen om diezelfde informatie te verzamelen. Het verzamelen is ook al betaald dus het vrijgeven (van bijv. de BAG of de NDW, NDOV) móet gratis zijn. Anders kunnen zoveel mensen die potentieel waarde kunnen toevoegen bij voorbaat al niet meedoen en krijg je zeker weten wat je altijd al kreeg.\n- Overheid als startup De kosten van productie zowel online als offline zijn gigantisch gedaald. Dit zorgt ervoor dat het bouwen van een boeiende dienst met wereldwijde impact bijna niks meer kost (mits met de juiste sturing). De overheid zou dezelfde drivers die de kosten omlaag brengen en de effectiviteit en flexibiliteit moeten omarmen. Er is geen enkele reden dat een simpele overheids-site tonnen moet kosten en dan alsnog kwalitatief slecht moet zijn. In Amerika zie je met de overheidswebsites en de open data portals dat ze daar al een heel eind mee zijn.\n- Datawijsheid Bij alle besluitnemers mist diepe kennis over internet, data, wat je ermee kunt bereiken en hoe je het moet doen. Geld is niet het probleem maar kennis. We kunnen niet tot den treure de vraag beantwoorden: welke data wil je dan vrijgeven, welke voordelen zijn er dan, wat is de business case? Op een gegeven moment moet de bewustwording er zijn en moeten we uit deze catch-22 komen.\nOn Wednesday I gave a brief presentation on open data and the value of fake APIs on the VPRO App in a Day event.\nThere was a tremendous amount of interest and presence of capable geo-hackers. That is a great victory for the open data movement. Also it is very interesting to see a traditional media company like the VPRO open up the production process of a show they are making. Definitely not standard issue in Hilversum.\nAlso I had an interesting experience with an automatic bike dispenser. Then we went to the kickoff for the Apps for Amsterdam contest. See also this blog by Thijs. I happen to be in the jury for that contest as the official representative of Hack de Overheid.\nIt was a good day for three members of Hack de Overheid to be out in full swing. There\u0026rsquo;s no telling what we\u0026rsquo;ll achieve if all six of us are firing at the same time.\nThursday was spent entirely on maguro.\nAt the end of the week we had a meeting at the NVJ (Dutch Reporters Association) and we finalized the program for the Hack de Overheid March 12th devcamp event.\nThe weekend was spent doing some catchup on acapulco and starting work in earnest on hermosillo.\n","date":"February 21, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-205/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Week 205","type":"posts"},{"content":"Drive by-ing these notes twothree four days late. Yeah, these are those kind of weeks.\nGave my first lecture on data visualization at the Willem de Kooning. That was fun.\nThen after I went straight to This Happened Utrecht #9.\nMet with the people behind IAmsterdam and updated on Statlas with Kilian Valkhof.\nFound this permalink: Finalized the rules for maguro and codified them.\nSpent a day at Buro Pony working on a very aesthetic affair.\nAfter that it\u0026rsquo;s mostly a blur of hustling at maguro. Staying in at the studio \u0026rsquo;till midnight day after day. Hard hours but good work and company. So no biggie.\nQuoting Jack Schulze: “It’s brilliant to have these people around.”\nAnd finally the version was finished and we went off boozing.\nIn the weekend it was mostly doing catchup on other projects. Did the briefing and wireframes for hermosillo. Updated the event page for March 12th\u0026rsquo;s Hack de Overheid.\nThen closed off the day with an architectural dinner.\nTouched up some stuff on Sunday and prepared my WdKA lecture of the following day.\n","date":"February 18, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-204/","section":"Posts","summary":"Drive by-ing these notes twothree four days late. Yeah, these are those kind of weeks.\n","title":"Week 204","type":"posts"},{"content":"Heading out to the App in a Day event by Hack de Overheid and the VPRO yesterday morning, I was confronted by a rather complex series of actions I needed to do to get an OV-fiets.\nTrain station Maarssen is such a marginal place that the entire OV-fiets check-out/in process has been automated.\nMy first block was at the key locker where after holding your OV-chipcard to the RFID point below, you have to enter your OV-fiets code (which is a barcode + number on the backside) and then your PIN.\nI had forgotten my PIN, so an alternative option was provided to call a number where with an automated response after entering my OV-fiets code I was read out my PIN. Having obtained the PIN, I could then get a key (video of the reverse process of returning a key to the automated locker below).\nAfter that the next step was getting through the dual human/bicycle gate. The bike has the be placed with its wheels in the cranny.\nThe RFID key chain has an automatic extension cord so you can touch it to the RFID point on this terminal. This terminal doubles as a payment point for people who store their own bikes in this storage area.\nThen returning a similar procedure enables you to put your key back in the locker and nicely also indicate whether the bicycle is still in good order or not after which the locker flashes red and closes.\nAll in all a somewhat confusing but very doable process that felt like I was participating in an Alternate Reality Game (telephone numbers, secret codes, rush etc.).\nMost people using OV-fiets currently are very well intentioned, but the systems look fairly foolproof and it remains to be seen how it holds up under wider exposure.\n","date":"February 17, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/transmobility-arg/","section":"Posts","summary":"Heading out to the App in a Day event by Hack de Overheid and the VPRO yesterday morning, I was confronted by a rather complex series of actions I needed to do to get an OV-fiets.\n","title":"Transmobility ARG","type":"posts"},{"content":" Work # Made a lot of progress on Statlas during the course of the week. The domain should be live this week and we should see tangible results this month.\nMaguro got updated and deployed again.\nPlanned the interaction and design for acapulco and briefed designer Martijn Broekman. Finally finished those wireframes in a café in Brussels and sent them in.\nMade a tentative start on hermosillo.\nMony dropped by for a crash course in Django and he promptly ported his entire Layar project TUdar over.\nWe setup a Github organization for Hack de Overheid to get the code conversation flowing before the event and give our code a place to live after. Also got a ton of communication things done for the event on March 12th.\nTeaching # I also had a meeting to draft the road map for the small minor in data visualization I will be giving at the Willem de Kooning Academie in Rotterdam. Also I prepared the first lesson during the weekend (lesson day: Monday).\nWriting # Got my review of “Zero History” by William Gibson published on de Republiek der Letteren (the Republic of Literature). I had spent quite some time writing and polishing it and I was quite pleased with having it published.\nThat also went into print that same Thursday, so yeah pretty cool: I also published my review of the iPad episode “Money \u0026amp; Speed”of the Tegenlicht documentary I got a preview of.\nThe site for the Apps for Amsterdam application contest went live. Thanks to the Waag Society for putting that online so quick. We of Hack de Overheid are going to work with them to make it one hell of an open data wave this year.\nEvents # I attended Mobile Monday mainly to see Ville Vesterinen present about their pervasive magic game Shadow Cities.\nOn Saturday I made a quick trip to Brussels to attend FOSDEM which I had never attended before. It was a fun chance to sit in the DataDevroom and watch presentations about open source data processing and graph visualizations. It was good to meet fabricator Rejon again too (who I had last said goodbye to in Damascus). What I noticed though at FOSDEM was the nearly complete absence of web development and assorted technologies. Also that while you cannot go to a technology conference these days without being hit by ethics and politics, that engagement was strangely absent at FOSDEM (except probably in the keynote by Eben Moglen).\nI also registered for the Infographics congress on March 4th though I find the focus on print media and infographics archaic and distasteful. Let\u0026rsquo;s see if we can change that.\nHardware # Got myself an iPhone4 because the old 3G wasn\u0026rsquo;t pulling it anymore after the countless iOS upgrades it had seen.\nAlso got an iPad keyboard dock from the bargain bin. Thanks Maarten den Braber for picking that up for me. Seems I have turned into that Apple completionist: ","date":"February 8, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-203/","section":"Posts","summary":"Work # Made a lot of progress on Statlas during the course of the week. The domain should be live this week and we should see tangible results this month.\n","title":"Week 203","type":"posts"},{"content":"A different format for these weeknotes:\nIn meetings # Met with the guys from Amstel Media and had a chat over at Sanoma Media. Met up with Ton Zijlstra after way too long and Henk Jan Bouwmeester.\nIn work # Project Statlas made solid progress on both the renderer and the interaction framework. The map is looking pretty spanking on Polymaps, but no screenshots yet.\nFor Maguro I modelled the entire game in the database and made a beat scheduler using celery. Using that I created a fully playable prototype.\nIn writing # Wrote about how the process of government contracting ICT projects could be made more transparent in Dutch: “Transparantie in ICT-aanbestedingen”\nIn events # We announced the next Hack de Overheid for March 12th. Then we started scouting locations and drafting the program for that event. It\u0026rsquo;s looking good!\nI was at the VPRO launch of their iPad documentary and I got an advance copy to play with. Together with Iskander we coined the term Sensor Parkour: “in an ubicomp surveillance world, ‘sensor parkour’ could become a novel situationist exercise.” Then I went to another event about the end of the publishing industry. Funnily enough most book publishers in the Netherlands have no clue about the consequences the internet is going to have for their business.\nFriday we had impromptu drinks at @ouroffice along with an attempt to hack the OV-chipkaart which was a lot of fun and got a bunch of people to come out. Expect more of that and probably also a dataviz ignite somewhere in April.\n","date":"January 31, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-202/","section":"Posts","summary":"A different format for these weeknotes:\n","title":"Week 202","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik ben meer dan een beetje benieuwd hoe het aanbestedingstraject van grote ICT-projecten bij de overheid verloopt. De uitkomsten zijn zo raar en uiteenlopend dat ik me afvraag of er een eenduidig model achter steekt. En als er dan niks onoorbaars gebeurt tijdens zo\u0026rsquo;n traject, waarom zou ik er dan niet bij mogen zitten? Ik ben best bereid een NDA te tekenen.\nMaar dan iets anders om dat uiteenlopende van die websites te verminderen, stel ik voor:\nVoor elke site die gebouwd wordt met overheidsgeld en in het bijzonder de rijksoverheid, lokale overheden en zeker ook alle semi-overheden, een footer met daarin:\nDe kosten voor oplevering De kosten voor operatie en onderhoud Naam van de bouwer(s) Facultatief: een link naar een blogpost van de opdrachtgever of de bouwer waarin de kosten worden verantwoord Hierbij een keurmerk/manifest waarin deze regels worden uitgelegd zodat ook commerciële sites het kunnen adopteren. Vertel me niet dat dat de online wereld in Nederland niet zou verbeteren.\n","date":"January 24, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/transparantie-in-ict-aanbestedingen/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik ben meer dan een beetje benieuwd hoe het aanbestedingstraject van grote ICT-projecten bij de overheid verloopt. De uitkomsten zijn zo raar en uiteenlopend dat ik me afvraag of er een eenduidig model achter steekt. En als er dan niks onoorbaars gebeurt tijdens zo’n traject, waarom zou ik er dan niet bij mogen zitten? Ik ben best bereid een NDA te tekenen.\n","title":"Transparantie in ICT-aanbestedingen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Solid progress on Maguro in Utrecht. Spent a large amount of time over there also to evaluate the PLAY Pilots project\u0026rsquo;s succes. Started building a prototype that runs more in real-time and on timed events (and all that in a traditional web framework).\nProgress on the design framework of Statlas. This week we should see that coming together and look at the progress on the renderer, but I\u0026rsquo;m getting ahead of ourselves here. I rounded up the research I did on personal mapping platforms that are online now.\nDinner with Johnny Wonder Jaap was nice, collaboration on the public affairs side of things looks promising: Apps for Amsterdam should come along nicely and we should announce a bunch of stuff this week (or else!). You can pencil in March 12th as the next Hack de Overheid event but don\u0026rsquo;t tell anybody I told you.\nI also went to the Open Streetmap drinks in Amsterdam. Wherecamp EU may take place in Amsterdam, so that would be very good geo news.\n","date":"January 24, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-201/","section":"Posts","summary":"Solid progress on Maguro in Utrecht. Spent a large amount of time over there also to evaluate the PLAY Pilots project’s succes. Started building a prototype that runs more in real-time and on timed events (and all that in a traditional web framework).\n","title":"Week 201","type":"posts"},{"content":"Got some reinforcements at the office: My business cards for Monster Swell have also arrived, more about those in a separate post: Information Compression on Paper Started writing a document describing the end of life of TipiT for our investors. Nothing new there but still interesting to reflect.\nTook in Dutchstats and starting planning that in earnest. Subsequently spent most of the day in Numbers. The phrase: “Project management is hard, let\u0026rsquo;s go shopping.”did come to mind…\nI had been increasingly frustrated with Dutch media\u0026rsquo;s treatment of the Wikileaks affaire but also was somewhat too busy to write anything better. Inbetween business Jaap and I posted a ‘drive-by essay’ on a week old nrc.next blog post.\nWednesday was a kickoff on prototyping for Maguro which needs to leave the ephemeral stage sometime quick. That night there also was a very well curated Ignite at Mediamatic about games. Fifteen presentations is a bit on the long side, but none were really boring or bad due to the Utrecht gaming scene having come out in force.\nThe rest of the week was filled with more of the same and tying up loose ends for the end of the year.\nOur office also said farewell to one of its members, typographic hero Gustavo: A new addition is already eager to get started in the new year.\n","date":"January 19, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-197/","section":"Posts","summary":"Got some reinforcements at the office: ","title":"Week 197","type":"posts"},{"content":"For project Statlas, we kicked off the design framework with Alexander and made some good strides with that. Also met with Kilian for progress on the renderer. I acquired a small Python script from Henkjan that we were allowed to release as open source, a Rijksdriehoekscoordinatien to WGS84 converter. I had been meaning to write this myself, but felt we shouldn\u0026rsquo;t duplicate the effort.\nI did a call on Monster Swell to collaborate more with designers at any and all levels and got some response to that. More are welcome.\nFor project Maguro I started prototyping the game\u0026rsquo;s data model and the message queue using Celery. Thursday I went on to make a playable barebones version of the game in django. The team was pretty psyched about that turned out.\nAdministration wise started the new year with a new sheet of books.\nSocially, I went to the Django meetup. The Djangocon in Amsterdam is going to be awesome. Also the ISOC had their New Year\u0026rsquo;s Drink on Thursday.\nLastly on Friday I had a meeting with the city of Amsterdam and the Waag for Hack de Overheid to talk about the series of open data events this spring and an app contest for the city.\n","date":"January 17, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-200/","section":"Posts","summary":"For project Statlas, we kicked off the design framework with Alexander and made some good strides with that. Also met with Kilian for progress on the renderer. I acquired a small Python script from Henkjan that we were allowed to release as open source, a Rijksdriehoekscoordinatien to WGS84 converter. I had been meaning to write this myself, but felt we shouldn’t duplicate the effort.\n","title":"Week 200","type":"posts"},{"content":"Last week was the week things got into gear again for 2011.\nMonday I built a quick javascript mashup with the new API by NOS called ‘Ons Nieuws’ (Our News): http://monsterswell.com/projects/onsnieuws/ inspired by the trend in glanceable display websites. The write-up is here: “Glanceable news using the new NOS API”\nBlogged about the catch-22 in Dutch open data: “Bloggers, transparency and our Catch-22” Hack de Overheid is also busy bringing a whole lot of awesome to open data in 2011. Stay tuned and look over there for announcements.\nStarted setup for the next iteration of Dutchstats. Kicked off the technical part of Dutchstats (the renderer) with Kilian Valkhof, drafted a set of functional and non-functional requirements and setup a project repository.\nDid a bunch of deployment stuff to create a rather complex django site for mérida which is a relief to get up and running.\nSwitched prototyping maguro from twisted to Django because that is still the technology I\u0026rsquo;m most familiar with (prototyping should not be about technology acquaintance). We had a meeting with the team and after some discussion we played a game concept that was pretty fun.\nFriday we had a geek breakfast with Peter and Taco having a full English at Greenwoods. The food was good as was the conversation. We should really do this regularly.\nThen I spent the rest of the day with James Burke working on the new version of the Hack de Overheid site.\nIn the weekend I picked up a second hand Grote Bosatlas 51e editie for a real bargain. It still is a fantastic cornucopia of maps and infographics. Leafing through it made me all nostalgic like I used to do back in school exploring far away places on the map.\n","date":"January 10, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-199/","section":"Posts","summary":"Last week was the week things got into gear again for 2011.\n","title":"Week 199","type":"posts"},{"content":"Some Bigend-centric excerpts from Zero History:\nThere were cameras literally everywhere […] they were a symptom of autoimmune disease, the state\u0026rsquo;s protective mechanisms \u0026lsquo;roiding up into something actively destructive, chronic; watchful eyes, eroding the healthy function of that which they ostensibly protected.\nHe was a creature of screens, of bare expanses of desk or table, empty shelves. He owned as far as she knew, no art. In some way, she suspected, he regarded it as competition, noise to his signal\n“Bram,”said Hollis, “the singer from the Stokers.”\nMilgrim brought out his Faraday pouch, then his passport.\n“That\u0026rsquo;s our Festo air penguin,”Bigend said after a pause. “We\u0026rsquo;re experimenting with it as an urban video surveillance platform.”\n“He says it\u0026rsquo;s like walking through walls. Nobody can, but if you could, he says, it would feel like that. He says the wall is inside, though, and you do have to walk through it.”\nHires people who\u0026rsquo;ll go off the reservation, lead him somewhere new.\n“He believes that stasis is the real enemy,”Milgrim said, […] “Stability\u0026rsquo;s the beginning of the end. We only walk by continually beginning to fall forward. He told me.”\nWhatever he was, she found she trusted him. He seemed peeled somehow, transparent, strangely free of underlying motive. Seemed used to it as well.\nHe\u0026rsquo;d grown up with the unquestioned assumption that America was the home of heroic infrastructure, but was it now? He didn\u0026rsquo;t think so.\nWhen Bigend talked about London, it felt to Milgrim that he was describing some intricate antique toy he\u0026rsquo;d bought at auction.\n“I thought he was in Toronto.”“He\u0026rsquo;s in a post-geographical position,”said Bigend.\nWhen you want to know how things really work, study them when they\u0026rsquo;re coming apart.\n“Some sort of seething Swiftian rage,”he said, “that he can only express through pervers, fiendishly complex exploits, resembling Surrealist gestes.”\nShe remembered him telling her how terrorism was almost exclusively about branding, but only slightly less so about the psychology of lotteries […]\n“He\u0026rsquo;s curating suits that do retinal damage, these days.”\n“Sufficiently perverse and titanic arseholes,”he said, “can become religious objects. Negative saints. People who dislike them, with sufficient purity and fervor, well, they do that. Spend their lives lighting candles. I don\u0026rsquo;t recommend it.”\n“He already believes that that\u0026rsquo;s how the world is. Show him a wave, he\u0026rsquo;ll try to surf it.”\n“The potential, for one grand exploit, is fabulous.”\n","date":"January 5, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/zero-history-excerpts/","section":"Posts","summary":"Some Bigend-centric excerpts from Zero History:\n","title":"Zero History excerpts","type":"posts"},{"content":"The ephemeral week between Christmas and New Year\u0026rsquo;s.\nWrote a bunch of stuff that was due among which a report on the demise of TipiT.\nWas busy doing planning for Dutchstats with a week0 briefing.\nAlso did some stuff for Hack de Overheid a new website for which should be ready soonish.\n","date":"January 3, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-198/","section":"Posts","summary":"The ephemeral week between Christmas and New Year’s.\n","title":"Week 198","type":"posts"},{"content":"Naar aanleiding van dit lijstje van meneer Webb. Ik heb elf boeken uitgelezen in 2010. Schandelijk schamel aantal, ver van de 1 boek per week waar ik naar streef (maar ik heb wél 73 films gezien).\n\u0026ldquo;Zero History\u0026rdquo; door William Gibson \u0026ldquo;Spook Country\u0026rdquo; door William Gibson \u0026ldquo;Red ons Maria Montanelli\u0026rdquo; door Herman Koch \u0026ldquo;Designing for the Digital Age\u0026rdquo; door Kim Goodwin \u0026ldquo;Senorita\u0026rsquo;s\u0026rdquo; door Christophe Vekeman \u0026ldquo;A Pattern Language\u0026rdquo; door Christopher Alexander \u0026ldquo;A Theory of Fun for Game Design\u0026rdquo; door Raph Koster \u0026ldquo;Sonneten en andere gedichten\u0026rdquo; door F. Petrarca \u0026ldquo;Het Diner\u0026rdquo; door Herman Koch \u0026ldquo;Visualizing Data\u0026rdquo; door Ben Fry \u0026ldquo;Makers\u0026rdquo; door Cory Doctorow Weinig meer over te zeggen dan dat de boeken die vetgedrukt zijn aanraders zijn.\nNog: Ik heb de twee bovenste boeken van Gibson gelezen op mijn iPhone (Stanza) en zonet Freedom uit op mijn iPad (iBooks). Ik sluit uit dat ik nog een significante hoeveelheid boeken op papier zal lezen en ben al een tijdje bezig mijn boekenkast te liquideren.\n","date":"January 2, 2011","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/gelezen-in-2010/","section":"Posts","summary":"Naar aanleiding van dit lijstje van meneer Webb. Ik heb elf boeken uitgelezen in 2010. Schandelijk schamel aantal, ver van de 1 boek per week waar ik naar streef (maar ik heb wél 73 films gezien).\n","title":"Gelezen in 2010","type":"posts"},{"content":"Last week was mired by the flu which made it a bad week for production (and only slightly less bad for meetings).\nSome notable stuff did happen, however.\nWe kicked off project Maguro which is going to cause our all star team a lot of work —and a lot of fun— in the new year (see Kars\u0026rsquo;s Week 182).\nTuesday night we had the fourth UX Book Club Amsterdam discussing the book Game Design Workshop. eBuddy hosted us and it was a lot of fun both talking about game design, how it pertains to interaction design and reminiscing about old games.\nWednesday Urbanode was launched officially, my write-up: Urbanode: first steps in environmental control\nFriday I met as part of a delegation by Hack de Overheid with people from the city of Amsterdam and the Waag. Lots of stuff going to happen with regards to open data and apps in Amsterdam in 2011.\n","date":"December 21, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-196/","section":"Posts","summary":"Last week was mired by the flu which made it a bad week for production (and only slightly less bad for meetings).\n","title":"Week 196","type":"posts"},{"content":" ","date":"December 21, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/amsterdams-uitje/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Amsterdams Uitje","type":"posts"},{"content":"Urbanode running from an Android Phone from VURB on Vimeo. The movie shows an Android phone controlling the stagelights at the Melkweg using a colour picker on a webpage.\nI\u0026rsquo;m quite proud to have been part of the local systems integration crew of Urbanode with the steps we made on controlling environments using web technology. The movie above shows my laptop connected to a lighting panel in the Melkweg running an OLAD (Open Lighting Architecture) server talking ARTNET/ DMX to talk with the panel and the urbsville NodeJS application that exposes the available lights as an interface on a webpage for the Android phone.\nSo the flow is as follows:\nAndroid phone (or other), goes to a webpage on the local network The webpage is served by urbsville using NodeJS which means everything is live and can be kept consistent across clients Any device setting is mirrored using an internal mapping by updating the DMX values of the corresponding device on the ARTNET output OLAD sends its current state to the lighting panel The lighting panel updates (merges) the values into its universe and when they are hooked up the lights change their behaviour —or colour in this case— accordingly. So starting with colours and intensities of lights, the next step is being able to hookup arbitrary properties of any kind of device and making it all work solidly so application developers, lighting specialists and game designers can get ahold of this technology.\nA lot of this is still quite abstract and the technology setup is pretty cutting edge but this is an essential building block for moving forward. Being able to control physical devices using Javascript has already been possible as has service discovery in spaces (tons of demos by Philips, Sun and the likes). Urbanode breaks out of the local application cul-de-sac and exposes everything straight to the web using the web\u0026rsquo;s most native control language: Javascript. This is a big step in totally commoditizing device control and normalizing and expanding the scale of operation.\nThis has been blogged about already by the Urbanode team “Prototypes for discoverable services in public space”, “Alpha Release: Urbanode” and picked up by Bruce Sterling on Wired. I would encourage you to go to github and clone the code and tell us what you think.\n","date":"December 20, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/urbanode-first-steps-in-environmental-control/","section":"Posts","summary":"Urbanode running from an Android Phone from VURB on Vimeo. The movie shows an Android phone controlling the stagelights at the Melkweg using a colour picker on a webpage.\n","title":"Urbanode: first steps in environmental control","type":"posts"},{"content":"I saw the movie Catfish which seems to have garnered a significant amount of attention and is in many ways the *real* Facebook movie because it actually takes place on facebook and addresses real issues we have all dealt with instead of the dealings of ultra-rich privileged kids at elite-universities.\nThe setting is an internet relationship as we have seen described many times before and probably have experienced ourselves. Who hasn\u0026rsquo;t met up with somebody they met on the internet? The premise is given a twist because it adds in elements of a standard internet hoax.\nSome thoughts about the movie.\nBecause it features the web and real elements from that web (instead of a fictionalized computer network as seen in many other movies), it gains a level of authenticity and also is a great example of what James Bridle coined ‘network realism’. This movie could not be made without the (social) network it portrays and a large part of the story take place on it.\nJon Taplin reported that according to Fincher \u0026amp; Sorkin The Social Network is a movie about class in modern day America. The class differences in that movie are relatively minute compared to those in Catfish. On the one hand there\u0026rsquo;s the young, handsome, rich, metropolitan Nev who is employed in a creative profession and who can pretty much do whatever he wants. On the other hand there\u0026rsquo;s a poor, rural family who are ill and relatively older and not very attractive.\nThat part of America is mostly unseen but very real. A vast rural expanse filled with the shattered dreams of the American working class (see also Bubble and this piece on food and class in America).\nAnother theme is how people with enough time and/or knowledge can turn around Facebook\u0026rsquo;s mechanisms to regain a feeling of privacy. Kids deactivate their profiles when they are not using the site, others falsify their names so as not to be findable and in the movie somebody constructs an elaborate false identity and backstory for herself.\nPrivacy is not so much the right to hold secrets about your most private things, it is much more an issue of control and being able to both control and shape the information about yourself that you disseminate. Real and false signals that we send out and the flexibility with which we navigate the waters of sociality are what makes us human, not the strictly defined checkboxes of Facebook\u0026rsquo;s arcane privacy system.\nIt is not Assange who has ever said he wants to make everything public, Zuckerberg however has (that would not be a good idea says Dalrymple).\nAngela employs the means given to her to live the life she wants to even though it is not real. The way that it falls apart and resolves into a better mutual understanding between her and Nev is a valid outcome, but in a different world, they perhaps would not have needed to find out the truth about each other at all and that would have been an equally valid outcome.\nIn any case in the end I am more touched by the plight of Angela who\u0026rsquo;s life as portrayed is a harrowing ordeal of bleakness, whereas for Nev besides some juvenile embarrassment the consequences do not seem at all as serious and maybe even net positive.\nWhether the movie is a real documentary or parts of it are fictionalized or whether the whole movie itself is an elaborate hoax (though then exceptionally well meta-written and acted) in the end does not really matter to me. I would like to believe that the events transpiring in the movie and what they say about us and about facebook are true —at least to some extent.\n","date":"December 13, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/something-fishy-about-this-profile/","section":"Posts","summary":"I saw the movie Catfish which seems to have garnered a significant amount of attention and is in many ways the *real* Facebook movie because it actually takes place on facebook and addresses real issues we have all dealt with instead of the dealings of ultra-rich privileged kids at elite-universities.\n","title":"Something fishy about this profile","type":"posts"},{"content":"A somewhat more downpaced week with a bit of a cold in the middle, but:\nOne big ticket was finishing and launching the Bandjesland addition to PLAY Pilots.\nHung this poster on the studio: Unfortunately lost the other half on the subway (don\u0026rsquo;t ask…).\nSome more nice additions to the office: I got an iPad thanks to Peerz a new professional rating and recommendation startup.\nHad a bunch of meetings with people: Utrechts UIT Bureau, Vrij Nederland and de Groene Amsterdammer.\nFriday Bandjesland was launched and I worked a bit on the new Hack de Overheid site and went into a wonderful work-free weekend.\n","date":"December 13, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-195/","section":"Posts","summary":"A somewhat more downpaced week with a bit of a cold in the middle, but:\n","title":"Week 195","type":"posts"},{"content":"Alle samples van Bandjesland staan online en het is af. En dat is —zoals ze zeggen— ‘a wrap’.\n","date":"December 11, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/play-pilots-conclusie-bandjesland/","section":"Posts","summary":"Alle samples van Bandjesland staan online en het is af. En dat is —zoals ze zeggen— ‘a wrap’.\n","title":"PLAY Pilots conclusie: Bandjesland","type":"posts"},{"content":" Monday # Work on PLAY Pilots and preparations for Urbanode (actually all week long). Some development on aguascalientes.\nTuesday # Meeting with Amsterdams UITbureau. They are doing some very cool things to promote the city.\nGot the business card comps by Bureau Pony which are going to be utterly smashing.\nDid a big Urbanode test with James and Peter. Got everything back up and running and talking with each other. Also got the mobile version to work with something of a workaround.\nThen worked deep into the night for a release of querétaro.\nWednesday # Did a demo of Urbanode for Kennisland at Melkweg with everything working at base level. An incredible refutation of Murhpy\u0026rsquo;s Law.\nThen went out to a strategic dinner with Hubbub after congratulating Sjoerd Wennekes with his MBA (!).\nI could use some interns for Monster Swell. There\u0026rsquo;s more than enough work to be done in programming, cartography, journalism, writing, design and assorted. If you think you qualify for an internship send me a sample of your solid work and have your people contact my people.\nThursday # Coffee with Johnny Wonder. A bunch more work on PLAY Pilots: Bandjesland and preparations for presenting at Open Innovation Festival.\nFriday # Gave my presentation for Open Innovation Festival at the plenary meeting room in City Hall. That was fun.\nHad lunch with front-end superstar Kilian Valkhof with some more than decent coffee.\nEnd of the afternoon I gave a brown bag presentation at Adaptive Path Amsterdam. It was a more informal and updated version of my Civic Duty in a Hyper-Connected World.\nSaturday # Saturday we had Open Data Day at @ouroffice. Turnout was not that large due to a snow storm and Sinterklaas, but we did an in-depth analysis of a soon to be opened dataset.\nThe rest of the weekend I played around with installing OpenCV but could not manage to get the python bindings to install on my OS X so I gave up on that 1, the Java Processing library also flaked out.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve spent more than enough time in my life chasing down C++ library and linkage errors.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"December 6, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/weeknotes-194/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Weeknotes 194","type":"posts"},{"content":"I wanted to read Zero History and found out I hadn\u0026rsquo;t read Spook Country yet, so I did. Unfortunately Stanza does not allow a batch export of annotations, but fortunately I did not make that many.\n“Secrets,”said the Bigend beside her, “are the very root of cool.”\nBecause that is exactly, specifically, his goal, his only goal: to frighten you into surrendering the rule of law. That’s why they call him ‘terrorist.’ He uses terrifying threats to induce you to degrade your own society.”\n“Angelina says he’s utterly amoral in the service of his own curiosity.”\nOpen Bookmarks is a good idea. And off into atemporal London I go.\n","date":"December 6, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/spook-country/","section":"Posts","summary":"I wanted to read Zero History and found out I hadn’t read Spook Country yet, so I did. Unfortunately Stanza does not allow a batch export of annotations, but fortunately I did not make that many.\n","title":"Spook Country","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;m writing this sitting in a foggy Village Bagels in Amsterdam looking out onto the snowy streets. It\u0026rsquo;s been a while, and things are different than they were a year ago.\nLast week was a busy one (are there any other?). A bunch of PLAY Pilots integration work getting ready for the release of Bandjesland and some work getting back up to speed with Urbanode.\nMonday marked work for PLAY Pilots and Urbanode and finished with another This Happened Utrecht. The fourcelabs guys really swung it out of the park with their presentation on Wip ‘n’ Kip. I also wrote up some soundbytes for This Happened.\nTuesday I went to Hilversum to meet with the friendly people from the VPRO in their awesome headquarters. That night there was the opening of the installations of Mediamatic\u0026rsquo;s Sensorfest (sort of the Dutch version of ITP) and I did a bunch of data journalism work on project querétaro.\nWednesday I worked all day in Rotterdam at Buro Pony\u0026rsquo;s offices on mérida and finished the first version deliverable for querétaro. Also announced the third edition of the Dutch Data Drinks.\nThursday I got interviewed by Reimer Meulenbeek for Johnny Wonder about serious gaming (which is getting very serious indeed). We had a strategy meeting with the journalism track of Hack de Overheid and finished the day with a great dinner with professional friends.\nFriday I met at the Amsterdam department of Economic Affairs to talk about interfacing with the city and about our presentation for the Open Innovation Festival this week (Friday morning at 11.00 in City Hall). There was a bunch more roundup integration for Bandjesland before heading to Utrecht to go to the opening in Tivoli at Le Guess Who? It is hard to describe just how much the Bandjesland experience rocked if you weren\u0026rsquo;t there, but we are going to do our best by at least putting the full tracks and all the recorded samples on PLAY Pilots. Stay tuned for that, it is bound to be hilarious.\nFriday also the outcome of the press innovation subsidies were announced and a project we submitted made the cut and we got featured on a large Dutch blog. I am still to formally plan the project and write-up our plans and aims what to do with the money, but rest assured that we will be open, we will deliver quality and that we will take things to a higher level.\nSunday played around with cablegate.wikileaks.org till deep into the night as anybody with an interest in data and journalism is wont to do.\n","date":"November 30, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-193/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’m writing this sitting in a foggy Village Bagels in Amsterdam looking out onto the snowy streets. It’s been a while, and things are different than they were a year ago.\n","title":"Week 193","type":"posts"},{"content":"The quotable This Happened Utrecht #8.\nIanus # Then we will have those infamous drinks sponsored by Microsoft.\nHelma # Five minutes later she forgot that it all happened and she was all nice to me.\nSomething that really makes these people happy is cake, because they think it\u0026rsquo;s somebody\u0026rsquo;s birthday or there\u0026rsquo;s a party.\nEverybody is in a different timezone and they have difficulty connecting to each other.\nThey had the need but they couldn\u0026rsquo;t really interact with each other.\nThey should be able to show off to others what they can do.\nThere were people falling asleep and during our user test only one person fell asleep.\nWhat you can provide is some fun during the day, that they\u0026rsquo;re not just sitting there and staring.\nEven when the phone is ringing the caregiver has to direct them what to do.\nThe caretakers really like to have more control.\nRainer # The term generative has been used too broad lately.\nUsually when you talk about generative methods, they result in visual complexity.\nI could talk about my interest in noise for hours.\nI always use random parameters and noise functions that transform my images.\nAfter we got commissioned we found out that the opening of the room was in two weeks.\nThis emerged from the idea that we wanted to work with the architecture in the room.\nAt first sight it\u0026rsquo;s not clear what\u0026rsquo;s projected and what\u0026rsquo;s fixed.\nSomehow it always resulted in noisy visuals.\nI started to bring back the analog aesthetic.\nLotte # I was working in New York and I was mildly bored.\nIt wasn\u0026rsquo;t very attractive.\nLet\u0026rsquo;s ask her to make a Wordpress skin.\nWe just had all this content on the site and we needed a place to put it.\nAren\u0026rsquo;t there periods? They said: yeah there are periods.\nMinor details but really part of the process of figuring out where you\u0026rsquo;re going.\nI did all this in Illustrator because I didn\u0026rsquo;t know there were other tools to do this.\nWanted to find a visual way of dragging people in.\nWe want to provide an alternative to the really expensive art history books.\nIf you send out a survey you never get good answers.\nWe\u0026rsquo;re just five art historians and an information architect.\nI know it gets more audience than the Boijmans website. And it gets less than MoMA.\nAdriaan # It\u0026rsquo;s also my first keynote so I went a bit overboard with the transitions.\nThey really try to make the most of exposing themselves.\nWe decided to visit the location. This was very good.\nOnce you\u0026rsquo;re standing there and you see the area, you really see the potential of the area.\nIt would be really absurd.\nThere were all these connotations of playfulness from your childhood.\nWe modeled it using lego. It has nice affordances.\nHere\u0026rsquo;s a man staring at something he built with his own hands.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s as if his face is about to break from smiling so hard.\nWe didn\u0026rsquo;t imagine that two people wanted to sit on the thing at the same time. Which was quite erotic actually.\nTwo girls one chick.\nThere were definitely people coming back for more.\nOn Twitter I was reading: I think I broke my arm. It\u0026rsquo;s quite a strenuous exercise.\n","date":"November 30, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/this-happened-8-sound-bytes/","section":"Posts","summary":"The quotable This Happened Utrecht #8.\n","title":"This Happened #8 - Sound Bytes","type":"posts"},{"content":"Release van Dutchstats een online interactieve datavisualisatie van verkiezingsuitslagen en statistieken voor Nederlandse gemeenten door Monster Swell een Amsterdams datavisualisatie-bureau i.o.\nWat? # Dutchstats — een applicatie om Nederlandse verkiezingsuitslagen en andere door het CBS gepubliceerde statistieken naast elkaar te kunnen bekijken.\nhttp://bit.ly/dutchstats\nEen video\u0026rsquo;tje: Dutchstats from Alper Çugun on Vimeo.\nWie? # Dutchstats is gemaakt door Monster Swell met Alper Cugun en Alexander Zeh.\nWelke gegevens? # Het CBS stelt Shapefiles beschikbaar met de grenzen van gemeentes, wijken en buurten. Hierbij hoort ook nog een legenda van de bijgevoegde statistieken. De tools die het CBS aanbiedt om met die gegevens om te gaan munten niet uit in gebruiksvriendelijkheid zie: Statline of CBS in uw buurt.\nDe uitslagen voor de Europese Verkiezingen van 2009 van nlverkiezingen.com. De uitslagen van de Gemeenteraadsverkiezingen van 2010 zelf ingevoerd. De uitslagen van de Tweede Kamer-verkiezingen van de Kiesraad.\nWaarom? # Dit is voortgekomen uit een onderzoek naar een makkelijke manier om gemeentegrenzen te tekenen en dat herbruikbaar te maken om willekeurige statistieken op weer te geven. Na wat omzwervingen werkte er een proof of concept in Processing, maar omdat dat lastig distribueert hebben we toen het geheel herschreven in ProcessingJS.\nEen logisch vervolg was toen om in dit proof of concept de statistieken die er al in staan te visualiseren. Het resultaat is interessant.\nWat is er zo boeiend? # Er zijn aan de hand van deze gegevens heel veel verhalen te vertellen. Het is de sociale geografie en de statistiek van het CBS direct tastbaar gemaakt met zo min mogelijk jargon en zonder specialistische gereedschappen.\nEen paar interessante dingen: De decimering van VVD en PvdA door LPF in 2002 Het verdwijnen van de LPF weer in 2003 Locatie van de Bible Belt Aanwezigheid PVV vergeleken met hoeveelheid Niet-Westerse Allochtonen Gewassenbedrijven tegenover Veeteeltbedrijven\nMaar er zitten nog veel meer interessante verhalen in deze cijfers en dat is ook wat het leuk maakt. Je kunt erdoorheen blijven klikken, vergelijken, veranderen en weer. Dat is wat ons betreft ook wat een goede datavisualisatie zou moeten doen.\nHoe nu verder? # De broncode is nu al beschikbaar op github. Binnenkort volgt een open source release met nog wat nettere en gebruiksvriendelijkere code met een duidelijk integratie-punt voor ook niet-programmeurs.\nOpenstaande punten:\nDe Shapefile en de bijbehorende CBS statistieken zijn uit 2006 Als het CBS een nieuwe versie wil uitbrengen zouden we dat op prijs stellen. Albert de Klein attendeert me op een Shapefile uit 2009 die op de site staat maar die met geen mogelijk te vinden was voor mij. Ik zal de kaart binnenkort updaten met deze versie. Door gemeentelijke herindelingen gaat de visualisatie van verkiezingsuitslagen op een gegeven moment niet goed meer. Een goede Shapefile voor ieder jaar zou ideaal zijn. Als dat niet mogelijk is, dan is een andere strategie nodig om gemeentes historisch met elkaar te kunnen blijven vergelijken. De snelheid kan sterk verbeterd worden. Het is aan te raden om een laatste versie van Webkit of Chromium te gebruiken. Meer gegevens die op gemeenteniveau bekeken kunnen worden zijn altijd welkom. Eentje die we graag zouden zien is: rijksuitgaven per inwoner. Meer functionaliteit: grootste partij per gemeente is niet de beste manier om naar de uitslagen te kijken blijkt snel. Een uitbreiding om gemeentes aan te kunnen klikken en dan een detailweergave van de uitslag voor die gemeente te zien, ligt voor de hand. Links # VVOJ: Schatkamer vol verborgen leads Open Data Network: Hack de Overheid — Hackday in Holland Kennisland: Hacken voor de Goede Zaak\n","date":"November 26, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/dutchstat/","section":"Posts","summary":"Release van Dutchstats een online interactieve datavisualisatie van verkiezingsuitslagen en statistieken voor Nederlandse gemeenten door Monster Swell een Amsterdams datavisualisatie-bureau i.o.\n","title":"Dutchstats - Je persoonlijke atlas van Nederland","type":"posts"},{"content":"A busy week the last one, met with several people busy in the field of open transit data to the point of actively starting projects or planning to integrally solve the problem. Good to see that a lot of momentum (and perceived value) is in that space.\nWorked on the integration of Bandjesland for PLAY Pilots.\nGave a presentation Wednesday at Social Media Club 030 which was pretty well received giving an overview of the Location Based Services landscape both in breadth and in history with some hints towards the future. I think this screenshot of Plazes from early 2006 was pretty telling.\nGot the idea for project toluca and did some initial research and work on that. More of a self-itch relevance thing, but should cause a bunch of attention when it launches.\nMobile Monday Amsterdam posted the video of my presentation at their event. Thanks for that.\nI also did a planning session on culiacán at Booreiland, research can start though production should be more of a 2011 thing.\nProject querétaro is a hugely relevant data-journalism thing which got the in-depth brief and coding kick-off.\nFriday the expedition to the VVOJ congres in Ghent started where with a group of people from Hack de Overheid we held a data ‘genius bar’ where journalists could ask their questions and Saturday we did our best to assess and resolve their issues. Interest at our desk was large (and only partially because they thought we were real hackers) and we managed to resolve pretty much all of the issues to some degree.\nAlso it\u0026rsquo;s not on the site yet —it is on the new one—, but I joined Hack de Overheid due to synergies we couldn\u0026rsquo;t ignore any longer.\nAlso Saturday in two weeks we will have the Open Data Day and Dutch Data Drinks #3.\n","date":"November 22, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-192/","section":"Posts","summary":"A busy week the last one, met with several people busy in the field of open transit data to the point of actively starting projects or planning to integrally solve the problem. Good to see that a lot of momentum (and perceived value) is in that space.\n","title":"Week 192","type":"posts"},{"content":"We hebben bij ons op de studio in @ouroffice binnenkort twee bureau\u0026rsquo;s vrij. Wil je op bureau met de leukste en creatiefste mensen van het Volkskrantgebouw — Eric, Maarten en ik— roep dan en we kunnen kijken of het past.\nKoffie, internet, bureau en andere voorzieningen reeds aanwezig. Dus je kunt er direct in. De huur is een koopje voor de locatie en het kantoor is één van de mooisten in het gebouw. Kom eens kijken als je interesse hebt en/of neem contact op met mij.\n","date":"November 16, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/kantoorruimte-beschikbaar/","section":"Posts","summary":"We hebben bij ons op de studio in @ouroffice binnenkort twee bureau’s vrij. Wil je op bureau met de leukste en creatiefste mensen van het Volkskrantgebouw — Eric, Maarten en ik— roep dan en we kunnen kijken of het past.\n","title":"Kantoorruimte beschikbaar","type":"posts"},{"content":"Last week was the first week that I was back from the Levant. I have notes for the three weeks in between, but I think I\u0026rsquo;ll skip those (though plenty of interesting stuff happened over there too).\nMonday I presented an introduction on data for Mobile Monday, roundup post here: “The Rising Tide of Data on Mobile Monday”\nTuesday we picked up development of PLAY Pilots for the next live game: Bandjesland. And that night an open data proposal we helped author was adopted by Amsterdam, write-up: “Open Data in Amsterdam Center Adopted”\nWednesday and Thursday were spent doing roundup on data related issues (lots of stuff brewing) and further work on PLAY Pilots.\nFriday I did a bit of consultancy for a next generation dating startup being spearheaded by three very nice friends.\nAnd part of the weekend was spent preparing the presentation for Social Media Club Utrecht.\n","date":"November 15, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-191/","section":"Posts","summary":"Last week was the first week that I was back from the Levant. I have notes for the three weeks in between, but I think I’ll skip those (though plenty of interesting stuff happened over there too).\n","title":"Week 191","type":"posts"},{"content":"Russell Davies apologizes, though he needn\u0026rsquo;t.\nThe only way to be a Post Digital business is to be a thoroughly, deeply, massively digital one. To be digital in culture not just in capabilities. To know how to iterate in public, to do experiments not research, to recognise that it\u0026rsquo;s quicker and better to code something than it is to describe it in meetings. You need to be part of the wider digital culture, to have good sharing habits, to give credit where it\u0026rsquo;s due, and at the very least to know how to do ellipses in Processing. (post digital - an apology)\nAll Dutch agencies who think they qualify kindly to leave a comment below.\n","date":"November 15, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/post-digital-roll-call-for-the-netherlands/","section":"Posts","summary":"Russell Davies apologizes, though he needn’t.\n","title":"Post Digital Roll Call for the Netherlands","type":"posts"},{"content":"At the upcoming Le Guess Who? festival, hipsters will employ RFIDs for interesting purposes:\n","date":"November 11, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/rfid-meets-retro/","section":"Posts","summary":"At the upcoming Le Guess Who? festival, hipsters will employ RFIDs for interesting purposes:\n","title":"RFID Meets Retro","type":"posts"},{"content":"In Seoul hebben ze deze weergave draaien van buslijnen en wanneer ze bij de halte aankomen: Ik wil dit heel graag hebben/bouwen.\nHet is niet zo moeilijk om vergelijkbare dingen te maken in Nederland 1, alleen gebrek aan: budget, handelingssnelheid en visie. Allemaal vloeibare subjectieve gebreken; dingen waar een mouw aan te passen is als men maar wil.\nfoto: Creative Commons Attribution, Noncommercial, Share Alike Licentie door Adam Greenfield.\nDe meeste componenten bestaan en draaien al.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"November 9, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/real-time-bushalte/","section":"Posts","summary":"In Seoul hebben ze deze weergave draaien van buslijnen en wanneer ze bij de halte aankomen: ","title":"Real Time Bushalte","type":"posts"},{"content":"Het blijft toch een mooi gezicht om terug te kijken de Wip \u0026rsquo;n\u0026rsquo; Kip op Stekkerfest:\n","date":"November 9, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/wip-n-kip-overwinning/","section":"Posts","summary":"Het blijft toch een mooi gezicht om terug te kijken de Wip ’n’ Kip op Stekkerfest:\n","title":"Wip 'n' Kip Overwinning","type":"posts"},{"content":"Stukjes schrijven zonder hyperlinks erin is gek, maar dat komt erbij kijken als het op krantenpapier gedrukt moet worden. In ieder geval is vandaag een stuk van mij gepubliceerd op de opinie-pagina van de nrc.next: “Dat moet toch beter kunnen? — Geef vervoersinformatie vrij.\nIn dat stuk betoog ik dat de gegevens van het openbaar vervoer vrij beschikbaar moeten zijn voor reizigers. Dit is onderdeel van een langer thema op dit blog en van een recente ontwikkeling voor open data in de breedste zin van het woord.\nHier de integrale tekst zoals ik hem heb opgestuurd (en die waarschijnlijk met kleine wijzigingen geplaatst is 1) en nu mét links:\nIk wil een mobiele telefoon die me precies vertelt wanneer ik weg moet voor mijn volgende afspraak, waar ik moet instappen, waar ik eruit moet en hoe ik daarna precies moet lopen of fietsen. In Japan bestaan dat soort systemen al terwijl we hier vaak niet eens weten wanneer de volgende tram komt. We kunnen dat hier ook maken als we bij de gegevens mochten. Die zitten alleen vast in één van de informatie-goudmijnen waar Alexander Klöpping het hier over had op 27 juli.\nIn Nederland hebben de openbaar vervoersbedrijven bedacht dat zij de informatie verzamelen bij 9292 en dat wat zij aanbieden goed genoeg is voor iedereen. Helaas is dat het niet. Op 9292ov.nl staat een site uit de jaren \u0026lsquo;90 waar je zo goed en zo kwaad als het gaat een reis kunt plannen. Tegenwoordig hebben sommige vervoerders ook applicaties voor de iPhone. Die van 9292 is werkbaar en de NS heeft er nu ook eindelijk zelf eentje (maar het is de vraag of die het blijft doen als het gaat sneeuwen).\nMaar wat als je dan geen iPhone hebt? Dat is precies het probleem. Doordat de vervoerders op de gegevens zitten en poortwachter spelen ben je overgeleverd aan wat hun platform-du-jour is. Heb je een telefoon die niet hip genoeg is of te alternatief, dan heb je pech gehad. Nu hoeven zij natuurlijk niet voor iedereen een applicatie maken, maar wij mogen dat dus ook niet zelf doen. Ze zeggen dan dat: ‘de gegevens van hen zijn’. Alleen vergeten ze dan dat zij er voor ons zijn en dat wij al twee keer hebben betaald voor die gegevens: via de belastingen en via ons kaartje.\nJe mobiele telefoon is maar één plek waar deze gegevens handig zijn. De mogelijkheden zijn eindeloos maar we weten pas wat werkt als iedereen die een idee heeft dat uit kan proberen. Als we moeten wachten op de creativiteit van onze vervoerders, wachten we op een bus die nooit komt.\nIn Japan zijn ze ver hiermee, maar bijvoorbeeld in de VS zijn deze gegevens ook al open en in Londen heeft Transport for London pas alles vrijgegeven. Wat ze daar zien is dat er een grote groep techneuten zit te springen om ermee aan de slag te gaan. Volwaardige applicaties waar wij jaren op moeten wachten worden daar binnen enkele dagen gelanceerd.\nZoals pas op een Science Hack Day —een dag waar techneuten en wetenschappers samenwerken— in Londen waar door een paar mensen een live metrokaart werd gemaakt met de posities van alle treinen. Verder is daar net een fietsen-leensysteem (de Boris Bikes) gelanceerd met nu al meerdere concurrerende mobiele applicaties waarop je kunt zien waar je fietsen kunt huren. Dit gaat verder dan je telefoon: mensen bouwen horloges met daarop live vertrektijden van haltes in de buurt, gratis SMS- en telefoondiensten en een Augmented Reality-weergave van metrolijnen bestaat ook al. Alleen niet in Nederland…\nDe vervoerders hoeven dus alleen maar hun gegevens vrij te geven, ontwikkelaars bouwen dan voor geld, prestige of plezier en de reiziger wint, want hij krijgt de keuze uit meer en betere applicaties.\nNu is onze overheid wel traag maar ook niet helemaal achterlijk. Er komt over een paar jaar —riant laat— een Nationaal Datawarehouse Openbaar Vervoer (NDOV) waar alle gegevens in moeten. De aanbesteding start binnenkort maar daar moeten een paar harde eisen bij als we mee willen kunnen met de rest van de wereld.\n1. Alle gegevens in het NDOV wat betreft plannen, actuele locaties, vertrektijden en storingen moeten leesbaar zijn voor mensen (via een website) en voor computers (via een API). 2. De gegevens moeten voor iedereen vrij beschikbaar zijn zonder beperkingen. En 3. er moet altijd een basisplanner aangeboden worden die van hoge kwaliteit is, maar daarnaast en daarbovenop moeten anderen kunnen innoveren.\nNederland slibt dicht en de visie op mobiliteit zoals in de troonrede verwoord gaat niet verder dan meer en meer asfalt. Daartegenover staat de hard-core vouwfietsbrigade maar het hoeft niet zo zwart-wit. Met de juiste informatie op het juiste moment kun je de best mogelijke keuze maken, of dat nu het OV is, de fiets, de auto of een combinatie daarvan.\nGoede informatie kan ons helpen om één vervoersnet te maken waarbinnen je zorgeloos reist. Denk aan het geweldige gevoel als je de trein en je aansluitingen haalt en wél op tijd bent. Dat kan vaker en makkelijker. Openbaar vervoer wordt misschien nooit een feest, maar het kan wel een stuk minder beroerd —en misschien zelfs leuk!— worden.\nGepubliceerd worden in de krant is natuurlijk fijn, maar ik hoop vooral dat dit stuk iets wordt om dit verhaal mee verder te krijgen en om bij de mensen op de juiste plek het inzicht verder te helpen.\nBedankt in ieder geval Alexander Klöpping voor de aanleiding en Reinier Kist en Antoinette Brummelink voor de feedback.\nHier ook een foto van het stuk.\nIk zit in het buitenland, dus ik heb het stuk zelf nog niet in de krant gelezen.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"November 5, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/tekst-nrc-next-artikel-openbaar-vervoersgegevens/","section":"Posts","summary":"Stukjes schrijven zonder hyperlinks erin is gek, maar dat komt erbij kijken als het op krantenpapier gedrukt moet worden. In ieder geval is vandaag een stuk van mij gepubliceerd op de opinie-pagina van de nrc.next: “Dat moet toch beter kunnen? — Geef vervoersinformatie vrij.\n","title":"Tekst NRC.next-artikel openbaar vervoersgegevens","type":"posts"},{"content":"Mensen die me kennen weten dat ik er nogal heftige meningen over de stad op na houdt. Veel is goed, maar veel kan ook beter en ik zou die verbeteringen graag zien en eraan bijdragen.\nZo twitterde ik wat met Sebastiaan Capel, stadsdeelraadlid voor D66 in Amsterdam die in zijn twitterprofiel Jane Jacobs heeft staan 1. Dat is een goed begin, maar waar blijven dan de verbeteringen in de stad? Zeker aangezien een eerder onderzoek liet zien dat D66 één van de auto-vriendelijkste partijen in Amsterdam is.\nDus kwamen we bij elkaar voor één van Sebastiaans stadsgesprekken, waarvan het verslag nu op zijn site staat:\nHet is een leefbare stad, het is hier prettig toeven, maar ik merk wel dat er heel weinig gebeurt, juist omdat iedereen het wel OK vindt. Ik vind dat je breder moet kijken, maar het overgrote deel wil dat niet, die zijn tevreden zoals het is. (“Stadsgesprek #4 Alper Cugun over 24-uurs economie en vertrutting”)\nEen en ander behoeft misschien nog toelichting maar het was vroeg en we gingen hard, dus ik ben heel blij dat dit eruit is voortgekomen. De uitspraak over de 24 hour diner is trouwens van Ben Hammersley, maar hij vindt het vast niet erg dat ik hem geleend heb (voor een goed doel).\nD66 lijkt op het moment de vriendelijkste partij voor “De Stad”. Nu kijken wat er verandert.\nDe meeste politic zullen geen idee hebben wie dat is.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"November 4, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/de-stad-is-er-voor-iedereen/","section":"Posts","summary":"Mensen die me kennen weten dat ik er nogal heftige meningen over de stad op na houdt. Veel is goed, maar veel kan ook beter en ik zou die verbeteringen graag zien en eraan bijdragen.\n","title":"De stad is er voor iedereen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik schreef een tijdje geleden al bij mijn foto over de Linkse Hobby:\nZonder linkse hobby\u0026rsquo;s krijgen we een grijs-bruin land van spruitjeslucht en vlagparades. (Flickr)\nEn dat is bewaarheid.\nMaar gelukkig hebben we onze Dichter des Vaderlands, scherpzinnig en met dichterlijke vrijheid als wapen. Na het manifest van Terschelling, is het fijn dat Nasr er op en er overheen gaat met het gedicht ‘Mijn nieuwe vaderland’:\nHele tekst bij P\u0026amp;W en op de site van de Dichter des Vaderlands.\nWordt het niet tijd voor een rhetorische wapenschouw van iedereen die zich verstandig progressief noemt en openlijke vijandigheid in het publieke debat? Dit gaat allemaal nog een stuk lelijker en naarder worden voordat het beter wordt, dus laten we in het geweer komen.\nIn ander nieuws: Het was nog nooit zo fijn om alternatieven te hebben: “Turkije vindt dat Rutte discrimineert”.\n","date":"October 29, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/een-grijs-bruin-vaderland/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik schreef een tijdje geleden al bij mijn foto over de Linkse Hobby:\n","title":"Een grijs-bruin vaderland","type":"posts"},{"content":"Zoals mensen misschien al wel zagen aankomen, hier het nieuws op Webwereld met een redelijk verslag: “Fraude nekt online-fooienpot TipiT”\nMijn betrokkenheid was een tijdje geleden al opgehouden. Een post-mortem volgt later misschien.\n","date":"October 27, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/tipit/","section":"Posts","summary":"Zoals mensen misschien al wel zagen aankomen, hier het nieuws op Webwereld met een redelijk verslag: “Fraude nekt online-fooienpot TipiT”\n","title":"TipiT","type":"posts"},{"content":"Morgenochtend staat er op de opiniepagina een stuk in de NRC.next van mij over de noodzaak van open openbaar vervoersgegevens in relatie tot de huidige vervoerders en het NDOV.\nIk ben benieuwd naar de reacties maar ik ben niet goed bereikbaar deels omdat ik in het Midden-Oosten zit en bellen een godsvermorgen kost en morgenochtend nog erger omdat ik dan onderweg ben van Beirut naar Damascus.\nDus bij voorkeur (voor iedereen trouwens) contact met me opnemen via asynchrone middelen, e-mail naar: alper@monsterswell.com, twitterberichten naar @alper en wellicht SMS naar +31-6-24553306\nIk ben in de loop van de middag online om te kijken hoe het is gegaan en in de loop van de week komt waarschijnlijk de tekst van het stuk ook online.\nEn ik zou het op prijs stellen als iemand de NRC.next morgen voor me zou willen kopen en bewaren. Wie?\n","date":"October 26, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/stuk-nrc-next-over-open-openbaar-vervoersgegevens/","section":"Posts","summary":"Morgenochtend staat er op de opiniepagina een stuk in de NRC.next van mij over de noodzaak van open openbaar vervoersgegevens in relatie tot de huidige vervoerders en het NDOV.\n","title":"Stuk NRC.next over open openbaar vervoersgegevens","type":"posts"},{"content":"Voor sommige e-mails zou het handig zijn als ik een publiek e-mail account 1 had (of een weblog dat ook e-mails kon versturen en ontvangen). Hier een bericht naar aanleiding van een e-mail naar D66 over het opzeggen van mijn lidmaatschap.\nMeestal word ik om de een of andere reden lid van dit soort organisaties en vergeet ik het. Dan word ik eraan herinnerd als ze het willen verlengen en dan vraag ik me af: ‘What have you done for me lately?’\nD66 is niet de enige waar dit gebeurt. Ik heb hetzelfde met bijvoorbeeld SigCHI en met Entrée. Cineville is eigenlijk het enige lidmaatschap dat ik heb dat nog steeds relevant is.\nIn ieder geval, was ik me bij D66 aan het beraden of ik wel verder wilde en wat ik of zij dan zouden moeten doen om het de moeite waard te maken, toen zij in de tussentijd stilzwijgend mijn lidmaatschap verlengden. Die post negeerde ik uiteraard ook terwijl ik een keuze probeerde te maken (paradox of choice) toen ik een brief kreeg met iets van ‘incasso’ erin.\nToen betaalde ik mijn contributie wél en stuurde een e-mailtje dat ik niet wilde dat mijn lidmaatschap stilzwijgend verlengd werd. Tip: altijd als je ergens een lidmaatschap afsluit, het meteen ook weer opzeggen. Het later opnieuw afsluiten is vaak makkelijker dan het later opzeggen en vaak krijg je als nieuw lid dan ook weer een bonus.\nOp de vraag waarom ik dan geen lid meer wilde zijn, schreef ik het volgende:\nHallo,\nDe verschuldigde contributie zou ondertussen overgemaakt moeten zijn.\nIk wil niet zozeer mijn lidmaatschap opzeggen, maar ik heb er bezwaar tegen dat deze stilzwijgend verlengd wordt. Zeker als ik me aan het beraden ben of ik een verlenging van het lidmaatschap de moeite waard vind en ik vervolgens gedreigd wordt met incasso-acties.\nOp die manier hoeft het van mij niet en hoe meer ik erover nadenk hoe meer ik ervan overtuigd raak dat lidmaatschap van een politieke partij een archaïsch instituut is.\n- Alper\nIk begrijp wel dat een klassieke ledenadministratie op die manier moet werken omdat anders niemand de contributie (op tijd) betaalt. Waar ik het niet meer mee eens ben is het idee van zo\u0026rsquo;n klassiek ledenadministratie.\nPraktisch gesproken is nu mijn toegang en invloed op partij onverminderd (argumenten en vragen via Twitter), krijg ik minder dode bomen opgestuurd, kan ik nog steeds langsgaan op bijeenkomsten (misschien dan niet als lid, maar als toehoorder) en als ik een keer wil stemmen kan ik vast ter plekke lid worden en mijn contributie overmaken via mijn iPhone.\nOp een wat principiëler vlak is je invloed in het publieke debat en je ideologische flexibiliteit misschien zelfs groter als je niet lid bent van een politieke partij. Ik vind D66 goed, ik heb een zwak voor Femke Halsema, en bij de PvdA lopen hier en daar ook wat mensen van kwaliteit rond. Waar moet ik dan lid worden?\nAanbevelingen voor politieke partijen # Stuur nieuwe leden geen berg papier op. Ik ken meer mensen die daarop zijn afgeknapt. Het is onpersoonlijk, niet relevant en vaak ook niet heel erg boeiend. Het is verleidelijk en je hebt het toch liggen, maar het is een zwaktebod. Niet doen. Maak je relevantie persoonlijker en kleiner van schaal, koppel geld dat je nodig hebt aan die relevantie in plaats van één keer per jaar een lump sum te vragen waarvan het niet duidelijk is waarvoor dat dan is en wat ermee gebeurt. Moet je daarvoor je complete communicatie- en engagements-strategie veranderen? Ik denk het wel.\nEr bestaan concepten die dat doen om de schaalvoordelen van het publieke internet te koppelen aan het traditioneel privé-communicatiemedium e-mail.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"October 23, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/lidmaatschappen-in-de-tijd-van-de-netwerkrevolutie/","section":"Posts","summary":"Voor sommige e-mails zou het handig zijn als ik een publiek e-mail account 1 had (of een weblog dat ook e-mails kon versturen en ontvangen). Hier een bericht naar aanleiding van een e-mail naar D66 over het opzeggen van mijn lidmaatschap.\n","title":"Lidmaatschappen in de tijd van de Netwerkrevolutie","type":"posts"},{"content":"Last week I attended the Design Mind Salon with Bill Buxton (our hero) as one of its speakers. I managed to jot down some quotes by him. All of these are paraphrases but they\u0026rsquo;re good ones:\nGreat design does not come from a great designer or a great department. It comes from a culture.\nMos people who talk about the importance of design do not know who makes the design decisions. Most people who are making design decisions do not know they are doing so, or have the competence to do so.\nIf you cannot toss your ideas out, you will go nowhere.\nAgility of mind and humor to come to great solutions. Play is fundamental to creative thinking and design.\nTo go from invention to maturity (billion dollar industry) takes 20 years on average. You don\u0026rsquo;t have to predict the future, you just need to know the last ten years.\nThe ideas are lying right in front of us. They are waiting to be picked up by people who see them. We need people who serve as a Geiger counter.\nThink of a musician, cinematographer, artist who does not know the history of their discipline. Now find a designer.\nThe only way to engineer the future tomorrow is to live in it yesterday.\nSmart home already exists in cars. People don\u0026rsquo;t think about this as architecture.\nThey see the world through different eyes and in different ways. Because they are trained to do so and they try really hard at it.\nIf you do not have the broadest base of experience to bing to the question, why do you expect to be better than the competition?\nThe Renaissance man is dead long live the Renaissance organization.\nCompetent designers have theory and technique not only vision. You don\u0026rsquo;t need inspiration. This is not art, this is business. Creativity can be learned and improved upon. You need to practice.\n","date":"October 23, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/design-mind-salon-the-quotable-buxton/","section":"Posts","summary":"Last week I attended the Design Mind Salon with Bill Buxton (our hero) as one of its speakers. I managed to jot down some quotes by him. All of these are paraphrases but they’re good ones:\n","title":"Design Mind Salon - The Quotable Buxton","type":"posts"},{"content":"Vandaag voert Bits of Freedom de actie om in één dag 1000 donateurs binnen te halen: https://www.bof.nl/1dag1000donateurs/ Bits of Freedom is de burgerrechten organisatie voor het internet die ervoor zorgt dat we allemaal kunnen internet zoals we dat willen zonder beperkingen en verboden opgelegd door machtswellustige politici of op geld azende bedrijven, dat we in niet teveel databases worden gestopt —die dan toch weer uitlekken— en dat de dingen waarvan je wilt dat ze privé zijn dat ook blijven in de toekomst.\nAlles wordt digitaal maar vaak is daardoor niet direct duidelijk waar de controle ligt en wie de macht heeft. We kunnen Bits of Freedom als waakhond dan ook goed gebruiken.\nDus ga naar Bits of Freedom en doneer!\n","date":"October 22, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/1-dag-1000-donateurs/","section":"Posts","summary":"Vandaag voert Bits of Freedom de actie om in één dag 1000 donateurs binnen te halen: https://www.bof.nl/1dag1000donateurs/ ","title":"1 Dag — 1000 Donateurs","type":"posts"},{"content":"Bits of Freedom did a terrific job hosting a salon with Eben Moglen this afternoon at The Hub. As Mr. Moglen did, I am going to take the liberty of assuming you already know who he is 1 and I\u0026rsquo;m going to proceed to write a biased view of the afternoon.\nI love Bits of Freedom in its current incarnation to death —all its members are trerific people too— and I support their causes though I\u0026rsquo;m often vocally critical of certain approaches, ideas and dogmas of the privacy movement.\nEverything taken into account though, BoF are our own stalwart bastion in the fight for digital freedom so I suggest you support them.\nAnyway, to get going:\nMany of the points raised today with regards to control, power and its properties, the interregnum moment we find ourselves in, xenofobia, databases, anonymity are highly pertinent to the current global political environment. Mr. Moglen is a gifted speaker with a broad legal and historical perspective which is awesome.\nThere are a bunch of issues that I find pertinent that seem not to be touched upon within the current movement and this piece is one way of getting them out into the open and out into the Google.\nI managed to get one question in that got misinterpreted and had a lively debate afterwards with Mr. Moglen about the cultural cleft between designers and hackers.\nSticking in the mud # What is often a risk with the hacker/counter-cultural attitude to technology is that any protest you have against the current state of things can be interpreted as a plea to abolish said technology and go back to the prior state.\nMr. Moglen had some part in this with his plea against digital payment methods and contactless transit payment (de OV-chipkaart).\nI know he wasn\u0026rsquo;t for abolishing these things, but the more extreme outliers in the privacy movement either want to or they want to cripple these systems with freedom to such an extent that they become unusable or their utility becomes compromised. Sometimes these point of views are porpagated with such a disconnect to the larger part of society that it borders on Luddism. I think that is a real risk.\nWhat the privacy movement needs to do is to speak out clearly for the benefits of these technologies. I clearly see the value of the OV-chipkaart and any plea for rolling back the system back to the strippenkaart is ludicrous on a variety of levels. Even if the OV-chipkaart is as Mr. Moglen stated: a policeman in every tram.\nThe benefits and the need for technological and service innovation in society are clear and that is not where this battle should be fought.\nThe challenge should be: how to create these systems and in the meantime also safeguard our privacy and freedom. What legislation needs to be carried through in mandates and audits in such a way as to not compromise or hamstring the design and yield usable, pleasant and secure systems. That is a big challenge, but it is the only one.\nUser Experience # The track record of the free software movement when it comes to usability and consumer appeal over the past decades has not been stellar 2. In netbooks and other devices adoption is increasing but the frontier has been moved on to mobile devices and on to closed (but tempting) app platforms.\nMr. Moglen talked about the freedom box which is going to be a plug which you can put in your complete personal computing surface which will store your media and backups, intermediate your necessary services, talk to your cell phone and federate with suitable social services. This is the vision.\nFrom an experience point of view this is going to be a hell of a nut to crack. We already have best of breed applications that serve most of these ends 3. These are already crystallized, have tremendously talented people working for them and have massive network effects. Building functional parity services is going to take a lot of time, these are probably not going to be as interesting, usable or seductive as their proprietary counterparts and in the meantime those will have moved the goalposts.\nThere may be a large opportunity for such a device in the developing world and free culture innovation out of China or Brazil could help improve such a thing massively, but I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t hold my breath.\nThe broader problem is that both designers are not very keen to work on open source projects (though that is changing) and that open source projects are not very keen on design input. Yes, anybody can fork a project and build something ‘better’, but the division of effort is not useful while the division of labour within a project: programmer program, designer design, would be more welcome.\nMy discussion with Mr. Moglen served as a reminder how immense this cultural divide is and frankly I don\u0026rsquo;t think it is bridgeable in any traditional way 4. It gets mired in assumptions on technology use, problems that need solving and a misunderstanding of what people (users) actually want and value in software.\nSo in short: freedom without usability does not amount to much. I consider myself rather well versed in these issues but I use Apple products and Facebook 5. If all the knowledge within the movement cannot deter me, then 1. imagine the general public and 2. realize that it is not an education problem we are dealing with.\nPublic Space # So the free personal webserver is a great vision and a lofty goal, but mind that the goalposts are being moved once again and that before that project is done society may have changed under our feet.\nI asked a question about this but that seemed to be so far from out field that it got misunderstood and turned into something about wireless net neutrality.\nThe issue is this: We have a rich set of rules and affordances governing access to and rights in public space and the built environment. With the wiring and virtualization of public space, how can we proactively codify similar rules for these new situations to create generally good outcomes?\nWhat I meant by the wiring of public space is the fact that every object from lanterns and traffic lights to every brick and tile can and will have an internet connection (think Everyware). Construction companies and IBM are pitching this stuff on greenfield cities and systems already 6. We in the old world are somewhat insulated from these developments due to sheer inertia, though we already have near perfect parking camera surveillance.\nThe virtualization of public space is nearing with the linking of real life and online be it conceptually or in full blown AR. Object and facial recognition, real-time image processing and filtering and differentation/personalization are going to have large scale effects. Imagine coupling this with ad supported carrier provided AR displays and things get really hairy really quickly.\nI think this is going to have large scale repercussions 7 and it would be good if the privacy movement had its eye on this ball as well (yes, there are many balls), however nascent it might seem at this moment.\nUpdate: This discussion is exactly one touched upon by Zittrain in his “The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It”:\nBut people do not buy PCs as insurance policies against appliances that limit their freedoms, even though PCs serve exactly this vital function. People buy them to perform certain tasks at the moment of acquisition. (Chapter 3)\nOtherwise you can read the Wikipedia page and 20+ years of Free Software literature.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nThese are the people that still can\u0026rsquo;t figure out how to connect a laptop to a beamer or build a workable FTP-client.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nSo if a friend of mine needed a backup made, would I tell them to buy and configure some arcane plug that goes into the wall or would I tell them to signup for Dropbox? Mind you Dropbox has a large and quite talented team of engineers and designers who have worked very hard to make that experience as seamless as it is.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nThese kind of discussions with free software people also quickly deteriorate into technological pissing contests. Though I may at times still be amused by those, your average user couldn\u0026rsquo;t care less about the intricacies.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nYou could argue that my knowledge of these systems gives me a more informed choice, which is only partially true.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nFor instance the new parking meter system in San Francisco.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nI\u0026rsquo;m giving a talk on some of these developments this Thursday.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"October 19, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/eben-moglen/","section":"Posts","summary":"Bits of Freedom did a terrific job hosting a salon with Eben Moglen this afternoon at The Hub. As Mr. Moglen did, I am going to take the liberty of assuming you already know who he is 1 and I’m going to proceed to write a biased view of the afternoon.\n","title":"Eben Moglen — 'Will the net empower the center or the ends?'","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik was benieuwd naar wat gegevens van de OV-fiets, dus ik klom in de pen:\nHallo,\nWij waren benieuwd naar aanleiding van dit WOB verzoek wat betreft fietsenverhuur in Londen. hoe het zit met het gebruik van de OV-fiets in Nederland.\nWat zijn de gebruikscijfers van de ov-fiets wat betreft aantallen keren verhuurd per dag? Is het mogelijk om een bestand te krijgen met de huuracties per fietsstation waar en wanneer een fiets wordt uitgecheckt en waar en wanneer die fiets dan weer wordt teruggebracht? Op die manier kunnen we vanuit journalistiek oogpunt interessante informatie winnen over bijvoorbeeld drukte per station en duur van huur per gebied etc. etc.\nGraag ontvang ik van u een reactie via e-mail of telefonisch op dit verzoek.\nMet vriendelijke groet,\nEn ik kreeg netjes een reactie terug van de mensen van OV-fiets die het dus duidelijk totaal niet gesnapt hebben:\nBeste heer Çugun,\nBedankt voor uw bericht. Alle info welke wij prijs geven aan particulieren zijn te vinden op onze website of op internet zelf. Graag verwijs ik u dan ook naar de deze opties.\nHopend u hiermee voldoende te hebben geinformeerd.\nM.v.g. helpdesk OV-fiets\nDe WOB geldt geloof ik niet voor dit soor semi-overheid. Iets wat op zichzelf al verschrikkelijk is, maar deze mensen hebben ook geen flauw benul of sportiviteit. In Nederland zijn we outclassed en outgunned.\n","date":"October 19, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/fijne-afscheep-van-de-ov-fiets/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik was benieuwd naar wat gegevens van de OV-fiets, dus ik klom in de pen:\n","title":"Fijne afscheep van de OV-fiets","type":"posts"},{"content":"A short remaindered weeknote (a rather awesome event and dinner packed week indeed):\nMonday had dinner with our informal hedge fund association whose members shall stay anonymous. Suffice it to say: they\u0026rsquo;re a swell sort.\nFinishing up my end of the Urbanode, the local systems integration and being the programmer on the ground. Handed that over to Peter Robinett on Friday.\nMost of the rest of the week was concerned with preparing my presentation for the Club of Amsterdam on Thursday and then putting the slides with notes and references for that online.\nHad a talk with D66 council member Sebastiaan Capel with ideas from my own practice and of the wider tech community on how to improve the state of the city of Amsterdam. I eagerly await his transcript of that talk.\nWednesday I was invited to the Microsoft Design Mind Salon with Bill Buxton, an awe inspiring design mind if ever there was one. After that I went to the drinks of the Design by Fire Event (a great event by all accounts) and caught up with friends old and new for dinner.\nThursday was the presentation day with speakers\u0026rsquo; dinner. Had an interesting talk with Arjen Kamphuis of Gendo.\nFriday I rounded up my administration before my trip to the Levant.\n","date":"October 19, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-187/","section":"Posts","summary":"A short remaindered weeknote (a rather awesome event and dinner packed week indeed):\n","title":"Week 187","type":"posts"},{"content":"By the time you\u0026rsquo;re reading this I will have flown off to the Levant to spend three weeks mainly in Damascus, Syria.\nUpdate frequency here and work/weeknotes will be very sparse depending on the weather and the network over there. Keep calm and carry on Get excited and start making things without me, I will be rejoining you on the 6th of November.\n","date":"October 16, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/gone-fishing/","section":"Posts","summary":"By the time you’re reading this I will have flown off to the Levant to spend three weeks mainly in Damascus, Syria.\n","title":"Gone fishing","type":"posts"},{"content":"A short week returning from Copenhagen on Monday evening.\nVisited Booreiland on Tuesday to discuss collaboration on project culiacán.\nDid some stuff on Urbanode and got my shots for my trip to Damascus.\nTuesday night the monthly ARCAM lecture was given by Jurriaan van Stigt, write up: Jurriaan van Stigt ARCAM lecture — “Solving these things in a simple and right way is fun. It is our work.” Wednesday and most of the rest of the week were spent drafting my presentation for the Club of Amsterdam.\nMet up with Tim de Gier of Vrij Nederland on Thursday. Good to hear inside opinions on Dutch media and art. Sparked two blog posts on my part which had been due for a while: Ontwerp en complexiteit als journalistieke kansen, How I Twitter.\nSunday Bits of Freedom organized a salon with Eben Moglen, writeup: Eben Moglen — “Will the net empower the center or the ends?”\n","date":"October 11, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-186/","section":"Posts","summary":"A short week returning from Copenhagen on Monday evening.\n","title":"Week 186","type":"posts"},{"content":"De laatste dagen staan een beetje in het teken van gelekte e-mailtjes van, naar en door invloedrijke mensen in Nederland. Een van de recentere is die van de nieuwe hoofdredacteur van het NRC, Peter Vandermeersch, naar zijn redactie, hieronder (via):\nKlik voor groter. Vandermeersch benoemt een serie dingen die de krant zou kunnen en moeten verbeteren om ‘het centrum van het politieke en intellectuele debat’ in Nederland te worden. Ik denk dat weinig mensen echt problemen zouden hebben met deze punten, veel ervan zijn nogal voor de hand liggend: sneller, beter, harder nieuws, geen primeurs laten afpakken, geen dingen laten liggen.\nWat ik vanuit Monster Swell wel interessant vond was zijn herhaaldelijke roep om twee dingen die in ons straatje liggen.\nHelderder maken van ingewikkelde cijfers en kwesties # We zijn niet goed in cijfers\nHij geeft aan hoe het problematisch is om cijfers die in de krant staan voor de lezer te duiden op een manier dat het interessant is en dat mensen snappen wat het betekent. Journalisten die statistiek leuk vinden zijn er niet zo veel.\nHetzelfde met het punt over het pensioendebat:\nWe hebben het niet of heel weinig over de vraag hoe groot ons pensioen is, wat we nu moeten doen als dertigjarige, veertigjarige of vijftigjarige om straks een goed pensioen te hebben\nDit is een kwestie die bij meer mensen speelt die ik ken, maar daarnaast juist bij dit soort grote vormeloze maatschappelijke problemen zou een krant de verdieping en verduidelijking moeten brengen die iedereen mist. Dit kan visueel, of met een dossier of door een online supplement met interactieve rekentools en tie-ins met andere bedrijven.\nJournalistiek is teveel een bastion van de alpha/gamma geweest maar in een complexer wordende wereld zijn er mensen nodig die wiskunde en statistiek kunnen gebruiken om complexe thema\u0026rsquo;s te identificeren, te analyseren en dat dan om kunnen zetten in een verhaal waarin ze dat alles uitleggen. Deze mensen moeten dan juist niet weggestopt worden in de wetenschapsbijlage. Wetenschap, techniek en ontwerp raken tegenwoordig elk facet van ons leven.\nDatajournalistiek is daar één onderdeel van. Deze thema\u0026rsquo;s blijven terugkomen. Gegevens moeten verzameld worden en ontsloten als journalistiek gereedschap, soms voor een plaatje of kaartje in de krant, soms voor een online tool en soms misschien alleen als achtergrond bij een stuk tekst.\nDaar heb je mensen nodig die een beetje van alles kunnen en een paar specialisten. Is dit een wensdroom? Valt dit te integreren in de dagelijkse praktijk van een krant of uit te voeren in tijdelijk dienstverband? Wij denken van wel en we willen graag uitzoeken hoe en wat.\nBeter visueel ontwerp # We zijn niet creatief genoeg in onze aanpak en presentatie.\nDe roep om interessantere formats en betere en visuele presentatie van de concepten die in de krant komen. Met kaartjes, foto\u0026rsquo;s en over het geheel: beter ontwerp.\nWe creëren te weinig ingangen in onze stukken.\nHet verhaal over die lichtbalk blijft een beetje vaag maar dit is ook weer een roep om een interessantere opmaak en formattering van stukken.\nNiet precies in ons straatje, want Monster Swell doet zelf geen visueel ontwerp, maar we hebben een redelijk sterke mening over wat wel en wat niet goed/mooi is en we zoeken naar de beste grafische ontwerpers om mee samen te werken (in Nederland moet dat vooralsnog met een klein lampje).\nGoed grafisch ontwerp begint met een sterk concept en een goede ordening van wat belangrijk is en wat niet (informatie-ontwerp). Dat doen we dan weer wel. Wat de rest betreft, stel ik voor dat ze @iA inhuren en de NRC deze eeuw in katapulteren.\n","date":"October 7, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/ontwerp-en-complexiteit-als-journalistieke-kansen/","section":"Posts","summary":"De laatste dagen staan een beetje in het teken van gelekte e-mailtjes van, naar en door invloedrijke mensen in Nederland. Een van de recentere is die van de nieuwe hoofdredacteur van het NRC, Peter Vandermeersch, naar zijn redactie, hieronder (via):\n","title":"Ontwerp en complexiteit als journalistieke kansen","type":"posts"},{"content":"I explained the way I twitter to several people over the last weeks and it seems that it is somewhat different than how most people setup their account, so I thought it might be interesting to share.\nI have one main account @alper with a decent number of followers. That is also the account I use for reading and because of that I only follow around 250 people.\nI want to keep track of more people but I don\u0026rsquo;t want that to clutter up my main timeline. The social media douchebag way of handling this would of course be to follow all those people (and also follow back everybody who follows me) and make a list of the select group of people that I actually want to keep up with. I don\u0026rsquo;t do that, partially because it is the douchebag way but also because it shows a dishonest state of affairs. I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t actually be following the people I claimed to follow.\nI don\u0026rsquo;t do that. My approach is the exact reverse. There are a ton of people that I have met but whose twittering frequency or content does not agree with me. Or people I have never met and am not interested in following but who I don\u0026rsquo;t want to ‘forget’ about. I put all these people into a list called follow 1 that I peruse regularly.\nWhen I @reply to people from my follow lists, some of those people are flummoxed that I don\u0026rsquo;t follow them but that I am talking to them. That\u0026rsquo;s ok. The follow list is not a ghetto, it\u0026rsquo;s just a convenience measure for me. Sometimes I move people from the list to real following status or vice versa. Don\u0026rsquo;t worry too much about it. Twitter is not a competition.\nI update rather sparsely on @alper: about one reasonably representative update a day and tons of @replies throughout the day. Recently I felt the need to update more liberally without affecting @alper\u0026rsquo;s track record as being a rather clean and friendly account you could easily follow.\nThat is why I started @alpercugun. The original idea was to have it be a private account housing a really offensive literary character who would not balk at frequent profanity, offense and ad hominem attacks. Now it turns out that if you have a twitter account that bears your name and has your likeness in the avatar, you don\u0026rsquo;t get much literary freedom however much you claim it. People have a hard time differentiating (and rightly so).\nSo instead of being a really offensive pit of vileness as intended, @alpercugun turned into my narrow-cast channel where I can write pretty much anything I want in both english and dutch, in a higher frequency than at @alper and with a relevance to a potentially smaller amount of people. There would logically only be a handful of people —who know me pretty well— who would potentially be interested in following such an account 2. Those following both get a fuller picture.\nAn unforeseen consequence of this setup is that I will sometimes say something as @alpercugun and somebody will reply to that, I will —if the conversation is not sensitive— send my subsequent @replies as @alper. The point of @alpercugun is to get the initial thought out, to be a conversation starter. Any following @replies can be posted from @alper because their visibility is limited and because once the conversation has started it is often fair game.\nThe point of having a lot of followers is not reach, it is conversation.\nThe intersection of me and another person with a lot of followers could be a significant set of people. If the both of us talk about something, that entire set of people can see it and will be able to interject in our conversation. That is where the value is created, in publishing otherwise private interchanges and serendipitously triggering a conversation with a larger group of people, exciting ideas and reactions you would not have thought of or even thought of asking for.\nThere\u0026rsquo;s also a follow2 list now because Twitter lists have a silly 500 person maximum\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nAdmission policy is fairly liberal these days.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"October 7, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/how-i-twitter/","section":"Posts","summary":"I explained the way I twitter to several people over the last weeks and it seems that it is somewhat different than how most people setup their account, so I thought it might be interesting to share.\n","title":"How I Twitter","type":"posts"},{"content":"Yesterday the next ARCAM lecture was held in the Brakke Grond by Jurriaan van Stigt of the firm LEVS.\nHere again are my brief notes (quotes are paraphrases at best):\nHe shows a clip from the Godfather (‘He made him an offer he couldn\u0026rsquo;t refuse.’) to illustrate the split personality of architect. Partially analytical partially emotional. Also partially doing what is right and partially pandering.\nSon of Joop van Stigt, would play at his father\u0026rsquo;s firm from a young age on\nWas greatly disappointed by the architecture school in Delft. All his architecture heroes only were talking about right or wrong. There wasn\u0026rsquo;t room for dissenting thought. One librarian would still buy all the wrong books (eg. Richard Meier).\nHis teachers were technology averse because they said that would ruin the creativity.\nMarianne, his now wife, graduated on a concept for Amsterdam Damrak to integrate progress within the old city.\nHe graduated with a plan for the Wibaut-/Weesperstraat similar to a plan that is only now being executed. He called it the most beautiful street in Amsterdam (It is now commonly called the ugliest. -AÇ).\nFinally they added Adriaan to add even more 1+1=3 synergy to the office.\nThey started a firm and they wanted to have done entire projects from front to back including interior, direction and management to have a feel for how it all works.\nOverview of the Work\nHe says they also do technical direction and management. The number of people is fluid, they focus on the projects (Compare what I wrote about modern agencies and Spry Fox recently. -AÇ).\nTalks about critical regionalism by Kenneth Frampton, arhitecture should unify with cultural layering and without prejudice and dogma.\n‘Al onze gebouwen beginnen met een verhaal dat gelinked is aan een plek en waarom het zinnig is om het daar te doen.’\n‘Je moet altijd je rokje optillen als je als architect werkt wilt binnenhalen.’ (illustrated by Zomergasten Helmut Newton clip)\n‘Architecten die bij een opdrachtgever een leuk plaatje doen en de dunheid van ons vak laten zien.’\nCoins the term voodoo architects: voorlopig ontwerp, definitief ontwerp (preliminary design, definitive design)\nBe curious, see it through, be engaged with an assignment, be best not in but for the world.\nDon\u0026rsquo;t work with separate stakeholders but mix them all together and create a chemistry.\nDensify\n‘We have HAD a very rich tradition in managing our public space.’\nIt takes a tremendous amount of resourcefulness and asking and talking. You have to make sure the mix is right on all levels to be able to densify.\nBy waiting for everybody and not deciding you also decide. Proactivity is often necessary.\nIn the end we have a lot of fun to create a beautiful building.\nBouwfraude\nHow difficult it is to get rid of a contractor. The lowest one usually stays in the race with the price he quoted. You can\u0026rsquo;t legally see the quotes the others have made.\nThey managed to get rid of their contractor and tender it under the table. When they finally were allowed to open the envelopes with the other quotes, it turned out these were stuffed with newspapers.\nConcept \u0026amp; Analysis\nCraft\nIt takes a lot of energy to convince people that certain things are doable. It is fun to show them it is doable if you are confident it is.\nYou can\u0026rsquo;t have yourself be guided by the specialists who say they know it all.\nShows prototypes they made before constructing the building.\nIt demands a lot from the building parties. The right builders.\nOf course it\u0026rsquo;s nice to build a cool tower, but we don\u0026rsquo;t want a cool tower for a cool tower\u0026rsquo;s sake.\nWe already have enough architects who create their own problems.\nSolving these things in a simple and right way is fun. It is our work.\nA great talk though it took some time to get started. Referencing the Godfather clip: Jurriaan van Stigt is pretty gangster. Many of the client issues he named are directly transferrable to for instance the web profession. Many of their practices are indeed the best practices the best web agencies employ. Anything else yields lesser results.\nThe concept of not working with separate actors and stakeholders but getting them all together to create a chemistry is a must.\nThe designers who make a quick mockup and don\u0026rsquo;t follow through, we probably all have seen. The idea of designing and having a different party execute it almost never works either. Being engaged in your work and following through is a must.\nNot trusting the specialists with their expertise when they say certain things are doable and others are not is also very wise. Having done every step in a project at least once and still being able to do it when called for is very useful.\nProjects being quoted exorbitant amounts (especially when dealing with government) even accounting for organizational inefficiency five times over, that have no foundation in reality, we also have seen. As a designer having a notion how much something costs and being able to scope that is also very useful.\nSo both an architecturally very interesting talk and also very applicable to any kind of creative client work.\n","date":"October 6, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/jurriaan-van-stigt-arcam-lecture/","section":"Posts","summary":"Yesterday the next ARCAM lecture was held in the Brakke Grond by Jurriaan van Stigt of the firm LEVS.\n","title":"Jurriaan van Stigt ARCAM lecture — “Solving these things in a simple and right way is fun. It is our work.”","type":"posts"},{"content":"Dit fijne dubbelinterview met Kevin Kelly en Steven Berlin Johnson is nog wel het aardigst omdat het uitlegt waarom we Engels moeten praten.\nJohnson: If you look at history, innovation doesn’t come just from giving people incentives; it comes from creating environments where their ideas can connect. (Wired)\nOmgevingen bouwen waar ideeën zich kunnen verbinden zorgt voor innovatie in de gehele omgeving. Naast nabijheid en toegang is taal een hele belangrijke factor voor de verbinding van ideeën.\nIk zeg altijd dat als je geen Engels op niveau spreekt je in onze business gewoon niet mee doet. Mensen die niet kunnen presenteren in het Engels, niet kunnen werken en brainstormen in het Engels, niet kunnen meekomen zetten de rem op de hele groep.\nNu is het in verreweg de meeste gevallen niet erg. Nederlandse klanten lopen vaak toch een paar jaar achter en zijn ook niet extreem veeleisend. Hun operatiegebied is vaak toch ook beperkt tot Nederland. Voor de kenniswerker die binnen Nederland wil blijven en dat als de grenzen van het niveau wil accepteren is het ook best.\nHelemaal leuk is het als je af en toe wel in het buitenland buurt en wat daar staat dan vertaalt en herverpakt voor je klanten in Nederland. Dan lijk je heel wat en je klanten weten toch niet waar je de mosterd vandaan haalt. (Je collega\u0026rsquo;s daarentegen…)\nMaar als je internationale ambitie hebt en écht goede dingen wilt maken is dit alles niet goed genoeg en is vloeiend Engels de allersimpelste basisvereiste.\n","date":"October 6, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/innovatie-door-innovators/","section":"Posts","summary":"Dit fijne dubbelinterview met Kevin Kelly en Steven Berlin Johnson is nog wel het aardigst omdat het uitlegt waarom we Engels moeten praten.\n","title":"Innovatie door innovators","type":"posts"},{"content":" Last week was a short one due to a multitude of other engagements and a weekend trip to Malmö-Lund-Copenhagen from which I returned yesterday.\nProject mérida which concerns a collaboration with Buro Pony took up some time and we had a meeting on that on Wednesday.\nA bunch of updates on PLAY Pilots were also on the roster and my first (and quite succesful) play at the Stereoscoop during the Film Festival.\nAn opinion piece I\u0026rsquo;ve been writing for a national daily has been accepted, but the urgency of the topic has been pushed aside a bit by current political developments in the Netherlands. Here\u0026rsquo;s hoping it gets published sometime soon.\nWednesday was also the office warming for Lev Kaupas new haunts which was a very lively and entertaining event.\n","date":"October 5, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/weeknotes-185/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Weeknotes 185","type":"posts"},{"content":"Dit is interessant nieuws: “ANWB stapt uit overleg ov-chipkaart”.\nHet duurt volgens de ANWB te lang voordat reizigers verbeteringen merken, terwijl de uitrol van de OV-chipkaart volop doorgaat en de strippenkaart in steeds meer regio\u0026rsquo;s wordt afgeschaft.\n[…]\nANWB-directeur Guido van Woerkom vindt bovendien dat door alle andere partijen in het overleg \u0026ldquo;heel slecht wordt geluisterd naar de reiziger\u0026rdquo;.\nDit zijn dingen die we al wisten en waar ik hier ook al een tijdje over schrijf. Goed om te lezen dat de ANWB bij de goeden hoort in het lopende verhaal van de ov-chipkaart.\nOntwerp # Ik hou al een tijdje vol dat de ov-chipkaart erg onder-ontworpen is. Ik vraag me af of er bij de aanloop enig serieus ontwerp en/of gebruikersonderzoek gedaan is. Het is een wonder nog dat het zo goed werkt als het doet, maar de hoeveelheid gemiste kansen en klant-vijandigheid is verbijsterend.\nTot mijn verbazing hoorde ik op PICNIC meermalen buitenlandse bewondering voor het ov-chipkaart systeem.\nÉén iemand was blij verbaasd over het feit dat we hier wegwerp RFID-kaartjes hadden. Deze:\nEen ander voerde de ov-chipkaart aan als een voorbeeld van de poldercultuur toegepast op ontwerp. Iets wat ofwel pertinent onwaar is ofwel compleet onwenselijk als we kijken naar het eindresultaat.\nDat toont maar aan dat de ov-chipkaart net zoals wel meer grote concepten een handige olifant is. Iedereen kan het gebruiken om aan te tonen wat hij wil.\n","date":"October 5, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/anwb-stapt-uit-overleg-ov-chipkaart/","section":"Posts","summary":"Dit is interessant nieuws: “ANWB stapt uit overleg ov-chipkaart”.\n","title":"ANWB stapt uit overleg ov-chipkaart","type":"posts"},{"content":"Gisteren een potje Stereoscoop gespeeld op de Neude in Utrecht en daar een gigantische buit binnengehaald. Deze badges staan nu op mijn profiel te prijken: Het is echt een heel leuk spelletje wat je pas echt merkt als je hem zelf speelt. Dus hij staat nog een paar dagen op de Neude dus ga er even heen als je in de buurt bent.\nNu mét NRC Next artikel:\n","date":"September 29, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/spiegel-van-holland/","section":"Posts","summary":"Gisteren een potje Stereoscoop gespeeld op de Neude in Utrecht en daar een gigantische buit binnengehaald. Deze badges staan nu op mijn profiel te prijken: ","title":"Spiegel van Holland","type":"posts"},{"content":" Goal # I want to create a simple visualization tool for Processing so I can input a set of values for each Dutch municipality and then color a map based on those values.\nThis is harder than it seems because there is no convenient source for the cartographic data for the boundaries of the Dutch municipalities. So the first step is to acquire those boundaries.\nOSM # This blogpost in Dutch put me on track for this dataset. OpenStreetMap has a pretty complete picture of the Netherlands and they track municipal boundaries under boundary admin_level=8.\nThe data dump contains all administrative boundaries on several levels and is something of a mess. The informationfreeway link on the blogpost which should generate an OSM file with only the relations with admin_level=8 but that specific API seems to be down. Also the approach of importing the OSM file back into a PostGIS database before rendering anything struck me as somewhat too cumbersome. So an alternative approach was called for.\nThere are some readily available dumps at CloudMade both with OSM files (format) and Shapefiles for these administrative boundaries. That seemed to be a useful starting point.\nAn OSM file is just an XML file with series of nodes, ways and relations in it. It is filterable by the generic processing tool Osmosis with the options that I guessed --way-key-value to filter ways with the admin_level tag and --node-key-value to do the same for nodes. Osmosis does not specify anything for relations which I want to preserve to be able to identify each boundary by the name of the municipality.\nHaving done that, the resulting OSM file needed to be drawn to the screen. I made a simple XML reader in Processing to display the resulting boundaries. The result did not seem to be completely what I wanted both with missing and unlinked geographical features and I think not everything properly labelled. For this particular application a wiki-map does not seem like the most suitable source of data.\nCBS # CBS (the Dutch statistics office) also provides a dataset with administrative boundaries of the Netherlands. It is a bit hard to track down on the site and there\u0026rsquo;s a reference to the Kadaster which isn\u0026rsquo;t entirely clear, but the generalized Shapefile is workable.\nOne problem is that Shapefiles are only understood properly by GIS people and there are hardly any libraries for web developers to work with the data format. Sunlight Labs recently released their ClearMaps library to aid developers wanting to work with Shapefiles, which is a big step in the right direction.\nAnother problem is that the file on the CBS site is from 2006 and that several municipalities have merged/split, so that adds some problems for correlating it to data. And come to think of it, this municipal rejiggering makes any historical data view of the Netherlands a daunting task. Somebody on Wikipedia has generated a similar map of the Netherlands for 2010 supposedly using data from the CBS, but I can\u0026rsquo;t find that dataset on the site 1.\nOddly enough there\u0026rsquo;s also nothing readily available to draw Shapefiles in Processing. Perusing the forum yields this post which points to Geotools which is a massive set of Java libraries consisting mostly of a huge dependency nightmare mitigated somewhat by Eclipse and Maven.\nGeographical data # Viewing the Shapefile in qGIS shows that it does indeed contain the municipal boundaries with correct labeling. Having verified that, we need to extract the geographical data from the file into a format for easier reuse. Linking all the Geotools 2 dependencies to my Processing sketch does not seem like an attractive proposition. Using the Geotools quickstart to setup Eclipse to pull in the libraries and run the Java code, did work pretty conveniently.\nPoking around the Shapefile with Java and using the very poor javadocs (the User Guide\u0026rsquo;s usefulness turned out to be extremely limited) and sources posted online that are available of Geotools yielded something worthwhile after a full day\u0026rsquo;s work. I also found lots of forum posts of very confused people with few replies and little insight to be gleaned from them. This really seems to be an underdeveloped field.\nIt turns out the Shapefile read with Geotools contains SimpleFeature classes (UML for those, and the Wikipedia lemma for the OpenGIS standard) of which you can call the getDefaultGeometry() methods.\nGeotools also provides a default Drawer.java which you can use to display the features (via LiteShapes) in the Shapefile using Java AWT Graphics. This turned out to be useful mainly for debugging purposes and to verify that Geotools does indeed properly read in the Shapefile. Using a GeomCollectionIterator to walk through the points and extract the coordinates that way turned out to be a dead end (especially because I didn\u0026rsquo;t get the role of the various Transforms).\nAnother idea was to generate SVG from the Shapefile but the GenerateSVG class did not seem to be included in my library checkout and fiddling with the maven file seemed risky.\nFinally the following piece of code yielded for me the two pieces of data I was looking for, the names of the municipalities and the content of the SimpleFeatures as MULTIPOLYGONs.\nString gemShapefile = \u0026#34;/Users/alper/Documents/projects/muniboundaries/cbs/buurt_2008_gen2/gem_2008_gn2.shp\u0026#34;; File file = new File(gemShapefile); FileDataStore store = FileDataStoreFinder.getDataStore(file); FeatureSource featureSource = store.getFeatureSource(); FeatureCollection features = featureSource.getFeatures(); FeatureIterator iter = features.features(); int counter = 0; PrintWriter pw = new PrintWriter(new FileWriter(\u0026#34;/tmp/geo.txt\u0026#34;)); while(iter.hasNext()) { SimpleFeature feature = iter.next(); Collection props = feature.getProperties(); if (counter \u0026gt; 0) { String gemNaam = \u0026#34;\u0026#34;; String geoWKT = \u0026#34;\u0026#34;; for (Iterator it = props.iterator(); it.hasNext();) { Property property = it.next(); if (property.getName().getLocalPart().equals(\u0026#34;the_geom\u0026#34;)) { geoWKT = property.getValue().toString(); } if (property.getName().getLocalPart().equals(\u0026#34;GM_NAAM\u0026#34;)) { gemNaam = property.getValue().toString(); } } pw.println(gemNaam + \u0026#34;; \u0026#34; + geoWKT); System.out.println(gemNaam); } counter++; } pw.close(); The funny thing is every feature has a property “the_geom”which contains the geometry data and its toString() method yields the geometry data as Well-known text. That turned out to be all we needed.\nIt turns out the coordinates in the Shapefile are in Rijksdriehoekscoördinaten 3 which are cartesian coordinates based on a custom projection and associated rectangular grid for the Netherlands 4. This is easily verified using this web form to convert a pair back to GPS and looking that up in Google Maps 5.\nThe above code produces lines such as: Leek; MULTIPOLYGON (((224599.999985 582499.999985, 224999.999985 581299.999985, […] 223366.621185 581866.621185, 223499.999985 581999.999985, 224440.97068499998 582470.485385, 224499.999985 582499.999985, 224599.999985 582499.999985)))\nThis is a simple list of coordinates that define the boundaries of the polygons. A MULTIPOLYGON contains one or more POLYGONS. A POLYGON is one list of the boundary with zero or more lists defining any holes within that boundary. I figured that out looking at the specification for GeoJSON (same data model, different markup) which is the format I am going to republish this information in.\nDrawing # With these coordinates, it became quite easy to write a Processing sketch to draw these boundaries. I looked up a datasource for the last European elections and hooked that up for the colors.\nMaking iterative sketches in Processing with Eclipse is somewhat cumbersome because you need to utilize quite a high level of abstraction if you don\u0026rsquo;t want your classes to interfere with each other but still Eclipse allows me to work quickly and lets you write Java 1.5 level code against the Processing core.jar (that alone is worth the effort).\nI\u0026rsquo;m going to release a generic Processing sketch where you only need to add a data file with colors or values for each name. Publication as these boundaries as both GeoJSON and SVG is also forthcoming. I\u0026rsquo;m also looking for the more recent 2010 Shapefile from the CBS with all the current municipal boundaries in it. If there\u0026rsquo;s demand I can also extract the living quarter and neighborhood level administrative boundaries which are in the other Shapefiles.\nUpdate: Some research shows there\u0026rsquo;s a very promising avenue to do this stuff by converting the entire Shapefile to GeoJSON as explained in this StackOverflow post and then drawing thath using either ProcessingJS or OpenLayers.\nUpdate: Managed to convert the data to GeoJSON and draw it using ProcessingJS: This opens up a ton of possibilities for interactive visualization and sharing. More to follow.\nNor can I find anything else there, but that is a different story.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nAnother alternative would have been a Python binding to GDAL/OGR which looked even less tractable.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nSeemingly you can put anything you want in a Shapefile also given the vast diversity in geodetic datums which are in use around the globe.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nThis is something I couldn\u0026rsquo;t figure out anywhere, what the agreement was —if any— for the contents of the coordinates in the Shapefile. My question: “How do I get GPS coordinates from a Shapefile?”did not yield any answers.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nI have the formulas in a dense PDF, but some sample Java code to do the conversion would be very nice.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"September 29, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/municipal-boundaries-of-the-netherlands/","section":"Posts","summary":"Goal # I want to create a simple visualization tool for Processing so I can input a set of values for each Dutch municipality and then color a map based on those values.\n","title":"Municipal boundaries of the Netherlands","type":"posts"},{"content":"Last week was mostly busy with getting http://playpilots.nl to talk nicely to the Stereoscoop live game and make stuff work (mostly) properly back and forth. Synchronizing physical installations with websites is always fun.\nMonday we also saw the launch of Stweetfightr, a game by the friendly people from Carsonified. The mechanic is mostly the same as PLAY Pilots, with roles, moves and turn taking except that theirs is resolved by a straight roshambo mechanic (one which we considered, but rejected).\nMonday I also attended the first meetup of the Quantified Self Amsterdam chapter co-organized by our office\u0026rsquo;s Maarten den Braber.\nThe second half of this week was taken up mostly by PICNIC which was a great event again. Criticism aside, Amsterdam should celebrate a cross-over event such as this that combines various disciplines and gets so many luminaries to coalesce within its borders. The conference was great and even better the catching up with various people from across the world.\nFriday the Stereoscoop was launched oficially at the Dutch Film Festival. I unfortunately could not attend this because I was organizing the first Dutch Data Drinks for Monster Swell. A resounding succes and the first of many events focused on the coming Big Data trend.\nUploaded with Skitch!\nFriday our friends from the Utrechts Uitburo also launched their integration with Foursquare (the first in the Netherlands), something which has been a long time in the making. Writeup: Foursquare Page for Utrechts Uitburo\nPICNIC taking a large bite out of the week\u0026rsquo;s productivity, the weekend suffered (in a good way).\nOn Saturday I sat on the terrace of Two for Joy catching the last rays of the sun, while sketching out a concept model for an ethnographical study of metropolitan minorities in the Netherlands with regards to digital services and informal economy. This was partly prompted by the Urban Lenses panel at PICNIC where certain panelists displayed an inexcusable amount of cultural insensitivity and simplistic thinking. This is a tendency among many of our colleagues to see their affluent, technologically able, privileged selfs as the model for which to design. Not to mention to see the disconnect between the nation\u0026rsquo;s policies and its ethnically diverse periphery high streets. I propose going into these burbs and talking to these people to see what their lives are really like and how they use technology. Think Jan Chipchase but without the permafuck 1. A project for fun, but I can\u0026rsquo;t guarantee we won\u0026rsquo;t make any profit. Up for it?\nYou may have noticed the transition of Monster Swell from a static placeholder site to a full Wordpress installation of its own. That is the first improvement on that domain for it to become a fully scalable information consuming and producing entity. How that will impact this weblog remains to be seen.\nSunday was occupied by taking the Urbanode integration at the Melkweg to a next step and learning more and more about lighting systems. Also project mérida started with some custom django deployment more on which later.\nDon\u0026rsquo;t worry, you will get tired plenty.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"September 27, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-184/","section":"Posts","summary":"Last week was mostly busy with getting http://playpilots.nl to talk nicely to the Stereoscoop live game and make stuff work (mostly) properly back and forth. Synchronizing physical installations with websites is always fun.\n","title":"Week 184","type":"posts"},{"content":"Wednesday I went to a performance by a Hungarian theater group showing “Hard to be a God” by Kornél Mundruczó a famous Hungarian director after the story by the Soviet Russian brothers science-fiction writers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky.\nI brought my bike with me to Rotterdam because I figured it was only slightly cheaper to store my bike at central station and get an OV-fiets, while having my orange fixie with me in Rotterdam would be a lot more fun.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s always a pleasure to take the Maastunnel to the South part of town: And I seemed to have grossly misjudged the time it would take to bike out to the venue so I had to blast full speed for fifteen minutes to make it in the nick of time. Glad I brought my race bike at that moment.\nThe venue is the same of the Onderzeebootloods, our new Dutch gallery hall which I\u0026rsquo;d still planned to visit, but which seems to close its current exhibition tomorrow. Pro-tip: tomorrow is also the yearly testing of the Maeslantkering, so you should be able to see both if you\u0026rsquo;re headed that way (which I\u0026rsquo;m not). The play was great. Hyperrealistic: no. Shocking: only slightly (anybody with a modicum of exposure to the internet has seen much much viler stuff). Touching: yes after a while. Our performance was heckled by some senile old bastard who did seem to think it was shocking. Interesting use of a second stage and video transmission as a way to mediate the action to the audience.\nBiking through the port of Rotterdam during night time is a pleasure and I would like to repeat it, further out up to the Maasvlakte would be nice. I\u0026rsquo;d planned on doing it while I still lived in the area, but never got around to it.\nI wrote a quick mini review in Dutch at our great theater site Moose.\n","date":"September 24, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/hard-to-be-a-god/","section":"Posts","summary":"Wednesday I went to a performance by a Hungarian theater group showing “Hard to be a God” by Kornél Mundruczó a famous Hungarian director after the story by the Soviet Russian brothers science-fiction writers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky.\n","title":"Hard to be a God","type":"posts"},{"content":"There\u0026rsquo;s a lot of stuff happening in the Dutch Data Scene and more communication and consolidation of efforts is in order.\nQuoting from the Facebook event (Plancast) I created:\nOpen drinks for the Dutch Open Data / Dataviz Community next to PICNIC (http://www.picnicnetwork.org/ ) both for conference attendees and those that want to attend but can\u0026rsquo;t.\nThere are more and more people busy with data in the Netherlands, but most of the efforts are widely disparate. PICNIC seems like a good focal point for various efforts to come together.\nThis is an informal Friday afternoon drink meant to get everybody together and talking about data. Topics include: open data, government information, data visualization, cartography, statistics, data mining, journalism and pretty much anything generating, processing or consuming data.\nThis will probably be the first of a recurring event. I know a ton of people in various domains very busy with data and it will be to the benefit of us all if we talk to one another. Don\u0026rsquo;t worry if you can\u0026rsquo;t make it to this one. There will be more.\nEvent details: Friday, September 24 · 6:00pm - 8:00pm Location: het Ketelhuis Pazzanistraat 25-29 Amsterdam, Netherlands\n","date":"September 21, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/dutch-data-drinks/","section":"Posts","summary":"There’s a lot of stuff happening in the Dutch Data Scene and more communication and consolidation of efforts is in order.\n","title":"Dutch Data Drinks","type":"posts"},{"content":"We moved in our new desks and got rid of the old ones. This clears up a lot of space in the studio and we now have a fifth desk open for lease. If you\u0026rsquo;re design minded and interested in a great place in a creative hub of Amsterdam, get in touch.\nMonday I visited the finissage of fashion and architecture at ARCAM and went to the Typekit meetup organized by Adaptive Path.\nTuesday we resumed development on PLAY Pilots to integrate the website with the Stereoscoop game being built by Zesbaans. I spent a good part of Friday at their studio working on further integration and communication between our systems.\nI\u0026rsquo;m planning an informal data drinks this Friday after PICNIC called the Dutch Data Drinks. A ton of people I know are busy working with data in some fashion or another. It is about time these people got to know each other and work together.\nWednesday there was a small victory. I\u0026rsquo;m busy as a local operative for the Urbanode project and working on the intermediary layer between the application server and the club lights. After fiddling a bit in the Melkweg, we got some lights to be controlled by a Python script, which was very nice.\nThursday I visited the Boffel by our Dutch digital civil liberties organization Bits of Freedom who were celebrating their first year anniversary. I cosigned a letter by them against web censorship. After that I also visited a Speed Show of net art curated guerilla style in a local internet café.\nSaturday went to see the Next Big Thing exhibition by the Sandberg Institute which was pretty much the archetype of a mixed bag.\nAlso busy writing a piece for NRC, which is progressing slowly.\n","date":"September 20, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/weeknotes-183/","section":"Posts","summary":"We moved in our new desks and got rid of the old ones. This clears up a lot of space in the studio and we now have a fifth desk open for lease. If you’re design minded and interested in a great place in a creative hub of Amsterdam, get in touch.\n","title":"Weeknotes 183","type":"posts"},{"content":"I went to the penultimate day of the Matisse to Malevich exposition in the Amsterdam Hermitage for some visual inspiration.\nStunning works by Matisse, especially his red room:\nNot much a fan of the inbetweenist fauvist works on display, though most of them looked nice. The various Picassos strewn about were a welcome distraction.\nLike I tweeted, you have all this colour and style and visual artistry, and then you get: Malevich. Black Square; game, set and match.\nHard to imagine a bigger “Fuck you!”\n","date":"September 16, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/supremacy/","section":"Posts","summary":"I went to the penultimate day of the Matisse to Malevich exposition in the Amsterdam Hermitage for some visual inspiration.\n","title":"Supremacy","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik ben mede-ondertekenaar van een brief van Bits of Freedom tegen verregaande bevoegdheden van de overheid voor institutionele internet-censuur. Het kunnen killen van websites zonder tussenkomst van een rechter is een bizar gegeven.\nEr loopt een internetconsultatie, dus je kunt de punten in de brief overnemen en zelf ook voorleggen aan de minister. Dit is een kwalijke zaak en het is erg dat het zover is gekomen.\n","date":"September 15, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/brief-tegen-censuur/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik ben mede-ondertekenaar van een brief van Bits of Freedom tegen verregaande bevoegdheden van de overheid voor institutionele internet-censuur. Het kunnen killen van websites zonder tussenkomst van een rechter is een bizar gegeven.\n","title":"Brief tegen censuur","type":"posts"},{"content":"The belated weeknotes for the last week. My apologies. Another inbetween week, with a ton of events.\nMonday was Mobile Monday on design with great performances by Arnall and Webb. Good to see our Dutch friends exposed to real design (i.e. not solving problems). Let\u0026rsquo;s hope interesting and valuable stuff comes from it.\nTuesday I read into a bunch of arcane protocol stuff for Urbanode and went to a lecture by landscape architect Ronald Rietveld (my notes).\nWednesday I got to talk with some of the chief creative minds in the Southern Randstad. Expect some awesome visuals headed this way sometime soonish.\nThursday marked another bunch of wrap-up and attendance of the UX Cocktail Hours (which were hosted by SapientNitro and quite ace).\n(Friday was occupied with more of the above.)\n","date":"September 14, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-182/","section":"Posts","summary":"The belated weeknotes for the last week. My apologies. Another inbetween week, with a ton of events.\n","title":"Week 182","type":"posts"},{"content":"Alexander and I attended the ARCAM lecture tonight where landscape architect Ronald Rietveld (Rietveld Landscape) sketched a future for Amsterdam that isn\u0026rsquo;t dormant and touristic, but somewhat ambitious even.\nThese are the rough notes from the presentation 1:\nGoing to explain his fascinations by way of his work.\nStarts with Amsterdam party scene and scenes from the RoXY. Amsterdam used to be very dynamic in the early 90s.\nFascinated by the underground. Also did an exploration of the meatpacker district of NYC. Holes in the urban fabric allow for dynamism to arise.\nFreestate Amsterdam project for the Rotterdam biennale to see about a different way to think about urban planning in the West Port of Amsterdam. It\u0026rsquo;s a massive port that is mostly unknown and unloved.\nThe importance of fertile ground for the creative city. In the 80s city center was the freestate of Amsterdam. Roxy became an exponent of the House Revolution and a focal point of the creative industry.\nRoxy\u0026rsquo;s produce:\nDecor DJ and VJ as export products Graphic design Gay-parade/capital Amsterdam Dance Event Inspiration His isn\u0026rsquo;t the city as defined by top down city marketing but by bottom up creation.\nAfter that the IJ shores became the new freestate. With the following progression:\nOld industry Emptiness Recolonization by festivals Metropolitan connection Trendies start to arrive (MTV) Urbanists and architects arrive There is now a collective feeling that there isn\u0026rsquo;t space anymore in Amsterdam to execute creative ideas.\nStubnitz: the boat of the hundred subcultures where different people meet each other (and that has been closed down by the city)\nPluk de Nacht: empty plot of land, 20000 people in 10 days 2\nAmsterdam should notice and cherish it\u0026rsquo;s talent instead of running it out of town.\nShouldn\u0026rsquo;t a city that wants to become a creative capital have a different approach to city planning?\nWest port has a bunch of environmental advantages:\nFree sound Free height No Stadsdeel Lots of free space High diversity of terrains that are temporarily empty Houtveemloods near Westerpark Used to be a public swimming area in 1954 Proposals to move abandoned oil rigs from the North Sea to behind westerpark (massively high structures). They are waiting to be repaired in the Waddenzee and costing money.\nNew Amsterdam Park\nAnother island was planned near java eiland. A park was necessary.\nFocus on different subcultures instead of ethnicity. Shared interests. Try to look for the tension between the subcultures.\nSocial affordances, the affordances an environment offers for social interaction. (Thesis by his brother.)\nMoor a bunch of barges (duwbakken) there with a every barge hosting a different taste/vibe/culture module of the park. Every container is connected with each other. Temporary park.\nAnother inspiration is: trip through emptiness\nRoad trip through the flyover states and national parks of the USA\nSame phenomena can be applied to the port of Rotterdam. Removed shame green to emphasize the emptiness of the landscape and the activities of the port. Add a flyover highway also to make the port more visible.\nRecognize the existing qualities of a place and try to add to those without detrimenting from the original experience.\nAsfalt dune where you can drive out onto the sea but in fact do not.\nNice datavisualization of the drive trail of how freely people use the road to go to the Maasmond.\nBunker 599 Cut a bunker in half to make the inside experiencable.\nVacant NL Dutch biennale pavilion\nEmpty public buildings. Not the empty office buildings. The period between emptiness and repurposing. The time it takes our policy makers to talk about plans. Combined with the knowledge and innovation agenda of the Netherlands to be in the top-5 of the world.\nWhy these buildings?\nOld stuff inspires new ideas Unique affordances for use Less rules present Affordable space for talent Show affordances for reusing the empty buildings temporally in a creative economic context. It seems that Groningen is already quite far ahead with this compared to the Rim City area.\nBlood sweat and tears to get the entire thing up and running.\nThere is enough creative potential to fill this up. People move to Berlin because they think there\u0026rsquo;s space and opportunity there while there could be more than enough of both in the Netherlands.\nThere\u0026rsquo;s a ton of architectural experience in the room that is very skeptical of temporary reuse, Dutch civil servants\u0026rsquo; risk avoidance and slow moving government processes.\nIn the Netherlands people start inventarizing what could go wrong and nobody wants to take responsibility.\nUpdate: Streamlined a bit more and added links.\nThey will be revised a bit further and I\u0026rsquo;ll add my comments tomorrow.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nSome old dude was really negative about Pluk de Nacht, but I think everybody I know that went was totally positive about the festival.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"September 11, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/ronald-rietveld-arcam-lecture/","section":"Posts","summary":"Alexander and I attended the ARCAM lecture tonight where landscape architect Ronald Rietveld (Rietveld Landscape) sketched a future for Amsterdam that isn’t dormant and touristic, but somewhat ambitious even.\n","title":"Ronald Rietveld ARCAM lecture - 'People go to Berlin because they think there's all that free space there, while there is more than plenty here in Amsterdam.'","type":"posts"},{"content":"Last week was a short one and mostly spent in preparation of work writing proposals and quotes. I hope we can wrap all that stuff up this week and go back into grand scale production mode.\nThe biggest thing to do last week was to transition the PLAY Pilots twitter bot to use OAuth. I just found this article “Setting Up Twitter Bots with OAuth” that describes exactly what I did (without having read it). Twitter\u0026rsquo;s documentation is a bit shoddy in this respect.\nThe week was cut short because of a trip to London and Brighton for dConstruct. It gets a bit routine but I greatly enjoyed the second half of more conceptual and broad reaching presentations (Tom Coates completely crushed it) that are not directly concerned with the day to day operations of an agency 1. I wrote up my hyper-connected London tourism experience yesterday in: “Boris Bikes are made of epic win” Housekeeping: @ouroffice (in photos) is due for some upgrades in the near future and it looks like we will be getting 1-3 new openings. The location is pretty ace, the rent is crazy cheap and the company is good and may get better depending on what you\u0026rsquo;re bringing. So if you\u0026rsquo;re professional and design minded, get in touch 2. It will be good to work together.\nSomething I know many people attending do want to hear about if only to justify to themselves why they went.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nOr talk to me this afternoon at the MoMo about design which you should be attending anyway.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"September 6, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-181/","section":"Posts","summary":"Last week was a short one and mostly spent in preparation of work writing proposals and quotes. I hope we can wrap all that stuff up this week and go back into grand scale production mode.\n","title":"Week 181","type":"posts"},{"content":"This week I had my yearly trip to the UK to attend the dConstruct conference in Brighton. Usually I add some time to visit London too and explore the things that need exploring.\nThis year (like last) I stayed at Cristiano 1 and Melinda\u0026rsquo;s place near Canada Water but contrary to last year, Cristiano equipped me with all the material necessary for a roving networked urbanist. I got to borrow his MiFi and his Barclays Cycle Hire key and it made a ridiculous amount of difference. So much so that I don\u0026rsquo;t know if I\u0026rsquo;ll want to travel any other way.\nBarclays Bikes or as they are commonly known, Boris Bikes, are a brand new cycle hire scheme similar to the Vélib’ system in Paris and not so similar to the Dutch OV-fiets (which I wrote on before). The rates are ridiculously cheap, cheaper even than the OV-fiets here though the model is different. A Boris Bike does not have a lock and needs to be returned to a station when you are not riding it. For a fee of 45/year you can get up to four hire keys and any trip shorter than 30 minutes is free.\nGetting around in London becomes much easier using a bike despite the heavy traffic 2. Trips that would take an hour using the tube take less than half of that time using a bike. London roads are congested, and it takes some adjustment to the traffic direction for a person from the continent but it is more than doable. Boris Bikes also seem to be contributing to the increase in critical mass that had already started.\nThe first time I rode the bike was nice (though intimidating) but when I then returned it to its station, drove it into the rack and felt it fit and the lock snap shut accompanied with the light turning green, I had a massive victory grin on my face. Anybody witnessing that must have concluded that I was deranged (or extraordinarily happy).\nThe trips I did on the bike that day:\nOld Street to Old Broad Street (for Taylor St. Baristas) Old Broad Street to Shoreditch High Street British Library to Serpentine Gallery 3 Serpentine Gallery to Mornington Crescent 4 You can see an increase in the distance I covered with each subsequent ride. The MiFi was essential in making these trips. I needed to figure out quickly where to return the bike within the 30 minute window and for that the Cycle Hire iPhone app (there seem to be a bunch 5 ) proved to be indispensable. Quickly pinpointing a station with empty spots 6.\nThe Cycle Hire App is really nicely designed, uses a custom mapping layer which looks very good and lists the cycle hire locations nearest to you which you can also click to see if there are any bikes (or free spots!) available. This way it becomes easier to navigate the city and be able to also plan your drop off point.\nThe fact that all the cycle hire locations are fully networked and provide live updates as to their status not only enables properly designed applications for various platforms but also has sparked a lively visualization and analysis. Frankly, I\u0026rsquo;m fucking jealous especially compared to the shabby web and service experiences provided by our Dutch OV-fiets system (just check out this map).\nSome conclusions:\nIf you build a service it has to be at once useful and user friendly and don\u0026rsquo;t forget the service touch points as well as the network connections are an essential part of that service. Of course we already knew this, but having real life examples where both the design and implementation have amounted to a clear success will only help tell this story and convince decision makers. Boris Bikes were a pleasure to use and I hope they remain so. Viewed in a broader perspective it is also an example of public services that can work and are a pleasure to use. It is what we should aspire to.\nI noticed this already on my trip to New York but it became only more salient on this trip to London. Having a permanent connection to the internet along with an Oyster card and a Cycle Hire key expanded my latitude immensely. I crammed the stuff you would normally do over a 2-3 day span into a single day which had other consequences 7, but for the kind of travelling I like to do it is a pretty nice fit. Flat rate internet along with access to the network of local services using that connection is the future of any travel experience. The time saved looking at maps, trying to decipher transportation schedules and waiting for vehicles is time much better spent doing other things both home and abroad. The high octane type of tourism this enables may not be to everybody\u0026rsquo;s liking 8 but adding choice and removing friction should always be a positive thing —except in the most philosophical of cases. Furthermore, adding cloud based network services such as these both of the informational variety as of the tangible one (objects becoming services) supported by a smartphone and a credit card has the potential to obliterate the difference between being a local and a tourist. Walk around a city supported by seamless payment and transportation, as well as real-time translation of all foreign language inputs, a global recommender system trained on you for the parts of the city —the very shops to visit and avoid, and a permanent connection to your social network to keep in touch and share experiences with; walking around a foreign city could be as familiar and pleasurable as walking around your hometown, probably even more so.\nLastly wandering around a city without aim or direction is a lot easier using a GPS assisted map (such as Google\u0026rsquo;s) than it is using a paper one. If you\u0026rsquo;ve ever walked around a foreign city using a map or guidebook, you\u0026rsquo;ll have experienced the cognitive load of keeping track on the map where you are. Not so with a GPS device. You can wander around as much as you\u0026rsquo;re comfortable with and as soon as you\u0026rsquo;re done with that you can open the digital map, pin-point where you are and look for the nearest bus/tube/exit to go somewhere else. GPS empowers and enables a much clearer choice of knowing where you are and getting lost. The true traveller\u0026rsquo;s way is of course getting lost on purpose and then asking a local the way back 9, but seriously who ever does that?\nCristiano\u0026rsquo;s project Minutebox won an award while I was staying there. Check it out!\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nAs a Dutch person, I was born on a bike and had little trouble navigating London streets.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nNormally you have to walk some fifteen minutes through Kensington Gardens to get there. Currently there are two cycle hire stations next to the gallery.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nDid that run in some twenty minutes, which I hear is pretty good time…\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nJust imagine that! Having several apps to choose between for a public service instead of one app that barely works.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nHard sometimes even though the stations are being rebalanced continuously.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nAlready completely knackered after the day\u0026rsquo;s exploring, getting 8+ hours of sleep becomes more important. Hardly any energy left for extended socializing at night time. You probably could push through, but I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t want to know how 5-7 days going at this pace feels.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nSome people seem to go on holiday to relax.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nI tried that in Salé. Not the best experience ever.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"September 5, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/boris-bikes-are-made-of-epic-win/","section":"Posts","summary":"This week I had my yearly trip to the UK to attend the dConstruct conference in Brighton. Usually I add some time to visit London too and explore the things that need exploring.\n","title":"Boris Bikes are made of epic win","type":"posts"},{"content":"Last week was concerned with finalizing stuff for the first presentation of guadalajara. The current concept was more exploratory, we do not seem to have found the point of relevance yet to move forward.\nA friendly neighborhood visit to the nice people at Johnny Wonder. And another chat about open data for the city of Amsterdam. Also continued writing a bunch more proposals.\nFinally finished importing the videos and the race times for Wip ‘n’ Kip on the PLAY Pilots website. Glorious slow motion for you to behold.\n","date":"August 29, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-180/","section":"Posts","summary":"Last week was concerned with finalizing stuff for the first presentation of guadalajara. The current concept was more exploratory, we do not seem to have found the point of relevance yet to move forward.\n","title":"Week 180","type":"posts"},{"content":"Others have done this, but these are my thoughts.\nWhat comes after the peak meme blender of the internet It looks like anything done these days is being repurposed, remixed, refabbed, torn apart and inserted in LOLcats so quickly that the point of doing stuff, the notion of authorship and the requirements of originality are becoming completely blurred. One exponent of this movement are hipsters and trying to figure out what is next is pointless because whatever it is, it will become reappropriated and reblended to be part of the current meme-blob. So I\u0026rsquo;m thinking: there must be something possible after this all (for god\u0026rsquo;s sake, there has to be!), and one of its qualities necessarily has to be its imperviousness to remixing. What could it be? Old world quaintness compared to new world innovation I live in the old world and despite itches to move to the old new world (and thinking about the new new world) I am still holding out in the quaint village-like entity that is Amsterdam. We have social security, insurances, education, cheap(-ish) living expenses and most of the stuff you would need to have a decent life. This cocoon has also made us so bored with everything that nobody is doing much of anything. Compare this to China where they are doing all kind of zanyness which is real, like first person shooter cams on police squads, and second story highway buses and superfast trains. At this rate, China may hit singularity and it would take 10+ years for its effects to even reach us here in our insulation. What is preferrable, comfort or edge? Especially in an uncertain world where prior securities are falling apart quicker than we can imagine. Obviously given the choice, being born and educated in comfort is better. We are ridiculously privileged. The immorality of leisure culture I already touched upon this concerning hipsters and quaintness. We are so bored here that most people\u0026rsquo;s stated life goal is to have fun. Nothing else. There is a whole leisure industry of festivals, where people go to for the sole purpose of gaining new experiences and mostly to get fucked up and call in sick for work the next day. If the sun is out in Amsterdam and it\u0026rsquo;s beer o\u0026rsquo;clock (16:00), everybody is out on a boat or on a terrace enjoying themselves. Dutch activism is limited to the sort you can do while partying. No more chaining yourself to things, unless somebody can think of a way of making it enjoyable. I\u0026rsquo;m not saying there is anything wrong in enjoying yourself. I do it myself from time to time. But I do find it deeply immoral to have it be your sole life goal. There is so much out there to do that is meaningful, worthwhile and fulfilling/deeply pleasurable. Why not go do some of that? Gaming It started more in earnest with Sebastian Deterding\u0026rsquo;s presentation “Just Add Points” and culminated in our design and creation of the PLAY Pilots website. Gaming is fun and in cases, worthwhile. Added to that games are the most difficult type of software —be it rules written in computers or on other media— both to think right and to execute properly. This is where it is at if you enjoy difficult stuff (and who doesn\u0026rsquo;t?). Also I can\u0026rsquo;t in earnest be bothered with any console games (there goes 20 hours of your life…). I\u0026rsquo;m more interested in games\u0026rsquo; impact on sociality, urbanism and (gaming) other systems. Also: Games ♥ Data. Prosody (I had to throw in an ultra-vague one.) Trying to think in terms of tone (and also dramaturgy) when it comes to language, concept and act, but this is immensely difficult to do. Just from the most concrete, trying to write a sonnet and looking for aesthetic freedom in a force field of meaning, grammar and sound all the way to more complex acts of performance, presentation and rhetoric. Glad to hear I\u0026rsquo;m not the only one thinking of Maneki Neko all the time. I have been since I first read it years back. And of course also always thinking of food and travel, of the Primer, Jason Bourne and executing a minimal material lifestyle.\nHow does this work? Can I tag others? Maybe some Dutch people for a change (Dutch allowed, English preferred): Kars Alfrink (thanks!), Olaf Koens, Jaap Stronks, Ernst-Jan Pfauth, Anne Helmond 1\nI don\u0026rsquo;t want to burden you guys with a stupid meme, but I suspect you may have interesting thoughts.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"August 27, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/five-things-ive-been-thinking-on/","section":"Posts","summary":"Others have done this, but these are my thoughts.\n","title":"Five things I've been thinking on","type":"posts"},{"content":"Last week was a quiet one.\nUpdates to Ebi and a preparation of the movies and game data from Stekkerfest.\nWriting and submitting proposals to various affairs and agencies around the Netherlands (expect a bunch of new code names, soon!).\nStarted pushing the agenda for Open City Amsterdam.\nA bunch of sketching and research for nezahualcoyotl.\nAlso thinking and preparing a study/business trip to Syria probably somewhere in the second half of October.\n","date":"August 24, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-179/","section":"Posts","summary":"Last week was a quiet one.\n","title":"Week 179","type":"posts"},{"content":"In de nacht van vrijdag op zaterdag kreeg onze Dichter des Vaderlands een blok van anderhalf uur radio in Zomernachten om te vertellen wat hij wilde. Ik had me in de dag vergist, maar het stond vannacht ook al op de website. De MP3 is hier uit de podcast te vissen: Zomernacht van Ramsey Nasr.\nHet mag hier al duidelijk zijn dat ik een fan ben van Nasr. Als je die anderhalf uur luistert, word je het waarschijnlijk ook. Een prettige aanklacht tegen de huidige stand van zaken in Nederland, niet populair maar wel goed onderbouwd. Alleen ben ik bang dat hij er geen nieuw publiek mee bereikt. Zolang wij zó in de minderheid zijn kunnen we zeggen wat we willen maar denk ik niet dat we er iets mee bereiken.\nZijn prangendste aanklacht zoals ook in het manifest van Terschelling te lezen valt is dat ons nieuwe kabinet alles wat geen direct nut heeft wil afschaffen, alles wat ons onderscheidt van de dieren.\nkunst is maar een bijproduct zij is niet nodig om te kunnen eten, neuken, ademen\nZie ook: Wat ons rest — een gedicht over lege schalen\n","date":"August 22, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/2043/","section":"Posts","summary":"In de nacht van vrijdag op zaterdag kreeg onze Dichter des Vaderlands een blok van anderhalf uur radio in Zomernachten om te vertellen wat hij wilde. Ik had me in de dag vergist, maar het stond vannacht ook al op de website. De MP3 is hier uit de podcast te vissen: Zomernacht van Ramsey Nasr.\n","title":"Zuiverheid","type":"posts"},{"content":"This week was dominated by a bunch of things. Preparations for Stekkerfest and touching up the website for that were very important. Also anticipation for the live demonstration of the first PLAY Pilots live game by Fourcelabs.\nTuesday was the night of the third Amsterdam UX Book Club organized by Dirk Geurs and myself. We read the massive tome by Kim Goodwin on designing for the digital age and we had a great turnout and a lively discussion. Thank you Hyves for hosting and everybody for showing up.\nExplorations on getting an identity for Monster Swell are in full swing and we\u0026rsquo;re preparing a bunch of collaborations with friends, and partners to participate in subsidy rounds and contests. Expect more visibility on our part soon.\nThe week culminated on Saturday with Stekkerfest and the running of the Wip \u0026lsquo;N\u0026rsquo; Kip game. Suffice to say that it was every bit as awesome as everybody thought and a lot of fun was had. Massive kudos to the equippe by Fourcelabs that brought it all together.\nWe\u0026rsquo;ll be busy incorporating the live game results into the PLAY Pilots website, but that is stuff for a future weeknote.\n","date":"August 15, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/week-178/","section":"Posts","summary":"This week was dominated by a bunch of things. Preparations for Stekkerfest and touching up the website for that were very important. Also anticipation for the live demonstration of the first PLAY Pilots live game by Fourcelabs.\n","title":"Week 178","type":"posts"},{"content":"From slide 47 on is the core of this presentation by Jan Chipchase:\nchallenge assumptions generate concepts evaluate concepts segmentation and brand strategy Design Mind Speaker Series, Shanghai\nView more presentations from Jan Chipchase.\nLooking forward to when either the Design Mind or Mr. Chipchase make their way to the low countries.\n","date":"August 12, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/design-mind/","section":"Posts","summary":"From slide 47 on is the core of this presentation by Jan Chipchase:\n","title":"Design Mind","type":"posts"},{"content":"‘Design Directie’ is een periodiek stukje van Alper over het raakvlak van design en technologie met de maatschappij 1.\nOp dit moment worden we niet bestuurd en moeten we wachten op een formatie die lang duurt, niet transparant is en een resultaat gaat opleveren waar de helft van het land niet op zit te wachten. Dit proces voelt sub-optimaal en achterhaald aan.\nHet besturen van een land is niks meer dan een complex ontwerp-probleem op macro-niveau. Dingen ontwerpen is iets wat we kunnen. Er is een methode voor en het is vaak na afloop ook duidelijk of een ontwerp geslaagd is of niet. Het is een rationeel wetenschappelijk/creatief proces met tastbare uitkomsten. Als het mogelijk is om een iPod of een Boeing te ontwerpen, dan kun je die methoden ook gebruiken voor een landsbestuur. Wat zou er gebeuren als we het ontwerpproces over de politiek heen legden?\nBij het maken van een ontwerp kijk je naar de doelen. Dus: waar willen we heen met dit land? Je doet onderzoek onder gebruikers (het electoraat) in het veld (tijdens de campagne) en je market de oplossingen waar je mee gaat komen (verkiezingsbeloften). Hieruit volgt een model waar je mee kunt werken. Met dat model kun je plannen maken. Je hebt dan een designdocument (een regeerakkoord) waarmee je aan de slag kunt.\nHet enige waar je dus echt over moet praten zijn de doelen. Ik heb het idee dat die bij alle partijen niet eens zo ver uit elkaar liggen. Iedereen wil toch een veilig land, een goede gezondheidszorg en een competitief onderwijs en economie? Hoe je dat doet volgt uit de ontwerpmethode: onderzoek doen, ideeën verzinnen, toetsen aan het de werkelijkheid en resultaten boeken.\nHoe anders is dit in de politiek. Partijen gaan er gemakzuchtig van uit dat ze al weten wat er leeft, ook al zitten ze grotendeels in Den Haag. Campagne voeren is meer een show dan dat er oprechte interesse voor de kiezer is. De beloften zijn vaak te concreet én onrealistisch zodat die direct sneuvelen in compromissen. Mensen geloven na de uitslag al niet meer waar ze in gestemd hebben, laat staan dat je ze enthousiast kunt houden. En de resultaten… daar hoor ik nooit iemand over.\nGoede ontwerpers gaan uit van de werkelijkheid en handelen in gelijke delen visie, gezond verstand en realisme. Politici zo zien we gaat het meer om zelfbehoud, het spelen op de onderbuik en het in stand houden van illusies. Ontwerpers die politiek voeren of in politieke organisaties werken, komen zelden tot goede resultaten. Politici die wat meer methoden uit de ontwerppraktijk gebruiken, daar zouden we wel weer wat vertrouwen in kunnen hebben.\nElke Design Directie wordt hier gepubliceerd en bij de eerste publicatie die hem wil overnemen ( aanmeldingen ).\nEn boven alles een experiment.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"August 9, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/design-directie-1/","section":"Posts","summary":"‘Design Directie’ is een periodiek stukje van Alper over het raakvlak van design en technologie met de maatschappij 1.\n","title":"Design Directie #1","type":"posts"},{"content":"This week started pretty extreme 1 with 12+ hour days on Monday and Tuesday culminating in the launch of PLAY Pilots.\nWednesday was occupied with fallout, rest and coming to terms with Stumptown Amsterdam\u0026rsquo;s closing. I drank quite some coffee there and talked lots of work. Also Martijn dropped by the office to solder something:\nThursday started the quest to find a good identity for Monster Swell. Also started the foray into the Dutch subsidy jungle.\nFriday, updated the portfolio\u0026rsquo;s a bit and went to the (OMG WTF) MoMo AMS BBQ.\nSaturday my Epson V500 scanner arrived which I\u0026rsquo;ll be using mostly for capturing project documentation better and scanning 120 film. On to an even more dematerialized life.\nSunday was occupied with a lot of reading in Designing for the Digital Age preparing for the UX Book Club we are hosting on Tuesday. Also more scanning (and throwing out paper) and writing the first issue of my Dutch design and technology column “Design Directie”(due out here tomorrow morning).\nThoug we wouldn\u0026rsquo;t have it any other way. It was epic!\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"August 8, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/weeknotes-177/","section":"Posts","summary":"This week started pretty extreme 1 with 12+ hour days on Monday and Tuesday culminating in the launch of PLAY Pilots.\n","title":"Weeknotes 177","type":"posts"},{"content":"This week was completely spent with work each day on project Ebi, better known as PLAY Pilots. The site is due to launch this week (it in fact launched yesterday night).\nTwo other noteworthy events transpired:\nI got a new avatar picture taken by Daphne Horn. My current avatar picture was long overdue for a refresh and Daphne\u0026rsquo;s offer to get my picture taken by a professional photographer proved to be both very fun and resulted in a very nice photo. The picture is now live on my account. A preview was on Daphne\u0026rsquo;s tumblr.\nSunday marked the end of the Dutch mission in Afghanistan, so I used some downtime on Saturday to finish project puebla which is a small map with the origins of our 24 fallen (write-up).\nThe launch of PLAY Pilots is going to be interesting, and there\u0026rsquo;s a bunch of other stuff coming up: nezahualcoyotl, guadalajara and some other proposals are progressing nicely.\n","date":"August 4, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/weeknotes-176/","section":"Posts","summary":"This week was completely spent with work each day on project Ebi, better known as PLAY Pilots. The site is due to launch this week (it in fact launched yesterday night).\n","title":"Weeknotes 176","type":"posts"},{"content":"Post-mortems and design overviews will be posted by the appropriate people in due time, but for now the site is live and we are quite happy about it.\nGo and: PLAY Pilots\n","date":"August 4, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/play-pilots/","section":"Posts","summary":"Post-mortems and design overviews will be posted by the appropriate people in due time, but for now the site is live and we are quite happy about it.\n","title":"PLAY Pilots","type":"posts"},{"content":"Today marks the end of the Dutch presence in Afghanistan and here\u0026rsquo;s a small data oriented tribute to those that have fallen in service. Inspired by the Home and Away visualization by Stamen, I decided to see if something similar for our Task Force Uruzgan would provide any insight.\nThere are massive differences fortunately between the American and the Dutch situation in count and dispersion of casualties. We have 24 fallen during the four years the mission was there and I think all of them are in Afghanistan\u0026rsquo;s Uruzgan province. I say ‘think’ because our department of defense is much more conservative in releasing exact data.\nI was still curious if there was a pattern to the origins of the soldiers that have fallen in Afghanistan on a democratic mandate on behalf of us all, so I googled their names and tried as best I could to deduce their home towns. The result is the following list and map: The only trend that is noticeable is that these soldiers are overwhelmingly not from the Randstad area. The other takeaway is doing the research for the map which was a pretty intense experience. Reading the stories behind what has happened and people\u0026rsquo;s reactions. So if anything, I think any representation that breaks up the total count of 24 into separate individuals is a good thing and I hope you take this map as that.\n","date":"August 2, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/uruzgan-in-the-netherlands/","section":"Posts","summary":"Today marks the end of the Dutch presence in Afghanistan and here’s a small data oriented tribute to those that have fallen in service. Inspired by the Home and Away visualization by Stamen, I decided to see if something similar for our Task Force Uruzgan would provide any insight.\n","title":"Uruzgan in the Netherlands","type":"posts"},{"content":"Here the first of my English translations of the design principles outlined in the Dutch book by Rathenau about the digitalization of society and its implications.\nThe book is quite good and I think these design principles deserve a wider audience. I\u0026rsquo;ll get to noting down the ones from chapter 0001 in a bit, now just the ones from the (second) chapter 0010 which was unfortunately of somewhat meager interest.\nCamera surveillance can serve as an example for other applications in the public space. There is a legal framework in which camera surveillance is allowed, which functions properly and can serve as an example for other technologies. In the \u0026rsquo;90s camera surveillance was a means that was subject to public and political debate. Based on these discussions, legislation has been instituted that limits citizens\u0026rsquo; privacy violations. You can\u0026rsquo;t put cameras on the street without adhering to certain rules. There are also clear rules what can be done with captured data from which we can distill the following design principles.\nPrivacy in public is a problem case in and of itself. You are visible for everybody and you cannot invoke the right of protection of the personal living sphere when you\u0026rsquo;re out and about. In the public domain the collective interests of safety and order trump the individual right of privacy. Who does not commit any offenses should stay anonymous. Even though it is possible to watch everybody using camera surveillance, it is not necessary to identify everybody. Only if it is necessary for police work should an image be linked to a person. Watch the watchers. As information becomes more and more centralized, it gives more oversight and power to those that watch over those being watched. According to the rules of the panopticon, this increase needs to be combined with a corresponding increase of control over the center. Camera surveillance also has synoptic elements. Technology needs to be used by citizens who want to check on government as much as by the government to check on its citizens. This is a quick and rough translation but it should serve most applications.\nThe legislation that works properly that is referred to above is the one that\u0026rsquo;s in place in the Netherlands. In how far that is the case can be subject to debate, but most people in the Netherlands do not object to camera surveillance, so there is democratic support for camera surveillance.\n","date":"July 26, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/check-in-check-out-design-principles-for-camera-surveillance/","section":"Posts","summary":"Here the first of my English translations of the design principles outlined in the Dutch book by Rathenau about the digitalization of society and its implications.\n","title":"Check in / Check Out - Design Principles for Camera Surveillance","type":"posts"},{"content":"A quick one.\nPLAY Pilots (née project ebi) is revving up for its public launch follow @playpilots for news about that. Lots of work going into that, lots more to do still.\nNoteworthy other stuff:\nThe first pilot game is going to be awesome and the second one probably is too. Read more about those on the blog.\nI met with René Wansdronck an architect about geographical plotting of objects.\nAlso project nezahualcoyotl got its go ahead. Something to do with a hardware manufacturer and the quantified self, should be great. Going to take place in the course of August.\n","date":"July 25, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/weeknotes-175/","section":"Posts","summary":"A quick one.\n","title":"Weeknotes 175","type":"posts"},{"content":"Terwijl we aan de andere kant een strijd voeren voor vrij beschikbare openbaar vervoersinformatie is het openbaar vervoer zelf in een ‘wereldstad’ als Amsterdam nog een zooitje.\nOp dit moment is de hele metrolijn van Amstel naar Centraal dicht vanwege onderhoud aan de roltrappen (!). Dat is op zich al WTF. Nog erger is dat er ruzie is tussen een aannemer en de gemeente en dat daardoor de metro volgende zomer weer dicht moet 1.\nOp de Wibautstraat rijden nu elke vijf minuten vier bussen heen en weer (dat is dus waarom iets als een NZ-lijn nodig is). De stad kan zo\u0026rsquo;n aannemer op zo\u0026rsquo;n punt dan niet breken, gek genoeg.\nDus missen de belangrijkste metro-verbinding in de stad maar het GVB maakt nog steeds bakken vol met winst (€150'000 per maand) mede door een geïntroduceerde gebruikersfout in de OV-chipkaart:\nEen doorslaand succes die ov-chipkaart alleen niet voor de reiziger. Dat de OV-chipkaart slecht ontworpen is wisten we al. Er moet een chipkaart zijn, maar als we vastzitten aan hetzelfde slechte ontwerp zonder enige mogelijkheid tot verbetering dan liever niet.\nIf you fuck us, we will fuck you fifty times over lijkt mij het devies.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"July 25, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/gvb-clusterfuck/","section":"Posts","summary":"Terwijl we aan de andere kant een strijd voeren voor vrij beschikbare openbaar vervoersinformatie is het openbaar vervoer zelf in een ‘wereldstad’ als Amsterdam nog een zooitje.\n","title":"GVB clusterfuck","type":"posts"},{"content":"Niet zoveel aan te merken op dit hoofdstuk. Ook niet heel erg mijn interessegebied.\nAlgemeen over de huidige stand van zaken wat betreft het camera-toezicht, de wettelijke kaders en hier en daar wat dingen over het concept panopticon en in hoeverre dit geldt wanneer het verzamelen en het bekijken van de beelden gedistribueerd zijn.\nFrappantste is dat de grootste ontwikkeling in het camera-toezicht komt door het internet omdat nu waarschijnlijk het grootste deel van de camera-beelden over internetverbindingen met redelijke standaardprotocollen zal gebeuren. Ik neem aan dat het hiervoor met veel proprietaire systemen gebeurde, die daardoor moeilijk aan elkaar te koppelen waren. Hier dus ook weer IP als grote gelijkmaker.\nSystemen die camera-toezicht efficiënter moeten maken en potentieel hele grote privacy-inbreuken kunnen veroorzaken zoals het detecteren van ongewenst gedrag —Wat is ongewenst gedrag?— en het volgen van mensen door bestanden en systemen heen, zijn allemaal nog niet zo ver dat we ons daar zorgen over moeten maken.\nMaar ik denk wel dat we ons daar nu al zorgen over moeten maken. Ik vind dat in dit hoofdstuk die toekomst wanneer computers net zo goed en misschien wel beter dan mensen beelden kunnen verwerken en de gevolgen daarvan niet voldoende verkend worden. Het zal misschien wat langer duren, maar ik denk zeker dat dat er gaat komen.\n","date":"July 24, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/check-in-check-out-case-by-case-case-0010-straatbeelden/","section":"Posts","summary":"Niet zoveel aan te merken op dit hoofdstuk. Ook niet heel erg mijn interessegebied.\n","title":"Check in / Check Out, Case by Case — Case 0010, 'Straatbeelden'","type":"posts"},{"content":"De grens tussen Turkije en Syrië is tegenwoordig compleet open en Turkije ‘groeit uit zijn voegen’ 1:\nAleppo is maar een half uurtje rijden over de grens en een totaal andere wereld. Samen met de bouw en handel die toenemen zal nu het toerisme waarschijnlijk ook groeien. Voorbij is het ongerepte Syrië waar ik drie jaar geleden met wat kunst en vliegwerk in kon reizen.\nGoed wel, maar toch een beetje jammer.\nWat nou Eurozone…\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"July 20, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/turks-syrische-herontdekking/","section":"Posts","summary":"De grens tussen Turkije en Syrië is tegenwoordig compleet open en Turkije ‘groeit uit zijn voegen’ 1:\n","title":"Turks-Syrische herontdekking","type":"posts"},{"content":"Project Ebi is taking most of my capacity and brain these days, so everything else is necessarily pushed to the back burner a bit.\nIn other news…\nI started drafting an open letter in Dutch regarding the information platform for transit data for the Netherlands which will be created in the near future. We (Open Data Nederland) want this platform to be open and inclusive to enable the greatest potential for innovation.\nTalked about an interesting quantified self dataviz project (codename: nezahualcoyotl) with a well-known hardware maker. More dataviz is forthcoming: puebla got its public deadline (which is quite shortly) but could use some visual design attention guadelajara got its datasets after some gentle nudging of authorities, expect some first draft renders for that soon\nI also did a bunch of beta testing of Peerz. A Dutch startup I did the initial IA/IxD for. You can try it out yourself and could even win an iPad for your efforts.\n","date":"July 18, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/weeknotes-174/","section":"Posts","summary":"Project Ebi is taking most of my capacity and brain these days, so everything else is necessarily pushed to the back burner a bit.\n","title":"Weeknotes 174","type":"posts"},{"content":"Some notes, this time not ordered by day, but by theme.\nA bunch of conceptual and game design progress for Ebi. We created a concept which is fun, viral and not impossible to implement given the time we have. Also big thanks for the baristas at Brandmeester\u0026rsquo;s for keeping the creativity fueled.\nCoffee at Stumptown with @mosselman and @remcojanssen. Signup at the mental stimulation Google Wave (still a free spot left for this week!).\nI attended all three days of the Mediamatic Mapping Festival. There was a lot of familiar stuff there but still saw some interesting things (see Monster Swell\u0026rsquo;s tweets) and talked to some cool people (among who catalogtree). The amount of interactive data visualizations was somewhat disappointing. It is about time we transformed data and insight into read/write media.\nSome writing:\n“Distilling meter, rhyme and verse from your database” about the need for data storytelling A summary of a recent Dutch commission\u0026rsquo;s report on traffic information systems in Dutch “Eindrapport Adviescommissie Verkeersinformatie” Some updates on Haïtinu.nl a site I have been working on.\n","date":"July 12, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/weeknotes-173/","section":"Posts","summary":"Some notes, this time not ordered by day, but by theme.\n","title":"Weeknotes 173","type":"posts"},{"content":"I was already in the habit of starting my mornings drinking the best coffee in Amsterdam at Stumptown and would regularly chat with the mayor. After planning some morning meetings there, getting an early start, drinking great coffee and having a good conversation with people you\u0026rsquo;d normally not talk to, proved to be a good idea.\nSo I opened a collaborative document with my free spots to see if people would be interested in meeting. Early, just for coffee and just for an hour. This is going quite nicely so far, and I\u0026rsquo;m going to see if I can fill it up for the entire duration of Stumptown\u0026rsquo;s run here in Amsterdam.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve still got a free spot for next week and will post my schedule for the week after shortly. Signup at the Wave:\n","date":"July 8, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/coffee-as-catching-up/","section":"Posts","summary":"I was already in the habit of starting my mornings drinking the best coffee in Amsterdam at Stumptown and would regularly chat with the mayor. After planning some morning meetings there, getting an early start, drinking great coffee and having a good conversation with people you’d normally not talk to, proved to be a good idea.\n","title":"Coffee as catching up","type":"posts"},{"content":"I don\u0026rsquo;t know how I missed this job in my post this year on “New disciplines for a real-time data world” but this week the position for a Data Griot and Community Activator popped up at Last.fm and was brought to my attention by Chris Heathcote\u0026rsquo;s post who did some griotting into Grindr (an interesting app worth a post on its own).\nThe posited Data Griot is a great position that combines institutional knowledge and knowledge of data with public understanding. There is so much work to be done in this field to increase public awareness of the importance of and practices around data that it\u0026rsquo;s quite staggering. Nice on Last.fm too to have coined such an apt phrase for it.\nSo the Griot has both a deep knowledge of history and trends as well as a finger on the pulse of current events and combines both to create acute relevance. She is ad res and can combine resources both within and outside of the organization with social/technical/design skills of her own to massive effect.\nSounds like a very nice job. An important role already in journalistic and political organizations if they manage to see the need. In corporations any aspiring griot will have a hard time the further their work is diluted by PR/Legal/Accounting/Marketing and other departments. But most likely they won\u0026rsquo;t hire one anyway. Those companies that have a solid (mutual) relation with the public and a track record of rapid innovation (like most web2.0 sites) will be in a better position to act than others (not to say that other companies can\u0026rsquo;t benefit, but they\u0026rsquo;ll have a lot of institutional learning and organizational change to do at the same time).\nThe Griot goes beyond the already known data scientist position which seems to be less of a conversational and more of an academic/metrics one and actually is a really tall order to fill. More organizations are looking for griots but because it is at the same time both broad and specialized 1 that will be pretty hard.\nIn the Netherlands there are already so few people active in the data field that it\u0026rsquo;s even more difficult. I would be a good fit for the role, though I\u0026rsquo;m not looking for a permanent position —organizational embedding (i.e. not consulting) is I think an important requirement for somebody doing this. I know nrc.next has some people dedicated among which Thalia Verkade. I don\u0026rsquo;t know about the other papers.\nBut maybe there are more that I am missing. Is your organization looking for data griots? Are you one yourself? I\u0026rsquo;d like to hear more.\nUpdate: My friends at QD are doing some very cool things with internet tracking and have an open position for a function that borders on this: A Statistical Market Researcher.\nThe UX profession prides itself on T-shaped people but most people working there aren\u0026rsquo;t nearly wide or deep enough for this work.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"July 8, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/distilling-meter-rhyme-and-verse-from-your-database/","section":"Posts","summary":"I don’t know how I missed this job in my post this year on “New disciplines for a real-time data world” but this week the position for a Data Griot and Community Activator popped up at Last.fm and was brought to my attention by Chris Heathcote’s post who did some griotting into Grindr (an interesting app worth a post on its own).\n","title":"Distilling meter, rhyme and verse from your database","type":"posts"},{"content":"Dit rapport is tijdens de verhuizingen een beetje tussen wal en schip geraakt. Het lijkt me goed om de gedeelten die ik al had aangestreept even snel te bloggen voordat we diep op de openbaar vervoersinformatie-situatie in Nederland ingaan.\nIk kwam dit rapport vorig jaar op het spoor als het rapport van ‘Commissie Laan III’ 1 en na wat gebel kon ik het opgestuurd krijgen van onze rijksoverheid. Het heet “Eindrapport Adviescommissie Verkeersinformatie”en is uit April 2009.\nEr staan interessante dingen in over de verhoudingen tussen de verschillende partijen in dit gebied en verstandige woorden over het belang van een publieke voorziening voor data. Dit belang is duidelijk maar deze commissie adviseert alleen en dat in redelijk vage bewoordingen waardoor er niet zoveel gebeurt.\nOm te beginnen:\nDe commissie bestaat uit vertegenwoordigers (op directieniveau) van verschillende wegbeheerders, belangenorganisaties op gebied van mobiliteit, transport en logistiek alsmede marktpartijen die zich onder meer richten op de distributie van verkeersinformatie, zogeheten service providers. (blz. 4)\nIk mis twee groepen in de samenstelling van de commissie:\nMensen met een idee van het verstorende en innovatieve potentieel van het internet. Mensen die de belangen van echte eindgebruikers behartigen. Het ontbreken van die twee groepen zorgt ervoor dat de commissie nooit echt toekomt aan de dingen waar het echt om gaat wat betreft verkeers- (en vervoers-)informatie.\nWie zaten er dan wel in? Uit bijlage B:\nANWB bv EVO Siemens Nederland Vialis Verkeer \u0026amp; Mobiliteit bv ARS Traffic \u0026amp; Transport Technology Verkeersinformatiedienst Publieke Omroep Vereniging Nederlandse Gemeenten (VNG) Interprovinciaal Overleg (IPO) Ministerie van Verkeer en Waterstaat, Rijkswaterstaat en als adviseurs:\nRijkswaterstaat- Verkeerscentrum Nederland Ministerie van Verkeer en Waterstaat Directoraat-Generaal Mobiliteit Verder:\nHet belang van actuele en betrouwbare verkeersinformatie geldt - afgezien voor overheden - ook in hoge mate voor het bedrijfsleven en individuele weggebruikers. De informatie over de verkeersafwikkeling, nu nog sterk per modaliteit gesegmenteerd (weg/OV), wordt hoofdzakelijk door publieke partijen, aangeboden aan service providers die op hun beurt de informatie doorgeven aan de gebruikers. De publieke partijen bieden informatie veelal aan vanuit hun rol als verkeersmanager. (blz. 4-5)\n‘Service providers’ zijn volgens het rapport partijen als ANWB en Siemens.\n‘Verkeersmanagers’ doen precies dat. Dat zijn partijen —ik denk met name op de weg— die ervoor zorgen dat de dingen zo veilig en efficient mogelijk gebeuren. Daarvoor verzamelen ze die informatie ook.\nHet uiteindelijke collectieve doel van de informatieverschaffing is het publiek zodanig te kunnen informeren dat individuele gebruikers in staat zijn om goede en slimme keuzes te maken in hun mobiliteitsbehoefte. De baten bestaan voor het bedrijfsleven uit een betere bereikbaarheid c.q. tijdswinst, uiteindelijke leidend tot het genereren van (meer) omzet en winsten, en voor de publieke wegbeheerders in een betere benutting van hun infrastructuur. (blz. 5)\nBovenstaande is exemplarisch voor hoe de discussie geframed wordt. Transport is een probleem van het bedrijfsleven en bedrijven verliezen geld als dat niet goed gebeurt. Dat is gedeeltelijk waar, maar toch grotendeels het paard achter de wagen spannen. Transportmogelijkheden danwel op de weg, danwel via het openbaar vervoer bieden transmobiliteit: mensen krijgen de mogelijkheden om zich te ontplooien op een heleboel manieren waaronder werk, onderwijs en vrije tijd.\nDat zou het kerndoel moeten zijn en dat ontbreekt totaal. Als die ontplooiing goed gebeurt dan ontstaat er meer maatschappelijke welvaart dan alleen maar meer omzet. Maar de deelnemers van deze commissie zien dat niet.\nWe zitten nu nog in de management samenvatting. Wat punten:\n4 Om de weggebruiker nog beter van informatie te voorzien zodat hij bij een routekeuze meer rekening houdt met lokale omnstandigheden omtrent verkeersveiligheid, leefbaarheid en milieu, dient deze informatie systematisch door wegbeheerders aan service providers en andere marktpartijen beschikbaar te worden gesteld. Daarnaast is deze informatie ook voor de weggebruikers zelf praktisch en nuttig (minder files en omrijroutes). (blz. 7)\nHet is een beetje de vraag wat nu een marktpartij is. Zoals het nu bij het NDW 2 geïmplementeerd is betaal je €6000 per jaar om bij de gegevens te mogen (zie dit verslag Hergebruik van Overheidsinformatie). Dit omdat ze ‘kosten maken’, maar je sluit door zo\u0026rsquo;n hoge barrière op te werpen de meer innovatieve en specialistische toepassingen voor die gegevens bij voorbaat al uit.\n5 Teneinde de weggebruiker in staat te stellen om voor en tijdens zijn reis gebruik te maken van alternatieven die het OV biedt en daaraan gerelateerde services zoals P+R-voorzieningen en OV-fiets, is het noodzakelijk dat er multi-modale reisplanners beschikbaar komen.\nStimuleer het openstellen van OV-informatie voor marktpartijen op de korte termijn en bevorder de invoering van multi-modale routeplanners en hieraan gekoppelde diensten. (blz. 7)\nWat wordt er verstaan onder een marktpartij? Is een hobbyist of een kunstenaar een marktpartij? Moeten alle diensten noodzakelijkerwijs commercieel zijn?\nDe noodzaak van die multi-modale planners is ontzettend groot. Alle pogingen die tot nu toe zijn gedaan door bijvoorbeeld TomTom of 9292 zijn er nog niet helemaal en er is er nog eentje in ontwikkeling door de Waag maar daar heb ik tot nog toe niks van vernomen.\nAls er geen barrières waren wat betreft kosten en moeizame gesprekspartners dan weet ik zeker dat er veel meer, specifiekere en betere routeplanners al beschikbaar zouden zijn. Misschien enkele complete multimodale planners, maar daarnaast een heleboel specifieke niche-toepassingen en integraties met andere applicaties.\nEr wordt een organisatorisch vervolg geschetst waar de verschillende partijen met elkaar in gesprek kunnen blijven 3 en:\nHiermee wordt bevorderd dat de reiziger in de toekomst optimale en betrouwbare informatie ontvangt om zodoende een persoonlijke afweging omtrent het voorgenomen reisgedrag te kunnen maken (modaliteit, tijdstip van vertrek, routekeuze, kosten en comfort etc.). Daarmee kan een belangrijke bijdrage worden geleverd aan de vergroting van de bereikbaarheid en een betere benutting van de infrastructuur. (blz. 8)\nLees bovenstaande en ga bij jezelf na in hoeverre je optimale en betrouwbare informatie ontvangt en hoe dat je bereikbaarheid beïnvloedt. De wil is er, maar de toekomst waar de commissie het over heeft lijkt nog ver weg.\nDan het rapport zelf.\nDe resultaten van Commissie Laan II:\nIn de kern waren genoemde aanbevelingen gericht op het wijzigen van de relatie en de leveringsovereenkomst tussen Rijkswaterstaat/TIC enerzijds en de service providers (ANWB, Siemens etc.) anderzijds. Deze aanbevelingen waren tevens bedoeld om de verhoudingen tussen partijen weer te ‘normaliseren’, na een roerige periode tussen genoemde partijen, waarbij een aantal conflicten zelfs tot rechtszaken had geleid. (blz. 13)\nFijne jongens. Het laat zich raden dat die rechtszaken niet in eerste plaats om het belang van de eindgebruiker waren.\nEn meer:\nDit heeft er bijvoorbeeld toe geleid dat Rijkswaterstaat de ruwe verkeersgegevens beschikbaar is gaan stellen aan service providers. Verder waren service providers niet langer verplicht om eigen ingewonnen verkeersgegevens aan Rijkswaterstaat terug te geven. (blz. 14)\nEn een interessant voorbehoud van de minister:\ndat ‘waar het gaat om informatie die rechtstreeks verband houdt met de publieke rol van Rijkswaterstaat als netwerkmanager, Rijkswaterstaat deze verkeers(management) informatie zélf moeten kunnen verstrekken aan het algemene publiek; los van de vraag of deze informatie reeds door de markt wordt of zal worden aangeboden.’ (blz. 14)\nDit rapport gaat vooral over Rijkswaterstaat en de wegen waar de verkeersinformatie in het NDW staat. Rijkswaterstaat heeft die publieke rol en is niet geprivatiseerd waardoor de minister dit wat makkelijker kan zeggen. Wat betreft het openbaar vervoer is er een lappendeken van (semi-)private ondernemingen die wél een publieke rol hebben wat betreft informatievoorziening maar die niet willen uitoefenen.\nNog een leuke (maar holle) uitspraak:\nDe Minister geeft in nota aan dat hij de publiek-publieke en de publiek-private samenwerking wil stimuleren: “De groeiende behoefte van zowel overheid als weggebruiker aan een goede en betrouwbare verplaatsingskwaliteit van deur tot deur vereist meer samenwerking tussen wegbeheerders en ook tussen vervoerswijzen. Het vereist bovendien werken over de eigen beheersgrenzen heen en rekening houden met elkaars doelstellingen en belangen.”(blz. 18-19)\nEen open ‘deur’ waar niks mee gebeurt. Een beetje rondvragen bij de instanties leert dat over beheersgrenzen heen werken een fictie is en dat iedereen zich verschuilt achter de institutionele knoop waar de reiziger het slachtoffer van is.\nDit handelen vindt zijn grondslag in het algemene, publieke belang bij bevordering van de benutting van infrastructuur. Het is staand nationaal beleid om hergebruik van overheidsinformatie te bevorderen teneinde bij te dragen aan de algemene kennisinfrastructuur. Het ruimhartig verstrekken van overheidsinformatie is mede hierom dan ook vastgelegd in de Wet Openbaarheid van Bestuur. (blz. 22)\nDat het toestaan van hergebruik vanuit de overheid ingewonnen gegevens effecten kan hebben op de aanbodzijde van de verkeersinformatiemarkt, is op zelf genomen niet toereikend om het hergebruik te weigeren. (blz. 23)\nRuimhartigheid in het vestrekken van overheidsinformatie zou heel fijn zijn. Het hergebruik zoals geregeld in de WOB blijkt te zwak om gegevens beschikbaar te stellen (ook volgens Mariko Peters op die bijeenkomst).\nOver het beschikbaar stellen van basisgegevens (die eigenlijk niet ter discussie staan):\nHoe gaan publieke partijen, waaronder wegbeheerders en/of vervoersautoriteiten, deze publiek ingewonnen of ingekochte gegevens aan marktpartijen ter beschikking stellen en onder welke randvoorwaarden?\nVoorkomen moet worden dat er ‘oneigenlijke’ concurrentie tussen publieke en marktpartijen optreedt.\nOm de weggebruiker van deze informatie te voorzien, dienen overheden en marktpartijen een infomatie-marktplaats in te richten waar (voornamelijk) publieke partijen informatie kunnen aanleveren en marktpartijen informatie kunnen halen. (blz. 26)\nDit zijn dezelfde kwesties waar je met elke open data situatie mee te maken krijgt. We hebben gegevens; hoe geven we ze vrij. Waar worden de kosten die we maken bij het vrijgeven van betaald? Dit zijn vragen waar antwoorden op geformuleerd moeten worden.\nÉén mogelijke oplossingen die wij web-techneuten altijd voorstellen is: geef ons de rauwe data en wij zorgen wel dat het ontsloten wordt. Geen kosten, geen zorgen. Beleidsmakers en andere beslissers bij de overheid kunnen helaas met zo\u0026rsquo;n model niet overweg.\nWat hierboven wel opvalt is hoe vaak het woord markt genoemd wordt. Er is een duidelijke publieke behoefte aan deze informatie, maar de overheid durft niks te doen wat de ‘precaire’ markt zou kunnen beïnvloeden. Ik denk dat markt en maatschappij meer hebben aan een overheid die zijn verantwoordelijkheid neemt en niet een situatie van marktfalen aan blijft kijken.\nDan het stukje ‘integratie van weg en OV-informatie’:\nVoor OV-(basis)gegevens is er nog geen sprake van een vergelijkbare markt als voor wegverkeersinformatie. (blz. 27)\nHet is dus nog maar de vraag of een ‘markt’ de beste oplossing is.\nVan het project Kwaliteitsverbetering OV-informatie dat door het Ministerie is geëntameerd, worden impulsen verwacht die ertoe kunnen leiden dat OV-gegevens aan marktpartijen ter beschikking komen én tot nieuwe (multimodale)produkten en diensten kunnen leiden.\n[…]\nStimuleer het openstellen van OV-informatie voor marktpartijen op korte termijn en bevorder de invoering van multimodale routeplanners en hieraan gekoppelde diensten. (blz. 27)\nGoede voornemens, erg weinig voortgang.\nWat moet er dan wel gebeuren? In een volgend bericht daarover een serie concrete aanbevelingen.\ndrs. J. Laan\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nOp de site geen API te zien. Je moet zoeken als je bij de gegevens wilt en dan staat er: “De NDW gegevens worden beschikbaar gesteld aan partijen die zich bezighouden met verkeersmanagement en verkeersinformatie. Hiervoor worden de kosten in rekening gebracht die gemaakt worden om deze service te bieden: € 6000,- (excl. BTW) aansluitkosten per afnemer per jaar.”\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n‘de continuering van overleg tussen de betrokken partijen’\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"July 7, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/eindrapport-adviescommissie-verkeersinformatie/","section":"Posts","summary":"Dit rapport is tijdens de verhuizingen een beetje tussen wal en schip geraakt. Het lijkt me goed om de gedeelten die ik al had aangestreept even snel te bloggen voordat we diep op de openbaar vervoersinformatie-situatie in Nederland ingaan.\n","title":"Eindrapport Adviescommissie Verkeersinformatie","type":"posts"},{"content":" Monday # Continuation of Ebi and first deployment to the server. One of my biggest beefs with Django is that any fresh deploy to a server will cost you at least one hour, despite it being the same old stuff you have been doing for ever (as opposed to App Engine).\nTuesday # Ran some updates on Haitinu.nl which is an aid site that I delivered recently.\nContinued with Ebi and prepared a talk with the people that run our national transit information site.\nWednesday # Done an Ebi brainstorm and progress review in Utrecht.\nThen back to Amsterdam for the transit information meeting with @mdebruin, @jelleprins and @alexandernl.\nI skipped the douchebag extremism of Social Media Day in favour of a book presentation on journalism by Alexander Pleijter and Arjan Dasselaar in Dauphine which was next to my house (and where a bunch of friends from the ‘Confetti generation’ were checked in).\nIt was entertaining enough and confirmed again how out of touch with the internet the journalism profession is.\nThursday # Inbox management and Ebi.\nFriday # Did another sprint on Ebi and got out of Utrecht before the match started.\nSunday # Had a nice 4th of July BBQ and squeezed in some pre-Monday updates to the Ebi site.\n","date":"July 5, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/weeknotes-172/","section":"Posts","summary":"Monday # Continuation of Ebi and first deployment to the server. One of my biggest beefs with Django is that any fresh deploy to a server will cost you at least one hour, despite it being the same old stuff you have been doing for ever (as opposed to App Engine).\n","title":"Weeknotes 172","type":"posts"},{"content":"Jelle Brandt Corstius nailt het:\nIk had een Russische vriendin op bezoek, en we waren beland in een visrestaurant in een pittoresk Noord-Hollands kustplaatsje waar ik vaak kom. Nouja, pittoresk, op het centrale plein van het kustplaatsje komen regelmatig hangjongeren samen die bier zuipen en heel hard Heil Hitler! roepen. Maar het zijn geen Marokkanen, dus ze kunnen kun gang gaan. Ik ben helemaal voor het harder aanpakken van hangjongeren, maar dan wel alle hangjongeren. Maar dat terzijde. (Mighty Moscow)\nGa in de zomer maar \u0026rsquo;ns kijken in Harderwijk of Sneek of nog verder weg. Als je er wat van zegt wordt je in elkaar getrapt.\nHet is natuurlijk een absurde gedachte dat de politie alle overlast veroorzakende hangjongeren uit de sociaal-economische onderklasse aan zou pakken. Daar is met geen mogelijkheid voldoende capaciteit voor.\n","date":"June 29, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/1917/","section":"Posts","summary":"Jelle Brandt Corstius nailt het:\n","title":"Hangjongeren","type":"posts"},{"content":"Let\u0026rsquo;s see how this goes. Consider this a try out for now.\nI tried 750 words, but I\u0026rsquo;d like my writing efforts to be viewed by a larger public and be of some use. Weeknotes for me could solve the problem of recapping what it was I actually did in a week (and also show other people what it is I actually do).\nMonday # I wrote an overview of the first chapter of Check in / Check out. That got picked up by Adam Greenfield the following day by the miracle of trackbacks and Google Translate. Good as well, because I need to do some prepwork on Transmobility before meeting with people from 9292ov next week.\nCheck in / Check out has a series of design principles at the end of each chapter. Those might be interesting to a wider audience, so I\u0026rsquo;m going to translate those to English.\nI finished a presentation on two transportation concepts for Amsterdam, both involving water. Still waiting to hear back from my city council member, but that may be publishable in the near future.\nI went to a meeting on the future of the Amstel station next to my house. Here\u0026rsquo;s a picture of their bold plans where I most probably won\u0026rsquo;t be living anymore by the time they are completed: Tuesday # Tuesday was the real start of project Ebi more on which at Leapfroglog.\nWe managed to cover quite some ground, but because of the plurality of our options, the creative process can be quite devastating draining.\nI unfortunately missed the Amsterdam.js meetup, but I\u0026rsquo;m happy that the AMS programming scene is reactivating.\nWednesday # The good start of Ebi (and its subsequent celebrations took their toll). After a slow start at Stumptown —where I may be found regularly on weekday mornings— I got to the office where I was stuck till 22:00 because of the slowness of the iOS4 update.\nDid some work on puebla which is a low data but heavy content dataviz to be published in the near future.\nAlso published the UX Triangle a funnily accurate model of the UX community.\nThursday # The rest of the week wasn\u0026rsquo;t that productive due to a touch of flu. Did some more work on Ebi.\nFriday # More work on Ebi (designs of which by the way are coming along and are ridiculously awesome).\nIn the afternoon I had a studio day with Dirk van Oosterbosch at his Damrak studio. We discussed progress on the Table Viewer and another more commercial but innovative HTML5 project.\nThen it was off to the Cineville launch party. Cineville is an all-you-can-eat movie pass for 13 Amsterdam art house cinemas. They recently redeveloped their site to become a hub for the pass, the cinemas and everything to do with indie movies in Amsterdam (eventually to become a sort of Last.fm for the cinematic experience). I beta tested the release (rather enthusiastically) and was curious to their future plans.\nSaturday # Nothing much except a good coffee (at Stumptown again!) and professional discussion with Taco.\nSunday # More work on Ebi. The site is mostly functional now in Django but I\u0026rsquo;ve also read up on both MongoDB and REDIS because of the inherent flexibility requirements of a project such as this one.\nSomewhere this week I also started to read Designing for the Digital Age which is the next book for our UX Book Club —now with Twitter account— and is promising to be quite the read.\nThat was about it. Now I\u0026rsquo;m off for a more than overdue BBQ on the beach.\n","date":"June 27, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/weeknotes-25/","section":"Posts","summary":"Let’s see how this goes. Consider this a try out for now.\n","title":"Weeknotes 25","type":"posts"},{"content":"Some conversations with Jaap Stronks for the terminology and the rifts between UX designers I am witnessing more and more on events (dConstruct, The Web and Beyond) sparked this model below.\nThe Guerilla UX tries to do the most damage with a minimal amount of resources. They either work in a small web shop in an UX role for clients without any budget or in a larger company that doesn\u0026rsquo;t recognize UX as a field to allocate proper resources to. The guerilla UX person may be stuck in a related role, or may have to take heroic measures to secure funding and room to get any UX work done and implemented. The upcoming book Undercover UX seems to exemplify this style.\nThe Enterprise UX works in an organization that has buy-in into UX and ample resources to allocate people, time, usability labs and other elaborate contraptions to the UX problem. With all this latitude to operate providing good UX is still a daunting challenge because bureaucracy, poor management and lack of organizational vision may each in some measure stymie the end result.\nThe Frontier UX does stuff that most other people in the field hardly recognize as being the same discipline or having any value at all. This has has consequences for the kind of work and clients practitioners in this field can get. They do their part in advancing the field pioneering new methods and implementations in the face of uncertainty and rather poor odds of survival.\nWhere do you fit on this triangle? Where do you want to be? And better yet, can you do more than one at once or are you firmly entrenched?\n","date":"June 24, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/ux-triangle/","section":"Posts","summary":"Some conversations with Jaap Stronks for the terminology and the rifts between UX designers I am witnessing more and more on events (dConstruct, The Web and Beyond) sparked this model below.\n","title":"UX Triangle","type":"posts"},{"content":"What Ben Hammersley uses (besides the travel drug):\nI had an epiphany about 8 years ago, when my home office went from having 4 big tower PCs in various states of repair and OS, along with my own servers and NAS and lots of cable runs and so on, to a single iBook running off WiFi.\nSame here. I had this futile attempt at running Linux on the desktop which was a perpetual cause of pain and frustration. I still love that first 12\u0026quot; iBook that saved me from it all.\nNow to get that iPad (I am a total InstaPaper fiend).\n","date":"June 23, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/its-more-of-a-very-expensive-docking-station-than-anything/","section":"Posts","summary":"What Ben Hammersley uses (besides the travel drug):\n","title":"'it's more of a very expensive docking station than anything'","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik ben het boek “Check in / Check out” van het Rathenau Instituut aan het lezen.\nHet boek gaat over de digitalisering van de openbare ruimte en welke gevolgen dat heeft voor de privacy van de Nederlanders. Het boek is opgebouwd uit een serie cases en die zal ik hier één voor één lezen en mijn opmerkingen plaatsen.\nCase 0001 — “Pasjes en poortjes” # Er worden zes doelstellingen genoemd ‘van de vervoerder en technologie-aanbieders’:\n1. eerlijke en actuele verrekenening van kosten en opbrengsten 2. betere managementinformatie 3. tariefdifferentiatie 4. betere sociale veiligheid 5. betaalgemak voor de klant 6. mogelijkheden voor aanvullende diensten (p. 42)\nIn dat rijtje mis ik een zevende doelstelling die je uiteraard niet zult horen van de vervoerders en ook niet van de technologie-aanbieders die door hen zijn opgezet: 7. Het openbreken van de markt door betalingen te standaardiseren en de betalingsfrictie weg te nemen en zo concurrentie in het (openbaar) vervoer te vergemakkelijken.\nElke andere aanbieder van vervoer heeft het probleem dat potentiele reizigers erachter moeten komen 1. wanneer ze dat middel kunnen gebruiken en 2. hoe ze daar dan voor kunnen betalen. Het standaardiseren van de informatie in het NDOV en de betaling in de ov-chipkaart en beide middelen laagdrempelig inplugbaar maken voor meer partijen kan leiden tot een dynamischer systeem van Transmobiliteit.\nOpvallend weinig mensen blijken zich zorgen te maken over het gebruik van hun persoonsgegevens. (p. 49)\nAls mensen zich geen zorgen maken is er voor een groot deel ook geen probleem. Privacy is voor een groot deel een kwestie van perceptie.\nDe vervoeraanbieder heeft echter geen live-informatie over de reizigerstromen. (p. 57)\nHier komen we straks ook op. Er is dus een systeem dat periodiek informatie doorstuurt. Raar in deze netwerksamenleving en ook niet nodig. Volgens mij zitten er in de meeste message queue systemen robuuste functionaliteit om berichten over het netwerk te sturen en bij netwerkfalen ze lokaal op te slaan tot ze wel verstuurd kunnen worden.\nReizigersinformatie kan worden gebruikt voor opsporingsdoeleinden en marketing, maar blijkt van beperkte waarde. (p. 58)\nDit is interessant maar het is de vraag of je deze gegevens dan maar niet moet opslaan, met name omdat de gegevens voor de gebruikers ook van waarde kunnen zijn. Een anonieme kaart die niet inferieur is aan de persoonsgebonden kaart lijkt het beste alternatief voor diegenen die hun privacy willen behouden.\nDaarnaast is er ook een referentie naar de Digital Security Group (DSG) van Bart Jacobs die met financiele steun van NLnet werkt aan een OV-chipkaart 2.0 (p. 60). Iets wat hard nodig blijkt.\nRET en GVB zijn daarom van plan abonnementhouders die niet hebben ingecheckt, bij controle te beboeten met 35 euro voor het niet hebben van een geldig vervoersbewijs. Los van het feit dat dit onsympathiek overkomt, is nog onduidelijk of dit juridisch wel kan. (p. 61)\nBovenstaande laat zien hoe technocratisch de bestuurders van de vervoersmaatschappijen denken.\nIk mis deze vraag in de privacy-afweging van de ov-chipkaart: Worden contacten met de conducteur zoals controles en boetes ook vastgelegd in het systeem? Bouw je zo een strafblad op en wat voor gevolgen heeft dat?\nDeze zogenaamde location based services heeft de staatssecretaris vooralsnog verboden. (p. 67)\nDe location based services hierboven worden alleen maar gezien in het kader van de broodjesverkoper die je korting wil geven als je op hetzelfde station bent. De aloude natte droom van de marketeers.\nWat niet mee wordt genomen is de opkomst van locatie-gebaseerde diensten die door mensen zelf worden gebruikt om hun leven vast te leggen en om meer context toe te kennen aan hun dagelijks handelen. Locatie gebaseerde spellen, locatie brokers en andere interessante dingen die je zelf met je locatie kunt doen, kunnen heel waardevol zijn maar zijn niet in het systeem of in de afweging meegenomen (en worden ook vermoeilijkt doordat het systeem niet real-time is).\nNaar onze mening is het systeem vooralsnog teveel vanuit de vervoerders aan de reizigers opgelegd en zal dat het systeem op de lange termijn opbreken. Dit net neemt - zonder veel terug te geven. Inzicht in transactie via mijnovchipkaart.nl kwam pas lang nadat het systeem al was in gevoerd (En is traag en vaak stuk. -Alper). De NDOV (Nationale Database Openbaar Vervoersgegevens), die ook de bewegingen van de voertuigen inzichtelijk zou moeten maken, laat nog lang op zich wachten. Een best pricing system is ooit overwogen, maar nooit ingevoerd. Het enige voordeel is vooralsnog betaalgemak, al zal niet elke reiziger de nieuwe manier van betalen echt handiger vinden. (p.68)\nGemiste kansen en het compleet negeren van de eindgebruiker is in het kort het verhaal van de OV-chipkaart.\nMaak duidelijk wie de reizigersidentiteiten beheert en dat ook degenen die kijken worden gecontroleerd.\nHier zou het bijvoorbeeld interessant kunnen zijn om elke toegang tot je gegevens ook op mijnovchipkaart.nl weer te geven. Ge-anonimiseerd qua naam maar niet qua functie zodat je kunt zien wie in welke rol wanneer welke gegevens van jou bekeken heeft.\nZoek oplossingen voor systeemfalen in het systeem zelf en niet in het bestraffen van reizigers.\nZomaar een idee.\nOverweeg een ‘live’-scenario. De reizigersdata worden momenteel gebufferd en zijn daardoor altijd verouderd.\nGek dat we net nu we aanstalten maken om het real-time internet in te gaan, zitten met een systeem waar alle transacties gespooled worden in buffers van soms wel meerdere dagen. Heb je zo\u0026rsquo;n gigantische infrastructuur geïnstalleerd, is nog alle sturing die je kunt plegen en al het inzicht dat je kunt bieden belegen omdat de gegevens verouderd zijn voordat je ze ziet.\nAl met al een goed historisch overzicht van de implementatie van de ov-chipkaart, de controlerende mogelijkheden en de kansen voor de gebruikers.\nDe vraag is alleen of en wanneer deze dingen verbeterd zullen worden. Er zijn al meerdere fora geweest waar gebruikers hun problemen met de chipkaart mochten aankaarten. Hier en daar zijn er wel dingen verbeterd maar vaak word je gewezen op systeembeperkingen of onderlinge afspraken waardoor dingen niet mogelijk zouden zijn.\n","date":"June 22, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/check-in-check-out-case-by-case-case-0001-pasjes-en-poortjes/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik ben het boek “Check in / Check out” van het Rathenau Instituut aan het lezen.\n","title":"Check in / Check Out, Case by Case — Case 0001, 'Pasjes en poortjes'","type":"posts"},{"content":"Afgelopen dinsdag gaf ik een presentatie op Online Tuesday over de toekomst van het internet. Ik had me niet geheel beseft dat de brief van de presentaties subtiel verlegd was naar doe een pitch over de toekomst van je bedrijf, maar des te beter eigenlijk.\nIk gaf een praatje dat zijdelings verwant is aan Monster Swell, namelijk de tsunami van Big Data (zie ook een vorige presentatie) die over ons heen gaat spoelen.\nHet format van vijf minuten zonder visuele ondersteuning is de puurste presentatie-vorm —en verdraagt daarom geen bullshit of slechte voorbereiding— maar een verhaal over data-visualisatie zonder visuals… dat is toch lastig.\nVolgens mij ging het best aardig (ook naar aanleiding van de reacties) en er is een video-registratie van, zie hieronder vanaf tijdsindex 19:08:\nOnline Tuesday Juni -Spreker 6-10 from Videofix on Vimeo.\nOnline Tuesday Juni -Spreker 6-10\nEen paar takeaways:\nData is het nieuwe kwikzilver.\nAlles wordt in de komende vijf jaar volgesensord.\n","date":"June 21, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/online-tuesday/","section":"Posts","summary":"Afgelopen dinsdag gaf ik een presentatie op Online Tuesday over de toekomst van het internet. Ik had me niet geheel beseft dat de brief van de presentaties subtiel verlegd was naar doe een pitch over de toekomst van je bedrijf, maar des te beter eigenlijk.\n","title":"Online Tuesday - Data is the new Quicksilver","type":"posts"},{"content":"Dit is de zogenaamde innovatie bij de Rabobank: Ter verduidelijking, ik wil graag automatisch afschriften uit Rabobank naar applicaties kunnen sturen (en er zijn meerderen in Nederland die daar graag mooie dingen mee zouden bouwen).\nDe Rabobank staat dat alleen maar toe naar Exact, een boekhoudpakket dat niemand wil gebruiken maar heel veel mensen wel doen.\nKiezen met je voeten is ook niet mogelijk, aangezien er geen betere keuzes zijn in deze oligopolie.\n","date":"June 21, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/rabobank-innovatief-maar-niet-heus/","section":"Posts","summary":"Dit is de zogenaamde innovatie bij de Rabobank: ","title":"Rabobank innovatief maar niet heus","type":"posts"},{"content":"This week I biked past Zeeburgereiland on my bike route from the Eastern Docks to IJburg and all I saw was completely desolation and this billboard. I had wanted to bike along side the IJ but this part of the city is so unfinished larg pieces of it are inaccessible.\nThis is what it looks like through the fence: I completely forgot the text on the billboard and had a hard time finding the place. Google Maps doesn\u0026rsquo;t even know it yet 1. Just look at Street View.\nMy trusty neighborhood council member Jan-Bert Vroege is usually available to answer these kind of questions for me and he pointed me towards the right site.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s going to be the site of some significant development in the near future. It\u0026rsquo;s odd that in developing IJburg the city skipped over this part and is only now beginning to fill it in.\nThe site points to a fantastic concept at the site of the current silo\u0026rsquo;s to build an art house, playground, museum and restaurant with a fabulous view and attractive position: the Annie M.G. Schmidt house.\nLooking forward to this, but curious if the exurbs of the city beyond where I live (Diemen + Bijlmer) will ever be (re)developed or if we\u0026rsquo;ve forsaken those to become multicultural ghettos: I biked on to IJburg and large swaths of that area still are empty and being built and filled in. Most people won\u0026rsquo;t remember how long it took for tram 26 to be extended there or when the first supermarket opened (is there one now even?).\nSome nice parts too: Concerning that part of urban development we can learn a lot of the prefab cities being erected in the East (take Dan Hill\u0026rsquo;s account of New Songdo). I know it takes time to fill up residential units and some amount of organic growth/frontier mentality is good, but is it that hard to have basic amenities in place when the first people arrive there?\nJust like it had no clue about IJburg in the beginning.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"June 21, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/experience-zeeburgereiland/","section":"Posts","summary":"This week I biked past Zeeburgereiland on my bike route from the Eastern Docks to IJburg and all I saw was completely desolation and this billboard. I had wanted to bike along side the IJ but this part of the city is so unfinished larg pieces of it are inaccessible.\n","title":"Experience Zeeburgereiland","type":"posts"},{"content":"I recently got glasses to make my vision even better than it already is. Nothing wrong with my eyes, but once you\u0026rsquo;ve seen the difference in sharpness, you do not want to go back. For me it\u0026rsquo;s an augment: Talking about augmented reality, this piece of design fiction by the guys at Layar is very convincing to show that AR definitely is going to be a big deal. Here\u0026rsquo;s to all the naysayers:\n","date":"June 20, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/an-augment-for-my-reality/","section":"Posts","summary":"I recently got glasses to make my vision even better than it already is. Nothing wrong with my eyes, but once you’ve seen the difference in sharpness, you do not want to go back. For me it’s an augment: ","title":"An augment for my reality","type":"posts"},{"content":"This Wednesday was Foursquare Day, but I don\u0026rsquo;t know who went. We just had ours recently and I just dug up the pictures from my camera: ","date":"June 19, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/foursquare-day/","section":"Posts","summary":"This Wednesday was Foursquare Day, but I don’t know who went. We just had ours recently and I just dug up the pictures from my camera: ","title":"Foursquare Day","type":"posts"},{"content":"Haven\u0026rsquo;t got mine yet, but yes they\u0026rsquo;re Magic Tables.\nDuring the run up to the iPad launch most pundits got into a pissing match of naysaying and detracting from the device. “It\u0026rsquo;s just a bigger iPhone.”Most of which has by now been disproved.\nLike BERG say, it\u0026rsquo;s a consumer ready, performant, portable version of the Microsoft Surface. If you have ever played with a Surface, you know that it\u0026rsquo;s a horribly bad and slow experience AND it has a €10k price tag attached. The iPad is a Surface that works for a very broad definition of ‘works’.\nMicrosoft can go back to the drawing board. Apple ate their lunch.\n","date":"June 18, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/have-your-surface/","section":"Posts","summary":"Haven’t got mine yet, but yes they’re Magic Tables.\n","title":"Have your Surface","type":"posts"},{"content":"Een kleine fietstocht lansg het IJ voor een toekomstig project: ","date":"June 18, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/oostelijke-havens-en-verder/","section":"Posts","summary":"Een kleine fietstocht lansg het IJ voor een toekomstig project: ","title":"Oostelijke Havens en verder","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik heb hier al geschreven over datavisualisatie in campagnes in de Verenigde Staten en het Verenigd Koninkrijk. De campagnes hier lijken te klein, te kort en te weinig budget hebben om serieus mee te spelen met de grote jongens maar verschillende partijen doen toch hier en daar hun best.\nMaurits Martijn schreef pas in VN een stuk “Heeft online campagnevoeren zin?” over de online campagnes met een redelijk pessimistisch beeld.\n‘Er lagen geen plannen klaar. De partijen zijn webmensen gaan inhuren, terwijl die er al een jaar hadden moeten werken. En dat terwijl ze zoveel tijd hebben gehad. Een strategische blunder.’ (VN)\nDie hadden er al een jaar moeten werken? Hoe lang hebben we dat internet nu al? 1\nDe campagnes zijn inderdaad te kort om met een concept te ‘knallen’ zoals het gebruikelijk is in de marketingwereld. Het artikel van Maurits is een momentopname twee weken voor de verkiezingen. De GroenLinks Toekomst Facebook Applicatie (de eerste politieke facebook app in Nederland!) werd daarna pas gelanceerd net zoals de Google Map voor de PvdA-campagne.\nNu heb ik een hekel aan campagnes. Campagnes hebben een begin en een einde. Ik denk niet dat een einde goed is voor je online engagement. De campagne-vorm is ook hoe de meeste websites nog steeds gebouwd worden: men verzint iets, zet het veel te laat uit, heeft heel veel stress tot de lancering en daarna kijkt niemand er nog naar om. Niet goed.\nPolitieke partijen hebben wel een woord voor het alternatief: ‘de permanente campagne’ maar vaak ontbreekt de visie welke sites ze waar moeten inzetten om duurzaam meer diepte en gelding te geven aan hun politieke verhaal. Tijdens een campagne kun je je online presence aanzetten en richten op de verkiezingen maar functioneel blijft het hetzelfde.\nZin? # Heeft de online campagne überhaupt zin? Dat is een vraag waar Ernst-Jan zich mee bezig houdt op zijn netwerkrevolutie blog. Ik neig ernaar om te zeggen dat internet de kosten van samenwerken verlaagt, maar dat we daarin in Nederland een remmende voorsprong hebben. De kosten om dingen te doen zijn hier al heel laag en de meeste dingen zijn al goed geregeld. Daarnaast zijn de meeste mensen die iets kunnen betekenen redelijk inert en hedonistisch ingesteld waardoor ze niet door een Facebook-groep in beweging komen 2. Online zie ik hier vooral als vastlegging van/rimpeling op het oppervlak van een echte onderliggende beweging.\nIets wat partijen wel kunnen doen en wat op de lange termijn zin lijkt te hebben is een voorstel van Greenfield aan de hand van zijn stuk over de community organization van Harvey Milk in het Castro. Partijen moeten elke interactie, elk contact met potentiële stemmers (=iedereen) vastleggen. Die potentiële stemmers kunnen ze dan langzamerhand meer en meer informeren en betrekken.\nDit moet niet alleen tijdens de campagne gebeuren. De rest van het jaar zijn er nog genoeg interessante acties, evenementen en issues waar je als partij positie op in kunt nemen en mensen aan je kunt binden. Wat is nu geloofwaardiger, een partij die je alleen tijdens campagne-tijd weet te vinden (zie Dijkshoorns laatste) als zij je nodig hebben of een partij die altijd ‘weet’ wat er speelt en jou meeneemt en op de hoogte houdt?\nPvdA Canvasacties # Ik noemde het project voor de PvdA al van Monster Swell. Aan het ‘begin’ van de campagne kregen we de kans om een concept te verzinnen rondom de canvasdata van de PvdA. De PvdA vroeg tijdens de campagnes voor de gemeenteraadsverkiezingen aan mensen in de wijken wat ze goed en slecht vonden en wat er beter zou kunnen. Deze enquêtes werden vastgelegd om inzicht te geven in wat er leeft in een wijk.\nDit is voor je lokale beleidsvorming al heel interessant, maar de volgende stappen zijn: laten zien aan mensen dat je naar ze luistert, de problemen vaststellen, oplossingen formuleren en laten zien dat wat je doet effect heeft (toch het beste platform voor je herverkiezing). Veel kwesties zijn tegenstrijdig, mensen zijn vaak blij met hun rustige leefomgeving maar vinden het winkelaanbod dan erg beperkt of de bereikbaarheid slecht. Al deze dilemma\u0026rsquo;s moet je samenbrengen, onderhandelen en een ‘beste’ oplossing doorvoeren.\nPolitiek is eigenlijk niets anders dan een ontwerp-probleem voor de samenleving.\nDe uitdaging was om op basis van onregelmatig binnenkomende gegevens een coherent geheel te maken dat de toestand van het land lokaal samenvat en inzicht geeft aan de mensen die de enquêtes ingevuld hebben. We bedachten toen een interactieve infographic zoals je ze vaak in de krant ziet maar nu doorklikbaar en zoombaar voor meer detailweergave. Dit alles uiteraard in een hectische periode met campagnebudgettering voor tijd en geld.\nHet resultaat is: Mijn Buurt: Dit is Nederland Een aardige eerste stap waarin je per stad kun zien wat de gecombineerde uitkomsten zijn van de enquêtes en op postcode kunt zoomen naar wat mensen bij jou in de buurt vinden (zo die hem hebben ingevuld, zo niet dan mag je hem direct zelf invullen). De volgende stap is om dit beter en structureler aan te pakken zodat het een lokaal platform wordt voor de verschillende afdelingen.\nIn ieder geval zijn dit natuurlijk prachtgegevens om mee te werken omdat er echte verhalen van mensen in staan. Het geeft ook een interessant beeld van Nederland dat vooringenomen ideeën bevestigt (in Den Haag en Overvecht ervaren mensen veiligheid als het grootste probleem) en soms ontkracht. Over het algemeen kun je zien dat mensen tevreden zijn, dat ze kleine problemen hebben en dat ze vinden dat het Goed gaat met Nederland. Dat is ook wel weer eens fijn om bij stil te staan.\n‘Want dat internet, gaat nog \u0026rsquo;ns heel groot worden meneer…’\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nDe grootste zorg is waar het volgende biertje vandaan komt, dát of de hypotheekrente-aftrek.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"June 15, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/online-campagnes-canvassen-voor-de-pvda/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik heb hier al geschreven over datavisualisatie in campagnes in de Verenigde Staten en het Verenigd Koninkrijk. De campagnes hier lijken te klein, te kort en te weinig budget hebben om serieus mee te spelen met de grote jongens maar verschillende partijen doen toch hier en daar hun best.\n","title":"Online campagnes — Canvassen voor de PvdA","type":"posts"},{"content":"Lees het gedicht van Nasr (نصر) op het Manifest van Terschelling en onderteken.\nuit nutteloze noodzaak schiep kunst de mens\nPrecies dat.\n","date":"June 15, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/het-manifest-van-terschelling/","section":"Posts","summary":"Lees het gedicht van Nasr (نصر) op het Manifest van Terschelling en onderteken.\n","title":"Het Manifest van Terschelling","type":"posts"},{"content":"Interesting to see that there were a ton of election result charting, display and visualization sites that popped up just before the elections. It seems that this is a hot topic.\nWe just added a preliminary dataset with yesterday\u0026rsquo;s election results. If you want to see the decimation of the CDA and the blue spread with the rise of the VVD (also compared with the municipal elections earlier this year), see here: http://bit.ly/a7s3l2 There are some outstanding results and some outstanding todos for the map which explain the holes. Those will be fixed shortly when the entire map migrates to the 2009 Shapefile.\n","date":"June 10, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/fresh-election-results/","section":"Posts","summary":"Interesting to see that there were a ton of election result charting, display and visualization sites that popped up just before the elections. It seems that this is a hot topic.\n","title":"Fresh election results","type":"posts"},{"content":"Last weekend we released Dutchstats, an online interactive datavisualization of election results and local statistics for Dutch municipalities by Monster Swell, an Amsterdam dataviz agency.\nWhat? # Dutchstats — an application to view Dutch election results and statistics collected by the CBS 1 side by side.\nhttp://bit.ly/dutchstats\nA video demo: Dutchstats from Alper Çugun on Vimeo.\nWho? # Dutchstats has been made by Monster Swell with Alper Cugun and Alexander Zeh.\nWhich data? # The CBS publishes Shapefiles with the boundaries of the municipalities, burroughs and neighborhoods of the Netherlands with a legend of the statistics they bundle. The tools that the CBS themselves provide to view this data are not very user friendly, see both: Statline and CBS in uw buurt.\nThe election results for the European Elections of 2009 came from nlverkiezingen.com. We entered the results for the 2010 Municipality Elections ourselves. Parliamentary Election results are provided by the Kiesraad (electoral council).\nWhy? # This project started as a foray into drawing municipal boundaries on the screen. No easy to use tool 2 to plot statistics at that level existed yet, so we thought that would be an interesting and useful problem to tackle. After some attempts we created a proof of concept in Processing, but we did not think a Java applet is ‘distributable’ enough. We then rewrote the entire thing in Processing.js.\nA logical consequence of having an easy way to draw local statistics was to create a tool to visualize the statistics that were already bundled in the provided Shapefile. We think the result is quite interesting.\nWat is so interesting about it? # There are tons of stories in this data waiting to be told just like there used to be in any old atlas. Instead of paging through the graphics and charts in one of those, Dutchstats allows you to compare statistics for the same area side by side. It makes the social geography that the CBS collects directly tangible with as little jargon as possible.\nSome interesting views on the data: The decimation of VVD and PvdA by LPF in 2002 The dissolution of LPF in 2003 The location of the Dutch Bible Belt The prevalence of PVV compared to the amount of non-Western immigrants Crop farms compared to cattle farms\nBut there are dozens more interesting stories waiting to be told in these numbers and that is exactly what makes them so interesting. You can keep clicking through, changing the selections, viewing local results etc. That is exactly what we think a good datavisualization should provide.\nWhat\u0026rsquo;s next? # The source code is available on github. An open source release geared towards making it easy to plot your own data on the map —even for non-programmers— is forthcoming. Also we only discovered a more recent Shapefile on the CBS site 3 after the public launch of this project. We will integrate that as soon as possible.\nSome other stuff we are considering:\nSpeed optimizations, the visualization is near unusable in Firefox. Recent versions of Webkit and especially Chromium perform much better. I would be interested in hearing if this works in IE9 and how it performs. Zooming display, the same statistics are provided on lower levels as well. Adding those shapefiles and enabling drilling down to the very local level could be very interesting. Showing all of the data displays in small multiples. We\u0026rsquo;re always interested in displaying more data that can be aggregated at the municipal level. Get in touch. Not the television network, but the Dutch Central Bureau for Statistics.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nGIS tools do not qualify as easy to use.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nThough we had looked for it ourselves several times on that same site.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"June 10, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/dutchstats-your-personal-atlas-of-the-netherlands/","section":"Posts","summary":"Last weekend we released Dutchstats, an online interactive datavisualization of election results and local statistics for Dutch municipalities by Monster Swell, an Amsterdam dataviz agency.\n","title":"Dutchstats — Your personal Atlas of the Netherlands","type":"posts"},{"content":"I don\u0026rsquo;t think I disagree with anything Craig Mod writes.\nIn his: “Books in the age of the iPad” he argues succinctly for the abolishment of most printed books in favor of those that are properly designed for the medium.\nI myself am going to get rid of all of my books save the design, poetry and photography ones. Because:\nThe convenience of digital text — on demand, lightweight (in file size and physicality), searchable — already far trumps that of traditional printed matter.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s good that most people haven\u0026rsquo;t caught on to that yet. It gives me time to get rid of my book collection before the perceived value of printed paper plummets through the floor.\n","date":"May 26, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/dead-trees/","section":"Posts","summary":"I don’t think I disagree with anything Craig Mod writes.\n","title":"Dead trees","type":"posts"},{"content":"Hier een hele leuke video over de val van het kabinet (via):\nDe val van het kabinet from twelve o\u0026rsquo;clock | motion media on Vimeo.\nDit is echt heel leuk. Ik was me er niet van bewust dat we in Nederland dit niveau van grafisch uitleggend werk konden maken (al zijn ze er wel) en ik wist niet dat Uruzgan ons €1 miljard kost.\nÉén probleem: de video is grafisch sterk, maar slaagt helaas niet in zijn doel. Als je een overzicht wilt zien van de gebeurtenissen die geleid hebben tot de val van het kabinet dan is het ok, maar het wordt niet helemaal duidelijk waarom het kabinet gevallen is. De video gaat te snel en de verschillende gebeurtenissen en data worden een brei van opeenvolging. Het overzicht en de context missen.\nDit frame is één van de betere in de video omdat je tegelijkertijd heden, verleden en toekomst ziet: Het was een stuk beter geweest om altijd iets van context te laten zien of herhaaldelijk een overzicht te geven en dan weer in te zoomen, van macroscoop naar microscoop en weer terug.\n","date":"May 25, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/de-val-uitgelegd/","section":"Posts","summary":"Hier een hele leuke video over de val van het kabinet (via):\n","title":"De val uitgelegd","type":"posts"},{"content":"De berichtgeving over de vliegramp illustreert weer eens waarom ik geen massa-media en nieuws meer volg en de redenen om geen krant te hebben.\nAls er een vliegramp gebeurt zijn er maar twee feiten die van daadwerkelijke nieuwswaarde zijn:\nKen ik iemand aan boord van het vliegtuig of ken ik iemand die iemand kent aan boord van het vliegtuig? Dit is de social media-visie op het nieuws. Nieuws is relevant voor mij als het mí­j raakt. Is vliegen nog steeds de veiligste manier van vervoer voor mij? Subvragen: Wat zijn de gevolgen voor de veiligheid van vliegen? Had dit ongeluk voorkomen kunnen worden en worden de juiste maatregelen genomen om te zorgen dat het niet nog een keer kan gebeuren? Weer persoonlijke relevantie; actioneerbare informatie om je te helpen bij het maken van beslissingen in de toekomst. Al het andere is hijgerige sensatiezucht en het zwelgen in andermans verdriet.\n","date":"May 15, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/de-zeer-geringe-nieuwswaarde-van-rampen/","section":"Posts","summary":"De berichtgeving over de vliegramp illustreert weer eens waarom ik geen massa-media en nieuws meer volg en de redenen om geen krant te hebben.\n","title":"De zeer geringe nieuwswaarde van rampen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Last Monday we saw the sixth edition of This Happened taking place and —I haven\u0026rsquo;t seen all, but I\u0026rsquo;ve seen more than most— I think this was one of the best ones yet.\nSo thinking what would be an easy way to journal 1 this edition both for me as a writer and for you as a reader I came up with this format. Session division is left as an exercise for the reader.\nGoing to school in the 90s. By the time they graduated everybody had multiple e-mail addresses, multiple browsers and access to mobile phones.\nI took an indulgent three week break just to sketch.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve never seen anybody smell a Microsoft mouse before, touch it to their lips because it was so smooth.\nHow we husband and harvest computational wood. We water them with a conductive ink at least yearly and then they become computational.\nThe only way to solve these interaction design problems is by going out there and using the application.\nAnd then bam! there\u0026rsquo;s the sun.\nThis is just a very fancy animation to conclude.\nPreferences are evil, they are the work of the devil.\nArchie and the Bees, our last show or our last therapy session.\nI always get inspired by other people.\nI\u0026rsquo;m still using Director 8 and it runs great!\nIf you work with technology, it always will crash.\nI once had a show where nothing went right and I never saw people applauding so hard in the end.\nFirst we do an experiment and then that evolves into a show.\nMy dynamic is to make it easy to grasp for everybody.\nMy note taking of the first session was thwarted by OS X\u0026rsquo;s evil semi-modal WiFi dialog. Apologies for that.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"May 13, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/this-happened-utrecht-6-soundbytes/","section":"Posts","summary":"Last Monday we saw the sixth edition of This Happened taking place and —I haven’t seen all, but I’ve seen more than most— I think this was one of the best ones yet.\n","title":"This Happened Utrecht #6 Soundbytes","type":"posts"},{"content":"Last week we had this piece of news in the Netherlands: “Scholenranglijst van Trouw heeft effect” (School ranking by Dutch newspaper Trouw sorts effect): Trouw has a database on their website with the statistics from our board of education which they editorialize and republish on their Schoolprestaties site. The news piece reports on research that shows this ranking has a real effect both in prospective school choice and in school improvement.\nThis week BERG release their Schooloscope (formerly Ashdown) site that makes statistics about school quality accessible. The story about how it works is particularly worth reading. The entire thing is a beautiful work of insight.\nThe Guardian has a profile of BERG\u0026rsquo;s work and about Schooloscope and it raises the question if there is no end to the goodness that will come from the 4ip funds.\nThe Trouw school site we have, though it could have been more beautiful, more legible and more open, does get the job done quite well.\nBut I\u0026rsquo;m reminded of the concept we made for a school search engine using government data: Schoolvinder (with many similar goals: to remove jargon and to make school information accessible and beautiful). We applied for a grant to further improve that site, but that was awarded to another party from whom we have not seen any results since.\n","date":"May 13, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/ranking-our-schools-for-better-effect/","section":"Posts","summary":"Last week we had this piece of news in the Netherlands: “Scholenranglijst van Trouw heeft effect” (School ranking by Dutch newspaper Trouw sorts effect): Trouw has a database on their website with the statistics from our board of education which they editorialize and republish on their Schoolprestaties site. The news piece reports on research that shows this ranking has a real effect both in prospective school choice and in school improvement.\n","title":"Ranking our schools for better effect","type":"posts"},{"content":"Via Johan Schaap kwam ik op het spoor van een popup store van Stumptown Coffee Roasters hier in Amsterdam op de Albert Cuyp (4sq).\nPopup stores zijn vet en nu is de Albert Cuyp niet het armoedigste deel van de stad wat betreft caffeïne-toevoer, maar zoals in het artikel in de Times ook te lezen staat:\nI’ve gotten to really know the city. But I’ve tried to find good coffee, and it’s been challenging. It’s way underdeveloped compared to the U.S., or even London or Scandinavia.\nDat is serieus waar. Mensen hebben hier geen smaak of budget voor goede koffie. In de meeste café\u0026rsquo;s krijg je een verbrande halve kop espresso, met enkele goede uitzonderingen. Het personeel (‘baristas’ hebben we hier niet) neemt het werk ook niet serieus en is niet ontvankelijk voor constructief commentaar.\nLaatst bij de Koffiesalon kreeg ik van de jongen achter de bar triomfantelijk “nog een beetje extra melk”in mijn kopje gekwakt. De koffie die je uitserveert is goed, of hij is het niet. Rot op met je extra beetje melk.\nIk verheug me op mijn eerste bezoek aan Stumptown. Het moet wel goed zijn. Slechter kan in elk geval niet.\nUpdate: Ik ben er geweest en de koffie is er inderdaad fantastisch. Nu maar hopen dat ze blijven.\n","date":"May 9, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/ambitieuze-koffie-in-stumptown/","section":"Posts","summary":"Via Johan Schaap kwam ik op het spoor van een popup store van Stumptown Coffee Roasters hier in Amsterdam op de Albert Cuyp (4sq).\n","title":"Ambitieuze koffie in Stumptown","type":"posts"},{"content":"Net bij de supermarkt geweest voor ingrediënten om Robby Rodriguez\u0026rsquo;s recept te maken.\nZoals normaal bij de Albert Heijn hebben ze bijna niks.\nBakpoeder bestaat in Nederland geloof ik niet als concept. Ik daarvoor in de plaats maar zelfrijzend bakmeel genomen.\nMaïsolie was er niet maar wel maïskiemolie, dat zal dan wel bijna hetzelfde zijn.\nTortilla\u0026rsquo;s die hier in de schappen liggen zijn van tarwebloem gemaakt in plaats van maïsbloem zoals in het recept. Dat zal wel liggen aan het feit dat we aan deze kant van de oceaan de meeste dingen met tarwe doen terwijl ze daar veelal maïs gebruiken.\nJalapeño-pepers zijn natuurlijk niet te vinden. Vervangen met lange rode pepers.\nKijken wat hiervan te maken valt.\n","date":"May 8, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/barre-culi-ervaring-bij-de-albert-heijn/","section":"Posts","summary":"Net bij de supermarkt geweest voor ingrediënten om Robby Rodriguez’s recept te maken.\n","title":"Barre culi-ervaring bij de Albert Heijn","type":"posts"},{"content":"Een nieuw gedicht van onze Dichter des Vaderlands “Een mooie dag om stilte te verscheuren”:\nIk stond trouwens dinsdagavond ook op de Dam.\n","date":"May 6, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/vrijheid-herdenken/","section":"Posts","summary":"Een nieuw gedicht van onze Dichter des Vaderlands “Een mooie dag om stilte te verscheuren”:\n","title":"Vrijheid herdenken","type":"posts"},{"content":"With the upcoming Dutch elections the campaigns are heating up and we will be allowed to choose our parliamentary representatives yet again. It is interesting to see how statistics and their visualization are used to clarify and position issues in our complex world.\nIssues with visualization # You cannot release statistics and visualizations without thinking through the ramifications of these actions. Every non-trivial bit of information has biases and values attached to it. You can never know what will happen, but you can at least think about it.\nThe other day at the Rotterdam Open Data meeting, someone vehemently defended the point of view that we should not publish data because it could be spun in a way that is harmful to society. A wholly subjective and belittling point of course to which we countered, that unfounded claims can be launched already and without authoritative data sources we do not have a good way of debunking them.\nA lot can go wrong when using data visualization, just see this video of a presentation by Alex Lundry which is familiar territory, but is brought nice and quickly:\nOr this recent example from a so called Dutch quality newspaper about Greec and other European edging towards the brink of financial ruin spotted by the great Sargasso 1: This is guilty of the fiddling with origins and axis scales that is so common in juicing up statistics for presentation purposes. Other faults from the video: “sin of ommission”, “correlation is not causation”, “pie-charts suck”. Most of this is treated pretty well in Tufte\u0026rsquo;s Visual Design of Quantitative Information where he calculates the lie factor of faulty infographics.\nUS Job Losses # Data visualizations —especially charts of statistics— in elections are also nothing new 2, but with the increase of open data and data processing tools, we are bound to see more of them coming out and I hope to see more dynamic ones especially.\nThe Obama Job Chart (below, taken from Creekside Chat) is a very static traditional chart which could have just as easily been punched out of Excel (though the extra visual touches are nice), but the most important part of this chart is how it supports an overall narrative: I take issue with the poster\u0026rsquo;s critique 3 because the chart clearly says that it shows “Job Loss”and not absolute unemployment. Any turnaround of the economical situation will be necessarily coupled by a trend as displayed in the chart (losses have to edge back to zero before they can become gains). Also the comparison to the amount of money in a wallet does not really work because money spent is an absolute loss, while the amount of people in the job market is a pool which is in flux.\nUK Job Losses # The UK will have their General Elections next Thursday. In the run-up to the elections, Russell Davies spotted this nice interactive chart by Labour to clarify how they helped reduce unemployment.\nIt remains to be seen how far these kind of more technocratic online methods support the narratives and media plays that an election revolves around. It does not look like it has helped Labour that much in their struggle.\nCombined Approaches # So how to combine online more mechanical and easy to ignore material with the mass-media appeal of legwork on the campaign trail?\nWhat’s more likely to be pivotal is the canny use of the latter to leverage the former: ensuring that every casual contact goes into a database, every issue raised by a constituent (or inferred from a pattern of facts on the ground) is captured and tracked, everything that shows up in the gillnet of your feeds is exploited for its propaganda or organizational value. — “Harvey Milk, community development and the digital balance sheet” by Adam Greenfield\nAs suggested by Adam Greenfield, a combination of both may be the best option, but besides the much praised Obama campaign we haven\u0026rsquo;t seen much successful work along those lines yet and even the Obama grassroots organization has been underutilized since the inauguration.\nThe Dutch Situation # One question would be: Where is the Dutch job loss chart at. If I can massage the correct statistics from the CBS, I\u0026rsquo;ll see if I can whip up something.\nMany political organizations in the Netherlands, do not have the budget or maturity in web infrastructure to be able to quickly create and deploy bespoke applications that are situated within their workflows and fit within campaign deadlines.\nA small but comprehensive overview of online activities for the Dutch general elections can be found on Spotlight Effect (in Dutch) but small really is the operative word. I am aware of a couple more initiatives due to come out but it\u0026rsquo;s quite meagre.\nAlso when talking about the overarching themes, I haven\u0026rsquo;t spotted the ones that our election is supposed to be about yet. Unless it is whether you envision a divided Netherlands where a discontented white proletariat rules over both foreigners and intellectual elite alike or whether you want a whole country governed by sane and rational people. Issues such as education, technology, healthcare, immigration, urban and ex-urban planning for a decreasing population, our international position, energy and food security and all of those with a vision of at least 10 years into the future are sorely lacking. This is probably because most of the population is too shuttered inside their blocks and suburbs to be able to look over the rim of the nearest enclosing dyke.\nUpdate: This seems to be the overarching theme of the elections for the PvdA. Update: Alex Lundry notices that the Obama job loss chart is being updated by the Washington Monthly. Here\u0026rsquo;s the April version: And here\u0026rsquo;s the same chart for the Netherlands albeit a lot less granular (if anybody has that data, I\u0026rsquo;d greatly appreciate it): To which my snide commentary was that most people going into graphic design don\u0026rsquo;t do so because they were especially good at maths or statistics in high school.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nI\u0026rsquo;d love to see a comprehensive annotated overview or even pointers to material.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nIn Dutch we would call it: ‘looking for nails in low tide’.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"May 5, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/elections-and-campaign-data-visualization/","section":"Posts","summary":"With the upcoming Dutch elections the campaigns are heating up and we will be allowed to choose our parliamentary representatives yet again. It is interesting to see how statistics and their visualization are used to clarify and position issues in our complex world.\n","title":"Elections and Campaign Data Visualization","type":"posts"},{"content":"Verbazingwekkend snel en pijnloos: Dat balletje is om in te knijpen als de afname te langzaam gaat. Dan kun je dus bloed helpen eruit te pompen. Maar als je nogal ongeduldig en competitief bent ingesteld en je krijgt zo\u0026rsquo;n balletje in je handen gedrukt, ga je natuurlijk direct knijpen. Wedstrijdje wie het eerste een pint bloed eruit perst?\nOver 10 weken weer. Nu nog de Sanquin Foursquare Badge 1.\nDoe hier de test of je ook bloed mag geven.\nOf eigenlijk zou het al fijn zijn als foursquare het vandaag weer eens deed.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"May 4, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/sanquin/","section":"Posts","summary":"Verbazingwekkend snel en pijnloos: ","title":"Sanquin","type":"posts"},{"content":"This entire weekend was taken up by Amsterdam Music Hackday for which Alex, Dirk and I had planned to build a prototype version of a surface table projector for music discovery.\nThe functionality we envision helps ad-hoc groups of people who find themselves in the same location/venue/party to compare their music tastes and see where the overlaps and where the holes are. The table would be a turn-taking jukebox with tangible interactions and nice visuals for all users and spectators.\nEasier said than done, of course. We spent a great part of the week and most of the weekend hacking, building, eating, drinking coffee, staying up to the wee hours, literally stabbing ourselves with scalpels, cursing a great deal and drinking whisky to get the thing together, when finally on Sunday in the last hour before the presentation we managed to integrate everything to the level that we could shoot a demo video.\nPictures of the proces and demo videos below:\nWhat we built was just an initial step on the way to the jukebox I described above, but it seemed to look promising enough to net us the first prize from last.fm at Music Hackday for which we were very happy.\nWe like to thank last.fm, the organizers and the participants of Music Hackday. It was a great event and for us it was a great occasion to finally get this project started.\nWe will develop the table further and build out the functionality we had envisioned to make it a real locus for social music discovery. It should be hanging in one of our studios soon, so get in touch and visit if you want to try it out.\n","date":"April 27, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/table-viewer-for-music-hackday/","section":"Posts","summary":"This entire weekend was taken up by Amsterdam Music Hackday for which Alex, Dirk and I had planned to build a prototype version of a surface table projector for music discovery.\n","title":"Table Viewer for Music Hackday","type":"posts"},{"content":"Presentatie gegeven over open data en de obstakels waar je in de praktijk mee te maken krijgt. En passant ook een open data maturity model gemaakt wat wel enig hout snijdt.\nOpen data obstakels rotterdam.key\nView more presentations from alper.\nDit was leuk om te doen en ik ben benieuwd of Rotterdam snel kan handelen op dit vlak. Zie mijn favorieten op Twitter voor de reacties.\nUpdate: Nog een foto van het event.\n","date":"April 21, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/obstakels-in-het-werken-met-open-data/","section":"Posts","summary":"Presentatie gegeven over open data en de obstakels waar je in de praktijk mee te maken krijgt. En passant ook een open data maturity model gemaakt wat wel enig hout snijdt.\n","title":"Obstakels in het werken met open data","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik hoop dat jullie het een leuke presentatie vonden en dat jullie er wat aan hebben.\nHier de presentatie nog even in zijn geheel:\nFoursquare and Location Based Services\nView more presentations from alper.\nHieronder ruimte voor jullie vragen/reacties. Roep maar wat!\n","date":"April 19, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/foursquare-en-locaties-bij-willem-de-kooning/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik hoop dat jullie het een leuke presentatie vonden en dat jullie er wat aan hebben.\n","title":"Foursquare en locaties bij Willem de Kooning","type":"posts"},{"content":"Some posts that had been sitting in my browser tabs for a while combined together in a brand new job guide for 2010. You can also read this as a follow-up post to my previous post on Why developers are important, this is which developers are important. This post has been lying in my drafts folder for a while, but it has actually only become more relevant.\nSome interesting jobs for the coming year(s):\nScalability Engineer # These are already highly sought after ever since Twitter was failwhaling half of the time. Having the competency to keep a website running while it is experiencing massive growth is going to be highly sought after. Some technologies such as Google App Engine promise to make this easy, but they introduce a set of problems of their own. Traditional relational databases are abandoned more and more for the looser often schemaless variety of BigTable-like NOSQL databases that live in the cloud (CouchDB, HSQL, Cassandra, MongoDB, Tokyo Cabinet etc.) or can be scaled at will. If you want to get up to speed on this stuff really fast, there\u0026rsquo;s a NOSQL conference in London April 20-22nd.\nAlso knowing your Scala, Tornado, Twisted, NodeJS or other non-blocking framework is increasingly important, since we\u0026rsquo;re slowly moving out of the request/single response paradigm for the web.\nKey skills: Everything command line, functional programming, traditional database management, SQL, virtual machine configuration, puppet\nClient Side King # The web based client already was the biggest delivery mechanism for functionality and experience, but it is going to become more and more important. Functionality which you would not have thought possible in a web application, will become available. Some apps may at first be functionally inferior to their native versions, but the fact that they are web native and inherently social will draw people in. After a while either the apps will become more capable or the users won\u0026rsquo;t care anymore.\nDevelopments in HTML5 bode well for those of us who would like to abolish slow and crashy plugins (yes, Flash). Audio, video, hardware accelerated 3D graphics and much more will soon be native to the web. Just look at Quake II written in JavaScript. There is still a place for adding Silverlight and Flash to certain sites, but the benefits of those technologies are much harder to argue for.\nKey skills: JavaScript all variants, styles and frameworks; web-native UI design; marginal IE skills required (since you will not be building for that platform but you should know its limitations); iterative development; guerilla user testing\nAlgorithm Cook # Ridiculous amounts of data requires strong analytics, very capable navigation and a new sort of editorial proces. These databases draw more and more information from the real world:\n“The advent of inexpensive high-bandwidth sensors is transforming every field from data-poor to data-rich,”Edward Lazowska, […] said (NYT) and “Today,”he added, “you have real-time access to the social structuring and restructuring of 100 million Facebook users.”1 (same source)\nBetter algorithms will allow us to make better sense of all this data and will provide inputs for the other fields. Everything can have an interestingness in a given context for a given person.\nKey skills: multivariate statistics, data wrangling, screen scraping, machine learning, data mining, Excel, SPSS, R/SPlus, Matlab, NumPy, digital signal processing\nVisualization Artist # Making sense of all the information requires condensed views with aesthetic qualities. There is simply too much data out there for us to be able to grasp it, so being able to filter and mine the datasets with the help of the other disciplines is essential. But after that step any data needs to be refined, represented and made interactive.\n“Decode”ends with “Network,”which examines the interconnections of mobile technologies and the Internet. It also illustrates how digital imagery is helping us to make sense of a frenzied, often confusing world. (NYT)\nThere are tons of frameworks, tools and libraries in a variety of languages for anybody who wants to try out visualizing stuff. In the end no single one will fit the bill and the best result is achieved combining, mixing and writing something by yourself.\nThere\u0026rsquo;s a new O\u0026rsquo;Reilly book coming out for anybody in the finer arts who\u0026rsquo;s interested in getting their feet wet with Processing: “Processing for Visual Artists” Then after a while you may be able to produce stuff such as: Key skills: aesthetic sense, 2D/3D graphics, cognitive psychology, Processing, OpenGL, JavaScript, SVG, design tools, Tufte\nAnd we haven\u0026rsquo;t even treated the Natural Language Processer, the Urban Information Planner and the Machine Vision Trainer yet but there\u0026rsquo;s considerable overlap with the above disciplines. If you have any other that we should look at, please suggest them in the comments.\nUpdate: And the New York Times is just looking for somebody with roughly this description.\nI don\u0026rsquo;t know exactly who has that access, but…\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"April 4, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/new-disciplines-for-a-real-time-data-world/","section":"Posts","summary":"Some posts that had been sitting in my browser tabs for a while combined together in a brand new job guide for 2010. You can also read this as a follow-up post to my previous post on Why developers are important, this is which developers are important. This post has been lying in my drafts folder for a while, but it has actually only become more relevant.\n","title":"New disciplines for a real-time data world","type":"posts"},{"content":"Dit gedicht van Ramsey Nasr had ik gemist. Hier het Hemelse Leven.\nVan een bijzondere schoonheid weer.\n","date":"April 2, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/passacaglia/","section":"Posts","summary":"Dit gedicht van Ramsey Nasr had ik gemist. Hier het Hemelse Leven.\n","title":"Passacaglia","type":"posts"},{"content":"Some ideas start out small and then grow larger than you thought imaginable. Coworker.nl is one such idea. This is a write up about how it came to be and how you can build your own.\nAs a wandering free agent, you end up in strange places and if you\u0026rsquo;re stuck somewhere, it could be useful to get some work done in the neighborhood. I was not the only person with this problem and I couldn\u0026rsquo;t find a good WiFi map either, so I thought we could start something up.\nA conversation about coworking on Jaiku quickly turned into the idea to gather those locations onto a Google Map and see if we could make that work. So talking back and forth a bit, I made a custom Google Map and invited people to add their offices with drop-in coworking spaces on it. This took off a bit and we had a functioning coworking map of cool companies and startups in the Netherlands willing to host a nomadic worker. Robert had the domain coworker.nl lying around and he pasted the code for the map on that domain and Coworker.nl was born.\nAfter some time, other people also started to add coffee shops with WiFi with a coffee cup icon and a public utility was born.\nAttention # A lot of people have seen the map by now (22'000 and counting) and I have never launched a project as small as this which got so much attention in so little time. Robert and myself didn\u0026rsquo;t have any problems getting this featured in various publications and even in a national newspaper. This says something about the immediate appeal of a simple geo-visual application and about the climate in which we launched this.\nIndependent web workers are seen as the vanguard of the hot Dutch new economy. Small shops, people setting up office in lunchrooms and coffee shops are seen as a ‘new’ trend. These workers also are in need of more flexible office space solutions (of which there are precious few in the Netherlands). Our map provides a handy visualization of this trend, it exactly fits a niche and appeals to people.\nValues and Misconceptions # What differentiates this map from most other WiFi maps and other custom maps and geoapplications is its incredibly narrow focus based on a shared set of goals and values. The initial participants in the map all know on a near instinctive level what is meant by coworking. They understand the problem of needing a place to work and are willing to share their offices.\nA lot of outsiders who find the map do not really get it and just a link to the Coworking wiki is not nearly enough to explain the shared values and history this map is built upon. Some people think we are an exchange for short-term office space, others want to sell their office space on a per day basis to make an extra buck. All interesting tangential applications of this map, and it\u0026rsquo;s nice that people are running with it, but we should stay true to the original goal.\nThe Tools # We should be really thankful of Google for providing these powerful and easy to use tools like Google Maps which we can use to hack something together in literally no time at all. We could have built our own database and map editor etc. but that would have taken some days if not weeks and would have greatly reduced the appeal of a small project such as this.\nThe fact that we could paste some minimal code to Jaiku and invite people to edit the map made all te difference. One additional step which would help in the management would be to add some kind of versioning or backup facility so if somebody accidentily deletes the entire map, I could easily restore it to a previous version.\nThe Data # The data is available as a KML file to anybody who wants it (feel free to take it, distributed backup is the best kind) and I think we\u0026rsquo;re willing to publish it under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike license but I would appreciate it if you let us know if you\u0026rsquo;re going to build something.\nBuild your own local # Because this is so simple to setup local versions have already been made (Coworking São Paulo by Michel Zappa) by others but the vision is to eventually cover the entire world both with maps and locations one country at a time, so to get this started here\u0026rsquo;s a small recipe how to set this up:\nCreate a custom Google Map Call out to your local scene on Twitter, Jaiku and whatnot to ask if they\u0026rsquo;re interested and if they have spaces they know. Invite these people to edit your Google Map, be sure to allow them to invite others as well to help your map grow virally. Get a (short and memorable) domain and paste the embed iframe code of the Google Map onto the domain for better visibility. You can also copy our CSS and JavaScript for extra ease. Let it grow. You don\u0026rsquo;t have to go about it too agressively, in our case we built it to scratch our own itch. Any value others derive from it is a plus. Once enough countries have their own map, we may be able to combine them all into one massive global coworking map, for those people hopping countries.\nTangents # There is some stuff which this map is not really about but wich bears talking about anyway:\nThe fact that the map also houses coffee shops with WiFi and a place to sit may not really be about coworking, but these are spots where you can get some work done and they show that there was no high quality WiFi wap for webworkersin the Netherlands. I expect this is the same in other countries.\nThere are quite some commercial spots available with meeting rooms and desks which you can lease by the day or some other period. These are not exactly in the coworking spirit, but they do serve a need, so for now we have allowed these to be on the map as well.\nAs I already wrote there\u0026rsquo;s a shortage of office space which you can lease flexibly. The map could be used to show policy makers and realtors in which regions of the Netherlands there\u0026rsquo;s demand for flexible office solutions and in the future we may add a vetted exchange to the map to help freelancers and small companies such as ourselves to get suitable office space.\nMost of the people on the map are either free agents, people working in small companies, startups or a combination of these. So that way the map also serves as a list of interesting companies and people in the Netherlands who are active in the web scene and who have an open attitude. I think that is also a valuable thing to have for a nascent scene such as ours.\n","date":"March 30, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/coworkernl-map-of-coworking-spots-in-the-netherlands/","section":"Posts","summary":"Some ideas start out small and then grow larger than you thought imaginable. Coworker.nl is one such idea. This is a write up about how it came to be and how you can build your own.\n","title":"Coworker.nl — Map of coworking spots in the Netherlands","type":"posts"},{"content":"Lots of fun to ride my second time at the Hague spring alleycat: Paria. Great guys, lots of speed and fun. Looking forward to more riding and maybe getting into polo.\nSome pictures: ","date":"March 28, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/paria-in-the-hague/","section":"Posts","summary":"Lots of fun to ride my second time at the Hague spring alleycat: Paria. Great guys, lots of speed and fun. Looking forward to more riding and maybe getting into polo.\n","title":"Paria in the Hague","type":"posts"},{"content":"Quite pleased with this picture Toby took of me at a splendid lunch at Frank: ","date":"March 27, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/austin/","section":"Posts","summary":"Quite pleased with this picture Toby took of me at a splendid lunch at Frank: ","title":"Austin","type":"posts"},{"content":"Boeiende vinger aan de pols in open overheid Amerika met Noel Hidalgo (New York), Dmitry Kachaev (Washington D.C.) en Alissa Black (San Francisco).\nAllissa Black (erg tof!) geeft een overzicht van de verschillende initiatieven die de stad San Francisco (met Twitter-burgermeester Gavin Newsom) heeft genomen om open overheid te bevorderen. Misschien een goed idee om als nieuwe burgermeester van Amsterdam ook iemand te kiezen die tenminste snapt wat internet is.\nSan Francisco loopt uiteraard buitengewoon voorop in dit soort dingen —noblesse oblige. Ze hebben een data-inventaris en -richtlijn aangenomen en er wordt elk kwartaal een verslag uitgebracht van de stand van zaken. Ze maken sites zoals: DataSF, RecoverySF en een Citypedia om kennis te delen binnen de stad.\nHaar stappen die je moet nemen:\nStel een team aan om het initiatief te doen groeien Breng richtlijnen uit Zorg dat het een verwachting van de overheid is. Voer beleid door. Ook nog op de vraag welke software men gebruikt om participatie van burgers te bevorderen het antwoord: Uservoice en IdeaScale.\nEn de tip om te participeren in de O\u0026rsquo;Reilly online conferentie voor Gov 2.0 International.\nIn Amerika zijn heel veel initiatieven op allerlei niveau\u0026rsquo;s: stad, staat, federaal die hiermee bezig zijn en er lijkt heel veel ‘web literacy’ (mediawijsheid) te zijn en ook budget voor al dit soort dingen. Toch moet ik gevoelsmatig zeggen dat we in Nederland nauwelijks achterlopen.\nOp overheidsniveau hebben we Ambtenaar 2.0, Hack de Overheid, en nog een serie initiatieven (ik wacht nog op data.gov.nl). In Amsterdam zouden we bijvoorbeeld het Open City manifest kunnen aannemen maar iets als Amsterdam Opent is al heel tof.\nWaar het in Nederland beter kan: 1. Duurzame web-platformen die gebouwd zijn door bedrijven die het snappen op open technologie met een blik vooruit op (ipv één keer oplevern en iets onbruikbaars over de schutting gooien). 2. Vaste, aanspreekbare teams die de materie beheersen aanstellen voor deze onderwerpen.\n(Deze blog is snel geschreven door Alper na een sessie op SxSWi in Austin, Texas. En tevens gecrosspost naar het groepsblog voor alle Nederlandse aanwezigen.)\n","date":"March 19, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/in-code-we-trust-vertrouwen-in-de-overheid-bureaucratie-en-technologie/","section":"Posts","summary":"Boeiende vinger aan de pols in open overheid Amerika met Noel Hidalgo (New York), Dmitry Kachaev (Washington D.C.) en Alissa Black (San Francisco).\n","title":"In code we trust — Vertrouwen in de overheid, bureaucratie en technologie","type":"posts"},{"content":"Joi Ito 2010 SXSW Talk on Prezi Joi Ito is niet zozeer een man, maar een beweging. Hij leidt, stuurt en overal waar hij komt heeft hij veel gelijkgestemden. In dit tijdslot wat in het programma alleen maar Joi Ito Presentation heet omdat hij nog geen naam (en ook geen presentatie of verhaal) had vult hij in zijn eentje een uur met een samenhangend verhaal en vele anekdotes uit zijn leven als wereldreiziger en cultuurproever.\nWe hadden altijd al complexiteit maar nu het met elkaar verbonden wordt moeten we ermee omgaan. Elke cultuur heeft lagen en lagen van eigen idiosnycratische details die anders werken dan je verwacht. De enige manier om complexiteit aan te pakken is decentraal.\nJoshua Ramo schreef \u0026ldquo;The Age of the Unthinkable\u0026rdquo; dat gaat over deze culturele complexiteit.\nHezbollah werkt gedistribueerd en bevat heel veel slimme mensen die geen andere kansen of perspectieven hebben. Daarom zijn ze zo goed.\nOm de problemen van de wereld en internationale betrekkingen op te lossen moeten we zorgen voor non-lineaire veranderingen.\nMcGonigal\u0026rsquo;s spel: World Without Oil Simulatie van leven in een virtuele wereld zonder olie met bewustwording in de echte wereld van hun energiegebruik.\nMensen die in die cultureel-economische contexten leven en met die details te maken hebben -zoals in Beirut verzinnen vaak hele creatieve oplossingen die op geen enkele andere van boven opgelegde manier bedacht hadden kunnen worden. Interessant perspectief op ontwikkelingshulp.\nHet concept ‘positive deviance’ van Jerry Sternin waar je je richt op de paar mensen die het goed doen in plaats van iedereen die het fout doet. Voorbeeld van genitale verminking bij vrouwen in Egypte.\nNodig voor sociale verandering: - Mensen financieel zelf in staat stellen (empoweren) - Mensen een stem geven\nJoi: Internet is my religion. Ik zou hier niet staan zonder het internet. (Geldt voor iedereen in de zaal, dat en een pessimistische blik op het onvermogen van overheden.)\nOpen Source werkt pas goed dmv het internet en het heeft de kosten van dingen uitproberen drastisch verlaagd.\nStack: - Creative Commons - The Web - The Internet Stelt mensen in staat om te participieren en concurreren met elkaar zonder dat mensen toestemming hoeven te vragen. Zonder inmenging van grote logge bedrijven, overheden en instanties.\nStandaarden werden vroeger door bureaucratische commissies gemaakt en probeerden elk gebruiksdoel te voorzien. We maken nu standaarden op een losse manier, om te zorgen voor participatie en we zijn blij als mensen gebruiksdoelen vinden die we niet hadden voorzien.\nHet netwerk is nu zo ontzettend goedkoop dat de kosten in snelheid en bandbreedte samenwerking en content-collaboratie niet meer in de weg staan. Alleen als mensen nu willen samenwerken zijn er vanwege de auteursrechten juridische kosten die zo hoog zijn dat ze de waarde van de samenwerking teniet doen.\nCreative Commons is bedacht om de kosten van het samenwerken in content verder te verlagen. Auteursrechten zegt nu dat je toestemming moet vragen om iets te gebruiken en die toestemming moet je heel nauwkeurig specificeren. Sommige mensen willen niks delen, maar veel mensen willen misschien wel iets delen op de een of andere manier.\nInteroperabiliteit is belangrijk. Dat we één internet hebben is handig, omdat we dan samen kunnen werken. De lobby om iedereen aan boord van CC te krijgen is om ervoor te zorgen dat iedereen onder één licentie-verzameling met elkaar kan samenwerken.\nHoe kleiner je bent hoe lager de kosten van falen zijn. Dit is de compleet chaotische non-lineaire innovatie die gedreven wordt door ondernemers. De kosten van falen in tijd en geld voor overheden en grote bedrijven zijn gigantisch. Je kunt nu heel snel en zonder een bak geld iets maken wat werkt.\nHij somt een hele rij kleine organisaties op die met behulp van het internet de wereld proberen te veranderen. De grote landen in de wereld (zeg VS, China, Japan etc.) zijn veelal te corrupt, arrogant en disfunctioneel om daadwerkelijke verandering te kunnen bewerkstelligen. Hij werkt liever om de overheid heen en zegt dat je binnen de overheid moet werken als je de energie ertoe hebt. Volgens hem zijn kleinere landen wel in staat zijn om te luisteren, te leren en te veranderen.\nMensenrechten zijn belangrijk maar kunnen niet ingevoerd worden zonder oog voor de bredere sociale context en gevolgen. In de Arabische wereld gaan dingen langzamerhand de goede kant op.\n(Deze blog is snel geschreven door Alper na een sessie op SxSWi in Austin, Texas. En tevens gecrosspost naar het groepsblog voor alle Nederlandse aanwezigen.)\n","date":"March 14, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/joi-ito-de-wereld-redden-door-iedereen-in-staat-te-stellen-om-te-innoveren/","section":"Posts","summary":"Joi Ito 2010 SXSW Talk on Prezi Joi Ito is niet zozeer een man, maar een beweging. Hij leidt, stuurt en overal waar hij komt heeft hij veel gelijkgestemden. In dit tijdslot wat in het programma alleen maar Joi Ito Presentation heet omdat hij nog geen naam (en ook geen presentatie of verhaal) had vult hij in zijn eentje een uur met een samenhangend verhaal en vele anekdotes uit zijn leven als wereldreiziger en cultuurproever.\n","title":"Joi Ito - De wereld redden door iedereen in staat te stellen om te innoveren","type":"posts"},{"content":"Just saw this picture of the Wellington RFID farecard system at Adam Greenfield\u0026rsquo;s Flickr stream (CC-by-nc-sa photograph): It\u0026rsquo;s called a Snapper card.\nCompare this to the London based Oyster card: And the Hong Kong Octopus card: This international sea food theme makes me think that we have definitely missed a branding opportunity here (and this for a country of fishermen). Our entire OV-chipkaart system 1 has been grossly underdesigned on all fronts, so no surprises there 2.\nSo I\u0026rsquo;ve got two proposed alternative names for our low countries farecard system:\nHerring card (Haringkaart) or\nMussel card (Mosselkaart) How do we get this change implemented? And anybody care to mockup a concept?\nHow stupid is it to put the implementation detail of the ‘chip’ in the name?\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nYou currently have the messages in the tram: “Don\u0026rsquo;t forget to check out with your public transport chip card.”These are a bit awkward.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"March 8, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/sea-fare/","section":"Posts","summary":"Just saw this picture of the Wellington RFID farecard system at Adam Greenfield’s Flickr stream (CC-by-nc-sa photograph): ","title":"Sea fare","type":"posts"},{"content":"Snel een visualisatie in elkaar gedraaid op basis van mijn Europees Parlement visualisatie van vorige week. De huidige verkiezingen voor de gemeenteraad 2010 (klik voor groot):\nGrootste landelijke partijen per gemeente genomen waar mogelijk 1. Sommige gemeenten doen nu niet mee, zie Wikipedia voor het lijstje en van 22 gemeenten moet de uitslag nog komen.\nDe kaart met de grootste partijen van de vorige verkiezingen (voor het Europees Parlement in 2009):\nHet is lastig vergelijken met de Europese verkiezingen omdat dat een heel ander soort verkiezingen is met een nog lagere opkomst (en zichtbaar meer winst voor het CDA). Wilders deed bij die verkiezingen op een stuk meer plaatsen mee en dat is duidelijk zichtbaar. Je ziet dat de PVV nu vervangen is door de VVD, maar als Wilders in al die gemeenten wel meedeed, had het heel heel anders af kunnen lopen.\nBeide plaatjes mogen overgenomen worden onder een Creative Commons Naamsvermeldingslicentie voor Alper Cugun en een link naar http://alper.nl.\n[Stuur dit door op Twitter!](http://twitter.com/?status=Kaart van de verkiezingsuitslagen: http://bit.ly/gr2010al)\nUpdate om 02:00. Volgende en laatste update morgenochtend.\nUpdate: Bezig met de laatste ronde invoer en het is zelfs nog wachten op enkele laatste uitslagen die niet op teletekst staan. Daarna misschien ook de gegevens van de vorige gemeenteraadsverkiezingen overnemen omdat dat beter vergelijkt dan de Europese verkiezingen.\nUpdate: Nog steeds aan het wachten op de uitslagen van Geldrop-Mierlo en Lelystad.\nUpdate: Laatste verlate uitslagen ook verwerkt.\nUpdate: NRC heeft ook een verkiezingskaart die er leuk uitziet maar hier en daar wat lastig werkt.\nSommige gemeenten hebben niet eens een landelijke partij in het lijstje staan. Die blijven dan wit.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"March 3, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/verkiezingsuitslagen-gevisualiseerd/","section":"Posts","summary":"Snel een visualisatie in elkaar gedraaid op basis van mijn Europees Parlement visualisatie van vorige week. De huidige verkiezingen voor de gemeenteraad 2010 (klik voor groot):\n","title":"Verkiezingsuitslagen Grootste Partijen Gevisualiseerd","type":"posts"},{"content":"De OV-chipkaart is een groot succes in de Amsterdamse metro. Het aantal zwartrijders is afgenomen en navenant ook het aantal geweldsincidenten.\nMooi en nog meer onbegrip voor de mensen die tegen de ov-chipkaart zijn. Hij mag nog wel verbeterd worden, maar de waarde van de chipkaart is nu duidelijk bewezen.\nDe GVB zegt in de pers dat het niet mogelijk is om de harde kern van zwartrijders aan te pakken. Ik denk meer dat het een kwestie is van niet willen of dat de kosten niet opwegen tegen de baten. Het is de vraag in hoeverre je de kieren dicht van een veiligheidssysteem.\nIk post dit even hier omdat de GVB een van de meest gesloten en niet web-savvy bedrijven van Nederland is, dus voor de lezers zonder enige hoop van wederhoor.\nWat mij een paar keer is gebeurd is dat er een marginaal iemand vlak achter je mee door de poortjes glipt. Ik ben meestal te in gedachten verzonken met muziek op om het snel op te merken, maar de mensen van het GVB die bij die poortjes staan DOEN NIKS. Wat hebben ze dan voor zin? En wat kan ik er dan van zeggen als de mensen van het GVB het goed vinden wat er gebeurt?\nEvenzo mensen die poortjes intrappen: doorseinen via beveiligingscamera\u0026rsquo;s, metro waar ze in zitten subtiel vertraging laten oplopen en ze door politie op het volgende station uit de metro laten trekken, onder curatele stellen en dwingen schade te vergoeden.\nHet kan wél als je het maar wilt.\n","date":"March 1, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/toename-in-veiligheid-door-de-ov-chipkaart/","section":"Posts","summary":"De OV-chipkaart is een groot succes in de Amsterdamse metro. Het aantal zwartrijders is afgenomen en navenant ook het aantal geweldsincidenten.\n","title":"Toename in veiligheid door de ov-chipkaart","type":"posts"},{"content":"Er is een beweging in Amsterdam van onverstandige en enigszins bekende mensen die tegen de Noord/Zuidlijn zijn.\nAfgelopen week nog een flyer op de site van Thomas Schlijper. Schlijper is een fotograaf die leuke foto\u0026rsquo;s maakt van het centrum van Amsterdam. Voor de grootstedelijke ontwikkeling moeten we iets verder kijken.\npicture by Wynand van Poortvliet\nZeker nu kunnen we het ons niet permitteren om dan €3.1 miljard weg te gooien. Amsterdam heeft dringend beter openbaar vervoer nodig om de verschillende stadsdelen en vooral het Amsterdam bí­nnen de ring met het Amsterdam búiten de ring te verbinden.\nTegen zijn is zó makkelijk. De partijen die tegen zijn, zijn de SP 1 en enkele marginale politieke bewegingen. ‘Politici’ met een gebrek aan basale economische kennis (en een dosis gezond verstand) 2. Voor hen hier een klein lesje.\nSunk Cost # De economische term Sunk cost gaat over wat je al hebt uitgegeven aan een project. Aangezien je dat geld niet terug kunt krijgen kun je het uitgegeven bedrag voor toekomstige beslissingen beter negeren.\nDit gaat niet blind op maar het is een handig concept om in het achterhoofd te houden. Zeker in grote projecten kan er op een gegeven moment niet meer gestopt worden door de sunk cost. Daar komen het Sunk Cost dilemma en de uitspraak ‘throwing good money after bad’ vandaan.\nEr is dus geen kant en klaar kort antwoord op dit probleem. De afweging of je door moet gaan met het project moet uiteindelijk gemaakt op basis van de waarde van het uiteindelijke resultaat.\nWat zijn dus de totale kosten van stoppen?\nAfwikkelingskosten: afbetalen van bouwbedrijven, tunnels dichtstoppen, stations omkatten. Geen triviaal bedrag en over het precieze bedrag (‘de besparing’) is nog enige onenigheid. Dit zijn (ten onrechte) de enige kosten waar de discussie over gaat. Opportunity cost: Deze kosten zijn gelijk aan de waarde van het beste alternatief nl. de lijn afbouwen. De kosten van het niet hebben van een goede Noord-Zuidverbinding door de stad in tegenstelling tot wel. De kosten van het hebben van een suboptimaal openbaar vervoerssysteem en stedelijke ontwikkeling 3 in tegenstelling tot wel. De kosten van al die mensen die de komende 50 jaar tijd verliezen en dingen niet kunnen doen omdat deze lijn er dan niet ligt in tegenstelling tot wel. Daar komt nog de vertraging bij van het herplannen van de hele stad en het in gang zetten van de alternatieven. Voordat dat allemaal goed en wel op de rails staat zijn we 5-10 jaar verder en dan had je de N/Z-lijn net zo goed af kunnen bouwen. Morele kosten: Zoals ik al zei: je maakt dat af waar je aan begint. Ik denk dat stoppen een grote weerslag heeft op het moreel van de stad. Het zal als een schaduw over elk volgend project hangen zó politici ooit nog aan dit soort grote projecten durven te beginnen. De discussie moet zich richten op hoe groot je alle kosten schat. Ik schat de Afwikkelingskosten als verwaarloosbaar, de Opportunity cost als gigantisch 4 en de Morele kosten als onverteerbaar. In de discussie gevoerd door de tegenstanders richt men zich op het beetje ongemak wat we nu in de stad hebben en de kosten die er de komende tien jaar nog te verwachten zijn.\nEen partij oprichten en wat schreeuwen voor de verkiezingen kunnen heel veel mensen hebben we gezien. Vijftig jaar ver kijken, een visie formuleren en impopulaire beslissingen nemen is veel minder mensen gegeven.\nDe traditionele tegenpartij.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nDe lijst van Red Amsterdam wordt ook bevolkt door kroegbazen en halve bekende Nederlanders.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nDe lijn past in de visie dat het gewicht van mensenverplaatsing door en rond Amsterdam zich kan concentreren op station Zuid in plaats van dat al die mensen door de stad heen helemaal naar Centraal moeten en van daaruit uitwaaieren. Komt ook nog bij dat als de woonbestemming van Zuid in de komende twintig jaar van de grond komt, die mensen goed transport naar de stad nodig hebben (niet weer de fout van IJburg maken).\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nOrde van grootte: 100 miljard.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"February 28, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/red-amsterdam-van-de-kortzichtigheid/","section":"Posts","summary":"Er is een beweging in Amsterdam van onverstandige en enigszins bekende mensen die tegen de Noord/Zuidlijn zijn.\n","title":"Red Amsterdam van de kortzichtigheid","type":"posts"},{"content":"Een overzicht van de uitslagen van de Europese Verkiezingen 2009 per gemeente: Een uitleg hoe ik deze kaart gemaakt heb volgt binnenkort.\nIk maak me klaar om woensdag nog zo\u0026rsquo;n kaart uit te draaien voor de gemeenteraadsverkiezingen. Ik ben alleen bang dat het nog een pessimistischer beeld zal opleveren.\n","date":"February 27, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/verkiezingen/","section":"Posts","summary":"Een overzicht van de uitslagen van de Europese Verkiezingen 2009 per gemeente: ","title":"Verkiezingen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Yesterday I attended the fifth edition of This Happened in Utrecht city. It was a great new iteration with more polish even though it was also a big step up moving the entire event to a new venue.\nSee the This Happened site for the presentations of this session.\nThe Papercakes presentation was interesting, though I would have wished that they\u0026rsquo;d focused more on the creative process and not so much on the implementation and user testing. It is a very compelling game and I\u0026rsquo;m now even more seriously considering buying a Bamboo for my desk.\nThe Love Hate Punch punching bag hit close to home for me as I used to have a bag like that at home and I definitely can relate to the aggression remediating effects of such a bag. It was an epic story of how to create something interesting using mostly home brew and tenacity.\nThe Swinxs is impossible not to like. The presentation was oddly paced, but still everybody thought it was great and got a great look behind the process of putting a digital toy on the store shelves (quite a feat!).\nDaan Roosegaarde went off in all kinds of tangents talking about creating poetic interactions for public space. His installations are in a league of their own and are a custom designed experience for a certain area. I have experienced LiquidSpace but I had a hard time getting much more out of it than its novelty.\nThis Happens seems to have arrived at a next level with a space that is comfortable and organizers that are comfortable within that space. Let\u0026rsquo;s see what\u0026rsquo;s next.\n","date":"February 25, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/this-happened-5-brief-impressions/","section":"Posts","summary":"Yesterday I attended the fifth edition of This Happened in Utrecht city. It was a great new iteration with more polish even though it was also a big step up moving the entire event to a new venue.\n","title":"This Happened #5 — Brief Impressions","type":"posts"},{"content":" Of: Hoe IJsland ondanks ons gekoeioneer onze informatievrijheid gaat veiligstellen. # Misschien heb je weleens gehoord van Wikileaks. Ze zijn een relatief recente ontwikkeling (gelanceerd in 2007) maar in deze periode van journalistieke kaalslag zijn ze één van de belangrijkste instituten voor de persvrijheid geworden. Ze geven elk jaar op de conferentie van de Chaos Computing club een presentatie. De video van afgelopen jaar (MP4, 740M) van de sessie van Wikileaks op de 26C3 begint vanaf minuut 26 pas echt interessant te worden. Dan gaan ze het “Here be dragons”-deel van hun presentatie in.\nFoto onder Creative Commons Naamsvermeldingslicentie door Andy McGee.\nIn dat deel van de presentatie kondigen ze aan dat ze in overleg zijn met IJslandse politici om van het land een journalistieke informatie-vrijhaven te maken door wetgeving voor verregaande vrijheid van meningsuiting en vrijheid van informatie samen met bescherming voor bronnen en klokkenluiders in te voeren. Dat wetsvoorstel staat nu online op IMMI.is en het wordt vandaag ingediend. Julian Assange —redacteur van Wikileaks— schrijft bij the Guardian over dit voorstel en de aanleiding ertoe en zegt dat het brede steun heeft in het parlement en dus hoogstwaarschijnlijk aangenomen zal worden.\nWikileaks is voorzover ik kan zien nog steeds veel te weinig bekend in Nederland. Dus daarom voor wie geen tijd heeft om de video te bekijken, hier een kleine doorloop.\nWikileaks # De presentatie begint met een overzicht van wat Wikileaks is en wat ze het afgelopen jaar gedaan hebben. Ze hebben deze presentatie ook gegeven in 2008 toen ik erbij was en die leek erg op deze. Wikileaks heeft tot missie om klokkenluiders te helpen gevoelige informatie vrij te geven zonder persoonlijke gevolgen. Dat houdt in dat Wikileaks verkregen documenten anoniem maakt, ze vrijgeeft via hun netwerk van webservers en alle juridische gevolgen die publicatie van deze documenten teweeg brengt draagt.\nHet idee is dat er documenten zijn waarvan de openbaarmaking een publiek belang dient. Dus niet de patientgegevens van een ziekenhuis maar wel de procedures van een martelkamp of de bewijzen van giflozingen in Afrika. Dat ze hierbij regelmatig op de tenen van overheden, bedrijven en andere machthebbers staan nemen ze dan maar voor lief.\nVoor het werk dat ze doen hebben ze talrijke journalistieke prijzen gekregen. De aanwezigen op de 26C3 dragen de mensen van Wikileaks op handen zoals je kunt zien in de video. Ze krijgen een staande ovatie en een vragensteller noemt het een ‘prayer meeting.’ Dat is niet zo\u0026rsquo;n gekke term want als er voor hackers en internet-activisten één gospel bestaat, dan is het wel: ‘information wants to be free.’\nDe macht van informatie en de kosten van onderzoeksjournalistiek # Ze leggen ook uit dat Wikileaks steun (in natura) krijgt van nieuwsorganisaties omdat ze het gezamenlijke doel hebben om onderzoeksjournalistiek makkelijker te maken. Wikileaks accepteert geen geld van overheden en bedrijven om onpartijdig te blijven (wel van privé-personen). De afwegingen die ze daarbij moeten maken, waarom ze het werk doen en wat ervoor nodig is in geld en middelen is te lezen in dit interview “The Economy of Wikileaks” afgenomen na hun presentatie.\nUit dat interview blijkt dat ze naast het aantrekkelijk maken voor klokkenluiders om informatie vrij te geven het ook aantrekkelijk moeten maken voor journalisten om er aandacht aan te besteden. Zodra een stuk informatie voor iedereen beschikbaar is (op Wikileaks) dan is de nieuwswaarde ervan nul. Wikileaks is dan ook aan het experimenteren met manieren van vrijgeven om ervoor te zorgen dat hun documenten een zo groot mogelijk publiek bereiken.\nHet gaat in het interview ook om de donaties die Wikileaks nodig heeft om zelf te kunnen draaien (zie ook “Dig Deep for Wikileaks”). Op dit moment ligt de site van Wikileaks plat om geld in te zamelen zodat ze weer een jaar kunnen draaien. Één van de systemen die ze daarvoor succesvol gebruiken is onze donatiesite TipiT. De enkele tonnen die ze nodig hebben om minimaal te kunnen draaien hebben ze nu al binnen maar meer is welkom. Het is goed om te zien hoe breed internationaal het doel van Wikileaks om de journalistiek te ondersteunen gedragen wordt.\nHet IJslandse Moderne Media Initiatief # Het “Here be dragons”gedeelte van hun presentatie is wat mij betreft het interessantste. Zoals Assange schrijft in the Guardian was Wikileaks betrokken bij de publicatie van het leenboek van Kaupthing vlak voor deze bank omviel:\nThen, on 31 July last year, WikiLeaks released Kaupthing\u0026rsquo;s confidential large loan book, which exposed €6bn of loans. Kaupthing threatened us and our source with a year in prison under Icelandic banking secrecy law. The leak was to become a major story, but five minutes before the national broadcaster, RÊV, could report it, the news desk was slapped with an injunction by Kaupthing. The first such Icelandic newsdesk injunction in living memory. Lost for words, RÊV filled the time with an image of WikiLeaks, outraging the public, who could all access a copy of the primary source document. (the Guardian)\nDoor de gigantische financiele crisis die daarop volgde is de bevolking van IJsland geradicaliseerd. We hebben hier op het journaal de beelden gezien van de rellen in IJsland. Daar komt nog de druk van het IMF en van onder andere Groot-Brittannië, Nederland en Denemarken bij om het geld dat spaarders hier verloren hebben terug te betalen. De crisis en het politiek vloeibare klimaat zorgen er volgens Wikileaks voor dat de politiek ontvankelijk is voor oplossingen om te zorgen dat dit niet weer kan gebeuren en om economische ontwikkeling aan te trekken.\nWikileaks trekt dan de parallel met offshore belastingparadijzen waar je met vrijheid van belastingen je geld kunt laten bewaren. Dit zijn meestal eilanden omdat die een kleine bevolking hebben —en dus makkelijker wetgeving kunnen doorvoeren— en ze geen buurlanden hebben die zich er erg aan kunnen storen. IJsland voldoet aan die voorwaarden maar in plaats van een belastingparadijs is Wikileaks aan het praten met politici om er een ‘censuurparadijs’ van te maken. Door de sterkste informatievrijheids en bronnenbeschermingsregels ter wereld te nemen —een mix van Zweden en België blijkt—en dat pakket in IJsland door te voeren wordt het een informatievrijhaven voor de wereld. Dit moet dan ook gebeuren voor een eventuele toetreding tot de EU omdat zo\u0026rsquo;n pakket anders verzandt in het moeras van het Europese Parlement.\nDat voorstel hebben ze nu dus geschreven in de IMMI en het wordt vandaag ingediend in het IJslandse parlement. Het is afwachten of het daadwerkelijk aangenomen zal worden, maar we kunnen optimistisch zijn. We zien dat informatie-vrijheid in Europa om uiteenlopende redenen aangetast wordt. Gegevens moeten bewaard, anonimiteit is verdacht en in Engeland kun je nauwelijks iets publiceren uit angst voor een smaadaanklacht (zie ook Trafigura).\nIk denk dat in het huidige klimaat het goed is als er tenminste één plek is waar je je informatie vrijelijk kwijt kunt. En als een land als IJsland het dan kan gebruiken als economische motor is dat alleen maar mooi meegenomen. Ik ben in ieder geval trots mijn steentje bij te hebben gedragen en jullie kunnen nog steeds doneren op de site van Wikileaks.\nFull Disclosure: Zoals in het artikel genoemd ben ik mede-eigenaar van één donatie-site die door Wikileaks gebruikt wordt.\nUpdate: Artikel op NPR. Nog een artikel in the Guardian.\n","date":"February 16, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/een-drakenschip-voor-informatievrijheid/","section":"Posts","summary":"Of: Hoe IJsland ondanks ons gekoeioneer onze informatievrijheid gaat veiligstellen. # Misschien heb je weleens gehoord van Wikileaks. Ze zijn een relatief recente ontwikkeling (gelanceerd in 2007) maar in deze periode van journalistieke kaalslag zijn ze één van de belangrijkste instituten voor de persvrijheid geworden. Ze geven elk jaar op de conferentie van de Chaos Computing club een presentatie. De video van afgelopen jaar (MP4, 740M) van de sessie van Wikileaks op de 26C3 begint vanaf minuut 26 pas echt interessant te worden. Dan gaan ze het “Here be dragons”-deel van hun presentatie in.\n","title":"Een drakenschip voor informatievrijheid","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik ben sinds een tijdje lid van D66 tot redelijke tevredenheid. Maar nu doe ik net de Stemwijzer voor de gemeente Amsterdam en daar komt het volgende uit:\nNu kloppen Stemwijzers nooit helemaal, maar ik heb toch redelijk wat verschillen met D66 in Amsterdam 1. Dat boeit me niet heel veel, want ik ben vooral geïnteresseerd in de landelijke politiek maar het heeft toch wel wat toelichting nodig.\nIk doe dit uit aardigheid met D66 en met het idee dat je juist naar je eigen partij kritisch moet zijn. Elke andere partij (ook GroenLinks) zou er veel bekaaider van afkomen.\nHier de verschillen:\n5. De Parkeertarieven moeten omlaag. # Ik: Oneens D66: Eens\nWat mij betreft mogen de parkeertarieven in Amsterdam geleidelijk opgehoogd wordt net zoals je een kikker in een pan kunt koken door geleidelijk de temperatuur omhoog te doen en mogen de vrijblijvende parkeerplaatsen langzamerhand teruggegeven worden aan de burgers van Amsterdam. Het is mijn mening dat het getuigt van enigszins beperkte verstandelijke vermogens als je je in Amsterdam voortbeweegt met de auto.\nHet blijkt dus dat D66 nogal een partij is voor de autobelangen 2. Daar komen we zo nog eens op terug.\n8. Het autovrije gebied in de binnenstad moet worden uitgebreid. # Ik: Eens D66: Geen van beide\nZie vorig punt. Hoe minder auto\u0026rsquo;s in de stad hoe beter.\n9. Vrouwen moeten apart van mannen kunnen inburgeren. # Ik: Oneens D66: Geen van beide\nGeen uitgesproken mening van D66 wel van mij. Als je al begint met segregatie en minderwaardigheid in de inburgeringscursus, waar blijf je dan? Als ze dan wegblijven, ze met zachte tot harde dwang toch naar de cursus halen.\n11. Amsterdam moet veel meer topsport-evenementen binnenhalen. # Ik: Eens D66: Oneens\nIk vind topsport vet. Wat mij betreft niet echt een breekpunt.\n13. Om de veiligheid op straat te vergroten moet het cameratoezicht worden uitgebreid. # Ik: Oneens D66: Geen van beide\nCameratoezicht op straat draagt er weinig aan bij de veiligheid te vergroten zeggen alle mensen die er verstand van hebben 3. En we hadden het al over het zwakke privacy-track record van D66, daar kun je deze dan weer bij optellen.\n14. Een nieuwe verbinding met Almere door het IJmeer mag alleen in de vorm van een tunnel worden aangelegd. # Ik: Eens D66: Geen van beide\nTunnels zijn cool. En als je dan wegen moet aanleggen waarom dan niet uit het zicht?\n15. Amsterdam moet weer homohoofdstad van Europa worden. # Ik: Oneens D66: Eens\nIk heb geen idee welke criteria hiervoor gehaald moeten worden en waarom de overheid zich hiermee zou moeten bemoeien.\n16. Kraken mag als panden langer dan een jaar leegstaan # Ik: Eens D66: Geen van beide\nIn de verziekte vastgoedmarkt moeten er dingen blijven om de macht van speculanten in te perken. Dat CDA/VVD allebei voor een kraakverbod zijn is al genoeg reden om er tegen te zijn.\n17. De gemeente mag circussen met wilde dieren geen vergunning geven. # Ik: Oneens D66: Eens\nDiversiteit van amusement en ervaringen hoort wat mij betreft bij een grote stad. Ik ben er ook niet voor om Artis te sluiten.\n18. Voor uitbreiding van fietspaden en speelplekken mogen parkeerplaatsen verdwijnen. # Ik: Eens D66: Oneens\nOnbegrijpelijk. D66 is gewoon een autopartij. Parkeerplaatsen in de stad zijn dode ruimte. Er is op veel plaatsen nauwelijks ruimte om je fiets neer te zetten en meer speelruimte in de stad is ook eenzijdig goed.\n19. Vanaf 2010 moet alle nieuwbouw klimaatneutraal zijn, door goede isolatie, groene daken en zonnepanelen. # Ik: Oneens D66: Geen van beide\nIk ben hier eigenlijk voor maar ik vind het dom om dingen verplicht te stellen waar je met een stevige (structurele, eenvoudige) subsidie hetzelfde effect zou kunnen bereiken.\n22. De deelraad Centrum moet onmiddelijk worden opgeheven. # Ik: Geen van beide D66: Oneens\nIk heb geen flauw idee welke bestuurlijk kwesties hier spelen. Het kan me eerlijk gezegd ook niet heel veel schelen.\n23. Nieuwbouwprojecten moeten voor 30 procent uit goedkope huurwoningen bestaan. # Ik: Eens D66: Oneens\nIk heb heel veel bezwaren op de stedelijk ontwikkeling zoals die in Amsterdam plaats vindt. Voor diversiteit in je buurt lijkt het me toch noodzakelijk dat er gemengd gebouwd wordt.\nOp de Zuidas komen bijvoorbeeld series woontorens met alleen maar dure huizen waardoor je een yuppie-ghetto krijgt 4. Het resultaat is een gebied met een ontzettende schrale publieke ruimte.\n29. De stadswacht moet onderdeel van de politie worden en daardoor meer bevoegdheden krijgen # Ik: Oneens D66: Eens\nWat mij betreft is de stadswacht een werkverschaffingsproject met beperkt nut waar mensen al teveel bevoegdheden hebben. Ze blinken erin uit om fietsers terecht te wijzen maar op probleemlocaties en moeilijke tijden (\u0026rsquo;s nachts) zijn ze nooit te vinden. Nog meer bevoegdheden is een slecht plan.\nUpdate: En uit Kieskompas komen eerst een paar vage randpartijen bovenaan voor er een half zinnig resultaat uit rolt. Zoals Frank zegt inderdaad kansloos en nodig toe aan verbetering. Mochten de organisaties advies willen voor een statistisch beter resultaat en een gebruiksvriendelijkere site, kunnen ze altijd contact opnemen.\nVoor mijn stadsdeel Oost kom ik op gelijke resultaten voor D66, PvdA en VVD. Blijkbaar zijn de verschillen heel klein.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nDat is denk ik ook de grootste reden dat GL bij mij naar boven stijgt.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nDe politie telt niet mee. Als het aan de politie lag hadden we allemaal een camera op ons hoofd.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nHet is nu ook een ghetto en \u0026rsquo;s avonds een no-go area.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"February 14, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/stemwijzers-en-verschillen-tussen-partijen-punt-voor-punt/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik ben sinds een tijdje lid van D66 tot redelijke tevredenheid. Maar nu doe ik net de Stemwijzer voor de gemeente Amsterdam en daar komt het volgende uit:\n","title":"Stemwijzers en verschillen tussen partijen, punt voor punt","type":"posts"},{"content":"A small post about the Interactive Environments exhibit at my alma mater. I had to be in Rotterdam anyway that day so I decided to drop by.\nThere\u0026rsquo;s some confusion at Delft Science Center whether the exhibit is really open to the public, but it isn\u0026rsquo;t locked, so just head there and take the first door on your right. Maybe because of the confusion, the machines aren\u0026rsquo;t turned on, so it\u0026rsquo;s a rather static display of interactive environments.\nSome pictures: ","date":"February 4, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/interactive-environments/","section":"Posts","summary":"A small post about the Interactive Environments exhibit at my alma mater. I had to be in Rotterdam anyway that day so I decided to drop by.\n","title":"Interactive Environments","type":"posts"},{"content":" A long held dream came true for me with the delivery this week of my first light stand and umbrella combination. I wanted to play with studio photography longer already, but what really brought it home was following Dustin Diaz\u0026rsquo;s Project 365 where he did an interesting strobist setup for every day of 2009. I learned so much from that.\nSo now I can shoot portraits with off camera soft directed light. This is just the beginning: ","date":"February 4, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/let-it-rain/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Let it rain","type":"posts"},{"content":"Today at an event called ‘What makes you horny?’ (#wmyh), I gave a presentation about my inspiration: Big Data.\nWhat Makes You Horny? Big Data!\nView more presentations from alper.\nData coupled with Design is more or less my field of choice, my work and passion.\nThis is the same thinking that is behind my proposition that websites are not the most important thing online anymore. Websites are important in so far as they get data and facilitate interaction on that data, but both of those are taking place more and more on completely different locations. It is far more useful to think of the web as streams of data and actors that interact with that data.\nThe talk was well received though (as always) it stands to be improved greatly under the influences of feedback and ripening.\nUpdate: This presentation is now in Slideshare\u0026rsquo;s top presentations of the day.\n","date":"January 27, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/big-data-makes-me-horny/","section":"Posts","summary":"Today at an event called ‘What makes you horny?’ (#wmyh), I gave a presentation about my inspiration: Big Data.\n","title":"Big Data makes me horny","type":"posts"},{"content":"One of the more important online projects Wikileaks got hit by a block this weekend but we at TipiT could quickly respond and get them up and running again. Read the write-up over at the TipiT blog.\n","date":"January 26, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/tipit-on-wikileaks/","section":"Posts","summary":"One of the more important online projects Wikileaks got hit by a block this weekend but we at TipiT could quickly respond and get them up and running again. Read the write-up over at the TipiT blog.\n","title":"TipiT on Wikileaks","type":"posts"},{"content":"Aangezien onze dichter des vaderlands zijn eigen blog niet zo goed bijhoudt moet het goede volk zijn gedichten hier en daar bij elkaar schrapen of speciaal voor dat handjevol een abonnement nemen op de NRC. Geen doen dus.\nSpeciaal voor de fans herhaal en link ik zijn gedichten hier ook maar. Dan heb ik ze tenminste ergens waar ik erbij kan, en jullie ook. Hieronder ook het fragment waar Ramsey Nasr het zelf voordraagt:\nNieuwsjaarsgroet\nZo JP, hoe voelt het om te liegen en dan te moeten zien dat het gedrukt staat? Hoe voelt dat, om als christen-democraat de zijde van Herodes te verkiezen\nen honderdduizend kinderen te doden omwille van één koning? Volkenrecht? Ik ken een land dat dozen resoluties juist dankzij ons al jaren naast zich neerlegt.\nZiehier onze premier, hij leest de krant en denkt: klaat ze maar lullen, mijn geweten is zuiver. En geen koren zonder kaf.\n’t Is goed te liegen voor het vaderland. De beste wensen nog van alle Irakezen massaal vernietigd en bevrijd in ’t graf.\nDaar heeft ook Frits Barend niet van terug denk ik.\n","date":"January 21, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/nasr-doet-een-nieuwjaarsgroet/","section":"Posts","summary":"Aangezien onze dichter des vaderlands zijn eigen blog niet zo goed bijhoudt moet het goede volk zijn gedichten hier en daar bij elkaar schrapen of speciaal voor dat handjevol een abonnement nemen op de NRC. Geen doen dus.\n","title":"Nasr doet een nieuwjaarsgroet","type":"posts"},{"content":"The hearings for the various European Commissioners were held last week. Our Dutch representative Neelie Kroes (known from her ferocious busting of Microsoft\u0026rsquo;s balls) was given a hard time mainly due to political getting back from the Christian and Socialist European fractions for the grilling of their candidates.\nKroes is slated to be the European Commissioner for the Digital Agenda. Thought by some to be a lightweight portfolio, we in the internet business know that it is of course at the heart of most important things: media, science, trade, communication.\nBaroso\u0026rsquo;s brief is as follows (in part):\nYou will take the lead in preparing the European Digital Agenda, to promote an integrated ICT policy framework, addressing both supply and demand for digital services, products and contents, ensuring that Europe remains at the technological forefront in this area. The EU needs high speed internet networks to realise the potential of ICTs. Therefore, I would like you to elaborate a policy framework to promote investment in high speed internet and set up a coordinated spectrum policy. I would also like you to establish an integrated single market for the delivery of electronic services. The EU possesses massive creative, cultural and multilingual potential, which efficient ICT tools can help to tap and transform into productivity gains. Europe must also invest in the ICT skills of its citizens. Your role will be to avoid a \u0026lsquo;digital divide\u0026rsquo; and to give the possibility to all citizens to acquire e-skills. (Mission Statement)\nHer answers to the questions are here in Dutch 1, you may be able to find documents in other languages at the main site for the hearings.\nI\u0026rsquo;d read about the question session and the next day Dutch public television put this debriefing with her online:\nIn one interview she kept saying something about ‘ICTs’ (Maarten said it sounded something like the interwebs) and in the above fragment she excells in vagueness. A lot of criticism on her has been indeed focused on her grasp of the field and her plans for the Digital Agenda which were termed weak. More video here and audio about the second term this week.\nThe other criticism that she would not be a champion of the consumer but would take side with the big companies put forward by the Euro Socialists is frankly ludicrous (Dennis de Jong is our Dutch socialist —say no— representative), if you look at her record battling Microsoft.\nDutch pride of having at least one Commissioner in the EC is nice and all, but it would be nice for Europe to have a commissioner for the Digital Agenda who would actually use the internet? One who has at least a first hand idea what this stuff is about.\nGiven the vast out of touch Kafka-esque bureaucratic monstrosity that is the European Union, putting somebody in charge of the internet who both has a clue to the subject matter and can navigate the treacherous passages of European politics may be too much to hope for. Given that, Kroes may be a very good second and if she displays the same fervor to promote an open internet as she did attacking Microsoft, she may not be that bad at all.\nUpdate: Today\u0026rsquo;s hearings went a lot better and it looks like she will get the post for Euro Commissioner for the Digital Agenda: Update: And now it is almost a done deal according to this post on NOS.nl where they also mention that her advanced age may not make her the most suitable candidate for an internet portfolio.\nWhich I of course did not get around to reading yet.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"January 21, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/icts-for-europe/","section":"Posts","summary":"The hearings for the various European Commissioners were held last week. Our Dutch representative Neelie Kroes (known from her ferocious busting of Microsoft’s balls) was given a hard time mainly due to political getting back from the Christian and Socialist European fractions for the grilling of their candidates.\n","title":"ICTs for Europe","type":"posts"},{"content":"Aan de hand van diepgravend parlementair onderzoek van Steeph van Sargasso lanceerde onlangs de Privacy Barometer. Een ruwe indicator van de privacy-houding van de verschillende politieke partijen op basis van historisch stemgedrag 1.\nIn de Privacy Barometer valt af te lezen dat vrijwel elke politieke partij tegen de privacy is behalve de drie ‘echte linkse’ partijen. Opvallend is dat een partij als D66 die zich uitspreekt voor de privacy 2 zo slecht scoort.\nPlein66 # Op het D66-discussieforum zoeken mensen uiteraard weer de nuance. Je kunt op basis van een voorstel in de Tweede Kamer niet zo makkelijk met een 0-1 waardering dit soort dingen afmeten. Het probleem is alleen dat dit onderzoek al bijzonder ingewikkeld is. Er ook nog een bijzonder complexe waardering gebaseerd op de uitvoering aan hangen, maakt het niet simpeler.\nSteeph zegt: “dat ze gewoon de lijst moeten overnemen op hun site en per punt toelichting geven.”\nNatuurlijk hebben de drie partijen met een pro-privacy track record gemeen dat ze alledrie nog nooit enige verantwoordelijkheid hebben genomen en dat ze zich meer dan gemiddeld tegen voorstellen uitspreken. Dat vind ik laakbaar. Vooruitgang in een informatiesamenleving brengt compromissen met zich mee in het bijzonder op het gebied van privacy. Als we allemaal in een hut op de hei leefden 3 dan hadden we ook geen last van privacy-schendingen.\nVerbetering # Maar het ligt dieper en de situatie is echt wel beroerd. Zoals ik ook op Plein66 zeg, moet het in zo\u0026rsquo;n bar klimaat voor een pro-privacy-partij niet moeilijk zijn om positief op te vallen.\nHoe je dat precies doet maakt niet heel veel uit. Op Plein66 zegt iemand ook dat er niet zoveel maatregelen vóór de privacy te treffen zijn. Dit is onjuist. Er zijn een heleboel fundamentele maatregelen te verzinnen die in brede zin privacy waarborgen en de uitvoering van potentieel privacyschendende maatregelen belemmeren. Bits of Freedom is nu bezig met zo\u0026rsquo;n maatregel: de meldplicht datalekken.\nMaar het kan nog beter. Ik ben benieuwd of het mogelijk is om van D66 een capabalere partij wat betreft informatierecht te maken. Dus nog uitgesprokener zijn op privacy, maar ook duidelijk stelling nemen in netneutraliteit en auteursrechten.\nEn juist dat stemgedrag is moeilijk te achterhalen. Ik verdenk de politiek van kwade wil op dit vlak.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nEn waar ik daarom lid van ben.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nZoals de PvdD wil.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"January 20, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/een-bar-en-boos-klimaat-voor-privacy/","section":"Posts","summary":"Aan de hand van diepgravend parlementair onderzoek van Steeph van Sargasso lanceerde onlangs de Privacy Barometer. Een ruwe indicator van de privacy-houding van de verschillende politieke partijen op basis van historisch stemgedrag 1.\n","title":"Een bar en boos klimaat voor privacy","type":"posts"},{"content":" Friends of motion studio Eelke Dekker and design agency Booreiland have gone into seclusion for a week in the East of the Netherlands to concept, shoot and produce a movie within that week, project .mov. No ulterior motives, just making a movie for the love of making a movie (and having made that movie).\nSome years ago without a budget and far less experience they\u0026rsquo;d already produced the classic Frag. It took some time however to find the right moment and opportunity to make another one. Now that moment is there with more time, better gear, actually better everything and a recipe for awesome.\nNow, any movie needs an audience, but the fun part of this project is that you can track the making of as it goes along. It is all being documented in glorious HD, tweets and photographs. You can checkout the progress of the movie on the tumbleblog for dotmov or follow the dotmov account on Twitter. As this video testifies, even if you can\u0026rsquo;t be there, it is really fun and insightful to follow the creative process from afar:\nBriefing Scenario from dotmov on Vimeo.\nPitching Scenario aan Scriptwriters\nMore to follow and I can\u0026rsquo;t wait to see the end result (or more in progress movies for that matter).\n","date":"January 18, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/a-film-in-one-week/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"A Film in one Week","type":"posts"},{"content":"Tuesday, December 8th, we had the first issue of the UX Book Club Amsterdam chapter.\nDirk Geurs and myself along with Bart Schoenmakers had seen the runaway international success of UX Book Clubs and wondered why there wasn\u0026rsquo;t an Amsterdam edition yet. I visited the Zuid-Holland edition organized by Jeroen van Geel when I was still living in Delft and that was definitely a lot of fun.\nBecause it\u0026rsquo;s an open source initiative, having this itch means you get to scratch it yourself. So we got cracking. We rounded up some interest (thanks Peter Boersma), made a page on the wiki and one on LinkedIn (Join the LinkedIn Group if you want to participate!) and got it underway.\nOne hurdle (or maybe I should call it an advantage) is that because none of us can provide a location 1, we need somebody in the book club to sponsor every event. This is some extra work but it also adds some variety to every event. Also, if you want to participate and your office has room to spare to have 10-15 people talk about a book for an hour or two, get in touch!\nThe event # The first event was graciously hosted by Stijn Nieuwendijk from valsplat. An awesome user research (very important!) firm based in Amsterdam.\nThe first book the group chose to read was “The Back of the Napkin” by Dan Roam about clarifying ideas and solving problems using simple drawing and visual methods.\nThere was food (though we shouldn\u0026rsquo;t count on this in the future): There was discussion: And there were back of the napkin sketches, this one depicting the UX Book Club process: The discussion was too wide spread and far to summarize coherently, but I think I can try a one paragraph version:\nThe main concensus was that The Back of the Napkin was not a complicated but still quite a good book with some simple methods to use drawing and visual problem solving in a business context. For UX practitioners who are already well versed with visual methods, drawing and dealing with large amounts of information, the techniques laid out in the book may be overly familiar. I still thought it was nice to have everything laid out in a coherent framework. All in all an interesting book, but more suited for our non-visual colleagues.\nLooking forward # The event being a success we are now looking forward to the next one. It\u0026rsquo;s not a very difficult event to organize (though it is a lot more work than you would suspect) but having one under the belt can only make the next one easier and better. We now already have a venue for the next event (to be announced shortly) and will be starting the book choice.\nFor the book choice we are still looking for a method that will ensure enough interest so that the people voting for the final book will also be present for the event.\nSo stay tuned, watch the LinkedIn group and I hope to see you at a future UX Book Club.\nThough my office situation has changed very recently.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"January 18, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/ux-book-club-amsterdam-1/","section":"Posts","summary":"Tuesday, December 8th, we had the first issue of the UX Book Club Amsterdam chapter.\n","title":"UX Book Club Amsterdam #1","type":"posts"},{"content":"Na het radio-item van vorige week staat nu het filmpje dat Lody en Annejan vanochtend van me schoten bij Dwaze Zaken nu online op NOS Headlines.\nIk weet nog niet helemaal wat ik ervan moet denken dat ik hiervoor gevraagd wordt, maar het is wel erg leuk om te doen.\n","date":"January 14, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/foursquare-nu-in-beeld/","section":"Posts","summary":"Na het radio-item van vorige week staat nu het filmpje dat Lody en Annejan vanochtend van me schoten bij Dwaze Zaken nu online op NOS Headlines.\n","title":"Foursquare nu in beeld","type":"posts"},{"content":"Zoals al op het TipiT blog te lezen is TipiT nu ook beschikbaar in het Nederlands. Dat heeft wel aardig wat werk gekost, maar een site vertalen blijkt toch best wel leuk werk te zijn (al moet je wel je hoofd er goed bij houden).\nDus een Nederlandstalige site én iDeal, waar wacht je nog op?\n","date":"January 12, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/tipit-in-het-nederlands/","section":"Posts","summary":"Zoals al op het TipiT blog te lezen is TipiT nu ook beschikbaar in het Nederlands. Dat heeft wel aardig wat werk gekost, maar een site vertalen blijkt toch best wel leuk werk te zijn (al moet je wel je hoofd er goed bij houden).\n","title":"TipiT in het Nederlands","type":"posts"},{"content":"Afgelopen donderdag werd ik samen met de manager van Dwaze Zaken en de burgermeester geïnterviewd (Radio 1 link 1) voor Radio1 over Foursquare. Foursquare het mobiele spel, vrienden-vinder en sociale gids die we afgelopen jaar naar Amsterdam hebben gehaald en dat nu ook overal speelbaar is.\nLeuk om het terug te horen van vrienden. Ik wist zelf niet wanneer het uitgezonden zou worden 2. Ik had wel een uur over toepassingen van internet in horeca en locatie gebaseerde diensten en spellen kunnen praten denk ik, maar als je maar een minuutje hebt dan sneuvelen er nogal wat leuke dingen bij de montage.\nHier nog even het belang van mobiele spellen. Dit soort mobiele toepassingen en spellen werkt om drie redenen (die elkaar versterken):\nMeetbaar Foursquare —maar ook bijvoorbeeld de Nike Plus en Last.fm— maken handelingen (automatisch) meetbaar die dat daarvoor niet waren. Je koppelt een sensor of een software knop (check in!) aan een database en slaat alles op. Daar kun je dan statistisch interessante dingen aan afleiden en nog veel meer. Gegevens zijn goud. Sociaal Door middel van internet en al bestaande sociale netwerken wordt het makkelijk om deze handelingen en de significante afgeleide resultaten (het beëindigen van een run, iemand van zijn mayor-troon stoten), te delen met vrienden. Hierdoor crëeer je sociaal relevante informatie en waarde. De journaalverslaggever vroeg al het standaard bagatelliserende: “Wat heb je eraan? Is het niet suf, treurig, exhibitionisme?”Het standaard antwoord daarop is dat deze handelingen voor bepaalde zenders en ontvangers een sociale waarde vertegenwoordigen en dat dat alleen al het de moeite waard maakt. Daarnaast zijn deze handelingen feitelijk niet heel veel anders dan sociale communicatie die al bestond maar omdat dit digitaal wordt overgebracht zijn de kwaliteiten van schaal, snelheid e.d. anders. Mobiel Het meetbaar maken van de handelingen en het sociaal kunnen sturen en ontvangen van berichten vindt meer en meer mobiel plaats. Mobiel is dan niet alleen meer via de mobiele telefoon maar ook via andere apparaten of ingebouwde sensoren in de omgeving. Hierdoor is alles ook toegankelijk als je niet thuis achter de computer zit. Dat is makkelijker dan je hardloop rondje op te moeten schrijven en het achteraf thuis te moeten invoeren of veel te laat horen dat iemand in een bepaald café was. Maar belangrijker nog, het koppelt een fysieke context aan een digitale interactie waardoor het geheel beter blijft hangen bij de gebruiker. Dat past niet in twee minuten radio.\nIk wacht nog tot ze mijn naam goed schrijven op de site.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nEn er luisteren dus best wel wat mensen naar aan de reacties af te lezen.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"January 12, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/foursquare-spelen-op-de-radio/","section":"Posts","summary":"Afgelopen donderdag werd ik samen met de manager van Dwaze Zaken en de burgermeester geïnterviewd (Radio 1 link 1) voor Radio1 over Foursquare. Foursquare het mobiele spel, vrienden-vinder en sociale gids die we afgelopen jaar naar Amsterdam hebben gehaald en dat nu ook overal speelbaar is.\n","title":"Foursquare spelen op de radio","type":"posts"},{"content":"Afgelopen weekend was ik ook bij de nieuwjaarsborrel van D66 Amsterdam in het kader van de gemeenteraadsverkiezingen die er aankomen. Ik heb toen samen met wat anderen wat video\u0026rsquo;s gemaakt van de verschillende lijsttrekkers, gemeenteraadsleden en andere belangrijke D66\u0026rsquo;ers (ook van Alexander Pechtold en Boris van der Ham) in de komende periode voor het D66 Amsterdam videokanaal.\nSimpele middelen, een Kodak Zi8 met externe microfoon en one-takes zonder nabewerking. Videotechnisch is het dan ook niet geweldig, maar inhoudelijk is het resultaat (gezien de middelen) meer dan aardig.\n","date":"January 11, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/d66-televisie/","section":"Posts","summary":"Afgelopen weekend was ik ook bij de nieuwjaarsborrel van D66 Amsterdam in het kader van de gemeenteraadsverkiezingen die er aankomen. Ik heb toen samen met wat anderen wat video’s gemaakt van de verschillende lijsttrekkers, gemeenteraadsleden en andere belangrijke D66’ers (ook van Alexander Pechtold en Boris van der Ham) in de komende periode voor het D66 Amsterdam videokanaal.\n","title":"D66 Televisie","type":"posts"},{"content":"Sjors Timmer writes a nice piece about the futility of innovation and the inevitability of failure.\nHe says:\n“Who in their right mind would ever want to be sacrificed in the name of innovation, who in full knowledge would accept an seventy hour work week for unhealthy low pay, who educated by the best would spend their days in cheap office space with Spartan furniture.”\nSjors comes to the same conclusion, but I would answer (free after Camus) that both choices are absurd, both being a cog in a cubicle of bureaucracy and the hopeless railing against the windmills of the upstart.\nBut if both are absurd, you ought to accept that and choose the more glorious one.\n","date":"January 8, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/absurd-heroism-in-innovation/","section":"Posts","summary":"Sjors Timmer writes a nice piece about the futility of innovation and the inevitability of failure.\n","title":"Absurd heroism in innovation","type":"posts"},{"content":"Tim Bray speaks out on what those of us without a vested interest in the disfunctional business practices of enterprise software already knew and have been saying for years:\nThe community of developers whose work you see on the Web […] deploy better systems at less cost in less time at lower risk than we see in the Enterprise.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s a sham and it\u0026rsquo;s crumbling but slowly enough that if you\u0026rsquo;re mediocre developer you will not want for work for the foreseeable future (but you will not be doing interesting things either).\n","date":"January 8, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/enterprise-is-wrong/","section":"Posts","summary":"Tim Bray speaks out on what those of us without a vested interest in the disfunctional business practices of enterprise software already knew and have been saying for years:\n","title":"Enterprise is wrong","type":"posts"},{"content":"It\u0026rsquo;s that time of the year again, a modest list this time compared to some:\nLondon, and again in September for dConstruct, crashing at Cristiano and Melinda\u0026rsquo;s place Austin, first visit to SxSWi, definitely not the last Copenhagen, yearly Reboot, this time crashing at Mark\u0026rsquo;s awesome place Amsterdam, moving house over from Delft finally! Casablanca, flying in and out with Air Arabia on this Morrocan holiday Rabat Marrakech Agadir Essaouira I hope to travel more in this coming year. Austin, Copenhagen and Brighton are definitely in again. A new visit to the Middle East is in order and a big trip.\n","date":"January 2, 2010","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/year-in-cities-2009/","section":"Posts","summary":"It’s that time of the year again, a modest list this time compared to some:\n","title":"Year in Cities 2009","type":"posts"},{"content":"Of course I agree with this article: “Why front-end developers are so important to the future of businesses on the web” pleading for t-shaped webdevelopers being treated as such. Though that would seem like a fairly obvious point.\nI take it as a given to only collaborate with people who have very broad skill sets and who are great at communication, though people who can do all of the things in this list are very rare:\nup-to-date knowledge of available and emerging technologies extensive experience of implementing de facto web standards and programming patterns database configuration and data manipulation implementation across multiple platforms and legacy software applications provisioning for mobile devices data aggregation graphics sourcing and creation search engine optimisation (SEO) a thorough understanding of the aesthetics and parameters of designing for the web\nCarvill goes on to lump most of the UX profession\u0026rsquo;s skills into this set which seems to me to be something of a hard sell because people with all of these skills are even rarer. I am one and I know a handful of them. Many of the people who can do this are either in startup life or working for themselves in some other way because their abilities do not easily fit into the conceptual cubicles offered by corporate life.\nBusiness relevance # The web is the most important business asset any company will have and they\u0026rsquo;d better get ready for it. Outsourcing your issues is rarely the answer unless you\u0026rsquo;re willing to enter in a long term relationship with a firm and build the entire stack on open standards, so when the relationship sours it does not turn into a choke hold.\nGood businesses realise what an asset they have in their front-end web development team, and welcome their input into the product development process.\nIf this is what good businesses do, —which I believe— how many good business do we have? Being good right now may not be the most important criterium, but how many businesses have a coherent vision on their web strategy to move forward to a better situation?\nThe other thing that stood out to me was:\nEven better businesses have a User Experience team which encapsulates all those values, skills and judgements necessary to make great websites.\nIf having a UX team is not a given in this day and age, then the article starts to make a lot more sense.\nFuture # Like Carvill says, knowing your value and receiving the recognition for that can be two widely different things. I very quickly got fed up with railing against existing infrastructures and arbitrary corporate structures. The way forward for me is making cool new stuff in ad-hoc collaborations with nice people for money and fame.\n","date":"December 31, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/developers-are-so-important/","section":"Posts","summary":"Of course I agree with this article: “Why front-end developers are so important to the future of businesses on the web” pleading for t-shaped webdevelopers being treated as such. Though that would seem like a fairly obvious point.\n","title":"Developers are so important","type":"posts"},{"content":"Yet another discussion about banks regarding the Huffington Post call to remove your money from the major American banks. There is in fact no reason why your money should be managed by a multinational public corporation (and many reasons why it shouldn\u0026rsquo;t). It is partly why my banking is handled by the Rabobank, a cooperative banking institution.\nKeeping money safe is not rocket science and can be done perfectly on a local (city/province) scale with proper safeguards and insurance. Matt Mullenweg also wrote a post about how he would improve the state of banking using common (web) sense.\nFor the discussion I was looking for Nassim Nicholas Taleb\u0026rsquo;s recommendations for not getting out of this crisis, but making sure it never happens again. I had a hard time finding them with Google, but they\u0026rsquo;re in a PDF on Taleb\u0026rsquo;s site Fooled by Randomness.\nI don\u0026rsquo;t think we can read these principles often enough (at least until they are implemented by our legislators), that is why I have taken the liberty to copy out the headlines here from the PDF 1:\nWhat is fragile should break early while it is still small. No socialisation of losses and privatisation of gains. People who were driving a school bus blindfolded (and crashed it) should never be given a new bus. Do not let someone making an “incentive”bonus manage a nuclear plant — or your financial risks. Counter-balance complexity with simplicity. Do not give children sticks of dynamite, even if they come with a warning. Only Ponzi schemes should depend on confidence. Governments should never need to “restore confidence.” Do not give an addict more drugs if he has withdrawal pains. Citizens should not depend on financial assets or fallible “expert”advice for their retirement. Make an omelette with the broken eggs. These are only the headlines. Be sure to read the full recommendations in the PDF.\nPDF is bad.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"December 30, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/principles-solutions-measures-recommendations-from-taleb-for-our-money/","section":"Posts","summary":"Yet another discussion about banks regarding the Huffington Post call to remove your money from the major American banks. There is in fact no reason why your money should be managed by a multinational public corporation (and many reasons why it shouldn’t). It is partly why my banking is handled by the Rabobank, a cooperative banking institution.\n","title":"Principles, solutions, measures, recommendations from Taleb for our money","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ben Hammersley poses the question which has been on my mind for a while (tweet) now after seeing the various concept demoes of rich magazines on high resolution tablets.\nThere have been a couple of these concepts floated around recently among which the digital Sports Illustrated and the Mag+ demo for Bonnier:\nMag+ from Bonnier on Vimeo.\nThese magazines with rich media and builtin games and other interactions look great, but who\u0026rsquo;s going to make them? From what I know assembling a publication is an efficient but quite messy proces. It gets the thing out the door before the deadline, but not much more.\nThe web part of the publication is usually bolted on and content is copy pasted from one into the other usually to the detriment of the web versions. And now we need to add another layer of richness somewhere inside this flow?\nLike Hammersley says digital publications are just a symptom of a bigger problem. And the bigger problem of assembling such a magazine is just part of the transition from the old process of creating, assembling and publishing print media to the new way of doing things.\nDevice capabilities # Of course everybody is waiting for Apple\u0026rsquo;s tablet offering which will most likely set the industry standard, but imagining what a flat high resolution interactive tablet will look and work like, is not too difficult. A (multi-)touch screen, some hardware buttons, network connectivity and HD image and video display. Do you need much more?\nUsing that hardware to reimagine the concept and use of a magazine including its more indirect properties such as coffee table displayability, spine information etc. are what Jack Schulze talks about in the Mag+ video by BERG.\nToolmaker and platform # Being a more technically inclined 1, I\u0026rsquo;m very interested which platform will be used for these publications. Right now two obvious contenders would be:\nA Flash/AIR version which is not very hopeful from an openness point of view. And also what we\u0026rsquo;ve seen from the current Flash web magazines and applications, the user experience will probable be nothing to write home about (page turn animations anybody?). If the current state of Flash on the iPhone is an indication, Apple will not allow this. A HTML5 version which seems a very likely contender. Apple is already pushing this hard for advanced stuff using HTML5 on the iPhone and with a similar sprinkling of Webkit specific extensions it should be more than possible to deliver the experiences enivisioned in these prototypes. Native applications seem too cumbersome for the publication release cycle and building a CMS-like solution for digital magazines in a native language yields the same problem: how to markup the magazine in the CMS? Which would result in a more or less complex markup language (such as HTML). Adobe probably already has tools that make it ‘easy’ to create rich publications from their existing publication tools such as InDesign and Flash though I can\u0026rsquo;t find anything about such tools except this news release on a collaboration with Condé Nast. If I go to Adobe.com, there\u0026rsquo;s nothing about what I can do to ready my business for this transition.\nIt seems that there is a big opportunity for new toolmakers working from agile principles and using open standards to create the authoring and collaboration environments for the publications of the future.\nWhat\u0026rsquo;s also interesting is how much of the magazine will be downloaded offline (like the podcast, App Store model) and how much of it will rely on a web connection. And how big will a Sports Illustrated filled with high res images and HD video be? Probably more than 1G. How does that impact your immediate reading experience?\nPhoto-/Videographers # Another thought is that because most of the publications are not as space constrained as print media, they can allow much more space for beautiful photography and video material (as the Sports Illustrated issue does). Depending on the compensations paid, the increased demand could at least herald an interesting new age for professional photographers.\nFuture # I\u0026rsquo;m interested in what Hammersley will write as a solution to all this. I have no experience in print and am writing this as a bystander with an interest in the web.\nAnd interested in open platforms.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"December 28, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/necessities-for-digital-magazines/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ben Hammersley poses the question which has been on my mind for a while (tweet) now after seeing the various concept demoes of rich magazines on high resolution tablets.\n","title":"Necessities for digital magazines","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik schreef hier al eerder dat de ov-chipkaart kut 1 is. Het is nog steeds kut.\nTrage poortjes # Hier moet ik even een filmpje van schieten om het voelbaar te maken. Er staan tijdens de spits rijen voor de poortjes. Op station Amstel blokkeren groepen mensen de roltrappen boven op de perrons omdat ze daar in- en uitchecken (wat niet de bedoeling is). En de poortjes zijn gewoonweg niet snel genoeg.\nJe kunt niet op spits-snelheid door een poortje heen lopen. Als ik dan probeer om het poortje open te beuken krijg ik een grote bek van de beveiliging die natuurlijk ook niet beter weet.\nWoud van poortjes # Laatst kwam ik met de trein aan op Amstel en wilde toen overstappen op de metro. Inderhaast kon ik niet de juiste terminal vinden of lukte het chippen niet. Gevolg is dat ik bij het uitchecken bij de metro vervolgens €4 kwijt was.\nIn- en uitchecken bij het overstappen is een ronduit achterlijk ontwerpfalen en legt de complexiteit bij de gebruiker. Een gigantische no-no in user centered design. Verbeterscenario: je checkt op één plek in en ergens anders uit en het systeem berekent zelf de goedkoopste route tussen die twee punten en brengt dat in rekening.\nEen automatisch betalingssysteem moet minder werk opleveren voor eindgebruikers, niet meer.\nGVB-formulier # Nu wil ik die €4 terugclaimen bij de GVB (meer uit principe dan wat dan ook). Nu is het al bizar dat dat bij de GVB moet en niet bij de centrale betalingsafhandelaar: de ov-chipkaart.\nBij het GVB moet je een PDF-formulier downloaden, uitprinten en terugsturen. Als je ze opbelt, willen ze je wel een formulier met antwoordenvelop toesturen 2.\nDe transactie waar het om gaat kan ik op ov-chipkaart.nl nog steeds niet zien. Daarvoor kreeg ik van GVB het nummer van TLS 3 0900-0980 4 zodat ik met hen kon bellen over de website. Die website is zó slecht, dat het goed zou zijn als iedereen dat nummer belde over de website. Misschien dat ze er dan iets aan doen.\nKaizen # Het is niet erg dat dit allemaal niet perfect is gelukt in de eerste poging. Het is een complex proces en de eerste versie is redelijk goed gelukt. Het systeem heeft geen grootschalige outages gehad, en saldo opladen en reizen met de ov-chipkaart werkt.\nHet is wel erg dat de ontwikkeling nu compleet gestagneerd is en er niet geluisterd wordt naar gebruikerswensen. Er was een forum waarop mensen hun ideeën, wensen en bezwaren kwijt konden, maar de terugkoppeling daar was bijzonder slecht en het is nu ook opgeheven 5.\nHet neerzetten van een ov-chipkaart is het begin, daarna begint een continu proces van kaizen, van het verbeteren van de dienstverlening, en het beter aanpassen aan de gebruikerswensen. Dat is de enige manier om een gebruiksvriendelijk systeem te krijgen en te houden en dat is toch wat we willen?\nExcusez le mot, maar er is geen ander wat de lading zo goed dekt.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nIk doe niet meer aan printen of aan postzegels.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nNog een TLA.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nDit nummer kost ook nog een schandelijke 10 cent/minuut en ze verbreken direct de verbinding omdat het ‘erg druk is’.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nWij hebben ook een aanbod gedaan om een workshop te organiseren met techneuten en ontwerpers om de huidige stand van zaken te verbeteren en innovatieve diensten bovenop de ov-chipkaart te bouwen. Nooit meer iets van gehoord.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"December 28, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/het-gebrek-aan-kaizen-in-het-openbaar-vervoer/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik schreef hier al eerder dat de ov-chipkaart kut 1 is. Het is nog steeds kut.\n","title":"Het gebrek aan kaizen in het openbaar vervoer","type":"posts"},{"content":"In een vergelijkbaar filmpje zoals je ze ook voor je film ziet wanneer je legaal DVDs koopt/huurt, komt er weer een stukje propaganda van de entertainment-industrie:\nEr valt veel te zeggen in deze discussie maar vast staat dat het letterlijk onmogelijk is om het delen van bestanden te voorkomen zonder een (digitale) politieagent bij elke computer neer te zetten 1. En dan nog is het onbegonnen werk.\nWaar het mij om ging: Op een gegeven moment zegt iemand in het filmpje dat het zonde is dat er een generatie leert dat je niet hoeft te betalen voor content. Dat lijkt me wel meevallen. Ten eerste zijn mensen best bereid te betalen voor gemakkelijke toegang tot online media wanneer dat mogelijk is (die opties zijn nu extreem beperkt) en is downloaden vooral de toevlucht van mensen met meer tijd dan geld (en die gingen toch al niet betalen). Jongeren leren nu al dat content gratis kan zijn van televisie en de gratis kranten die overal verkrijgbaar zijn.\nHet lijkt me veel erger nog als er in de toekomst een generatie ontstaat die het normaal vindt dat alles wat zij doen online en offline (wat bijna niet meer bestaat), vast wordt gelegd. Dat ze dat accepteren en dat ze zichzelf censureren om binnen dat keurslijf niet al teveel op te vallen. We weten dat dit soort gegevens te lang worden bewaard en dat ze uiteindelijk lekken, misbruikt worden of als basis dienen voor foutieve vervolgingen. Willen we dat toekomstige generaties aandoen?\nZie bijvoorbeeld ook Martijn van Dam vorige week over de onhaalbaarheid van het download verbod.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"December 26, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/onrealistische-en-onwenselijke-maatregelen/","section":"Posts","summary":"In een vergelijkbaar filmpje zoals je ze ook voor je film ziet wanneer je legaal DVDs koopt/huurt, komt er weer een stukje propaganda van de entertainment-industrie:\n","title":"Onrealistische en onwenselijke maatregelen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Een bijzonder sterk artikel een tijdje terug op Binnenlands Bestuur dat eigenlijk een soort voorbode was van deze opleving van de privacy: “Iedereen verdacht”door Martijn Delaere (via).\nGelukkig is Bits of Freedom op stoom en aan het uitbreiden en wordt er aan de linkerzijde van het politieke spectrum nu eindelijk geluisterd. Politiek links staat vanzelfsprekend aan de goede kant, maar privacy was tot op heden geen prioriteit en kennis van het internet schaars.\nIn de privacy-discussie lopen heel veel dingen door elkaar. Er worden nu meer gegevens dan ooit vastgelegd, zowel door ons, onze vrienden 1, bedrijven en overheden. Bruce Schneier maakte hier pas een aardige classificatie van bi­nnen een sociaal netwerk wat niet veel uitmaakt aangezien elk sociaal netwerk de ambitie heeft om het gehele internet te gaan vervangen.\nDe kans is nul dat deze gegevens niet gaan lekken of gecombineerd gaan worden 2. Het niet permanent vastleggen van deze gegevens en mensen de controle geven wat ze ermee doen, is de enige manier om in de toekomst een milde vorm van privacy te bewaren.\nDie controle is niet alleen goed voor onze privacy. Veel gegevens waar we normaal niet bij kunnen zouden we zelf kunnen gebruiken om onze levens beter in te richten. Pleidooi bij Freek Bijl:\nEr is nog een andere dimensie, er is data die niet door ons maar door onze acties wordt gegenereerd, publieke data ofwel over ons vastgelegd in databanken van anderen (Bank, Albert Heijn, OV-chipkaart) ofwel data gemaakt in opdracht van ons allen (begrotingen, schoolinformatie, openbaar vervoer etc.).\nDe data die we zelf genereren hebben we meer en meer de beschikking over, maar de data die dagelijks ontstaat in interacties met derde partijen, vaak niet. We moeten toe naar een wereld waarin het vanzelfsprekend is dat je daar ook bij kunt. Ten eerste om te weten wat er wordt vastgelegd (en dat te kunnen verwijderen), maar ook om onze levens en onze wereld makkelijker en handiger in te kunnen richten.\nAls we onze APIs krijgen en er komen mooie toepassingen dan ontstaat er een win-win situatie. Gegevens die je zelf nuttig in kunt zetten, zul je niet laten wissen en daarmee is het bedrijf dat ze verzamelt ook weer blij.\n(Onsamenhangend bericht uit wat eigenlijk een linkdump van de eerste link had moeten worden.)\nDe nieuwe foto\u0026rsquo;s van feature van Flickr is soms redelijk confronterend of temminste een aardige wandeling terug in de geschiedenis.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nNet zoals het uitwisselen van muziek en films makkelijker dan ooit is, geldt dat ook voor het uitwisselen van persoonsgegevens.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"December 26, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/opleving-van-de-privacy/","section":"Posts","summary":"Een bijzonder sterk artikel een tijdje terug op Binnenlands Bestuur dat eigenlijk een soort voorbode was van deze opleving van de privacy: “Iedereen verdacht”door Martijn Delaere (via).\n","title":"Opleving van de privacy","type":"posts"},{"content":"De vervoersmaatschappij van San Francisco geeft de voorspelde aankomsttijd van het volgende voertuig op een willekeurige halte vrij in een handig XML-formaat. Daarmee kun je leuke dingen bouwen, zoals bijvoorbeeld een horloge wat de volgende tram aangeeft.\nIn Amsterdam leven we in vergelijking nog in de Middeleeuwen. Daar zit ik buiten de Coffee Company in de vrieskou mijn espresso te drinken om de lijn 4 aan te kunnen zien komen.\nIn gerelateerd nieuws: gegeven goede data, kun je ook hele vette displays maken. Zoals dit live project-overzicht bij een bureau op een muur geprojecteerd.\nDit zijn dingen waar ik elke dag mee te maken heb en ik wil ze met plezier helpen beter te maken. Ideeën en suggesties zijn welkom in de commentaren.\n","date":"December 21, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/nextmuni-wanneer-komt-de-volgende-tram/","section":"Posts","summary":"De vervoersmaatschappij van San Francisco geeft de voorspelde aankomsttijd van het volgende voertuig op een willekeurige halte vrij in een handig XML-formaat. Daarmee kun je leuke dingen bouwen, zoals bijvoorbeeld een horloge wat de volgende tram aangeeft.\n","title":"NextMuni — Wanneer komt de volgende tram?","type":"posts"},{"content":"Leuk om een link en een commentaar naar mijn ‘anatomie van het nieuws’ stukje te krijgen van Olaf Koens op het Vlaamse weblog Werktitel over journalistieke vernieuwing.\nDat boek ‘Onderzoeksjournalistiek’ van Luuk Sengers wil ik trouwens wel hebben.\n","date":"December 18, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/kansen-in-de-journalistiek/","section":"Posts","summary":"Leuk om een link en een commentaar naar mijn ‘anatomie van het nieuws’ stukje te krijgen van Olaf Koens op het Vlaamse weblog Werktitel over journalistieke vernieuwing.\n","title":"Kansen in de journalistiek","type":"posts"},{"content":"Last week I trod off to Haarlem along with most of the usual suspects for the Rethinking Media event: “Show me the Money”organized by Dutch Media professionals. Along with the people from the Dutch online scene, there were a lot of professionals from the media industry present which proved to be an interesting mix 1.\nI had been interviewed for this event a couple of weeks earlier talking about how TipiT could be a business model for new online media initiatives. Video (in Dutch): Alper Çugun (TipiT.to): Micropayments werken als je maker webcontent kent | Show me the Money #2 from Mediacontainer on Vimeo.\nIt was a nice event, with some very interesting keynotes. A lot of fun was to see a large part of the Mediaminds together for a live taping of the podcast: Matt Thompson had a great talk: But I would recommend you watch the video for Chris Thompson\u0026rsquo;s talk (twitter) about the Guardian Platform. The things they\u0026rsquo;re doing there are really very inspiring: My biggest takeaway from these industry events is that the industry is in nowhere near as bad a shape as they claim to be. The whole ‘the media is dying’ thing is mostly fear mongering. Money is still being made in the media industry, just not the same ridiculous amounts as they used to make and not wholly by the same people. I understand that this may upset some incumbents, but it\u0026rsquo;s not the disaster it\u0026rsquo;s made out to be.\nInteresting proof that an event with a lot of suits can also be pretty clued in to what\u0026rsquo;s happening. Michiel Bicker Caarten\u0026rsquo;s chairing of the event was sharp and clueful.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"December 16, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/where-is-the-money/","section":"Posts","summary":"Last week I trod off to Haarlem along with most of the usual suspects for the Rethinking Media event: “Show me the Money”organized by Dutch Media professionals. Along with the people from the Dutch online scene, there were a lot of professionals from the media industry present which proved to be an interesting mix 1.\n","title":"Where is the money?","type":"posts"},{"content":"Veel geluiden over de NZ-lijn de laatste tijd: “besluit aanleg Noord-Zuidlijn was verkeerd”. Azijnpissers die op elke fout in het proces zeiken, mensen die twijfelen aan het nut van de operatie 1. Er is zelfs serieus overwogen om ermee te stoppen door bijv. een nieuwe politieke partij.\nWat mij betreft moet de NZ-lijn er komen en nog tien door de hele Randstad heen. Bereikbaarheid is essentieel en die paar verzakte huizen zijn geen ramp, de stad is wel meer veranderd gedurende de afgelopen honderd jaar.\nDe mensen die voor het stoppen zijn getuigen van een onbeschrijfelijke lafheid die ik niet kan toestaan in mijn stad. Nu stoppen zou heel Amsterdam opzadelen met een collectief trauma voor de komende 50 jaar.\nEr is nog wel meer over te zeggen en natuurlijk moet het proces beter aangepakt worden, maar er zijn zoveel mensen tegen alle verandering dat ik me als tegenwicht genoodzaakt zie vóór elke verandering te zijn (tweet).\nKijk bijvoorbeeld naar de reacties op Joop.nl. Het enige wat Joop.nl bewijst is dat er aan de linkerkant van het politieke spectrum net zoveel debielen zitten als aan de rechterkant.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"December 15, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/noord-zuid-lijn-hard-doorzetten/","section":"Posts","summary":"Veel geluiden over de NZ-lijn de laatste tijd: “besluit aanleg Noord-Zuidlijn was verkeerd”. Azijnpissers die op elke fout in het proces zeiken, mensen die twijfelen aan het nut van de operatie 1. Er is zelfs serieus overwogen om ermee te stoppen door bijv. een nieuwe politieke partij.\n","title":"Noord-Zuid-Lijn hard doorzetten","type":"posts"},{"content":"Never enough time for reading, but thanks to Instapaper got around to reading some stuff that was due coincidentally both of these are from Salon:\nBook review: “An End to Evil”by David Frum and Richard Perle — Very interesting to read these neocon perspectives in an time when the world and America have shifted away from a position when those points of view were desirable and feasible.\nMaxed out — Interesting take on pornography and how it reflects on society.\n","date":"December 8, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/some-salon-reading/","section":"Posts","summary":"Never enough time for reading, but thanks to Instapaper got around to reading some stuff that was due coincidentally both of these are from Salon:\n","title":"Some salon reading","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik ben eenduidig voor de ov-chipkaart. De cognitieve moeite die het bespaart bij het reizen in het openbaar vervoer (temminste als je simpele routes gebruikt en niet overstapt op de trein) is geweldig.\nMaar er zijn toch nog wel genoeg irritaties. Dus ik ben voor de ov-chipkaart maar ik ben zeker ook voor een betere ov-chipkaart dan dat we nu hebben. In de implementatie hebben de ontwerpers van het systeem de bal grof laten vallen.\nBrenno de Winter somt mijn irritaties en meer netjes op in dit artikel op Webwereld, met als belangrijkste:\n24. De vervoerder staat centraal Het hele systeem lijkt er vooral zo gemaakt dat het de vervoerders het leven makkelijker maakt en de reizigers maar ten dele, en soms geheel niet. De vervoerder krijgt \u0026rsquo;eerlijker\u0026rsquo; betaald voor zijn geleverde diensten. Overal waar problemen ontstaan, wordt de hete aardappel naar de reiziger geschoven. Niet de klant, maar de leverancier is koning. (Webwereld)\nEr heeft geen enkel inclusief, toegankelijk, gebruikersgericht ontwerp plaats gevonden (of als het dat heeft gedaan, zijn de resultaten bijzonder mager 1 ).\nVoor wie werken die vervoerders nu eigenlijk?\nOntwerp zonder borgen van de implementatie is hetzelfde als geen ontwerp.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"December 7, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/ov-chipkaart-ellende/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik ben eenduidig voor de ov-chipkaart. De cognitieve moeite die het bespaart bij het reizen in het openbaar vervoer (temminste als je simpele routes gebruikt en niet overstapt op de trein) is geweldig.\n","title":"OV-chipkaart: kansen voor verbetering","type":"posts"},{"content":"Wij doen hier ons best, maar we kunnen nog wat leren van Engeland. Daar gaat gewoon premier Gordon Brown om de tafel zitten met de uitvinder van het internet en semweb visionair Tim Berners-Lee en daar komt politieke wil en helder beleid uit:\n\u0026ldquo;Mid-range\u0026rdquo; maps, with resolutions from 1:10,000 upwards, will be made available for re-use, under the plans announced by the prime minister, along with information on postcode areas and electoral and council boundaries. - Guardian\nAdres-, kaart- en postcode-gegevens zijn de grootste gemene deler waarmee we de meeste gegevens van de overheid, het bedrijfsleven en van privé-personen aan elkaar kunnen koppelen. Er wordt nu door enkele partijen (bijv. Postcode.nl) een bescheiden winst gemaakt op het uitbaten van deze gegevens. De potentiele winst voor de samenleving als we deze gegevens vrij zouden kunnen gebruiken, is vele 1 malen groter.\nEngeland doet het, waarom doen wij het niet?\nUpdate: En nog meer informatie over de stap om de Postzon (postcode naar GPS) gegevens vrij te geven. Nog geen inforamtie over de Postcode Address File (postcode naar adres).\nNiet tien keer zo groot, eerder een waarde-toename van tien duizenden keren zo niet meer.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"December 4, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/even-verder-over-het-kanaal/","section":"Posts","summary":"Wij doen hier ons best, maar we kunnen nog wat leren van Engeland. Daar gaat gewoon premier Gordon Brown om de tafel zitten met de uitvinder van het internet en semweb visionair Tim Berners-Lee en daar komt politieke wil en helder beleid uit:\n","title":"Even verder over het kanaal","type":"posts"},{"content":"Like I said yesterday, I added support for the Amsterdam subway to fakesubwayapis and fakesubwayapis-data. My forks: gae-fakesubwayapis and gae-fakesubwayapis-data.\nI hope Aaron includes this code sometime soon.\nFurther support including all the other transit modalities, GPS coordinates and routes should follow but no idea yet when I\u0026rsquo;ll find the time.\nThanks Kilian for the indispensable git-advice.\nAnd Kars noticed that there\u0026rsquo;s a flurry of activity around the digital city these weeks in the Netherlands. Tonight Visible Cities in De Verdieping, Urban Screens this Friday at the same and Terrains Vagues next week at Tumult in Utrecht.\nUpdate: And my code and data are now in the mainline and browsable at the application.\n","date":"December 2, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/fake-subway-of-amsterdam/","section":"Posts","summary":"Like I said yesterday, I added support for the Amsterdam subway to fakesubwayapis and fakesubwayapis-data. My forks: gae-fakesubwayapis and gae-fakesubwayapis-data.\n","title":"Fake subway of Amsterdam","type":"posts"},{"content":"We hadden het pas nog in de kroeg over om de ov-chipkaart te hijacken en te gebruiken als unieke id voor interactieve digitale projecten. Ik had lang geleden een vergelijkbaar idee om hetzelfde te doen met bijvoorbeeld de AH-bonuskaart. Het zijn allebei machine-leesbare tokens met een uniek nummer die (bijna) iedereen altijd bij zich heeft.\nToen kreeg ik gisteren deze link door met een serie API-implementaties van Foursquare waaronder: FourTap van Dan. Dan leest dus met een RFID reader zijn Oyster uit en met een vooraf gelegde koppeling tussen die id en zijn account op Foursquare, kan hij dan een actie uitvoeren zoals bijvoorbeeld inchecken in een venue.\nFourTap - Checking in to Foursquare using an Oystercard from danw on Vimeo.\nDe OV-chipkaart is een vergelijkbare technologie, dus het zou mogelijk moeten zijn om hetzelfde te doen. Meer toepassingen voor verschillende applicaties en databases met correspondenties tussen je OV-chipkaart en Hyves/Facebook, laten op zich wachten.\nGeolocatie # Nog een andere leuke toepassing zou het zijn wanneer het transactie-overzicht op ov-chipkaart.nl niet zo ontzettend vertraagd zou zijn. In het ideale geval zou elke checkin en checkout via een pubsubhubbub naar geïnteresseerde en geautoriseerde partijen gestuurd worden 1.\nJe zou dan bijvoorbeeld een automatische Foursquare of Google Latitude inchecker kunnen bouwen die je locatie op die manier automatisch doorkrijgt. Of een kleurrijk spel in de stad. Of een mobiele applicatie die via GPS ziet wanneer je vergeten bent uit te checken en je erop attendeert zodat je naar het poortje terug kunt lopen 2.\nVoorlopig lijkt het erop dat het systeem goed draaiende krijgen prioriteit heeft (terecht) en dat dat al moeilijk genoeg is (jammer) zodat we nog even moeten wachten op dit soort technologische hoogstandjes.\nUpdate: Lees net bij de goede mensen van Stamen over het project Fake Subway APIs (source) want:\nyou know, for when realtime proper APIs are an assumed part of digital civic infrastructure, just like electricity\nVan de week maar even een patch toevoegen voor de Amsterdamse metro. We hebben hier ook afkortingen.\nEn woensdag kunnen we over dit soort dingen praten in de Verdieping.\nMaar ik zou al blij zijn als recente transacties binnen een kwartier in het transactie-overzicht stonden.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nHoe vet zou dat zijn!\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"November 30, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/vergeet-niet-het-inchecken/","section":"Posts","summary":"We hadden het pas nog in de kroeg over om de ov-chipkaart te hijacken en te gebruiken als unieke id voor interactieve digitale projecten. Ik had lang geleden een vergelijkbaar idee om hetzelfde te doen met bijvoorbeeld de AH-bonuskaart. Het zijn allebei machine-leesbare tokens met een uniek nummer die (bijna) iedereen altijd bij zich heeft.\n","title":"Vergeet niet het inchecken","type":"posts"},{"content":"Shirky schreef pas zijn anatomie van het nieuws in: “Rescuing the Reporters” waarin hij een krant ontleed in nieuws en restmateriaal en dan ook nog dat nieuws splitst in zelf-gemaakt en uit andere bronnen afkomstig.\nHet leek me boeiend om dat hier ook te doen, dus kocht ik afgelopen vrijdag twee gedrukte exemplaren van nrc.next en wegens tijdgebrek knipte ik ze dinsdag aan stukken. Ik kwam daarbij wat interessante dilemma\u0026rsquo;s tegen. Wat Shirky hard nieuws noemt komt voor, maar daarnaast staat er in onze kranten ook veel lifestyle-achtig achtergrond materiaal. Het is dus een beetje onduidelijk in sommige gevallen waar dat bij zou moeten.\nMaar hier eerst even de resultaten van mijn steekproef: nrc.next totaal103g100%Advertenties19,5g19%Anders37,5g36%Nieuws46g44%Nieuws uit eigen productie34g33%\nIk vind dat er nogal wat dingen in staan waarvan ik vrij zeker weet dat het niet behoort tot de ‘iron core of news’ zoals een stukje over de inhoud van het kerstpakket, wat over freefighting, een pagina grote illustratie en een dagboek van wat politici in Suriname. Als ik die weglaat, dan hou je 18,5g (18%) stricter nieuws uit eigen productie over.\nHet is de vraag of we hier dezelfde conclusies uit kunnen trekken als Shirky doet voor zijn krant. Maar zijn betoog dat er weinig origineel nieuws is en dat de verslaggevers gered kunnen worden in non-profit instanties is misschien zo gek nog niet.\nKranten maken een herdefinitie door offline en online en de hoeveelheid écht eigen nieuws wordt minder. Wat ze dan wel doen: becommentariëren van nieuws op blogs, smaakgids zijn voor mensen met weinig tijd, lifestyle magazine spelen. Daarnaast wordt er strak gestuurd op de kosten en weinig geïnvesteerd in digitale infrastructuur vanwege het korte termijn-winstoogmerk. Terwijl het volgens sommigen niet eens zó slecht gaat met de krant.\nIn ieder geval kan ik hier nog wel veel over schrijven maar ik ga zaterdag op vakantie en bewaar het voor volgende posts. De gegevens van het verknippen wilde ik alvast publiceren.\n","date":"November 16, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/de-anatomie-van-het-nieuws/","section":"Posts","summary":"Shirky schreef pas zijn anatomie van het nieuws in: “Rescuing the Reporters” waarin hij een krant ontleed in nieuws en restmateriaal en dan ook nog dat nieuws splitst in zelf-gemaakt en uit andere bronnen afkomstig.\n","title":"De anatomie van het nieuws","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik zou zeggen “duh!”, maar je kunt net zo goed zeggen dat dit een revolutie inluidt:\nHeel vet. Laten we zien wat er gebeurt.\n","date":"November 15, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/reisadvies-ov-moet-beter/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik zou zeggen “duh!”, maar je kunt net zo goed zeggen dat dit een revolutie inluidt:\n","title":"Reisadvies ov moet beter","type":"posts"},{"content":"Recently I worked together with longtime professional friend Kars Alfrink on a small side project. Now that we\u0026rsquo;ve finished it, it is time to show what we have done.\nBrief # The brief was by a friend of a friend for Sarah van Sonsbeeck, artist in residence at the Amsterdam Rijksakademie. Sarah does a lot of work in making sound —its presence and its absence— visible, tangible and experience-able in unexpected ways.\nFor a recent project she was going to walk through part of Monickendam with some people while both discussing their experience of the sounds and also simultaneously measuring sound levels and recording GPS coordinates. For the sake of simplicity we ignored measurement error and interference. This was not an attempt to make a scientifically accurate measurement of the dB levels (though such attempts do exist).\n[caption id=\u0026ldquo;attachment_1333\u0026rdquo; align=\u0026ldquo;alignnone\u0026rdquo; width=\u0026ldquo;500\u0026rdquo; caption=\u0026ldquo;Map of the various walk paths through the area\u0026rdquo;] [/caption]\n[caption id=\u0026ldquo;attachment_1335\u0026rdquo; align=\u0026ldquo;alignnone\u0026rdquo; width=\u0026ldquo;500\u0026rdquo; caption=\u0026ldquo;Silence Area picture by Sarah van Sonsbeeck\u0026rdquo;] [/caption]\nWe would then take the data generated from these walks and plot them into a computer representation of the area and generate visualisations from that. Building an audiogeography superimposed on the physical landscape with the sound levels as experienced by somebody who would walk through the area.\nA small project, limited in scope and budget, we took the challenge to see what we could make.\nBackground # CabSpotting was the original very conceptual brief for this project where the streets are defined with data from a derivative activity providing a skeleton landscape similar to the physical world. Adding intensity to this mix would naturally lead to something like a physical intensity (= height) map of a landscape:\nOr a suitable realistic representation of a landscape such as the Moon would already display visual indications of its height: Sound and its different representations are treated more often in art. Sarah pointed us towards work of Simon Elvins and Justin Bennett curated on the weblog “Displaced Sounds”.\nIn computers, representation of sound usually is in the form of jagged edges like these found in professional audio systems and music visualizers: We didn\u0026rsquo;t look very much into the treatment of sound and its perception in architecture, but previous work by the artist and brief inquiries with friends would suggest that it is a niche and often ignored part of that field.\nMethods # The first task at hand was to find a dB value for the entire area based on the samples given to us by Sarah. She had made some circumnavigations and cross sections of the area, but she (of course) hadn\u0026rsquo;t been everywhere.\nAfter some tries we found out that this is a non-trivial problem which is not solved well by a naive approach. It is a common problem and its solution is similar to a simple sum of squares linear regression of a set of data points in two dimensions.\nThe best way (according to GIS people) to do this is called Kriging and it\u0026rsquo;s implemented in proprietary GIS packages. The open source implementations in R and C are quite hard to use and figure out in terms of input and output values.\nWe found a post on Stack Overflow with a fairly thorough discussion of this problem and a set of approaches which led us finally to an Inverse Distance Weighted interpolation of the data points which was fairly straight forward to implement and performant enough.\nThis method yielded the following interpolation which we could corroborate with the area and some of its features: After the interpolation we would have a matrix of arbitrary detail with a smooth set of values for the entire measurement area. It is easy to color these values based on a scale to show ‘height’. Transforming these values into a 3D mesh as a landscape based representation turned out to be somewhat more complex. Kars took most of this work upon himself emulating the properties of a seasoned 3D programmer.\nProcessing turned out to have a library called unlekkerlib which can be used to create and output 3D models based on generated data for visual display and output into formats suitable for re-use in other 3D modelling packages or to put straight to a fablab.\n[caption id=\u0026ldquo;attachment_1340\u0026rdquo; align=\u0026ldquo;alignnone\u0026rdquo; width=\u0026ldquo;500\u0026rdquo; caption=\u0026ldquo;Generated mesh\u0026rdquo;] [/caption]\nSome of the work Watz himself has made with unlekker are in this Flickr set.\nWe then exported this mesh into a DXF file which could be read by Google SketchUp and re-exported into something renderable by Sunflow, a high performance raytracer written in Java.\n[caption id=\u0026ldquo;attachment_1341\u0026rdquo; align=\u0026ldquo;alignnone\u0026rdquo; width=\u0026ldquo;500\u0026rdquo; caption=\u0026ldquo;Render from Sketchup\u0026rdquo;] [/caption]\nResults # The end results were 2D and 3D versions of the silence landscape both from straight interpolation with some filters added to it to make it resemble a heightmap:\n[caption id=\u0026ldquo;attachment_1342\u0026rdquo; align=\u0026ldquo;alignnone\u0026rdquo; width=\u0026ldquo;412\u0026rdquo; caption=\u0026ldquo;Remapped silence landscape\u0026rdquo;] [/caption]\nAnd a high quality raytrace of the same landscape:\n[caption id=\u0026ldquo;attachment_1343\u0026rdquo; align=\u0026ldquo;alignnone\u0026rdquo; width=\u0026ldquo;500\u0026rdquo; caption=\u0026ldquo;Sunflow render\u0026rdquo;] [/caption]\nDelivered to the artist to be repurposed and recontextualized in her own work for the project Een Dijk van een Kust with this map.\nThe 3D and 2D models can also be fablabbed into various forms which was one of our recommendations. By changing the medium of the data and therefore the modality of the experience alternative insight may follow. We are very curious how that is going to turn out and how this will add tangibility to the data.\nReflection # This was a fun project to do because of its limited scope and free form. It gave Kars and myself a good reason to work together (which worked out quite well). We took it far and wide to see what we could create using our skills and ready-to-use tools and we think the end results are pleasing.\nOne of our limitations is that both of us are not graphic designers. This means we may not be the best fit for a mostly aesthetically driven visualization project. Given our Tuftean sensibilities, we like to let the data speak for itself with integrity and without overmuch visual embellishment 1.\nOur focus as interaction designers and our skills in programming the Processing visual environment, would direct us towards more dynamic and interactive visualizations where our iterative interaction with the data builds up layers of meaning and we add controls and affordances to the final product so a user can interact with the data themselves and find their own meaning.\nCollaborating with an artist is very interesting because the story and the context of her art imbue your work directly with more depth. Aligning technical possibilities and visual output with an artistic vision is however difficult and probably served better by more attunement and iteration than we could invest in this project.\nWe can\u0026rsquo;t nay won\u0026rsquo;t do the bubblegum variety of infovis where visual elements are added for their own sake.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"November 12, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/creating-an-audiogeography-from-walks-through-the-silence/","section":"Posts","summary":"Recently I worked together with longtime professional friend Kars Alfrink on a small side project. Now that we’ve finished it, it is time to show what we have done.\n","title":"Creating an audiogeography from walks through the silence","type":"posts"},{"content":"By the time you\u0026rsquo;re reading this I\u0026rsquo;ll be on a brief holiday to Morocco to surf and eat local cuisine. It\u0026rsquo;s been too long.\nCC picture by Grace Oda\n","date":"October 31, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/gone-surfing-come-back-later/","section":"Posts","summary":"By the time you’re reading this I’ll be on a brief holiday to Morocco to surf and eat local cuisine. It’s been too long.\n","title":"Gone surfing, come back later","type":"posts"},{"content":"Jumping all over the randstad these past weeks. Some gems to be found: ","date":"October 23, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/city-hopping/","section":"Posts","summary":"Jumping all over the randstad these past weeks. Some gems to be found: ","title":"City Hopping","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"October 22, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/capoeira/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Capoeira","type":"categories"},{"content":"New city, new group, same rituals:\n","date":"October 22, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/transitioning/","section":"Posts","summary":"New city, new group, same rituals:\n","title":"Transitioning","type":"posts"},{"content":"Taplin regularly writes that the entertainment business is in crisis because people outside of the USA are not willing to pay for their intellectual property.\nNow here\u0026rsquo;s a case of a new movie “Where The Wild Things Are” which gets extremely favorable reviews both by him and by the Times but which is set to release January 14th, 2010 in the Netherlands (almost three months after its premiere) 1.\nI\u0026rsquo;m especially thrilled with the fact that the creators of this movie are uncompromising to mediocrity and dare to be great. From the Times:\n[…] a film that often dazzles during its quietest moments, as when Max sets sail, and you intuit his pluck and will from the close-ups of him staring into the unknown. He looms large here, as we do inside our heads. But when the view abruptly shifts to an overhead shot, you see that the boat is simply a speck amid an overwhelming vastness. This is the human condition, in two eloquent images.\nI\u0026rsquo;m quite sure I want to experience this movie in all its splendour in a cinematic environment but I don\u0026rsquo;t know if I can resist the inevitable torrents coming our way much much earlier than halfway into January.\nThe studios are complaining about declining revenues but it looks like it\u0026rsquo;s their own fault.\nEven Turkey gets it sooner (I\u0026rsquo;m not so sure that ‘even’ applies anymore to Turkey, though.)\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"October 19, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/wheres-our-rumpus/","section":"Posts","summary":"Taplin regularly writes that the entertainment business is in crisis because people outside of the USA are not willing to pay for their intellectual property.\n","title":"Where's our rumpus?","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik weet niet of kranten te redden zijn door middel van techniek, maar ik denk wel dat het een poging waard is. Dit was ook de teneur van de sessie “Get Me Rewrite! Developing APIs and the Changing Face of News” (podcast nu beschikbaar) op SxSW dit jaar waar ik bij was. In die sessie gaven ontwikkelaars van de New York Times, NPR en the Guardian voorbeelden van en hun visie op het belang van een solide internet-infrastructuur voor nieuws producerende bedrijven 1.\nAls last minute invaller in dat panel presenteerde Simon Willison de Content API van the Guardian (onderdeel van het Guardian Open Platform) die hij recent had gebouwd waarmee het gehele digitale archief (vanaf 1999) op te vragen en te hergebruiken is. De API geeft toegang tot de inhoud van de artikelen en maakt het mogelijk om te filteren op de tekst, data, de bestaande taxonomie van the Guardian en andere zoekcriteria.\nMet deze API kunnen anderen dus interessante toepassingen bouwen, dingen verduidelijken en onderzoek doen.\nMaar waarom zou the Guardian dit aanbieden? Dit kost toch alleen maar geld?\nMaatschappelijk relevantie # Als je ervan overtuigd bent dat kranten een maatschappelijk belang dienen dan zou het vanzelfsprekend moeten zijn dat in een tijd waarin papieren mediadragers minder en minder belangrijk worden, je maatschappelijke relevantie ook afneemt.\nWil je die maatschappelijke relevantie behouden dan zul je op het internet net zo een hoogwaardig, (her)bruikbaar, informatiedicht alternatief moeten aanbieden als een papieren krant in de offline wereld is. Niet alleen dat, daarnaast moet je ook nog eens gebruik maken van alle mogelijkheden van dat internet om daar op gelijke voet te kunnen concurreren. Dat is niet makkelijk maar zeker ook niet onmogelijk.\n[caption id=\u0026ldquo;attachment_1294\u0026rdquo; align=\u0026ldquo;alignright\u0026rdquo; width=\u0026ldquo;300\u0026rdquo; caption=\u0026ldquo;Microfiche\u0026rdquo;] [/caption]\nEen Content API is het hedendaagse equivalent van het doorzoeken van krantenarchieven en hergebruiken van krantenknipsels (maar dan zoveel schaalbaarder). Het is niet genoeg, maar het is wel een begin.\nEr zullen ontzettend veel meer gebruiksgevallen ontstaan zodra je daadwerkelijk een First Class Citizen van het internet wordt dat dat alleen al misschien wel de moeite waard is.\nVerdienmodel # Een van de voorwaarden die the Guardian verbindt aan het gebruik van hun API is dat ze op een later moment hun eigen advertenties kunnen toevoegen aan de content die jij gebruikt. Ze zijn dus bezig een eigen advertentienetwerk te bouwen.\nIk geloof niet dat kranten offline hun advertenties uitbesteden aan een derde partij en die een kwart van hun inkomsten geven. Waarom zouden ze dat online dan wel doen?\nHet is de vraag of the Guardian op deze manier de kosten van hun API en hun nieuws eruit zullen halen maar ze hebben een grote berg relevante content en ze proberen dingen. Daar heb ik respect voor.\n(Dit bericht is een antwoord op een vraag van Paul Vereijken.)\nIk heb nog een grote post liggen naar aanleiding van dat panel over het belang van een beheersbare en strategische IT-infrastructuur voor kranten die ik één dezer dagen af wil schrijven.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"October 13, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/krantenarchieven-op-het-internet/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik weet niet of kranten te redden zijn door middel van techniek, maar ik denk wel dat het een poging waard is. Dit was ook de teneur van de sessie “Get Me Rewrite! Developing APIs and the Changing Face of News” (podcast nu beschikbaar) op SxSW dit jaar waar ik bij was. In die sessie gaven ontwikkelaars van de New York Times, NPR en the Guardian voorbeelden van en hun visie op het belang van een solide internet-infrastructuur voor nieuws producerende bedrijven 1.\n","title":"Krantenarchieven op het internet","type":"posts"},{"content":"Interesting on the part of the sub-team adding extra information to clarify references, cultural differences and even tone of voice. There were enough of these notes to be distracting, which makes it a mixed blessing. I think a movie is experienced better without.\nAnd here another interesting image in a movie littered with them:\n","date":"October 13, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/innocence/","section":"Posts","summary":"Interesting on the part of the sub-team adding extra information to clarify references, cultural differences and even tone of voice. There were enough of these notes to be distracting, which makes it a mixed blessing. I think a movie is experienced better without.\n","title":"Innocence","type":"posts"},{"content":"Vorige week een presentatie gegeven als ‘expert’ op het gebied van Content Syndicatie. Laten we er maar voor zorgen dat het beter gaat, dat scheelt voor heel veel mensen in de toekomst een hoop frustratie.\nContent Syndicatie\nView more presentations from alper.\n","date":"October 13, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/content-syndicatie-workshop/","section":"Posts","summary":"Vorige week een presentatie gegeven als ‘expert’ op het gebied van Content Syndicatie. Laten we er maar voor zorgen dat het beter gaat, dat scheelt voor heel veel mensen in de toekomst een hoop frustratie.\n","title":"Content Syndicatie Workshop","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ramsey Nasr bewijst met zijn nieuwste gedicht ‘mi have een droom’ dat hij overduidelijk de beste Dichter des Vaderlands is die we ons maar hadden kunnen wensen: Volledige tekst en meer uitleg op nrcnext en op nrc.tv wat achtergrond met ook zijn andere Koninginnedag-gedicht ‘In het land der koningen’.\nDe combinatie straattaal 1 en lyriek wordt heel soms wat dissonant maar toch biggie props hoe hij het zich eigen heeft gemaakt. Ik ben wel een beetje benieuwd hoe hij dat gedaan heeft. In het andere filmpje kun je zien dat hij in Antwerpen woont en bijna alleen maar klassieke muziek heeft.\nGoed om te zien dat hij net zo goed als in Antwerpen en beter nog voor ons dicht. Ik vraag me af hoeveel PVV\u0026rsquo;ers de spiegel in dit gedicht voor zich zullen zien.\nIk kan het volgen maar ik hou me aanbevolen voor een goede gids straattaal.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"October 5, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/een-stittie-die-stilstaat/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ramsey Nasr bewijst met zijn nieuwste gedicht ‘mi have een droom’ dat hij overduidelijk de beste Dichter des Vaderlands is die we ons maar hadden kunnen wensen: Volledige tekst en meer uitleg op nrcnext en op nrc.tv wat achtergrond met ook zijn andere Koninginnedag-gedicht ‘In het land der koningen’.\n","title":"een stittie die stilstaat","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik hou van veel en lekker eten en ik merk dat ik daarmee in het buitenland beter terecht kan dan in Amsterdam. Hier een paar restaurant-tips die voor mij in Amsterdam ontbreken en waarvan ik denk dat ze weleens een succes kunnen worden.\nMochten ze al bestaan dan hoor ik het graag. Mocht iemand ze willen beginnen dan zou ik het erg op prijs stellen.\nBurgermeester # CC foto door tjeemz\nDe Burgermeester is mijn voorbeeld van zo\u0026rsquo;n niche in de Amsterdamse horeca die niet bediend werd. Hier is recent de Burgermesteer geopend en deze loopt nu prima.\nVoordat de Burgermeester er was, moest je heel goed zoeken in Amsterdam om een grote culinaire burger te kunnen vinden 1. De burger had hier blijkbaar teveel een fast food associatie en was verplicht smerig.\nSuccesvoorbeelden uit het buitenland genoeg en dan in het bijzonder de Burgermeister, Marienburger en Kreuzburger-achtige tenten in Berlijn.\nTaqueria # Je ziet ze heel veel in Californië en Texas, de taquerí­as waar je voor weinig geld een goed gevulde burrito met vlees, bonen en rijst met daarbij hete sausen, guacamole en nachos kunt krijgen. Er gaat geen dag voorbij dat ik niet aan een burrito denk. Toen ik in San Francisco was at ik het ongeveer om de dag. Als ik er ooit heen zou verhuizen, zouden de taquerí­as een belangrijke reden daarvoo zijn. CC foto door bovinity\nIn Europa bestaat er al een imitatie in de vorm van Dolores vlakbij Alexanderplatz in Berlijn. Kenners vinden het misschien niet vergelijkbaar, maar het is heel fijn om in de Duitse winterkou dit stukje Californië tegen te komen.\nIn Amsterdam is er bij mij in de buurt de Taco Shop die ik nog moet uitproberen, maar meer keuze zou niet gek zijn.\nUpdate: The Taco Shop uitgeprobeerd en deze was best ok en ook goede prijs/kwantiteitsverhouding. Geen burritos verpakt in aluminiumfolie zoals ik gewend ben, maar goed te eten. Volgende keer de Chimichanga bestellen.\n24h Diner # CC foto door MBK\nMeestal moet ik er niet aan denken om na het uitgaan complete burgermaaltijden of stacks van pannekoeken met maple syrup weg te moeten werken, maar als het dan ergens kan, dan in het comfort van een mooie klassieke diner.\nSoms heb je gewoon laat nog honger en trek in lekker eten. Daar is in Amsterdam nog steeds moeilijk aan te komen. Waar ga je heen na 0:00 voor niet-shoarma of patat? Ik denk dat één diner-achtig restaurant wat 24 uur per dag open is ergens in het centrum, op heel veel bezoekers kan rekenen.\nIn \u0026rsquo;n Out Burger # CC foto door Thomas Hawk\nHet ‘gezonde’ fast food van de In \u0026rsquo;n Out Burger heeft als West-Amerikaans fenomeen een allure die moeilijk uit te leggen is. Feit is wel dat de burgers en de frieten er heel lekker zijn en dat het een sympathiek concept is tussen de grote ketens in de Verenigde Staten.\nGreasy Spoon # Pas in Shepherdess Cafe in Hackney het klassieke Engelse eten geprobeerd en dat was een succes! Alleen zó jammer dat we dat hier niet hebben; niet een goede plek om Engels eten te eten, niet een serie greasy spoons en eigenlijk helemaal geen plaatsen waar je voor £7 (= €7) kunt zitten en lekker veel kunt eten.\nIk denk dat deze concepten mits goed uitgevoerd grote successen kunnen worden en in de meeste gevallen niche-vullers zullen zijn (zoals de Burgermeester nu is). Dus een slimme restaurateur kan hier zijn slag slaan en mijn buik vullen. Of moet ik toch naar San Francisco verhuizen?\nIn Kopenhagen kun je ze bijvoorbeeld overal krijgen.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"October 4, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/restauranten-gevraagd/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik hou van veel en lekker eten en ik merk dat ik daarmee in het buitenland beter terecht kan dan in Amsterdam. Hier een paar restaurant-tips die voor mij in Amsterdam ontbreken en waarvan ik denk dat ze weleens een succes kunnen worden.\n","title":"Restaurants gevraagd","type":"posts"},{"content":"De laatste paar dagen meer en meer op StuBru berichten over BAM 1 en dat schijnt te maken te hebben met de voorgenomen sluiting van de ring R1 rond Antwerpen. Vandaag lees ik de stellingname van Pietel die me heel terecht lijkt, kiezen voor leefbaarheid en geen verkeerschaos over de stad trekken.\nVeel onbekende termen en rare Vlaamse namen. Interessant om eens rond te kijken op Wikipedia en Google waar het nu eigenlijk over gaat. De R1 is de open kleine ring rond Antwerpen. De meeste Nederlanders zullen er weleens overheen zijn gereden of erop vast gestaan (wat een redelijk normale gebeurtenis is). Nu wil men de ring aan de noordwest-kant sluiten via de zogenaamde “Oosterweelverbinding” en de vraag staat open hoe dat moet gebeuren. BAM heeft voorgesteld om daar een forse brug over de Schelde tegen de stad aan te schurken de “Lange Wapperbrug”. Als alternatief van een actiegroep de stRaten-Generaal en van ARUP/SUM is er het voorstel om een tunnel te maken onder de haven 2 en die op de A12 aan te sluiten.\nDe brug ziet er mooi uit maar in de uiteindelijke uitwerking zouden er veel concessies gedaan worden volgens dit bericht bij ArchiNed.\n[caption id=\u0026ldquo;attachment_1280\u0026rdquo; align=\u0026ldquo;aligncenter\u0026rdquo; width=\u0026ldquo;450\u0026rdquo; caption=\u0026ldquo;Knooppunt en Lange Wapper brug\u0026rdquo;] [/caption]\nEn wie weleens op de ringen bij Antwerpen en Brussel gereden heeft, kan dit soort chaotische knooppunten wel voor de ogen halen. Het lijkt erop dat het er niet simpeler op gaat worden (het idee was eerst ook om er een dubbeldeksbrug van te maken):\n[caption id=\u0026ldquo;attachment_1282\u0026rdquo; align=\u0026ldquo;aligncenter\u0026rdquo; width=\u0026ldquo;300\u0026rdquo; caption=\u0026ldquo;Wirwar van wegen voor de brug\u0026rdquo;] [/caption]\nHet lijkt me in ieder geval onhandig om met een grote berg beton een grote stroom verkeer je stad in te halen en de boel te splitsen. De alternatieve tunnels zijn moeilijker maar lijken wel de voorkeur te hebben zeker ook omdat twee van die voorstellen de verbinding naar het Noorden trekken. De Standaard zet de voor- en nadelen op een rijtje en heeft ook een serie kaartjes met de alternatieven.\n[caption id=\u0026ldquo;attachment_1281\u0026rdquo; align=\u0026ldquo;aligncenter\u0026rdquo; width=\u0026ldquo;300\u0026rdquo; caption=\u0026ldquo;De twee hoofdzakelijke tracés, brug en tunnel\u0026rdquo;] [/caption]\nBeheersmaatschappij Antwerpen Mobiel\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nGeen idee hoe je dat zou doen.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"October 2, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/wappie-rond-antwerpen/","section":"Posts","summary":"De laatste paar dagen meer en meer op StuBru berichten over BAM 1 en dat schijnt te maken te hebben met de voorgenomen sluiting van de ring R1 rond Antwerpen. Vandaag lees ik de stellingname van Pietel die me heel terecht lijkt, kiezen voor leefbaarheid en geen verkeerschaos over de stad trekken.\n","title":"Wappie rond Antwerpen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Listening to a conversation between Jon Taplin and Peter Chermin and Gordon Crawford. Crawford lashes out at newspapers (index 33:40):\n“Newpapers are so dead. Aside from the Wall Street Journal and stuff. Honestly just think about the concept of a newspaper. You cut down a bunch of trees, you boil them, you make paper out of them. In the old days oyou used to have lead movable type, and a bunch of ink and a unionized shop printing them out. Then you get a bunch of trucks and you drive around the neighborhood and you throw them onto somebody\u0026rsquo;s driveway, you throw onto somebody\u0026rsquo;s driveway yesterday\u0026rsquo;s news. That\u0026rsquo;s what we\u0026rsquo;re trying to defend.”\nIt\u0026rsquo;s a cheap shot but the group offers some great high level business perspectives on the media industry in music, film and news with a final word of advice to young people starting out in the business. Summary: media is changing, nobody knows how to pay for it.\nUpdate: I had already made a circumstantial argument why I don\u0026rsquo;t read newspapers anymore but now I\u0026rsquo;m also beginning to doubt entire quality argument. Newspapers are always paraded as bastions of objectivity and quality, but I don\u0026rsquo;t think this has ever really been the case 1. The only difference is that for most of history we did not have an alternative. The recent financial crisis has only served to punctuate the lack of quality and in depth analysis. I see room (and necessity) for one quality newspaper in the Netherlands similar to the Guardian in the UK but I don\u0026rsquo;t know who\u0026rsquo;s going to bring it. To even make an attempt, all the current newspapers need to significantly up their game, the current standard is just not good enough 2.\nI don\u0026rsquo;t even know what is sadder: the lack of quality in Dutch newspapers or the self-professed intellectuals who thump their chests in adherence to this medium.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nComments in Dutch to that effect: 1, 2.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"September 28, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/the-long-view-of-media/","section":"Posts","summary":"Listening to a conversation between Jon Taplin and Peter Chermin and Gordon Crawford. Crawford lashes out at newspapers (index 33:40):\n","title":"The Long View of Media","type":"posts"},{"content":"Much to my dismay I found out that with the update to iPhone OS 3.1 Apple had disabled the workaround to be able to tether using the iPhone 1. Tethering was a very nice way to get online while on the go and a feature I would even be willing to pay a (small) amount of money for.\nI think it\u0026rsquo;s more likely that AT\u0026amp;T asked for them to remove it, than T-Mobile but it was definitely a telco because Apple has zero interest in making their hardware less capable.\nUser Experience # Apple probably needed to remove this ‘feature’ because of pre-existing agreements with telcos and to be seen as a reliable partner now and in the future and be able to operate in this space. So the fact that Apple is in an abusive relationship with the telcos, means users are getting shafted.\nApple\u0026rsquo;s control over the hardware platform which I\u0026rsquo;m mistakenly supposing I own is making me consider and reconsider switching to another company for my next cell phone but that is only presuming Android ever get their act together 2.\nIndustry Play # We shouldn\u0026rsquo;t forget that Apple with their iPhone introduction and deals with telcos made it possible for a large audience to use a capable cell phone with an unlimited internet plan. Something never seen before. That they needed to give some concessions in this phase of the development of the industry 3 was to be expected.\nSo my experience with tethering being a bad one, doesn\u0026rsquo;t mean I should be mad at Apple 4. Without Apple, mobile internet on the cell phone would still suck. If Apple could offer free tethering, they probably would and they would move more units of their own product.\nBusiness Case # Personally I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t mind paying €5-10 a month for this capability which is already in my cell phone and in the network (it worked fine for the past couple of months) and not have to carry around (and forget) a 3G dongle. I don\u0026rsquo;t use it that much, but on occasion when I need it, it is very useful to have.\nT-Mobile could try to sell me one of their more general laptop dongle solutions, but I\u0026rsquo;m not interested in dragging around another gadget and already being a user of the T-Mobile network means I don\u0026rsquo;t want to pay through the nose for the privilege of using their piss poor 3G coverage network.\nThough there is hope there may be a new patch.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nSymbian and Windows are nonstarters and probably always will be.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nAnd this phase of turning mobile telcos into stupid pipes of data.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nThough I still am.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"September 27, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/the-fine-art-of-telco-wrangling/","section":"Posts","summary":"Much to my dismay I found out that with the update to iPhone OS 3.1 Apple had disabled the workaround to be able to tether using the iPhone 1. Tethering was a very nice way to get online while on the go and a feature I would even be willing to pay a (small) amount of money for.\n","title":"The fine art of telco wrangling","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;ve recently used my first OV-fiets and it was a fantastic experience 1. It\u0026rsquo;s a great way to bridge the last couple of miles on your transit experience and I think an important addition to the public transportation system.\nCC picture by Anne Helmond\nParis has its vélib system 2 and other major metropolitan cities may have similar bicycle sharing systems, but ov-fiets (literally ‘public transportation bike’) is Netherlands wide and has a great service design backing it up.\nThe idea is you get a subscription (based on your id and bank account to prevent abuse) for €9,50/year which is hooked up to your rail card so you can use that same card to get your bike. With one card you can get up to two very decent bikes 3 at any issuing point (most larger railway stations in the Netherlands and more). Payment is deducted automatically from your bank account, so that eliminates another step from the checkout process which is very quick indeed. At stations which don\u0026rsquo;t have a large bike facility and for return at night there are also unmanned facilities where you can get a bike from a locker using your secret code.\nCC picture by FaceMePLS\nMost importantly for us Dutch, the system is very cheap. Renting one bike for 20 hours costs you €2,85. If you have multiple errands to run in a city, this is cheaper than using public transportation (and you have more freedom and you don\u0026rsquo;t have to wait for buses). Most people I tell about the system can\u0026rsquo;t believe how cheap it is. I do hope it is cost effective. I will gladly pay more per ride if it means the system will be around in the future.\nOV-fiets is a great solution for me. I visit various cities irregularly. My method of entry, is almost always by train and that part of the journey is usually relatively quick, clear and comfortable. After that part comes the hell of navigating and waiting for local public transportation. There isn\u0026rsquo;t a city in the Netherlands that can\u0026rsquo;t be biked around, so a bike —if you have access to one— is almost always preferrable.\nThis is a great example of our urban future where objects that used to be our property 4 are abstracted into a network of services.\nSan Francisco # An afterthought: When I was in San Francisco last year, I had some appointments in the Valley which I tried to do using Caltrain and then either taking the bus or walking. This turned out to be impossibly time consuming.\nI tried to rent a bike to take with me on the Caltrain but most bike rental places were not open as early as I needed them to be. A system where you could rent a bike at the Caltrain stations similar to OV-fiets would have been perfect. (Hint.)\nThe fact that I used it to bike out to a theater festival in a nature reserve may have contributed to that.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nVélib has an odd pricing system, reflecting its focus on short trips and it has to deal logistically with the motions of Paris\u0026rsquo;s commuters through the day and the city.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nAnd recently you can get scooters as well.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nI used to own a Strida foldable bike.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"September 27, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/shared-bicycle-transit-systems/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’ve recently used my first OV-fiets and it was a fantastic experience 1. It’s a great way to bridge the last couple of miles on your transit experience and I think an important addition to the public transportation system.\n","title":"Shared bicycle transit systems","type":"posts"},{"content":"Robert Scoble hits a point (two actually) that I\u0026rsquo;d been meaning to write-up as well about anti-features and privacy wich are very very important for mainstream adoption of your webservice.\nThere is a movement in design which says that design and the affordances it creates has values embedded in it. Not considering the potential for abuse your design allows, can be deemed bad (because negligent) design work in itself.\nScoble addresses the fact that location tracking applications and games such as Google Latitude, Bliin, Plazes, Brightkite, Foursquare, Gowalla and the like freak normal people out.\nAmong the techminded early adopters I know, use of such applications already isn\u0026rsquo;t as clearcut as some of us would like to think. A lot of people aren\u0026rsquo;t comfortable broadcasting their location to the world at large (or to a massive American company). Just talk to a ‘normal’ person about this and see if they don\u0026rsquo;t get absolutely freaked out.\nThere are two aspects which are both very important though they may not seem so at first.\nThe Presentation of Self in Everyday Life # Firstly “presenting [yourself to] people as you’d like others to see you”is very important as discussed in Goffman and countless studies on social posturing and signaling that have followed. This is an important human need and basic freedom.\nPrivacy of Location # But more pregnantly for the mainstreaming of your application Scoble says: “(and if I’m freaked out, imagine how freaked out the average user is)”.\nPrivacy is important for quality of life. People leading more interesting/complicated lives than I do and people trapped in abusive power relations (corporate, domestic or otherwise) cannot afford to use this type of software.\nThe software may be pre-installed on the rom, it may be baked into the baseband itself. The fact that it is present on cell phones, may lead to an implicit social practice it is impossible to opt out of without social ostracism. It can and does encroach more and more into our lives.\nQuestions and the pre-empting of them will lead to self-censorship and (self-)limitation of freedoms which used to exist. The possibility to create some leeway in your day to day obligations to make life more pleasant/tolerable will disappear.\nJust try to figure out all the edge cases, the ambiguity, the risk and the potential for catastrophic error. This is not a solvable problem and I think we need a hard design principle here: Any location based social application needs to provide a way for transparent spoofing to prevent socio-technological tyranny.\n","date":"September 25, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/locative-privacy-measures/","section":"Posts","summary":"Robert Scoble hits a point (two actually) that I’d been meaning to write-up as well about anti-features and privacy wich are very very important for mainstream adoption of your webservice.\n","title":"Locative privacy measures","type":"posts"},{"content":"Pas dus het project van een stel widgets voor het Ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken afgerond. Hier een beschrijving per widget met afwegingen over de functionaliteit en de data. In een vervolgbericht wat algemenere projectnotities.\nDe widgets zelf met installatiecodes staan op overheid20.nl, de teksten staan gewoon in de beschrijvingen van de widgets en de code staat vrij te gebruiken op github.\nZoekdienst Bekendmakingen # De overheid indexeert voor een hele reeks gemeenten en andere lokale instanties de bekendmakingen die ze publiceren op overheid.nl. Dit is een flinke klus omdat elke instantie dit op een andere manier publiceert, maar het is ontzettend handig om op een simpele manier door deze dingen heen te kunnen zoeken.\nDe website oogt een beetje onvriendelijk maar is wel goed bruikbaar en er is een zoekdienst waar je je kunt abonneren op bekendmakingen in jouw interesseprofiel bij jou in de buurt.\nDeze zoekdienst en de bekendmakingen waar deze op gebouwd zijn bieden geen publieke herbruikbare data aan. Er wordt intern wel van enkele webservices gebruik gemaakt maar deze worden (nog) niet ontsloten naar buiten 1. Voor dit project konden we niet wachten tot er een API zou zijn omdat het bijzonder onvoorspelbaar is of en wanneer deze er dan is, dus hebben we maar iets gemaakt met wat er voorhanden was. Vergunningenkaart is een site van geostart die wel toegang heeft tot de gegevens en geocodeert ze zelf en maakt ze weer beschikbaar.\nIk heb voor de widget alle gemeenten van vergunningenkaart in één overzicht gestopt zodat je snel voor een bepaalde geeente kunt zien welke vergunningen er spelen. Dit is toegegeven een redelijk beperkt gebruiksdoel en in ons ontwerp hadden we ook voorzien dat het relevantste is om snel te kunnen zien wat er bij jou in de buurt nieuw is aan vergunningen 2. Zonder goede toegang tot de data is dit helaas niet realiseerbaar.\nIn Groot Britannië hebben ze de attenderingenservice van de zoekdienst bekendmakingen dus wel gerealiseerd met dat gebruiksdoel voor ogen maar dan niet in een widget maar via Twitter met Twitterplan.\nAgenda van Werken bij de Overheid # Op Werken bij de Overheid is er ergens achteraf weggestopt een agenda met relevante evenementen voor mensen die een baan zoeken bij de overheid. De evenementen op die agenda hebben niet een eigen (landings)pagina, maar op ons verzoek is er door Rhinofly een RSS feed van alle evenementent gemaakt op basis waarvan wij dan de widget konden maken.\nEen agenda widget is fijn om te hebben precies omdat dit soort dingen vaak weggestopt worden en vaak op meerdere plaatsen relevant kunnen zijn. De uitvoer naar ics maakt het nog boeiender want uiteindelijk hoort agenda data thuis op de plaats die voor mensen het relevantste is: in de agenda. Het maken van een iCalendar uitvoerformaat was niet de opdracht (wij maken widgets) en uit de metadata in de RSS feed (naar voorbeeld van de RSS van Upcoming gemaakt) zou het niet al te moeilijk moeten zijn om een iCalendar te genereren maar er zijn geen standaard tools voor 3.\nRijksoverheidsvideo\u0026rsquo;s # De Rijksoverheid produceert video\u0026rsquo;s van bijzonder hoge kwaliteit in een verscheidenheid aan formaten en met volledig transcript, ondertiteling en noem maar op. Deze video\u0026rsquo;s worden al verspreid naar de traditionele media maar gezien de hoeveelheid werk die erin gestopt wordt en de kwaliteit van het materiaal en metadata spreekt het voor zich om ze online ook verder te verspreiden.\nNet zoals evenementengegevens thuishoren in de agenda, horen video\u0026rsquo;s thuis op televisie of een andere player door middel van een podcast. Een podcast RSS is een redelijk goed begrepen de facto standaard waarmee de gegevens handig af te spelen zijn en ook op andere manieren bruikbaar zijn.\nIn dit geval moest er een nieuwe RSS feed gespecificeerd worden waar daadwerkelijk verwijzingen naar de videobestanden in staan. Deze feed is nog niet af. De videowidget draait op een testfeed waar drie video\u0026rsquo;s in staan en die nog geen koppeling met de echte data heeft.\nWaarschuwingen van de VWA # Een simpele nieuwswidget met daarin de meest recente waarschuwingen en terughaalacties van de Voedsel en Warenauthoriteit. Van deze nieuwsberichten is er al een RSS feed op de site van de VWA te vinden. We hebben die simpelweg ingepakt op een prettige manier.\nHet is technisch niet een hele complexe widget, maar de layout, huisstijl en de iconen om te differentieren tussen terughaalacties en waarschuwingen geven hier de meerwaarde die dit de moeite waard maakt.\nVacatures van Werken bij de Overheid # De vacatures van Werken bij de Overheid (RSS) zijn dat waar de meeste bezoekers van die website naar op zoek zijn —denken we. Dus iemand gaat naar Werken bij de Overheid om te zoeken naar een baan, vult op de voorpagina zijn eisen in en zoekt op die manier.\nDe widget die we hebben gemaakt biedt precies dezelfde zoekcriteria als op die pagina en laat altijd de laatste vacatures zien. Op die manier bespaart de widget iemand die een baan zoekt herhaaldelijke bezoeken naar de site. Qua personaliseerbaarheid en relevantie (voor een baanzoeker) lijkt deze widget me het meest geslaagd.\nVoor zover een beschrijving per widget met afwegingen over de functionaliteit en de data. In een vervolgbericht wat meer over de projectbrede afwegingen.\nEr is misschien sprak dat er op de middellange termijn een publieke webservice komt, maar dat is nu nog niet duidelijk. Het is dan ook nog de vraag of die webservice SOAP of REST zal zijn. Voor ons op het open web is het een gelopen race maar grote bedrijven en overheidsorganisaties komen nu net kijken en aan hen wordt nog steeds SOAP verkocht als dé standaard. Waarschijnlijk blijven we op deze manier altijd achterlopen, maar SOAP is beter dan niks moeten je maar denken.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nDat is op Vergunningenkaart ook niet zichtbaar en daardoor is het nut van die site wat ons betreft redelijk beperkt.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nAls iemand me de zin van xCal uit kan leggen, hoor ik het graag en ik had liever ook een hCalendar opgemaakte pagina gehad die met X2V over te zetten is.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"September 21, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/widgets-overzicht/","section":"Posts","summary":"Pas dus het project van een stel widgets voor het Ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken afgerond. Hier een beschrijving per widget met afwegingen over de functionaliteit en de data. In een vervolgbericht wat algemenere projectnotities.\n","title":"Widgets overzicht","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik denk niet dat ik binnenkort nog met de trein naar Londen ga.\nHet is al niet de meest aantrekkelijke propositie. Van Amsterdam naar London St. Pancras kost je toch een uur of zes en een half 1. De treinen hebben geen stroomaansluitingen, dus je kunt niet voluit laptoppen. Verder moet je uiterlijk een half uur van tevoren op Brussel inchecken, anders mag je niet mee.\nWaarom doen we het dan? Treinreizen heeft iets fijns, het is continu met minder wachten en veiligheidsmaatregelen dan je hebt als je vliegt én je komt middenin Londen uit in plaats van op een vliegveld ergens in een buitenwijk.\nHet was tot nu toe allemaal nog wel te harden. Maar dit weekend ben ik naar Londen heen en weer geweest en vrienden zeiden het al, de internationale trein naar Brussel-Midi is gewoon te onbetrouwbaar.\nHeenweg # Op de heenweg had mijn trein van Rotterdam naar Brussel 53 minuten vertraging. Vragen bij de Hispeed balie zorgde dat ze naar Brussel belden zodat ze daar rekening hielden met me met de checkin. De vertraging die ik had was net genoeg dat ik direct de trein in kon. Tien minuten later en ik had hem gemist, maar dan kon ik me laten omboeken zeiden ze.\nTerugweg # Terug uit Londen was mijn aansluitende trein naar Amsterdam op Brussel geannuleerd. Hij reed gewoon niet en de informatievoorziening was erg matig. Met wat hulp van de mensen op de balie via Antwerpen de volgende trein genomen met dus weer een uur vertraging.\nReinier ging een paar dagen later terug en hij had iets vergelijkbaars.\nIk weet niet wat het is, maar de Eurostar zelf rijdt precies op tijd. Waarom Nederland en België dan geen fatsoenlijk rijdende treinverbinding in stand kunnen houden, is me een raadsel. Zeven-en-een-half uur plus stress voor dit korte stukje is niet acceptabel 2.\nDe volgende keer doe ik het wel via Easyjet over Stansted/Gatwick/Luton. Het kost een half uur van Amsterdam af en is volgens mij nog goedkoper ook. Het milieu zoekt het maar even uit. Natuurlijk mocht er verandering komen in de situatie dan hoor ik het graag.\nDe Groene Keuze # Wat mensen die zich bezig houden met groene initiatieven vaak vergeten is dat de Groene Keuze minstens net zo goedkoop, makkelijk en mooi moet zijn als de ‘slechte’ keuze. Het is misschien moeilijk, maar mainstream gaan í­s moeilijk. Als je niet voldoet aan die voorwaarden blijft de groene oplossing een marginaal alternatief dat alleen maar door eco-freaks gebruikt wordt 3.\nUpdate (21/12/2009): En ik ben blij dat ik het heb afgezworen. Deze week zijn een heleboel mensen door de vrieskou een uur of 16 in de tunnel vast komen te zitten (BBC News). Niet meer doen die trein.\nTijdsverschil niet meegerekend.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nEn daarnaast is de informatievoorziening en de situatie in de treinen etc. ver onder de maat. Ik weet niet of het met de onderontwikkeling door die Westerschelde of wat dan ook te maken heeft, maar we boffen hier wel met de NS.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nOf je moet het bij wet verplicht maken zoals nu met de spaarlamp is gebeurd maar volgens dezelfde logica kun je ook de auto verbieden…\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"September 14, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/nooit-meer-met-de-trein-naar-londen/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik denk niet dat ik binnenkort nog met de trein naar Londen ga.\n","title":"Nooit meer met de trein naar Londen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Bits of Freedom leeft weer en stuurt een brief naar het Ministerie van Justitie met aanbevelingen om de privacy van burgers te waarborgen. Het doel van justitie is geen samenleving zonder misdaad, het is een samenleving zonder misdaad maar mét vrijheid.\nIk had Ot van Dalen al gesproken vlak voor de herstart en ik ben blij dat een goede groep mensen het op zich heeft genomen om te waken over de privacy in Nederland. De verontwaardiging en de bewustwording is in Nederland ver onder de maat.\nDe brief # De beperkingen in de vrijheid die geschetst worden in de brief:\nTen eerste zullen burgers hierdoor terughoudender zijn in het vormgeven van hun eigen leven, in de wetenschap dat hun leven wordt vastgelegd en in de gaten wordt gehouden, en uit angst voor chantage, represailles etc. Ten tweede leidt dit tot een verstoorde machtsbalans tussen de burger en de beheerders van deze databanken: de beheerders van deze databanken weten vrijwel alles over een burger, maar de burger weet vrijwel niets over de beheerders van deze databanken. Ten derde is niet uitgesloten dat de burger verstrikt raakt in een Kafkaësk web van digitale informatie dat over hem of haar beschikbaar is, nu deze informatie deels incorrect is en het vaak moeilijk is om deze informatie te corrigeren. Tot slot is niet uitgesloten dat deze infrastructuur misbruikt wordt tegen de burger. Dit zal nu nog incidenteel van aard zijn. Op termijn kan dit structurele vormen aannemen, net zoals het persoonsregister in de Tweede Wereldoorlog is gebruikt voor de Jodenvervolging. Zoals hierboven is aangegeven is het veel moeilijker digitale informatie te vernietigen dan deze te genereren en te verspreiden, dus op het moment dat deze informatie misbruikt gaat worden is het al te laat en kan dit niet meer worden teruggedraaid. Deze zijn reëel en zullen begrepen worden door de ontvangers van deze brief maar om de gevolgen van privacyinperking bij het grote publiek concreet te maken moeten deze denk ik een stuk invoelbaarder worden verwoord. Zeker als je bedenkt dat de rhetoriek van de tegenpartij gaat over ontploffende winkelcentra en kinderverkrachters.\nDaarna komt de aanbeveling: “Veiligheid databanken zou verder moeten worden gewaarborgd”. Daar is niks op af te dingen maar het gaat mee in het paradigma waarin de aanleg van databanken al als voldongen feit wordt aangenomen. In de veiligheid is het bekend dat de enige veilige databank geen databank is. Alle andere vormen van persoonsgegevens zijn in zeker zin radioactief met een hoge besmettingsgraad en halfwaardetijd (Schneier en Doctorow noemen de incidenten in Groot-Brittanië een “privacy Tsjernobyl”). Zodra gegevens zijn opgeslagen kom je er lastig vanaf. Er zwerft altijd nog wel ergens een backup-DVD of een USB-stick rond.\nDeze afweging staat als nagedachte aan het einde van dit segment terwijl het misschien wel de inleiding zou moeten zijn:\nVoor de goede orde merkt Bits of Freedom op dat zelfs als de veiligheid van een databank met persoonsgegevens gewaarborgd is, dit niet automatisch betekent dat het aanleggen van die databank en het daaruit opvragen van gegevens, ook acceptabel is. Grote terughoudendheid bij de aanleg en bevraging van databanken met persoonsgegevens is op zijn plaats, ook als deze goed beveiligd zijn.\nEen tussenweg is om per databank alle gegevens anoniem op te slaan en de benodigde persoonsgegevens apart versleuteld te associëren met de geheime dataset en die koppeling met extreme terughoudendheid en alleen waar nodig te maken. Dat is denk ik ook wat er bedoeld word met “privacy by design”. Maar dan nog zullen lekken blijven optreden en een meldingsplicht en een afschrikwekkende sanctie zijn inderdaad de enige maatregelen die dan helpen. Waarom zouden anders implementeerders niet de goedkoopste en makkelijkste oplossing kiezen?\nVerder wordt gepleit voor de introductie van een privacy effect rapportage omdat:\nZoals hierboven is opgemerkt, dient iedere ontwikkeling die inbreuk maakt op de privacy niet op zich beschouwd te worden, maar in plaats daarvan beschouwd te worden als onderdeel van een complex systeem van persoonsgegevens, technologieën en bevoegdheden dat ook in de toekomst nog zal bestaan en zich verder zal ontwikkelen.\nInformatiestructuren bouwen op elkaar door en zijn simpel aan elkaar te koppelen 1. Het privacy effect van nieuwe maatregelen kan dan ook erg ingrijpend zijn. Systeemdenken is dus belangrijker dan ooit (maar dat wisten we al).\nDe aanbeveling van een “sunset clause”, eigenlijk een houdbaarheidsdatum voor maatregelen, is denk ik essentieel zodat we niet vastzitten op een glijdende schaal naar beneden, maar dat het af en toe ook mogelijk is om dingen terug te draaien zonder dat daar complete rampen voor nodig zijn.\nDe handhavingsbevoegdheid van het CBP uitbreiden lijkt me ook goed. Het wordt hoog tijd dat onze burgerrechten tanden krijgen.\nInteressant ook dat Nederland inderdaad een controlesamenleving kan worden omdat het bedrijfsleven heel efficient iedereen in kaart brengt en dan gedwongen deze gegevens af moet staan aan de overheid als deze erom vraagt, zoals gesignaleerd aan het einde van de brief:\n(i) de toenemende hoeveelheid databanken met persoonsgegevens die door de overheid en het bedrijfsleven worden aangelegd, (ii) de toenemende koppeling tussen deze databanken en (iii) de toenemende bevoegdheden van opsporings-, inlichtingen- en veiligheidsdiensten om hieruit gegevens op te vragen, een zeer zorgwekkende ontwikkeling.\nMaar kwalijkst is inderdaad de toon die het publieke debat over privacy in Nederland heeft genomen en het ontbreken van een goed weerwoord tegen de handhavingslobby:\nDe stelling dat een burger die “niets te verbergen heeft, ook niets te vrezen heeft”, heeft een stevige plaats in het debat verworven.\nIk hoop dat BoF ook het voortouw neemt om de negatieve toon waarop het debat nu gevoerd wordt om te buigen. Niet iedereen die iets wil verbergen is een misdadiger (of een piraat). Het heeft ook niet geholpen dat de organisatie de laatste jaren stil lag en dus geen woordvoerder had terwijl er altijd wel een politiewoordvoerder of commissaris te vinden was om de andere kant van het verhaal te belichten.\nGoed dus dat ze weer bezig zijn. De enige vraag die openstaat is of de mensen in Nederland niet te bang geslagen zijn door populistische media en politici om te kunnen luisteren naar rationele argumenten.\nNiet zo simpel gezien de grote hoeveelheid gefaalde systems integration projecten, maar nog steeds makkelijker dan papier.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"September 12, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/een-stukje-vrijheid-in-onze-tijd/","section":"Posts","summary":"Bits of Freedom leeft weer en stuurt een brief naar het Ministerie van Justitie met aanbevelingen om de privacy van burgers te waarborgen. Het doel van justitie is geen samenleving zonder misdaad, het is een samenleving zonder misdaad maar mét vrijheid.\n","title":"Een stukje vrijheid in onze tijd","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik zit op mijn balkon in de namiddagzon te bellen met een vriend als op de kruising Bertrand Russellstraat / Maliebaan een fietser geraakt wordt door een auto. Die weg gaat vanaf Julianaplein heuvel af de Maliebaan in en fietsers hebben voorrang op auto\u0026rsquo;s die uit die wijk en vooral uit het kantoorgebouw van Fortis komen maar in de praktijk moet je dondersgoed uitkijken 1.\nHet afsluiten van die weg voor auto\u0026rsquo;s is geen optie maar de drempels die er nu liggen zijn wel erg laf. Dus ik heb de situatie meteen aangemeld bij ‘Verbeter de buurt’. Zien of daar iets mee gebeurt.\nLokaal nieuws # Het leek me ook boeiend om te kijken of het Parool of AT5 iets doen met dit soort dingen maar dat is vrij karig 2. Ik heb het opgestuurd als tip naar AT5 bij ‘weer en verkeer’.\nEen fietser die aangereden wordt op een kruising is geen nieuws, behalve voor die fietser zelf (ze was flink boos) en voor ons in de wijk die elke dag over die kruising heen moeten fietsen. Iets wat ook in lijn ligt met dit stuk van Adam Greenfield in Urban Omnibus over Everyblock een site die alles wat er bij jou in de buurt gebeurt verzamelt. Het is geen nieuws dat je in een krant wil lezen, maar het is wel verdomde interessant als je je op die plek bevindt.\nHet is helemaal geen gekke gedachte dat een lokaal medium zoals AT5 of het Parool alle noemenswaardige gebeurtenissen, misdaden, ongelukken, vergunningen maar ook buurtzoekertjes en feesten etc. etc. zou verzamelen en gebruiken als lokale context voor het gebied waarover ze schrijven. Maar gezien de rommeligheid van beide sites, is dat misschien een iets te hoog ambitieniveau. Over het gebrek aan IT-capaciteit bij veel Nederlandse media zit hier nog een stukje in de pijplijn maar het is veelzeggend dat Everyblock is overgenomen door MSNBC.\nDe broncode voor Everyblock is dankzij de beurs die ze hebben gekregen van de Knight Foundation onder een open licentie beschikbaar gesteld. Ik zeg maar, het is zeker niet makkelijk om een versie voor Nederland te bouwen maar het is wel de toekomst van nieuws dus wel de moeite waard 3.\nHet is een stuk gevaarlijker dan bijvoorbeeld door rood licht fietsen over het Prins Bernhardplein (wat iedereen doet).\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nToen we hier net woonden was er een stroomstoring in de wijk, maar toen ook nergens online iets te vinden.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nEXTRA GRATIS: startup idee + kant en klare broncode.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"September 1, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/micro-lokale-stukjes-nieuws/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik zit op mijn balkon in de namiddagzon te bellen met een vriend als op de kruising Bertrand Russellstraat / Maliebaan een fietser geraakt wordt door een auto. Die weg gaat vanaf Julianaplein heuvel af de Maliebaan in en fietsers hebben voorrang op auto’s die uit die wijk en vooral uit het kantoorgebouw van Fortis komen maar in de praktijk moet je dondersgoed uitkijken 1.\n","title":"micro-Lokale stukjes nieuws","type":"posts"},{"content":"Recently DataSF launched and I\u0026rsquo;m not very familiar with the concept, but it looks like a step in the right direction for city based data initiatives more or less in line with the “Cities That Think Like the Web” initiative. I still think the holy grail of reusability for government websites is a bit off and can only be combined with excellent websites and web literacy, but we are making progress.\nWe could pass the Open City Motion here in Amsterdam but there is in fact nothing in it which is new or contradicts current legislature and initiatives regarding open data and open source. It\u0026rsquo;s all already in place, it just is not being done (properly). The biggest problem is that the issue is mudlded by a bunch of directives —is this NOIV or some other initiative?—, a lot of people don\u0026rsquo;t know what they\u0026rsquo;re doing and the political will and prioritization from the top is missing.\nAfter a significant enough portion of the populace has become more web literate and one or more election cycles have passed we may get a group that will implement this, but I and my early adopter tech friends can\u0026rsquo;t really wait for that. So what to do?\n","date":"August 26, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/the-city-has-incredible-resources-of-data-and-information/","section":"Posts","summary":"Recently DataSF launched and I’m not very familiar with the concept, but it looks like a step in the right direction for city based data initiatives more or less in line with the “Cities That Think Like the Web” initiative. I still think the holy grail of reusability for government websites is a bit off and can only be combined with excellent websites and web literacy, but we are making progress.\n","title":"[the City] has incredible resources of data and information","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;ve never come as close to a depiction of paradise as with this picture: Last weekend I went to my fourth —I guess, I lost count— annual capoeira camping in Wapse and it was again a resounding success. I\u0026rsquo;ve got the pictures to prove it.\n","date":"August 25, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/playing-capoeira-and-eating-lots-of-meat/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’ve never come as close to a depiction of paradise as with this picture: ","title":"Playing capoeira and eating lots of meat","type":"posts"},{"content":"I recently reread part I of Sketching User Experiences by Bill Buxton for UX Book Club Zuid-Holland and made notes during the proces. ‘Sketching’ is one of my favorite UX books and well worth a reread which I found reveals different layers and gets you to reflect differently with the experience you have accumulated since the last time I read it.\nI thought it may be worthwhile to share those notes here, so here goes.\nComing change to more digital behaviour embedded in the fabric of everyday life is going to force us to focus on context.\nHow do you design for context?\nDoes Buxton deliver on the promise he makes at the start of the book? He tells a nice story but where\u0026rsquo;s the sketching for software?\nHe talks about designing agents systems and complex behaviours. Doesn\u0026rsquo;t emergence play a large part? Don\u0026rsquo;t we need foundational guidelines more than anything?\np. 13 This is a start. It is a rough sketch.\nMany participants of the bookclub thought the book fell short and was overly meandering. No it is not a howto guide to designing user experiences. By Buxton\u0026rsquo;s own admission it is a sketch an initial concept for how a book like this should look. But still I don\u0026rsquo;t know any other book which provides such a broad view on the field of UX and such an in depth treatment of one of its foundational processes (sketching).\nPhysical devices can recast a problem in a new light.\np. 37 We must make our best efforts to understand the larger social and physical context within which it is intended to function.\np. 37 We ideally need to be able to experience our designs in the wild during the early stages of the process.\np. 38 Without informed design, technology is more likely to be bad than good.\np. 47 Why shouldn\u0026rsquo;t executives want to have their company create breakthrough products that generate great returns?\nGreat realistic analysis of the Apple design process for executives. In that light the piece “You can\u0026rsquo;t innovate like Apple” is also worth a read.\np. 53 Everyone is essential but no person or group is sufficient on his or her own.\nWhat\u0026rsquo;s the relevance of (software) product design with its version iterations to website projects which are unfortunately mostly one off?\np. 71 My underlying approach in what follows will be to put forward a holistic approach to experience-based design. Along the way, I will show how the weaknesses of software product development can be complemented by the strengths of traditional product design, and likewise, how the weaknesses of traditional product design can be complemented by the very real strengths of software developers. But my strongest argument is for the need for an explicit and distinct design process, integrated into the larger organization, supported by appropriate executive leadership.\np. 78 Get the right design. Get the design right.\np. 80 It takes very strong and brave management to admit that we don\u0026rsquo;t know what we are doing at the start, and therefore need to accomodate that in our process.\nMy addition: The act of sketching constrains your freedom. Every stroke you make in a sketch finalizes something. That is the whole point and that what makes the process converge. Then if the result doesn\u0026rsquo;t please you start anew with a blank sheet.\np. 105 [a sketch is] a graphic means of technical exploration\np. 111-2 Sketches are:\nQuick Timely Inexpensive Disposable Plentiful Clear vocabulary Distinct gesture Minimal detail Appropriate degree of refinement Suggest and explore rather than confirm Ambiguity p. 117 By examining the externalizations, designers can spot problems they may not have anticipated.\nAmbiguity but also the resolution of complexity.\np. 135 “Sketching Interaction”\nHow do you sketch tone of voice? For instance by employing product personas that act out the interactions your product has with users.\nHow do you sketch look and feel? By creating broad mockups supported by mood boards?\np. 139 “Sketches are not prototypes”\nPrototypes may be less disposable but they can also be very agile and reusable. But admittedly prototyping would take place post-sketching.\np. 143 Arguing for the need for user involvement in a modern book on product design is as pointless as a discussion about the need to know the rules of arithmetic in an advanced mathematics textbook.\np. 147 A healthy team is made up of people who have the attitude that it is better to learn something new than to be right.\np. 151 “You make that sound like a negative thing”\nDesign rationale and strong criticism are essential to move forward but hard to find.\np. 154 “If someone made a sketch in the forest and nobody saw it”\nA communal corkboard provides:\nShared awareness Baking in Collaboration Communication Juxtaposition Critique ","date":"August 18, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/sketching-user-experiences-part-i-notes/","section":"Posts","summary":"I recently reread part I of Sketching User Experiences by Bill Buxton for UX Book Club Zuid-Holland and made notes during the proces. ‘Sketching’ is one of my favorite UX books and well worth a reread which I found reveals different layers and gets you to reflect differently with the experience you have accumulated since the last time I read it.\n","title":"Sketching User Experiences part I — notes","type":"posts"},{"content":"Van het weekend gebeurden er weer een paar dingen die me met de neus op de feiten drukten hoe kapot 1 het concept ‘papieren krant’ wel niet is. Ik zeg het al een tijdje en heb opgeschreven waarom ik principieel tegen de papieren krant ben (alle argumenten), maar dit was wel saillant.\nPlek in het leven # Net een stuk in de Times dat het ochtendritueel van veel Amerikaanse gezinnen wordt verstoord door gadgets en sociale media:\nTechnology is morning\u0026rsquo;s first priority: […] “After six to eight hours of network deprivation — also known as sleep — people are increasingly waking up and lunging for cellphones and laptops, sometimes even before swinging their legs to the floor and tending to more biologically urgent activities.”\nHetzelfde voor mij. Mijn laatste proefabonnement NRC.next bleef braaf in de bus liggen tot ik \u0026rsquo;s avonds weer thuis kwam als ik hem er dan al uit haalde. In het weekend een weekje kranten bijlezen is leuk, maar tijdrovend. Mijn ochtendkrant is (in bed) het teruglezen van 8 uur tweets uit verschillende tijdzones met links en artikelen en filmpjes die geplaatst zijn door een groep mensen die ik daarop heb uitgekozen, een groep mensen die ik grotendeels ken. En als ik \u0026rsquo;s ochtends al bewegend beeld zou kijken dan zou dat geen ontbijt-tv zijn maar oude Daily Shows.\nOntbijttafel, krant, rust? Dat is allemaal voorbij, maar het wordt nog erger.\nActioneerbaar nieuws # Afgelopen weekend las ik deze tweet van Jaap Stronks over een goed stuk van Jort Kelder dat in de NRC zou staan. Dat leek me wel interessant en het leek me leuk om naar de kiosk te gaan en een krant te kopen 2. Dat plezier werd me ontnomen toen dezelfde Jaap even later de link naar het artikel retweette. Dus niet het weekendritueel maar gewoon internet.\nSommige mensen zien het verdwijnen van dat ritueel als een verlies. Je zou ook kunnen zeggen dat de tweede tweet het NRC omzet door de neus heeft geboord. Hadden ze het maar niet online moeten zetten… Maar het alternatief is erger.\nStel je hebt een papieren krant en je leest er iets in, dan heb je er niks aan. Papieren krantenkartikelen zijn niet actioneerbaar 3 en zeker niet zo makkelijk sociaal actioneerbaar als we tegenwoordig gewend zijn.\nDit terwijl als ik iets online lees, de kans al groot is dat ik het via een sociaal medium tot me heb genomen. RSS lees ik al nauwelijks meer, het meeste komt binnen via Twitter en het is op die manier gericht of ongericht weer makkelijk te herverspreiden 4.\nHet stuk heeft een link 5 en rondom die link kunnen mensen weer dingen opbouwen. Bijvoorbeeld een levendige ge-engageerde discussie op Sargasso over het stuk. Jammer alleen dat het discussieformaat op Sargasso stuk 6 is maar ze doen het beter dan bijvoorbeeld next zelf waar ik tussen de vele artikelen over Twitter niks over dit stuk kan vinden.\nDat zijn acties, de tijd van het passief consumeren van media is voorbij. Een papieren krant is zo\u0026rsquo;n passief medium en het voelt anachronistisch en te-weinig-interactief. Wanneer is dat duidelijk en hebben we dan een alternatief?\nAls in disfunctioneel.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nIk zou nog overwegen af en toe een zaterdagkrant in de losse verkoop op te pikken.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nPluk was het voorspelbaar genoeg niet.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nSoms zelfs via (gasp!) e-mail.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nLiefst een permanente link.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nBij een bepaalde hoeveelheid commentaren zijn threads in discussies een must wat mij betreft. Maar daarnaast ook middelen om discussies en commentaren makkelijk te kunnen volgen en manieren om je identiteit mee te nemen naar elke plek waar je discussieert. Bright heeft bijvoorbeeld wel threads maar de profiel functie is al sinds jaar en dag ‘tijdelijk’ uitgeschakeld.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"August 17, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/de-krant-is-stuk-wat-nu/","section":"Posts","summary":"Van het weekend gebeurden er weer een paar dingen die me met de neus op de feiten drukten hoe kapot 1 het concept ‘papieren krant’ wel niet is. Ik zeg het al een tijdje en heb opgeschreven waarom ik principieel tegen de papieren krant ben (alle argumenten), maar dit was wel saillant.\n","title":"De krant is stuk. Wat nu?","type":"posts"},{"content":"Jan Chipchase had asked this question recently in a post on this street scene which already had me thinking.\nYesterday I was present at a lecture by Dirk Overduin on some succesful interventions around the use of public space.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s hard to strike a balance between the use and abuse/overuse of public space. Mostly perceived ‘abuse’ of public space stems from other social problems (homelessness etc.) and regulating public space too rigidly impoverishes all of us.\nLooking at the street scene from China, I\u0026rsquo;m disappointed that we do not have similar uses of public space here. To be able to play tavla on the sidewalk in the city while drinking çay…\nGecekondu on the island at ARCAM is a fun initiative and they have a full program for the next couple of days so be sure to visit them.\n","date":"August 16, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/enjoyment-of-public-space/","section":"Posts","summary":"Jan Chipchase had asked this question recently in a post on this street scene which already had me thinking.\n","title":"Enjoyment of Public Space","type":"posts"},{"content":"I can\u0026rsquo;t say enough how pleased I am to be riding this bike through the city.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve given her a name but it functions mostly as a teleport to a random location in the city where t \u0026lt; 15m. Already being familiar with the topography of Amsterdam is a plus and tearing through the city, riding faster than most people without any effort 1 is fantastic.\nNow comes the more difficult task of keeping this bike in this city.\nYou should see what she does with effort blasting down Berlage bridge.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"August 6, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/urban-teleportation-device/","section":"Posts","summary":"I can’t say enough how pleased I am to be riding this bike through the city.\n","title":"Urban Teleportation Device","type":"posts"},{"content":"Things are a bit slow in Amsterdam, this being high summer. Having Foursquare (see previous post) and being able to drink some beers in the city now and then does make it a lot more relaxed.\nRobert Gaal and I initiated the launch in Amsterdam and it looks like it is really taking off right now. Dutch daily NRC.next wrote a two page spread on the site and quoted me and some others in it. Normally I don\u0026rsquo;t bother with papers, but I went to our neighborhood store and bought a copy:\nIt\u0026rsquo;s a nice balanced overview piece of the service and the trends towards more ubicomp in your nightlife experience. The big question is, these guys have delivered, will anybody else match them in the foreseeable future?\nLocal social network Hyves is bluffing they will introduce similar functionality but it begs the question why they didn\u0026rsquo;t already? I\u0026rsquo;ve seen this concept come by in briefings more times than I care to count and nobody has been able to get the buy-in and pull off the experience. And when was the last update of the Hyves iPhone App? Or of the Facebook App for that matter?\nIn other news: There was some drama recently with people from outside of Amsterdam adding venues outside of Amsterdam and getting rebuked by some people within AMS.\nFoursquare\u0026rsquo;s policy is that anybody who wants to play in whatever fashion should be allowed to do so. The data generated can always be filtered better later on using better algorithms and more insight. Just think twice about friending me if you plan on checking in outside of Amsterdam.\n","date":"August 5, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/social-drinking-in-print/","section":"Posts","summary":"Things are a bit slow in Amsterdam, this being high summer. Having Foursquare (see previous post) and being able to drink some beers in the city now and then does make it a lot more relaxed.\n","title":"Social Drinking in Print","type":"posts"},{"content":"Last Sunday we did a big haul and carried most of our stuff over to the new place in Amsterdam. Now we\u0026rsquo;re almost done with the tedious process of making sure the basics are taken care of, sorting through stuff, eliminating duplicates.\nMy story in Delft had been finished for a while now. Loads of friends but also a lot of dead ends. Being in Amsterdam gives a fresh perspective and breathing space.\nThe only thing is, I don\u0026rsquo;t usually mind giving up comfort, but the comfiness of ten year\u0026rsquo;s worth of accrued social contacts, friends, loose acquintainces, class mates, colleagues and the likes is a real loss. I hope to be able to build something similar quickly over here (and lose that again as well 1).\nSo this is new beginnings in familiar places with lots of fun.\nYes, I plan to move out in a year or two.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"August 3, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/back-where-i-began/","section":"Posts","summary":"Last Sunday we did a big haul and carried most of our stuff over to the new place in Amsterdam. Now we’re almost done with the tedious process of making sure the basics are taken care of, sorting through stuff, eliminating duplicates.\n","title":"Back where I began","type":"posts"},{"content":"I had my Yashica D repaired and also recently acquired a lightmeter to make the process of shooting easier and now I\u0026rsquo;m slowly but surely shooting stuff with it.\nMony is helping me out scanner-wise and I must say I\u0026rsquo;m amazed at the quality, the vibrance and sharpness this ‘old piece of junk’ shoots and this archaic process returns.\nAnd added to that I\u0026rsquo;m completely untrained and have hardly any experience with this stuff, so who knows how much improvement is still possible. Here\u0026rsquo;s to film in a digital age.\n","date":"July 27, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/120/","section":"Posts","summary":"I had my Yashica D repaired and also recently acquired a lightmeter to make the process of shooting easier and now I’m slowly but surely shooting stuff with it.\n","title":"120","type":"posts"},{"content":"This week returning from my new haunt in Amsterdam back to Delft, walking the streets with an appetite for beer I felt strangely disconnected.\nTogether with Robert we persuaded the kind people of Four Square to open up a branch in Amsterdam. Being one of the starters of the service here means I\u0026rsquo;m friends with tons of people. Knowing what is happening in the city, where the cool bars and restaurants are and immediately knowing who\u0026rsquo;s having a beer right now and where, is fantastic.\nS\u0026amp;W say that being able to see through a city is a superpower. If so, Four Square is the superpower of being able to smell beer miles away.\nOnce you\u0026rsquo;re used to a service such as this and the peripheral vision it provides —and does ever so unintrusively 1— walking around a city which doesn\u0026rsquo;t have it feels like having blinders on.\nI have my pings set to off for now.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"July 23, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/four-square-or-can-you-smell-the-beer-already/","section":"Posts","summary":"This week returning from my new haunt in Amsterdam back to Delft, walking the streets with an appetite for beer I felt strangely disconnected.\n","title":"Four Square or can you smell the beer already?","type":"posts"},{"content":"Via Gerard het nieuws over het NDW dat geopend is door Minister Eurlings. Het eerste resultaat is een warrige site: Nationaaldatawarehouse.nl.\nHet lijkt me boeiend om de intensiteit van het wegverkeer in Nederland globaal te visualiseren, en het lijkt erop dat het NDW die gegevens beheert en aanbiedt. Nergens op de site is te vinden hoe je dan als potentiele afnemer aan die gegevens komt. Wellicht zijn hier marktpartijen hier —zoals wel vaker— nauw gedefinieerd als een soort ons-kent-ons clubje waar men elkaar wél weet te vinden.\nHier toch maar mijn vraag:\nBeste,\nIk begreep dat het NDW onlangs geopend is. Ik zou graag toegang willen tot de actuele gegevens over het verkeer op de Nederlandse weg. Ik kan op uw site een verzameling vragen en antwoorden vinden: http://www.nationaaldatawarehouse.nl/index.cfm?page=FAQ maar nergens staat uitgelegd wat ik moet doen om een afnemer te worden.\nVia deze e-mail dus mijn vraag hoe ik afnemer kan worden van gegevens uit het NDW, welke gegevens ik dan kan verkrijgen en onder welke voorwaarden en in welke formaten.\nBij voorbaat dank voor uw antwoord,\nIk hou mijn adem niet in, maar we kunnen zien.\n","date":"July 22, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/nationaal-databank-wegverkeersgegevens/","section":"Posts","summary":"Via Gerard het nieuws over het NDW dat geopend is door Minister Eurlings. Het eerste resultaat is een warrige site: Nationaaldatawarehouse.nl.\n","title":"Nationale Databank Wegverkeersgegevens","type":"posts"},{"content":"Wat nu volgt naar aanleiding van een gesprek met Joris over Turkije en Turkse muziek. Hij vroeg waarom ik niet in İstanbul ging wonen, wat op zich een goede vraag is. Dat komt misschien nog wel een keer, maar voor nu een kleine serie over Turkse muziek.\nIk heb het hier weleens gehad over de films van Fatih Akin, “Gegen die Wand” en “Cossing the Bridge”. Die films én hun soundtracks beschouw ik als bekend terrein maar misschien is het later leuk om daar wat dieper op in te gaan.\nVandaag gaat het over MFÖ (afkorting van Mazhar-Fuat-Özkan, officiële site). Ik kwam deze band voor het eerst tegen via een blogpost uit Ben Hammersley\u0026rsquo;s reis door Turkije 1, en wel met deze fanclip op YouTube:\n“Ne bileyim ben”(Wat had ik dan kunnen weten) 2 # Een lekker kazige clip met een \u0026lsquo;coole\u0026rsquo; dude maar de toffe sound nodigt uit om meer te zoeken op YouTube.\nEen probleem is er wel als je een band als MFÖ tegenkomt in 2007. Dit zijn ondertussen relatief oude mannen maar instituten van de Turkse popmuziek. Wikipedia heeft 13 albums staan sinds 1984. Daar kom ik nu even in vallen zonder veel benul van de Turkse popgeschiedenis of de context waarin deze muziek is uitgebracht. Ik doe het wel met mijn gevoel voor wat leuke muziek is (deze jongen op Last.fm behandelt ook MFÖ).\nIk zoek nog naar de bittorrent link voor de hele discografie 3 en als ik die allemaal geluisterd heb 4, kom ik er wel op terug.\nOndertussen maar wat leuke nummers uit hun latere werk die op YouTube te vinden zijn:\n“Sarı Laleler”(Gele Tulpen) # Simpel maar erg leuk en mooi nummer met vooral deze tekst:\n“Sana sarı laleler aldım çiçek pazarından Sen olmasan buralara gelemezdim ben sevemezdim bu şehri, anlamazdım dilinden.”\nWat iets wordt als:\n“Ik kocht gele tulpen voor je van de bloemenmarkt Als jij er niet was geweest had ik hier niet heen kunnen komen Had ik niet van deze stad kunnen houden, noch haar taal kunnen begrijpen.”\n“Tam Ortasındayım”(Ik sta er middenin) # Heel erg mooie clip en een aardig sentimenteel nummer. Het \u0026lsquo;ik sta miden in\u0026rsquo; heeft betrekking op de regen en de weg, metaforen voor het leven en haar beproevingen.\nHet is sentimenteel op het melodramatische af, maar dat is Turkse cultuur eigen. Het is fijne muziek, zeker als je de taal spreekt. Ik ben benieuwd hoe niet-Turken het ervaren.\nDat blog artikel heeft de migratie niet overleefd, lijk het.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nWat hier wel duidelijk wordt is de geweldige per woord efficiency van het Turks ten opzichte van het Nederlands. Een verhouding van 1:2 is niet raar.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nÉén album zou al tof zijn. Het is redelijk slecht te vinden. Op iTunes staat alleen hun laatste album te koop.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n13 CDs past net niet op een shuffle\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"July 21, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/turkse-muziek-mfo/","section":"Posts","summary":"Wat nu volgt naar aanleiding van een gesprek met Joris over Turkije en Turkse muziek. Hij vroeg waarom ik niet in İstanbul ging wonen, wat op zich een goede vraag is. Dat komt misschien nog wel een keer, maar voor nu een kleine serie over Turkse muziek.\n","title":"Turkse Muziek - MFÖ","type":"posts"},{"content":" Tof van de NOS dat ze de Tour de Frace live uitzenden zowel online als op de iPhone. Zo zie je maar dat als ze willen, ze het wel kunnen. De enige vraag die nog overblijft is waarom niet het complete programmaanbod van de Nederlandse publieke omroep live en on-demand device-onafhankelijk te kijken is.\nWat nog een onplesant detail is bij de live uitzending van de Tour de France is dat deze pas een uur of wat na de start van de etappe begint. Op de zender kan ik snappen dat er ruimte moet zijn, maar de online stream rijdt toch niemand in de wielen?\nMijn vraag:\n\u0026mdash;\u0026ndash;Oorspronkelijk bericht\u0026mdash;\u0026ndash; Van: Alper Çugun [mailto:xxxxxxxxxxxxx] Namens Alper Çugun Verzonden: donderdag 16 juli 2009 14:37 Aan: NOS Publieksvoorlichting Onderwerp: live tour\nHoi,\nWaarom is de live tour de france online niet in zijn geheel te kijken en vallen we er altijd na een half uur/uur in?\nGroet,\nHet non-antwoord van de NOS:\nGeachte\nDank u voor uw e-mail. Het heeft er o.a. mee te maken met de toegemeten zendtijd van de zendercoördinator.\nMet vriendelijke groet\nN. K. (Volledige naam geredigeerd. -AÇ)\nNOS Publieksvoorlichting\nMijn verbijsterde antwoord:\nMaar dit is toch online? Wat heeft dat met zendtijd te maken?\nMet vriendelijke groet, Alper Çugun\nIk heb tot op heden hierop geen antwoord gekregen.\nDaarbij moet ik toevoegen dat het een crime is om een bestemming te vinden waar je een vraag als deze heen kunt sturen. De Tour de France 2009 site van de NOS is aardig, maar biedt geen enkele mogelijkheid tot zinnige interactie. De commentatoren van de NOS hebben het geregeld over kijkersvragen maar ik heb geen idee waar je die kunt stellen. Dezelfde vraag als hierboven die ik op een van de tour-weblogs heb gesteld, bij gebrek aan een betere plek, is zonder wederhoor verwijderd.\nHet is allemaal niet heel erg ofzo, maar suf is het wel.\n","date":"July 18, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/tour-de-france-live-online-of-toch-niet/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Tour de France live online, of toch niet?","type":"posts"},{"content":"One of the last bastions of Flash and native apps is the processing of video from outside sources such as webcams. It does not at all seem difficult to add this functionality to HTML5.\nI don\u0026rsquo;t have much of any experience in designing these kind of specs (though I did request and elements some two and a half years ago), but here are some design notes which seem to make some sense:\nGet outside video # Create a specific src parameter for video, for instance src=\u0026ldquo;webcam\u0026rdquo; to get image data from a current installed webcam 1. The user-agent can mediate the presence of cameras and the routing of sources. This gives the user-agent a way to get device video into the web application.\nBesides augmented reality this could be used for most webcam related applications on websites but for that some more facilities for retrieving and transmitting the video stream will be necessary.\nGet at the frames # Now to get at the raw video data the addition to HTMLVideoElement of a method (like the canvas already has) would seem to fit: ImageData getImageData(); that returns an ImageData object for the current frame of video. This would either work for the current frame when the video is paused or the current frame unpredictably when the video is playing (for applications to retrieve frames of video as fast as they can process them). Alternatively register a callback function to the element where every video frame is pushed to.\nUpdate: Mark points out below this is already possible using the drawImage function of the canvas rendering context which accepts a video element and draws the current playback position.\nIf you can reliably extract all video frames and store them locally, you may even be able to build a non-linear video editing application.\nProcess and redraw # Processing the frames to create an augmented reality is left as an exercise for the reader.\nIdeally each frame of video could also be rendered into a canvas where the client could draw other primitives on top of the video frames. This seems to be necessary for the augmented part of the augmented reality.\nUpdate: This already seems to be possible by putting the image back into a canvas, but I don\u0026rsquo;t think that would sync up the audio properly.\nSo all that is needed is the addition of an extra source and an extra method to the element. Doesn\u0026rsquo;t seem like that much, does it?\nThough there may be better ways than a ‘magic value’ for the source attribute.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"July 16, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/augmented-reality-in-html5/","section":"Posts","summary":"One of the last bastions of Flash and native apps is the processing of video from outside sources such as webcams. It does not at all seem difficult to add this functionality to HTML5.\n","title":"Augmented reality in HTML5","type":"posts"},{"content":"Vorige week dinsdag gaf ik een presentatie op de Barcamp Webrichtlijnen over waar wat mij betreft de prioriteit moet liggen in het ontwikkelen met het oog op de webrichtlijnen.\nIk kwam er terecht via Ferry en het widgetproject wat ik voor Tam Tam heb gedaan en het evenement werd georganiseerd door de vriendelijke mensen van Cinnamon. Een grote vraag is of veel Web 2.0 technieken zoals AJAX en crowdsourcing etc. wel compatibel zijn met de webrichtlijnen, zoals ook beschreven in Ferry\u0026rsquo;s verslag.\nZoals ik al zei, ging ik in tegen de heersende orthodoxie dat de huidige praktijk dat alleen maar XHTML opleveren goed is.\nMijn argumentatie betreft twee stellingen en ik hoop niet dat die zo vaag was als Don schrijft:\nDe webrichtlijnen die het beste (automatisch) te meten zijn, zijn niet de belangrijkste. Mensen zijn geneigd om zich blind te staren op wat makkelijk meetbaar is en verliezen uit het oog waar het echt om gaat 1. We hebben meer dan genoeg te doen om de user experience op het internet te verbeteren zonder ons per se te conformeren aan elke webrichtlijn. Het maken van een standaarden-gebaseerde website is niet het moeilijkste. Moeilijker is het om een site te maken met mooi design, heldere tekst en goed interactieontwerp waar mensen op zitten te wachten. Die twee punten zijn terug te vinden in mijn presentatie (op Slideshare kun je de notities uit de Keynote teruglezen):\nDe Geest van de Webrichtlijnen\nView more documents from alper.\nDe webrichtlijnen zijn wat mij betreft een goed middel voor zover ze je helpen om betere user experiences te creëren, maar ze zijn bij lange na niet het enige waar je naar moet kijken.\nBinnen de kleine organisaties waarin ik gewend ben te werken is al veel kennis aanwezig zowel bij opdrachtgevers als uitvoerders over wat goede webervaringen zijn. Het maken van standaarden-gebaseerde website is daar verondersteld en ik denk niet dat de webrichtlijnen daar veel toegevoegde waarde bieden.\nBij grotere organisaties met minder kennis over de techniek van de materie, kunnen webrichtlijnen een goed (of het enige) middel zijn om te af te lezen wat wel en wat niet goed is, wie een goede uitvoerder is en wie niet. Maar dan nog is het een illusie om te denken dat als je organisatie-kennis niet op niveau is, je met de webrichtlijnen alleen een goede website kunt neerzetten.\nDe Heilige Graal # Bij Tam Tam is later die week ook Michèlle Thonen afgestudeerd op hetzelfde onderwerp en ik kan haar aanbevelingen alleen maar van harte ondersteunen:\nFocus op de doelen Stichting Webrichtlijnen: niet alleen de overheid, maar iedereen Andere indeling Webrichtlijnen Andere toetsingsregeling Campagne (voeren) Community (of practice opbouwen) Met daarbij de opmerking dat ik niet denk dat kleine snel bewegende bedrijven zich kunnen conformeren aan de webrichtlijnen of dat ook maar willen doen. Het lijkt me beter als de webrichtlijnen zich langzamerhand conformeren aan hen. De webrichtlijnen zijn een serie bests practices voor het internet in het algemeen, dat internet wordt uitgevonden door de kleine innovatieve bedrijven. Daarna kan dat vastgelegd worden en kan de rest navolgen.\nXHTML is dood — lang leve (X)HTML5! # Op de barcamp had ik nog een discussie over de toekomst van HTML en het gebrek daaraan bij XHTML. Het is wat mij betreft al enkele jaren apert duidelijk dat XHTML een doodlopend spoor is en dat de HTML5 werkgroep de ontwikkeling van het internet vooruit drijft.\nHet toeval wil dat twee dagen later de W3 aankondigde de ontwikkeling van XHTML2 af te bouwen en zich te richten op HTML5. Dit nieuws was de bron van nogal wat discussie hier en daar over wat de gevolgen zullen zijn, of we dit hadden kunnen zien aankomen en wat we met al die oude troep moeten doen.\nMark Pilgrim heeft een goed overzicht van de issues en legt weer uit waarom validerende XHTML niet het belangrijkste is, zoek maar op ‘snake oil’ in de tekst voor de misverstanden. Een kort stukje vraag en antwoord over XHTML vs. HTML en wat discussie bij Simon Willison over het onderwerp.\nWebpagina\u0026rsquo;s zullen nog steeds blijven werken, maar het is zonde dat we op dit moment een industrienorm hebben waar XHTML standaard maar achterhaald is. Standaard is goed, nu nog even zien hoe we dat achterhaalde op kunnen lossen.\nWaarom deden we dit ook alweer?\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"July 8, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/de-geest-van-de-webrichtlijnen/","section":"Posts","summary":"Vorige week dinsdag gaf ik een presentatie op de Barcamp Webrichtlijnen over waar wat mij betreft de prioriteit moet liggen in het ontwikkelen met het oog op de webrichtlijnen.\n","title":"De Geest van de Webrichtlijnen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Last week I got Rebooted in Copenhagen again. Drove up with Peter and Iskander.\nAfter your fourth time attending such a great and small conference as Reboot, it becomes familiar like a reunion. This year\u0026rsquo;s action theme meaned the two days were completely packed. There was so much to do and so much going on that the first day was over already before you knew it.\nThe one thing that struck me as being odd was the fact that many speakers on the large stage weren\u0026rsquo;t asked any questions (I had one or two for Richard Falkvinge). If anything, Reboot does not strike me as an event where one person can rain down the gospel unquestioned. So for a next time more interactive maybe even adversarial formats may be nice.\nIt was a great event and a lot of fun cruising around like a local on the Yahoo! bike and crashing at Mark\u0026rsquo;s place with Anne (his writeup). The opening talk by Matt was great (as always) and the Bruce Sterling\u0026rsquo;s closing talk was also fantastic 1. Ton has a great writeup.\nBut yes it was very awesome. I don\u0026rsquo;t know many tech conferences that can pull off a street party like this one: Update: And the talk by Bruce Sterling 2 just got posted:\nThough I liked his end of SxSWi tirade better.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nThe second part of which is straight from the Last Viridian Note and still relevant good advice.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"July 3, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/rebooted/","section":"Posts","summary":"Last week I got Rebooted in Copenhagen again. Drove up with Peter and Iskander.\n","title":"Rebooted","type":"posts"},{"content":"This is an English rewording of a post in Dutch earlier this week just in time for this Reboot session.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve recently been involved with several government initiatives to make government data more accessible and to show what\u0026rsquo;s possible if that data is publicly available. The premise is that if government data is open, developers and other third parties kan reuse that data and make useful stuff with it. Stuff that can for instance serve as inspiration for our Dutch show us a better way contest: Dat Zou Handig Zijn.\nMost recently we had a Hack the Government devcamp/unconference where people interested in this stuff could exchange ideas and build stuff.\nphotograph by Anne Helmond\nA while back I did a project on widgets which was mostly a supply side initiative triggered by a listing of readily available data.\nSimultaneously Ton and James did a project on process recommendations for the public sector when it comes to releasing their data. As a part of that project I helped them sift through the currently available data sources from a technical point of view and to see which of those sources could be repackaged in an interesting and more user and developer friendly way.\nThat wasn\u0026rsquo;t very easy. Dutch government does publish a ton of data online but usually in rather unaccessible formats and interfaces and without clear descriptions on what it is. We picked two data sources and we managed to realize two new websites based on that data: Schoolvinder (‘School finder’) and Vervuilingsalarm (‘Pollution alert’).\nSchool finder # A Dutch institution called the CFI already has a store with a lot of data on schools. We used their search interface and output (which though ugly and slow was remarkably reusable) and rebranded that into a simplest possible school search engine which is easily understood by parents looking for schools in their area.\nBesides that we also create a canonical URL for every school in the Netherlands so other parties can refer to that and we can build stuff on top of those school pages.\nThe first problem this fixes is that the website is poorly usable and worded almost exclusively in jargon. Employees from the ministry of education told us later that the CFI data is not meant to be used by the public but we think this is still a fix.\nSecondly it fixes the fact that this information is quite hard to find and to refer to. Our search engine is easy and open and school data is republished at unique URLs using microformats.\nWe would have liked to link our school pages to some numerical data from another database of the CFI but that was too hard to realize within the alotted time. Even linking to that other site proved to be too hard because those webpages were shielded in a needlessly complex ASP.NET environment.\nPollution alert # Pollution alert takes the predicted particulate values for a number of sensor stations and makes those accessible. I made a scraper to take the predicted data from the RIVM site and store it in Google App Engine. From our own store in Google App Engine, we show the geocoded stations, we push alerts out to Pachube and Twitter, graph the data and provide an API. We believe there is a lot of latent interest in the general public for this kind of data but that usable presentation forms have not been forthcoming.\nRIVM to their credit does publish most of their data online, but definitely not in the most accessible formats nor in ways that enable normal people to audit their living environment.\nPrinciples # The sites we built are very advanced prototypes which are completely functional and even highly scalable. During building we followed some principles which may be interesting to touch upon here.\nFriendly design # Both sites have a pleasant and friendly design created by Buro Pony. This is important because people are more inclined to use sites that look nice and experience those sites as being more user friendly.\nA nice design needs to be accompanied by clear and simple writing without jargon that connects with the way people think about the stuff you\u0026rsquo;re describing.\nMost websites can be improved massively by just implementing these two points.\nPlaying well with others # Both websites also connect with a bunch of other sites that improve upon the concept. They\u0026rsquo;ve been built on Google App Engine a system which is easy to develop for and which is readily scalable. Maps are retrieved from Google Maps, graphs are provided by Google Charts and sensor data is pushed to Pachube and Twitter.\nThe experience on the main site is just a part of the whole. The data needs to be accessible from and easily pushable to where it\u0026rsquo;s needed most.\nOn the Hack the Government event somebody said something along these lines: ‘systems integration is difficult and complicated and if you\u0026rsquo;re good at it, you can make a lot of money with it’. This is a well known Enterprise IT mantra but if there\u0026rsquo;s one thing that the abundances of mashups proves, it\u0026rsquo;s that integrating systems on the open web is everything but complex.\nOn the open web we have usable and developer friendly API standards with tooling 1, besides that we have proper standards for identity and authentication 2.\nIf you don\u0026rsquo;t dig yourself into a hole, it really doesn\u0026rsquo;t have to be that difficult. And none of this is exactly new, this technology has been around for ages and it just builds on the strengths of the internet.\nStandards based # Both sites are completely standards based. As an experiment I wrote both in a conservative form of HTML5 (and validated that) partly out of curiosity to see how it would turn out and partly because I think that our current Dutch industry standard XHTML is a dead end.\nAdded to that I have sprinkled in some microformats in places where it was obvious to do so (e.g. school addresses). The notion that it takes significant extra time to add microformats to a project is absurd 3 and these days the advantages of adding them keep piling up.\nYes, it takes some effort to learn to use standards and microformats properly, but once learned I think it actually takes more effort not to use them.\nQuickly # Finally, both sites have been built in a couple of days over the course of about a week and a half. We wanted to show that when we\u0026rsquo;re talking about a quick project, it really can be quick and that building a non-trivial usable beautiful website does not need to cost a lot of time or money.\nAll of this can be improved. Let\u0026rsquo;s get at it 4.\ncURL as the simplest example\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nAnd it\u0026rsquo;s all open which means it can\u0026rsquo;t be hijacked by one party and controlled or made needlessly complex.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nClient: “Yeah, you can do that when you have time to spare.”\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nOr like Chris says it: “This can all be made better. Ready? Begin.”\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"June 24, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/friendlier-and-more-open-government-data/","section":"Posts","summary":"This is an English rewording of a post in Dutch earlier this week just in time for this Reboot session.\n","title":"Friendlier and more open government data","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik ben pas bezig geweest met verschillende overheidsinitiatieven om overheidsgegevens makkelijker toegankelijk te maken en te laten zien wat er mogelijk is als die gegevens toegankelijk zijn. Het idee is dat als de gegevens van de overheid open zijn, ontwikkelaars en andere partijen die kunnen hergebruiken en dingen kunnen maken waar andere mensen behoefte aan hebben. En dat zou weleens handig kunnen zijn.\nfoto door Anne Helmond\nPas was er al het widget-project wat een initiatief was gedacht vanuit het aanbod: ‘Wat hebben we waar we iets van kunnen maken?’\nParallel daaraan liep Ton en James hun project over aanbevelingen voor de publieke sector wat betreft het vrijgeven van data. Als onderdeel van dat project heb ik meegeholpen met een inventarisatie van de al online beschikbare gegevensbronnen in Nederland en kijken welke gegevens we op een interessante manier zouden kunnen heraanbieden.\nDat viel nog redelijk tegen. Er zijn online wel veel gegevens beschikbaar maar meestal zitten ze in relatief ontoegankelijke formaten en zonder veel uitleg erbij wat het is en wat je ermee kunt. Uiteindelijk hebben we twee diensten gerealiseerd Schoolvinder en Vervuilingsalarm.\nSchoolvinder # Zoals op de over-pagina van Schoolvinder al staat hebben we de gegevens die bij het CFI al geregistreerd staan over scholen versimpeld aangeboden met een simpel zoekscherm wat aan zal sluiten bij de ideeën van de gemiddelde ouder.\nDaarnaast doen we een poging om voor elke school in Nederland een canonieke URL —een basisbehoefte op het internet— te definieren waar je naar kunt refereren en waar je dingen bovenop kunt bouwen.\nDit is een probleem wat we bij de overheid vaker tegenkomen, dat webpagina\u0026rsquo;s slecht samenwerken maar ook dat ze niet mooi zijn en vaak omkomen in jargon. Later hebben we van mensen van MinOCW begrepen dat de CFI gegevens niet voor het bredere publiek bedoeld zijn en dat schoolgegevens ook op andere plaatsen (en dan vaak ook op andere aggregatieniveau\u0026rsquo;s) bijgehouden worden.\nDat is misschien onhandig maar waarschijnlijk verklaarbaar waarom de gegevens dubbel bijgehouden worden maar dat de site voor werknemers bedoeld is doet er niks aan af dat hij moeilijk bruikbaar is. De herbruikbaarheid is redelijk ok —we hebben immers onze dienst er bovenop kunnen bouwen— maar het kan zeker veel beter.\nEn we hadden graag ook elke school gekoppeld met de database Onderwijs in Cijfers maar dat viel niet te realiseren omdat die webpagina\u0026rsquo;s (onnodig) ver weg zijn weggestopt in een complexe ASP.NET omgeving.\nVervuilingsalarm # Bij Vervuilingsalarm hebben we de gegevens uit een webpagina van het RIVM geplukt. We denken dat de interesse voor dit soort gegevens uit de omgeving bij het publiek potentieel groot is maar dat het tot nu toe te weinig op een gebruiksvriendelijke manier wordt weergegeven.\nBij het RIVM staan wel veel bestanden online maar ik kan niet zeggen dat ze in de meest toegankelijke formaten beschikbaar zijn of dat ze gewone mensen in staat stellen hun leefomgeving door te lichten.\nPrincipes # De sites die we gemaakt hebben zijn vergevorderde prototypes die compleet bruikbaar en schaalbaar zijn. Bij het bouwen hebben we een paar principes gehanteerd die misschien interessant zijn om aan te stippen.\nVriendelijk ontwerp # De sites hebben een mooi en vriendelijk ontwerp gemaakt door Buro Pony. Dit is belangrijk omdat mensen een site die er mooi uitziet liever gebruiken en ervaren als gebruiksvriendelijker.\nBij dat mooi ontwerp hoort ook kopij met simpel en helder taalgebruik zonder jargon, die aansluit bij de belevingswereld van mensen.\nDe meeste websites kun je met deze twee verbeteringen al gigantisch vooruit helpen.\nIntegratie met anderen # Beide websites integreren zonder al teveel problemen met een serie andere sites die het concept versterken. Het is gebouwd op Google App Engine een systeem wat bijzonder schaalbaar en betrouwbaar is en zonder veel problemen worden kaarten opgehaald van Google Maps, grafieken van Google Charts en sensorgegevens worden doorgestuurd naar Pachube\nOp het Hack de Overheid event zei iemand dat ‘het integreren van systemen moeilijk en complex is en dat als je dat goed kunt je er veel geld mee kunt verdienen’. Dit is een bekende algemene wijsheid in de enterprise IT maar als er één ding is wat de mashups die online normaal zijn bewijzen, is het dat integratie op het open web alles behalve moeilijk is.\nEr zijn bruikbare API-standaarden met tooling 1, daarnaast zijn er goede standaarden voor identiteit en authenticatie 2 en als je het jezelf niet te ingewikkeld maakt hoeft het echt niet moeilijk te zijn. En dit is niet nieuw ofzo, deze technologie bestaat al lang en bouwt gewoon door op wat het internet al goed doet.\nStandaarden gebaseerd # De sites die we gebouwd zijn zijn compleet op standaarden gebaseerd. Ik heb de pagina\u0026rsquo;s als experiment geschreven in HTML5 (en gevalideerd 3) deels uit interesse en deels omdat ik van mening ben dat het nu gangbare XHTML een dood spoor is.\nVerder heb ik waar ik het gepast vond ook gegevens (bijvoorbeeld de contactgegevens van de scholen) met microformats geannoteerd. Het idee dat microformats toevoegen aan een project significante extra tijd kost 4 is wat mij betreft achterhaald en tegenwoordig is er een hard reëel voordeel aan te voeren.\nHet kost even moeite om jezelf aan te leren om standaarden en microformats te gebruiken, maar als je het kunt is het bijna meer moeite om het niet te doen.\nSnel # Verder heb ik beide sites gebouwd in een tijdspanne van een paar dagen. Waarmee we wilden aangeven dat een snel project ook echt snel kan en dat het maken van een gebruiksvriendelijke niet-triviale site niet veel tijd en geld hoeft te kosten.\nHet kan allemaal wél beter. Laten we het dus gaan doen.\ncURL bijvoorbeeld\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nEn het is allemaal open waardoor één partij er niet een onevenredig belang bij heeft om het te controleren en complex te maken.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nValidatie zegt niet zoveel trouwens. Ik krijg vaak genoeg valide XHTML-code die compleet onsemantisch is.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nOpdrachtgever: “Ja, doe dat maar als je tijd over hebt.”\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"June 23, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/overheidsgegevens-opener-en-vriendelijker/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik ben pas bezig geweest met verschillende overheidsinitiatieven om overheidsgegevens makkelijker toegankelijk te maken en te laten zien wat er mogelijk is als die gegevens toegankelijk zijn. Het idee is dat als de gegevens van de overheid open zijn, ontwikkelaars en andere partijen die kunnen hergebruiken en dingen kunnen maken waar andere mensen behoefte aan hebben. En dat zou weleens handig kunnen zijn.\n","title":"Overheidsgegevens opener en vriendelijker","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik heb al lang niet over politiek geschreven hier omdat het redelijk suf is en ik het niet bijzonder meer volg. Vroeger keek ik wel een stapel actualiteiten en journaals per dag, maar sinds ik geen tv meer heb komt het er niet meer zo van. Dat is zeker niet erg, dit is zeker een beter leven.\nAlleen ik erger me meer en meer aan Wilders en naar blijkt ben ik niet de enige. De politiek heeft geen antwoord (behalve D'66 een beetje met Pechtold). De meeste mensen die ik ken zijn niet politiek actief, maar die vinden het ook allemaal van de zotte en verschrikkelijk dat er mensen bestaan die op de PVV stemmen.\nEr is inhoudelijk veel over te zeggen over hoe verwerpelijk de standpunten zijn en hoe de politiek zich beweegt in reactie 1. Daar ga ik het nu niet over hebben. Ik vind het interessanter om te zien dat er in feite al een cordon sanitair is gevormd in de samenleving en dat dat tegenproductief werkt.\nZo zag ik vanochtend via @jaapstronks een bericht op Prettige Voortzetting over een motie van wantrouwen tegen Wilders.\nPrettige Voortzetting is een goed initiatief. Journalistieke media zijn over het algemeen teveel bezig met de waan van de dag en te weinig met reflectie, feiten controleren en teruggrijpen. Een weblog wat alle uitlatingen van Wilders (of om het even welke politicus) fileert kan een bijzonder waardevol middel zijn. Vergelijk het bijvoorbeeld met PolitiFact die Obama\u0026rsquo;s beloftes bijhoudt en een Pullitzer heeft gewonnen.\nOver die motie ben ik een stuk minder positief en ik schoot tegen Jaap ook uit mijn slof. Dat verdient uitleg dus daarom schrijf ik dit.\nZoals ik al schreef is er een feitelijk cordon sanitair namelijk dat niemand iets te maken wil hebben met Wilders, mensen die op Wilders stemmen en de bijbehorende standpunten. We vinden het allemaal heel erg maar we blijven lekker zitten in de ivoren toren van onze linkse kerk.\nDeze motie van wantrouwen doet precies dat: preken voor eigen parochie 2. Het is hartstikke leuk maar je bereikt er niks mee 3. De motie gaat niks veranderen aan de standpunten van de mensen die op Wilders stemmen en hij gaat denk ik ook niet veel invloed hebben op de mensen die erover denken om op Wilders te stemmen. De mensen die nooit op Wilders zouden stemmen vinden de motie geweldig en ‘steunen hem van harte’ maar die gingen toch al niet op Wilders stemmen. Je kunt je een beetje op de borst kloppen maar je negeert de realiteit en je schiet niks op.\nWat is dan de oplossing? In gesprek te gaan met Wilders zelf en met de mensen die op hem stemmen lijkt me het beste idee. Wilders ontloopt het debat vaak omdat hij dan door de mand valt 4. In gesprek met PVV-stemmers zullen die vaak nog sneller door de mand vallen. Maar daarmee bedoel ik niet dat je erop moet gaan staan dat je gelijk hebt. Onderken liever dat er echte problemen zijn máár dat die niet worden opgelost door de maatregelen van Wilders.\nDat zal niet makkelijk zijn. Ik heb het PVV-gelul in de trein een half uur mogen aanhoren en dat soort mensen gaat niet luisteren naar moties van wantrouwen of andere onzin. En wat het cordon betreft, dat is door onszelf opgelegd in de zin van ‘wij willen niks met dat soort mensen te maken hebben.’ Ja, PVV-stemmers zijn over het algemeen vieze nare onontwikkelde mensen 5 maar het zijn wel mensen.\nAls je echt serieus bent over het ‘probleem Wilders’ dan begin je een beweging die tot doel heeft om te praten met hem en vooral met zijn aanhang en ze te betrekken bij de oplossingen van de problemen. Dat lijkt me moeilijk maar op de langere termijn zinniger. We kunnen de boel ook negeren maar gezien wat er met de PvdA gebeurd is, is dat misschien niet de beste strategie.\nIemand anders zou een stukje kunnen schrijven over hoe zeer de PvdA een hele grote groep mensen in de steek heeft gelaten.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nIn die ivoren toren van die links kerk, jullie begrijpen het wel…\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nEen probleem waar ik bij GroenLinks vaker last van had.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nBijvoorbeeld ongenadig hard op bij Hard Talk. Meer en recentere fragmenten welkom in de comments.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nDie twee vrouwen in de trein waren dat zeker.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"June 20, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/een-middel-tegen-wilders/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik heb al lang niet over politiek geschreven hier omdat het redelijk suf is en ik het niet bijzonder meer volg. Vroeger keek ik wel een stapel actualiteiten en journaals per dag, maar sinds ik geen tv meer heb komt het er niet meer zo van. Dat is zeker niet erg, dit is zeker een beter leven.\n","title":"Een middel tegen Wilders","type":"posts"},{"content":"Adobe\u0026rsquo;s CEO said that Flash is safe from HTLM5. Just the fact that Adobe made a board level comment on this is telling enough, the answer itself is somewhat lacking.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s nice that they\u0026rsquo;re optimistic for improvements in HTML. Seeing what disasters both the XHTML and in a somewhat lesser extent SVG tracks of the W3C standardization process have been, we could definitely use them. They should admit though, that a full fledged HTML5 with rich CSS3+ is the death knell for Flash.\nThe more sites we see like the Holland Festival one the more it means that clients are choosing for an open and more semantic website with gradual improvements in JavaScript and CSS 1. It may take ten years, but we may see the first signs of a shift in this industry.\nNo mobile? # He\u0026rsquo;s right to say that it\u0026rsquo;s difficult to deliver a consistent HTML5 experience across browsers on the desktop. The fact that he conveniently ignores mobile browsers is more than a bit misleading.\nMobile internet usage is exploding and most of that usage is centered around Webkit based browsers. Mobile webkit is also pretty rapidly incorporating HTML5 features and things like CSS transitions. This gives developers who want to make a great mobile site for a big and important part of their audience a single very compelling target to develop for.\nLike Gruber said, one of the most noteworthy non-announcements for iPhone 3.0 was no Flash. Who really needs it anyway on the iPhone? And why would Apple let somebody else in on their platform?\nIs Flash dead? No. Is there for the first time a clear path forward to a world without Flash? Yes, finally!\nI have yet to see decently usable sites in Flash. Any suggestions welcome. Nalden.net comes close.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"June 19, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/i-come-not-to-save-flash/","section":"Posts","summary":"Adobe’s CEO said that Flash is safe from HTLM5. Just the fact that Adobe made a board level comment on this is telling enough, the answer itself is somewhat lacking.\n","title":"I come not to save Flash","type":"posts"},{"content":"Zondag waren we naar de “Opera do Malandro”opvoering van Chico Buarque door CODARTS in Rotterdam. Het was een erg tof muzikaal optreden en een leuke dag. Het was onderdeel van het Brazil Contemporary festival dat nog doorloopt in Rotterdam.\nThuis kwam ik erachter hoe klassiek dit muziekstuk is maar ik kon er bijna niks van vinden op Spotify. Het arrangement en de manier van spelen zondag waren iets minder klassiek maar eigenlijk wel veel leuker. Ik zou het aanraden, maar ik weet niet of ze het nog een keer spelen. Ze hadden vorige week 3 optredens en het lijkt er een beetje op dat dat het was.\nIk heb tijdens het optreden met mijn iPhone wat opgenomen, nauwelijks representatief en hele slechte kwaliteit, maar beter dan niks 1:\n“O Meu Amor”\nEn het hele leuke “O Casamento dos Pequenos Burgueses”:\nWat rondklikkend online kwam ik op wat vage MP3-websites ook bestanden tegen voor twee andere leuke liedjes uit de opera:\nHet prettig nare “Geni en de Zeppelin”:\nEn de uitsmijter van de avond “Las Muchachas de Copacabana”met hun ‘loura muçulmana’:\nHier op Youtube uit een ander optreden:\nDe audiobestanden staan in dit bericht gelinked met elementen en zijn op dit moment alleen te bekijken met Safari of met een development versie van Firefox. Hier komt langzaamaan verbetering in, zeg maar dat dit toekomstbereid is.\nDe foto\u0026rsquo;s zijn ook belabberd. Ik had niks bij me.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"June 19, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/opera-do-malandro/","section":"Posts","summary":"Zondag waren we naar de “Opera do Malandro”opvoering van Chico Buarque door CODARTS in Rotterdam. Het was een erg tof muzikaal optreden en een leuke dag. Het was onderdeel van het Brazil Contemporary festival dat nog doorloopt in Rotterdam.\n","title":"Opera do Malandro","type":"posts"},{"content":"Het Britse parlement heeft als antwoord op de onkostenaffaire 700'000 documenten vrijgegeven met daarin alle uitgaven van de MPs. Normaal gesproken zou dat een maatregel zijn waarmee een volledig onderzoek naar de uitgaven getraineerd wordt. Wie gaat er nou 700'000 documenten bekijken? Journalisten zouden misschien wat bekende politici doorlichten of steekproefsgewijs wat bekijken.\nToen kwam de Guardian met deze website waar het publiek de documenten kan bekijken en annoteren. Zoek op (jouw) parlementariër, of per partij en blader dan scans bladeren, classificeer documenten, haal bedragen omschrijvingen en andere belangrijke gegevens eruit en sla ze op in een gestructureerd formaat én rapporteer fouten/sabotage van anderen. Beetje voor beetje, totdat alle documenten bekeken zijn. Van de 700'000 staan er nu 70'000 online en ze worden snel verwerkt. Toen de site net live was, kregen ze ze niet aangesleept.\nDit is een fantastisch voorbeeld van het feit dat mensen online best tot grote dingen kunnen komen, als de manier waarop ze dat moeten doen maar begrijpbaar en behapbaar is. Collectieve actie naar een gezamenlijk doel gebruik makend van ons cognitieve surplus 1, zoals beschreven in Shirky\u0026rsquo;s “Here Comes Everybody”. En bedenk: Is dit nu echt zo complex?\nDe middelen # Ik was in Austin bij een sessie over kranten en Simon Willison van the Guardian kondigde toen of had toen net de API van the Guardian aangekondigd. Via die API, het Guardian ‘Open Platform’ kun je de gehele inhoud van de Guardian doorzoeken, filteren en de artikelen hergebruiken bijvoorbeeld op je eigen website. Dat is al redelijk revolutionair.\nZe draaien er ook een datablog over gegevens die ze verzamelen wat erg interessant is en laat zien hoe journalisten gegevens gebruiken en uitnodigt om zelf meer te doen met diezelfde gegevens.\nKort gezegd ze zijn daar redelijk goed en goed bezig wat internet betreft. Dat is wel ten dele sinds Simon Willison er werkt, die een groot deel van de API en andere programmeertaken voor zijn rekening neemt.\nWe kunnen een vergelijkbare manier van journalistiek in Nederland die het internet snapt en het weet in te zetten goed gebruiken. Internet gaat niet weg. Je leert er gedijen of er volgt een marginaal bestaan ergens aan de zijlijn. De vraag is: welke Nederlandse krant heeft de ambitie om dit soort dingen te doen? Mijn zegen en —zo nodig— hulp kunnen ze krijgen.\nWie heeft er nog een tv (nodig)?\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"June 18, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/bewakers-van-de-journalistiek/","section":"Posts","summary":"Het Britse parlement heeft als antwoord op de onkostenaffaire 700'000 documenten vrijgegeven met daarin alle uitgaven van de MPs. Normaal gesproken zou dat een maatregel zijn waarmee een volledig onderzoek naar de uitgaven getraineerd wordt. Wie gaat er nou 700'000 documenten bekijken? Journalisten zouden misschien wat bekende politici doorlichten of steekproefsgewijs wat bekijken.\n","title":"Bewakers van de journalistiek","type":"posts"},{"content":"For any international readers, as the Dutch are probably already very much aware of our totalitarian parking policies.\nThe headline for the piece accompanying this video reads: “Odds of getting fined doubled”in Dutch.\nThe video is in Dutch but you should still be able to make out a very interesting and frankly somewhat scary urban systems play.\nThere is a Google Streetview like car which drives through Amsterdam. It has 3 cameras on either side to be able to scan the three predominant parking patterns (queue, fish and orthogonal). The cameras OCR the license plates of all parked cars and check them with a database.\nAnother necessary ingredient is a new class of parking ticket machines where you need to punch in your license plate before you get your ticket. The machines are pretty poorly designed, causing a lot of user frustration but they are an essential part of the system. These ticket machines are connected and they push your license plate and the time you have bought to a central server.\nSo if the scanning car finds a license plate which a ticket machine has not designated as having bought a ticket, a third party is dispatched on scooter to check if there is in fact no valid parking ticket lying under the windshield. If there isn\u0026rsquo;t, he writes a fine.\nChanges # The system dramatically increases the odds of you getting fined compared to the previous system where parking inspectors would walk the street samplewise. This approaches a total and real time assessment and billing of urban space.\nThe fact that the scanner does not need to get out of the car is interesting from a division of labor point of view. The person actually fining the car gets an SMS and then does a tactical strike with the urban rapid entry vehicle of choice. This minimizes the contact surface with the parking inspectors reducing both potential aggression and being able to see parking inspectors coming (and making a mad dash to the ticket machine).\nWhen Google\u0026rsquo;s car scans the street all kind of privacy concerns are paraded even though the end result benefits and harms the entire public equally. Nobody even realizes yet what the consequences of this approach will be until we get to feel and see it more directly. It is difficult to ‘feel’ a higher accuracy of parking inspection except that people who normally would hardly ever get a fine, will get them now.\nI\u0026rsquo;m also interested in people\u0026rsquo;s reaction to changing a leaky implementation of a system of regulations with its faults and errors but a human scale to a totalitarian implementation such as this one which covers enough as to be nearly foolproof. Protest? Quiet resignation? We will see.\nAnd for all you militant free parking advocates out there, put this on your reading list: The High Cost of Free Parking\n","date":"June 12, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/the-city-is-here-for-you-to-get-fined-by/","section":"Posts","summary":"For any international readers, as the Dutch are probably already very much aware of our totalitarian parking policies.\n","title":"The City Is Here For You To Get Fined By","type":"posts"},{"content":"Recent was de prijsuitreiking van de 9292 programmeerwedstrijd voor een applicatie op hun databron gemaakt door studenten. Ik heb daar hier al genoeg woorden aan vuil gemaakt en de uitkomst is leuk maar niet zo opzienbarend als men deed voorkomen.\nWat wel interessant is, zijn de interviews met de verschillende spelers in de openbaar vervoersector en de uitspraken die ze dan doen.\nVincent deed al een oproep tot ‘Ramen open!’, eens kijken of en wanneer dat dan gaat gebeuren.\nEerst maar eens staatssecretaris Tineke Huizinga:\nHuizinga kondigt de Nationaal Datawarehouse Openbaar Vervoer (NDOV) aan die in 2015 klaar moet zijn. Ze zegt dat marktpartijen dan planners moeten maken, en er moeten dan initiatieven uit de ‘markt’ komen. Vincente stelt terecht de vraag wie er dan gecertificeerd wordt om daarmee aan de slag te gaan.\nHet is een wat raar verhaal waarom alle lokale overheden de vervoersinformatie eerst hebben ondergebracht bij 9292 die zo\u0026rsquo;n database heeft met alle vervoersinformatie en ze nu opnieuw zo\u0026rsquo;n database gaan aanleggen met dezelfde gegevens erin. Dubbel werk lijkt me. En wie zijn dan die ‘marktpartijen’ die planners ‘moeten’ maken?\nHet gaat sowieso lang duren voor die NDOV er is en ik ben bang dat het proces van certificering te ingewikkeld in te kostbaar zal zijn waardoor de definitie van marktpartijen verengt tot ‘grote bedrijven die al werkzaam zijn in de sector’ 1 en de innovatie een wisse dood sterft.\nMaar het kan ook goed aflopen. Zie het verhaal van Gert Staal directeur 9292ov:\nStaal meldt dat ze ‘openstaan voor vernieuwingen ook van buitenaf’. Vincent vraagt of derde partijen met een API kunnen integreren met 9292 waarop Staal bevestigt dat er meer zeker meer openheid komt maar:\nDit kan niet 100% omdat lokale vervoerders in de weg zitten 2. Dit gaat gebeuren in samenwerking met het NDOV wat een initiatief is van Verkeer en Waterstaat samen met 9292 en waar alle actuele en statische informatie in het openbaar vervoer in opvraagbaar moet zijn. Staal: “Onder bepaalde voorwaarden kan iedereen daarbij. Die voorwaarden zullen voor iedereen gelijk zijn.” Dat klinkt dus goed zolang die voorwaarden enigzins open zijn. Nu nog een roadmap en het lijkt erop alsof we aan de slag kunnen.\nIdem met bijvoorbeeld iets als DigiD. Het schijnt dat iedereen daar tegenaan kan integreren maar ik heb nog niemand gezien die bereid is geweest om door alle hoepels heen te springen.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nDit komt vaker terug en ik ben wel benieuwd naar het fijne ervan. Het proces van concessies is in ieder geval erg ingewikkeld.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"June 9, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/ndov-uitkomst-programmeerwedstrijd/","section":"Posts","summary":"Recent was de prijsuitreiking van de 9292 programmeerwedstrijd voor een applicatie op hun databron gemaakt door studenten. Ik heb daar hier al genoeg woorden aan vuil gemaakt en de uitkomst is leuk maar niet zo opzienbarend als men deed voorkomen.\n","title":"NDOV uitkomst programmeerwedstrijd","type":"posts"},{"content":" Took a stroll around the house and happened upon some contemporary dance (more).\n","date":"June 6, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/backyard-performances/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Backyard performances","type":"posts"},{"content":"For my international audience; if you\u0026rsquo;ve been living in the Netherlands you could not have missed this.\nYesterday night we saw a live gig here in Delft by Kyteman (myspace) and his hip-hop orchestra and we stood agape with wonder. This guy is a recent musical sensation in the Netherlands and if you can catch a show by him run to it!\nKyteman is a hip-hop artist/conductor with a trumpet who leads a 21 piece orchestar with a full brass section, a string section and a host of M.C.s. A definite mashup formation with hip-hop, funky and blues sounds. I write orchestar because it is reminiscent even of more balkan influences like Bregović and Beirut 1. The sound they produce is rich and dynamic and the performances spectacular in their grandeur.\nThe music is awesome, but the live gig is where it\u0026rsquo;s at. 3voor12 made a composition of audience recordings at Pinkpop to give you an idea of the explosion.\nIt would be very awesome if they purposefully included balkan and maybe even arabesk influences.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"June 6, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/kyteman-and-his-hip-hop-orchestar/","section":"Posts","summary":"For my international audience; if you’ve been living in the Netherlands you could not have missed this.\n","title":"Kyteman and his Hip Hop Orchestar","type":"posts"},{"content":"Some remaindered notes:\nTrivial mashups # I recently did a survey to see what relevant mashups I could find as examples and I was surprised to find that there are not that many serious ones. Especially if you want to go beyond the chewn out examples of Flickr, last.fm and Google Maps, there simply is not that much there.\nThis is indicative of how much work remains to be done in creating data sources and adding semantics to the web. All the things we have made thusfar are mere proofs of concept compared to the potential that is still there.\nOne of the reasons why this may be the case is that it is hard to build a decent business on top of a mashups either because the license of the source is not permissive enough or because building on top of somebody else\u0026rsquo;s web app is a shaky foundation 1.\nChannels # In the widget project we did, the channel was set namely: widgets. This both makes sense and doesn\u0026rsquo;t. Widgets are a general enough target for displaced information but for some types of information they are not the ideal channel.\nCalendar information should be in your calendar whether that be Outlook, iCal or Google Calendar. It\u0026rsquo;s nice to have it in a widget but that\u0026rsquo;s not the most relevant place. Similarly for videos you should have a podcast link with all the video formats embedded as enclosures. The video widget we developed is finally live (embedded underneath) and displays the latest videos quite nicely, but it would be nicer still to integrate this with iTunes and Boxee and be able to watch it on your television.\nSo a more wholistic approach is necessary that recognizes the values and affordances of various forms of data and provides a consistent brand across channels. Widgets already say that your website is irrelevant, now take it one step further.\nAlso a small test of the open syndication facility of iGoogle. A bit hidden away but works nicely.\nJust look at Twitter which had its problems but also is breaking new ground in this field.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"May 28, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/a-couple-more-widget-notes/","section":"Posts","summary":"Some remaindered notes:\n","title":"A couple more widget notes","type":"posts"},{"content":"Dennis tipte me net deze video:\nHet is een beetje warrig maar wat Vincent Everts zegt is:\nIk denk dat als eerste stap om de ramen open te doen en te zeggen laten we samenwerken aan producten, hier heb je mijn basis-API maak er iets moois van. Ik denk dat dat veel verder doorgegaan moet worden en dat die API die jullie nu hebben waarmee iedereen dus een basisvervoersadvies kan krijgen en dat kun je dan zelf verrijken, dat dat een hele goede weg is en ik denk dat 9292 ook verder moet doorzetten.\nRuwweg hetzelfde wat ik ook zeg, met dien verstande dat die API waar Vincent het over heeft niet publiek of onder andere voorwaarden beschikbaar is. 9292 moet in ieder geval verder doorzetten, laat dá­t dan een mooie eerste stap zijn.\nVerder ben ik erg benieuwd naar de inzendingen en de winnaars van de wedstrijd. Die worden op 2 juni bekend gemaakt.\nUpdate: Even later een interview van Vincent met Gert Staal, de directeur van 9292 waarin hij vraagt of er een API komt voor vervoersinformatie. Staal verwijst naar de NDOV (waar Mark de Bruin het hier al over had) die ergens in 2011 operationeel moet zijn. Iedereen zou daar toegang toe moeten krijgen. Ik heb meer vragen: Onder welke voorwaarden en op welke manier krijgen we dan toegang tot het NDOV? Wie bepaalt hoe het geïmplementeerd gaat worden en krijgen we daar inspraak op? En 2011 is nogal ver weg; wat kunnen we doen als we vandaag aan de slag willen?\n","date":"May 20, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/ramen-open-in-het-openbaar-vervoer/","section":"Posts","summary":"Dennis tipte me net deze video:\n","title":"Ramen open in het openbaar vervoer","type":"posts"},{"content":"Het is nu een paar weken geleden dat ik de eerste release versie van een serie widgets die ik samen met Tam Tam in opdracht van het Ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken en Koninkrijksrelaties (BZK) heb ontwikkeld (een overzichtsartikel).\nDoel van het project was om in een breder initiatief aangaande overheid en open data te kijken of met widgets huidige overheidsdata dichter en aantrekkelijker bij de belevingswereld van gebruikers gebracht zou kunnen worden. Er lopen op dit vlak nog meer initiatieven en de grootste uitdaging is de beperktheid van middelen en kennis om de informatie op een goede manier te ontsluiten.\nWidgets zijn een nogal onduidelijke term voor kleine specifieke stukjes internet-functionaliteit. Om hier wat duidelijkheid in te verschaffen heb ik een onderzoek gedaan naar de verschillende platformen. De widgetruimte en spraakverwarring blijft groot en gefragmenteerd en recentelijk zijn er weer enkele initiatieven op het gebied van mobiele widgets bij gekomen die nog meer mogelijkheden (en incompatibiliteit bieden).\nDe widgets staan nu met beschrijving en uitnodiging om samen te werken in de werkruimte van Overheid2.0 en de code van de widgets is beschikbaar op github 1.\nGenericiteit # Uit het onderzoek kwam naar voren dat de verschillende technische widget-platformen veel gelijkenis vertonen en dat er een beweging is naar consolidatie. Een platform als Netvibes gebruikt de overeenkomsten om met hun UWA te proberen één widgetdefinitie te laten draaien op verschillende platformen. In de praktijk valt dit tegen. Het hergebruiken van stukken website is ook een belangrijk onderdeel van iGoogle/OpenSocial en gezien het grote aantal (sociale netwerk-)sites dat dit ondersteunt 2 en de aanwezigheid van een open runtime lijkt dit het platform met de grootste impuls.\nHet hebben van een generiek platform is belangrijk omdat de problemen vaak hetzelfde zijn en de verschillen klein. Daarom ook is het apart dat er niet meer plaatsen zijn waar OpenSocial widgets te draaien zijn en het is teleurstellend dat het mobiele widgetplatform van Opera niet hiermee samenwerkt.\nOp zijn simpelst gezegd is een widget een vakje om HTML in te tekenen met specifieke Javascript APIs voor bepaalde functionaliteit. In OpenSocial betreft dit toegang tot de functionaliteit van het omliggende sociale netwerk en op het mobiele platform gaat het om functionaliteit van de mobiele telefoon.\nWij gebruiken dus de OpenSocial gadgets.* API van Google zonder de sociale extensies. Deze sociale extensies kunnen in de toekomst altijd nog gebruikt worden, maar dit voegde nogal wat nodeloze complexiteit toe omdat de primaire runtime niet een sociale omgeving is maar een persoonlijk dashboard. De complexiteit zit hem er dan ook niet zo bijzonder in de conditionele javascript maar in de conditionele presentatie waar dan ook meer grafisch/interactie-ontwerp voor nodig is.\nDe motivatie om tot één generieke widget te komen bleek gerechtvaardigd. Ik heb de widgets gebouwd in de laatste gadgets API versie van Google die ook gebruikt wordt in OpenSocial maar het iGoogle dashboard werkt zelf nog steeds op de oude versie van de specificatie. Het omschrijven van elke widget naar zijn -legacy.xml versie is redelijk triviaal maar het zorgt ervoor dat je dubbel werk doet niet alleen in implementatie maar in het bijzonder ook in het testen (je kunt geen wijzigingen uitrollen zonder een goede test). Dit is al tijdrovend bij 2 soorten widgets; ik denk dat je ervan uit kunt gaan dat de bestede tijd om de verschillende platformen 3 te ondersteunen vrij snel je complete budget op zal slokken.\nAanpasbaarheid # Een andere afweging wat betreft de genericiteit van de widgets betreft het maken van een widget of widgetplatform waarin een niet-programmeur door het opgeven van enkele plaatjes, kleuren en een databron automatisch een widget kan laten maken.\nDit is de heilige graal maar het was binnen dit project niet realistisch. Er zijn heel weinig projecten die dit goed doen (Sprout Builder is eigenlijk de enige die ik ken) omdat het bijzonder moeilijk en bijzonder veel werk. En dit slecht doen is geen optie (dan kun je het beter niet doen).\nBij een halve versie krijg je een rare tussenvorm die lastig werkbaar is en ofwel te weinig vrijheid toe laat of teveel en dan weer teveel voorafgesproken kennis veronderstelt. Dit terwijl het maken van een mooi en goed design juist één van de grootste toegevoegde waarden is die je kunt meegeven aan een widget (zie volgende punt).\nWe hebben er dus voor gekozen om concrete affe versies te maken maar wel met een redelijk simpele en heldere opmaak en presentatie waardoor ze eenvoudig door wie dan ook te herbranden zijn in een nieuwswidget voor een ander bestuursorgaan. Het deel van de widget dat praat met het platform en de data ophaalt blijft dan gelijk.\nPresentatie # We hebben nogal wat tijd en aandacht besteed met de ontwerpers van Tam Tam samen aan een mooie presentatie van de widgets binnen de huisstijl van de originele site. Je ziet dat dit al snel veel toegevoegde waarde heeft niet alleen in ‘branding’ maar ook in (gebruiks)vriendelijkheid van de gegevens. Vergelijk onze rijkere RSS nieuws-widgets maar met de standaardmanier om RSS te presenteren in iGoogle (zie screenshot).\nBij de videowidget zie je dat er zonder al teveel moeite al makkelijk de perceptie van een ‘kanaal’ te creëren is, door de layout en de functionaliteit.\nWidgets die nu beschikbaar zijn bieden vaak wel interessante functionaliteit en redelijke interactie maar vaak weinig tot geen grafisch ontwerp. Visuele presentatie heeft een sterk effect op de usability en wat dat betreft is er een wereld te winnen.\nWaar je denkt aan presentatie denken veel mensen ook aan Flash. Onze keuze om geen Flash te gebruiken heeft zich denk ik ook bewezen. Veel interactieve widgets zijn gebouwd in Flash, maar die komen vaak niet veel verder dan een spel, video of ander grapje op iemands profiel. Het gebruik van Flash voor normale dingen als tekst en hyperlinks loopt vrijwel altijd uit op een ramp wat betreft gebruiksvriendelijkheid. Daarnaast is Flash slecht begrepen en slecht editbaar. Vergelijk dit met de publieke git repository waar het project nu staat en waar het voor iedereen te bekijken, becommentariëren en bewerken is.\nData # Het idee was om de widgets een uitingsvorm te laten zijn van al bestaande data omdat we dan sneller aan de slag zouden kunnen. We zagen toen al in dat wijzigingen aan de data-aanbiederskant veel tijd zouden kosten. Uiteindelijk zijn er wijzigingen nodig geweest voor alle databronnen behalve één (die van het VWA waar al een RSS-feed beschikbaar was), duurden die wijzigingen inderdaad heel lang als ze al kwamen want er zijn nog steeds twee databronnen niet af.\nDe beschikbaarheid van data is het belangrijkste punt en iets waar Ton en James mee bezig zijn in hun project. Er zijn een boel dingen nodig: bereidheid om data beschikbaar te maken, middelen om het te bewerkstelligen, richtlijnen voor de uitvoer 4, een geschikt uitvoerformaat en distributiestrategie.\nVerder als je echt begint te werken met de standaarden die we nu voor handen hebben merk je dat er veel nog in de kinderschoenen staat. Er is weinig bewezen en getest en er is ook lang niet overal code voor. Dit is geen pleidooi om het dan maar niet te doen en overal Excel sheets en PDFs online te zetten, integendeel; we leren dit soort dingen alleen maar door het te doen.\nPlatformafhankelijkheid # De aanwezigheid van een open implementatie van Shindig beperkt je afhankelijkheid van derde partijen voor platformen in zeker mate, maar over het algemeen gesproken zullen mensen widgets toch graag willen plaatsen op hun vaste plekken.\nDe OpenSocial standaard wordt nog niet overal even goed toegepast en naast de technologische verschillen hebben de verschillende platformen ook verschillende ontikkelaarsrichtlijnen voor projecten. LinkedIn is bijvoorbeeld erg gesloten terwijl Hyves relatief weinig eisen stelt.\nBij het testen van onze OpenSocial gadgets kwam ik erachter dat ze het op Ning bijvoorbeeld helemaal niet doen 5. Op Hyves was er wat herschrijven nodig en zitten er nog wat kleine fouten in het platform waardoor de widgets niet perfect werken maar wel werkbaar zijn. En recentelijk liggen de widgets er af en toe compleet uit in iGoogle waarna ze na een paar dagen weer terug komen 6.\nDit is allemaal jammer, maar dat is één reden waarom kiezen voor het grootste en actiefste platform belangrijk is. Op die manier is er temminste een kans dat deze problemen in een toekomstige update opgelost worden.\nGroeikansen # Wat de widgets betreft nodigen we iedereen die wil uit voor participatie ofwel op conceptueel niveau in de werkruimte van overheid20 ofwel in de code op github. Op zijn lichtst gezegd kan de participatie daar wel iets hoger.\nVerder staan er op ons verlanglijstje nog een serie generieke widgets die de basisfunctionaliteit bevatten en die door iemand met kennis van HTML/CSS snel te rebranden zijn voor een specifiek doel. Video-, Event- en RSS-widgets hebben we nu al, op het verlanglijstje staat nog een Image-widget (plaatje(s) van de dag) en een echte kaart-widget om maar iets te noemen. Deze widgets zouden niet alleen bruikbaar zijn binnen de overheid maar overal waar hier behoefte aan is. Als er code op andere plaatsen beschikbaar is, die past bij deze doelstelling hou ik me aanbevolen. En patches kunnen mijn richting op, hoe meer hoe beter.\nUiteindelijk is de beschikbaarheid van data essentieel. Je ziet hoe lastig het is voor een project om met mandaat maar zonder paraat beschikbare data te opereren. Andersom denk ik dat als er maar data beschikbaar is dat mensen dan vanzelf uit interesse of al naar gelang behoefte wel iets zullen maken. Zonder data gaat dat in elk geval niet gebeuren. Wat daar wel bij opgemerkt moet worden, is dat je goed grafisch design bijna alleen maar ziet bij dit soort betaalde projecten waar professionele grafische ontwerpers 7 worden ingezet en zoals ik al zei is dat ook een essentieel onderdeel (maar slecht ontworpen is nog steeds beter dan niks).\nWe hebben geen licentie afgesproken, maar ik weet vrij zeker dat je niet gesued zult worden.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nNetvibes ondersteunt OpenSocial widgets al een tijdje in hun ontwikkelversie, maar ze hebben het nog niet op de site aan gezet, misschien omdat dit de doodsteek zou betekenen voor hun UWA.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nEn dan hebben we het nog niet eens over de verschillende browsers als platform. IE6 is een beperkende factor en het zou misschien het meest twee-punt-nulle zijn wat de overheid kan doen om overheidswijd IE eruit te flikkeren (Chrome schijnt goed te zijn…).\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nAls we data dan herbruikbaar maken, laten we het dan in één keer goed doen.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nJammer, want Ning is een redelijk belangrijk doelplatform.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nAl aangemeld, laten we hopen dat het probleem zichzelf opklaart. Google is niet heel responsief.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nGek genoeg zijn ontwikkelaars best bereid om bij te dragen aan open source projecten maar zijn de meeste ontwerpers er niet voor te porren. Nu kun je ook vraagtekens zetten bij de kwaliteit van de code die daar geproduceerd wordt, maar dat is een ander verhaal.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"May 19, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/widgets-algemene-afwegingen/","section":"Posts","summary":"Het is nu een paar weken geleden dat ik de eerste release versie van een serie widgets die ik samen met Tam Tam in opdracht van het Ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken en Koninkrijksrelaties (BZK) heb ontwikkeld (een overzichtsartikel).\n","title":"Widgets algemene afwegingen","type":"posts"},{"content":" Ik woon hier nog maar net en nu opeens is Benjamin\u0026rsquo;s Bagels \u0026amp; Coffee bij mij op de hoek weg. Het was niet het enige wat het leven hier de moeite waard maakt, maar toch. Een echtpaar heeft de zaak van hem overgenomen en met wat kleine aanpassingen er een lunchroom geopend.\nIk moet maar kijken hoe het nu staat met de koffie en waarom Benjamin weg is. Ik kom het huis niet zo vaak uit om te winkelen, maar tijdens een rondje fotograferen gisteren viel het me op hoeveel winkels er in Delft zijn die er kitscherig uitzien en specialiseren in het verkopen van lelijke shit.\n","date":"May 19, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/no-more-bagels/","section":"Posts","summary":" Ik woon hier nog maar net en nu opeens is Benjamin’s Bagels \u0026 Coffee bij mij op de hoek weg. Het was niet het enige wat het leven hier de moeite waard maakt, maar toch. Een echtpaar heeft de zaak van hem overgenomen en met wat kleine aanpassingen er een lunchroom geopend.\n","title":"No more bagels","type":"posts"},{"content":" And to finish off the week, yesterday evening we had a nice ride through Rotterdam during the alleycat. I\u0026rsquo;d never done the Maastunnel before, nor seen most of Zuid, the Cuyp and the Brienenoord on bike before, so it was a great day of discovering Rotterdam.\nUnfortunately no pictures of glorious Rotterdam during the golden hour as I crossed the Erasmus bridge for the last leg of the race. Too busy biking.\n","date":"May 18, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/cycling-zuid/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Cycling Zuid","type":"posts"},{"content":" Tuesday morning I went to foam to see the last couple of days of the Avedon exhibit and I\u0026rsquo;m glad I did. Spectacular work! The exhibit is done in Amsterdam, but maybe you can catch it somewhere else (tweet) 1? It is very much worth it.\nThen I went to report on an event about practical applications of OpenID. The event was heavily suit oriented which struck me as interesting. My report in Dutch is posted on Frankwatching (tweet).\nWednesday morning was filled with a symposium on Context Mapping at the local faculty of Industrial Design (tweet). Interesting collection of people and great content on the topic (tweet, tweet). I picked up the thesis “Brining the every day life of people into design” by Froukje Sleeswijk Visser (tweet).\nFriday morning had a ridiculously early start (tweet) at the Rijksmuseum for a ‘hard hat tour’. It is interesting enough to see the construction and reconstruction from the inside. The reconstructed artwork is quite beautiful and I\u0026rsquo;m anxious to see the end result. For some of my friends this was the first time they had ever set foot in the building at all (which is a shame), and this will stay the only opportunity for the following year or five.\nAfter more coffee (like I said, it was an early start), it was off to the soldering irons at Mediamatic for the RFIDuino workshop given by Marc Boon. After a lot of fidgeting and my first real soldering experience in I think 15 years, some of us managed to build a working RFID shield for their Arduinos. Lots of unpredictable behaviour (tweet) though 2.)). Where is that post-mortem debugger with hot code replace for your hardware setup?\nAt the SF MOMA from July 11th until November 29th.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nMine still doesn\u0026rsquo;t work reliably which we attribute to the weak USB power supply coming from my Macbook ([tweet](http://twitter.com/alper/status/1806369202\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"May 17, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/the-week-in-pictures/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"The week in pictures","type":"posts"},{"content":"In spite of the nice weather, I spent today at Mobile Widget Devcamp in Pakhuis de Zwijger. Having done some projects on widgets recently, I was curious to see what the state of mobile widgets was.\nVodafone presented their app manager which will be rolled out to Vodafone mobile users. The app manager makes it easier to find and install widgets/apps to the mobile phone. Widgets can be submitted to the app manager in an App Store like proces and in due time —I think the word was come September 1— you can even charge money for your widget in a 70/30 split.\nCC BY-NC-ND photo by Anne Helmond\nThe mobile widgets by Vodafone are a W3C standard and the app manager is an application which wraps the widget rendering components of the Opera browser into a user and developer friendly package. Opera has quite some experience in mobile rendering engines, widgets and web technology in general and it shows.\nThe afternoon was widget building workshops and a contest for which I built two widgets: a pollen prediction widget and a Dutch government job search widget (if you run Opera, clicking those links will actually do something).\nThe documentation is a bit sparse (as are the APIs) and the environment is mostly unfamiliar but that probably will be fixed over time. I built and tested these on my desktop Opera browser. I don\u0026rsquo;t have a mobile phone that runs these widgets, which is a problem.\nDepending on your target audience you may or may not want to build for this platform. In any case if you have your data, APIs and design in order, it shouldn\u0026rsquo;t be too difficult to build a basic widget.\nI think you can find more detailed coverage, slides and maybe even streams of the day if you look around a bit. Here are some observations.\nTerminology # There is a lot of terminology confusion in this space: widsets, widgets, apps, gadgets and applications which can get pretty unclear here and there.\nSimple is not important # All the talk focused on how simple it is to get a simple widget running. It hardly ever is about the simple stuff, we can believe that that works. It\u0026rsquo;s about the tools and documentation, the nooks and crannies and the 80% of effort necessary to nail that last 20% 2. Every new platform, however simple it may be, adds another of that 80% of extra overhead.\nOpenSocial # There is a lot of overlap with OpenSocial and I find it hard to believe that it would not be possible (not to mention wise) to converge the two. Both specifications deal with rendering a bit of HTML in a tiny window with specific Javascript APIs, social APIs in the case of OpenSocial and device specific APIs in the case of mobile widgets. Added to that OpenSocial feels like it has more momentum, a solid implementation and better documentation.\nOne difference here is that the widgets we ran today must be rendered by the Opera browser whereas an OpenSocial widget is processed on the server and the resulting HTML can be rendered by any standards compliant browser.\nIn any case more consolidation and convergence can only be a good thing, especially when the essential differences are so minor. I found a brief reference to that possibility by a CETIS guy.\nI also think it\u0026rsquo;s curious that OpenSocial/iGoogle gadgets don\u0026rsquo;t run in more places. Why isn\u0026rsquo;t there an OpenSocial container for Vista and OS X desktop gadgets just to name one 3?\nPromises, promises # Many of the presentations were promising a lot of things and the current SDK and capabilities we have been presented are just a taste of what is to come.\nThere currently aren\u0026rsquo;t any APIs yet to access any mobile specific device features from your widget. These are ‘forthcoming’ somewhere but the process and timeframe in which these should be available were vague. Without these APIs the widgets you can make don\u0026rsquo;t go much further than a twitter search or your daily fortune, with those APIs really serious things become possible (as does really serious abuse).\nVodafone positions this app manager framework as a platform to reach the vast masses who do not yet use the mobile internet and do not yet run applications on their mobile phones. To reach them a lot of components must be in the right place and the experience to get and run applications needs to be smooth as silk and even then it remains to be seen if it will work. This is a big promise with a huge potential payoff.\nIn that future being able to install and share widgets/applications across platforms with minimal effort will have serious consequences for the very notion of what a mobile app is. Just a web service with a bit of logic and access (control) to device hardware using uniform APIs?\nAs Chipchase wrote: “[…] the interesting trend to watch will be the mainstreaming of just-in-time discovery and consumption of highly focused and contextually useful applications.”\nI can\u0026rsquo;t wait to see if and how 4 we will get there.\nThough it will be interesting to see how far Apple will have advanced the signposts by then.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nIn many cases it\u0026rsquo;s not even possible to do that.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nYou may notice that Netvibes offers the option to intall widgets to Desktop widget runtimes and Google does not.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nAnd how will Nokia\u0026rsquo;s interests in widgets, lightweight applications, device APIs and their own webkit browser relate to these developments?\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"May 2, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/mobile-widget-camp/","section":"Posts","summary":"In spite of the nice weather, I spent today at Mobile Widget Devcamp in Pakhuis de Zwijger. Having done some projects on widgets recently, I was curious to see what the state of mobile widgets was.\n","title":"Mobile Widget Camp","type":"posts"},{"content":"Even een kleine copyright roundup na de farce van het proces tegen the Pirate Bay en Brein die daar weer in springt. Gebruik in de tussentijd the Pirate Google totdat Brein die ook weet te blokkeren.\nIk zou willen dat er meer van dat soort verdedigers van onze collectieve cultuur bestonden. Recent is de copyright termijn in Europa weer opgerekt en onze cultuur weer een stukje verder uitgehold voor de zelfverrijking van bemiddelende instanties (zie het videofragment hieronder).\nOp dit soort momenten is het handig om even na te gaan waarom een wet is ingesteld en of die geest van de wet nog steeds gediend wordt door de huidige praktijk. Het concept van auteursrecht is in tegenstelling tot wat mensen denken niet bedacht als oudedagsvoorziening voor platenbazen.\nHet oorspronkelijke idee was dat een tijdelijk monopolie op de exploitatie van een werk door de auteur, een stimulans zou bieden voor de auteur om meer werk te maken. Simpel gezegd: jij kijgt geld voor je liedje en daarom maak je meer liedjes.\nHoe het nu werkt is dat er niks tijdelijks meer is aan het monopolie omdat dat elke keer wordt opgerekt 1. De exploitatie is heel omslachtig geregeld, in Nederland door allemaal schimmige tussenliggende organisaties, of in veel gevallen ook helemaal niet geregeld (het zogenaamde Orphan works problem). En er zijn bewijzen dat het verlengen van deze termijnen geen toename van werk in kwaliteit of kwantiteit ten gevolg heeft. Uit mijn ervaring: volgens mij is er nu meer én betere muziek dan ooit tevoren.\nAls je dit allemaal bekijkt vraag je je af waarom we het eigenlijk doen? En dit zijn alleen nog maar de bezwaren tegen de manier waarop we copyright nu geregeld hebben. Wat daar nog niet bij opgeteld is de culturele schade die de wetgeving aanricht omdat deze de creativiteit en innovatie van iedereen beperkt. Artiesten krijgen dat tijdelijk monopolie op hun werk waarna het hoort terug te vloeien in de collectieve cultuur. Elke verlenging van dat monopolie is diefstal van iedereen 2.\nOf ze het nu willen of niet, de nummers van de Beatles zijn onderdeel van die collectieve cultuur. Net zoals zij invloeden en onderdelen uit toen bestaande muziek hebben gebruikt, moet hun muziek weer inspiratie en herbruikbaar zijn voor hedendaagse creaties 3.\nOver de verdedigers gesproken, ik was erg blij dat de aankomende directeur van de Koninklijke Bibliotheek aankondigde om de grenzen van het auteursrecht op te gaan zoeken omdat dit ‘een rem op de vrije informatievoorziening is’. Misschien dat mensen eerder geneigd zijn naar hem te luisteren dan naar een stel piraten, maar in de strijd voor onze cultuur is alle hulp welkom en zijn wat mij betreft alle middelen geoorloofd.\nUpdate: Natuurlijk zegt Lawrence Lessig het weer een stuk uitgebreider en beter verwoord dan ik in deze video: “Getting the Network the World Needs”.\nWaarom zou iemand na zijn dood nog geld moeten ontvangen voor werk? Meer productie valt niet meer te verwachten.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nVergelijk het met de rhetoriek dat het downloaden van muziek diefstal zou zijn van de artiesten.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nOf vergelijk het met Disney die zonder schroom klassieke sprookjes heeft verbeeld, maar staat te steigeren wanneer iemand hetzelfde met hun werk wil doen.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"April 28, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/zeg-nee-tegen-copyright/","section":"Posts","summary":"Even een kleine copyright roundup na de farce van het proces tegen the Pirate Bay en Brein die daar weer in springt. Gebruik in de tussentijd the Pirate Google totdat Brein die ook weet te blokkeren.\n","title":"Zeg Nee! tegen copyright","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik schreef een paar dagen geleden in een roundup over de wedstrijd van 9292 voor een nieuwe reisplanner. Marie-José Klaver heeft er ook een stukje over waarin ze nog wat minder mals is dan ik.\nMark de Bruin, marketingmanager bij 9292, heeft een twitter account en is bereid om tekst en uitleg te geven. Dat is tof en ik denk een essentiele eerste stap om verder te komen in de verstarde eenrichtingsverkeerkanalen waar deze hele sector zich in bevindt.\nDe uitleg rammelt hier en daar nogal en de noodzaak voor open vervoersdata blijft bestaan 1, dus laten we eens kijken wat hoe ver we komen. Mark nodigde uit om de discussie over e-mail voort te zetten. E-mail is niet schaalbaar en twitter is te kort, vandaar deze blog.\nZoals ik schreef zijn de voorwaarden van de wedstrijd nogal in het voordeel van 9292 maar heeft dat 22 teams toch voldoende gemotiveerd om mee te doen. Ik ben meer dan een beetje benieuwd waar zij mee komen.\nRechten # Alle deelnemers moeten op dit moment de rechten op hun applicaties afstaan aan 9292. 9292 zegt de applicaties niet te zullen overnemen maar te zullen gebruiken als inspiratie. Waarom kunnen deelnemers dan niet gewoon een verklaring tekenen dat ze 9292 toestaan om ideeën uit hun applicatie te gebruiken en gewoon hun rechten zelf behouden (tweet)?\nWat Mark en 9292 verstaan onder delen is dat de applicaties ergens intern verdwijnen en ideeën en onderdelen eruit verwerkt zullen worden in hun gratis applicaties. Dat is geen delen maar gewoon het uitoefenen van de taak waar ze al mee bezig waren 2.\nDe teams doen willens en wetens mee. Het is ook de vraag wat een team zou kunnen doen met hun eigen applicatie en wat voor nadelen dat voor 9292 zou kunnen hebben. De API tot de vervoersgegevens wordt (nog) beperkt vrijgegeven en zonder die gegevens zijn ontwikkelde applicaties weinig waard. Het lijkt dus niet veel uit te maken, dus waarom dan niet het goede doen?\nInspiratie # Mijn andere vraag was waarom dit soort conceptueel gebruikersonderzoek eigenlijk nodig is. De noodzaak en de behoefte lijken me apert.\nWe kunnen wel de wildste dingen verzinnen, maar op dit moment hebben we nog niet eens een fatsoenlijke app die de basics goed afhandelt. En dat is nog niet eens zo makkelijk, een applicatie als Trein.app ziet er heel simpel uit en is niet veel meer dan een dunne laag over mobiel.ns.nl, maar ik denk dat er veel tijd in zit om dat goed te laten werken.\nEr is op dit moment een 9292 applicatie voor de iPhone die op basis van je locatie de site opent. Dit is best een aardig idee en zou goed kunnen werken, maar ik heb hem pas getest.\nEen paar weken geleden zaten we met vrienden op de verkeerde plek in Utrecht Terwijde en moest ik onder tijdsdruk snel een nieuwe route vinden naar een plek ergens anders in Utrecht, en de eerstvolgende bus, en de bushalte etc.\nDit was redelijk lastig voor elkaar te krijgen in de applicatie. Het was ontzettend moeilijk om een adres gevonden te krijgen 3, de kaarten die bij een advies komen zijn compleet onbruikbaar, en het is lastig om adviezen op te slaan en alternatieven te vergelijken. Met wat heen en weer schakelen naar Google Maps op mijn iPhone is het me uiteindelijk gelukt, maar makkelijk was het niet 4. Bedenk dan dat Google aanbiedt om gratis en voor niets onze vervoersgegevens online beschikbaar te maken met de Google Transit website die op zich al bijzonder vooruitstrevend is maar die ook geïntegreerd is met de Google Maps applicatie op de iPhone. Waarom hebben we dat niet in Nederland 5?\nMijn vraag is dus niet direct waarom we de vervoersgegevens niet mogen hebben en aan Google mogen voeren. Ook al zou dat een hele goede vraag zijn, maar we hebben al gezien dat vervoerders daar nogal uptight over zijn. Mijn vraag is meer of gebruikersonderzoek en testen niet belangrijker zijn om goede vervoersapplicaties te maken dan dit soort vrije conceptuele input 6.\nIk zie graag de antwoorden tegemoet.\nEr komt misschien verandering hoor ik van Sander Korz.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nHet ontwikkelen en verbeteren van reisinformatiediensten.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nWiens idee was het om het fomaat “stad, adres”te voeren?\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nEn als ik eerlijk ben geef ik 90% van de iPhone gebruikers geen kans om hetzelfde te bereiken.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nAls enige land in West-Europa niet trouwens.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nHoe goedkoop dan ook.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"April 20, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/inspiratie-voor-mobiele-diensten/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik schreef een paar dagen geleden in een roundup over de wedstrijd van 9292 voor een nieuwe reisplanner. Marie-José Klaver heeft er ook een stukje over waarin ze nog wat minder mals is dan ik.\n","title":"Inspiratie voor mobiele diensten","type":"posts"},{"content":"Het is een tijdje wat stiller geweest rond openbaar vervoer. Hoog tijd voor een update.\nJames Governor is het met me eens dat de gegevens voor reisinformatie op het spoor (en in hun geval ook de applicatie) gratis zouden moeten zijn en dat de vervoersaanbieders buitengewoon waardevolle gebruiksstatistieken krijgen van deze applicaties.\nSenterNovem # SenterNovem publiceerde een tijdje geleden dit item over Trein.app van Dennis Stevense. Misschien dat ze daar eindelijk een keertje de ogen openen voor innovatie van kleinere spelers in deze branche. Ook dit bericht over reisinformatie bij de haltes. De meeste dynamische reisinformatie op haltes is in mijn ervaring of ronduit stuk of niet accuraat. Één quick win zou zijn om in Rotterdam op de metrohaltes borden 1 op te hangen waar je bent en waar je heen kunt gaan.\nGPS # Om nog aan te vullen bij mijn argumenten van laatst, het probleem dat de vervoersgegevens bij één monopolistische aanbieder liggen is ook een probleem van tijdelijke aard. Zodra voldoende mensen GPS-apparaten bij zich dragen dan lost het probleem zich vanzelf op, via oplossingen zoals Vodafone dat partnert met TomTom of het nog wat amibitieuzere Citysense weten we precies waar welke vervoersmiddelen zich bewegen (en wie erin zitten).\nDan krijgen we in plaats van het huidige probleem een nieuw probleem dat degenen die controle hebben over die apparaten (fabrikanten, netwerk operators), controle hebben over die data, maar dat lossen we dan wel op. Ik noem een situatie waarin de grip van de huidige spelers wordt verminderd al pure winst.\n9292 Wedstrijd # Ik had na het hele gedoe rondom de Reisplanner Xtra van de NS al gehoord dat 9292 een wedstrijd aan het uitschrijven was (Emerce). De vergoeding voor de winnaar van de wedstrijd is op zijn best kinderachtig te noemen en deelnemers doen afstand van hun rechten op de applicatie 2.\nDeze ogenschijnlijk nadelige voorwaarden hebben 22 teams niet belet zich aan te melden, dus het is de vraag wat hieruit voort zal komen. 9292 steekt het in (zie ook het commentaar van de marketing manager) als een soort gebruikersonderzoek wat als invoer gebruikt zal worden om te komen tot een uiteindelijke applicatie.\nIk vraag me wel af waar gebruikersonderzoek in dit stadium nog voor nodig is en tot wat voor grote veranderingen dat zal leiden 3. We weten wel wat reizigers in het ov willen weten en die basics zouden nu al eerst heel welkom zijn. Itereer dan maar op daadwerkelijk gebruik verder.\nNiks dynamisch, gewoon borden met informatie. Die staan er nu niet.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nVolgens mij kan dat niet eens dermate, maar als ik de voorwaarden een beetje vrij lees zou je een applicatie die je indient tegelijkertijd ook open source kunnen publiceren.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nMensen willen weten hoe ze van A naar B komen en hoe lang ze op een bepaald punt moeten wachten op een vervoersmiddel. Zo simpel is het wél.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"April 15, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/openbaar-vervoer-update/","section":"Posts","summary":"Het is een tijdje wat stiller geweest rond openbaar vervoer. Hoog tijd voor een update.\n","title":"Openbaar Vervoer update","type":"posts"},{"content":"Afgelopen maandag niet naar de meubelboulevard geweest maar wel een andere traditionele Paasbezigheid volbracht. Net zoals Jesus stierf aan het kruis en weer opstond, ben ik tijdens de halve marathon van Utrecht figuurlijk gestorven waarna ik door een wonderbaarlijke opleving toch de finish wist te behalen op 2:22:36.\nStephan (van ons geliefde Sargasso) wist me onderweg nog op de foto te zetten. Hier zie ik er nog redelijk fris uit, dat was aan de andere kant van de vaart wel anders: De eerste keer dat ik zo\u0026rsquo;n afstand liep, ontzettend pijnlijk maar zeker niet de laatste keer.\n","date":"April 15, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/halfje-utrecht/","section":"Posts","summary":"Afgelopen maandag niet naar de meubelboulevard geweest maar wel een andere traditionele Paasbezigheid volbracht. Net zoals Jesus stierf aan het kruis en weer opstond, ben ik tijdens de halve marathon van Utrecht figuurlijk gestorven waarna ik door een wonderbaarlijke opleving toch de finish wist te behalen op 2:22:36.\n","title":"Halfje Utrecht","type":"posts"},{"content":"Sorry people. The Onion made me realize what I\u0026rsquo;ve subjected you guys to all this time:\nObama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are\n","date":"April 11, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/zombama/","section":"Posts","summary":"Sorry people. The Onion made me realize what I’ve subjected you guys to all this time:\n","title":"Zombama","type":"posts"},{"content":"I did a small survey with James of publicly available government data to see what the obvious targets would be for an interesting mashup. It\u0026rsquo;s an interesting but very limited landscape.\nOne set we found was the incident reports of Dutch first aid services which are published at P2000 and parsed by the site Alarmeringen.nl into nicely Google Mapped displays with RSS feeds and SMS alerts.\nWhat it didn\u0026rsquo;t have yet was a decent output to Twitter. So to prod things a bit I made twitter feeds for the four major cities in the Netherlands. Meet:\n@al_amsterdam @pk2amsterdam 1 @al_haaglanden @p2khaaglanden @al_rijnmond @p2krotterdam @al_utrecht @p2kutrecht I think it\u0026rsquo;s easiest to attribute the quote to Matt Jones who in this presentation noted that the best people on Twitter aren\u0026rsquo;t in fact people. I agree but here the Tweets represent the aggregations of groups of people: the incident and its cause, somebody noticing it and dialing dispatch and finally the fire fighters, paramedics or policemen moving to the scene 2.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s interesting imagining what has happened and where, but I don\u0026rsquo;t really see this feed changing people\u0026rsquo;s behaviour.\nIdeally we would achieve a greater granularity intersecting your location with the path of the dispatch, so when you see a police car whizz by, you\u0026rsquo;d get a tweet later telling you why it was dispatched and what the result was.\nUpdate: As Pascal points out in his comment, this data was not supposed to be public at all but is de facto public because of technical architecture decisions. It is clear that these services have not been thought out with an internet enabled world in mind.\nJoris points out a bit later that Remco van Zuijlen is piping these alerts straight from the air into twitter feeds on his own site 3.\nGiven that I was more interested in this as a proof of concept than to make it a long lasting durable service anyway, I\u0026rsquo;ll take down my twitter feeds after I\u0026rsquo;ve given its subscribees time to switch to Remco\u0026rsquo;s accounts.\nThis one unfortunately seems to have stalled a bit at the source. We\u0026rsquo;ll see when it comes back up.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nJames noted this could be interesting input for a Sim City style visualization.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nWhich is a lot faster and more elegant than my Twitterfeed from some other guy\u0026rsquo;s RSS.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"April 9, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/alert-dispatch-to-twitter/","section":"Posts","summary":"I did a small survey with James of publicly available government data to see what the obvious targets would be for an interesting mashup. It’s an interesting but very limited landscape.\n","title":"Alert Dispatch to Twitter","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik vernam al dat de NS op de afgelopen Mobile Monday probeerde hun nieuwe reisplanner te pitchen. Dat was afgaand op de reacties via Twitter geen doorslaand succes.\nZojuist op de gvenkdaily (1, 2, 3, 4) wat referenties naar verslaggeving over dit onderwerp en fragmentarisch de argumenten waarom de NS weigert hun gegevens open te gooien.\nIk schreef hier eerder al over en mensen vragen steeds aan mí­j waarom de NS de gegevens niet zou willen vrijgeven. Niemand snapt het en de meeste mensen vinden het onvoorstelbaar dat de NS puur uit eigenbelang de gegevens voor zich zou willen houden.\nIk kan wel wat argumenten verzinnen waarom dit zo is, maar de misinformatie en verwarring die de NS verspreidt over dit onderwerp maken het er niet helderder op. Ik probeer het een en ander te reconstrueren.\nDe NS geeft als argumenten voor het niet vrijgeven van de gegevens: ‘Beveiliging’, ‘Kwaliteitsbewaking’ en ‘Merk en identiteitsbewaking’ 1.\nBeveiliging # Zoals bij Emerce te lezen zegt de NS dat de toegang tot hun plangegevens buitengewoon beveiligd is en dat toegang hiertoe maanden zou kosten. Ze zouden in de tussentijd net zo goed zelf een iPhone applicatie kunnen maken.\nNu is het op zich niet in de eerste plaats ons probleem als de NS zichzelf in een hoek heeft geprogrammeerd met een buitengewoon inflexibele IT-infrastructuur. Het wordt nu op ons afgeschoven, maar zelfs dan het hoeft geen maanden te kosten om een machine-leesbare versie van het spoorboekje 2 ergens online te zetten.\nDaarbij zegt ze dat ze dan net zo goed zelf een iPhone-applicatie zouden kunnen maken. Ten eerste wordt dat niet gevraagd, die iPhone applicatie die komt er vanzelf wel. Ten tweede is het maar de vraag of de NS binnen enkele maanden een iPhone-applicatie zou kunnen produceren. De ervaring met Reisplanner Xtra spreekt niet in hun voordeel.\nKwaliteitsbewaking # Het argument over de kwaliteit moet ervoor zorgen dat de informatie overal hetzelfde is op de borden, de site etc. 3 Ik zie hier geen conflict met het vrijgeven van de informatie via een API, eigenlijk juist het tegendeel.\nAls de NS zo graag de kwaliteit van de informatie over haar treinen wil bewaken, dan zou ze ervoor zorgen dat ze een goede API neerzet waar iedereen die de gegevens nodig heeft er op één centraal punt bij kan. De huidige situatie waar iedereen zelf een manier verzint om het te scrapen introduceert juist risico\u0026rsquo;s en verdient niet de voorkeur.\nMerk \u0026amp; Identiteit # De NS wil haar merk en identiteit bewaken. Dat mag uiteraard.\nHet is alleen niet helemaal duidelijk waarom het bewaken van het merk van een monopolist ten koste moet gaan van de adequate informatievoorziening van treinreizigers en de innovatie op het gebied van reisinformatie in Nederland.\nNaast deze drie argumenten kunnen we er nog een paar bedenken:\nControle # De behoefte aan controle blijkt uit de quote: “Wie wil er nou geen garantie voor 500.000 bezoekers per dag?”\nDit lijkt op een wat echtere reden dan de drie daarboven. De NS kan het schijnbaar niet hebben dat iemand anders voordeel heeft van haar gegevens.\nNu haalt de NS site misschien 500k bezoekers omdat mensen nergens anders heen kunnen en willen ze dat behouden 4. Als de gegevens worden vrijgegeven krijgt niet iedereen een ‘garantie voor 500.000 bezoekers per dag’. Dat is nou juist het punt. Er ontstaat dan een ecosysteem van toepassingen en websites waar iedereen terecht kan bij die aanbieder die het beste aansluit bij haar wensen.\nDat de NS denkt dat ze in zo\u0026rsquo;n vrij ecosysteem relatief snel eruit ge-innoveerd zullen worden, dat is realistisch maar niet iets waar ze zich zorgen over zouden moeten maken.\nKosten # Verder wordt bij het opstellen van APIs altijd de kosten genoemd die ermee gemoeid zouden zijn.\nEr zijn kosten om de gegevens te verzamelen maar aangezien dat toch moet gebeuren kunnen we die buiten beschouwing laten.\nEr zijn kosten om de gegevens op de huidige sites (NS.nl, 9292ov.nl) toegankelijk te maken. Mensen kopen treinkaartjes en het lijkt me niet veelgevraagd dat ze dan kunnen zien wanneer hun trein gaat.\nEr zijn kosten om de gegevens te ontsluiten via een API. Het ontsluiten van de gegevens via een API heeft bijzonder grote voordelen voor alle partijen, dus ook voor de NS. Dat weegt meer dan tegen elkaar op.\nDat de NS ongevoelig is voor al die argumenten waaronder die dat het goed zou zijn voor de reizigers en het openbaar vervoer in Nederland is één ding. Een partij die daar niet ongevoelig voor zou moeten zijn is de overheid. Als de NS niet wil luisteren, moet de overheid gewoon instappen en het opleggen.\nStrategie # In ‘Unraveling the transit fabric’ schreef ik dat het vasthouden van de reisgegevens dé manier om langdurig controle te houden op je netwerk. Het alternatief is grenzeloze concurrentie en inwisselbaarheid van vervoersaanbieders, in het engels: commoditization. Commoditization is goed voor klanten, de nachtmerrie van elk bedrijf en iets waar de overheid op af zou moeten sturen.\nMis ik (tegen-)argumenten? Laat het weten in de comments. En als je het ermee eens bent, vertel het dan door en kaart het aan waar je kunt.\nEmerce citeert dit leterlijk.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nEen goede eerste stap.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nNog even daargelaten dat ik vertragingen eerder op Trein.app zie dan op de borden op het station.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nMisschien willen ze een portal op NS.nl zetten. Portals zijn zó vorige eeuw.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"April 1, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/een-soort-van-antwoord-van-de-ns/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik vernam al dat de NS op de afgelopen Mobile Monday probeerde hun nieuwe reisplanner te pitchen. Dat was afgaand op de reacties via Twitter geen doorslaand succes.\n","title":"Een soort van antwoord van de NS","type":"posts"},{"content":"Previous efforts of privatizing Dutch rail failed miserably. In 1999 Lovers Rail ran competing trains along a couple of Dutch tracks 1. I was just starting my studies in Delft and did a daily commute from Amsterdam where I was living back then 2, so I remember their service, though I never actually used it.\nSometimes when stuck on a station, because the NS had messed up again, it could actually have been useful to take a Lovers train from Haarlem to Amsterdam. In reality this never worked out. Nobody knew when those trains actually departed and where to buy tickets for them 3.\nThe privatization was stalled and the NS was granted a monopoly on the main rail system until 2015. Now if we want to be in good shape to turn another privatization attempt into a success by then or hopefully before, we had better get our digital infrastructure in order.\nSolution # I think two ingredients are now slowly getting into place to turn another privatization attempt of the railways into a success:\nFull dynamic and open transit data Seamless transit payment OV-chipkaart terminal CC picture by mooste\nNeither of these is fully there yet 4, but in a couple of years we may expect both deployments to mature significantly. In that future perfect you will always know which train will take you to your destination regardless of the operator who runs the service. Payment of that service should be as easy as the check-in, check-out system of the OV-chipkaart right now if not easier.\nRail services would then finally be completely commoditized 5 and by extension we could do the same to all of transit.\nBreaking it open # Rail is one thing, but the transit experience entails the door to door planning and execution of a trip of which rail is just one part. Data and payment are just as essential to a nationwide 6 transit infrastructure. Probably even more so because of the greater diversity of transit providers 7, many of which are not bound to fixed rail.\nFor my day to day transportation needs I want to get from A to B at a certain time for a certain price. A mobile device would know my location and when given my destination it would be able to show me a list of offers from which I could pick my preferred one. Some of the planners available do just this but because they are usually limited to a single operator, their offerings do not differ much.\nGoogle goes for a more modus agnostic integrated and modern view of the experience:\nFurther opening up and integration would benefit travellers enormously. Ideally we would have one planner for all transit options, which includes rail, (micro)bus, lightrail, ferry but ideally also taxicabs and private individuals willing to carpool 8. This would add options and level the playing field.\nWhat we would need # The following data dimensions would influence your choice of transportation option and would need to be offered to you by your planning tool of choice:\nTime: How fast will this get me somewhere? How long do I have to wait before it leaves? Or did it already leave? How many times do I need to change?\nMoney: How much does this trip cost me? How much does it cost me in terms of CO2? Is it offset? How much would it cost me (in time and money) if I\u0026rsquo;d taken my car instead?\nQuality: What is the quality of service offered? Are there different classes with different amenities? Is there WiFi on board? Do I get assistence getting on/off or with my luggage? These would probably be standardized per modus of transportation but the class separation is pretty ingrained and influences the cost.\nReviews: What do people think of this particular operator? In the case of standardized operators, you will usually know what you will get, but especially useful for modi where there is a great variety of operators performing services. Taxicabs would be a very nice target for community judgement.\nOf course you should be able to set your preferences as to which modi and operators to prefer and which to never take unless no other options are available. Complicated but also a very nice UX problem to solve.\nPlanning and Negotiation # Some extra functionality may also be interesting to incorporate in this dynamic transit fabric:\nPlanning: Submitting a tentative plan may be interesting for transit operators so that they can optimize their services ahead of time. Many commuters know when they will travel which route a year or so in advance sometimes. Marginal discounts may be offered to those who submit a plan and stick to it (penalties for those who deviate) 9. Publishing the statistics of trips requested and trips completed would show over- and undercapacity and give the various operators the chance to adjust their offerings.\nSubmitting a plan may involve a negotiation step: e.g. it will be cheaper if you walk to a certain place (stop) or the bus will swerve round to pick you up for a couple extra euros, which do you prefer?\nA plan would then need to be finalized, either at the point of getting on/off (and paying the fare amount) or ahead of time to reserve a (type of) seat in a vehicle or for remote locations to guarantee the fact that the vehicle will pass by your area at all.\nRenegotiation: Changes do happen, most impactful are those due to calamities: vehicle failure, track obstruction. Being able to flexibly catch these will vastly improve the transit experience 10. A good system would both inform transit operators so they can allocate extra resources where suitable and help travellers replan their journey in light of changed circumstances.\nIn a dynamic system with the planning functionality as described above in place, others\u0026rsquo; change of plans in the system may influence your journey but no more than a couple of minutes. What would happen when those changes propagate through the entire network?\nConclusion # If we could achieve the openness and added integration of more information and more transit providers described above we could make very satisfying complete transit experiences.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve made a mockup what such an application could look like:\nBeing able to compare and contrast various transit options would of course be fantastic, but that isn\u0026rsquo;t so far off anymore. For me the most promising idea is to provide the information and the incentives to enable the transit problem to be made transparent and to be crowd-sourced.\nAmong which Amsterdam — Haarlem, also the oldest Dutch railway connection.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nAnd where I will be living again in the near future if things work out.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nOf course you couldn\u0026rsquo;t buy tickets on board.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nFor a Dutch argument see a previous post.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nThis is assuming ProRail would be able to cope with the complexity of accomodating for all these operators.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nWe could also think about the transnational problem but let\u0026rsquo;s leave that for now.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nAnd the Netherlands has one of the finest transit meshes in the world. We would be stupid not to take advantage of that.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nJust think how disruptive this would be to the whole concept of transit.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nOf course this will completely cloud the pricing structure of transit. I\u0026rsquo;d be fine with it. It\u0026rsquo;s mostly voodoo to me anyway already (never really figured out the relation between strippen and zones).\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nThough people may not notice. Failure is annoying when it happens but quickly forgotten. A system which resolves not to fail may set itself up to impossibly high standards.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"March 30, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/unraveling-the-transit-fabric/","section":"Posts","summary":"Previous efforts of privatizing Dutch rail failed miserably. In 1999 Lovers Rail ran competing trains along a couple of Dutch tracks 1. I was just starting my studies in Delft and did a daily commute from Amsterdam where I was living back then 2, so I remember their service, though I never actually used it.\n","title":"Unraveling the Transit Fabric","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik was gisteren dus op Radio Online 1 (audio) waar ik een kritiek mocht uiten tegen de strategie van de NS van het niet vrijgeven van de vervoersgegevens.\nCorine van Drunen van de NS laat het na om in te gaan op de vragen die gesteld werden en maak zich er daarna van af door te verwijzen naar het feit dat de NS haar planmatige gegevens ter beschikking stelt aan 9292ov. 9292 is een gezamenlijke site van de vervoerders waar de gegevens in een bepaalde vorm worden ontsloten maar die niet een herbruikbare toegang tot vervoersgegevens biedt. Daarnaast zou het handig zijn om de dynamische reisgegevens (de actuele posities van vervoersmiddelen) te hebben maar in eerste instantie zouden we al blij zijn met de planmatige gegevens.\nDe tijd in de uitzending was te kort om tot de crux van het argument te komen en om de halve waarheden waar de NS zich ermee van afmaakt te weerspreken 2, dus daarom schrijf ik hieronder het geheel uit. Misschien handig als je vervoerders tegenkomt en je wilt ze overtuigen van het belang van open reisgegevens.\nOpen reisinformatie voor iedereen # Ik ben webontwikkelaar en ik (en velen met mij) erger me al jaren aan de geslotenheid van de reisgegevens in Nederland. Wanneer we mensen erop aanspreken dan worden we meestal afgeserveerd met vage uitvluchten en halve waarheden. Ik vind dat onacceptabel en ik hoop dat meer mensen met me dat vinden en zich willen uitspreken.\nOpenbaar vervoer is een essentiele publieke dienst die de inrichting van onze leefomgeving kwalitatief beïnvloedt 3. Ik denk dat het belangrijk is dat de reisgegevens van het openbaar vervoer in Nederland vrij te gebruiken zijn en dat de huidige gesloten monopolistische situatie slecht en schadelijk zijn voor het innovatie- en leefklimaat in Nederland.\nAanleiding voor dit item was de nieuwe reisplanner “Reisplanner Extra” die de NS heeft laten ontwikkelen. Dit is een een mobiele Java-applicatie waarmee je de actuele reisgegevens op je mobiele telefoon kan opvragen. Ik heb de Reisplanner Extra niet geprobeerd omdat deze niet werkt op mijn iPhone 4 en dat is meteen ook het probleem.\nProbleem: De NS kan niet voor elk platform en voor elk denkbaar gebruiksdoel toepassingen aanbieden.\nDit is ten eerste al ondoenlijk omdat de hoeveelheid tijd en geld die het de NS kost om één toepassing te maken redelijk groot zijn. Het schijnt dat de ontwikkeling van de Reisplanner Extra een jaar heeft gekost en ik wil niet eens weten hoeveel geld ermee gemoeid is geweest. Hierdoor kan de NS alleen maar voldoen aan de wensen van de grootst mogelijke groepen gebruikers. En dan nog: als het een jaar duurt voor we ook een iPhone (en Windows CE, Blackberry, Palm Pre etc.) versie mogen verwachten dan schiet het niet echt op.\nDaarnaast zijn er meer gebruiksdoelen dan we op dit moment ook maar kunnen beginnen te verzinnen. Misschien wil je op je eigen website een reis kunnen plannen of in iGoogle, of misschien wil je op je desktop een Gadget met daarop de volgende 5 treinen die vertrekken vanaf jouw station, misschien wil je een deel van het schema projecteren op een scherm in de publieke ruimte of misschien wil je de planner doorlichten om te zoeken naar scheve verhoudingen 5.\nIk verzin deze gebruiksdoelen net zelf in vijf minuten maar de hoeveelheid creativiteit die mensen hierop los kunnen laten als de gegevens vrij zijn is potentieel gigantisch. De meeste toepassingen zullen niet de moeite waard zijn voor de NS om te bouwen, maar als een kleine groep mensen het zinnig vindt en het zelf wil doen, waarom niet?\nOplossing: Het vrijgeven van de reisgegevens (in eerste instantie planmatig maar daarna ook dynamisch) in een herbruikbaar helder formaat onder redelijke en vrije voorwaarden. En als problemen dat in de weg staan, duidelijk maken welke problemen dat zijn en hoe we kunnen samenwerken om deze op te lossen.\nHet is nu al mogelijk om toepassingen te bouwen op de site van de NS (zie Trein.app) maar de moeite die je moet doen is te hoog en de onderhoudbaarheid is laag. Er is op dit moment teveel toewijding nodig om applicaties te bouwen.\nHet vrijgeven van de gegevens zou de barrière om iets te maken bijzonder verlagen. Ik ken een hele groep mobiele ontwikkelaars die zitten te springen om deze gegevens 6 en er zijn nog veel meer mensen die nog niet eens weten wat voor coole dingen ze zouden kunnen doen.\nVaak noemen de vervoerders het kosten-argument waar het de reisgegevens betreft. Ze spreken ook vaak hun teleurstelling uit toen bleek dat reizigers niet bereid waren te betalen voor vervoersinformatie toen ze wat initiatieven lanceerden op 9292ov. Nu is dat niet zo gek. Reizigers betalen al voor hun kaartje 7 en ze zouden wel gek zijn als de dan ook nog eens gaan betalen om te weten waar en wanneer hun vervoersmiddel vertrekt. In elke redelijk opvatting hoort reisinformatie een integrale bij een reis horende dienst te zijn.\nHet vrijgeven van vervoersinformatie is goed zijn voor iedereen.\nVoor ontwikkelaars, omdat ze makkelijker toepassingen kunnen ontwikkelen en daar bekendheid en/of geld mee kunnen verdienen. De NS zou het niet erg moeten vinden als derde partijen met hun gegevens geld verdienen op bijvoorbeeld de App Store. Het maken van een goede applicatie en het onderhouden ervan kosten tijd en moeite waar best een serieuze financiele vergoeding tegenover mag staan.\nVoor gebruikers, omdat ze potentieel makkelijker en op meer manieren toegang kunnen krijgen tot vervoersinformatie dan dat nu het geval is.\nVoor de NS, omdat ze zonder veel extra moeite veel meer mensen kunnen bedienen van vervoersinformatie waardoor de reiservaring verbetert en ze meer kaartjes verkopen en meer treinreizigers behouden.\nIn de huidige situatie waarin de NS de vervoersgegevens voor zichzelf houdt verliest iedereen 8. Kunnen we daar geen verandering in brengen?\nIk mocht het van tevoren niet echt Twitteren wat ik toch een beetje gek vind.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nGeef me een half uur met één van die mensen…\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nZie ook The Streets blog.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nDe iPhone heeft geen Java Runtime Environment en het ziet er niet naar uit dat deze in de nabije toekomst erop zal komen.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nWaarom stoppen intercity\u0026rsquo;s hier en niet daar? Wat heeft dat voor gevolgen voor de reistijden? En meer van dat soort vragen.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nWe keken ook bijvoorbeeld naar Google Transit waar ze met plezier one reisgegevens op een gebruiksvriendelijke manier zouden ontsluiten. Als je kijkt op hun dekkingskaart zie je dat er Noord-Afrikaanse landen zijn die op ons voorlopen en dat wij samen met Oost-Europa één van de weinigen in Europa zijn die nog geen dekking hebben.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nEn alle vervoerders zijn toch gesubsidieerd door de overheid? Dat zou betekenen dat we al dubbel betalen (belastingen én kaartjes) aan de vervoerders en ze nog meer geld willen zien.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nAls ik dan toch in de toekomst moet kijken dan weet ik zeker dat over 10 jaar of desnoods over 50 jaar deze gegevens wél vrij zullen zijn. Waarom dan nog wachten en in de tussentijd onze innovatiepositie laten verslechteren en iedereen die met openbaar vervoer te maken heeft in Nederland benadelen?\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"March 28, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/op-radio-online-tegen-de-ns/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik was gisteren dus op Radio Online 1 (audio) waar ik een kritiek mocht uiten tegen de strategie van de NS van het niet vrijgeven van de vervoersgegevens.\n","title":"Op Radio Online tegen de NS","type":"posts"},{"content":"Here\u0026rsquo;s a list of some of my favorite things from SxSW:\nKicking it with the Wakoopa guys who I shared a room with. Nice to hang around with a Dutch crew and some crazy stuff happening in the nights.\nIt was very interesting to see how people would behave in an environment 1 with adequate bandwidth and Twitter saturation. As noted in tweets the immediacy of social interaction with your social subset, the people aimlessly wandering the corridors absorbed by their mobile displays and the HUGE backchannel were just symptoms of more to come. For us Europeans attending an event such as this without a data plan is somewhat annoying 2. After leaving the convention center, war walking will only get you so far. Also the realization that you don\u0026rsquo;t need a laptop or a DSLR (thanks Derek!) to enjoy a conference was a golden one. An iPhone, a charger and a small notebook will do just fine and won\u0026rsquo;t wear you down as much. Most of the time you\u0026rsquo;ll be busy talking to people at parties, walking around or eating, which does not require you to lug a complete digital office with you.\nSteven Berlin Johnson\u0026rsquo;s talk on the Ecosystem of News (text) should not be missed. He painted a picture how the developments which look so bad for newspapers are actually good for news and journalism as a whole leading to a much richer and much more diverse ecosystem.\nI almost missed the joint session by Jon Gruber and Merlin Mann but a quick tweet got me in the room shortly after it\u0026rsquo;d started. These are my favorite two bloggers and having them speak on the old theme of how to be yourself and do cool stuff was a lot of fun even if they\u0026rsquo;re both dicks (by their own admission).\nThe food all around Austin (more on it later) was great. I caught some burgers with the guys from Mangrove at Daddy\u0026rsquo;s which is a combined sports bar / burger joint and it was as awesome as a typical American experience can be.\nThe New Think for Old Publishers panel was odd in that the publishers did not do any of the new thinking but sollicited the panel for ways to go forward with their industry. Fortunately it had Clay Shirky on who\u0026rsquo;s usually right about stuff. I got to ask a question to the panel (on a Spotify-like service for books more on which later) which was well received by the audience and by Mr. Shirky (which was pretty damn cool!). They handed out copies of “Here Comes Everybody” which I hadn\u0026rsquo;t bought yet for som reason or other. I started reading it in the plane and it is as good as everybody says it is. Compulsory reading for everybody who thinks they\u0026rsquo;re doing stuff on the internet.\nThe Fray Cafe 9 at the Red Eyed Fly was a very cool podium live speaking event where some awesome speakers told their true stories 3. I don\u0026rsquo;t know exactly where or when the recording will become available but definitely recommended.\nOf the parties around the event the Facebook party was one of the best. The two DJs they had spinning were very good and got the dance floor filled up and moving. Nice after that was drinking a bottle of vodka at our afterparty in the Hilton lobby.\nThere also was a Django 4 lunch which is usually nice but it was extra interesting to meetup with a couple of guys from Sunlight Labs who are pioneering a lot of very interesting open government stuff in the USA.\nHearing Bruce Sterling talk makes his rambling essays a lot more bearable. He gave a very unadulterated piece of his techno-nostalgic cynical mind with some interesting perspectives on the future.\nThe Designing Change in America talk with the design team who did the Obama campaign was fantastic with a lot of interesting stories from inside the campaign and its break neck pace.\nAt the SxSWi closing party there was a mechanical bull and not being from America I of course could not resist the chance of riding it (movie). As they say, when in Texas…\nNo visit to Texas would be complete without some Tex Mex. Being fed up with the conference scene offerings I caught a cab and headed to Polvo\u0026rsquo;s on South 1st. I\u0026rsquo;d heard a lot of good things about it and it turned out to be a very nice place for Mexican food. I don\u0026rsquo;t get why people at SxSWi wait in line for the places near the convention center instead of rounding up some people and catching a cab. On the last day I took the Wakoopa crew out for some good Tacos at Torchy\u0026rsquo;s Tacos on a recommendation from Nikhil of Turn2Live. I love the abundant availability of Mexican food in this part of America and it always makes leaving a painful experience.\nThe last night we were in Austin I magically found a group of Dutchies and we walked up 6th and Red River a bit randomly sampling bands in the cafes. The music festival hadn\u0026rsquo;t really started yet but still there were a lot of very cool bands (punk / speedrock) playing. The next day walking a bit along 6th during noon they were just building up and it already was really busy. Maybe next year I\u0026rsquo;ll stay a couple of extra days to see more bands.\nAnd of course all the other people I met who are too numerous to list here. That is the real charm of the conference, the number of people I\u0026rsquo;ve just met randomly because they\u0026rsquo;re all there, has been staggering and is the real value of this event.\nThe convention center was big enough to be an environment unto itself.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nWasn\u0026rsquo;t there a cheap international data roaming plan somewhere?\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nI hear there\u0026rsquo;s something similar in Amsterdam\u0026rsquo;s Toomler but can\u0026rsquo;t find anything really.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nStill my web framework of choice.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"March 20, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/sxswi-conference-highlights/","section":"Posts","summary":"Here’s a list of some of my favorite things from SxSW:\n","title":"SxSWi Conference Highlights","type":"posts"},{"content":"Een redelijk zachte review van de nieuwe NS-applicatie op Marketingfacts (ook Tweakers).\nReisinformatie ‘nieuwe stijl’ is ook maar een woord om te verhullen dat de manier van informatie aanbieden die de NS hanteert jaren achterloopt en dat ze zelfs actief mensen die zelf dit niveau proberen op te schroeven zoals Trein.app het verhinderen.\nDe reis app die door de NS uitgebracht is werkt op Java wat mobiel niet het handigste platform is en waar ook niet de interessantste gebruikers zich bevinden. Versies voor iPhone en anderen schijnen nog te komen, maar deze versie heeft al een jaar op zich laten wachten, dus wanneer is erg onduidelijk.\nWat hadden ze dan moeten doen? # Het wil de NS en de andere vervoersaanbieders in Nederland niet aan hun hoofd dat hun core business het vervoeren van mensen is en dat het essentieel is dat de informatie over hun vervoersmiddelen zo wijd en vrij mogelijk beschikbaar is.\nMensen willen waarschijnlijk op ontzettend veel verschillende manieren vervoersinformatie tot zich nemen. Teveel om aan één aanbieder over te laten. Er zijn genoeg mensen die iets kunnen maken, maar het niet makkelijk beschikbaar zijn van de gegevens maakt het te kostbaar en ingewikkeld om aan de slag te gaan.\nAls de NS de actuele treintijden en routes vrij zou geven via een API dan zouden de kosten voor andere ontwikkelaars om ermee aan de slag te gaan sterk worden teruggebracht en denk ik dat er een bloei aan interessante applicaties zou ontstaan. In zo\u0026rsquo;n situatie zouden er wel afspraken gemaakt moeten worden gemaakt in een gebruiksovereenkomst, maar de hoeveelheid controle die de NS op dit moment wil uitoefenen is onrealistisch en contra-productief 1.\nReisinformatie # 9292ov heeft pas iets slimmer maar nog steeds bijzonder kortzichtig een wedstrijd uitgeschreven waar studenten een reisapplicatie kunnen maken. Deelnemers doen wel afstand van al hun rechten (!) 2 en er is hier ook geen publieke databron beschikbaar.\nDe noodzaak voor publieke data heb ik hierboven al beschreven en een volwassen reisapplicatie vereist een toegewijd team dat eraan blijft werken, niet een situatie waar deze overgedragen wordt aan een andere partij die de capaciteiten mist (want waarom anders die wedstrijd uitgeschreven?).\nUsability # Uit de review van Raimo maak ik op dat deze applicatie ook weer nodeloos ingewikkeld is. Waar Trein.app ook de mist in gaat is het dynamisch reisplannen. In veel gevallen is mijn reis nogal flexibel: ik wil op een gegeven moment \u0026rsquo;s avonds weer terug naar Delft maar ik weet niet wanneer. Ik weet dus waar ik heen wil en de applicatie weet al waar ik ben en kan beschikken over een actueel reisschema.\nDe enige vraag die er voor een gebruiker dan toe zou moeten doen als je de applicatie opstart is: “Waar wil je naar toe?”daarna moet de applicatie me laten zien wat mijn opties zijn 3. Dit is het simpelste geval wat opgelost moet worden, de rest is extra.\nUpdate: Ik was net op Radio Online waar ik beknopt pleitte voor het vrijgeven van de vervoersgegevens. In het voorbereidende gesprek met Tonie vonden we het al frappant dat bijvoorbeeld Tunesië en Egypte betere Google Transit dekking hebben dan Nederland.\nDit doet denken aan de wanhopige pogingen van de Nederlandse internetaanbieders om niet te worden gedegradeerd tot inwisselbare data-aanbieders. De situatie bij de NS is nu nog anders aangezien de NS op het traject monopolist is en mensen niet snel iets anders zullen nemen. Punt is wel dat transparante manieren van informatie (data) en betaling (ov-chipknip) essentiele voorwaarden zijn voor concurrentie op het spoor (en eigenlijk ook de reden waren dat de vorige poging mislukte).\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nEn krijgen een schijntje betaald. Capabele freelancers schijnen inderdaad kostbaar te zijn.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nDit is simpel taakgericht ontwerp in plaats van uit te gaan welke gegevens er al bestaan.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"March 19, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/de-ns-spant-het-paard-achter-de-trein/","section":"Posts","summary":"Een redelijk zachte review van de nieuwe NS-applicatie op Marketingfacts (ook Tweakers).\n","title":"De NS spant het paard achter de trein","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik ben even een weekje naar Austin voor een woestijn-retraite met vakgenoten.\nUpdate: SxSW is met gemak één van de beste algemene events waar ik geweest ben. De hoeveelheid en in sommige gevallen kwaliteit van de sessies dragen daaraan bij, maar nog veel belangrijker is de concentratie van mensen die hier aanwezig is. Er is een absurde hoge concentratie hier van mensen die werken in ons vakgebied, dit maakt spontane en geplande ontmoetingen erg waarschijnlijk en is de voornaamste reden om hierheen te komen (het is toch niet mogelijk om alle sessies te zien en ze worden ook opgenomen en binnenkort online gezet). Absolute aanrader dus als je Engels kunt en zelfredzaam bent. We zijn nu al met een recordaantal Nederlanders hier maar ik denk dat dat aantal nog een paar keer moet verdubbelen.\n","date":"March 12, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/away-from-office/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik ben even een weekje naar Austin voor een woestijn-retraite met vakgenoten.\n","title":"Away from office","type":"posts"},{"content":"Net in de sneak de Nederlandse productie Bollywood Hero gezien. Dat er een hausse aan Bollywood films zou volgen op het succes van Slumdog Millionaire stond vast, maar dit is wel erg rap.\nHet verhaal gaat over een Nederlandse jongen die een rol krijgt (als Engelsman schijnbaar) in een Bollywood film. Hij is erg beschermd opgevoed. Geconfronteerd met de schrijnende ongelijkheid in Mumbai trekt hij het niet meer. Hij kan zich niet verzoenen met de andersheid van de cultuur en hij verliest zichzelf 1 waarna hij ten onder gaat.\nHet verhaal is een interessant gegeven al ligt de keuze om hulpbehoevende mensen letterlijk in zijn 8mm camera te visualiseren met kleurtjes er een beetje dik bovenop. Het zorgt wel voor een speels effect in een mooie cinematografie. Verder zijn er drie soorten film (film, 8mm en handycam) waarop geschoten is met voor elke soort een eigen functie.\nDe film is veelbelovend maar breekt voor mij in de tweede helft en wordt dan ronduit tenenkrommend. Het ligt vooral aan het te simplistische script. Het is natuurlijk niet al te gemakkelijk om op een geloofwaardige manier een pathetische, cultureel ongevoelige kakker met een superman-complex neer te zetten maar als het script dan ook geen enkele recht doet aan de complexiteit van de situatie en alles gladstrijkt is het slecht te harden.\nHet is geen slechte film; goede productiewaarden en zeker mooi 2, maar ik denk dat er meer in had gezeten. In ieder geval is het een betere film dan Slumdog Millionaire 3.\nEen beetje vergelijkbaar met de situatie in Vinyan een tijdje geleden ook in de sneak.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nDaarnaast schijnen de meeste mensen het fijn te vinden als alles wordt voorgekauwd, dus voor een bepaalde doelgroep is het vast een topfilm.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nMaar dat is dan ook weer niet zo heel moeilijk.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"March 9, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/held-in-bollywood/","section":"Posts","summary":"Net in de sneak de Nederlandse productie Bollywood Hero gezien. Dat er een hausse aan Bollywood films zou volgen op het succes van Slumdog Millionaire stond vast, maar dit is wel erg rap.\n","title":"Held in Bollywood","type":"posts"},{"content":"Twee dingen die Stewart wel vaker zegt over de humor van the Daily Show is dat je dit soort dingen niet kunt verzinnen en dat de gebeurtenissen vaak op het tragische af zijn en de enige manier om eromheen te komen is vaak om erom te lachen.\nJammer dat onze versie van the Daily Show geflopt is. De satires die op de Nederlandse tv te zien zijn halen dezelfde scherpte niet. Kijk bijvoorbeeld dit stuk. Waar zitten de grappen? Zitten er dingen in die niet waar zijn?\nThe Daily Show With Jon Stewart M - Th 11p / 10c\nCNBC Gives Financial Advice\nDaily Show Full Episodes\nImportant Things With Demetri Martin\nPolitical Humor\nJoke of the Day\n“It\u0026rsquo;s not rocket science, home owners, apparently it\u0026rsquo;s alchemy.”\nNiet alleen de complete financiele sector van de quants tot de directeuren van de banken hebben zich ontpopt tot charlatans 1 maar de zogenaamde onafhankelijke journalistiek die ons op de hoogte had moeten houden, die goed ingelezen en kritisch had moeten zijn heeft ook zitten slapen.\nRaar toch dan dat een ‘fake news’-comedyprogramma betrouwbaarder en eerlijker is dan het echte nieuws.\nBehalve de Rabobank; bewijs voor het feit dat een bank die goed bestuurd wordt wel winst móet maken.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"March 6, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/hofnar-in-crisis/","section":"Posts","summary":"Twee dingen die Stewart wel vaker zegt over de humor van the Daily Show is dat je dit soort dingen niet kunt verzinnen en dat de gebeurtenissen vaak op het tragische af zijn en de enige manier om eromheen te komen is vaak om erom te lachen.\n","title":"Hofnar in tijden van crisis","type":"posts"},{"content":"Zoals ik al zei zou ik aanwezig zijn bij de tweede editie van This Happened Utrecht. Het was weer een erg geslaagde avond met interessante presentaties.\nHieronder een verslag van de vragen (en antwoorden) na elke presentatie op This Happened Utrecht #2 1. De teksten volgen vrij nauwkeurig wat er gezegd is maar zijn zeker niet letterlijk. Als je het ergens niet mee eens bent of je er niet in herkent, laat dan een commentaar achter.\nSanne Kistemaker — Piece of Family # Sanne Kistemaker van Muzus vertelde over hun project Piece of Family dat ouderen in staat stelt om de communicatie-kloof met hun kleinkinderen te overbruggen en in directer contact te staan met hun familie.\nMarc Fonteijn: Wat heb je als grootste uitdaging gezien? Wat zou je anders gedaan hebben? De grootste uitdaging is steeds naar je doelgroep toe te gaan. Het is veel makkelijker om achter je bureau zitten te ontwerpen en te Googlen. Elke keer die stap zetten om naar oma toe te gaan kost veel tijd want je moet er de hele middag zitten en het ‘voelt een beetje als een verplichting’.\nHad ook liever het prototype meer getest en daar meer tijd in gestopt.\nBas Bakker: Je hebt het gemaakt voor deze vergrijzing maar de vergrijzingsgolf die eraan komt die kan al met een computer werken. Het is een tijdelijk product en ook echt voor die oudere ouderen. Dat is echt een uitdaging om daar iets voor te maken.\nGaat Vodafone het op de markt zetten? Er is geen patent. Er was een fabrikant die het zou doen maar dat is niks geworden. Niet duidelijk wat de toepassing gaat worden.\nYohan Creemers: Je hebt twee families gebruikt. Als de familie uit de Haagse Schilderswijk was gekomen, had je dan een ander product gehad? Wie je spreekt beïnvloedt het, een andere ontwerper had misschien ook tot een ander resultaat geleid. Het is een probleem waar veel mensen zich in herkennen. Nadat ze een prijs hadden gewonnen waren er veel oma\u0026rsquo;s die het terplekke wilden kopen.\nWaarom codesignen met twee participanten, waarom niet met 5? Krijg je dan geen betere resultaten? Het kan wel iets bijdragen maar op die schaal is het misschien handiger om kwantitatieve data te gebruiken voor de richting en kwalitatief voor de uitwerking. Je hoort in de kwalitatieve fase veel hetzelfde dus dan zou je ook veel overlap hebben.\nHeb je het technisch helemaal uitgewerkt van het scannen tot het doorsturen naar de tv? Alles was draadloos wat belangrijk was omdat er bijna een oma gestruikeld was. Er zit een laptop in en die laptop is verbonden met de tv. Het was trial and error maar het werkte wel.\nVictoria Donkersloot: Wat is jouw definitie van co-creatie? Niet om de gebruiker zelf dingen te laten creëren maar om ze te laten reflecteren op jouw ontwerpen. Dat is waar de ontwerper voor is en dan met ze door te associeren. Het scannen en de knop waren een lastig gegeven. Dat is digitaal en lastig te bevatten voor ouderen. Samen kom je er dan achter wat werkt. Wat betreft de knop bleek de Senseo al bekende semantiek te leveren.\nNiels Keetels — Softbody # Niels Keetels vertelde over de ontwikkeling van zijn game Softbody.\nBastiaan Terhorst: Jullie hebben methoden van kinderen geburikt om het spel te maken maar had het ook effect voor degenen voor wie jullie het spel maakten? Ze wilden weten of ze de fascinatie van kinderen konden gebruiken en of dat ook werkt bij onze generatie. Het was moeilijk te valideren maar het leek niet echt op wat die kinderen aan het doen waren. Op de HKU vroegen mensen al snel om een soort doel.\nPeter Boersma: Hoe bepaal je of de game succesvol/goed genoeg is? Als mensen vragen om een doel, dan is er geen doel. Ik hoop niet dat het antwoord is: “hoe lang de mensen het spel speelden”. De intentie was niet om een spel te maken wat extreem boeiend was, maar een research case. Uitgaan van spel en gestructureerde elementen toevoegen en kijken of het leuk wordt. Maar het is waarschijnlijk eerder leuk voor mensen in de experimentele game scene.\nRonald Mannak: Je beschreef een incrementeel development proces met kleine stapjes tot het einde. Waarom zulke kleine stapjes? Er is twee maanden aan de game gewerkt, daarvoor alleen theoretisch. Er waren niet zoveel momenten om het spel te laten testen, teveel bezig gehouden met de kleine dingetjes en focus op het volgende prototype. Op een gegeven moment hadden we alleen maar een balletje dat door een level rolt, zonder levels, graphics etc. Ronald Mannak: Hoe zou je het veranderen? Minder prototypen en beter projectmanagement inzetten om het overzicht te houden.\nIanus Keller: Bij de observaties bij de school had je waanzinnige foto\u0026rsquo;s. Hoe belangrijk waren die observaties? Zaten er grote inzichten in? Ja, grote inzichten. Als kinderen om je heen aan het rennen zijn kun je ze vragen wat ze aan het doen zijn, maar ze kunnen het niet vertellen. Ze zijn heel geconcentreerd aan het spelen.\nWaarom hebben jullie gekozen voor de kleuterleeftijd? Dit was meer een crèche waar ze niets anders doen dan rondrennen en je kunt zien hoe ze zelf hun spel construeren. Op een basisschool is er meer structuur via spelletjes van de juf.\nMarc Fonteijn: Vraag aan Kars: Je zei dat dit het beste project van toen was. Kun je dat onderbouwen? Kars Alfrink: Het is een research object wat toch op zichzelf staat. Vaak heb je een lezing van 10 minuten nodig om het te kunnen spelen. Hierbij kon je zitten en je was los. Verder ziet het er geweldig uit en heeft het een hele ander esthetiek dan je normaal tegenkomt in de gameswereld.\nSam Warnaars: Wat had je gedaan als je op het laatst een maand extra had gekregen? Meer werk en tijd in het level design gestopt en de end state is niet zo goed. Hadden dat dan meer kunnen testen en meer aandacht aan besteden om dat meer compelling te maken.\nTjeerd IJtsma: Jullie hadden een research question en het spel is onderdeel van een research project. Was is heht antwoord op de vraag. Heb je hem proberen te beantwoorden? Felix Boatsch heeft de vraag beantwoord in zijn thesis (“Paidia and Ludus”) die te downloaden is.\nIrene van Peer - Mahlangu Hand-washer # Irene van Peer vertelde over de handenwasser die ze hadden bedacht in antwoord op lokale behoeften in Afrika.\nRonald Mannak: Je zei dat er veel projecten uit het Westen niet lukken. Hoe zou jouw project door Afrika verspreid kunnen worden? Het was tien jaar geleden maar er is nu weer hernieuwde interesse bij een handenwascongres en reacties uit India. Ronald Mannak: Is het verspreid door Afrika? We hebben iets achtergelaten maar daarna niet gevolgd hoe ver het verspreid is en hoe goed het opgepakt is. Ze zou graag teruggaan om het te zien. Dit is een betere manier van helpen door iets terug te geven aan de mensen. Andere projecten worden te veel en te lang binnenskamers ontwikkeld en dan ineens daar top-down neergezet met weinig contact.\nHoe kun je zorgen dat het verspreid wordt? Via onderwijs, de tekening verspreiden. Er is een basisgezondheidszorg, die je zou kunnen gebruiken om de tekening te verspreiden zodat ze het zelf kunnen maken. Een reactie uit Amerika om allemaal flessen te gaan verzamelen en ze daarheen te brengen is nu juist niet de bedoeling. Zou je met het oog op de orale cultuur niet een toneelstuk en verhalen kunnen gebruiken om de kennis te verspreiden? Marinka Copier: Kun je iets meer vertellen over het project waar het uit is voortgekomen? ICSID organiseert nog steeds uitwisselingen van industrieel ontwerpers met het doel om ter plekke te proberen bij te dragen en ontwerpers internationaal maar ook lokaal kennis uit te laten wisselen.\nSanne Kistemaker: Je zegt dat veel goedbedoelde projecten niet aankomen. Hoe werden jullie ontvangen? Ook met argwaan? Het was opgezet vanuit Zuid-Afrika en er werd een goede gelegenheid geboden om met de mensen in discussie te gaan en je oren de kost te geven. We hebben hetzelfde gedaan wat je zou doen als je een project in Nederland doet, zorgen dat je je startpunt en je referenties samen bouwt en van daaruit stappen maken.\nKristian Esser: Kwam je oplossingen tegen die zij hadden gemaakt waarvan je dacht dit is briljant en dit had ik nooit bedacht? Dat badkamertje op de presentatie was briljant. En anderhalf jaar geleden zag ze een mooie oplossing voor handenwassen bij een latrine.\nNaomi Schiphorst en Mieke Vullings - MIMOA # Naomi Schiphorst en Mieke Vullings allebei architecten vertellen over de beweegredenen achter hun sociale architectuurgids MIMOA.\nWat zijn de overeenkomsten tussen een interactieontwerper en een architect? Een interactieontwerper doet grotendeels hetzelfde als een architect. Je gaat denken in een programma van eisen en wat gebruikers meer zouden willen doen dan wat er in dat programma van eisen staat. Het idee om een agenda op te nemen was compleet onrealistisch. Dus toen gefocused op wat er nodig was en de communicatie met de techniek.\nJeroen Coumans: Hoe meten jullie het succes van jullie website? Dat kunnen we zien aan verschillende dingen. Google Analytics met waar gebruikers vandaan komen en of er een stijgende lijn in zit. Hoeveel projecten er worden toegevoegd, welke dagen de drukste dagen zijn (toch vaak onder de baas zijn tijd). We hebben een inschatting gemaakt van hoeveel gebruikers er van zo\u0026rsquo;n dienst gebruik zouden maken en hebben die verwachting overtroffen.\nKristian Esser: Jullie hebben te maken met twee totaal verschillende werelden wat betreft scope en geld, worden jullie niet helemaal gek van het verschil? We zijn het erover eens dat we architecten zijn. Vanaf het begin al vragen mensen wanneer ze de overstap willen maken naar het ene of het andere, maar ze zijn er zelf niet mee bezig. Ze blijven het doen zolang de combinatie houdbaar is. Architectuur is heel traag en op het web gaat het sneller en heb je sneller resultaat.\nJasper Koning: Hebben jullie ueberhaupt iets aan marketing gedaan buiten vrienden en kennissen? We hadden geen budget dus we waren creatiever. We hadden een goed getimede lancering met een feestje en daarnaast hebben we een lijst van weblogs gespammed dat er een geweldige website was en meer van dat soort truucs.\nAldo Hoeben; Jullie zijn met de dienst begonnen omdat jullie hem nodig hadden en jullie gebruiken hem ook neem ik aan. Op een gegeven moment hebben jullie besloten om er geld aan te verdienen, verandert dat dingen? Ze zeiden nog tegen elkaar: ‘We moeten wel onthouden waarom we het doen en we hoeven er geen geld mee te verdienen.’ Maar dingen zoals ontwikkeling en hosting kosten wel geld en dat zelfstandig kunnen onderhouden is goed voor je geloofwaardigheid. Nadat ze een prijs hadden gewonnen hebben ze een business plan geschreven en ander mensen met sites leren kennen om ervaringen uit te wisselen. Daarnaast zijn ze nu bezig een plan uit te werken hoe je geld kunt verdienen door middel van sociaal entrepeneurship. Het doel is niet om hier rijk mee te worden maar dat het blijft bestaan en groeien.\nGebruiken jullie het ook zelf? Ja, net nog een weekendje naar Milaan geweest. Bij de projecten zitten pareltjes die je anders zelf niet gevonden had. Dingen in kleine dorpjes waardoor je verbaasd bent dat er zulke mooie projecten op staan.\nIanus Keller: De tone of voice is heel leuk valt me op, jullie zijn allebei gezellig en dat spreekt ook uit de site. Niels Keetels: Hebben jullie ook een soort contentfiltering of gaat elk gebouw er zomaar op? Voor iets toegevoegd wordt, wordt gekeken of de informatie compleet is. Er wordt niet beoordeeld of iets mooi is of niet, dingen die mensen niet mooi vinden zakken vanzelf weg. De belangrijkste voorwaarden zijn dat de achitect bekend moet zijn en dat het zichtbaar moet zijn vanaf de straat.\nVoor inhoudelijke verslagen van de avond en de sessies zelf kun je beter terecht bij Iskander of Linda.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"February 27, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/this-happened-utrecht-2-qa/","section":"Posts","summary":"Zoals ik al zei zou ik aanwezig zijn bij de tweede editie van This Happened Utrecht. Het was weer een erg geslaagde avond met interessante presentaties.\n","title":"This Happened Utrecht #2 - Q\u0026A","type":"posts"},{"content":"Na heel veel gedoe en proberen 1 met verschillende video-codecs heb ik eindelijk de presentatie van Siert vorige week in een formaat waarmee ik hem ook online kon zetten. Ik ben nog niet heel erg te spreken over de kwaliteit maar dit is heel acceptabel voor een filmpje van drie kwartier.\nKijk de video hieronder, Siert vertelt erg ontspannen en bevlogen en de principes van FabLab schijnen nog erg nieuw te zijn voor mensen in Nederland.\nSiert Protospace Lezing from Alper Çugun on Vimeo.\nDe meeste mensen die ik het vertel zijn verbaasd dat ze gewoon naar Protospace kunnen en daar gratis aan de slag kunnen. Dat kan dus en het is ook nog eens erg leuk om te doen.\nIk krijg er echt een extreem lange sik van, als iemand een handige workflow heeft dan hoor ik het graag.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"February 24, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/protospace-presentatie/","section":"Posts","summary":"Na heel veel gedoe en proberen 1 met verschillende video-codecs heb ik eindelijk de presentatie van Siert vorige week in een formaat waarmee ik hem ook online kon zetten. Ik ben nog niet heel erg te spreken over de kwaliteit maar dit is heel acceptabel voor een filmpje van drie kwartier.\n","title":"Maak wat je wil, Protospace College","type":"posts"},{"content":"Marrije zegt net “de conducteur zegt dat mijn ov-chipknip werkt. da\u0026rsquo;s fijn, maar ik wist niet eens dat ik \u0026rsquo;m had, en waarvoor dan.” waarop ik antwoord “@marrije Het is geen chipknip (wat een groot gemis is), daarnaast is het handig voor R\u0026rsquo;dam. En je kunt hem hier claimen: http://is.gd/k7xG”.\nIk schreef al eerder over de ov-chipkaart en wat een schande het is dat we zoiets niet al tien jaar hebben in Nederland.\nNu dat ding stapje voor stapje ingevoerd begint te worden in Nederland is het wel fijn bijvoorbeeld dat je op de site je chipkaart kunt claimen en er dingen aan kunt instellen zoals het automatisch opladen als hij leeg is.\nWat ik graag zou willen is een overzicht van al je vervoersbewegingen zowel op een kaart als machine-leesbaar ontsloten voor derde partijen die ik toestemming kan geven om erbij te kunnen 1, maar dat is waarschijnlijk nog een brug te ver voor deze implementerende partijen.\nOV-Chipknip # Maar één van de dingen die een groot gemis is en wat Marrije d\u0026rsquo;r verspreking aangeeft is dat het geen ov-chipknip is. Een RFID betalingsmiddel waarmee je niet alleen kunt reizen in het openbaar vervoer maar waarmee je met een simpele swipe ook je croissant bij de AH-to-go kunt afrekenen (en bij andere winkels die zich erbij aansluiten). De problemen met de chipknip dat: 1. mensen er niet één hebben en 2. ze er geen saldo op hebben zitten, zijn nu allebei opgelost.\nDe chip is nu zo lek als een mandje, dus het is nu misschien niet verstandig om er echt geld op te zetten, maar ik denk dat ze de vergunningen voor een digitaal betaalmiddel al hebben liggen (dat moet voor dit soort chips) en de technologie om veilig te betalen over RFID/NFC bestaat al bijvoorbeeld in Japan.\nZie bijvoorbeeld dit bericht van Jan Chipchase waarin hij vertelt dat hij op 8 manieren kan betalen voor zijn ontbijt (en wat de problemen daarmee zijn).\nUsability # Wat geloof ik ook nog beter kan is de communicatie naar de reizigers toe en de usability van de poortjes en machines.\nIk heb een nieuwe ov-chipkaart 2 maar ik ben nog niet met de metro in Rotterdam geweest.\nHet leek me leuk om daar binnenkort heen te gaan om het uit te proberen en het meteen te documenteren op video als een soort guerilla usability-studie. Als er mensen mee willen helpen denken en de camera vasthouden en na afloop bier drinken, dan zou dat erg fijn zijn.\nBijvoorbeeld om je woon-werk-verkeer te documenteren.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nToen ik een nieuwe NS-kortingskaart aanvroeg moest ik mijn oude weggooien en kreeg ik een nieuwe opgestuurd.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"February 22, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/ov-chipknip/","section":"Posts","summary":"Marrije zegt net “de conducteur zegt dat mijn ov-chipknip werkt. da’s fijn, maar ik wist niet eens dat ik ’m had, en waarvoor dan.” waarop ik antwoord “@marrije Het is geen chipknip (wat een groot gemis is), daarnaast is het handig voor R’dam. En je kunt hem hier claimen: http://is.gd/k7xG”.\n","title":"OV-chipknip","type":"posts"},{"content":"It\u0026rsquo;s good to see not all newspapers are caught in a stupor the Japanese ones seem to actually be seeing their common interest and making something sort of useful to their readers.\nFirst, it\u0026rsquo;s nice to see newspapers do stuff which is innovative instead of being stuck in the headlights and waiting to die.\nSecondly, this adresses a real problem. On any commute I make with my iPhone, I theoretically can read all the news from the world\u0026rsquo;s best newspapers instead of grabbing a free newspaper from the box on the station. I\u0026rsquo;ve done so for a while, but lately I don\u0026rsquo;t bother anymore. The reason I don\u0026rsquo;t bother is that it is too much hassle to lead the newspaper\u0026rsquo;s awful bloated websites over what passes for 3G in this part of the world, then select what I want to read and then read that. There are too many actions involved and the cognitive load is too great.\nA simple app which works like a specialized RSS reader where you can triage for a specified set of newspapers and categories the articles you want to read and then get those in rapid succession would be a godsend.\n","date":"February 21, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/nimble-hulks-collaborate/","section":"Posts","summary":"It’s good to see not all newspapers are caught in a stupor the Japanese ones seem to actually be seeing their common interest and making something sort of useful to their readers.\n","title":"Nimble hulks collaborate","type":"posts"},{"content":"Monday I\u0026rsquo;ll be attending This Happened Utrecht #2 1. This Happened is organized by Ianus, Alex and Kars as part of the This Happened franchise and the best description I\u0026rsquo;ve heard is that “it\u0026rsquo;s like Pecha Kucha with actual content.”\nThe presentations promise to be interesting again, it\u0026rsquo;ll be nice to catch up with people and I\u0026rsquo;ll be writing a blog report of the Q\u0026amp;A sessions 2. So it would be nice if people would ask questions worth blogging and worth talking about after the event. I\u0026rsquo;m pretty sure comments will be open.\nMIMOA # Of the people presenting I\u0026rsquo;d already heard about MIMOA. I\u0026rsquo;m pretty interested in architecture 3 and I gave the site a brief test run.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s a great open catalogue (or is it a personal architectural guide?). It\u0026rsquo;s mostly functional and I saw that they also syndicate their content to for instance the Stylos 4 site. Some of the flows and layouts of the site are a bit jarring and could use fixing but they don\u0026rsquo;t detract from the core usefulness of the site 5.\nThe only thing I\u0026rsquo;m curious about is whether MIMOA could be used as a tool to bridge the gap between architecture professionals and us naieve end users (or should I say victims) of their creations. The current blurbs and comment system do not really invite to such.\nI think it\u0026rsquo;s fully booked, so better luck next time. See the video\u0026rsquo;s of #1 on Vimeo.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nAnd no, I will not be turning problogger.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nI\u0026rsquo;m one of those people who has to live in the built environment.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nthe architectural student association\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nIn a brief chat with Kie Ellens he also remarked that there is far too little architectural material semi-freely available online. Which is —I would add— backward and detrimental to the profession.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"February 21, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/this-happened-again/","section":"Posts","summary":"Monday I’ll be attending This Happened Utrecht #2 1. This Happened is organized by Ianus, Alex and Kars as part of the This Happened franchise and the best description I’ve heard is that “it’s like Pecha Kucha with actual content.”\n","title":"This Happened Again","type":"posts"},{"content":"I started the week out nicely with a lunch lecture from Kie Ellens about art in the public space. It took me some time to properly code it, but it is online finally (and mostly in English):\nThe architectural student association Stylos is celebrating a lustrum this week, so there were lunch lectures every day, but unfortunately I could only attend the one.\n","date":"February 19, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/art-in-the-public-space/","section":"Posts","summary":"I started the week out nicely with a lunch lecture from Kie Ellens about art in the public space. It took me some time to properly code it, but it is online finally (and mostly in English):\n","title":"Art in the public space","type":"posts"},{"content":"Taplin schreef van de week al dat de economische crisis onrust en onveiligheid op lokaal niveau tot gevolg zou hebben. Blijkt dat Dubai al het ravijn in glijdt en niemand weet hoe erg het daadwerkelijk is.\nNu is het nogal onhandig om in tijden van crisis de boel nog verder aan te halen en geen informatie vrij te geven zodat de paniek alleen maar groter kan worden. Het gerucht gaat al dat de eilanden teruggeclaimed worden door de zee (waarschijnlijk omdat de baggeraars zonder werk in Nederland zitten).\nWie had gedacht dat dunebashen in SUVs en snowboarden in het midden van de woestijn niet houdbaar zouden zijn 1? Als het Dubai-Disney niet eens marginaal economisch duurzaam is, hoe ecologisch duurzaam had het dan kunnen zijn?\nMegalomane projecten waarvan iedereen aan had kunnen zien komen dat ze de noodzakelijke onderbouwing misten. Ook al durfden weinigen dat te zeggen in het aanzicht van het ‘economische wonder’. Nu hebben we gezien waar economische wonderen van analysten, investeerders en bankiers toe leiden. Blijkt dus dat je geen wereld kunt bouwen in 10 jaar, ook al heb je nog zoveel hijskranen.\nVan de week ging ook al het TVCC gebouw 2 in Beijing in vlammen op. Het heeft er niks mee te maken maar een zekere symboliek valt niet te ontkennen.\nOm nog maar te zwijgen over de morele holheid van de verveelde rijke mensen.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nNiet te verwarren met het CCTV gebouw.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"February 17, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/halsoverkop-project-des-ontwikkelen/","section":"Posts","summary":"Taplin schreef van de week al dat de economische crisis onrust en onveiligheid op lokaal niveau tot gevolg zou hebben. Blijkt dat Dubai al het ravijn in glijdt en niemand weet hoe erg het daadwerkelijk is.\n","title":"Halsoverkop project-des-ontwikkelen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Veelgemaakte fout in het ervaringsontwerp en gevoelsmatig goed passend bij de faculteit bouwkunde.\nOp hun faculteit hebben ze een bijzonder hippe koffietent neergezet 1 die lijkt op een soort ruimtestation. Koffietreats, smoothies en andere versnaperingen zijn er verkrijgbaar tegen een schappelijke prijs.\nIk bestelde er een caffè machiato en ging zitten in één van de opgestelde vliegtuigstoelen. Alles lijkt perfect. Tot ik de eerste slok van de koffie nam. Deze was absoluut walgelijk 2.\nIk vind dit exemplarisch voor bouwkunde omdat met veel bombarie waanzinnige dingen uit de grond gestampt worden waarin de meest basale dingen niet of nauwelijks werken. Ik zeg niet dat dit bij bouwkunde de hele tijd gebeurt, maar wel dat ik het goed bij die faculteit kan plaatsen.\nHiervoor in de plaats een eenvoudige open bar met een espressoaparaat, houten stoeltjes en tafeltjes —zeg maar het simpelst mogelijke concept— had ook volstaan. Als de koffie er goed was, dan was ik er blijer mee geweest.\nLessen?\nInnoveer niet op franje als je de basics niet beheerst.\nEn het aloude: \u0026ldquo;Under promise and over deliver\u0026rdquo; gaat hier op als nooit te voren. De verwachtingen die je met dit decor wekt, zijn te hoog voor het geleverde.\nCourtesy of Sodexho\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nIk heb weleens slechtere koffie gedronken, maar door de goede ervaringen die hieraan voorafging was ik er niet op voorbereid.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"February 11, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/fantastisch-design-maar-toch-niet-geslaagd/","section":"Posts","summary":"Veelgemaakte fout in het ervaringsontwerp en gevoelsmatig goed passend bij de faculteit bouwkunde.\n","title":"Fantastisch design maar toch niet geslaagd","type":"posts"},{"content":"I’d promised the guys over at the fixie hyve some decent quality pictures of my bike. Shooting pictures of a fixie is something of a thing. So yesterday I went out and shot some:\nCheck out the details in the set.\n","date":"February 10, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/bicycle-shoot/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’d promised the guys over at the fixie hyve some decent quality pictures of my bike. Shooting pictures of a fixie is something of a thing. So yesterday I went out and shot some:\n","title":"Bicycle shoot","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik heb de hele verkiezingen rond de dichter des vaderlands gemist 1 2 maar ik ben nog steeds blij en ik vind dat ik er iets over moet schrijven.\nIk hoorde het en de dichter zelf woensdagnacht op de radio. Die donderdag ging ik naar Londen en stond op Rotterdam Centraal te wachten op de trein naar Brussel. Ik ging even zitten om mijn rugtas recht te zetten en ik zag naast me op het bankje dezelfde Nasr zitten waar ik de vorige avond op de website 3 tegenaan had gekeken. Ik was stomverbaasd en wist een paar woorden uit te brengen en hem te feliciteren met zijn verkiezing 4. Hij was waarschijnlijk op weg naar Antwerpen en het schijnt een vriendelijke man te zijn.\nVerkiezing # De afgelopen vier jaar was het instituut vervallen door de verkiezing van ene Driek van Wissen 5 wat ook verklaart waarom het van mijn radar verdwenen was. Niet alleen types als Driek maar ook die massamedia zijn er debet aan dat de verkiezingen een vaag circus zijn. Lees Nasr\u0026rsquo;s verantwoording en de tactieken waarvan een dichter zich dient te bedienen om verkozen te worden: verdachtmakingen, imitatie, opportunisme, imponeringsdrang en niet te vergeten: de poëzie.\nMaar dan zí­jn poëzie. Nasr is mijn favoriete Nederlandstalige dichter en zijn gedicht is perfect voor de rare situatie waar dit Nederland zich in bevindt. De titel lees ik als een rentrée in Nederland waarna hij kennis van ons ‘gezamenlijke’ verleden en wat mensen in Nederland beweegt omzet in hoop op een toekomst 6; hoop in de vorm van een gedicht.\nNasr zei op de radio dat hij de poëzie uit wil dragen (of woorden van die strekking). Nederland kan dat wel gebruiken. Hoera voor Nasr en hoera voor de poëzie. Ik verheug me.\nÉén van de weinige nadelige gevolgen van het je onttrekken aan massamedia.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nÉn blijkbaar ga ik met niemand om die zich bezig houdt met poëzie (dat kan wel kloppen).\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nErg goed portret, trouwens.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nHet was niet ondenkbaar geweest dat ik een bundel van hem bij me had gehad door die verkiezing.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n‘die rijmpjes zat te pissen…’ Sorry, maar het is echt van dat niveau.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nHoe Obama is dat?\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"February 5, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/dichter-des-vaderlands/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik heb de hele verkiezingen rond de dichter des vaderlands gemist 1 2 maar ik ben nog steeds blij en ik vind dat ik er iets over moet schrijven.\n","title":"Dichter des Vaderlands","type":"posts"},{"content":"This weekend I visited the Barcamp UK Govweb (#ukgc09, barcamp) in London to talk with people about government websites, data and see what the state of the art is in the UK on this topic. It was a very interesting meeting and I learned a lot from people who\u0026rsquo;ve been doing this for far longer than I have been.\nGovernment Data # One of the most interesting was the session on government data and the various initiatives and other activities that are being advocated to give us better and easier access to government data to make cooler stuff.\nA lot of issues about current initiatives were discussed, about various Click-Use Licenses and about how open data should be financed.\nGuidelines # One of the things that I found surprising is that most people present were firmly against a set of guidelines about how to open up your data.\nI agree that a set of guidelines like these if done improperly can cause more pain than they solve and maybe they are not necessary in the UK with the OPSI in place. In the Netherlands we would like an open data process where everybody who has data and would like to open it up could go to and get advice what the best strategy is.\nI want to prevent situations where when faced with the problem how to open up data, a government body contracts it out and we get a site with a bunch of PDFs in return. Guidelines can\u0026rsquo;t catch all cases, but we should be able to create something which prevents the worst from happening while simultaneously not tying us down when we try to make usable systems.\nEverybody present in the government data session implicitly knows what should be done when opening up data but the problem is that this knowledge is tacit and in that form is useless to any government official interested in opening up their data. If you\u0026rsquo;re in that position and you\u0026rsquo;re willing to consider opening up your data in a ‘developer friendly’ format, it would be nice if we had more to offer to you than some vague ideas.\nNone of the rules in the guidelines should be definitive, they probably should be in the form of a series of questions with explanations so people are forced to consider stuff and by answering those questions come to a better end result.\nAs far as I am concerned the main rule should be to avoid unnecessary complexity when publishing data and consider stuff such as potential users and their needs, licensing, description, URL/availability and data format. I agree you cannot draft guidelines which guarantee a good outcome but I do know that change is necessary.\nInitiatives\nDuring the session a number of initiatives were named, maybe somebody else has a more definitive list:\nGeocommons Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network Office for Pulic Sector Information What do they know Rewired State I think the Hack The Government Day that Rewired State are planning is a very good idea. It\u0026rsquo;s been something of a year since we had our last govcamp in the Netherlands but I also see the need to combine the currently running initiatives into a more developer related event.\n","date":"February 4, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/guidelines-for-government-data/","section":"Posts","summary":"This weekend I visited the Barcamp UK Govweb (#ukgc09, barcamp) in London to talk with people about government websites, data and see what the state of the art is in the UK on this topic. It was a very interesting meeting and I learned a lot from people who’ve been doing this for far longer than I have been.\n","title":"Guidelines for government data","type":"posts"},{"content":"Het heruitvinden van de steden is in gevallen zoals Los Angeles iets urgenter dan hier, maar een huizenmarkt die niet op slot is en een leuke publieke ruimte zou ik hier ook op prijs stellen.\nDie leuke publieke ruimte is in Rotterdam al heel lang een probleem. Op een paar straten en pleinen na is het een bijzonder onplesante stad. Daar komt nog eens bij dat in de komend paar jaar zowel Lantaren/Venster als Cinerama gaan sluiten en wat ervoor terug komt is nog niet duidelijk.\n“Of de opening van de nieuwe vestiging nauw aansluit op de sluiting van Cinerama valt te bezien.”\nEen stadscentrum zonder filmhuis is wat mij betreft niet de moeite waard. Wie dat ook vindt kan dan eindelijk ook naar Amsterdam verhuizen.\nWat voor Cinerama in de plaats komt is een woontoren van minimaal 70 meter hoog en een winkelcentrum. Zou er niet genoeg gelegenheid tot winkelen zijn in het centrum van Rotterdam 1?\nMaar nu blijkt dus dat die woontorens aan de Maas het helemaal zijn in Rotterdam. Dan bedachten wij een leuk plan: we bouwen aan de Maas een sluitende haag van woontorens aan weerszijden. Deze woontorens overkoepelen en overbruggen de maas vanaf 70 meter, zodat als je in het midden woont je door je glazen vloer de schepen onder je door kunt zien varen. In het achterland van die woontorens slopen we alle gebouwen van na de oorlog (geleidelijk) en herstellen de omgeving in de ouwe staat met veel natuur eromheen. Rotterdammers blij, toeristen blij, iedereen blij.\nMaar dit soort plannen daargelaten; er is morgen in NAi een lezing “The Big Picture” over beeldschermen in de publieke ruimte. Ik heb geen idee of ze aan het thema ubicomp 2 gaan raken of dat het een navelstaarfeest van architecten en reclamemensen wordt, maar ik zou zeggen ga erheen en take back the city.\nNu eigenlijk al een soort winkelghetto.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nHet belangrijkste beeldscherm in de publieke ruimte is niet het grote reclamescherm, maar het scherm van je mobiel: “The Tiny Picture”.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"January 28, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/film-en-beelden-in-de-stad/","section":"Posts","summary":"Het heruitvinden van de steden is in gevallen zoals Los Angeles iets urgenter dan hier, maar een huizenmarkt die niet op slot is en een leuke publieke ruimte zou ik hier ook op prijs stellen.\n","title":"Film en beelden in de stad","type":"posts"},{"content":"Vandaag op Twitter al gezien dat Rita Verdonk goed aangepakt is door Alexander Pechtold. Kijk het filmpje op dumpert, opleggen en erin schieten.\nIk vind het sowieso ongeloofwaardig dat Rita Verdonk op dit moment direct voeling heeft met het moraal van onze troepen. Kan iemand dit bevestigen?\nZoals ik op Jaiku al schrijf, als je iemand verbaal zo hard aan kunt pakken dat ze hun voeting verliezen, dan ben je goed.\nEn dat D’66, dat is misschien nog wel wat.\n","date":"January 27, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/rita-kan-ook-niet-meer-doen/","section":"Posts","summary":"Vandaag op Twitter al gezien dat Rita Verdonk goed aangepakt is door Alexander Pechtold. Kijk het filmpje op dumpert, opleggen en erin schieten.\n","title":"Rita kan ook niet meer doen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Biked to the Hague yesterday and spent part of the day coworking at my friends over at Nomadz. Just when I had to leave for our appointment at the notary Peter dropped by and demoed some very cool applications on the Android G1 phone he\u0026rsquo;d just gotten from T-Mobile.\nHere\u0026rsquo;s a short video demoing the box the phone comes in (and if the box already is this cool, you can imagine what the phone is like):\nAndroid G1 Box from Alper Çugun on Vimeo.\n","date":"January 24, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/nomadz-and-androids/","section":"Posts","summary":"Biked to the Hague yesterday and spent part of the day coworking at my friends over at Nomadz. Just when I had to leave for our appointment at the notary Peter dropped by and demoed some very cool applications on the Android G1 phone he’d just gotten from T-Mobile.\n","title":"Nomadz and Androids","type":"posts"},{"content":"Beirut announced European tour dates of which 5th of May they will be playing in Paradiso, Amsterdam. Yesterday, I got myself two tickets for that gig, which should be fantastic.\nAnd today I also got wind of two new songs released. The dark ‘La Llorona’:\nAnd the more traditional ‘My Night With A Prostitute from Marseilles’:\n","date":"January 19, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/beirut-is-alive/","section":"Posts","summary":"Beirut announced European tour dates of which 5th of May they will be playing in Paradiso, Amsterdam. Yesterday, I got myself two tickets for that gig, which should be fantastic.\n","title":"Beirut is alive","type":"posts"},{"content":"Today I got the idea and I think I\u0026rsquo;ve seen spectrum plots like these before but I couldn\u0026rsquo;t quite figure out where. So I dumped all my blogposts and got into Processing to plot it out. It should look something like this but less ugly:\nIt clearly shows when I started blogging on this Wordpress in April of 2007 and then how my blogging has become more and more sparse with initially some dense areas and later on some blank ones.\nI\u0026rsquo;ll probably do some iterations on this concept, one with some interaction and another one with blocks aggregated by day of the week.\n","date":"January 14, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/post-distribution/","section":"Posts","summary":"Today I got the idea and I think I’ve seen spectrum plots like these before but I couldn’t quite figure out where. So I dumped all my blogposts and got into Processing to plot it out. It should look something like this but less ugly:\n","title":"Post Distribution","type":"posts"},{"content":"I talked with Max Whitney at 25C3 for a bit to learn about how NYC Resistor came to be. The story seems to go something like this 1:\nThey find a loft in New York. They find 9 people willing to plunk down some cash ($1000 each). They setup a Limited Liability Company. The LLC subleases the loft from the current leaser on a year contract. Membership dues and workshop money (and the occasional party) pays the rent on the space.\nThis story is a stark contrast with what you would need to do in the Netherlands to setup something similar. I know because I\u0026rsquo;m in the market to expand our current coworking space both because we will be kicked out in April and because we could use some more space for stuff and projects.\nSo how is this different and much more difficult to setup in the Netherlands? There are a number of factors which contribute to this difficulty.\nZoning # Zoning laws prohibit using something like a loft for commercial/office-like purposes. If you\u0026rsquo;re doing a startup, the boundary of what is your house and what is your place of work may blur, but in the Netherlands an office is an office and a home is not an office.\nMunicipalities especially will not want livable houses to be extracted from the housing market and occupied by businesses because a lot of them already face a housing shortage.\nPersonal investment # People just dropping in some cash to get a space started is probably easier in New York too. One factor Max mentioned was that leases are ridiculously expensive anyway so people are used to paying a lot of money.\nBut a more important factor probably is that there is a bigger culture in the US of personal investment. What is annoying to startups here is that there are so few European angels. There has hardly ever been a significant internet cashout in the Netherlands and neither do we see a lot of reinvestment happening. On both coasts of the US there seem to be more people with money who are willing to invest it into cool stuff. The vast majority of people with money in the Netherlands are more boring than anything.\nLiability # Limited liability companies in the Netherlands are called a B.V. 2 and they require a seed capital of €18'000 to start. This money does not have to remain there but it is still a sizable hurdle. In comparison a British Ltd. costs €100 to setup 3.\nSetting up a Ltd and using that to enter into a lease agreement in the Netherlands would be frowned upon because Ltds have a historically bad reputation.\nAnother way around this may be to setup a voluntary association or a foundation but to be able to shoulder liability, these would need statutes which need to be acquired from a notary and require a significant fee.\nSubleasing # Subleasing spaces in the Netherlands is usually frowned upon especially when the sublessor makes a profit. This is because a lot of houses in the Netherlands are rent controlled and are rented out at half or less of their market value.\nThis means that a lot of houses are not being utilized to their full market value and that the supply in houses is far too small (and the supply of officeplexes too big). Rather than having the market clear this mess up, we are stuck with this heavily entrenched real estate system.\nLease agreements # Office leases are usually agreed upon for a period of 5+5 years, which mean you get a five year contract with the option to extend it for another five years. This five year contract is in fact meant to protect the lessee from fickleness on the part of the lessor but it does not take into account the fact that businesses may not want to be tied down.\nThis would not be so much of a problem if limited liability companies were easier to setup (the company would then take on the lease) but I treated that above.\nCritical market # To be able to partially fund a space on workshop and party revenues, it helps if there is a large pool of potentially interested people. With the scale of something such as New York that may be possible, it\u0026rsquo;s a bit harder for us in Delft. We are at the moment somewhat pressed to find a fourth coworker let alone people who\u0026rsquo;d be willing to pay money to support us.\nConcluding # None of the things I mention above are insurmountabel but I think they do in large part explain why Dutch business and venture culture is not as dynamic and booming as that in the US.\nMaybe a useful recipe if you want to start your own hacker space.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nLiterally: a limited partnership\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n€1 for each share.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"January 12, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/corporate-obstacles-in-the-netherlands/","section":"Posts","summary":"I talked with Max Whitney at 25C3 for a bit to learn about how NYC Resistor came to be. The story seems to go something like this 1:\n","title":"Corporate obstacles in the Netherlands","type":"posts"},{"content":"I am currently busy doing a project together with Tam Tam where we are tasked with developing a set of five widgets for Dutch government (assigned by the Dutch Ministry of Home Affairs and Kingdom Relations) as a proof of concept of how government data can be used. We\u0026rsquo;re developing widgets mostly because they are seen as modern, easy to develop and they can be deployed very near to users.\nAs a prerequisite for building these widgets, we need to work on the data sources to make them easier to use and better fitting to the available data and potential uses. Getting these data sources sorted out also provides a longer term benefit for any other party who would be interested in using this data. Our widgets are but one potential implementation in a realm of possibilities. Anybody can take the data source the widgets use and make something different and/or better. That vision is beyond the scope of this current project but it is also being worked on.\nFor this project we need to find a way to develop widgets which are deployable to a multitude of platforms with as much ease as possible. There are far too many widget platforms out there, as can be seen in this presentation by Niall Kennedy and because this is a Dutch project there is an elephant in the room we have to take into account.\nData sources # The data sources we got were already halfway there. Some were not machine readable, those that were, were either not very well formed or did not include as much data as one would like. We filed change requests for some modifications but these move slowly in some cases. The data sources we are going to use and republish would ultimately be:\nRSS, preferrably well formed Atom and in some cases RSS 2.0 with media enclosures and/or geodata iCalendar (or xCal 1) probably wrapped in RSS generic XML or simpler still (CSV, TXT) Personal vs. Public Dashboard # For widgets there are two major contexts in which they are run, either on personal dashboards such as iGoogle or Netvibes (or on public versions of these but dashboards nevertheless), but much more interestingly on social networking profile pages as a display of identity. Ideally the widgets would work on both, though the uses of some of the data sources do not lend themselves well to be displayed on public vanity pages. Nevertheless being able to deploy widgets to both would be very welcome.\nTaking the greatest common divisor of platforms restricts our set of functionality. There may be specific API methods available on each platform —most notably the social APIs exposed in the social networking platforms 2— which would enable us to make socially aware widgets. Incorporating sociality and the notion of a specific user is beyond the scope of this project. We most probably will rely on the cross platform nature of the client side and rely on the platform to supply us with a HTML rendering environment.\nImportant target platforms # Clearspring has a list of ‘drop targets’ which is pretty large. Because this is a project by the Dutch government and it is principally aimed at the Dutch public, we need to cover the online places that Dutch people use a lot first and foremost. This mostly means that we are not so interested in Orkut and Hi5 but more so in Hyves and MSN Live 3. Hyves has a coverage of about 5M people in the Netherlands, MSN messenger and by extension the entire MSN platform should be bigger than that. This alone makes them very important to support and test for.\nConsiderations # The government has some additional considerations which need to be taken into account when choosing a platform and or a technology.\nDutch government tries to adhere to open standards and open source software wherever possible. This is not a hard requirement but it does influence decisions as far it is practical do so. Dutch government should strive to be independent of commercial partners and definitely should not mix commercial branding with governmental information. We need to consider a wider growth path towards the future so sustainability and scalability of efforts and platforms are considerations. In some cases exerting tight control over appearance and functionality of a widget may be desired. Platforms # There are a number of technology platforms that can be used when developing a widget. Each of these has its own advantages and disadvantages and implications for eventual deployment.\nFlashAny platform that allows the use of embed codes in the HTML is a suitable host for Flash widgets. This type of widget is very popular mostly due to its ease of development and deployment, and full graphical control within the widget. Disadvantages are that ease of modification and reuse are severely limited because the platform is not very open and well known (at least not as well known as HTML), which will deter reuse and remix of widgets in the future. After some deliberation we chose not to use Flash. Creating or reusing Flash widgets necessitates the use of an expensive authoring environment. This does not fit into the widest possible reuse, either within government or outside of it. Most of our data sources also mandate more text based and less graphical widgets, so Flash is not strictly necessary. And finally anybody who wants to make a Flash widget can embed it into any of the chosen technology platforms without any problems. Straight HTML and JavaScriptA widget is a piece of a webpage and it happens to be that a (piece of) a webpage can also be used as a widget. Any webpage that displays a very specific piece of functionality on a limited amount of screen can function as widget. Allowing the upload of a simple HTML page and wrapping that in an or similar is the approach taken by some platforms and it works quite well. An advantage is that the widget may be rendered by a fragment of the same template that rendered the main webpage. Disadvantages are that the widget is not aware of its surroundings and does not have a way to set or retrieve settings. iGoogle GadgetAn iGoogle Gadget is a web page as described above wrapped in an XML document with some metadata extensions and a wrapper around some javascript calls to provide settings functionality and proxied XMLHttpRequest 4.OpenSocial GadgetAn OpenSocial Gadget is an extension of the iGoogle gadget platform with some social extensions to the API which make a gadget aware of its social surroundings (logged in user, profile user, friend list) and allows gadgets to send messages to various activity streams. An iGoogle gadget will run in an OpenSocial container and essentially function as an OpenSocial gadget without social functionality.Netvibes UWAThe Netvibes Universal Widget API is a way of creating a straight HTML page in such a way that it can be recompiled and served to a series of target platforms. There are some metadata extensions which have to be followed, the scripting environment is both extended to include settings and sizing, and the DOM is severely crippled 5. The UWA relies on the fact that most widget runtimes are de facto HTML rendering environments with many similarities and bridges the differences. Just this week Netvibes announced the release of an OpenSocial compliant UWA which should make UWA widgets run on any OpenSocial container and make Netvibes itself also an OpenSocial container. A release of this new version is still forthcoming. FacebookFacebook applications need to be written in the FBML which is specific to Facebook. There are some widget distribution options which wrap a widget and republish it as a Facebook application but currently Facebook is not a large priority for this project.SproutSprout is a very interesting platform which provides a web based Flash widget builder where anybody can very easily use drag an drop to build their own widget from standardized elements (no programming required) with both simple controls and complex ones backed by outside data sources. The provided set of elements should cater to most needs, but being able to modify and build additional controls would have been very nice. For this project it may not be the best starting point but if we make our data sources clean and standard, anybody can plug them into the Sprout Builder and rapidly build their own versions of our widgets. I have made a diagram (PDF) summarizing the various options, platforms and eventual deployment targets in the widget landscape. This diagram is not complete but it gives a good impression of the complexities involved.\nTest application # To define a simple test application to write and run on the various runtimes. The application should:\nDisplay some HTML Use custom CSS to style the elements Be able to display images Be able to retrieve RSS/XML data from the same server Be configurable with user preferences And some softer requirements:\nBe able to embed Flash content Be aware of its own dimensions Respond to resize and refresh actions of the widget platform Here is the test application as a plain HTML file, a version which should run on the iGoogle platform and a version for the Netvibes UWA. It looks quite horrible because it does not have proper styling, but it does most of the things listed above. Translating the base HTML version to the specific platforms was not too difficult, but somewhat idiosyncratic. There are some specific metadata elements which need to be accounted for, the DOM is altered in some cases and there are platform specific calls for XMLHttpRequests that use a local proxy to retrieve data. What is immediately apparent when working is that the documentation on the Google platform is far more comprehensive.\nThis test application was then run on the various platforms and galleries where applicable to see if it would work and what the options for redistribution per platform were. The experiences of these tests have shaped our impressions of the various distribution options. Our findings are discussed in the next section.\nGalleries # Galleries sometimes have widget building options but most of them are concerned with spreading a widget to as many platforms as possible and monitoring the reach of the widget. Important considerations when picking a gallery (if any) are:\nthe input options, what kind of widgets this gallery will accept the output options, to what platforms can this gallery spread a widget look and feel of the gallery and of the widget wrapper Netvibes The Netvibes ecosystem provides a way for people to browse widgets submitted to the ecosystem and install them to either Netvibes or to a number of other platforms. The gallery also shows an install count per widget. The Netvibes ecosystem accepts: UWA widgets, iCal files, SWF files. The Netvibes ecosystem publishes to: a blog, iGoogle (install and gallery submit), Vista, Live, Dashboard and seems to work all right. Clearspring Clearspring is a generic widget gallery service with methods to widgetize page content and completely manage a widget. Clearspring accepts: SWF, HTML, Javascript (not very clear how this would work) and Image widgets. Clearspring exports to too many platforms to mention, notably: Blogger, embed, iGoogle, Live, Dashboard, Wordpress, delicious, e-mail, Facebook, Netvibes, Typepad. Clearspring can also publish directly to the Netvibes, Live and iGoogle galleries. The options look fairly good but the inwidget functionality borders the widget with an ugly border through which the functionality to add the widget to other platforms is implemented. GigyaCan\u0026rsquo;t really get Gigya to work. It looks mostly focused on Flash widgets but the site is a mess and the documentation is very sparse.Widgetbox Widgetbox is a partner of Netvibes Widgetbox accepts: Flash, HTML+Javascript pasted or remote, Atom/RSS, Google Gadget Widgetbox exports and shares with some platforms such as Blogger, Netvibes, iGoogle and Wordpress. A Widgetbox wrapper also includes a very ugly border button that enables visitors to add the widget to their platform of choice. WidgadgetWidgadget has severely limited creation and publication option, documentation is sparse.Spring WidgetsSpring Widgets offers an SDK for Flash based widget development and seems to be exclusively focused on Flash widgets.Various OpenSocial sites (Hyves, LinkedIn, Ning) have their own galleries for applications and their own policies on which to include. Most of these sites also have sandboxes where inputting the address to the gadget.xml file suffices to run an application. Hyves for instance has to give their approval of your gadget before it is included in the site. On the subject of galleries our clients remarked that the appearance of control and non-commerciality needs to be maintained. Widget galleries which are all too present on the widget and exert a lot of control are not preferred. It is completely undesirable (and understandably so) to see the Clearspring logo mixed with government branding and data. So because galleries are not essential, they are mostly out of consideration for now.\nConclusion # During a final meeting based on this research, we presented our findings and got some more input as to in which direction we should focus and the consequences that would have on our final platform choice.\nHTML vs. Flash # Using HTML in favor of Flash proved to be contentious but the compromise was chosen to have the basic functionality of widgets be done in HTML markup. Interested parties can always have a Flash widget developed and embed that in a chosen technology platform or use it standalone.\nPlatform choice # Based on the techology choices and the platforms that it definitely should run on: iGoogle, Hyves, LinkedIn, Ning our choice of platform is quickly reduced to either UWA or iGoogle. UWA widgets can already be compiled to iGoogle gadgets and with the upcoming release of the next version they should also more easily run as OpenSocial apps, but this version has not been released yet. The coyness of the Netvibes team 6, together with the sparsity of their documentation makes you wonder if this latest release of OpenSocial support 7 isn\u0026rsquo;t a last ditch attempt to regain relevancy. For all we know Netvibes may cease to exist tomorrow, so sustainability is certainly a question.\nOn the other side if we choose for iGoogle gadgets to be the widget platform of choice, it will run on most of our target platforms and with the new version of Netvibes it will also run in their OpenSocial container. The only thing that we will not be getting are Netvibes recompilation options for Dashboard and Vista 8. iGoogle/OpenSocial looks like the platform with the most momentum and momentum is worth a lot.\nGenericity # There is a strong desire to make the widgets in the project as generic as possible to enable reuse for other applications. At a certain point there was the idea that we could make one widget to do everything, this however is not really advisable.\nWe defined a set of widget archetypes (news, events, images, videos, geodata, calculation, infodisplay) where a widget may fall into and we think that for the future it would be useful to have reference implementations of each archetype on file so that a request for a new widget can quickly be fulfilled by taking an archetype widget and customizing that.\nFor this project though, we will be making specific widget implementations which can be easily generified to their archetype. So after we make a branded news widget, any interested party can swap in the RSS feed and their own logo to make it theirs. We thought it would fit better in the modest scope of this project to deliver conclusive results instead of half-finished products.\nGallery # Given this choice of base platform, if we were to use a gallery to ease distribution and monitor its reach, we would probably use Clearspring because it seems to be the most mature and functional of the lot (Clearspring is also used by the CBC (see their presentation at the Widget Summit)) with Widgetbox as a close contender. But because of the all too visible branding of Clearspring and other containers, we will not be using either 9.\nCall for comment # Fortunately we do not have to make a definitive choice right now. For our set of widgets we will first be designing the functionality and doing some reviews. After that the basic functionality of the widget will be prototyped in HTML and finally the HTML will be modified to run on the target platform(s) of our choosing.\nWe\u0026rsquo;re not committed yet, so some of our choices are still open and most of it is up for debate. If you have any questions, additions or things we have missed in our survey, we would love to hear from you in the comments.\nUpdate: Though not visible on the site yet, Techcrunch reports that Spring Widgets will be shutdown by Fox Interactive.\nUpdate: Sprout Builder recently announced a pricing model to their up until then free service.\nUpdate: The overview overlooked the yourminis widget publishing platform. Yourminis takes SWF files and distributes these to a number of platforms.\nxCal seems to be mostly obsolete but it is still referenced and used in various places viz. translator, Upcoming feeds etc.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nI\u0026rsquo;ll talk more about OpenSocial later on.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nOr whatever its brandname du jour.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nBeing able to get data from arbitrary websites is normally restricted because of security considerations.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nNot being able to use document.getElementById() is something of a pain.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nThey announced the new version of UWA at LeWeb \u0026lsquo;08 but offer nothing but vague promises when asked for the actual code.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nWhich had already been promised a long time ago.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nHow hard would it be to build an OpenSocial container to run in Dashboard?\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nIt\u0026rsquo;s not a bad question to ask how we then defend the choice of Google for instance, but OpenSocial is a relatively open platform.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"January 5, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/widget-distribution-and-other-considerations/","section":"Posts","summary":"I am currently busy doing a project together with Tam Tam where we are tasked with developing a set of five widgets for Dutch government (assigned by the Dutch Ministry of Home Affairs and Kingdom Relations) as a proof of concept of how government data can be used. We’re developing widgets mostly because they are seen as modern, easy to develop and they can be deployed very near to users.\n","title":"Widget distribution and other considerations","type":"posts"},{"content":"As per Kottke fished out of my iCal and my Dopplr, hat tip Mark:\nBerlin* Amsterdam* London Copenhagen Nantes Meppel San Francisco* Oakland It could be debated whether Meppel is a city or not, but I\u0026rsquo;ll let it.\n","date":"January 3, 2009","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/my-year-in-cities-2008/","section":"Posts","summary":"As per Kottke fished out of my iCal and my Dopplr, hat tip Mark:\n","title":"My year in cities, 2008","type":"posts"},{"content":"Occasionally some very beautiful things here in Berlin between the grey and cold 1:\nBeirut — In the Mausoleum:[…] And Berlin // is so ugly in the morning light\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"December 30, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/light-formations/","section":"Posts","summary":"Occasionally some very beautiful things here in Berlin between the grey and cold 1:\n","title":"Light formations","type":"posts"},{"content":" Picture by Zarko Drincic (CC by-nd license)\nI\u0026rsquo;ve had a trial subscription to the fashionable Dutch morning paper: NRC.next 1 and I got called today warning me that it is about to finish and whether I\u0026rsquo;d like to prolong my subscription with them.\nI declined for the following reasons (of which I only communicated the first to the girl on the telephone):\nI don\u0026rsquo;t really have the time to read a morning newspaper. Most days I forget to get it out of the mailbox in the morning and if I take it with me I don\u0026rsquo;t really have time to read it at my place of employment anyway. Also my mailbox is too far from my house to reasonably pick up the paper in the morning and read it at home over breakfast. I don\u0026rsquo;t believe in using physical resources to convey something as ephemeral as the news anymore. Yes, paper has a ‘better feel’, but I don\u0026rsquo;t think your outdated dead tree fethishism is a good excuse to impose on the environment as you do. The free newspapers are even worse offenders handed out by the thousands, littering the trains in the morning. I think physical newspapers both free and not should be taxed to make some amends for the environmental damage they cause. Solution: Read your news on your iPhone or other digital device. I don\u0026rsquo;t believe in broadcast media anymore. A physical newspaper has a lot of surplus, delivering to me not only the news I\u0026rsquo;m interested in, but also all the other news I\u0026rsquo;m not interested in. This is a waste. Not to mention the news from other newspapers I\u0026rsquo;m interested in which I\u0026rsquo;m not getting —a waste of opportunity. Solution: Mix and mash a selection of news which is of interest to you from various newspapers, magazines, blogs and other media. I don\u0026rsquo;t agree with the selection of news or authors that this locale provides. Dutch newspapers write about Dutch news, from a Dutch perspective and focus almost exclusively on Dutch sports, opinions, science, books and arts. This is a narrowness of vision which is offensive if you\u0026rsquo;re interested in the world at large. If you have a wider interest, you will probably read some English language publications and get information on the same topics days or weeks before it has been processed for the Dutch public. Being bound to such a small locale also means that you get the best writing 2, the Dutch language has to offer, which is globally pretty insignificant. The New Yorker and the Times have a larger pool of talent to dip into, which explains the chasm of quality that separates them from most Dutch publications. Solution: Learn English. And lastly but most importantly —taking from Talebs philosophies— reading a daily newspaper propagates the delusion that the world can be understood and controlled. Something, which is clearly not the case. It certainly cannot be understood and explained by journalists, just as much as it can\u0026rsquo;t be controlled by the people reading newspapers. Additionally being kept up to date of all the world\u0026rsquo;s events and miseries on a daily basis does not make us any happier. Solution: Accept. Stuff happens and the world is unfathomably complex. Go to a lot of parties and people will tell you about important current events over a drink, which is all we can really hope for. So no paper news for me and good riddance.\nMore properly this is a Next+ with the full NRC on Saturday.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nOr so you would hope.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"December 26, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/quit-your-newspaper-euthanize-a-dead-tree-media-dinosaur/","section":"Posts","summary":" Picture by Zarko Drincic (CC by-nd license)\n","title":"Quit your newspaper, euthanize a dead tree media dinosaur","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik had een gesprek gisteren over Qash.nl (het Nederlandse Wesabe) en de diensten die dit soort sites aanbieden. We waren erover uit dat het belachelijk is dat banken dit zelf niet aanbieden.\nKort: Qash is een dienst die de transacties van je bank kan inlezen, daar automatisch meta-data aan toe kan kennen en op basis daarvan helder grafieken en segmenteringen laat zien waar je geld is gebleven en welke trends er spelen.\nHelder en flexibel inzicht in je financiele leven lijkt een eerste levensbehoefte (zeker in deze tijden van crisis) maar tot op heden moet je zelf in boekhoudpakketten of kasboeken dingen bijhouden om met veel pijn en moeite te komen tot sub-optimale visualisaties.\nDe Rabobank is zelfverklaard bijzonder innovatief wat betreft financiele dienstverlening 1 maar ik zie een dienst als deze niet uit hun koker komen. Zeker niet gezien het feit dat Rabo Internetbankieren een absolute usability ramp is. En eigenlijk zie ik geen enkele bank dit in-house bouwen. IT is meestal een sluitpost en ze outsourcen het liever kwijt dan dat ze het rijk zijn.\nQash kampt met een betrekkelijke handicap in de zin dat banken het hen niet snel gemakkelijk zullen maken om bij de gegevens te komen. ‘Banken hebben liever niet dat iemand tussen hen en de klant in staat’ 2, en naar blijkt hebben ze liever ook niet dat de klant goede en adequate dienstverlening krijgt. Wat ze wel graag hebben is dat ze je dubieuze financiele producten kunnen cross-sellen.\nWij kwamen tot de conclusie dat een bank in Nederland heel simpel kan winnen 3 door de volgende dingen te doen:\nQash.nl overnemen 4, ik had boven al besproken dat zelfbouw onwaarschijnlijk is. De dienstverlening van Qash.nl snel integreren in de huidige internetbankieren-omgeving. Dit zal niet eenvoudig zijn gezien de logheid van IT-afdelingen maar het heeft geen zin een bedrijf over te nemen als je het niet operationeel in kunt zetten. De koppelingen van Qash met andere banken afkappen of onaantrekkelijker maken. Ik zou het gebruiken en met mij een generatie mensen die ervan uitgaat dat dynamische, flexibele interfaces met live-metrieken, geen luxe maar een vereiste zijn.\nWaarom kan ik dan mijn saldo niet makkelijk checken op mijn iPhone?\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nJaap Stronks twitterde zoiets maar ik kan de precieze tweet niet meer vinden.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nWIN als in FTW betekent hier zonder tegenstand een sector afzienbare tijd domineren.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nGezien de miljarden die in de bancaire sector klakkeloos over de balk geflikkerd worden, kan een overnamebod op een internetstartup ook niet veel meer uitmaken.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"December 25, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/geldzaken-op-een-rijtje/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik had een gesprek gisteren over Qash.nl (het Nederlandse Wesabe) en de diensten die dit soort sites aanbieden. We waren erover uit dat het belachelijk is dat banken dit zelf niet aanbieden.\n","title":"Geldzaken op een rijtje","type":"posts"},{"content":"Shot a guerilla Christmas vid of the gang after last Thursday\u0026rsquo;s training:\n","date":"December 21, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/merry-christmas/","section":"Posts","summary":"Shot a guerilla Christmas vid of the gang after last Thursday’s training:\n","title":"Merry Christmas","type":"posts"},{"content":"In this podcast Adam Greenfield talks about everyware and contactless transit payment systems. At time index 15:33 the following question is asked: “But as a New Yorker would you want that to happen?”\nAs a prideful New Yorker, this is what I think. I think that all of the questions about privacy can be addressed. A smooth space of payment and mobility can be designed with clear strong provisions to protect anonymity and privacy. I don\u0026rsquo;t think that\u0026rsquo;s at all out of the question. And so it\u0026rsquo;s just a question of political will and as somebody who, I take a great deal of pride in being from New York and I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t want the city to persist into the 21st century very much longer, with what is essentially a 19th century model of payment for services. It\u0026rsquo;s just, it is a shame to me.\nReplace ‘New York’ with ‘the Netherlands’ and this quite accurately summarizes my feelings about the OV-chipkaart fiasco.\nListen to the entire thing, it\u0026rsquo;s worth it. There\u0026rsquo;s also a part one.\n","date":"December 20, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/smooth-space-of-payment-and-mobility/","section":"Posts","summary":"In this podcast Adam Greenfield talks about everyware and contactless transit payment systems. At time index 15:33 the following question is asked: “But as a New Yorker would you want that to happen?”\n","title":"Smooth space of payment and mobility","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik ben op dit moment wat aan het werk in het domein van de open overheid. Er zijn in dit veld een heleboel initiatieven en partijen betrokken in verschillende stadia van vordering. Één overheidsinstantie die belachelijk achterloopt is ons parlement. Het is op dit moment bijna ondoenlijk om te achterhalen wie er bij een stemming aanwezig waren en wie wat gestemd hebben.\nEr loopt al een tijdje een petitie ‘Alle stemmen tellen in de Tweede Kamer’ die volgende week aangeboden wordt maar veel valt er niet van te verwachten. Onze volksvertegenwoordigers in Den Haag zien er geen belang in om controleerbaar te zijn (Wie controleert de controleurs?). Lees hierover dit stuk op Sargasso: “Parlement 2.0? Voorlopig nog niet”.\nJe kunt de petitie trouwens nog ondertekenen als je dat nog niet gedaan hebt op Petities.nl.\nHet is schandelijk dat het nu zo moeilijk is om te achterhalen wie wat gestemd heeft bij een motie of wetsvoorstel. Iemand citeerde dat het hem 45 minuten kostte en dat is dan nog als alles gepubliceerd is wat ook nog flink wat tijd schijnt te kosten.\nAls alle stemmingen in een goed formaat inleesbaar zouden zijn, dan kun je heldere actuele kaarten maken van de stemmingen in de Tweede Kamer voor referentie en onderzoek, maar interessanter nog zou je statistisch kunnen analyseren welke partijen meer of minder fractiediscipline hebben en welke politici op basis van stemgedrag eigenlijk bij een andere partij horen en noem zo maar op.\n","date":"December 12, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/parlement-transparant/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik ben op dit moment wat aan het werk in het domein van de open overheid. Er zijn in dit veld een heleboel initiatieven en partijen betrokken in verschillende stadia van vordering. Één overheidsinstantie die belachelijk achterloopt is ons parlement. Het is op dit moment bijna ondoenlijk om te achterhalen wie er bij een stemming aanwezig waren en wie wat gestemd hebben.\n","title":"Parlement Transparant","type":"posts"},{"content":"These last couple of months we\u0026rsquo;ve been having regular music lessons. It\u0026rsquo;s a lot of fun and we are making crazy progress.\nThis is Divino playing something awesome 1 which we\u0026rsquo;ll be learning very soon.\nYou can watch it in HD at the main YouTube site just like with Vimeo.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"December 10, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/breaking-the-berimbau/","section":"Posts","summary":"These last couple of months we’ve been having regular music lessons. It’s a lot of fun and we are making crazy progress.\n","title":"Breaking the berimbau","type":"posts"},{"content":"The Guardian shows a clip of the recent armed confrontations in Hebron due to the riots by Jewish settlers. I had read earlier about B\u0026rsquo;Tselem handing out small camera\u0026rsquo;s to Palestinians so they could record settler aggression and this is a clip that came out of that program.\nThis is a precursor to how amateur media are going to become even more important to the dissemination of news and how new media can flatten information asymmetry quite effectively.\nOne question remains about asymmetry and that is asymmetry in mainstream media reporting. The British press has a reputation to have one of the more fair and balanced reports on the conflict (as does for instance Ha\u0026rsquo;aretz) 1. I am curious if Dutch mainstream media have aired this fairly graphic clip, I can\u0026rsquo;t find anything on either the NOS player 2or the main NOS site 3 and neither on RTL Nieuws.\nAnybody seen this on Dutch television?\nThough odd that I couldn\u0026rsquo;t find it at the Independent.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nMaybe because the search and the interface of that player are completely atrocious.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nExcept for this brief blurb about today\u0026rsquo;s events.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"December 7, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/flattened-conflict/","section":"Posts","summary":"The Guardian shows a clip of the recent armed confrontations in Hebron due to the riots by Jewish settlers. I had read earlier about B’Tselem handing out small camera’s to Palestinians so they could record settler aggression and this is a clip that came out of that program.\n","title":"Flattened Conflict","type":"posts"},{"content":"I recently bought the full version of RJDJ and it is a very fun way to create a dynamic soundgarden based on your environment. I also started using last.fm again even though they don\u0026rsquo;t have an iPhone player available yet in the Netherlands 1.\nTo riff a bit on the the spime concept, I thought it would be nice if you could scrobble location information along with the track and the moment you listened to it. I describe it in more detail on the last.fm board but nobody there thought it was interesting. At least it was a good excuse to use the term psychogeography.\nYet another reason to move to London or the US, the late release date in the low countries of any significant innovation.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"December 7, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/environmental-music-experiences/","section":"Posts","summary":"I recently bought the full version of RJDJ and it is a very fun way to create a dynamic soundgarden based on your environment. I also started using last.fm again even though they don’t have an iPhone player available yet in the Netherlands 1.\n","title":"Environmental music experiences","type":"posts"},{"content":"Bij het uitzoeken van mijn video\u0026rsquo;s kwam ik deze tegen (in HD bij Vimeo).\nGolden Gate Bridge from Alper Çugun on Vimeo.\nIk mis het toch wel.\n","date":"November 30, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/golden-gate-bridge/","section":"Posts","summary":"Bij het uitzoeken van mijn video’s kwam ik deze tegen (in HD bij Vimeo).\n","title":"Golden Gate Bridge","type":"posts"},{"content":"So I get bored on a Friday night and I want a decent way to watch music videos. Rather than look for a service which provides this 1, I decided to revive our own toy of a couple years ago, so it\u0026rsquo;s alive (again!): LastTV.\nMore explanation here. And I guess this blatantly labels me as a programmer, no?\nSurely there are a ton of usable music video players online by now.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"November 29, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/lazy-ass-music-videos/","section":"Posts","summary":"So I get bored on a Friday night and I want a decent way to watch music videos. Rather than look for a service which provides this 1, I decided to revive our own toy of a couple years ago, so it’s alive (again!): LastTV.\n","title":"Lazy ass music videos","type":"posts"},{"content":"Last Tuesday I attended the Service Design Network\u0026rsquo;s conference in the Rode Hoed in Amsterdam. I\u0026rsquo;ve been interested in Service Design for a while but I didn\u0026rsquo;t really know what it was all about. This conference was the ideal way to learn more about this field.\nMy findings are online in the report (Dutch only, sorry!) I\u0026rsquo;ve written of the conference for Frankwatching.\n","date":"November 29, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/service-design/","section":"Posts","summary":"Last Tuesday I attended the Service Design Network’s conference in the Rode Hoed in Amsterdam. I’ve been interested in Service Design for a while but I didn’t really know what it was all about. This conference was the ideal way to learn more about this field.\n","title":"Service Design","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik heb vandaag niet gestemd. Hier mijn filmpje met waarom:\n","date":"November 25, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/geen-zin-in-de-waterschapsverkiezingen/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik heb vandaag niet gestemd. Hier mijn filmpje met waarom:\n","title":"Geen zin in de waterschapsverkiezingen","type":"posts"},{"content":"As can be read in this thread we are holding the next Open Beer Delft at our coworking office next to the Delft Central train station: Studio 4 Stagioni.\nAfter some months of silence we heard some signals from the community that a new iteration of the event might be appreciated. A lot of stuff has happened, people and projects are moving on and catching up while drinking a beer could be a nice way to spend part of a Friday afternoon.\nSo announcing the next iteration of Open Beer Delft, the VrijMiBo for entrepeneurial and freelance Delft. Beers on us at our office Studio 4 Stagioni Friday November 14th, 17:00 - 19:00 Hooikade 2, Delft\nCome one, come all and invite those that may not be aware of this event. A quick reply to confirm, so we know how many people to expect, would be appreciated.\nHope to see you guys here, for a chat and a beer.\n","date":"November 11, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/beers-at-stagioni/","section":"Posts","summary":"As can be read in this thread we are holding the next Open Beer Delft at our coworking office next to the Delft Central train station: Studio 4 Stagioni.\n","title":"Beers at Stagioni","type":"posts"},{"content":"Hier even een korte noot voor de mensen die in het centrum van Delft wonen of er moeten zijn. Ik kan deze informatie online nergens vinden en ik vergeet het steeds en bel dan aan bij een poller om het te vragen. Googlevoer dus.\nJe kunt met de auto normaal gesproken langs de pollers die het centrum van Delft afsluiten. Als je aanbelt krijg je een briefje om een kwartier in de stad te mogen staan en gaat de poller omlaag. Bewaar dit briefje want als je kunt aantonen dat je regelmatig in de stad moet zijn (een stuk of zes briefjes), kun je bij de gemeente een pas aanvragen waarmee je automatisch door de pollers heen kunt.\nJe kunt niet het centrum in vrijdagavond van 6-9 (wandelgebied) en zaterdag van 11-5 (antiekmarkt). Ook in de winter niet. Ik weet niet of je dan met een pasje wel naar binnen kunt en of de regeling anders is voor bewoners met een parkeergarage.\n","date":"November 10, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/pollerbeleid-delft/","section":"Posts","summary":"Hier even een korte noot voor de mensen die in het centrum van Delft wonen of er moeten zijn. Ik kan deze informatie online nergens vinden en ik vergeet het steeds en bel dan aan bij een poller om het te vragen. Googlevoer dus.\n","title":"Pollerbeleid Delft","type":"posts"},{"content":"Staying up all night to watch the elections we finally saw Barack Obama\u0026rsquo;s victory speech somewhere after 5AM. Though at that moment I couldn\u0026rsquo;t fully appreciate it, it was one of his best speeches and one ending a period.\nWe\u0026rsquo;re only at the beginning and the things he does from now on are those that really matter. Everything until now a prelude of some sorts. It will be interesting to see how his transition goes and who he appoints to be in his staff and cabinet.\nIn the meantime just to reminisce about how good a campaign he ran, what a phenomenal communicator he is and how he just comes across as a very sympathetic and funny guy, here a brilliant anecdote from the campaign trail. Watch it and then analyze its communicational layering; sheer and utter brilliance.\n","date":"November 6, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/obama-for-the-world/","section":"Posts","summary":"Staying up all night to watch the elections we finally saw Barack Obama’s victory speech somewhere after 5AM. Though at that moment I couldn’t fully appreciate it, it was one of his best speeches and one ending a period.\n","title":"Obama for the World","type":"posts"},{"content":"In some of Adam Greenfield\u0026rsquo;s backpages “Whatever happened to serendipity?” he recounts how he used to scrounge for punk rock records and how the difficulty and uncertainty of the experience was part of what made it worthwhile:\nBut at the risk of sounding like an old man, this ritual - make no mistake, that’s what it was - invested the purchase with meaning and value for me, and I despair at a world that doesn’t at least offer the possibility of similar adventures to its inhabitants.\nThis resounds simply with the fact that things that are worth doing are oftentimes difficult to do or to learn and things that are worth having are the ones you invested effort in getting.\nJust to narrow this down to music, 99% of the music I listen to has no meaning whatsoever to me. This has no bearing on the quality of contemporary music, which I think is actually quite high. Only a couple of albums and artists have managed to strike a chord with me that makes their music merit a repeat listen.\nThis may be different for others but the real investment of Fl. 45,\u0026ndash; or so back then was quite significant, distribution channels were few and the diversity they offered near zero 1, you got your recommendations either from mass media or from word of mouth 2. The experience was radically different.\nYes, something has been lost in the transition but the abundance we have gained in return makes it more than worthwhile for me.\nBut the piece is about the loss of serendipity and shortly after he writes:\nYes, I suppose you could always switch the thing off, leave it behind, deliberately “forget”it. But when you’ve lived your entire life through the intercession of a mobile and benevolent Delphi, is that realistically an option? I suppose we’ll find out.\nHaving spent two and a half weeks in the United States most of which in and around San Francisco. I can testify that it is indeed not an option.\nSan Francisco is so well mapped within most online services that the experience you have there using the internet is unparalleled. Most services originate there which results in San Francisco being completely mapped in Google Maps, well covered in Yelp and there are ample Twinkling Twitter users in the proximity.\nUnfortunately for a visiting European like myself it is prohibitively expensive to use roaming data 3 4, meaning that most of the time my iPhone was a multimedia brick. Being disconnected like this, made me acutely aware of how reliant I have become on the real and virtual compass my iPhone provides. Walking around without a continuous stream of data coming in on the iPhone felt as if a sense was missing.\nWhat is a sense other than a mapping of external information to a part of your brain 5? The services on my iPhone provide me with a sense of presence and sense of direction within my spheres of contacts. My brain is conditioned to receive regular updates to this sense and withholding those updates used to be called something like “withdrawal from information addiction”but since this is a sense we\u0026rsquo;re talking about, I think “sensory deprivation”may be better suited. Without this sixth sense so much of your peripheral ‘vision’ is cut off that you feel like you are wandering around half blind.\nStill is. I couldn\u0026rsquo;t get a physical copy of a Camille album anywhere in Delft.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nAnybody still read Oor?\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n€5 per Mb consumed.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nOr roaming anything actually. While I was waiting for the BART, I had a brief phonecall with a friend who wasn\u0026rsquo;t aware of me being stateside. This could have been a lot of fun, if it wasn\u0026rsquo;t so damn expensive.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nThis article in Wired about how to add senses to your perception.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"November 5, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/our-digital-senses/","section":"Posts","summary":"In some of Adam Greenfield’s backpages “Whatever happened to serendipity?” he recounts how he used to scrounge for punk rock records and how the difficulty and uncertainty of the experience was part of what made it worthwhile:\n","title":"Our digital senses","type":"posts"},{"content":"Één van de voordelen van mijn huis in het hartje van Delft was het wonen op drie minuten lopen van een C1000 en drie minuten fietsen van een Albert Heijn.\nTerug van vakantie na de hele dag geslapen te hebben, liep ik de C1000 in om geconfronteerd te worden met notities van sluiting en een half lege winkel. Denkend dat dit toch wel een heel raar gevolg van jetlag was, ging ik naar huis.\nNu blijkt dat niemand het wist, de C1000 gaat over één nacht ijs dicht en er komt een AH voor in de plaats. Dit is waardeloos aangezien er al een AH is en je daar voor vergelijkbare boodschappen minstens €5 duurder uit bent.\nUpdate: Een paar antwoorden op twitter 1: @guidoz, @dennisblaak\nIs het zo moeilijk om op dit blog te reageren?\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"November 1, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/gevolgen-van-de-recessie/","section":"Posts","summary":"Één van de voordelen van mijn huis in het hartje van Delft was het wonen op drie minuten lopen van een C1000 en drie minuten fietsen van een Albert Heijn.\n","title":"Gevolgen van de recessie","type":"posts"},{"content":"I called with the taxman yesterday to clarify some stuff. I had surmised that profesionally relevant books could be deducted as expenses. Now it seems there is a very fine distinction.\nProfesionally relevant books which are being used to remain up to date in a given field of knowledge are deductable. Books which you are using to deepen and widen your knowledge however are study books and these as such are not deductable.\nThis is of course pure semantics and it can never be proved that you are using books either way, so given an audit just be sure never to mention the word “study” and you\u0026rsquo;ll be fine.\nAnd to think our government is trying to create a knowledge economy.\n","date":"October 31, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/tax-on-knowledge/","section":"Posts","summary":"I called with the taxman yesterday to clarify some stuff. I had surmised that profesionally relevant books could be deducted as expenses. Now it seems there is a very fine distinction.\n","title":"Tax on knowledge","type":"posts"},{"content":"Last day in San Francisco we went up to Twin Peaks for this absolutely stunning view over the city: Great way to end a first visit.\n","date":"October 29, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/twin-peaks/","section":"Posts","summary":"Last day in San Francisco we went up to Twin Peaks for this absolutely stunning view over the city: ","title":"Twin Peaks","type":"posts"},{"content":"Freshly one day back in from San Francisco some adjustments need to be made. The time difference has been reduced from 9 hours to 8 thanks to our splendidly European invention: DST. Along with the time difference there is also a slight difference in daylight and a large difference in temperature (15ź centigrade) and precipitation (nearly non-stop rain the past day).\nAdjusting to the superficials will be easy enough, but as after every big trip and after having seem some truly splendid natural and metropolitan vistas, adjusting the mind to a realignment of the world brought about by new experience will be somewhat more difficult.\n","date":"October 28, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/adjustments/","section":"Posts","summary":"Freshly one day back in from San Francisco some adjustments need to be made. The time difference has been reduced from 9 hours to 8 thanks to our splendidly European invention: DST. Along with the time difference there is also a slight difference in daylight and a large difference in temperature (15ź centigrade) and precipitation (nearly non-stop rain the past day).\n","title":"Adjustments","type":"posts"},{"content":"My days in Berkeley/Oakland 1 used to be filled with: And now my days are filled with: Tomorrow it\u0026rsquo;s back to the city and doing some last things before flying back early Sunday morning.\nAbout which more later.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"October 22, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/current-affairs/","section":"Posts","summary":"My days in Berkeley/Oakland 1 used to be filled with: ","title":"Current affairs","type":"posts"},{"content":"Funny to hear from Cristiano that David Recordon just flashed Four Starters on stage (slide 37 of this presentation) on FOWA in London to demo the concept of hAvatar, a Wordpress plugin I developed about half a year ago. And a strange bit of anti-serendipity this stuff happening in London while I\u0026rsquo;m in SF.\nThe concept of the plugin is very simple. There are a ton of avatar standards out there the most widely used of whom is gravatar. Gravatar uses an e-mail hash and was acquired by Wordpress. There are some others which rely on a in the head of the page or some other convoluted agreed upon standard.\nhAvatar does it by following somebody\u0026rsquo;s profile URL that they leave at a comment and seeing if there\u0026rsquo;s an hCard on that URL. If there is an hCard there, hAvatar retrieves the linked image representation and displays that. The approach is decentral and uses existing standards and conventions so I thought it interesting enough to build. If there\u0026rsquo;s interest I can check out the source code and make it run on the latest Wordpress and see if there are any bugs that need fixing.\nInteresting talk about blowing up the social network and there\u0026rsquo;s even more possible than what he\u0026rsquo;s describing, seeing as hAvatar is half a year old. The stuff Open-CI can do with remote profiles and avatars is further along but still rather poorly documented. And I\u0026rsquo;m missing a big part of the stack which is necessary for notification (mostly XMPP).\nP.S. Four Starters is unofficially defunct. Most of our attentions have slipped back to our personal weblogs. We\u0026rsquo;re looking for a good way to preserve the content there and save it from the spammers.\n","date":"October 12, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/havatar-reprise-on-fowa/","section":"Posts","summary":"Funny to hear from Cristiano that David Recordon just flashed Four Starters on stage (slide 37 of this presentation) on FOWA in London to demo the concept of hAvatar, a Wordpress plugin I developed about half a year ago. And a strange bit of anti-serendipity this stuff happening in London while I’m in SF.\n","title":"hAvatar reprise on FOWA","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;ve always wanted to go there and tomorrow I\u0026rsquo;m finally going. Some vague plans, tads of serendipity and friends pushing me over the edge were enough to have me book the ticket, I think, only three weeks ago. Tomorrow Lufthansa will take me over an ocean for the first time of my life 1.\nHalfway during the trip there\u0026rsquo;s a four day capoeira event celebrating Mestre Acordeon\u0026rsquo;s fiftieth year of teaching capoeira with a Brazilian festival in Berkeley on Saturday. I\u0026rsquo;ll also try to get some surfing in and see if I can visit the local tech hubs and meet some people, so it\u0026rsquo;s not purely a holiday.\nIf this wasn\u0026rsquo;t enough to stress me out, today my laptop decided to not boot anymore. So I spent most of the day panicing and restoring a backup, after which everything seems to work again but no clue for how long. Maybe I should try to sneak a new Macbook past customs on my way back.\nTake care, I\u0026rsquo;ll be back the 27th.\nPretty lame for somebody who likes to travel.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"October 12, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/san-francisco/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’ve always wanted to go there and tomorrow I’m finally going. Some vague plans, tads of serendipity and friends pushing me over the edge were enough to have me book the ticket, I think, only three weeks ago. Tomorrow Lufthansa will take me over an ocean for the first time of my life 1.\n","title":"San Francisco","type":"posts"},{"content":"Tomorrow I\u0026rsquo;m going to attend Students for Free Culture. I may not be a student anymore, but I still regularly ride with that crowd and the conference has a great program and is for anybody with an interest in the topic. So, getting up early and taking the BART down into Berkeley. I\u0026rsquo;ll see if I can use my newly bought Kodak to record a couple of keynotes.\nIf you\u0026rsquo;re in the Netherlands, there\u0026rsquo;s an event along a lot of the same lines called Volksopstand2008(lit.: uprising) where a group of people will gather in the Hague to protest the attrition of privacy by our government and other institutions. I recommend you go, though I\u0026rsquo;m a bit late in doing so 1\nStill have to get used to this time difference.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"October 11, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/uprising-tomorrow/","section":"Posts","summary":"Tomorrow I’m going to attend Students for Free Culture. I may not be a student anymore, but I still regularly ride with that crowd and the conference has a great program and is for anybody with an interest in the topic. So, getting up early and taking the BART down into Berkeley. I’ll see if I can use my newly bought Kodak to record a couple of keynotes.\n","title":"Uprising tomorrow","type":"posts"},{"content":"At our nice coworking spot Studio 4 Stagioni we have one or two desks available effective immediately. This poster has been hanging on some select locations around town: The ad is in Dutch, but it says you can get a desk in a creative environment next to the Delft central train station for €85 a month (cost). If you\u0026rsquo;re interested or know somebody who is, get in touch either here or using the phone number on the ad.\n","date":"October 3, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/coworking-desk-available/","section":"Posts","summary":"At our nice coworking spot Studio 4 Stagioni we have one or two desks available effective immediately. This poster has been hanging on some select locations around town: ","title":"Coworking Desk Available","type":"posts"},{"content":"Taplin writes about America having to buckle up and go to the simpler life, which I think might not be such a bad thing:\nIn short, deleveraging means we are all going to have to downsize. You life is going to get simpler, you will shed excess baggage. The second hand stores will flourish. The malls will shrink and there will be fewer of them. You will spend more evenings at home around a table with friends than in high priced restaurants. You might even learn to play an instrument to entertain yourself and your friends rather than shelling out $200 a head for Rolling Stones concert seats. You will put up your solar roof and sell power back to the grid. You will drive a hybrid or use mass transit. Your garden will become a prime source of your food.\nA call for simpler, more meaningful and more passionate lives not built on consumptive and external validation. Sounds like a good idea to me.\nHe also linked up this hilarious fictional dialogue between Obama and Jed Bartlett in the Times.\n","date":"September 23, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/downsize-and-change/","section":"Posts","summary":"Taplin writes about America having to buckle up and go to the simpler life, which I think might not be such a bad thing:\n","title":"Downsize and change","type":"posts"},{"content":"Last weekend the Camera Japan movie festival took place at the arthouse cinema Lantaren/Venster in Rotterdam and it was a lot of fun. The venue was packed and there was a great vibe (like always).\nWhen I got there Friday night hoping to see “Adrift in Tokyo” and “The Strange Saga of Hiroshi the Freeloading Sex Machine”. Unfortunately the first was totally sold out (Friday night, figure), so instead I bought a passepartout and got my tickets for the rest of the weekend.\nI ended up seeing these six movies and I was amazed at the overall quality. Is Japanese cinema this good or did I have a lucky pick?\nAfro Samurai turned out to be a great anime blending various cultural and historic elements with humor, classic anime action and beautiful animation sequences. Recommended if you can look beyond its initial flat gangsta surface. Funuke, show some love you losers! was a great funny and blunt family drama with some strange dynamics in a family where both of the parents die in a crash and their daughter comes back home to the country. Each family member has to deal with their own past and with the others. Alternatingly very funny, dramatic and uncomfortable. Highly recommended. Tokyo Gore Police is a horrible movie both in its premise as in its execution. I won\u0026rsquo;t bore you with the details but the movie shocks as it should and is pretty funny at that. Funnier still were the people in the audience who did not make it through the movie when certain breaking points in them and in the characters in the movie had been reached. I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t recommend it, others would. What the snow brings is a beautiful film about a family reunion 1 at a draft horse racing stable in Hokkaido. The landscapes are stunning and the treatment of the characters and their histories is subtle but all the more heavy hitting for it. Slow pace but highly recommended. A Gentle Breeze in the Village (official site) is even better, beautifully filmed set in the Japanese country side details the lives of a small group of children and their school. A new boy arrives from Tokyo and Soyo falls in love with him. Slow coming of age movie with a lot of telling clos-ups of the ground and feet (you have to see it). Highly recommended. Sword of the Stranger (official site) is a simple and predictable story about a young boy hunted by bad guys and a stranger who finds him and helps him. What makes this movie great is the fantastic execution in characters, story, action scenes and overall animation. Classic, highly recommended. Like I said I saw so many good movies 2 but because of their very limited releases most people I know will never get the opportunity to see any of them. The Camera Japan festival is touring through the Netherlands in the following weeks so let my list be a guide and catch a couple of these movies: 26/9 — 28/9 in Kriterion, Amsterdam and a more limited set in various other cities.\nWould you think this is a theme in Japanese cinema?\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nI\u0026rsquo;m curious which movie was the audience choice.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"September 22, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/camera-japan-festival/","section":"Posts","summary":"Last weekend the Camera Japan movie festival took place at the arthouse cinema Lantaren/Venster in Rotterdam and it was a lot of fun. The venue was packed and there was a great vibe (like always).\n","title":"Camera Japan Festival","type":"posts"},{"content":"Register for the PICNIC social network, it might very well be your last.\nThese days with Amsterdam revving up again for the PICNIC cross media week you guys will have been getting a slew of friend requests and other invitations related to the event and its social networking website.\nI encourage you all to register on PICNIC even if you do not plan to attend the conference (and friend me!). The PICNIC network website is built by Mediamatic on the latest version of anyMeta that implements the Open-CI standard for social networking. Open-CI is a standard tat enables social networks to work together, share connections and content and exchange real-time updates.\nSequence diagram for adding friends across sites\nSince last spring, when we got together to talk about these issues, Mediamatic has been building Open-CI to make their social networks talk together because they were running into the same duplication and user tedium problems as the rest of the social networking world.\nTheir development team with the addition of XMPP-Ralph has been steadily at work and they have implemented the standards and created the semantics necessary for social network interoperability.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve been working with them to write a white paper with an overview and explanation of the benefits of such a system and Willem recently gave an interview talking about the high level benefits of Open-CI.\nUpdate: And it is done. You can now use your account on PICNIC to login to Mediamatic.net (and vice versa) and once logged in you can do everything you want on the site. See the screenshot: ","date":"September 15, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/your-last-social-network/","section":"Posts","summary":"Register for the PICNIC social network, it might very well be your last.\n","title":"Your last social network","type":"posts"},{"content":"Mr. Hammersley asks whether it\u0026rsquo;s possible to delay the delivery of e-mail in a way to receive stuff in bulk at a certain time. Other than some creative spooling on a mailserver more dynamic than most in existence today, the easiest solution would probably be to setup a different GMail account called “lists-XXX@”and POP everything from there once a day either manually or scripted 1.\nI have the inverse problem. It sometimes happens that I\u0026rsquo;m (vainly) trying to reach inbox zero at some ungodly hour writing replies to people where it wouldn\u0026rsquo;t come over as too professional to have them receive e-mails created at 02:42 or thereabouts. I would like to have my outgoing e-mail delayed until 09:00 the following morning and sent in one big batch to create the impression 2 that I\u0026rsquo;m a decent person who adheres to business hours.\nRemains the pain of having those lists accept your e-mail from a different address than the one that is subcribed.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nTo those who cannot fathom how we work.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"September 13, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/e-mail-delivery-timing/","section":"Posts","summary":"Mr. Hammersley asks whether it’s possible to delay the delivery of e-mail in a way to receive stuff in bulk at a certain time. Other than some creative spooling on a mailserver more dynamic than most in existence today, the easiest solution would probably be to setup a different GMail account called “lists-XXX@”and POP everything from there once a day either manually or scripted 1.\n","title":"E-mail delivery timing","type":"posts"},{"content":"Zoals ik gisteren schreef heb ik e-mails gestuurd over onze resultaten naar GroenLinks en Rover over de resultaten van de visualisaties van de reistijdengegevens.\nHet is alemaal nog niet super-af maar het geeft een goede indruk van de verschillen in reistijd tussen openbaar vervoer en de auto. Als iemand interesse heeft in beelden die dit aantonen, dan zijn het wel deze instanties.\nHier de e-mail naar GroenLinks 1:\nHallo,\nIk zag van de week wat persberichten langskomen over openbaar vervoer e.d. Ik heb samen met een collega een tijdje geleden van 9292OV en van ANWB voor elke postcode in Nederland opgevraagd wat de reistijd is naar de Dam. Deze gegevens hebben we verwerkt in een serie visualisaties waarin duidelijk zichtbaar is hoeveel langer het kost om met het openbaar vervoer ergens te komen:\nEen van de visualisaties laat zien hoeveel verder je in dezelfde tijd kunt komen met de auto: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kaeru/2743375229/in/set-72157606466915102\nUiteindelijk is er een interactieve applicatie uit voortgekomen die nog gepubliceerd moet worden: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kaeru/2761843373/in/set-72157606466915102 Alle visualisaties: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kaeru/sets/72157606466915102/\nEn onze beider verslagen hoe we het gedaan hebben: /dingen/2008/06/workshop-session-on-geodata-visualization/ http://leapfrog.nl/blog/archives/2008/08/15/the-making-of-a-travel-time-map-of-the-netherlands/\nEr zijn hier twee punten die spelen:\n1. Het verschil in bereikbaarheid tussen de auto en het openbaar vervoer zijn dramatisch en deze visualisaties proberen dat inzichtelijk te maken.\n2. Het verkrijgen van de gegevens om dit soort inzichten te bereiken is goed mogelijk maar moeilijker dan het zou moeten zijn. Er zijn meer stimulansen nodig om gegevens vrij te geven en dan het liefst in herbruikbare formaten.\nIk hoop dat jullie er wat aan hebben.\nMet vriendelijke groet, Alper Çugun\nNu maar afwachten of er een reactie komt.\nUpdate: En hier de reactie van de publieksdienst van GroenLinks:\nGeachte heer/mevrouw Çugun,\nHartelijk dank voor uw e-mail van 6 september 2008 die wij in goede orde hebben ontvangen.\nWij zullen uw punten meenemen in komende debatten.\nIk hoop u hiermee voldoende te hebben geïnformeerd.\nMet vriendelijke groet,\nVishal Ramkisoensing Publieksdienst Tweede Kamerfractie GroenLinks\nDe e-mail naar Rover is vergelijkbaar.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"September 12, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/mailtjes-naar-publieke-instellingen/","section":"Posts","summary":"Zoals ik gisteren schreef heb ik e-mails gestuurd over onze resultaten naar GroenLinks en Rover over de resultaten van de visualisaties van de reistijdengegevens.\n","title":"Mailtjes naar publieke instellingen","type":"posts"},{"content":"This blog will remain to be mainly in English, but the occasional Dutch 1 post may creep in. Pascal told me that it doesn\u0026rsquo;t make a lot of sense to write about locally Dutch things for a Dutch audience in English 2.\nSo I have revamped my categories to make them simpler 3 and added a main category Language under which to classify my posts by language.\nEnglish readers who want a feed of only English language posts should change their subscription to point to: /dingen/category/lang/english/feed/ Dutch readers have a similar feed and bilingual or polyglot readers will not have to change a thing.\nAnd maybe also other language\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nThough it doesn\u0026rsquo;t strike me as that strange either. The only ones who\u0026rsquo;d be left out would be Dutch people who don\u0026rsquo;t speak English, a negligible minority.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nI\u0026rsquo;d abused my categories as tags mostly.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"September 10, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/note-for-english-language-readers/","section":"Posts","summary":"This blog will remain to be mainly in English, but the occasional Dutch 1 post may creep in. Pascal told me that it doesn’t make a lot of sense to write about locally Dutch things for a Dutch audience in English 2.\n","title":"Note for English language readers","type":"posts"},{"content":"As promised a while back after we got our fill playing with the data I would release it to the public to see if you could come up with something interesting. I\u0026rsquo;d leaked the JSON file to Kars and he applied his skills in visualizing things in processing 1 to the dataset.\nThen after some more back and forth I retrieved a similar dataset from the ANWB site 2: the time to travel a similar distance at a similar time but this time by car 3.\nThe juxtaposition of those two datasets made for some interesting results and some nice applications of interactive filtering. Kars has a full writeup of his process.\nSo without further ado, here is the dataset under a Creative Commons Attribution license. It\u0026rsquo;s a JSON file: Traveltimes with as keys a four digit string for the postal code. The value is a dictionary with this key-value mapping:\nlatLatitude GPS coordinatelngLongitude GPS coordinateplaceInferred name of the locationtimeThe time it takes using public transportationcarTimeThe time it takes by car (a small amount of null values where the time could not be retrieved)All times are from the center of the 4 digit postal code as well as can be determined to Dam Square in Amsterdam around noon on a given day.\nI find it interesting (and somewhat appalling) to see how large the difference is between taking the car or going by public transportation. Doing a sampling for 08:00 on Monday morning during rush hour might somewhat equalize this, but I think it\u0026rsquo;s safe to say that car owners will remain at an advantage.\nSo next up is e-mailing GroenLinks and Rover to see if they can use this data or these visualizations.\nWith some help from Ben Fry.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nThese site operators are so friendly and accomodating.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nWith historical traffic congestion information added, but because the sampled time was around noon the effect should be negligible.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"September 8, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/playing-with-public-transportation-data/","section":"Posts","summary":"As promised a while back after we got our fill playing with the data I would release it to the public to see if you could come up with something interesting. I’d leaked the JSON file to Kars and he applied his skills in visualizing things in processing 1 to the dataset.\n","title":"Playing with Public (Transportation) Data","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;ve been blogging in English for a while now and while the stats show a steady amount of readers, I haven\u0026rsquo;t really had any comments on anything really.\nWhat do you think about the switch to English? Writing English regularly at least has made me acutely aware of how much I still have to learn about the language and how much I need to develop a feel for it.\n","date":"September 3, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/evaluate/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’ve been blogging in English for a while now and while the stats show a steady amount of readers, I haven’t really had any comments on anything really.\n","title":"Evaluate","type":"posts"},{"content":"In the only month where I somewhat approach Matt Webb\u0026rsquo;s amount of reading, he just goes and ups his count to nearly double mine.\nAnyway here\u0026rsquo;s my list for August. I think the fact that this is an extremely slow summer both in terms of weather and waves somewhat explains this amount. Also that I\u0026rsquo;ve refound a lot of focus in reading and fun in keeping track of my shelf on Anobii 1.\nCatch-22, Joseph Heller (8th) About Face 3, Alan Cooper c.s. (15th) Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen (22nd) De Engelenmaker, Stefan Brijs (25th) Urban Computing and Its Discontents, Adam Greenfield \u0026amp; Mark Shephard (27th) Sketching User Experiences, Bill Buxton (27th) Subject to Change, Adaptive Path (29th) I haven\u0026rsquo;t been too lucky in my choice of novels. I had a lot of trouble finishing Catch-22 but on the whole it was worth it, Pride and Prejudice was more boring than not and the Engelenmaker turned out to be a fast paced but forgettable medical thriller about religion and morality.\nThe most interesting book this month was “Sketching User Experiences”because of its marriage of design, sketching, interaction, products and business in a visually very pleasing book.\nThis probably won\u0026rsquo;t become a regular thing. You can keep track of my reading at Anobii, a site which I recommend.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"September 3, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/books-read-august-2008/","section":"Posts","summary":"In the only month where I somewhat approach Matt Webb’s amount of reading, he just goes and ups his count to nearly double mine.\n","title":"Books read August 2008","type":"posts"},{"content":"This video on BoingBoing is shocking in its absurdity but hardly unexpected given the current climate. If you pay any attention around you in metropolitan areas in the UK, it is rife with ostentatious surveillance.\nWhat I\u0026rsquo;m most afraid of is that if we get a significant bombing in the Netherlands, that will be the only excuse necessary to implement these random searches and violations of our civil liberties on Dutch soil. And the populace will swallow it wholesale supported by our MSM 1.\nTerrorism is nothing to be afraid of compared to the complacent fascism hidden in the average person.\nFormerly a fascist collaborating publication, currently the most popular and most populist newspaper in the Netherlands.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"August 22, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/some-legitimate-fear/","section":"Posts","summary":"This video on BoingBoing is shocking in its absurdity but hardly unexpected given the current climate. If you pay any attention around you in metropolitan areas in the UK, it is rife with ostentatious surveillance.\n","title":"Some legitimate fear","type":"posts"},{"content":"A weekend with friends for me only reaches conclusion after the pictures have been edited and placed online. The process takes some time but also allows/forces me to relive it. This time the process has been further prolonged because I have to wait until somewhere next week to pick up my developed film.\nLast weekend in Wapse with friends was quite awesome, here are some stills: ","date":"August 20, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/capoeira-development/","section":"Posts","summary":"A weekend with friends for me only reaches conclusion after the pictures have been edited and placed online. The process takes some time but also allows/forces me to relive it. This time the process has been further prolonged because I have to wait until somewhere next week to pick up my developed film.\n","title":"Capoeira Development","type":"posts"},{"content":"It\u0026rsquo;s nice to have friends who are pushing their bounds photographically to try and improve their skill and to see them improve leaps and bounds as a result of that.\nOne such friend is Mony and during his yearly holiday 1 to Bulgaria he has produced a very nice set of street photography out of Sofia: Picture by Mony Nedkov from the set Sofia.\nFor me it\u0026rsquo;s of particular interest to see pictures of a city neighboring my love Istanbul. I have just this one picture I would call a good street photography shot. The effort it takes to get even halfway decent shots is staggering.\nOn a different photograpic note, I\u0026rsquo;ve brought away the 120 film I shot this weekend for development. I hope the repairs on my Yashica worked out and the pictures are in focus. Shooting manual metered medium format film is a very different experience and pace than I\u0026rsquo;m used to from my 350D and something I could very well get used to. The digital set is still being edited and should go (partly) up tonight.\nOr should I say pilgrimage.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"August 19, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/daily-life-in-%D1%81%D0%BE%D1%84%D0%B8%D1%8F/","section":"Posts","summary":"It’s nice to have friends who are pushing their bounds photographically to try and improve their skill and to see them improve leaps and bounds as a result of that.\n","title":"Daily life in София","type":"posts"},{"content":"My friendly neighborhood night store will gladly give me a plastic bag for every item of shopping I buy from them 1. This is pretty thoughtful and at the same time also pretty short-sighted. Now there seem to be some places in the world that have banned plastic bags though I\u0026rsquo;m not sure which ones. It is a pretty contentious issue. It seems to be difficult or something but it\u0026rsquo;s not exactly clear why that is. We\u0026rsquo;re one of the technically most advanced societies in the world and we can\u0026rsquo;t live without plastic bags?\nI wasn\u0026rsquo;t very hungry so instead of my regular döner I got some green pistachio baklava. This stuff is so ridiculously delicious it explodes into pure sugar and pistachio in your mouth and it fills you up pretty fast. I don\u0026rsquo;t get why you would buy mass-produced candy from the supermarket. If you want to get fat, why not get fat eating good stuff?\nNow if only I could find a place around here 2 that sells künefe, things would get really crazy.\nPicture by elifayse\nAs well they should if you see the markup they\u0026rsquo;re charging.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nDen Haag or Rotterdam will do.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"July 31, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/night-store/","section":"Posts","summary":"My friendly neighborhood night store will gladly give me a plastic bag for every item of shopping I buy from them 1. This is pretty thoughtful and at the same time also pretty short-sighted. Now there seem to be some places in the world that have banned plastic bags though I’m not sure which ones. It is a pretty contentious issue. It seems to be difficult or something but it’s not exactly clear why that is. We’re one of the technically most advanced societies in the world and we can’t live without plastic bags?\n","title":"Night Store","type":"posts"},{"content":"Barack\u0026rsquo;s visit to Europe again makes clear how important it is to people over here who exactly is the POTUS. A lot of people in Europe are interested and invested in American politics and for good reason if you see the effect the American\u0026rsquo;s actions can have on the rest of the world.\nPolls show that Europeans overwhelmingly support Barack Obama and would like to see him in office as opposed to McCain. This makes it extra annoying that our power to influence the process is severely limited. American elections are in a large part dominated by money and the raising of it. Unfortunately non-Americans are excluded from making donations. Something about foreigners not being allowed to elect the American President.\nThis is of course stupid. The people electing the president are still the Americans. Seeing as campaign financing has been regarded as a form of free speech, don\u0026rsquo;t people from outside the USA have the right to speak their minds on this matter? I\u0026rsquo;m sure that if Trichet would look under the sofa in his office, he could find a spare €50'000'000 1 —per the wishes of the European electorate— to give Obama\u0026rsquo;s campaign that extra push.\nGiving $50M would be even easier if you see the current exchange rates.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"July 31, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/a-world-that-donates-as-one/","section":"Posts","summary":"Barack’s visit to Europe again makes clear how important it is to people over here who exactly is the POTUS. A lot of people in Europe are interested and invested in American politics and for good reason if you see the effect the American’s actions can have on the rest of the world.\n","title":"A World That Donates As One","type":"posts"},{"content":"I got a link to this video from somewhere and it is priceless. It prompted me to do some research and I found an interview which confirms that that Aaron Draplin guy is awesome and does really cool work.\n(This post mostly for the benefit of my designer friends.)\n","date":"July 30, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/draplin-design/","section":"Posts","summary":"I got a link to this video from somewhere and it is priceless. It prompted me to do some research and I found an interview which confirms that that Aaron Draplin guy is awesome and does really cool work.\n","title":"Draplin Design","type":"posts"},{"content":"A while back we went to the World Press Photo 2008 exhibition in Utrecht with some capoeiras and looked at the pictures many of us had already seen after the first announcement.\nI had prepared a bit for the day by listening to the photographers\u0026rsquo; commentaries on their pictures. As is the case with many artists, the artist should not try to explain his art but in some cases the commentary really adds a lot to the picture.\nI would recommend Platon about his portrait of Poetin, John Moore about the Bhutto assassination and Brent Stirton about the preservation of gorillas.\n","date":"July 29, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/world-press/","section":"Posts","summary":"A while back we went to the World Press Photo 2008 exhibition in Utrecht with some capoeiras and looked at the pictures many of us had already seen after the first announcement.\n","title":"World Press","type":"posts"},{"content":"A lot of raves for the new line of Apple Keyboards also from me. Cris has been so kind to import one for me from London 1.\nThis keyboard has improved my workplace conditions massively. It\u0026rsquo;s a pleasure to sit down at my desk and start typing on it. I\u0026rsquo;m currently pairing it with my old Logitech MX500 mouse but that is bound to go wireless as well. I may be tempted to haul the whole installation on the road but I don\u0026rsquo;t want to end up looking like this.\nNow I just need to find something to prop up my Macbook much much higher. I\u0026rsquo;m currently putting it on a pile of UX books, which could be a sign I need to increase my reading speed.\nAbout the sizing issue. The Bluetooth keyboard\u0026rsquo;s size is perfect. The layout is nearly identical to my Macbook keyboard\u0026rsquo;s layout, which means I have no switching costs going back and forth. A numerical keypad I would hardly use anyway, and the six buttons above the arrows are easily replaced with the Mac key chords.\nSomething to do with Apple Store discounts.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"July 27, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/wireless-typing/","section":"Posts","summary":"A lot of raves for the new line of Apple Keyboards also from me. Cris has been so kind to import one for me from London 1.\n","title":"Wireless typing","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;ve been tremendously enjoying the stuff Jan Chipchase writes on his blog both current and digging deep into his archives 1. A dream job if ever there was one.\nHis current piece is especially pertinent as the iPhone 3G release with builtin GPS and accompanied unlimited data plans will herald the location based revolution. Many of my friends say that they do not want to broadcast where they are and know where their friends are most of the time. That they would rather get together using premediated consensual communication.\nI think in user research you have to adopt the same maxim that everybody lies maybe unknowingly or unwillingly. It remains to be seen how many people will not succumb to the temptation of total information. Broadcasting your location, but even more attractive knowing where your loved ones are at any given moment. The same initial reaction to mobile telephony didn\u0026rsquo;t prevent everybody I know from getting a mobile phone.\nWhat this will do to the mystery of travel and unknown locations is a whole different question asked by Babak. I think unequality in economic, communications and political circumstances will always keep parts of the world shrouded in mystery.\nBack to a time when comments were still allowed on his blog.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"July 27, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/socio-locational-disconnection/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’ve been tremendously enjoying the stuff Jan Chipchase writes on his blog both current and digging deep into his archives 1. A dream job if ever there was one.\n","title":"Socio-locational disconnection","type":"posts"},{"content":"Back from holiday, the surf was mostly flat but a good time was had, judging from the pictures on Flickr 1.\nNormal service will resume here at least until half of August when I will break shortly for Wapsen and maybe thereafter a bit longer for the former Yugoslavia.\nStill sorting through the bunch from Apremont and Nantes.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"July 27, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/normal-service/","section":"Posts","summary":"Back from holiday, the surf was mostly flat but a good time was had, judging from the pictures on Flickr 1.\n","title":"Normal service","type":"posts"},{"content":"Talking about catching waves, I had been annoyed majorly by the uselessness of Safari not incorporating any decent URL shortcut function 1 without either a paid for extension or a dreadful input manager hack.\nNow Shaun Inman has launched a somewhat more circumspect but more cross platform way of invoking the same functionality: Shortwave. His initial list, though useful is not what I would use the functionality most for in my Saft days. So I\u0026rsquo;ve added some links to dictionaries I use a lot and some I don\u0026rsquo;t use that much: alper.nl/wave.txt\nAdditions for the linguist\u0026rsquo;s shortwave are most welcome. Still looking for decent French, Mandarin, Arabic and Russian dictionaries.\nLike Firefox and Opera have had for ages.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"July 11, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/linguistic-waves/","section":"Posts","summary":"Talking about catching waves, I had been annoyed majorly by the uselessness of Safari not incorporating any decent URL shortcut function 1 without either a paid for extension or a dreadful input manager hack.\n","title":"Linguistic Waves","type":"posts"},{"content":"The summer may not have brought the best weather but still good times are around. This week finishing off some work before we\u0026rsquo;ll be going on an ill-prepared week long surftrip somewhere along the French Atlantic coast.\nSeasoned travellers as we deem ourselves and busy as we are, we have dispensed with most of the preparation one would think would be necessary. We have some camping equipment, surfboards and roof carriers and lots of good humour to go around. That should be enough for any holiday.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s also a reason I won\u0026rsquo;t be getting my iPhone 3G right away like a lot of people are. I\u0026rsquo;m planning on travelling some more and this device is more of a hindrance 1 and a risk than it is a benefit on the road.\nI\u0026rsquo;m still debating whether or not I should take my laptop. Odds of us finding solid power let alone WiFi are slim and 7GB of CF memory should be enough for a week\u0026rsquo;s holiday: 1GB/day. And a week of disconnection will probably do me more good than I realize.\n€30 per MB of data consumed abroad!?\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"July 11, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/pre-holiday-wrapping-up/","section":"Posts","summary":"The summer may not have brought the best weather but still good times are around. This week finishing off some work before we’ll be going on an ill-prepared week long surftrip somewhere along the French Atlantic coast.\n","title":"Pre holiday wrapping up","type":"posts"},{"content":" The second day started off with a talk about Free by Jerry Michalski which reminded me a lot of the topics that I had covered the previous day in my talk. Jerry\u0026rsquo;s talk being in the main hall made this turn out a lot differently than my talk.\nDavid Recordon followed with a talk about the open web and reminded us that not that much has changed in the last six months since I saw him on the same topic in Berlin. The big social conglomerates that have each other in a chokehold make for glacial progress.\nI dropped in on the Arduino workshop which was a very nice introduction into building electronic stuff. Because I was already somewhat familiar and I wanted the freedom to bounce around the conference, I hadn\u0026rsquo;t registered but I did get some questions in to further my own ideas.\nJoshua\u0026rsquo;s talk proved to be one of the best of the conference —with this great quote— marred slightly by the fact that his partner could not make it for a more complete stage presence. His work and vision how technology works towards freedom is very relevant and interesting though we usually stare ourselves blind at Silicon Valley and the likes.\nAfter the conference we made a yearly chaotic meetup somewhere in the city trying to get something to eat more or less succesfully after which we made our way to Vega. The party in the bar was quickly replaced with a party outside with tipping beers and music where everybody had a great time. Even the arrival of police could not really stop our party.\nThe next day I was going to get some coffee at Kafeplantagen when I remembered that some people were having a post-Reboot brunch at Pussy Galore\u0026rsquo;s Flying Circus 1. I was a bit hesitant to join after having already spent two days with these people but I\u0026rsquo;m glad I went inside. I got to catch up with Chris Messina, Brynn Evans and Janetti Chon and talk about the differences between the USA and Europe.\nYeah, the name is for real.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"July 1, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/10th-reboot-day-2-and-on/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"10th Reboot - day 2 and on","type":"posts"},{"content":"Reboot 10 is over and in my experience they simply get better every year.\nI\u0026rsquo;d signed up for a session and got slotted on Thursday morning so I spent a good part of Wednesday preparing and running through the story. Of course after having gotten over my early flight and having eaten something at the Laundromat.\nMy session on Free Economics was filled over capacity while it was meant to be a cosy conversational session. Fortunately that also meant more than enough people willing to participate and add information, so I think it went well and it proved a good starting point for the rest of the conference. My stress relieved could follow the rest of the sessions.\nThere were a number of other Dutch presenters most notably: Kars, Ton, Ianus and Iskander. Unfortunately I didn\u0026rsquo;t see any of them present, but I\u0026rsquo;ll catch up on that when the video\u0026rsquo;s are posted. Being programmed against Andy Budd meant that I missed his presentation as well, but maybe I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t have fitted in the completely full small room anyway.\nThomas Vander Wal\u0026rsquo;s talk —always nice to have him over at this side of the ocean— gave us some great elements for social software to base our thinking on and concluded with a way to get organizations to think about the dichotomy between keeping information and sharing it.\nIt was a joy to hear music in the presentation on Tradition by Jeremy Keith. More music is usually a good idea as we would also see in the final party.\nOn Reboot I never can keep up going to sessions and usually it\u0026rsquo;s better not to. The interactions in the hallways and the lobby especially during the lull when there are sessions going on are more interesting on a personal level than anything else.\nThe first day\u0026rsquo;s talk got concluded by a fun treatment of information by David Weinberger. During dinner it was also very interesting to get a preview of his session from Siert Wijnia about his Fablab and what the commoditization of the production process will do to product design and manufacturing.\n","date":"June 29, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/10th-reboot-day-1/","section":"Posts","summary":"Reboot 10 is over and in my experience they simply get better every year.\n","title":"10th Reboot - day 1","type":"posts"},{"content":"By the time this post has been published I will be on a train on my way to Schiphol to fly to Copenhagen to attend the 10th edition of Reboot 1.\nCopenhagen has become familiar territory and I\u0026rsquo;ll be there for only four days. Acclimatizing on Wednesday which kicks off with a boat trip. Thursday and Friday will be conference days during which I hope to see a lot of people and I have been alotted a small session where we\u0026rsquo;ll talk about Free Economies.\nSaturday will be spent recovering, maybe a run along the lakes or a decent brunch or burger and Saturday evening my train will depart for the Netherlands. The train journey back I\u0026rsquo;m looking forward to a lot more than the plane ride in.\nmy third\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"June 26, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/off-to-copenhagen/","section":"Posts","summary":"By the time this post has been published I will be on a train on my way to Schiphol to fly to Copenhagen to attend the 10th edition of Reboot 1.\n","title":"Off to Copenhagen","type":"posts"},{"content":"The Dutch government is thinking of increasing the VAT from its current 19% to 20% at the end of this year (source). That may seem like a lot, but for instance in Denmark I believe it stands at 25% and Denmark is a pretty nice country.\nI\u0026rsquo;m curious to the rationale of such an increase of 1%. Why increase it at all? In the current political climate it will only increase perception that Jan Modaal 1 is being screwed over by government. And why then not increase it directly to 25% or 50%, if it\u0026rsquo;s such a good thing?\nIn other news a radio commercial claiming that ‘taxation is theft’ (source) was banned this week.\nDutch for the Average Joe.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"June 20, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/value-added/","section":"Posts","summary":"The Dutch government is thinking of increasing the VAT from its current 19% to 20% at the end of this year (source). That may seem like a lot, but for instance in Denmark I believe it stands at 25% and Denmark is a pretty nice country.\n","title":"Value Added","type":"posts"},{"content":"Yesterday we had an afternoon of workshops in an unconference style event at the office. A full registration of the event with video and slides will be published during the course of this weekend, but unfortunately most of it will be in Dutch.\nI did a hands on workshop of a small datavisualization project I did this week and I registered myself on video using Screenflow. The video (in Dutch) is below:\nGeografische Datavisualisatie from Alper Çugun on Vimeo.\nAnd the result: I did not make a keynote instead opting to the more hands on presentation of narrated browser tabs interspersed with live demoes and code samples.\nHere\u0026rsquo;s a list of the tabs I\u0026rsquo;ve used during the presentation.\nIntroduction # Using the iPhone to Mine for Gold \u0026amp; Sense City Sense PolicyMap\nData gathering # Travel-time Maps and their Uses Travel-time and house price maps mySociety Travel Time and House Price Maps Wikipedia — Postcode Postcode map (one digit) Google Maps OV9292 Mechanize GeoNames, query, webservice\nSimple visualization # Processing ArcGIS Desktop Open Source GIS Wikipedia — GIS Google Earth KML Reference Adobe Kuler Wikipedia — HSL and HSV Google Maps — Retranchement ANWB Funda\n","date":"June 16, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/workshop-session-on-geodata-visualization/","section":"Posts","summary":"Yesterday we had an afternoon of workshops in an unconference style event at the office. A full registration of the event with video and slides will be published during the course of this weekend, but unfortunately most of it will be in Dutch.\n","title":"Workshop session on geodata visualization","type":"posts"},{"content":"It\u0026rsquo;s been a week but I\u0026rsquo;ve just gotten around to processing them after the event. Here\u0026rsquo;s a small selection of capoeira pictures: ","date":"June 12, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/some-capoeira-pictures/","section":"Posts","summary":"It’s been a week but I’ve just gotten around to processing them after the event. Here’s a small selection of capoeira pictures: ","title":"Some capoeira pictures","type":"posts"},{"content":"The barbecue (and the alcohol) also make for some interesting group pictures. There\u0026rsquo;s the traditional group with everybody on it: And I had a lot of fun shooting a set with the girls: ","date":"June 11, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/barbecue-groups/","section":"Posts","summary":"The barbecue (and the alcohol) also make for some interesting group pictures. There’s the traditional group with everybody on it: ","title":"Barbecue Groups","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"June 10, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/surfing/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Surfing","type":"categories"},{"content":" We had an excellent summer last year surfing on and off on Scheveningen as the waves allowed. This year has been mostly flat, but we had some waves a week ago and end of this week promises some nice swell, so surf is up.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s nice to have a surf spot this easily accessible, but I\u0026rsquo;m curious how surfing in real waves is 1. So this July we\u0026rsquo;ll be headed off to Aquitaine or Basque country for a week to check the waves over there.\nI started out on the North coast of Spain.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"June 10, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/surfing-summer/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Surfing Summer","type":"posts"},{"content":"Today was a day of many happy occasions. The Dutch national soccer team utterly crushed the reigning world champion 3-0. And Steve Jobs held his annual WWDC address announcing a 3G iPhone for the masses.\nUploaded with plasq\u0026rsquo;s Skitch!\n“Twice as fast. Half the price.”Hell yeah. I will be getting me one. It\u0026rsquo;s been some two years since T-Mobile shafted me and I can\u0026rsquo;t exactly say that the other telcos in the Netherlands are worth a damn. Might as well go back for 2 years of servitude.\nJuly 11th it is and no official price yet, but I will be queueing at the store.\n","date":"June 9, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/apples-new-iphone/","section":"Posts","summary":"Today was a day of many happy occasions. The Dutch national soccer team utterly crushed the reigning world champion 3-0. And Steve Jobs held his annual WWDC address announcing a 3G iPhone for the masses.\n","title":"Apple's new iPhone","type":"posts"},{"content":"Last week we had the batizado for our group with people coming in from Amsterdam, Norway, London and Portugal just to celebrate this event together. The batizado with associated parties and barbecues is a highlight of the year and this year proved to be a great amount of fun.\nTraditionally the batizado ends on Sunday with a churrasco and having everybody together and mellow is a nice opportunity to shoot some pictures. For this set I took gnomo\u0026rsquo;s Nikon with 50mm f/1.4, a splendid lens if ever there is one and I ambushed everybody for their portrait within 10 minutes.\nHere\u0026rsquo;s a small selection: ","date":"June 9, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/fast-portraits/","section":"Posts","summary":"Last week we had the batizado for our group with people coming in from Amsterdam, Norway, London and Portugal just to celebrate this event together. The batizado with associated parties and barbecues is a highlight of the year and this year proved to be a great amount of fun.\n","title":"Fast Portraits","type":"posts"},{"content":"“Mooi Weer Spelen”1 is the title of the annual street theater festival that takes over the city center of Delft. This year, I\u0026rsquo;m living in said center and it\u0026rsquo;s much easier to see the events.\nUnfortunately this year the amount of people attracted by the free street theater shows has exploded and the weather has been great so every show is completely packed and it\u0026rsquo;s nearly impossible to watch it let alone take any decent pictures.\nSo here are a couple of pictures of the mobile acts: An insect troupe did set up camp in the courtyard behind my house, and from atop the wall I could get a nice perspective on their preparations: Nice Weather Games\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"June 8, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/mooi-weer-spelen/","section":"Posts","summary":"“Mooi Weer Spelen”1 is the title of the annual street theater festival that takes over the city center of Delft. This year, I’m living in said center and it’s much easier to see the events.\n","title":"Mooi Weer Spelen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Het is tegenover mijn potentiele internationale publiek niet echt eerlijk om Nederlands te schrijven, terwijl ik het Engels bijna net zo goed beheers.\nHet Nederlandse taalgebied is me te klein en alle Nederlanders die er toe doen spreken prima Engels. Dus in de toekomst misschien af en toe nog een Nederlands stukje hier, maar het merendeel in het Engels.\nProtesten mogen —in om het even welke taal— in de commentaren en zullen in overweging genomen worden.\n","date":"June 8, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/code-switching/","section":"Posts","summary":"Het is tegenover mijn potentiele internationale publiek niet echt eerlijk om Nederlands te schrijven, terwijl ik het Engels bijna net zo goed beheers.\n","title":"Code Switching","type":"posts"},{"content":"Volgende vrijdag houden we hier op kantoor een unconference-achtige workshop (beschrijving) middag om kennis uit te wisselen. Iedereen vertelt of laat iets zien wat hij kan ter lering ende vermaek van de anderen, dit mag alles zijn. Nu wilden we het aanvankelijk doen met ons vieren, maar het leek ons nog leuker om het open te stellen voor onze vrienden en kennissen.\nEelke heeft een viral geschoten om het event te promoten: Workshop 13 juni from Eelke D. on Vimeo.\nWe denken aan interactieve sessies van ongeveer een half uur van 1:30 tot einde van de dag afgesloten met borrel en barbecue. Leuk en gezellig, kom je ook?\n","date":"June 6, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/clinic-middag/","section":"Posts","summary":"Volgende vrijdag houden we hier op kantoor een unconference-achtige workshop (beschrijving) middag om kennis uit te wisselen. Iedereen vertelt of laat iets zien wat hij kan ter lering ende vermaek van de anderen, dit mag alles zijn. Nu wilden we het aanvankelijk doen met ons vieren, maar het leek ons nog leuker om het open te stellen voor onze vrienden en kennissen.\n","title":"Clinic Middag","type":"posts"},{"content":"Het is al een tijdje geek-chique om te zeggen dat Arduino\u0026rsquo;s cool zijn en te wensen dat je de tijd had om ermee te spelen. Dat vond ik wat vrijblijvend worden, dus ik heb maar een starters-setje besteld.\nHet idee is dat dit een simpel uitbreidbaar bord met processor is waar je een programma op kunt laden waarna dat zelfstandig kan draaien en de in- en uitvoer kan aansturen. Je kunt er allerlei dingen op aansluiten en een Arduino kan ook communiceren met andere Arduini of de server 1.\nWat doe je hier dan mee? Afgelopen week hield Adam Greenfield zijn presentatie op The Web and Beyond over de intelligente stad, en dat is één van de dingen die je hiermee kunt bouwen op kleine schaal. Het voorlopige idee is om op kantoor sensoren en/of displays te maken om de duizenden forensen die per dag passeren op de hoogte te brengen van iets.\nDat zou bijvoorbeeld de vertrektijd van de volgende trein kunnen zijn, of de actuele vervuiling op het moment 2. Het gaat er een beetje om wat goedkoop meetbaar en wat goedkoop weergeefbaar is.\nMet een kabel, Bluetooth of Zigbee\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nVolgens mij bestaand die sensoren wel, maar staan ze niet online. Ik mail VROM hierover.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"May 27, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/arduino-diecimila-projectje/","section":"Posts","summary":"Het is al een tijdje geek-chique om te zeggen dat Arduino’s cool zijn en te wensen dat je de tijd had om ermee te spelen. Dat vond ik wat vrijblijvend worden, dus ik heb maar een starters-setje besteld.\n","title":"Arduino Diecimila projectje","type":"posts"},{"content":" Zaterdag was een dag van toevallige ontmoetingen. En dat zonder Twitter of andere vormen van geopresence 1.\nAls is het toegegeven niet zo lastig als je pal naast elkaar woont.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"May 25, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/terras/","section":"Posts","summary":" Zaterdag was een dag van toevallige ontmoetingen. En dat zonder Twitter of andere vormen van geopresence 1.\n","title":"Terras","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik heb van mijn tripje naar Londen vorige week de aantekeningen over de eendaagse Geekyoto conferentie geplaatst op Four Starters. Geen vervanging voor de dag zelf, maar veel interessante weetjes en referenties.\nHet is in het Engels en ik denk dat ik meer in het Engels ga schrijven, misschien ook op dit blog. Nederland is een te kleine vijver.\n","date":"May 25, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/wereldverbeteren/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik heb van mijn tripje naar Londen vorige week de aantekeningen over de eendaagse Geekyoto conferentie geplaatst op Four Starters. Geen vervanging voor de dag zelf, maar veel interessante weetjes en referenties.\n","title":"Wereldverbeteren","type":"posts"},{"content":"Het is weer zover! Het jaarlijkse vetste Braziliaanse feest in de grootste disco van Delft komt er weer aan. Vorig jaar was het al een bijzonder geslaagde editie met een vol huis en adembenemende capoeira en afro-brazil acts, dit jaar belooft minstens net zo cool te worden.\nData: Zaterdag 31 mei, 20:00, Speakers Delft\nDe flyer staat hieronder:\nEen feest is natuurlijk niks zonder leuke mensen. Vandaar dat we al begonnen zijn met het verkopen van kaartjes. Kaartjes in de voorverkoop kosten €7,50 en zijn verkrijgbaar bij mij. Stuur me een mailtje of een direct message om te boeken.\nMis het niet, het wordt zeker weer erg vet.\nUpdate: Niemand dan een kaartje kopen?\n","date":"May 21, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/fiesta-brasileira/","section":"Posts","summary":"Het is weer zover! Het jaarlijkse vetste Braziliaanse feest in de grootste disco van Delft komt er weer aan. Vorig jaar was het al een bijzonder geslaagde editie met een vol huis en adembenemende capoeira en afro-brazil acts, dit jaar belooft minstens net zo cool te worden.\n","title":"Fiesta Brasileira!","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik merk dat na het voorval bij Bouwkunde van de week mensen niet blij worden van een alternatief standpunt over de kwestie. Ik was nooit al een fan van architecten en heel droevig kan ik er niet van worden 1.\nIk had al gepost dat ik het eerder een kans voor bouwkunde vond, dan wat dan ook en nu blijkt ook dat de verloren gewaande collecties gered zijn.\nEen paar dingen:\nDit soort dingen gebeurt veel vaker over de rest van de wereld en dan brandt niet alleen het hele gebouw af maar dan zitten er ook kogelgaten in en moet je of vechten of vluchten. Dat is een ver van ons bed situatie maar niet minder echt. In ieder geval hebben deze studenten er niet mee te maken. Ze krijgen noodopvang en een nieuw gebouw.\nOnze regering voert een oorlog tegen terrorisme, maar nu hebben we gezien wat een simpele koffieautomaat aan kan richten. Misschien wordt het tijd dat Balkenende zich hals over kop stort in een oorlog tegen de dreiging van automaten of minstens dan een platform opricht om de boel in kaart te brengen.\nDe link met het terorrisme kan nog verder: ik ben nu The Black Swan aan het lezen 2. In dat boek beargumenteert Taleb dat mensen blind zijn voor de gevolgen van onwaarschijnlijke gebeurtenissen. Hierdoor hebben mensen die daar iets aan doen een extreem ondankbare taak. Gedachtenexperiment: Stel dat iemand een paar jaar geleden wegens brandonveiligheid het pand had doen sluiten en het bestuur had gedwongen om kostbare verbouwingen door te voeren voor het gebruikt zou kunnen worden. Hoe populair zou zo iemand daarmee geworden zijn? Hij zou een ramp hebben voorkomen, maar daardoor zou niemand weten welke ramp of hoe erg 3.\nNo use crying over spilt milk.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nWat alle schijn heeft van een geweldig boek.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nDat terwijl je best goed kunt schitteren met het adequaat opvegen van puin nadat het kalf verdronken is.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"May 19, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/in-zak-en-as/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik merk dat na het voorval bij Bouwkunde van de week mensen niet blij worden van een alternatief standpunt over de kwestie. Ik was nooit al een fan van architecten en heel droevig kan ik er niet van worden 1.\n","title":"In zak en as","type":"posts"},{"content":"Maar ik heb er grondige vertrouwen in dat we hem kunnen repareren.\nIk zit nu in Londen 1 bij @mseckington en @cbetta op de bank na een dagje conferentie bij geekyoto waar een hele serie mensen hun visie hebben gegeven de toestand van de wereld en hoe die te repareren. Erg inspirerend en er zijn veel mensen met goede dingen bezig.\nIk ga nog meer schrijven maar feit is dat veel van de oplossingen geen extra techniek nodig hebben en ook niet meer kosten. Het enige wat de boel tegenhoudt is menselijke inertie.\nNu wat eten, morgenochtend kijken of ik een capoeirales kan volgen en morgenmiddag terugtreinen naar Nederland.\nDe Eurostar is een leuk vervoersmiddel.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"May 17, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/de-wereld-is-kapot/","section":"Posts","summary":"Maar ik heb er grondige vertrouwen in dat we hem kunnen repareren.\n","title":"De wereld is kapot","type":"posts"},{"content":"Gisteren overal veel te zien en te horen over de brand bij Bouwkunde. Vandaag schijnt de brand eindelijk meester te zijn. Sommige mensen verbaasden zich over het snel om zich heen grijpen van de brand, maar al die maquettes branden natuurlijk als een tierelier.\nCreative Commons picture by liteowl\nIk ben er zelf maar één of twee keer geweest tijdens mijn hele studie dus veel binding heb ik er niet mee. Jammer voor al die mensen waarvan het werk weg is, maar de digitale spullen 1 stonden offsite in het serverpark van de TU 2. Dus als het goed is moeten mensen snel door kunnen werken. Ik denk dat de TU wel genoeg plek moeten kunnen vinden voor die studenten. Er staan genoeg collegezalen leeg bij de verschillende faculteiten.\nDit is wel een unieke kans voor Bouwkunde om zichzelf opnieuw uit te vinden 3. Eerst een nieuw gebouw wat dan misschien iets minder lelijk en iets beter blusbaar kan zijn. Daarnaast is het natuurlijk een ideale proof of concept voor een studie architectuur om haar eigen gebouw te ontwerpen. Ik vraag me af of ze dat lukt.\nOf in ieder geval de netwerkschijven\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nWat als het goed is ook nog eens redundant is uitgevoerd.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nIk ben altijd een voorstander van creative destruction.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"May 14, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/schone-lei/","section":"Posts","summary":"Gisteren overal veel te zien en te horen over de brand bij Bouwkunde. Vandaag schijnt de brand eindelijk meester te zijn. Sommige mensen verbaasden zich over het snel om zich heen grijpen van de brand, maar al die maquettes branden natuurlijk als een tierelier.\n","title":"Schone lei","type":"posts"},{"content":"Deze baan als culturele attaché in dienst van Brian Grazer lijkt mij ideaal. In ieder geval totdat ik zelf in de positie ben om zo iemand in te huren voor mezelf.\nIk ben nieuwsgierig, spreek een handjevol talen, ben alpha+bèta+gamma onderlegd, kan moeilijke dingen snel leren en weer goed uitleggen, kan uit de voeten met de meeste nieuwe media en ik vind het niet erg om veel boeken te moeten lezen of om fysiek op stap te moeten gaan om die afspraak te regelen.\nMisschien zijn er meer mensen die een “ideeën curator”zoeken. Ik bied me aan. Ik zal hem ook even in het Engels bloggen.\n","date":"May 10, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/onderlezer/","section":"Posts","summary":"Deze baan als culturele attaché in dienst van Brian Grazer lijkt mij ideaal. In ieder geval totdat ik zelf in de positie ben om zo iemand in te huren voor mezelf.\n","title":"Onderlezer","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik zat gisteren op station Leiden verlegen om een klein beetje internet om iets op te zoeken. Voor die paar minuten had ik geen zin om aan KPN €5,95 te betalen voor een uur toegang, dus ik war walkte een beetje om me heen.\nNu zijn er rond Leiden genoeg draadloze netwerken, maar ze zitten vrijwel allemaal dicht wat wel enigzins begrijpelijk is als je in de buurt van het station woont. Ik ben ondertussen gewend om als ik langs Den Haag HS kom bij het gebouw van de globe in de trein te kunnen internetten met het groetjes van Q42.nl netwerk. Hoe erg is het om die gastvrijheid aan te bieden? Kleine kans dat mensen uren op het station rondhangen om van jouw internet gebruik te maken 1 Coworker.nl heeft ook nog geen enkel café of kantoor met draadloos internet op de kaart staan voor Leiden.\nAlternatief is het Wireless Leiden netwerk wat ondertussen inderdaad een redelijke dekking heeft, ook op het station kun je verbinden met een zogenaamde omni maar wat compleet waardeloos is. Ik weet het, het is een vrijwilligersinitiatief maar wel een met een zekere pretensie en waar veel moeite in gestoken is. Als ik dan een verbinding kan maken met het netwerk, maar niet kan internetten is dat erger dan waardeloos 2. Wat heb je aan een netwerk zonder internet?\nEen kleine stimulans voor mensen om hun netwerk open te zetten zoals ik gedaan heb, komt een stuk meer in de buurt 3 van een draadloos utopia zoals dat al bestaat in andere steden: Talinn, Singapore. Dit zijn zogenaamd landen die minder ontwikkeld zijn maar als je lees dat Singapore gaat investeren in 3Gb verbindingen naar elk huis 4, dan kan het niet lang meer duren voor Nederland op wereldschaal het achterlijke land is.\nZeker niet gezien hoe slecht Nederlandse stations zijn ingericht.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nVandaar deze tweet.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nEr is bijna overal internet, maar door angstzaai-politiek van de consumentenbond e.d. sluiten de meeste mensen hun draadloos af.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nHet hele concept dat de overheid zich niet moet mengen in de marktsector en geen speler/investeerder kan zijn, is zwaar achterhaald. Nederland zal wel weer het laatste land ter wereld zijn dat niet zijn eigen belangen behartigt.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"May 9, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/breedband-luchtkastelen/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik zat gisteren op station Leiden verlegen om een klein beetje internet om iets op te zoeken. Voor die paar minuten had ik geen zin om aan KPN €5,95 te betalen voor een uur toegang, dus ik war walkte een beetje om me heen.\n","title":"Breedband luchtkastelen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Justice - Stress from Sébastien Delahaye on Vimeo.\nVeel plezier met GTAIV.\n","date":"May 8, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/douce-france/","section":"Posts","summary":"Justice - Stress from Sébastien Delahaye on Vimeo.\n","title":"Douce France","type":"posts"},{"content":"Gisteren een lezing bijgewoond van Arnold Karskens in DOK Delft. Interessant omdat Karskens grote thema\u0026rsquo;s aanhaalt, bijna samenzweringen aan de kaak stelt en een beroep doet op de morele verantwoordelijkheid van het Nederlandse volk en journaille (‘Halve journalistiek bestaat niet’).\nKarskens begon met uit te vallen tegen de laksheid van de regering in het vervolgen van oorlogsmisdadigers terwijl tegelijkertijd op de 4 mei herdenkingen mensen de mond vol hebben van ‘nooit meer’.\nVerder had hij het over de nutteloosheid van de missie in Uruzgan en de mogelijk oorlogsmisdaden die daar gepleegd worden door onze troepen en de haat die gezaaid wordt 1. Ons kabinet doet zijn best om dit soort incidenten in de doofpot te stoppen maar het deksel zal er binnenkort toch wel vanaf vliegen. En dat in de laatste plaats door de Nederlandse journalisten die niet kritisch durfen te zijn 2 laat staan zonder bescherming en censuur van Defensie 3 naar Afghanistan durven te reizen 4.\nEn met uiteindelijk de conclusie dat de missie in Afghanistan zinloos is. De Russen waren daar al achter. Het is de vraag hoeveel Nederlandse doden er nodig zijn (Afghanen boeien zoals gezegd niet) voordat wij daaracher komen en met de staart tussen de benen afdruipen.\nHij stipte ook nog kort de affaire met Joris Luyendijk (‘Joris is bang’, ‘Joris over de kritiek op Joris’) aan. Ik denk dat ze allebei meer gelijk hebben dan de rest en ik weet nu nog beter waarom ik geen Nederlandse geschreven pers lees.\nUpdate: Een kleine discussie nog over waarom embedded journalisten informatie die ze verzamelen niet gewoon toch publiceren. In ieder geval als mensen hulp nodig hebben om verborgen partities op hun laptop te maken, laat het maar weten.\nGrotendeels onopzettelijk natuurlijk.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nVergelijk dit ook met het onvermogen van de Amerikaanse journalistiek om tijdens ruim 7 jaar Bush een keer een kritische vraag te stellen (‘Confusing dissent with disloyalty.’).\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nEn tijdens DWDD maar bewonderend zeggen hoe goed Defensie de media fallout van die dode soldaten heeft afgehandeld. Dode Afghanen zijn niks waard.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nLetterlijke quote omdat er een gebrek is aan ‘testikels’.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"May 8, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/i-am-not-in-the-business-of-being-liked/","section":"Posts","summary":"Gisteren een lezing bijgewoond van Arnold Karskens in DOK Delft. Interessant omdat Karskens grote thema’s aanhaalt, bijna samenzweringen aan de kaak stelt en een beroep doet op de morele verantwoordelijkheid van het Nederlandse volk en journaille (‘Halve journalistiek bestaat niet’).\n","title":"'I am not in the business of being liked.'","type":"posts"},{"content":"Druk en weinig bloggerij de laatste tijd. Daar komt wel weer verandering in, al weet ik niet of ik moet blijven bloggen in het Nederlands. Ik schat dat de meeste lezers van dit stukje toch ook wel Engels kunnen lezen en dat ik ondertussen goed genoeg Engels schrijf dat het niet storend is.\nEen onderzoek van het Nationaal Comité 4 en 5 mei gaf terug dat mensen in Nederland het bezorgst zijn om terroristische aanslagen. Is het kabinet 1 er toch in geslaagd om mensen bang te maken voor de grote boeman van het terrorisme.\nOm daar tegenover een onderzoek te zetten wat Bruce Schneier aanhaalde over waar je je echt zorgen over moet maken, namelijk mensen die dicht bij je staan, auto\u0026rsquo;s en fast food. Het is veel waarschijnlijker je daardoor wat overkomt dan dat je omkomt bij een terroristische aanslag. Mensen zijn niet goed in het inschatten van risico\u0026rsquo;s. Denk ook aan die ouders die panisch worden bij alles wat hun kind online doet, maar ze wel gewoon naar de scouting en de kerk sturen. Want daar gebeurt niks.\nWaarom maken mensen zich zo druk?\nGeholpen door media zoals de Telegraaf en Elsevier.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"May 4, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/wat-je-zaait/","section":"Posts","summary":"Druk en weinig bloggerij de laatste tijd. Daar komt wel weer verandering in, al weet ik niet of ik moet blijven bloggen in het Nederlands. Ik schat dat de meeste lezers van dit stukje toch ook wel Engels kunnen lezen en dat ik ondertussen goed genoeg Engels schrijf dat het niet storend is.\n","title":"Wat je zaait","type":"posts"},{"content":"Afgelopen week donderdag en vrijdag was the Next Web weer in Amsterdam. Ik had met Tipit.to via de wedstrijd al kaartjes gewonnen maar Eelke en ik wilden geloof ik meer video maken. Voor Frankwatching 1 hebben we toen een verslag van de eerste conferentie-dag in elkaar gezet.\nIk voor de camera en vragen, Eelke achter de camera en snijden. Het resultaat is tof: Frankwatching @ The Next Web 2008 from Eelke D. on Vimeo.Het is erg leuk om te doen en mits goed gedaan 2 kan het resultaat leuk zijn. Ik ben dus van plan om meer kennis en ervaring op te doen. Één van de dingen die ik al langer wil, is om als ik op reis ben korte video\u0026rsquo;tjes te schieten met mijn iSight, mobiel of Flip 3 en die terplekke te uploaden, zeg maar cross-media burgerjournalistiek op locatie.\nIk kwam Frank maandag tegen op het knap saaie Mobile Monday.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nDaar knijpt het hem een beetje bij de meeste online video.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nNog te kopen.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"April 24, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/rovende-reporter/","section":"Posts","summary":"Afgelopen week donderdag en vrijdag was the Next Web weer in Amsterdam. Ik had met Tipit.to via de wedstrijd al kaartjes gewonnen maar Eelke en ik wilden geloof ik meer video maken. Voor Frankwatching 1 hebben we toen een verslag van de eerste conferentie-dag in elkaar gezet.\n","title":"Rovende reporter","type":"posts"},{"content":"Afgelopen weekend had ik het helemaal gehad. Vrijdag met Reinier naar de IKEA gereden en direct een hele woonkamer besteld. Zaterdag-namiddag werd deze thuis bezorgd 1 na wat pogingen.\nZaterdagnacht dus deze (slaap)bank in elkaar gezet:\nDaarna een boekenkast en zondagochtend de andere kast. Zwaar werk, maar dan heb je ook wat: Nu nog de rest van de troep aan de kant en we beginnen in de buurt te komen van mijn ideale huis.\nHet is echt best sadistisch om bezorgers dingen bij mij thuis te laten bezorgen. De meeste weten zich geen raad met de eenrichtings pollers.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"April 23, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/nieuwe-living/","section":"Posts","summary":"Afgelopen weekend had ik het helemaal gehad. Vrijdag met Reinier naar de IKEA gereden en direct een hele woonkamer besteld. Zaterdag-namiddag werd deze thuis bezorgd 1 na wat pogingen.\n","title":"Nieuwe Living","type":"posts"},{"content":"Onderstaande gebeurde dus bij mij om de hoek, maar ik heb er niks van gemerkt.\nMerk ook de gekozen woorden van de verslaggeving op met aan de ene kant ‘studentenhuizen’ waar uiteindelijk groepen Polen illegaal in blijken te wonen. Update: Gisteravond stalkte er al een politiewagen door de binnenstad heen. Onderdeel van de verscherpte controles die werden aangekondigd. Zonder licht fietste ik langs de wagen.\n","date":"April 21, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/studentenhuis-met-polen/","section":"Posts","summary":"Onderstaande gebeurde dus bij mij om de hoek, maar ik heb er niks van gemerkt.\n","title":"Studentenhuis met Polen","type":"posts"},{"content":"De laatste paar weken gaan voorbij in een waas. Te weinig uren in de dag, aan het einde van de week heb ik geen idee meer welke dagen ik wat gedaan heb behalve dan dat het aardig wat geweest moet zijn.\nEen maand geleden zat ik nog een beetje in mijn eentje thuis te dralen, nu heb ik opeens een kantoor met kantoorgenoten en meer werk dan ik weet waar te laten. Ik leer continu ontzettend veel dingen en mijn reisplannen beginnen vorm aan te nemen.\nMisschien toch handig om af en toe wat afstand te nemen 1 en te kijken of de algemene koers de goede kant op gaat, maar het gevoel is goed.\nIn ieder geval als dit allemaal binnen een maand kan gebeuren 2, ben ik benieuwd waar we over een maand mee bezig zijn. Met andere woorden: ‘Gasten, we gaan hard!’\nDe titel van die foto was al ‘perspectief’.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nIk zag net in mijn agenda dat ik twee weken geleden op buro ben gegaan.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"April 17, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/tempo/","section":"Posts","summary":"De laatste paar weken gaan voorbij in een waas. Te weinig uren in de dag, aan het einde van de week heb ik geen idee meer welke dagen ik wat gedaan heb behalve dan dat het aardig wat geweest moet zijn.\n","title":"Tempo","type":"posts"},{"content":"De weken gaan hard. Zo hard dat het nu alweer vrijdagavond is.\nDeze week werd voor mij voor een deel beheerst doordat ik maandag mijn schouder weer disloceerde. Zaterdag op het capoeira event nog geen vuiltje aan de lucht, maandag helse pijn. Daarna dus ook chronische pijn en beperkte bewegingsvrijheid en kracht. Chronische pijn is niet tof.\nMeestal duurt dat een paar dagen voor het weer ok is, maar ik wil dat het nooit meer gebeurt 1. Om meer kracht op te bouwen 2 heb ik maar een abonnement op de sportschool genomen en ben gisteren wezen fitnessen. Morgen weer. Maandag weer capoeira, en misschien binnenkort surfen als het niet meer zo flat is.\nDaarnaast twee dagen deze week in Amsterdam geweest 3, en gisteren en vandaag doorgebracht op kantoor. Nu nog wat opdrachten afmaken en morgen naar de Economies of the Commons conferentie in Amsterdam.\nIk ga van het weekend maar wat vakanties boeken, voor de nodige ontspanning.\nDe medische technologie laat het vooralsnog afweten.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nKracht en dislocatie-frequentie zijn omgekeerd evenredig.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nDeels voor niks maar Amsterdam op zich is al de moeite waard. Over mijn ervaringen in Latei alleen zou ik al bladzijden vol kunnen schrijven.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"April 11, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/resume-de-la-semaine/","section":"Posts","summary":"De weken gaan hard. Zo hard dat het nu alweer vrijdagavond is.\n","title":"Résumé de la semaine","type":"posts"},{"content":"Mony attendeerde me op de laatste challenge van JPGMag, een foto genomen uit je slaapkamerraam.\nNu heb ik daar een makkelijke voor met mijn nieuwe uitzicht en dat is ook mijn inzending geworden: Maar in mijn archieven zit ook een foto, die ik nog liever had ingestuurd omdat die een vergezicht bevat met een mooie compositie, genomen is op reis toen ik moe op bed plofte in mijn hostel na een dag rondwandelen in Granada en als laatste gedachte nog even van het bed af deze foto door het raam schoot en net die vogel langsvloog. Schitterend gelukje: Maar die mocht niet omdat hij na croppen te klein is geworden voor de minimum eis van JPG 1.\n2200 pixels aan één zijde.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"April 6, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/slaapkamerraam/","section":"Posts","summary":"Mony attendeerde me op de laatste challenge van JPGMag, een foto genomen uit je slaapkamerraam.\n","title":"Slaapkamerraam","type":"posts"},{"content":"We hebben afgelopen week dit filmpje gemaakt om Tipit.to uit te leggen: Tipit.to Startup Pitch from Alper Çugun\nHet is voor een wedstrijd en die zouden we graag winnen, dus zou je even op ons willen stemmen op de site PitchStorm.tv? Je moet je registreren, je mail controleren en dan in de poll even ons vakje aankruisen.\nDankjuliewel.\n","date":"March 30, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/stemmen-op-ons-filmpje/","section":"Posts","summary":"We hebben afgelopen week dit filmpje gemaakt om Tipit.to uit te leggen: Tipit.to Startup Pitch from Alper Çugun\n","title":"Stemmen op ons filmpje","type":"posts"},{"content":"Voor Mark en eigenlijk voor iedereen: de toespraak die Obama vorige week hield over ras. De voorganger van zijn zwarte kerk had een paar politiek-incorrecte uitspraken gedaan die uiteraard uit den treure herhaald werden op de Amerikaanse news networks.\nObama liet zich niet kennen en deed niet aan reactieve damage control. Hij schreef in twee dagen een speech om naar aanleiding van die gewraakte uitspraken het grotere en belangrijkere probleem van ras aan de orde te stellen dat boven Amerika maar vooral boven deze verkiezingscampagne hangt.\nGeniale speech en toepasbaar op meer situaties, zoals bijvoorbeeld de verhouding met moslims of de xenofobie-situatie in Nederland.\nObama wordt vaak bekritiseerd op zijn visionaire toespraken omdat hij niet praat over concreet beleid maar over richting. Alsof het een kwestie van smaak zou zijn. Nu lijkt het mij dat het de taak van een leider is om de richting aan te geven, laat de bureaucraten de details maar uitwerken.\nHet is denk ik nog erger. Obama praat hier —en eigenlijk de hele tijd— over echte grote problemen die hij ziet en die hij wil oplossen. Hillary heeft het niet over grote thema\u0026rsquo;s en echte problemen omdat ze te laf is om ze eenmaal benoemd echt aan te pakken. Ze zit teveel in de gevestigde belangen om wat voor verandering dan ook te kunnen bewerkstellen.\nÉén voorbeeld hiervan is dat Bill Clinton in 1999 de Glass-Steagall wet ophief en daarmee direct verantwoordelijk is voor de huidige hypotheekcrisis in Amerika. Hillary profiteert nog steeds van donaties van die lobbyisten van toen, en gevraagd om commentaar over regulatie van de aandelenmarkten, geeft ze nietszeggende antwoorden.\n","date":"March 26, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/een-perfectere-samenleving/","section":"Posts","summary":"Voor Mark en eigenlijk voor iedereen: de toespraak die Obama vorige week hield over ras. De voorganger van zijn zwarte kerk had een paar politiek-incorrecte uitspraken gedaan die uiteraard uit den treure herhaald werden op de Amerikaanse news networks.\n","title":"Een perfectere samenleving","type":"posts"},{"content":"Donderdag de hele dag op pad geweest met ‘The Mexican’, Reinier\u0026rsquo;s Mexicaans-Amerikaanse Volkswagen Golf automaat. Ik rij geen auto, maar de skills moeten onderhouden en een road trip op zijn tijd is natuurlijk altijd vet.\n\u0026rsquo;s Ochtends naar Wageningen heen en weer met voor en na Utrecht wat stukjes file. Met een automaat filerijden valt nog wel mee, maar als je dat elke dag moet meemaken… Ik zou er simpel van worden. De hele tijd je aandacht erbij houden en daarna nog op je werk aankomen? Mijn aandacht is beperkt en één van de waardevolste dingen die ik heb in te zetten. Uren per dag letten op een monotone en oninteressante weg, is geen efficient gebruik.\nNa Wageningen terug naar Rijswijk geblaft, toen snel eten bij de McDonald\u0026rsquo;s, dan naar huis om sportspullen op te halen 1, onderweg naar capoeira gestopt bij de AH om boodschappen te doen, bij capoeira voor de deur geparkeerd en deze foto genomen en uiteindelijk \u0026rsquo;s avonds bij Reinier afgeleverd.\nAllemaal met de auto; als je hem toch hebt is het wel gemakkelijk, zeker als het zo stortregent als afgelopen donderdag.\nIk mag 15 minuten parkeren hier voor de deur. Genoeg om spullen te halen en koffie te drinken.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"March 23, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/wageningen-met-de-mexicaan/","section":"Posts","summary":"Donderdag de hele dag op pad geweest met ‘The Mexican’, Reinier’s Mexicaans-Amerikaanse Volkswagen Golf automaat. Ik rij geen auto, maar de skills moeten onderhouden en een road trip op zijn tijd is natuurlijk altijd vet.\n","title":"Wageningen met de Mexicaan","type":"posts"},{"content":"Aan het herstellen van overvolle programma\u0026rsquo;s op dinsdag, woensdag en donderdag deze week. Zo dinsdag avond om 22:30 aangekomen op het Cultureel Centrum waar vrienden al een paar uur met flitsers, pocket wizards, softboxes en ander profi-spul zaten te spelen.\nDirect begonnen te schieten met wel wat leuke resultaten: Deze foto lijkt nogal op de wurging van de heilige Godelieve maar dat is gewoon toeval. Vrijwel elke gruwelijke manier van iemand doodmaken is weleens gebruikt om een heilige om te brengen. Ze waren best wel creatief in de Middeleeuwen. Ik zoek nog een complete lijst van heiligen en stervensomstandigheden 1.\nNa de shoot de aanvraag ingeleverd voor het huurcontract van het kantoor en de volgende dag om 05:00 op, maar dat zijn andere posts.\nWikipedia biedt niks.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"March 22, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/idiote-week/","section":"Posts","summary":"Aan het herstellen van overvolle programma’s op dinsdag, woensdag en donderdag deze week. Zo dinsdag avond om 22:30 aangekomen op het Cultureel Centrum waar vrienden al een paar uur met flitsers, pocket wizards, softboxes en ander profi-spul zaten te spelen.\n","title":"Idiote week","type":"posts"},{"content":"Een Sherlock Holmes-pastiche voor de donkere zondagavond 1 geschreven door Neil Gaiman en voorgelezen door hemzelf zoals alleen hij dat kan (via BoingBoing).\nHier de audio-file van het verhaal “A Study in Emerald”en een mooie PDF om op mee te lezen als je wilt. Het kost wat tijd en concentratie maar het is een erg leuk verhaal met veel onthullingen tot de laatste zin. Een bekendheid met het Cthulhu-mythos is niet weg, maar lees de Wikipedia-pagina over het verhaal niet (spoilers!) tot je het hebt gelezen/gehoord.\nEn nu wil ik de verhalenbundel “Shadows over Bakerstreet” hebben. Het is een tijdje geleden dat ik het meeste van Lovecraft heb gelezen.\nEn voor de mensen met House-ontwenningsverschijnselen.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"March 15, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/een-studie-in-smaragd/","section":"Posts","summary":"Een Sherlock Holmes-pastiche voor de donkere zondagavond 1 geschreven door Neil Gaiman en voorgelezen door hemzelf zoals alleen hij dat kan (via BoingBoing).\n","title":"Een studie in smaragd","type":"posts"},{"content":"En dan zwemt er zomaar dit je scherm binnen: ","date":"March 14, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/gasten-en-vis/","section":"Posts","summary":"En dan zwemt er zomaar dit je scherm binnen: ","title":"Gasten en vis","type":"posts"},{"content":"Wat voor de meeste mensen al duidelijk was: martelen is niet-productief en de scenario\u0026rsquo;s waar het handig zou kunnen zijn, komen nooit voor. De rechtstaat van Amerika, die toch wel op wat aardige ideeën gebouwd is door intelligente mensen, wordt te grabbel gegooid door mensen die niet alleen kijken naar maar ook geloven in 24.\nNu zegt een professionele ondervrager van de FBI het ook:\nEr is zeker een ticking timebomb, maar het is geen tastbare.\n","date":"March 12, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/ticking-timebomb/","section":"Posts","summary":"Wat voor de meeste mensen al duidelijk was: martelen is niet-productief en de scenario’s waar het handig zou kunnen zijn, komen nooit voor. De rechtstaat van Amerika, die toch wel op wat aardige ideeën gebouwd is door intelligente mensen, wordt te grabbel gegooid door mensen die niet alleen kijken naar maar ook geloven in 24.\n","title":"Ticking Timebomb","type":"posts"},{"content":" Firemen, originally uploaded by illustir.\nOp wat kapotte vlaggen en wat in de gracht gewaaide vuilniszakken na, houdt Delft het goed in de storm.\n","date":"March 12, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/firemen/","section":"Posts","summary":" Firemen, originally uploaded by illustir.\n","title":"Als de brandweer","type":"posts"},{"content":"Net voor de grap mijn kaart weer gemaakt: create your own visited countries map\nIk moet dringend meer en verder vliegen of meer diversificeren. Ik ben nog nooit een oceaan over geweest\u0026hellip;\nEr zijn plannen daarover later meer.\n","date":"March 8, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/diversificeren/","section":"Posts","summary":"Net voor de grap mijn kaart weer gemaakt: create your own visited countries map\n","title":"Diversificeren","type":"posts"},{"content":"Morgen is het weer zover, het vetste feestconcept van Delft is terug, Echte Boter: Luister alvast naar de vette beats en kom morgen om 24:00 naar Speakers.\n","date":"March 3, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/echte-boter/","section":"Posts","summary":"Morgen is het weer zover, het vetste feestconcept van Delft is terug, Echte Boter: ","title":"Echte Boter","type":"posts"},{"content":"Hoe tof zou het zijn als in Nederland de markt voor woon- en werkruimte een buyer\u0026rsquo;s market was?\n","date":"February 24, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/ruimte/","section":"Posts","summary":"Hoe tof zou het zijn als in Nederland de markt voor woon- en werkruimte een buyer’s market was?\n","title":"Ruimte","type":"posts"},{"content":"Maar dan, ik weet niet hoe ik me zou voelen als ik als gedoodverfde kandidaat van het establishment op alle vlakken de loef af werd gestoken door een uppity negro.\nBekijk de video 1, haar tieten zitten danig in de knoop:\nKans op succes niet heel groot. Zeker nu ook de voorspellingen de ronde doen dat Obama een veel grotere kans maakt om te winnen van McCain dan Clinton zou doen.\nWha! Een embed link van het NOS Journaal!\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"February 24, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/hillary-is-razend/","section":"Posts","summary":"Maar dan, ik weet niet hoe ik me zou voelen als ik als gedoodverfde kandidaat van het establishment op alle vlakken de loef af werd gestoken door een uppity negro.\n","title":"Hillary is razend","type":"posts"},{"content":"De subprime-crisis uitgelegd door Britse experts. Het zou grappig zijn als het niet waar was.\nRigoreuze analyse en het belonen van hebzucht en stupiditeit.\u0026quot; It\u0026rsquo;s not us that will suffer, it\u0026rsquo;s your pension fund.\u0026quot; Via Lars Pind.\n","date":"February 21, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/high-grade-structured-credit-enhanced-leverage-fund/","section":"Posts","summary":"De subprime-crisis uitgelegd door Britse experts. Het zou grappig zijn als het niet waar was.\n","title":"High Grade Structured Credit Enhanced Leverage Fund","type":"posts"},{"content":"Taplin schrijft de laatste tijd erg zinnige dingen over soft power en het feit dat Amerika niet militair aanwezig hoeft te zijn in het Midden-Oosten om de olietoevoer veilig te stellen.\nDe kosten van de oorlog omgezet in soft power 1 in de regio zouden resulteren in minder doden en meer veiligheid.\nEn hij voorspelt ook dat Obama gaat winnen. Zinnige woorden.\nInvesteringen in de lokale economie.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"February 20, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/soft-power/","section":"Posts","summary":"Taplin schrijft de laatste tijd erg zinnige dingen over soft power en het feit dat Amerika niet militair aanwezig hoeft te zijn in het Midden-Oosten om de olietoevoer veilig te stellen.\n","title":"Soft Power","type":"posts"},{"content":"Afgelopen zondag hadden we met capoeira een turnzaal gehuurd om acrobatische dingen te oefenen. Turners pakken dit soort dingen redelijk professioneel aan. Van een trampoline in een schuimbak springen is één van de leukste dingen die er is.\nIk heb toen alleen vrijwel meteen iets doms gedaan en mijn knie verpest. De volgende dag kon ik nauwelijks lopen 1, wat een redelijk bizarre ervaring is. Het gaat nu beter maar ik verwacht bij elke stap nog dat de pijn er weer in schiet.\nVanavond maar weer gaan touwtje springen.\nIk ben toen ook maar niet gaan trainen.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"February 20, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/kunnen-lopen-is-fijn/","section":"Posts","summary":"Afgelopen zondag hadden we met capoeira een turnzaal gehuurd om acrobatische dingen te oefenen. Turners pakken dit soort dingen redelijk professioneel aan. Van een trampoline in een schuimbak springen is één van de leukste dingen die er is.\n","title":"Kunnen lopen is fijn","type":"posts"},{"content":"Voor wie het nog niet weet, ik ben bezig met een initiatief rondom mobiliteit, internet en sociale netwerken. Met het oog daarop volg ik het nieuws en de verschillende overheidsprogramma\u0026rsquo;s hierover in Nederland.\nIk denk dat mijn initiatief gebaat is met een grote hoeveelheid openheid en ik denk zeker ook niet dat ik het in mijn eentje zal kunnen doen. Daarom zal ik binnenkort op dit weblog uitleggen wat ik wil hebben (en wat ik bereid ben te bouwen).\nMaar nu eerst even iets anders.\nMobiliteitsmanagement # SenterNovem is een overheidsinstelling in Nederland die subsidies uitdeelt aan mensen die daar nuttige dingen mee denken te kunnen doen. Ik was een paar weken terug in het kantoor van SenterNovem in Utrecht bij een informatiebijeenkomst over hun programma mobiliteitsmanagement.\nIk schrijf hier een verslag van de bijeekomst en probeer daarbij de inhoud te filteren uit de overheidstaal 1.\nBelangrijke informatie van de eerste spreker was dat er binnenkort een kwaliteitsimpuls reisinformatie komt. Ik kwam hier later meer over te weten van iemand van Connexxion. Het houdt in dat er een platform komt voor dynamische reisinformatie door heel Nederland. Ik kom hier later nog op terug.\nDaarna kwam Klaartje Arntzen die vertelde over het programma en de invulling ervan. Het programma mobiliteitsmanagement van SenterNovem is er om veranderingen in reisgedrag te bewerkstelligen en de bereikbaarheid in Nederland te vergroten.\nWie? # Bedrijven en instellingen die zich met mobiliteit bezighouden en belang hebben bij de uitkomst van een project 2 die een project in Nederland uitvoeren komen in aanmerking voor het programma.\nBudgetten # Projecten worden ondergedeeld in Haalbaarheidsstudies, Onderzoek \u0026amp; Ontwikkeling en Praktijkexperimenten.\nHaalbaarheidsstudies krijgen 75% van de kosten vergoed tot een maximum van €40'000. Onderzoek \u0026amp; Ontwikkelingsprojecten krijgen 50% van de kosten tot max €120'000. Praktijkexperimenten krijgen 25% van de kosten tot een maximum van €350'000.\nEr is €1.5M beschikbaar voor praktijkexperimenten en €500k voor haalbaarheidsstudies en O\u0026amp;O (elk?).\nProces # Er is uiteraard sprake van een proces. De termijn voor indiening is verlengd tot woensdag 2 april 2008. De kosten zijn subsidiabel vanaf het moment van indienen. Een adviescommissie adviseert over de rangschikking aan de hand van de gestelde criteria 3.\nDe criteria zijn:\nBijdrage aan de doelstelling van het programma (hoe nieuw en hoeveel impact) Bijdrage aan bereikbaarheid en kwaliteit van de leefomgeving (CO2-effect en verkeersveiligheid) Kans van slagen project (reizigers laten meedenken) Senternovem biedt begeleiding door informatie, adviesgesprekken en het bespreken van concepten, de adviescommissie velt een oordeel en na de toekenning van het geld dragen zij zorg voor de beheer en begeleiding.\nPraktijkvoorbeelden # Hierna kwam iemand van Connexxion vertellen over praktijkvoorbeelden van projecten die al dan niet gesubsidieerd waren en al dan niet geslaagd waren. Het was een duidelijk verhaal van ‘where the metal hits the road’ dat de werkelijkheid meestal een stuk weerbarstiger is dan in dit soort plannen staat en er rekening gehouden moet worden met generaties aan systemen die al in functie zijn.\nSubsidies # Ik heb een gesprek met een subsidieconsulent van SenterNovem gehad. Deze kon mij niet al teveel verder helpen, behalve dan met de constatering dat mijn idee wel degelijk innovatief was en dat ik maar een aanvraag moest indienen en het met de juiste persoon bespreken om te kijken hoe we het beste hiermee verder kunnen.\nIn dat gesprek stelde ik nog wat dingen aan de orde, maar degene met wie ik sprak was te low level 4 om me een zinnig antwoord te kunnen geven.\nOpenheid van boeken # Ik heb wat brochures meegenomen over het programma in zijn algemeenheid en (verantwoordings)publicaties met daarin de projecten waaraan subsidie is toegekend in elk jaar met speelse illustraties en leuke verhalen over hoe goed het allemaal wel niet is gegaan. Wat me daarin meteen opviel was dat bij geen enkel project stond wat het toegekende subsidiebedrag was voor dat project 5.\nIk weet niet wat de reden is om die bedragen niet te publiceren. Het lijkt me dat het de eerlijkheid ten goede komt als de bedragen publiek zijn en dat het toekomstige subsidieaanvragers ook iets geeft om op te mikken wanneer ze hun aanvraag indienen.\nOpenheid van data # Bij de presentatie van de man van Connexxion viel me op dat sommige van de dingen die hij noemde al lang ontwikkeld zijn door ondere OV-bedrijven in Nederland. Volgens mij hebben bussen van Connexxion bijvoorbeeld nog steeds geen bord waarop staat hoe de halte heet waar je nu bent.\nHet lijkt me een aardige eis aan projecten om binnen redelijkheid hun methoden en data open te stellen.\nDynamische Reisinformatie # Ik schreef hier al eerder over en de man van Connexxion was buitengewoon negatief over het vrijgeven van de statische informatie omdat die \u0026lsquo;van hen\u0026rsquo; was. Het feit dat reizigers al twee keer betalen voor die informatie negeerde hij vanzelfsprekend.\nDe partijen die in Nederland verenigd zijn in een platform om de reisinformatie te regelen, houden zich op dit moment meer bezig met de invoer van systemen voor dynamische reisinformatie, zodat je dus op elk moment kunt weten waar vervoersmiddelen zich bevinden.\nHiervoor wordt een nieuw platform opgericht en gelet op hoe mensen in deze sector aankijken tegen hun klanten ben ik niet hoopvol dat het algemene publiek iets met die informatie mag gaan doen of dat partijen als Google Transit hier voet aan de grond gaan krijgen.\nEn waar gepast plaats ik cynische kanttekeningen in de voetnoten.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nToch raar want volgens mij richt een bedrijf als Connexxion klakkeloos BV\u0026rsquo;s op voor dit soort dingen.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nMeer over dit alles op de SenterNovem website waar al zij het wat ontoegankelijk en chaotisch al deze informatie zeker ook staat.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nHij werkte er net.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nAls je het budget voor het jaar weet en het aantal projecten, kun je wel op een gemiddelde uitkomen, maar dat zegt heel weinig.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"February 14, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/bijeenkomst-senternovem-mobiliteitsmanagement/","section":"Posts","summary":"Voor wie het nog niet weet, ik ben bezig met een initiatief rondom mobiliteit, internet en sociale netwerken. Met het oog daarop volg ik het nieuws en de verschillende overheidsprogramma’s hierover in Nederland.\n","title":"Bijeenkomst SenterNovem Mobiliteitsmanagement","type":"posts"},{"content":"Mail naar Studio Brussel:\nHoi!\nIk ben een Hollander die met veel plezier StuBru luistert (Nederlandse radio -op Giel Beelen na- is echt bagger). De laatste tijd hapert de stream in mijn iTunes alleen regelmatig. Dat is kritiek, zonder Studio Brussel zou mijn werkdag hele andere vormen aannemen. Kunnen jullie wat meer power achter de online stream gooien?\nBedankt en groetjes, Alper\n","date":"February 14, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/radionood/","section":"Posts","summary":"Mail naar Studio Brussel:\n","title":"Radionood","type":"posts"},{"content":"Er staat nu een knop hiernaast wat een klein projectje van ons was. Dus klik erop en geef gul als je dit een leuke site vindt.\nMijn profiel is trouwens hier te vinden. We moeten nog een zinnige manier maken om interessante mensen te vinden.\n","date":"February 14, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/fooien-geven/","section":"Posts","summary":"Er staat nu een knop hiernaast wat een klein projectje van ons was. Dus klik erop en geef gul als je dit een leuke site vindt.\n","title":"Fooien geven","type":"posts"},{"content":"Is het mogelijk? Lawrence Lessig denkt van wel, temminste als we stoppen met het belonen van leugens. Dit is één van de punten waar de transparantie ingeleid door het internet effect kan boeken.\nLessig zelf maakt een duidelijk statement waarom je als weldenkend Democraat in Amerika niet op Hillary Clinton zou moeten stemmen. In zijn video (Video 4Barack) trekt hij Hillary\u0026rsquo;s integriteit in twijfel en vergelijkt hij haar tactieken 1 met die van Karl Rove 2 in de vorige twee verkiezingen. Het gaat dus niet om standpunten, want de verschillen daarin zijn klein. Het gaat om integriteit, verandering en actie-bereidheid.\nFoto door Sean Bonner\nLessig is nu bezig om te vechten tegen corruptie in politiek voor integriteit en om manieren te verzinnen hoe de peer productie van het internet ingezet kan worden om politiek activisme te bevorderen. Het is daarom niet gek dat hij Obama steunt die zich veel helderder heeft uitgesproken voor verandering en voor vermindering van de invloed van lobbyisten in Washington.\nVideo 4Barack\nDe beide Clintons voerden een buitengewoon smerige campagne de afgelopen weken en nog helpt het niet.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nKing maker, spin doctor en bijna-crimineel.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"February 10, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/integriteit-in-politiek/","section":"Posts","summary":"Is het mogelijk? Lawrence Lessig denkt van wel, temminste als we stoppen met het belonen van leugens. Dit is één van de punten waar de transparantie ingeleid door het internet effect kan boeken.\n","title":"Integriteit in politiek","type":"posts"},{"content":"De shoot van afgelopen maandag was ter gelegenheid van onze mooie nieuwe capoeiratruien die uit Brazilië geïmporteerd zijn.\nDe groep die er maandag was: Het is leuk om te vergelijken met een groepsfoto december 2006 die toch ook redelijk sprankelend 1 was. Flickr maakt het erg makkelijk om per persoon te bladeren door de tijd. Klik door op de notities bij deze foto en bij deze foto. Ik denk erover om deze serie portretten 2 te hernemen, al zijn de meesten niet erg veranderd.\nDeze feature lijkt me een belangrijke reden om niet snel (if ever) over te stappen van Flickr; zelfs met een vijandige overname van Microsoft.\nEn wat actie: Hier kunnen we er nogal wat meer van ensceneren, maar dan liever ergens buiten als de zon schijnt 3.\nBehalve ik.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nPas publiek sinds vandaag om uiteenlopende redenen.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nWaar het vandaag al aardig op leek.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"February 9, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/truien-fotos/","section":"Posts","summary":"De shoot van afgelopen maandag was ter gelegenheid van onze mooie nieuwe capoeiratruien die uit Brazilië geïmporteerd zijn.\n","title":"Truien foto's","type":"posts"},{"content":" Ik heb vandaag mijn Yashica D volgeschoten in de stad. Het schieten met een volmechanische camera is erg anders en toch wel leuk. Het is vooral langzamer en ondanks de grote zoeker ga je er meer in op. Dan even lichtmeten met de digitale SLR en schieten. En de blikken die je krijgt van mensen zijn ook de moeite.\nDe volle camera heb ik afgeleverd bij Talens en de filiaalhouder daar wist er wel raad mee 1. In hun enthousiasme hebben ze er meteen een nieuw rolletje kleurfilm in gedaan. Ze hebben er dus gewoon kleuren 120-film 160ASA op de plank liggen voor €6 per rolletje 2. Ik heb het oude rolletje ingeleverd om te ontwikkelen (ongeveer €4), al is het redelijk hopeloos dat daar zinnige foto\u0026rsquo;s uit te halen zijn.\nHet valt qua kosten erg mee, en de Talens is bij mij om de hoek dus regelmatig 3 middenformaat schieten is erg haalbaar. Nu nog die flitserunit aan de praat krijgen.\nHij had er zelf een gehad.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nOnline krijg je zoiets voor bijna $4. Alleen ik weet niet of film het transport overleeft.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nOp evenementen of in steden.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"February 9, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/schieten-op-middenformaat/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Schieten op middenformaat","type":"posts"},{"content":"Taplin schreef gisteren dat Jordan Sparks 1 het Amerikaanse volkslied nailde voor de Super Bowl afgelopen zondag. Ik was benieuwd, hier het filmpje:\nWat klinkt dit ontzettend goed. Mooi detail is dat op het einde van het volkslied er ook nog een straaljager-formatie laag overvliegt. Hoe bruut is dat!? Dat moeten we hier ook doen voor voetbalwedstrijden. Trots op Nederland enzo.\nAmerican Idol winnares\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"February 8, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/star-spangled/","section":"Posts","summary":"Taplin schreef gisteren dat Jordan Sparks 1 het Amerikaanse volkslied nailde voor de Super Bowl afgelopen zondag. Ik was benieuwd, hier het filmpje:\n","title":"Star-spangled","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik zat al een tijdje na te denken om kantoorruimte in het centrum van Delft te huren om niet meer van huis uit te hoeven werken. Eelke die pas terug is uit Berlijn dacht aan hetzelfde (en is tegelijkertijd op zoek naar woonruimte in (en om?) Delft).\nIets als dit (kantoor van Frank Elbert)\nIk heb vaker kantoren gezien waar mensen die niet hetzelfde bedrijf voeren, werkruimte delen en dat is leuk 1, voordelig 2 en zorgt voor creatieve stimulering. Verder is een plek om te werken en een thuis om niet te werken handig, lijkt het.\nDus nu zoek ik ergens in de stad Delft 20-25 m2 ruimte om in te richten als kantoor. We beginnen met 2-4 mensen en ruimte voor vrienden om aan te schuiven en zien dan wel hoe het gaat.\nDus laat het weten als je iets weet, of als je interesse hebt om mee te doen.\nNiet meer in je eentje lunchen.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nSchaalvoordelen met espresso enzo.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"February 7, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/ruimte-om-samen-te-werken/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik zat al een tijdje na te denken om kantoorruimte in het centrum van Delft te huren om niet meer van huis uit te hoeven werken. Eelke die pas terug is uit Berlijn dacht aan hetzelfde (en is tegelijkertijd op zoek naar woonruimte in (en om?) Delft).\n","title":"Ruimte om samen te werken","type":"posts"},{"content":"Voor alle Obamisten en anderen die verandering willen, dit filmpje in woord en muziek.\nDeze staat natuurlijk ook op YouBama de verkiezings-video-mashup, waar ook dit schattige prObama filmpje staat:\n","date":"February 5, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/verandering-waar-we-in-kunnen-geloven/","section":"Posts","summary":"Voor alle Obamisten en anderen die verandering willen, dit filmpje in woord en muziek.\n","title":"Verandering waar we in kunnen geloven","type":"posts"},{"content":"We hebben nieuwe truien bij Liberdade 1 en dat was een goed excuus voor een shoot vanavond. Hier de stroom, morgen de selectie online:\nMet apelido ingeborduurd!\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"February 4, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/nieuwe-truien/","section":"Posts","summary":"We hebben nieuwe truien bij Liberdade 1 en dat was een goed excuus voor een shoot vanavond. Hier de stroom, morgen de selectie online:\n","title":"Nieuwe truien","type":"posts"},{"content":" Dit is dus wat ik doe in een vrij weekend. Volgens mij niet echt gangbaar, maar wel erg leuk.\n","date":"February 4, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/vrij-weekend/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Vrij weekend","type":"posts"},{"content":"Blogtip: Jon Taplin is een goeroe en hij behandelt op zijn blog met authoriteit onderwerpen uit de media-industrie 1, politiek en (macro-)economie 2.\nHij is een verklaard Obamist net zoals ik en hij snijdt door de mist van het Amerikaanse netwerknieuws heen om diepgaandere analyse te bieden.\nTaplin is één van de redenen hoe je zonder krant en televisie toch beter geïnformeerd kunt zijn.\nOnder andere over de schrijversstaking, die binnenkort afgelopen zou moeten zijn.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nZijn analyse van macro-economie is helder en begrijpbaar, iets wat je van het vakgebied in het algemeen niet kunt zeggen.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"February 3, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/amerikaanse-analyse/","section":"Posts","summary":"Blogtip: Jon Taplin is een goeroe en hij behandelt op zijn blog met authoriteit onderwerpen uit de media-industrie 1, politiek en (macro-)economie 2.\n","title":"Amerikaanse analyse","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik stapte vanochtend in in de stampvolle sneltrein op Den Haag HS richting Amsterdam. Ik had niet door tot ik ging zitten, dat Everdien 1 naast me zat.\nEen grappig toeval en leuk om wat te praten maar als ik ingestapt was via een andere deur dan hadden we elkaar niet gesproken.\nReken maar even uit: Een ontmoeting als deze gebeurt eens per weken/maanden. Je kent honderden mensen waar je wel een gesprek mee zou willen/kunnen hebben. Dus als je meer informatie had wanneer kennissen van je in een trein zitten en waar, zouden dit soort ontmoetingen veel vaker voor kunnen komen.\nDiensten zoals Loopt 2 bieden dus een manier voor groepen mensen om locatie-gebaseerde serendipiteit te veroorzaken.\nHoe meer informatie we kunnen hebben over elkaar, hoe dichter het internet mensen bij elkaar brengt.\nZij is één van de paar mensen die ik ken die boeken leest.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nEn er is een vergelijkbare Nederlandse startup die hetzelfde faciliteert.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"January 31, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/treingenoten/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik stapte vanochtend in in de stampvolle sneltrein op Den Haag HS richting Amsterdam. Ik had niet door tot ik ging zitten, dat Everdien 1 naast me zat.\n","title":"Treingenoten","type":"posts"},{"content":"Van de week bij de IKEA een klein kastje gekocht om mijn boeken dichter bij de hand te hebben.\nDat is ongeveer een verzameling boeken waar ik aan begonnen ben (sommigen waarvan ik nog uit wil lezen, anderen\u0026hellip;), boeken die ik op dit moment lees en boeken die binnenkort gelezen gaan worden.\nOm dit soort lijsten handig bij te houden kwam ik via Michel de site goodreads tegen. Je kunt lijsten van boeken bijhouden, wanneer je ze hebt gelezen en wat je ervan vond. Dit alles met een sociaal sausje 1, al ken ik denk ik niet meer dan 5 mensen die boeken lezen 2.\nIk lees dus een berg zelfstudie dit jaar met daarnaast een regime van gewone fictie om te komen tot het minimum van 52 boeken. Ik zit al aardig op schema en ik heb vandaag in de trein tweederde van Extremely Loud \u0026amp; Incredibly Close gelezen.\nUpdate: Goodreads haalt het qua functionaliteit niet bij Anobii. Dus daarom zit ik daar nu (username: alper) en heb er een groot deel van de boeken die ik heb gelezen ingevoerd.\nWordt lid en wordt mijn vriend!\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nD.w.z. die serieus boeken lezen en/of serieuze boeken lezen.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"January 30, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/leeslijsten/","section":"Posts","summary":"Van de week bij de IKEA een klein kastje gekocht om mijn boeken dichter bij de hand te hebben.\n","title":"Leeslijsten","type":"posts"},{"content":"Het leuke aan klaar zijn met studeren is dat je dingen kunt gaan leren die jí­j belangrijk vindt. En ik leer sneller als ik zelf mag bepalen hoe en hoe snel. Dus hier twee boeken in een serie voor het komende jaar:\nVeel designboeken uit de usability-, interaction- en experience-hoek met daarbij een grote stapel non-fictie: filosofie, politiek, geschiedenis, economie, nieuwe media en meer. Breed ge-orienteerd zoals altijd, t-shaped noemen ze dat geloof ik.\n","date":"January 28, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/autodidact/","section":"Posts","summary":"Het leuke aan klaar zijn met studeren is dat je dingen kunt gaan leren die jí­j belangrijk vindt. En ik leer sneller als ik zelf mag bepalen hoe en hoe snel. Dus hier twee boeken in een serie voor het komende jaar:\n","title":"Autodidact","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik speel dan misschien een ander Jogo Bonito 1 maar deze gevel is er niet minder mooi door:\nJoga bonito que eu quero aprender.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"January 23, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/bem-vindo-brasil/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik speel dan misschien een ander Jogo Bonito 1 maar deze gevel is er niet minder mooi door:\n","title":"Bem vindo Brasil","type":"posts"},{"content":"Via BoingBoing het bericht dat de CULT-commissie van het EP morgen gaat stemmen over het Guy Bono-rapport en dat er een schadelijk amendement aan dat rapport kleeft.\nNederland heeft 2 substitute leden (Cornelis Visser en Emine Bozkurt) in die commissie —die wel stemrecht hebben— en een kort telefoontje leert dat je ze kunt mailen met argumenten dat ze tegen dat amendement moeten stemmen.\nHier mijn voorbeeldbrief (snel uitgetikt):\nBeste,\nIk hoorde dat de CULT commissie van het EP morgen gaat stemmen over het Guy Bono-rapport en dat daarop door toedoen van de IFPI een amendement (nummer 82) is ingediend wat erop aanstuurt dat: - internet service providers spioneren op verkeer van hun gebruikers - internet service providers zogenaamde \u0026lsquo;gevaarlijke\u0026rsquo; sites dienen te blokkeren - én dat de termijn van auteursrechten verlengd wordt\nIk schrijf u omdat u in deze commissie zit en uw stem invloed kan hebben op de vrijheid van het internet en het gebruik van media in de toekomst. Dit zijn complexe kwesties en mijn standpunt daargelaten, verdienen ze meer aandacht en overweging.\nAmendement 82 moet niet worden doorgevoerd omdat instanties als het IFPI een hele nauwe visie hebben op zowel internet, consumenten, media en auteursrechten. In deze visie is enkel hun winstoogmerk gediend en niet het publieke belang van wat in feite publieke goederen zijn. Wetgeving moet alleen worden doorgevoerd in zoverre het de duurzame productie van media baat en het niet andere belangen schaadt.\nDat is hier niet het geval omdat:\n1. De duurzame productie van media nu minder dan ooit in gevaar is. Artiesten en consumenten hebben de middelen en de motivatie om nu zelf media te produceren en te distribueren en ervoor betaald te krijgen. Veranderingen in technologie hebben ervoor gezorgd dat de media-industrie minder macht krijgt. Elke wetgeving die deze veranderingen probeert tegen te houden zal alleen maar tijdelijk effectief zijn (als het al enig effect bewerkstelligt) maar zal wel het publiek en onafhankelijke artiesten belemmeren.\n2. Door ISPs politie-taken te geven die ze niet willen en opsporings-bevoegdheden die ze niet zouden moeten hebben, komt het principe van een open internet in gevaar. Dit kan ervoor zorgen dat sites en verkeer semi-willekeurig wordt afgesloten door eisen van ISPs intern en privé-partijen die andere belangen nastreven. Een open internet met gelijke en betrouwbare toegang voor alle partijen waar opsporing alleen gebeurt wanneer de overheid/rechter vindt dat het dient te gebeuren is online rechtzekerheid. Rechtzekerheid is een essentiele voorwaarde voor online innovatie.\nDoor amendement 82 zal dus niet alleen weinig effect bereikt worden, maar grote groepen mensen die geen onderdeel uitmaken van een media-conglomeraat zullen geschaad worden. Daarom moet dit amendement niet worden doorgevoerd.\nBedankt voor uw aandacht. Mocht u vragen hebben, dan licht ik een en ander natuurlijk graag in verder detail toe. En ik ben benieuwd naar de uitslag van de stemming en wat u besloten heeft te stemmen.\nMet vriendelijke groet,\nDus niet wachten, mailen. De stemming is morgen. Het mag een stuk korter en simpeler dan ik heb geschreven.\n","date":"January 23, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/stop-amendement-op-auteursrechten-in-het-europese-parlement/","section":"Posts","summary":"Via BoingBoing het bericht dat de CULT-commissie van het EP morgen gaat stemmen over het Guy Bono-rapport en dat er een schadelijk amendement aan dat rapport kleeft.\n","title":"Stop amendement op auteursrechten in het Europese Parlement","type":"posts"},{"content":" Redelijk heftige disclaimer in dit café in Berlijn, waar het lijkt alsof engagement op de mouw gedragen dient te worden. Het café Morgenrot lijkt me de laatste plek waar ze last zouden hebben van het soort excessen wat hierboven beschreven wordt.\nIronischer nog is het feit dat in het café —vol op zondagochtend— geen mensen van niet-West-Europese afkomst aanwezig waren. Racisme voor de vorm uitgebannen, maar nog steeds aanwezig.\n","date":"January 21, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/morgenrood/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Morgenrood","type":"posts"},{"content":"Deze week ben ik langs ABC Den Haag geweest om een paar boeken te kopen om nú te lezen 1. Ik koop liever niets meer bij normale winkels tenzij ze tof zijn zoals de ABC.\nIk wilde kopen: The Black Swan en I Am America (And So Can You!) . Van the Black Swan hadden ze alleen maar de hardcover versie van €30 2 liggen en I Am America was uitverkocht.\nDus toen kwam ik hiermee thuis 3. Twee normale leesboeken voor tot mijn bestelling van Bol.com binnenkomt.\nDe boeken die ik normaal zou lezen zitten nog ingepakt, en ik moet toch iets lezen.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nBoeken zijn ook bij de ABC bizar duur. The Black Swan is omgerekend €10 bij Amazon.com.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nEn dat is precies waarom ik niet naar normale winkels ga.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"January 20, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/leesboeken/","section":"Posts","summary":"Deze week ben ik langs ABC Den Haag geweest om een paar boeken te kopen om nú te lezen 1. Ik koop liever niets meer bij normale winkels tenzij ze tof zijn zoals de ABC.\n","title":"Leesboeken","type":"posts"},{"content":"Fijne toevalstreffer hoe het Duitse landschap wordt verrijkt door mensgemaakte objecten.\n","date":"January 20, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/het-duitse-landschap/","section":"Posts","summary":"Fijne toevalstreffer hoe het Duitse landschap wordt verrijkt door mensgemaakte objecten.\n","title":"Het Duitse landschap","type":"posts"},{"content":"Vanochtend is mijn koelkast bezorgd.\nEven laten staan en dan eindelijk koude dingen in huis:\n","date":"January 20, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/koele-spullen/","section":"Posts","summary":"Vanochtend is mijn koelkast bezorgd.\n","title":"Koele spullen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Volgens mij had ik op dit blog nog niet gezegd hoe goed ik het orkestar Beirut vind.\nKijk hun tracks live op YouTube of bekijk alle filmpjes van hun DVD “The Flying Club Cup”.\nDe Nederlandse radio wil ze geloof ik niet echt draaien maar dat ben ik ondertussen gewend: StuBru FTW.\n","date":"January 20, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/lon-gisland/","section":"Posts","summary":"Volgens mij had ik op dit blog nog niet gezegd hoe goed ik het orkestar Beirut vind.\n","title":"Lon Gisland","type":"posts"},{"content":"Het is in Prenzlauerberg altijd fijn wakker worden met goede koffie, broodjes en kranten binnen handbereik.\n","date":"January 20, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/wakker-worden/","section":"Posts","summary":"Het is in Prenzlauerberg altijd fijn wakker worden met goede koffie, broodjes en kranten binnen handbereik.\n","title":"Wakker worden","type":"posts"},{"content":"Naar aanleiding van dit artikel in Wired van veiligheids- goeroe Bruce Schneier heb ik gedaan waar ik al een tijdje over zat te denken. Ik heb mijn draadloos internet thuis open gegooid voor iedereen in de buurt om te gebruiken.\nIk had graag mee willen doen aan FON 1 maar dat was altijd teveel gezeik om goed in te stellen 2. Ideaal zou zijn als routermakers een instelling boden om gastgebruikers op een afgebakend deel van je netwerk een beperkte hoeveelheid bandbreedte te geven, maar daar ga ik niet op zitten wachten.\nDus in de buurt van de Papenstraat in Delft is er sinds kort een open draadloze hotspot “Draadloos Delft”te vinden. Elke beweging moet ergens beginnen, zullen we maar zeggen.\nUpdate: Ik heb nu de eerste gast 3 op mijn netwerk. Doen er nog meer mensen mee? Als we dit concept kunnen verspreiden, dan heeft het nog een redelijke kans om te werken. De beste reden om dit te doen: Beeld je in hoe blij je bent als je op een willekeurige plek draadloos internet hebt. Beeld je nu in dat je datzelfde gevoel oproept bij mensen die in de buurt van je huis zitten.\nHet is ook een FON-router maar met DD-WRT firmware.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nSowieso snap ik niet waarom draadloos internet enkele honderden niet uit te leggen instellingen moet bevatten.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nComputernaam: lak en volgens het icoon in Finder een Mac.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"January 17, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/steel-mijn-internet/","section":"Posts","summary":"Naar aanleiding van dit artikel in Wired van veiligheids- goeroe Bruce Schneier heb ik gedaan waar ik al een tijdje over zat te denken. Ik heb mijn draadloos internet thuis open gegooid voor iedereen in de buurt om te gebruiken.\n","title":"Set my WiFi free","type":"posts"},{"content":"Een tijdje geleden had ik een site gezien met de Lavazza 2008 kalender “The Most Majestic”erop met exuberante koninklijke dames die Lavazza espresso drinken geschoten door Finlay Mackay 1 2.\nOp de terugweg uit Berlijn aten Tijs en ik in een Rasthof ergens voor Hannover en namen na het eten 3 een dubbele espresso 4 aan de Lavazzabar 5. Op de balie stond deze kalender en toen ik hem opmerkte kregen Tijs en ik allebei er eentje van de koffiedame.\nWat trouwens een erg goede fotograaf is.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nIk schrik me dood. Ga naar gallery shinjyuu op Mackay\u0026rsquo;s portfolio en klik naar de voorlaatste foto. Wees gewaarschuwd.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nIk een spectaculair grote currywurst.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nIk ben voor thuisgebruik geen fan van Lavazza, maar versgemalen uit een groot apparaat is het best ok.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nHet lijkt erop dat Lavazza een flink contract heeft gescoord voor Duitse rasthoven want ik heb er meer gezien her en der. Tof dat snelwegrestaurants echte espressobars hebben. Dat houdt de Duitse truckers wakker.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"January 17, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/the-most-majestic/","section":"Posts","summary":"Een tijdje geleden had ik een site gezien met de Lavazza 2008 kalender “The Most Majestic”erop met exuberante koninklijke dames die Lavazza espresso drinken geschoten door Finlay Mackay 1 2.\n","title":"The Most Majestic","type":"posts"},{"content":"Één van de laatste dingen die écht nog moest gebeuren was het schilderen van de slaapkamervloer. En omdat dat me zo leuk leek heb ik het heel erg lang uitgesteld 1.\nMijn bed? Die staat nu in de woonkamer.\nHet beste voor het laatste bewaren, zeg maar.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"January 16, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/schilderwerk/","section":"Posts","summary":"Één van de laatste dingen die écht nog moest gebeuren was het schilderen van de slaapkamervloer. En omdat dat me zo leuk leek heb ik het heel erg lang uitgesteld 1.\n","title":"Schilderwerk","type":"posts"},{"content":"Net een dag terug uit Berlijn na een weekend van straf rijden, drinken en programmeren 1.\nElke keer weer in Berlijn, maakt me blij. De mensen lijken er redelijk onbevangen, de wijken zijn er ondertussen bekend en de taal gaat me elke keer weer makkelijker af.\nHelaas geen tijd gehad om sommige tips op te volgen of om sushi te eten, maar dat is dan weer voor een volgende keer, want die komt er zeker. In de tussentijd volgen hier in de komend dagen wat foto\u0026rsquo;s.\nKlinkt redelijk ideaal, niet?\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"January 15, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/ein-berliner/","section":"Posts","summary":"Net een dag terug uit Berlijn na een weekend van straf rijden, drinken en programmeren 1.\n","title":"Ein Berliner","type":"posts"},{"content":"Passen jullie op als jullie in de buurt van Delft zijn? Het schijnt dat hier de laatste tijd nogal wat auto\u0026rsquo;s ontploffen.\nNu heb ik gelukkig geen auto 1.\nMaar ik heb gisteren wel een lift van Amsterdam naar Delft gekregen.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"January 9, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/aan-mijn-autorijdende-vrienden/","section":"Posts","summary":"Passen jullie op als jullie in de buurt van Delft zijn? Het schijnt dat hier de laatste tijd nogal wat auto’s ontploffen.\n","title":"Aan mijn autorijdende vrienden","type":"posts"},{"content":"Een artikel in de Volkskrant vandaag over hoe het algemene systeem van de OV-chipkaarten is gekraakt. Dit is aangekondigd door een groep hackers op de CCC in Berlijn tijdens hun presentatie: Mifare: Little Security, Despite Obscurity.\nHet artikel in de VK laat niets doorschemeren van de techniek en het falen daarvan dus ik ga vanavond de presentatie bekijken om te zien wat er nu precies aan de hand is. Dan dus meer hierover. Als dit inderdaad is wat het lijkt en wat Rop Gonggrijp gelijk heet met: ‘Deze chipkaarttechnologie is weg, stuk, niet meer te gebruiken.’ dan is het een belachelijke schande.\nIk schreef al eerder over de extreem slechte aanbesteding van openbaar vervoer-projecten. Het is wel degelijk mogelijk om veilige systemen te maken. Eerlijkheid en openheid is een beginvoorwaarde voor veiligheid, als je aanbesteedt aan bedrijven die dat niet zijn, krijg je ook geen veilig product.\nDe OV-chipkaart werd al geplaagd door veel problemen. Het leek erop alsof er nergens regie was en dat niemand het belang van de reizigers behartigde. Wat dat betreft is deze nekslag voor deze technologie een gelukkig ongeluk. Nu nog zien of er koppen gaan rollen.\nUpdate: Ik heb de video nu gezien en respect voor de twee hackers (Karsten Nohl \u0026amp; Henryk Plötz). Met relatief goedkoop spul, een microscoop, OpenPCD en OpenPICC tools en veel trial and error, raadwerk naar de ontwerpbeslissingen en algoritmen die gebruikt worden, hebben ze de Mifare Classic technologie zoals die in heel veel RFID-toepassingen gebruikt wordt compleet gekraakt 1. Spoofen van UIDs met verschilende rechten, kraken van sleutels en semi-willekeurige starttoestanden, replays van transacties 2, alles is mogelijk en meer details worden nog gepubliceerd. Mooie puzzel en leuke uitleg hoe dit in zijn werk gaat. Maar ga er maar aan om dit zelf te verzinnen.\nToegegeven zoals ook in de presentatie wordt genoemd, RFID-chips hebben beperkingen in stroom en ruimte/complexiteit. Het implementeren van een goed cryptografisch protocol in die beperkingen in betaalbare RFID-chips zoals de Mifare is erg moeilijk. Phillips claimt dat wel te kunnen en biedt \u0026lsquo;geavanceerde beveiliging\u0026rsquo; aan. De techniek die dit mogelijk maakt is op dit moment niet bekend in de academische wereld. Het is natuurlijk mogelijk dat Philips in-huis buitengewone technologische innovaties hier inzet, maar zoals blijkt is het tegenovergestelde waar. Ze hebben het eenvoudigste geïmplementeerd wat zou kunnen werken, zonder noemenswaardige veiligheidsmaatregelen behalve dan het geheimhouden van hoe het werkt. In de academische wereld vindt op dit moment onderzoek plaats naar wat wel te implementeren is in de geldende beperkingen. Dit onderzoek vindt plaats in een open wetenschappelijk proces met peer review; bewezen de beste manier om te komen tot veilige systemen.\nEen journaalitem dat online staat 3 citeert Rover dat staat te janken dat de persoonsgegevens op de chipkaart te kopiëren zouden zijn. Dat is het minst boeiend probleem. Rover zou moeten toejuichen dat openbaar vervoer binnenkort gratis kan zijn. Translink en NXP doen alsof er niks aan de hand is (zie ook Bright) maar als je de presentatie bekijkt 4 blijkt dat Mifare compleet en totaal gekraakt is. Teletekst weet te melden dat TNO de veiligheid van de kaart gaat onderzoeken. Als ze die onderzoeken net zo goed doen 5 als ze de onderzoeken naar de veiligheid van stemcomputers gedaan hebben, dan staat ons nog wat te wachten.\nUpdate 2: En mijn reactie op Sargasso.\nUpdate 3: Ik luister naar het item op Radio Online met veel van hetzelfde met twee storende dingen:\nGroenLinks (Duyvendak, OV-chipklacht) en vrienden (Rover) zeggen steeds dat strippenkaarten e.d. voldoen. Dit is een fijn staaltje achteruit denken en het klopt voor geen meter. Strippenkaarten zijn een idioot systeem 6 en ik snap de combinatie van zones, starttarieven en strippen stempelen zelf nog steeds niet 7. Verder slaat het nergens op dat ik als ik bijvoorbeeld naar de Pilotenstraat moet, ik een kaartje nodig heb voor de trein en een apart kaartje voor de metro 8 en dat ik het niet van tevoren \u0026rsquo;s avonds online kan kopen 9. Daar komt nog bij dat alle maatregelen die kaartjes in het OV beter zouden kunnen maken op de lange baan zijn geschoven met de belofte van de OV-chipkaart. De OV-chipkaart cancellen betekent een flinke innovatie-schuld op een andere manier moeten inlossen. Er valt een eis dat een OV-systeem vrijwel waterdicht moet zijn (of temminste zo veilig als strippenkaarten dat nu zijn). Is deze hack niet een duidelijk bewijs dat het proces zoals het hier gehanteerd is, er niet in geslaagd is om te kiezen voor een veilig, open en toekomstbereid systeem en ook niet voor een systeem dat de behoeften van gebruikers voorop stelt. Wat gaat er veranderen in de besluitvormingstrajecten zodat dit niet meer gebeurt?\nTijdens de presentatie wordt gemeldt dat als je Mifare gebruikt dat het verstandig is om weg te migreren naar een andere technologie. Even verderop zelfs dat Philips je vast wel wil helpen om hun geavanceerder (en dus) duurdere chips te gebruiken.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nOh, €5 bijschrijven op je OV-chipkaart? Één keer opnemen en afspelen zo vaak je wilt.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nIs niet te permalinken.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nHoeveel mensen hebben dat vandaag gedaan?\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nTNO verricht onderzoek in opdracht. Het is alleen maar natuurlijk dat de uitkomst van het onderzoek onder druk komt door de belangen van de opdrachtgever.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nProbeer het maar eens uit te leggen aan toeristen.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nMijn hersenen weigeren het. Ik overleef in het openbaar vervoer door chauffeurs en conducteurs te zeggen waar ik heen moet en hun te laten stempelen.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nOpenbaar vervoer moet één ervaring zijn.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nOf ik moet stapels ongedateerde treinkaartjes en strippenkaarten bewaren, wat niet handig is en wat ik toch niet doe. Dus ik sta altijd \u0026rsquo;s ochtends te kutten bij kaartautomaten en gesloten kiosken.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"January 9, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/mifare-gekraakt/","section":"Posts","summary":"Een artikel in de Volkskrant vandaag over hoe het algemene systeem van de OV-chipkaarten is gekraakt. Dit is aangekondigd door een groep hackers op de CCC in Berlijn tijdens hun presentatie: Mifare: Little Security, Despite Obscurity.\n","title":"Mifare gekraakt","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik zat het einde van het jaar mijn lijstjes door te kijken en ik zag dat ik in 2007 maar vier (!) boeken heb gelezen. Dan zie je iemand als Aaronsw die er 70 consumeert en dat weinig vindt.\nAfstuderen slokt je leven op en met vier boeken scoor ik nog steeds hoger dan mijn meeste vrienden maar dit jaar ga ik meer lezen 1. Ik heb gisternacht Der Prozess van Kafka uitgelezen 2 dus dit jaar op schema: één week, één boek.\nDe vier boeken die ik heb gelezen zijn wel de moeite waard:\n“Van de Vijand en de Muzikant”van Ramsey Nasr # Een dubbelbundel met Nasr\u0026rsquo;s essays over kunst en over politiek. Niet verbazingwekkend zijn zijn essays over politiek waarin Nasr hard uithaalt meer de moeite waard. Verfrissend om een niet-anti-semitisch 3 geluid te horen dat durft uit te varen tegen wat Palestijnen overkomt.\n“Fragile Things”van Neil Gaiman # Het enige van de vier wat absoluut de moeite waard is. Korte en fantastische verhalen.\n“Visionary in Residence”van Bruce Sterling # Nabije toekomst science-fiction verhalen. Erg leuk.\n“The Seven Day Weekend”van Ricardo Semler # Funest boek in zoverre dat als je dit gelezen hebt, je niet snel meer uit zult kijken naar je 9-tot-5 bestaan op het kantoor. Semco is een bedrijf wat een revolutionaire maar compleet logische stijl van management uitvoert.\nDe uitdaging voor iedereen is om niet te denken dat Semco raar is omdat zij het op hun manier doen, maar dat de meeste andere bedrijven raar zijn dat zij het niet zo doen.\nIn dezelfde straat nog te lezen: Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman.\nMinder kan haast niet.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nEn me de volgende dag half verslapen.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nHet CIDI zal het daar niet mee eens zijn maar wat hen betreft hoef je maar te niezen op een Jood en het is al anti-semitisme.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"January 8, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/boekenlijst/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik zat het einde van het jaar mijn lijstjes door te kijken en ik zag dat ik in 2007 maar vier (!) boeken heb gelezen. Dan zie je iemand als Aaronsw die er 70 consumeert en dat weinig vindt.\n","title":"Boekenlijst","type":"posts"},{"content":"“We are not a collection of red states and blue states. We are the United States of America.”\nObama wint en knalt er een overtuigende speech tegenaan met grootse thema\u0026rsquo;s.\nAmerika heeft weer hoop. Welke hoop is er voor de Nederlandse politiek?\n","date":"January 4, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/american-rhetoric/","section":"Posts","summary":"“We are not a collection of red states and blue states. We are the United States of America.”\n","title":"American Rhetoric","type":"posts"},{"content":"Eindelijk mijn fotos\u0026rsquo; van Oud en Nieuw online. Hier een staaltje: ","date":"January 4, 2008","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/gelukkig-nieuwjaar/","section":"Posts","summary":"Eindelijk mijn fotos’ van Oud en Nieuw online. Hier een staaltje: ","title":"Gelukkig nieuwjaar","type":"posts"},{"content":"Een tijdje geleden lazen we op het werk de ingezonden brief “Abu Ghraib aan de Schie” 1 in NRC over praktijken bij het corps hier in Delft. Naar aanleiding van welke wat onderzoek heeft plaatsgevonden.\nWij hadden toen geconcludeerd dat ze daar beter in plaats van dit halfslachtige gedoe 2, de feuten beter direct kunnen waterboarden. Het gaat óf om het resultaat, óf om het proces. Gaat het om het proces, dan is het pure vernedering. Gaat het om het resultaat, doe dan een waterboarding sessie. De snelste en effectiefste manier om mensen te breken.\nHet is inderdaad zó effectief. Scylla —ik geloof een gerespecteerd lid— van de Straight Dope-fora heeft het pas op zichzelf toegepast en een verslag uit de eerste hand geschreven. De moeite van het lezen waard. Maar de moeite om zelf te ondergaan? Of de moeite om mensen die zeggen dat het geen marteling is te dwingen het te ondergaan?\nWrede titel (pun intended) trouwens\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n“Vlak boven het matras hangt een camouflagenet met bewegingssensoren.”\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"December 28, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/studentikoos-martelen-voor-maximaal-effect/","section":"Posts","summary":"Een tijdje geleden lazen we op het werk de ingezonden brief “Abu Ghraib aan de Schie” 1 in NRC over praktijken bij het corps hier in Delft. Naar aanleiding van welke wat onderzoek heeft plaatsgevonden.\n","title":"Studentikoos martelen voor maximaal effect","type":"posts"},{"content":"Voor wie weleens in diezelfde situatie terecht komt in een restaurant:\nTip om alle Related Videos te kijken zoals: Dog Diet, Do you know what I like?, Job interview en King of Spain.\n(via Dooce, via Powazek)\n","date":"December 27, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/man-stroke-woman/","section":"Posts","summary":"Voor wie weleens in diezelfde situatie terecht komt in een restaurant:\n","title":"Man stroke woman","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik lees de afgelopen week wat verlekkerde lijstjes van films die verwacht worden in 2008. Nu heb ik nog niet eens de boeiendste films van 2007 gezien 1.\nHet lijkt erop dat komend jaar een bijna wekelijks bezoek aan de bioscoop nodig is. En dan hebben we het nog niet eens over het filmhuis. Heel veel leuke films. Een kleine doorloop:\n21 — Studententeam van blackjack hustlers met Kevin Spacey als de baas (trailer). Jammer dat kaarten tellen in Nederland niet haalbaar is 2. Australia — Baz Luhrmann met een film over Australië in de Tweede Wereldoorlog. Babylon A.D. — Vin Diesel in een film met een of ander debiel vergezocht verhaal kan alleen maar leuk zijn. Be kind rewind — Jack Black in een film over low-budget remakes van klassieke films. Tof concept, toffe trailer. Blindness — Fernando Meirelles met een boeiende premisse. Ik moet de Constant Gardener ook nog zien. The Box — Twisted verhaal van de maker van Donnie Darko. Burn after reading — Coen brothers\u0026rsquo; volgende met Clooney, Malkovich én Pitt. The Changeling — Clint Eastwood en J.Michael Straczynski 3) met een creepy verhaal. Choke — Boek van Chuck Palahniuk waar ik nog steeds iets van moet lezen. City of Ember — Bil Murray. Cloverfield — Blair Witch-achtig geschoten monsterfilm à la Lost en Resident Evil. Met website tie- ins. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button — Intrigerend concept en films van Fincher moeten gezien worden. In 2009 komt Fincher ook nog met een verfilming van Rendezvous with Rama. The Dark Knight — Absoluut geen twijfels over deze film. Dit wordt genadeloos vet (zie trailer). Oh ja weer van Nolan, dus goed. The Day the Earth Stood Still — Sci-fi klassieker remake. Fanboys — Sci-fi fan flick. Waarschijnlijk cheezy, maar vast amusant. The Fighter — Aronofsky. The Forbidden Kingdom — Jet Li kung-fu epos. Frost/Nixon — Leer ik eindelijk wat over Nixon. Hancock — De trailer van deze Will Smith anti-superheldfilm was erg grappig. Film zelf is misschien wat flauw. The Happening — Shyamalan, goed of niet het is vast spannend. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince — Ik heb nog geen enkel Harry Potter boek gelezen. Ik moet het hebben van de films. Hellboy 2 — De vorige was amusant genoeg, en ik ben een beetje dwangmatig op superheldenfilms. The Incredible Hulk — (Groene) superheld. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull — Indiana Jones, wie is er niet groot mee geworden. The International — Films van Tykwer zijn verplicht. Iron Man — Leuke trailer over een renaissance man, wapenhandelaar turned superhero. James Bond 22 — James Bond is verplicht al heb ik de vorige nog niet eens gezien 4. Jumper — Snelle en spannende sci-fi met één strak goed uitgewerkt concept. Vette trailer ook. The Love Guru — Nieuw Mike Myers karakter. The Other Boleyn Girl — De trailer ziet er goed uit, maar titelrollen voor Scarlett Johansson en Natalie Portman doen dat denk ik voor elke trailer. Rambo — De nieuwste Rambo waar eerder al een bizar gewelddadige trailer van uit was. \u0026lsquo;Bizar gewelddadig\u0026rsquo; is voor mij reden genoeg om iets te willen zien. Repo! The Genetic Opera! — Biotech is cool in films, gecombineerd met een musical wordt dit vast een giller. RocknRolla — Nieuwe Guy Ritchie, altijd zien. Speed Racer — Lang verwacht net de trailer gezien en dit ziet er meer dan aardig uit. Star Trek XI — Een compleet frisse nieuwe Star Trek. Valkyrie — Misschien wel één van de bruutste Tweede Wereldoorlog films tot nu toe. Zie de trailer voor een voorproefje. Vantage Point — Net de trailer hiervan gezien en ziet eruit als een strakke actiefilm met een boeiende manier van vertellen door allemaal verschillende gezichtspunten. Wall-E — Schattige Pixar robots. Where the Wild Things Are — Spike Jonze met een mooi kinderverhaal. The X-Files 2 — De vorige X-Files film 5 was best aardig. Dit zou best wat kunnen zijn, en anders is het een trip down memory lane. Zack and Miri make a porno — Een film over porno van de maker van Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. Flinke achterstand opgelopen met afstuderen.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nDat heb ik niet gezegd\u0026hellip;\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nvan [Babylon 5](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylon_5\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nDat ga ik snel verhelpen.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nFight the Future, lang lang geleden\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"December 26, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/2008-bioscoopjaar/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik lees de afgelopen week wat verlekkerde lijstjes van films die verwacht worden in 2008. Nu heb ik nog niet eens de boeiendste films van 2007 gezien 1.\n","title":"2008 Bioscoopjaar","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik zit al een tijdje na te denken over reisinformatie en het zou erg fijn zijn als die informatie makkelijk publiek beschikbaar zou zijn. Het is in het huidige klimaat kansloos en dat maakt het zo jammer want je zou er ontzettend veel handige dingen mee kunnen doen.\nIdee 1: Een widget op je bureaublad met daarin altijd de volgende trein/bus/tram naar drie locaties waar je vaak heengaat. Een soort snelkoppelingen maar dan beter. Het is een redelijk triviale applicatie, maar eentje die voor veel mensen nuttig kan zijn. Als de gegevens makkelijk beschikbaar waren, konden we honderden van dit soort tools maken 1.\nIdee 2: De OV-chipkaart gaat binnenkort al onze reisbewegingen vastleggen. Dit is slecht maar kan ook goed zijn. Die gegevens zijn van jezelf, privacy zegt dat ze niet met derden gedeeld mogen worden maar het is ook een fundamenteel recht om te kunnen beschikken over je eigen informatie. Wat zou je kunnen doen met deze informatie? Het CO2 verbruik van je vervoersbewegingen in kaart brengen en het verschil tonen met als je de auto had genomen. Automatisch uitdraaien maken door een vertrouwde derde partij en die direct naar je werk laten sturen voor je reiskostenvergoeding. Hoe? Een Atom gebaseerd API waar je toegang tot kun verlenen via een OAuth endpoint. Erg simpel maar waarschijnlijk niet op de radar van de partij die dit ontwikkelt.\nIdee 3: Google Transit is een uitbreiding op Google Maps die openbaar vervoersinformatie aanbiedt. Transit is nog experimenteel maar wordt beter en beter 2. Google vraagt geen geld voor deze dienst. Als we dit in Nederland ook willen (en dat willen we), hoeven de vervoerders alleen maar hun gegevens in een standaard formaat aan Google aan te bieden. Op dit moment piekeren vervoerders in Nederland hier niet over omdat ze de vervoersinformatie hebben ondergebracht bij een monopolist. Het doel van OV9292 is om een minimale dienst aan te bieden en de gemaakte investering terug te verdienen.\nEr gaat hier dus iets ernstig mis. Als burger betaal je dubbel voor openbaar vervoer: zowel in belastingen als voor je kaartje. Je zou zeggen dat vervoersinformatie bij openbaar vervoer hoort en dus ook al betaald is. Mensen die geen gebruik maken van openbaar vervoer hebben ook niks aan die informatie.\nWinstoogmerk # Dit begint op zich al met de privatisering van het openbaar vervoer maar werkt dus ook door op de vervoersinformatie. Vervoerders moeten geld verdienen, reisinformatie is een kostenpost. Investeringen moeten terugverdiend.\nAan de ene kant zou je het weggeven van reisinformatie kunnen goedpraten met het argument: hoe meer mensen weten van mogelijke vervoersopties, hoe groter de kans dat ze er gebruik van maken. Dus direct meer inkomsten voor de vervoerders. Aan de andere kant zijn zowel goed openbaar vervoer als de bijbehorende goede reisinformatie voorwaarden voor het (economisch) verkeer in Nederland. Als marktpartijen hierinfalen, moet de overheid ingrijpen.\nInvesteringen # De reisinformatiesystemen en de (verschrikkelijk slechte) sites die ze ontsluiten naar het publiek worden gebouwd door IT-leveranciers uit de markt. Dit zijn investeringen die de vervoerders moeten doen van de overheid. Zonder die dwang hadden we waarschijnlijk een situatie zoals in Duitsland waar elke lokale vervoerder zijn eigen (nog veel slechtere) site heeft en je geen binnengrens-overschrijdende ritten kunt plannen.\nDeze investeringen worden aanbesteed naar preferred suppliers wat neerkomt op een hele beperkte groep gespecialiseerde of grote IT-bedrijven. Kleine bedrijven die het goed en goedkoop willen doen krijgen uiteraard geen kans omdat die een risico vormen 3. De bedrijven waarnaar wordt uitbesteed zijn op zich al niet goedkoop maar binnen kleine groepen gaan prijzen vanzelf ook nog omhoog.\nDus als vervoerders het hebben over investeringen die terug verdiend moeten, dan gaat het om bedragen die hoger zijn dan nodig. Terugverdienmodellen zijn daardoor erg onrealistisch. Op een vraag van mij werd voor OV9292 een bedrag van €0,70 per aanvraag genoemd.\nRealistischer zou zijn als de investeringen werden afgeschreven en er werd gekeken naar een actuele waarde van een systeem. Hardware (GPS, GSM) wordt exponentieel goedkoper en een website moet je in 2-3 jaar afschrijven tenzij je wil blijven zitten met heel oud spul.\nKosten # Fair is wel dat de exploitatiekosten betaald moeten worden. Nu is dat probleem makkelijk opgelost door alle gegevens in Google Transit te stoppen zodat iedereen erbij kan en mensen die zinnige toepassingen bouwen te laten zorgen voor hun hosting. Dit is een klein en makkelijk op te lossen probleem.\nConclusie # De gegevens zijn al betaald door elke inwoner van dit land.\nLaat marktpartijen met deze gegevens innovatieve oplossingen bouwen waarmee ze waarde kunnen creëeren voor zichzelf en anderen. De huidige uitbaters gaan dat namelijk zeker niet doen.\nDe vervoerders zelf kunnen alleen maar meer (niet minder) klandizie krijgen bij het goed toegankelijk en verspreid zijn van hun informatie 4.\nElke weer gesitueerd aan de specifieke wensen en eisen van een groep gebruikers.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nLet op de meerdere vervoersopties met kosten erbij en ook afgezet tegen de kosten van autorijden.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nHet nemen van risico\u0026rsquo;s en zeker het nemen van risico\u0026rsquo;s die op jezelf terug te voeren kunnen zijn staat niet hoog op de prioriteitenlijst van de aanbesteders. Het met bakken uitgeven van andermans geld is daarentegen geen enkel probleem.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nDit lijkt de muziekdiscussie wel.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"December 24, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/open-reisinformatie-voor-de-mensen/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik zit al een tijdje na te denken over reisinformatie en het zou erg fijn zijn als die informatie makkelijk publiek beschikbaar zou zijn. Het is in het huidige klimaat kansloos en dat maakt het zo jammer want je zou er ontzettend veel handige dingen mee kunnen doen.\n","title":"Open reisinformatie voor de mensen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Eelke heeft een nieuwe site \u0026ldquo;Hocus Focus\u0026rdquo; (met bijbehorende Flickr-groep) waar elke week een foto-opdracht staat om je erop uit te sturen, je oog te verscherpen en je geest te verruimen.\nIk ben er eergisteren op uit geweest om een paar opdrachten te schieten en die foto\u0026rsquo;s komen nu langzaam op Flickr. Het helpt erg en ik schoot de laatste tijd toch al te weinig 1.\nDoe mee, ook (of juist) als je niet een achterlijk grote camera hebt.\nEigenlijk vrijwel niks meer.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"December 22, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/hocus-focus-filatus-tas/","section":"Posts","summary":"Eelke heeft een nieuwe site “Hocus Focus” (met bijbehorende Flickr-groep) waar elke week een foto-opdracht staat om je erop uit te sturen, je oog te verscherpen en je geest te verruimen.\n","title":"Hocus Focus Filatus Tas","type":"posts"},{"content":"En zo wordt er opeens een in-store concert gegeven door Fiction Plane in de platenzaak bij mij om de hoek: ","date":"December 20, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/left-side-of-the-brain/","section":"Posts","summary":"En zo wordt er opeens een in-store concert gegeven door Fiction Plane in de platenzaak bij mij om de hoek: ","title":"Left side of the brain","type":"posts"},{"content":"De in-store van Fiction Plane in Velvet werd aangekondigd door een hele grote Hagenees die ons verzekerde dat de enige manier om de winkel levend te verlaten het kopen van een CD was.\nZeker na een live event heb ik er geen problemen mee om de muzikanten te vergoeden —want die gasten moeten ook leven— maar ik doe niet meer aan CDs als fysiek medium. Als ik de CD van Fiction Plane wil hebben, dan download ik hem wel, veel handiger voor ons allebei en nog beter voor het milieu ook 1.\nHet geld dat je dan zou besteden aan de CD kun je beter aan de band zelf geven. Radiohead is hier al mee begonnen 2 met veel succes. Aleen komt na afloop van het concert naar de muzikant toelopen en hem een briefje toestoppen wat raar 3 over maar het live-en-fooi-model heeft zeker potentie (zie ook de Seminal). Wat de muziekwinkel dan moet doen in dit verhaal is nog een redelijk lastige. Als distributiepunt van media is ze geen lang leven meer beschoren.\nDat hele idee is één van de redenen dat we Tipit.to zijn begonnen. Om transacties in de voluntaire economie te faciliteren. We zijn hard bezig om binnenkort te lanceren en te zien of het wat wordt 4.\nJe kon bij Velvet in de rij staan om je CD te laten signeren. Dat zou het meer dan zomaar een drager maken, maar ik ben niet zó een fan en ik heb geen zin om dat dan te bewaren of op eBay te zetten.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nMet wat ook nog eens één van de beste CDs van de afgelopen tijd is.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nMaar wel lekker zwart!\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nLegio mensen zonder een greintje visie hebben ons al verzekerd dat het nooit kan werken. Des te meer reden om het te proberen.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"December 20, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/compensatie-van-artiesten/","section":"Posts","summary":"De in-store van Fiction Plane in Velvet werd aangekondigd door een hele grote Hagenees die ons verzekerde dat de enige manier om de winkel levend te verlaten het kopen van een CD was.\n","title":"Compensatie van artiesten","type":"posts"},{"content":"De laatste dagen is mijn huis niet warm te stoken. De verwarming loeit de hele dag op zijn hardst om het een beetje te harden te houden. Verklaring hiervoor zichtbaar op de foto boven: mijn huis steekt uit het gebouw en de wind heeft vrij spel op vier zijden. Daarnaast is er geen noemenswaardige isolatie te vinden.\n","date":"December 20, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/snijdende-kou/","section":"Posts","summary":"De laatste dagen is mijn huis niet warm te stoken. De verwarming loeit de hele dag op zijn hardst om het een beetje te harden te houden. Verklaring hiervoor zichtbaar op de foto boven: mijn huis steekt uit het gebouw en de wind heeft vrij spel op vier zijden. Daarnaast is er geen noemenswaardige isolatie te vinden.\n","title":"Snijdende kou","type":"posts"},{"content":"Zojuist weer bezoek gehad, en het is voor de mensen nog steeds moeilijk om mijn huis te vinden. Om dit probleem in de toekomst voor te zijn heb ik een Google Map gemaakt met daarin de locatie en bereikbaarheid van mijn huis: Grotere kaart weergeven\nHet lijkt erop dat de kaart in de iframe niet correct gecentreerd wordt, klik door naar de hele kaart.\nIk ga zo wat foto\u0026rsquo;s voor schieten en die erin plakken om het nog duidelijker te maken.\n","date":"December 19, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/bezoekadres/","section":"Posts","summary":"Zojuist weer bezoek gehad, en het is voor de mensen nog steeds moeilijk om mijn huis te vinden. Om dit probleem in de toekomst voor te zijn heb ik een Google Map gemaakt met daarin de locatie en bereikbaarheid van mijn huis: Grotere kaart weergeven\n","title":"Bezoekadres","type":"posts"},{"content":"En zo stond ik zondagochtend op een bizar vroeg tijdstip op Rotterdam Centraal: ","date":"December 17, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/rotterdam-vroeg/","section":"Posts","summary":"En zo stond ik zondagochtend op een bizar vroeg tijdstip op Rotterdam Centraal: ","title":"Rotterdam vroeg","type":"posts"},{"content":"Seth Godin schrijft over het luxe-probleem waar Apple binnenkort mee te kampen heeft wanneer de meeste mensen een computer van Apple hebben. Think Different (video) gaat per definitie niet meer op als iedereen ‘different’ is.\nIk heb al wel gezegd dat Apple computers minder appeal zouden hebben als ze bij de Aldi zouden liggen. Dit heeft te maken met het nerd-elite principe ‘niets is tof als andere mensen dat ook vinden’.\nIn Amerika zijn ze al ver op het gebied van Apple-conversie, doordat Nederland altijd achterloopt hebben we hier nog wel een jaar of vijf. Dus wat dan?\nEen sub-notebook met Debian/Ubuntu erop zou wel weer terug zijn naar de roots. Nu maar hopen dat in die paar jaar Ubuntu eindelijk werkbaar wordt.\n","date":"December 16, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/iedereen-anders/","section":"Posts","summary":"Seth Godin schrijft over het luxe-probleem waar Apple binnenkort mee te kampen heeft wanneer de meeste mensen een computer van Apple hebben. Think Different (video) gaat per definitie niet meer op als iedereen ‘different’ is.\n","title":"Iedereen anders","type":"posts"},{"content":"Waarom is het dat de mensen die het het meeste hebben over innovatie, het minst innovatief zijn?\n","date":"December 16, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/innovatie/","section":"Posts","summary":"Waarom is het dat de mensen die het het meeste hebben over innovatie, het minst innovatief zijn?\n","title":"Innovatie","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik had vandaag een probleempje bij Orange omdat zij iets fout hadden gedaan. De jongen in de winkel stelde voor dat ik de klantenservice belde. De klantenservice is bereikbaar op een betaald 0900-nummer. Dus omdat zij een fout hebben gemaakt, die mij geld kost, moet ik hun nog meer geld gaan betalen om het op te helderen.Waarom mogen klanten bedrijven niet op die manier behandelen?In de tussentijd een idee: als je als internetprovider of ander bedrijf uit een notoir klantonvriendelijke sector wilt opvallen, keer je de situatie om. Mensen bellen het nummer en als het de schuld van het bedrijf is dan betaalt het bedrijf dat bedrag 1 aan de klant.\nIn mindering op je telefoonrekening ofzo.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"December 14, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/betalen-voor-je-klantenservice/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik had vandaag een probleempje bij Orange omdat zij iets fout hadden gedaan. De jongen in de winkel stelde voor dat ik de klantenservice belde. De klantenservice is bereikbaar op een betaald 0900-nummer. Dus omdat zij een fout hebben gemaakt, die mij geld kost, moet ik hun nog meer geld gaan betalen om het op te helderen.Waarom mogen klanten bedrijven niet op die manier behandelen?In de tussentijd een idee: als je als internetprovider of ander bedrijf uit een notoir klantonvriendelijke sector wilt opvallen, keer je de situatie om. Mensen bellen het nummer en als het de schuld van het bedrijf is dan betaalt het bedrijf dat bedrag 1 aan de klant.\n","title":"Betalen voor je klantenservice","type":"posts"},{"content":"Met de vorige versie van de wpopenid+ plugin werden commentaren op dit blog van OpenID-gebruikers anoniem geplaatst. Nu is OpenID een identity systeem, en meestal is anonimiteit wel mogelijk maar niet direct de bedoeling.\nNu met de update heb ik even de nieuwste versie van die plugin geïnstalleerd en het lijkt erop dat alles veel soepeler werkt. Ik kan nu in ieder geval met mijn OpenID correct inloggen als admin. En jullie?\n","date":"December 12, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/wordpress-openid-nu-nog-beter/","section":"Posts","summary":"Met de vorige versie van de wpopenid+ plugin werden commentaren op dit blog van OpenID-gebruikers anoniem geplaatst. Nu is OpenID een identity systeem, en meestal is anonimiteit wel mogelijk maar niet direct de bedoeling.\n","title":"Wordpress openid nu nog beter","type":"posts"},{"content":"Door het drukke leven en het niet hebben van een televisie heb ik gemist dat Buitenhof weer begonnen is. Doordat je geen televisie hebt mis je gezamenlijke events zoals (live) uitzendingen en is het makkelijk om dingen te vergeten.\nIn die laatste Buitenhof een column van Max Pam -een van de scherpste pennen van Nederland 1- die Balkenende terecht zet. Onze premier zal hier weinig aan lijden, wacht op zijn vergoeilijkende lachje in zijn volgende televisieoptreden.\nOver het niet kunnen volgen van televisie: eigenlijk wil ik het ook niet meer volgen. Net zoals ik geen Nederlands dagblad 2 hoef om op de hoogte te zijn van het wereldnieuws, heb ik ook de publieke omroep niet meer nodig 3. Er is zoveel content, en ook zoveel zoveel betere content. Het enige dat ik zou willen is een RSS-stream van het enige programma wat de moeite waard is: DWDD met daarin werkende fragment clips 4 waardoor ik in mijn eigen tijd door een uitzending heen kan. Is dat zoveel gevraagd?\nErwin Blom gaat weg en vraagt tips voor de omroep. Ik heb uit jarenlange frustratie geput en er twee aangeboden.\nDe andere is Karin Spaink\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nNew York Times en the New Yorker FTW\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nBittorrent is een veel klantvriendelijker distributiemodel.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nHet liefst h.264 in een zinnigere container dan die ASF-troep\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"December 3, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/buitenhof-is-weer-begonnen/","section":"Posts","summary":"Door het drukke leven en het niet hebben van een televisie heb ik gemist dat Buitenhof weer begonnen is. Doordat je geen televisie hebt mis je gezamenlijke events zoals (live) uitzendingen en is het makkelijk om dingen te vergeten.\n","title":"Buitenhof is weer begonnen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Vandaag even naar Utrecht geweest voor het Marketing3 congres.\nWat observaties:\nIk mag dan naast de beste bakker van Delft wonen; ik kan er \u0026rsquo;s ochtends om 07:50 geen croissants halen 1. Ik dacht dat bakkers vroeg opstonden enzo. NS-automaten bedienen is geen goed idee, slaapdronken al helemaal niet. Ik kwam er direct nadat ik een kaartje met korting gekocht had achter dat ik het niet kon gebruiken. Ik gok dat 90% van de mensen die bij een automaat een kaartje koopt het koopt met het doel om het binnen een kwartier te gebruiken. Een flitsende waarschuwing dat je voor 09:00 niet met het gekozen kaartje mag reizen zou niet weg zijn. Zo\u0026rsquo;n kaartje met korting kan dan geruild worden aan de balie (die wél open is) maar dan moet je je naam en adres opgeven en iets tekenen. Wat de NS met die gegevens doet, weet ik niet en kon me op dat moment erg weinig schelen. Over die automaten gesproken 2, waarom leveren die dingen geen reisinformatie voor het traject dat je koopt? Ofwel live op het scherm, ofwel geprint op je kaartje. Zowel de treinrit Den Haag CS — Utrecht als de treinrit Utrecht — Rotterdam zijn lang genoeg 3 om een aflevering van House M.D. in te kijken. In de file staan schijnt niet leuk te zijn, maar hebben de mensen die daarover klagen weleens de trein genomen in de spits? Juist. Het congres was gemengd maar interessant. Het ging over wat marketingmensen moeten doen in deze turbulente tijden. Goed dat deze professie zich ook bewust wordt van het bestaan van het internet. Volgens mij kan dat ongeveer nergens in Delft.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nDe huidige interfaces zijn natuurlijk end-of-life omdat de OV-chipkaart als die eindelijk komt alle problemen gaat oplossen (of ons zo ver terug het stenen tijdperk in slingert dat we blij zouden zijn met de huidige problemen).\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nDankzij microvertragingen.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"December 3, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/utrecht-heen-en-weer/","section":"Posts","summary":"Vandaag even naar Utrecht geweest voor het Marketing3 congres.\n","title":"Utrecht heen en weer","type":"posts"},{"content":"Al dat gedoe over politiek, je zou er depressief van worden. Als afwisseling, dit is wat ik uit mijn raam zie: ","date":"November 24, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/nieuwe-kerk/","section":"Posts","summary":"Al dat gedoe over politiek, je zou er depressief van worden. Als afwisseling, dit is wat ik uit mijn raam zie: ","title":"Nieuwe Kerk","type":"posts"},{"content":"Toeval na bericht van gisteren dat Spaink vandaag over de columns-mailinglijst met het bericht komt van de nieuwe Amnesty International-campagne “Unsubscribe.” Deze gaat over de War on Terror, die zogenaamde oorlog waardoor we onze privacy en burgervrijheden kwijt raken in Europa wat later dan in Amerika, maar zeker niet veel minder.\nHet zijn drie filmpjes —vandaag de eerste— van ondervragingsmethoden die volgens de CIA geen marteling zijn. En als het geschreven staat is het natuurlijk waar. Kijk het filmpje en vraag je af of je hier part aan wil hebben of dat je wilt Unsubscribe n.\nVroeger als ik in discussies over politiek de boel wilde polariseren, wilde ik nog weleens zeggen dat mensen die op de VVD stemmen fascisten zijn 1. Het discussieren heb ik opgegeven 2 maar eigenlijk vind ik nog steeds wel dat mensen die op de VVD stemmen fascisten zijn.\nHet bovenstaande filmpje is alle onderbouwing die nodig is voor die stelling. De CIA vindt wat daar gebeurt geen marteling, en dus de Verenigde Staten ook niet. Door bepaalde kabinetten met de VVD die we hebben gehad omdat mensen in Nederland op de VVD hebben gestemd, vindt Nederland dat dus ook niet.\nIk schaam me en ik heb niet eens VVD gestemd.\n(In hetzelfde straatje is dit gesprek tussen Errol Morris en Philip Gourevitch over Abu Ghraib ook wat lang 3 maar de moeite waard om op de achtergrond aan te hebben staan.)\nVoor elke discussie heb ik wel een paar uitspraken die gegarandeerd polariseren.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nÉén-op-één is een discussie een zinloze masturbatieve bezigheid.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nAls je Morris\u0026rsquo;s essays nog kunt herinneren over die twee foto\u0026rsquo;s.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"November 23, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/unsubscribe/","section":"Posts","summary":"Toeval na bericht van gisteren dat Spaink vandaag over de columns-mailinglijst met het bericht komt van de nieuwe Amnesty International-campagne “Unsubscribe.” Deze gaat over de War on Terror, die zogenaamde oorlog waardoor we onze privacy en burgervrijheden kwijt raken in Europa wat later dan in Amerika, maar zeker niet veel minder.\n","title":"Unsubscribe","type":"posts"},{"content":"Mijn eerste keuze voor de presidentsverkiezingen in Amerika is Barack Obama maar als runner up zou ik moeten gaan voor het andere kamp: Ron Paul zegt extreem zinnige dingen en lijkt weinig gecorrumpeerd.\nEen van zijn uitspraken is dat de grootste bedreiging voor Amerika op dit moment de inperking van burgervrijheden is. Toevallig gaat Spaink\u0026rsquo;s laatste column over de uitbreiding van de bevoegdheden van de overheid. De bij de politie zo populaire rhetorische vraag \u0026lsquo;Waarom heb je privacy nodig als je toch niks te verbergen hebt?\u0026rsquo; lijkt uitgangspunt te worden voor het handelen van de overheid. Het staat beschreven in het rapport ‘Data voor daadkracht’:\n‘Data voor daadkracht’ concludeert dat het een warboel is. De wetten buitelen over elkaar. Niemand weet nog precies wat er mag en moet. De opslag en opvraging van gegevens over burgers gebeurt niet zorgvuldig, niet effectief, niet doelmatig en niet proportioneel. Er is geen strategische samenwerking, geen systematiek, geen bestuurlijke aandacht, geen politiek debat, en geen gemeenschappelijke visie. De overheid wil als een holle bolle Gijs alleen maar meer gegevens.\nPrivacy heb je wél nodig zowel om zowel principiele als praktische redenen. De principiele reden is dat je onschuldig bent totdat het tegendeel bewezen is. Daarnaast mag je alleen maar diepgaand onderzoek doen naar het handelen van mensen wanneer ze verdacht worden van iets. Wanneer de politie routinematig honderd duizenden Nederlanders op die manier onderzoekt, worden al die mensen behandeld als verdachten 1. Het fundamentele principe van de rechtstaat is hiermee omgedraaid en we zijn allemaal verdachten: de natte droom van gezaghebbers in een politiestaat, maar wie controleert ze? Praktisch is het nog veel simpeler. Als je mijn verhaaltje over statistiek doortrekt, kun je berekenen dat de kans redelijk is dat je onterecht beschuldigd wordt. Verdacht zijn waren we allemaal al, maar er hoeft maar een gegeven verkeerd in een bestand te staan en jij bent een terrorist. Probeer dan maar aan te tonen dat je dat niet was als ze in je huis zijn ingevallen, alles in beslag hebben genomen en je hebben afgevoerd 2. De mechanismen van redelijke verdenking voor je iemand onderzoekt en dan duidelijke bewijzen voor je iemand oppakt bieden hier bescherming tegen. Al het andere is Gitmo.\nIk ben niet zo\u0026rsquo;n absoluut vrije markt libertariër als Ron Paul, maar er is niks mis met een kleinere overheid zeker niet als die overheid onverantwoordelijk bezig is en grof onderpresteert.\nCC-foto door Chuck Olsen gebruikt onder de CC-by-nc-sa-licentie\nHet aantal criminelen hiertussen is miniem, het aantal terroristen nog veel minder. Ga terug naar elemtaire kansberekening en bedenk dat elke test die iemand positief of negatief aanmerkt zelf ook een foutkans heeft. Dit zorgt ervoor dat medische tests al onbetrouwbaar zijn, laat staan subjectieve toetsen op terrorisme met in het beste geval al een minimale slaagkans.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nJa, dit gebeurt ook in Nederland\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"November 22, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/wat-heb-je-te-verbergen/","section":"Posts","summary":"Mijn eerste keuze voor de presidentsverkiezingen in Amerika is Barack Obama maar als runner up zou ik moeten gaan voor het andere kamp: Ron Paul zegt extreem zinnige dingen en lijkt weinig gecorrumpeerd.\n","title":"Wat heb je te verbergen?","type":"posts"},{"content":"Vanavond weer heel lekker hardgelopen en dat na een slopende training gisteren. De ervaring leert dat je liever de dag na een slopende training hardloopt dan de dag ervoor.\nPas als ik langer dan een kwartier loopt begint mijn lichaam lekker warm aan te voelen en de endorfine goed te stromen. Dan zit ik in de juiste vibe en voelt het alsof doorlopen makkelijker is dan stoppen.\nDat maakt hardlopen de moeite waard en zorgt ervoor dat je serieuze afstanden gaat afleggen. Met dit tempo zit ik binnen 2 maanden weer op 10 kilometer.\n","date":"November 20, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/de-essentie-van-hardlopen/","section":"Posts","summary":"Vanavond weer heel lekker hardgelopen en dat na een slopende training gisteren. De ervaring leert dat je liever de dag na een slopende training hardloopt dan de dag ervoor.\n","title":"De essentie van hardlopen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Na veel nadenken en schrijven heb ik dan eindelijk een enigzins presentabele website waar ik mij zakelijk kan manifesteren. Boodschappen van anderen helder formuleren is één ding, voor je zelf is het een stuk moeilijker.\nHet domein had ik al een tijd geclaimed: http://aardverschuiving.com en het leek me ook wel een passende titel voor een internet-/nieuwe media-eenmanszaak. Commentaar is altijd welkom. Het concept is continu in ontwikkeling en kan altijd veranderen. Wie weet, misschien komt er ooit zelfs een grafisch ontwerp op.\nZonder site wisten mensen mij ook al te vinden, maar een samenhangend geheel waar anderen naar kunnen verwijzen is toch wel fijn. Dus http://aardverschuiving.com voor alle inkomende links, interessante gesprekken en leuke opdrachten. TEST\n","date":"November 20, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/in-bedrijf/","section":"Posts","summary":"Na veel nadenken en schrijven heb ik dan eindelijk een enigzins presentabele website waar ik mij zakelijk kan manifesteren. Boodschappen van anderen helder formuleren is één ding, voor je zelf is het een stuk moeilijker.\n","title":"In bedrijf","type":"posts"},{"content":"Vanochtend ben ik om 07:15 opgestaan om de vuilnis buiten te zetten. Hier in de binnenstad hebben we geen ondergrondse containers en alles is sowieso slecht bereikbaar. Het schijnt dat de vuilniswagen hem achterin de Vlouw steekt waar wij ons vuilnis neer moeten zetten 1.\nDe gemeente weet te melden dat je \u0026rsquo;s ochtends voor 07:30 het vuilnis buiten moet zetten 2. Opstaan op een ongoddelijk tijdstip en vuilniszakken naar buiten sjouwen.\nDeze manier van dingen regelen is óf de tyrannie van de ochtendmensen en het boerenbestaan over de rest van de mensen óf het is een goede reden om vroeg uit de veren te zijn en de dag te vullen met nuttige dingen 3.\nZeg het maar.\nEn helaas geen foto\u0026rsquo;s misschien een andere keer.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nDe avond van tevoren mag natuurlijk niet.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nIk ben uiteraard weer terug mijn nest in gedoken.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"November 15, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/vroege-vogels/","section":"Posts","summary":"Vanochtend ben ik om 07:15 opgestaan om de vuilnis buiten te zetten. Hier in de binnenstad hebben we geen ondergrondse containers en alles is sowieso slecht bereikbaar. Het schijnt dat de vuilniswagen hem achterin de Vlouw steekt waar wij ons vuilnis neer moeten zetten 1.\n","title":"Vroege vogels","type":"posts"},{"content":"Het is hier wat rustig, nadat ik een week ben weggeweest. Het weekje Berlijn afgesloten met twee dagen Maastricht 1 op de batizado van onze goede vriend Vulcão en zijn groep Capoeira Interação. Wat is dat een mooie stad, trouwens.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"November 13, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/rustig-na-weggeweest-te-zijn/","section":"Posts","summary":"Het is hier wat rustig, nadat ik een week ben weggeweest. Het weekje Berlijn afgesloten met twee dagen Maastricht 1 op de batizado van onze goede vriend Vulcão en zijn groep Capoeira Interação. ","title":"Rustig na weggeweest te zijn","type":"posts"},{"content":"Na in Berlijn aangekomen te zijn, heb ik:\nTurks gegeten (meermalen) Heerlijke Libaneze kibbe gegeten (eindelijk weer) Currywurst gegeten (eerste van velen) Met bier over straat gelopen (vaak zat) Hardgelopen en geklommen (een beetje) Werewolf gespeeld (iets te weinig) Prenzlauerberg \u0026rsquo;s nachts verkend (meermalen) In akelig hippe Wohnzimmer gelegen (eenmalig) €80 kwijtgeraakt (één keer teveel) Jeff Wall\u0026rsquo;s foto\u0026rsquo;s gezien in het Guggenheim (smaakt naar meer) Wat ik nog wil doen voor zaterdag:\nCapoeira spelen Live optreden bijwonen Rondhangen op de Weihnachtsmarkt Door het holocaust monument lopen King Faad de hand schudden ","date":"November 13, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/berliner-existenz/","section":"Posts","summary":"Na in Berlijn aangekomen te zijn, heb ik:\n","title":"Berliner Existenz","type":"posts"},{"content":"Als jullie je afvroegen waarom ik die hoed op had, het komt door het estafette-interview voor Blogpiloten.de dat ik gegeven heb.\n","date":"November 5, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/vandaar-die-hoed/","section":"Posts","summary":"Als jullie je afvroegen waarom ik die hoed op had, het komt door het estafette-interview voor Blogpiloten.de dat ik gegeven heb.\n","title":"Vandaar die hoed","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik heb nu mijn shuffle en mijn Sennheiser en dat zijn onder de dingen die ik altijd bij me heb. Geen stilte aan mijn kop.\nAlleen dag in dag uit hetzelfde luisteren gaat vervelen. Juli, KT Tunstall, Wir sind Helden, Death Cab for Cutie, Calexico, Radiohead, Kanye West, The Fray; ze zijn allemaal erg tof, maar nu even genoeg gehoord. Ik probeer allemaal nieuwe CDs uit, maar indiepop, postrock, R\u0026amp;B, electronic funk, singer songwriters; whatever, er zitten erg weinig blijvertjes tussen.\nHet is donker buiten en misschien is een ander repertoir wat meer gepast. Ik ga het de komende tijd proberen met (soms) eeuwenlange blijvertjes op mijn shuffle: Bach, Mozart, Verdi, Puccini 1 en Shostakovich. Zolang het maar niet stil is.\nMisschien pik zo ook nog wat Italiaans op.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"November 4, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/muziekverveling/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik heb nu mijn shuffle en mijn Sennheiser en dat zijn onder de dingen die ik altijd bij me heb. Geen stilte aan mijn kop.\n","title":"Muziekverveling","type":"posts"},{"content":"Lamineren is gek genoeg niet het werkwoord voor laminaat leggen. Vandaag wat uurtjes besteed aan het en het schiet aardig op. De eindjes zijn klote 1 maar daar tussenin gaat het heel vlot.\nPlank erin leggen, aanschuiven, tikken, klaar, volgende.\nMorgen de rest en af. Dan nog wat plastic op de grond in de keuken en de randjes afwerken en ik kan erin. Vanavond ben ik al begonnen met verhuisdozen 2 te vullen met boeken. Ik heb veel boeken.\nUpdate: Het laminaat is af en het is geweldig! En het is heerlijk glad, fijn capoeira op spelen 3 en rondglijden.\nIk heb ontzettend scheve muren.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nAbsurd stevige dingen die mijn moeder had meegenomen\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nOp blote voeten.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"November 4, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/laminaat-leggen/","section":"Posts","summary":"Lamineren is gek genoeg niet het werkwoord voor laminaat leggen. Vandaag wat uurtjes besteed aan het en het schiet aardig op. De eindjes zijn klote 1 maar daar tussenin gaat het heel vlot.\n","title":"Laminaat leggen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Na een lange en drukke rit door Nederland naar Arnhem en dan naar Berlijn, zitten we dan eindelijk in Berlijn in Eelke\u0026rsquo;s designerstube.\n","date":"November 3, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/berlijn-dan-eindelijk/","section":"Posts","summary":"Na een lange en drukke rit door Nederland naar Arnhem en dan naar Berlijn, zitten we dan eindelijk in Berlijn in Eelke’s designerstube.\n","title":"Berlijn dan eindelijk","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik probeerde vandaag eens te kijken of ik voor een gegeven Hyves-gebruiker zou kunnen achterhalen wie zijn vrienden zijn. Hyves-profielen en vriendenlijsten zijn te bekijken als je niet ingelogd bent. Daar wilde ik dus een scriptje voor schrijven, en als je dan heel Hyves afgaat kun je zo de complete sociale graaf ophalen 1, superhandig voor analyse en toepassingen 2.\nDus ik de code ingedoken om te kijken hoe dat in elkaar zit maar wat ik daar zag heeft me bang gemaakt. Een Hyves-gebruikerspagina laadt meerdere JavaScript-bibliotheken —Scriptaculous en YUI zag ik al, samen met wat zelfgeschreven spul— meerdere keren en deze doen allemaal rare dingen met de pagina. Geen wonder dat het zo ontzettend traag is. Verder heb je de nare paginerings van de vriendenlijst waarvan de aanroep niet echt te vinden is. En dan bedoel ik niet niet direct zichtbaar, maar echt niet te vinden. In ieder geval als je met een kijkje onder de schermen met Firebug er niet achter komt, dan zit het goed verstopt.\nHet is een beetje de vraag of dit expres is gedaan 3 of dat het uit willekeur zo gegroeid is. Ik denk een beetje van allebei. Ik heb vaker dit soort gegroeide HTML-bouwsels gezien en die dingen groeien en groeien maar uit noodzaak en op een gegeven moment valt het niet meer te onderhouden of nieuwe functionaliteit aan toe te voegen.\nAls ik binnenkort wat meer tijd heb, zal ik kijken of ik er meer werk in kan steken. Hulp is welkom. Volgens mij is er een Python 4 framework wat een complete browser simuleert om dit soort sites makkelijk te kunnen crawlen.\nOndertussen in ander nieuws: Facebook groeit als kool.\nJe zou denken dat dit niet mag, maar Google doet het ook en dan heet het indexeren voor zoektoepassingen.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nEr zijn al mensen die dit hebben verzonnen en stappen hebben genomen om dit te realiseren.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nDe netwerk informatie op Hyves is hun grootste asset.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nOf anderstalig.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"November 1, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/hyves-zit-erop/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik probeerde vandaag eens te kijken of ik voor een gegeven Hyves-gebruiker zou kunnen achterhalen wie zijn vrienden zijn. Hyves-profielen en vriendenlijsten zijn te bekijken als je niet ingelogd bent. Daar wilde ik dus een scriptje voor schrijven, en als je dan heel Hyves afgaat kun je zo de complete sociale graaf ophalen 1, superhandig voor analyse en toepassingen 2.\n","title":"Hyves zit erop","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik ga donderdagmiddag verhuizen heb ik besloten. Er is al hulp, maar meer is welkom. Voor bier en versnaperingen wordt gezorgd.\nEn de volgende dag rijden we naar Berlijn!\n","date":"October 30, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/verhuizen-en-verkassen/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik ga donderdagmiddag verhuizen heb ik besloten. Er is al hulp, maar meer is welkom. Voor bier en versnaperingen wordt gezorgd.\n","title":"Verhuizen en verkassen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Volgens mij zitten er aardig wat TED-kijkers onder mijn lezers hier. In de zoektocht om alle presentaties gezien te hebben, raad ik aan om de presentatie van Bjorn Lomborg naar voren te schuiven in de rij van te kjiken afleveringen.\nLomborg is bekend van de controverse die hij ontketende met zijn boek The Skeptical Environmentalist 1. In dat boek gebruikte hij statistische analyse om vrijwel alle standpunten die door de milieubeweging worden aangedragen onderuit te halen. En toen werden zijn analyses weer onderuit gehaald, maar dat is weer een ander verhaal.\nOp TED praat hij daar expres niet over. Hij heeft het over een ander project van hem: the Copenhagen Consensus. Dit is een initiatief om de problemen van de wereld en hun mogelijke oplossingen op een rijtje te zetten en de kosten/baten van de scenario\u0026rsquo;s af te gaan.\nHij en vele economen en andere mensen die hebben meegeholpen om de consensus vast te stellen komen erop uit dat de klimaatcrisis één van de problemen is die het minste waard is om aan te pakken. Dit omdat de kosten gigantisch zijn en de baten erg ver in de toekomst liggen en erg klein zijn. Zie de presentatie voor overtuigende argumenten. Hij zegt niet dat het geen probleem is. Hij zegt ook niet dat het een onbelangrijk probleem is. Hij zegt alleen maar dat gegeven een beperkte hoeveelheid geld, we meer kwaliteit van leven kunnen verbeteren door ons op andere problemen te richten.\nDe problemen die we wel zouden moeten aanpakken zijn 2:\n4. Malaria 3. Handelsbarrières wegnemen 2. Ondervoeding (gebrek aan sporelementen) 1. AIDS\nDeze problemen hebben dramatische effecten op dit moment in de 3e wereld en zijn niet zo moeilijk of duur om te verhelpen (in ieder geval niet zo duur of moeilijk als de andere problemen op de lijst).\nAIDS is het grootste probleem op dit moment en het is redelijk makkelijk te voorkomen. Als je dat aanneemt is de paus dus de slechtste mens op aarde, omdat hij nalaat met twee simpele woorden 3 de verspreiding van AIDS te stoppen.\nIk heb het hier nog liggen, bijna uitgelezen.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nHet niet gehaald hebben: klimaatverandering, conflicten, onderwijs, financiele instabiliteit, corruptie, migratie, (afval)watervoorziening\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n\u0026lsquo;fiat preservativum!\u0026rsquo;\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"October 25, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/de-skeptische-wereldverbeteraar/","section":"Posts","summary":"Volgens mij zitten er aardig wat TED-kijkers onder mijn lezers hier. In de zoektocht om alle presentaties gezien te hebben, raad ik aan om de presentatie van Bjorn Lomborg naar voren te schuiven in de rij van te kjiken afleveringen.\n","title":"De skeptische wereldverbeteraar","type":"posts"},{"content":"Via Oliver de AD-koffietest binnengekregen en daarin staat wat elke koffieliefhebber al weet: in Nederland wordt je schandelijk behandeld als koffiedrinker.\nGeen van mijn favorieten bij de test en maar één plek in Delft geprobeerd, de Sjees, wat op zich al een slechte en gesjeesde plek is om te eten. Niet gek dat de koffie er ook slecht is. Hier even een completer overzicht voor Delft:\nUit de Kunst - Leuke tent met papegaaien en lekkere taart. Hun interpretatie van een cappuccino is helaas bedroevend en een smet op een voor de rest fijne plek.\nLunchcafé Vrij - Pasteis de Nata en andere lekkere dingen van over de wereld. Ze zetten hier goede espresso.\nKobus Kuch - Café dat pretendeert goede koffie en appeltaart te hebben, maar geen van beide is het geval. Teert vooral op een restant van goede sfeer en de aanloop op de hoek van de Beestenmarkt.\nBenjamin\u0026rsquo;s Bagels - Ontzettend lekere bagels en andere ontbijtopties. De cappuccino is alleen niet te drinken en is jammer ten op zichte van de kwaliteit van de rest.\nIJssalon Van Bokhoven - Lekker ijs en mocht je het bestellen ook erg goede espresso en koffie interpretaties; italiaans sterk.\nCafé de Wijnhaven - Niet het leukste café van Delft, wél het leukste terras. Consistent goede espresso en cappuccino en \u0026rsquo;s ochtends uitgestorven dus zeker een goede optie.\nKleywegs Stad-Koffiehuis - Goede locatie en mooie tent. De broodjes en pannekoeken en taarten hier zijn ontzettend lekker. Koffie specialiteiten gaan ook goed, maar pure koffie willen ze hier nog weleens verneuken.\nBouwkunde Koffiebar (Sodexho) - Hip aangekleed, inhoudelijk dramatisch. Zie post.\nCafé onder de Aula (Sodexho) - Fijne plek om te zitten werken op de TU. Aardige bar waar altijd de muffins e.d. op zijn en buitengewoon ongeïnteresseerd personeel wat je een bakje pleur voorzet als espresso.\nCoffee Company - De hoop van Delft, nu in aanbouw op de Markt en zou mits goede koffie en WiFi 1 mijn vaste ochtendstek kunnen worden.\nIk weet, het is veel gevraagd.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"October 25, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/ad-koffietest/","section":"Posts","summary":"Via Oliver de AD-koffietest binnengekregen en daarin staat wat elke koffieliefhebber al weet: in Nederland wordt je schandelijk behandeld als koffiedrinker.\n","title":"AD Koffietest: dieper in op Delft","type":"posts"},{"content":"De stichting Brein is een club van advocaten, lobbyisten en accountants in dienst van de auteursrechten-industrieën. Ze hebben aardig wat geld te besteden, maar al het geld in de wereld kan niet op tegen een culturele trend die het einde betekent van oude businessmodellen. De stichting en hun bazen zullen verdwijnen, het is alleen de vraag hoe lang ze een corrupte 1 overheid kunnen misbruiken om hun doelen te dienen en het onvermijdelijke uit te stellen.\nVandaag in het nieuws dat Brein het voor elkaar heeft gekregen om Oink uit de lucht te halen. Ik heb Oink nooit gebruikt en dat spijt me, want van wat ik hier en daar hoor was het een erg goede dienst. Dit artikel (“ Defending the Pig”) legt uit waarom Oink bijzonder was en dat het bijzonder goed werkte. Een site zonder echt winstoogmerk waar ontzettend veel muziek beschikbaar is in een betere kwaliteit en met betere metadata dan bij commerciele aanbieders, klinkt wel handig. Sociale controle en kennis en middelen van grote aantallen mensen en innovatie bereiken dus meer dan de platenmaatschappijen kunnen of willen.\nIk ken een vergelijkbare site voor video-torrents waarvan ik de naam hier niet zal noemen. Maar twee keer klikken en 10 minuten later heb je binnen wat je wilt.\nDe code en de database van Oink zullen vast wel ergens gebackupt zijn. Het is wachten tot The Pirate Bay Oink gaat hosten en het is wachten tot we een piratenpartij in Nederland krijgen die korte metten maakt met deze stilstand.\nCorrupt in de zin van Lessig nl. overheidsorganen die meer beïnvloed zijn door geld dan door dat wat correct is.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"October 24, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/een-corrupt-brein-zorgt-voor-stilstand/","section":"Posts","summary":"De stichting Brein is een club van advocaten, lobbyisten en accountants in dienst van de auteursrechten-industrieën. Ze hebben aardig wat geld te besteden, maar al het geld in de wereld kan niet op tegen een culturele trend die het einde betekent van oude businessmodellen. De stichting en hun bazen zullen verdwijnen, het is alleen de vraag hoe lang ze een corrupte 1 overheid kunnen misbruiken om hun doelen te dienen en het onvermijdelijke uit te stellen.\n","title":"Een corrupt Brein zorgt voor stilstand","type":"posts"},{"content":"Vandaag het grootste deel van de dag besteed aan verfen in mijn nieuwe huis. Alles is nu gewit inclusief de imposante grote muur waarvan hieronder een filmpje:\nPainting Wall from Alper Çugun on Vimeo.\nMorgen maar eens kijken waar er tweede lagen overheen kunnen en wat we met kleur moeten doen. Dan kan volgende week de vloer gedaan en kan ik erin!\n","date":"October 24, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/schilderen/","section":"Posts","summary":"Vandaag het grootste deel van de dag besteed aan verfen in mijn nieuwe huis. Alles is nu gewit inclusief de imposante grote muur waarvan hieronder een filmpje:\n","title":"Schilderen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Vandaag op Frankwatching een artikel gepubliceerd waar ik al een tijdje aan aan het werk was: Microblogging als communicatiemedium\nHier nog even de tekst integraal voor mijn eigen archief. Maar lezen en reageren doe je bij Frank.\nBijna iedereen heeft ondertussen wel van Twitter gehoord. Onlangs is Jaiku, een tegenhanger van Twitter, overgenomen door Google. De manie, de verslaving en de behoefte van mensen om te uiten wat ze aan het doen zijn, zijn uitingen van het fenomeen microblogging waar mobiel en presence bij elkaar komen.\nRobert Scoble en anderen noemen het een vervanger van e-mail maar dat lijkt me wat overgehyped. Ondertussen is wel duidelijk dat microblogging op verschillende plaatsen terugkomt en zijn invloed heeft in andere diensten. Het is een blijvertje, maar wat moeten we er dan mee?\nMicrobloggen is het overbrengen van een kleine boodschap via SMS, web, IM, mobiele clienten of desktop tools en widgets. Dit is redelijk divers, hieronder een blik op Twitter en Jaiku en hun invloed op het (mobiele) web.\nTwitter # Twitter is een beetje de eerste echt grote microblogging site en op dit moment ook de dominante. Anderhalf jaar geleden in Amerika begonnen als spinoff van Odeo, leek het een leuk klein dienstje. Destijds had ik moeite om vrienden hier in Nederland eraan te krijgen. In de tussentijd is Twitter uitgegroeid tot een van de meestgenoemde sites op het internet.\nHet concept is erg simpel: Je tikt een boodschap op de website of verstuurt het door middel van SMS of plaatst het via de API. Deze boodschap is een kleine status update oftewel een “microblog”en deze wordt geplaatst op het internet, doorgestuurd via SMS of IM aan mensen die je volgen en is opvraagbaar voor andere programma\u0026rsquo;s via een API.\nOp een gegeven moment explodeerde in Amerika de populariteit van Twitter en de site lag er om de haverklap uit. Het feit dat Twitter plat lag, was een running gag, maar de problemen met Ruby en de schaalbaarheid ervan lijken opgelost te zijn.\nFoto door Pieter Baert\nPas is Biz Stone op de eDay geweest om te spreken over Twitter en hun succes (zie verslag op Marketingfacts). Het is leuk om de dingen uit de mond van de maker te horen, maar veel nieuws wist hij niet te melden. De toepassingen en de creatieve uitingsvormen die bovenop Twitter gebouwd worden zijn uit zijn handen gegroeid. Twitter is de enabler voor ontzettend veel andere diensten.\nHet is onduidelijk waar Twitter zijn geld aan verdient. De kosten van servers en (SMS) bandbreedte moeten ergens door betaald worden. Twitter heeft pas een financieringsronde van $5M gekregen.\nOver Twitter is hier en op andere plaatsen al heel veel geschreven. Ik ben zelf nooit een actief gebruiker van Twitter geweest en vindt dat er interessantere trends zijn in dit domein. Hier ga ik het dan ook over hebben, beginnende met Jaiku.\nJaiku # Jaiku is ook een microblogging dienst, maar het is tegelijkertijd veel meer dan dat. Het lijkt er bijna op alsof microblogging een lokkertje is om te laten zien dat er nog veel meer mogelijk is.\nNaast het instellen van berichtjes is het mogelijk om andere stukjes van je online leven bijeen te brengen op je Jaiku pagina. Dus invoer van Twitter, Last.FM, Plazes, Dopplr, Flickr, je weblogs en andere RSS feeds wordt door je normale berichten heen geweven om een completer beeld van jou te krijgen. Verder is het mogelijk om op de berichten en alle andere stukken content commentaar toe te voegen, wat zorgt voor een veel rijkere interactie dan de losse berichten stroom met reacties van Twitter. Ook heeft Jaiku de mogelijkheid om kanalen te openen die vooralsnog niet veel gebruikt wordt maar het beste te vergelijken is met een soort mobiel online IRC.\nVerder is één van de bijzonderste features van Jaiku de mobiele client die draait op S60 GSM\u0026rsquo;s van Nokia. Deze client vervangt het normale adresboek en laat voor je vrienden die ook Jaiku gebruiken tegelijkertijd zien wat hun laatste update is, hun huidige status en locatie en hun volgende afspraak. De keuze voor het Nokia-platform beperkt de markt voor deze functionaliteit, maar dit soort geavanceerde toepassingen zijn een voorproefje van wat we kunnen verwachten zodra ontwikkelen op mobiel makkelijk on open wordt.\nDeze week is Jaiku door Google gekocht voor een niet nader te noemen bedrag. Het team van Jaiku verhuist naar San Francisco om daar verder te werken aan Jaiku en de integratie met de diensten van Google. Of Jaiku nu een bijdrage gaat leveren aan de sociale netwerken explosie die Google heeft aangekondigd, of dat de Jaiku mobiele client een integraal onderdeel gaat vormen van de aangekondigde GPhone, het belooft veel voor de toekomst.\nMobiele presence is meer dan microblogging # Wat maakt microblogging sites nu zo boeiend? Jyri Engeström (Jaiku pagina) een van de oprichters van Jaiku heeft al vaak gesproken over de noodzaak van een dienst als Jaiku en van de daadwerkelijke voordelen die microblogging biedt boven andere vormen van communicatie. In zijn presentatie op Reboot8 vorig jaar getiteld “Blind Men\u0026rsquo;s Baseball” zette hij de problemen waar we allemaal mee te maken hebben uiteen. We bellen mensen meestal op met vragen als ‘Waar ben je?’, ‘Wat doe je?’ en ‘Waar ga je heen?’. Dit zijn precies de vragen waar de mobiele client van Jaiku in een oogopslag een antwoord op geeft. Jaiku biedt dus ‘social peripheral vision’ waarmee je beter op de hoogte blijft van wat je vrienden aan het doen zijn ongeacht waar ze zich bevinden.\nFoto door Alper Çuğun\nPas op Reboot9 en op verschillende andere plaatsen hield hij een presentatie over wat microbloggen nu echt voor voordelen biedt boven het oude bloggen. Dit zijn onder andere gemak, onmiddelijkheid en context. Het is gemakkelijker om een microblog te schrijven dan om een blog artikel (zoals dit). Het is een enkel tekstveld en er hoeft niet eens een ontvanger aangemerkt te worden, hierdoor zijn er minder bewuste handelingen nodig om te microbloggen.\nDat is microbloggen als uitingsvorm, maar Jaiku kan ook al een toegevoegde waarde bieden zonder dat de genoemde persoon ooit een bericht tikt. Doordat veel informatie automatisch door de client wordt doorgegeven, kun je zien dat iemand ‘er is’. Engeström gaf als voorbeeld zijn eigen vader bij wie hij de client had geïnstalleerd, die nooit een update plaatste maar door zijn mobiele presence toch wel in het oog en dus in het hart bleef.\nDe onmiddelijkheid en het gemak van microblogging met hun interruptieve aard dragen bij aan de snelheid van onze communicatie en interactie. Als je op een paar manier op de hoogte wordt gehouden van Tweets en Jaikus word je continu gestoord (letterlijk en figuurlijk). Deze storingen kunnen je concentratie compleet onderuit halen maar de informatie en verbindingen met anderen kunnen ook leiden tot waarde en kansen die je anders niet had gehad. Stowe Boyd en James Governor zien het positieve ervan in: “If Markets are conversations, then Twitter is money” terwijl Kathy Sierra het standpunt van de cultuurpessimiste inneemt: “Is Twitter TOO good?”\nConcurrentie? # Internationaal zijn er door het succes van Twitter een heleboel applicaties ontstaan die ofwel een directe kopie zijn ofwel microblogging integreren in het geheel (lijst). Pownce is een bestandendeel en berichtenapplicatie van Kevin “ Digg!”Rose en Leah Culver. Plazes heeft een relaunch gedaan van de dienst waar ze aan hun ‘rich geo-presence’ functionaliteit, de mogelijkheid hebben toegevoegd om activiteiten te koppelen aan locaties: Ik ben ergens en ik doe iets. En Loic LeMeur heeft pas Seesmic gelanceerd, een video-microblogging site.\nAl deze diensten maken het er niet gemakkelijker op voor gebruikers om berichten te plaatsen en bij te houden wie waar iets heeft geschreven. Microblogging zou het juist makkelijker moeten maken om op de hoogte blijven. De APIs die deze sites aanbieden maken het gelukkig mogelijk om verschillende sites weer uit te lezen en met een druk op de knop naar meerdere sites tegelijkertijd te posten. Twitku is een voorbeeld van de combinatie van Twitter en Jaiku en\nIn Nederland zijn er ook wat directe kopieën maar deze lijden een schrijnend bestaan. KWID, Numpa en Zezz (speelprojectje van mezelf) zijn een paar voorbeelden. Sommige sites zijn wel bereid om via een SMS-nummer microblogs te ontvangen en te plaatsen (evt. tegen betaling) maar het uitsturen van updates over SMS is niet betaalbaar aan te bieden in Nederland vanwege de redelijk gesloten telecommarkt. Op eDay E Factor werd een whitelabel microblogging platform gepresenteerd onder de naam Brandlog maar de presentatie (slides, video) was niet overtuigend en de cijfers die genoemd werden lieten zien dat een dergelijk concept grote moeite zal hebben om winstgevend te worden.\nHet is voor grote mediapartijen ook niet verstandig om alles per se zelf te willen doen. Twitter en Jaiku bieden met hun APIs en rijke ecosystemen genoeg ruimte voor andere toepassingen en weinig aanleiding om het buiten die dienst te zoeken. Het multi-channel reportage project van Ben Hammersley voor de BBC “Turkish Journey”, bewijst dat je door best breed oplossingen (Twitter, YouTube etc.) te combineren, tot mooie synergie kunt komen.\nToekomst # Het samenbrengen van je online aanwezigheid op één plek wordt een belangrijk thema in de sociale netwerken van de toekomst. Google en Yahoo! hebben dit al ingezien en zijn bezig met de eerste prototypen van de volgende generatie sociale netwerken. Yahoo! Mash is nu bijvoorbeeld in gesloten bèta en Google heeft aangekondigd om op 5 november een groot deel van hun diensten en sociale connecties vrij te geven.\nHet internet blijft veranderen, en media zijn nu sneller dan ooit. Er ontstaan eigenlijk alleen maar meer vragen. Wat zal de toekomst brengen en zijn er harde grenzen aan hoe snel we kunnen communiceren, hoeveel informatie we tot ons kunnen nemen en met hoeveel mensen we in verbinding kunnen staan?\nAlper Çugun —hoofdredacteur van Four Starters— denkt na over webapplicaties, maakt ze en waakt over hun relevantie en bruikbaarheid onder andere bij Tipit.to.\n","date":"October 24, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/microblogging-als-manier-van-communicatie/","section":"Posts","summary":"Vandaag op Frankwatching een artikel gepubliceerd waar ik al een tijdje aan aan het werk was: Microblogging als communicatiemedium\n","title":"Microblogging als manier van communicatie","type":"posts"},{"content":"Treffend stukje bij de Daily Show over de situatie met Turkije en Noord Irak. Internationaal rechtstechnisch, als Amerika en Israel het mogen, waarom wordt er in het geval van Turkije dan weer met een dubbele standaard gemeten?\n","date":"October 23, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/noord-irak/","section":"Posts","summary":"Treffend stukje bij de Daily Show over de situatie met Turkije en Noord Irak. Internationaal rechtstechnisch, als Amerika en Israel het mogen, waarom wordt er in het geval van Turkije dan weer met een dubbele standaard gemeten?\n","title":"Noord Irak","type":"posts"},{"content":"Na al het grondwerk, vandaag me maar aan wat kleur gewaagd. Kleuren kiezen is lastig en dan met de laptop naar de GAMMA om de juiste tint te laten mengen zorgt toch wel voor verrassingen. Ik had uit Kuler het kleurpalet Firenze gekozen 1. Bij de Gamma heten die kleuren poetisch genoeg: Kans en Verandering.\nDit lijkt er wel op al had ik het idee dat het groen minder blauw en meer groen had moeten zijn. Ik ben toch blij met het uiteindelijke resultaat. Een mooie volle kleur en ik werd danig depressief van al dat wit overal 2. Nu nog één muur oranje schilderen en het wit bijwerken en de muren zijn af!\nHandig die Flash-applicaties zonder permalinks.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nEn het doet ook pijn aan je ogen.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"October 22, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/schilderen-in-kleur/","section":"Posts","summary":"Na al het grondwerk, vandaag me maar aan wat kleur gewaagd. Kleuren kiezen is lastig en dan met de laptop naar de GAMMA om de juiste tint te laten mengen zorgt toch wel voor verrassingen. Ik had uit Kuler het kleurpalet Firenze gekozen 1. Bij de Gamma heten die kleuren poetisch genoeg: Kans en Verandering.\n","title":"Schilderen in kleur","type":"posts"},{"content":"Mijn naam verkeerd maar mijn foto\u0026rsquo;s staan op de site van Skatejam Delft samen met die van de anderen 1. Ik vind het alleen jammer dat ik maar een uurtje op het event heb kunnen schieten en niet alle onderdelen af kon gaan.\nLeuke eerste verjaardag van mijn EOS 350D en vandaag zag ik net een waardige vervanging die binnenkort uitkomt.\nIk zag ook iemand shieten met een Hasselblad. Naar die foto\u0026rsquo;s ben ik eigenlijk nog wel benieuwder.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"October 21, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/fotos-skatejam/","section":"Posts","summary":"Mijn naam verkeerd maar mijn foto’s staan op de site van Skatejam Delft samen met die van de anderen 1. Ik vind het alleen jammer dat ik maar een uurtje op het event heb kunnen schieten en niet alle onderdelen af kon gaan.\n","title":"Foto's Skatejam","type":"posts"},{"content":"Had net Google Earth geïnstalleerd en zag dat daar erg handige tools in staan om afstanden te meten tussen plaatsen. Ik had voor mijn tabel nog een paar afstanden nodig die ik daarmee heb geschat.\nHier wat ik gereisd heb van de zomer: Delft - AmsterdamTrein45kmSchiphol - AdanaVliegtuig2900kmAdana - AntakyaBus160kmAntakya - AleppoAuto90kmAleppo - HamaBus146kmHama - PalmyraBus207kmPalmyra - LatakiaBus346kmLatakia - AntakyaMicrobus90kmAntakya - AksarayBus435kmAksaray - KirsehirBus106kmKirsehir - IstanbulBus631kmIstanbul - SchipholVliegtuig2300kmSchiphol - London GatwickVliegtuig370kmGatwick - BrightonTrein40kmBrighton - StanstedTrein120kmStansted - SchipholVliegtuig306kmAmsterdam - DelftTrein45km Totalen, land: 2211km, spoor: 205km en lucht: 5876km. Toch wel grappig dat alternatief al ongeveer de helft is van wat ik gevlogen heb.\n","date":"October 21, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/afstanden-van-de-zomer/","section":"Posts","summary":"Had net Google Earth geïnstalleerd en zag dat daar erg handige tools in staan om afstanden te meten tussen plaatsen. Ik had voor mijn tabel nog een paar afstanden nodig die ik daarmee heb geschat.\n","title":"Afstanden van de zomer","type":"posts"},{"content":"\u0026ldquo;A revolution is a struggle to the death between the future and the past.\u0026rdquo;\nBij Magnum in Motion maken ze mooie dingen. De combinatie van beeld, geluid en tekst maakt fotosets boeiend.\nBijvoorbeeld: Revolution over Castro\u0026rsquo;s overwinning in Cuba\nBen benieuwd hoe moeilijk het is om zelf dit soort dingen te maken.\n","date":"October 20, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/163/","section":"Posts","summary":"“A revolution is a struggle to the death between the future and the past.”\n","title":"¡Viva la revolucion!","type":"posts"},{"content":"Dit weekend is Pop!Tech weer en als het prijskaartje en de reis naar Amerika teveel zijn, kun je de boel ook live volgen op Pop!Tech Live.\nMeer bandbreedte online maakt dit soort streams haalbaar en die van PICNIC \u0026lsquo;07 was meer dan goed te volgen. Op deze manier hoef je van de main content van dit soort conferenties niets te missen, maar iedereen weet dat de echte shit in de wandelgangen en de feestjes voor- en achteraf plaats vindt.\n","date":"October 17, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/poptech/","section":"Posts","summary":"Dit weekend is Pop!Tech weer en als het prijskaartje en de reis naar Amerika teveel zijn, kun je de boel ook live volgen op Pop!Tech Live.\n","title":"Pop!Tech","type":"posts"},{"content":"Dit weekend even heen en weer gereden naar Hamburg om de batizado van Expressão Paulista bij te wonen. Wijs. Een beetje gespeeld, een beetje gefeest, veel gefotografeerd en veel mensen weergezien.\n","date":"October 16, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/161/","section":"Posts","summary":"Dit weekend even heen en weer gereden naar Hamburg om de batizado van Expressão Paulista bij te wonen. Wijs. Een beetje gespeeld, een beetje gefeest, veel gefotografeerd en veel mensen weergezien.\n","title":"Hamburg en terug","type":"posts"},{"content":"Vandaag het bericht dat de studiefinanciering af wordt geschaft (Fok, Fok). Dit is geen ramp, maar ik ben toch blij dat ik al in het oude systeem ben afgestudeerd. Ik kreeg deze week zelfs een brief van de IB-Groep waarin stond dat ze door hadden dat ik afgestudeerd was 1 en dat ik in januari weer een brief van ze zou krijgen 2.\nHet is geen ramp omdat samen met het omzetten van alles in een lening de aflossing ook (waarschijnlijk) eenvoudiger en coulanter wordt gemaakt. Veel mensen hebben toch een aversie tegen het lenen van geld en dit zal drempelverhogend werken wat betreft het onderwijs. Nu iedereen geld moet lenen, wordt het misschien wel iets geaccepteerder.\nDe studiefinanciering wordt afgeschaft om de salarissen van de leraren te verhogen. Maar waarom konden de salarissen van de leraren en de studiefinanciering vroeger wel betaald worden en nu opeens niet meer? Dit kabinet (en de vorige zoveel ook) zet toch in op de kenniseconomie? Waarom moet er dan binnen het onderwijsbudget geschoven worden in plaats van dat er meer naar onderwijs gaat 3.\nOp zich ben ik afgestudeerd en kan dit me niet zoveel meer schelen, maar ik snap dat onderwijs belangrijk is; nu de rest van nederland nog.\nHoera!\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nToch een beetje raar.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nOh ja, de partij die radicaal wilde investeren in het onderwijs heeft verloren.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"October 16, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/prioriteit-bij-het-onderwijs/","section":"Posts","summary":"Vandaag het bericht dat de studiefinanciering af wordt geschaft (Fok, Fok). Dit is geen ramp, maar ik ben toch blij dat ik al in het oude systeem ben afgestudeerd. Ik kreeg deze week zelfs een brief van de IB-Groep waarin stond dat ze door hadden dat ik afgestudeerd was 1 en dat ik in januari weer een brief van ze zou krijgen 2.\n","title":"Prioriteit bij het onderwijs","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik heb na de vakanties en gebeurtenissen van de zomer wat foto\u0026rsquo;s toegevoegd aan mijn portfolio.\nLeuk om te doen, en ik merk al sinds een tijdje de voordelen van een portfolio site die bestaat uit simpele HTML bestanden 1. Google vindt het erg fijn.\nBekijk de foto\u0026rsquo;s het liefste op Safari 2 of een andere browser die ICC-profielen ondersteunt anders kun je een verkeerde indruk krijgen.\nCommentaar welkom.\nIk heb een scriptje dat alles genereert uit een bronbestand en een paar templates.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nNu ook voor Windows.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"October 15, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/portfolio-update/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik heb na de vakanties en gebeurtenissen van de zomer wat foto’s toegevoegd aan mijn portfolio.\n","title":"Portfolio update","type":"posts"},{"content":"Even twee dagen weg zijn en aan niks anders dan capoeira en andere Brazilianischen Sachen hoeven te denken is fijn. Nu nog even 1500 foto\u0026rsquo;s verwerken.\nVeel te doen voor ik op 2 november naar Berlijn ga:\nNieuwe huis klussen Verhuizen Feest geven BTW-aangifte doen Een paar sites afmaken en lanceren Ik zou er bijna moe van worden.\n","date":"October 15, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/zuruck-aus-deutschland/","section":"Posts","summary":"Even twee dagen weg zijn en aan niks anders dan capoeira en andere Brazilianischen Sachen hoeven te denken is fijn. Nu nog even 1500 foto’s verwerken.\n","title":"Zurück aus Deutschland","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik was trouwens gisteren in de Orange-winkel omdat ik schrok van een SMS\u0026rsquo;je. Orange stuurde mij het bericht dat ik een rekening voor €72 kreeg voor wat ik de afgelopen maand gebeld had. Ik dacht dat dit onmogelijk was maar ik kon mijn factuur niet online checken.\nIn de winkel kwam ik erachter dat dit nog kosten waren van mijn vakantie. Een telefoongesprek van 0:39 in Syrië kost al snel €1,50. En ik heb nog mijn best gedaan om zo min mogelijk te bellen en gebeld te worden.\nIk had het fijn gevonden om hier niet door overvallen te worden. Het maandelijkse SMS\u0026rsquo;je van Orange lijkt transparant, maar ik snap er nooit iets van omdat alle context mist. Ik snap niks van de perioden 1 van de Orange-rekeningen, ik snap sowieso niets van de Orange-rekeningen omdat er teveel informatie afschuwelijk slecht opgemaakt op staat.\nVerder werkt inloggen als klant op de Orange-site niet op Safari 2.\nOrange houdt gelukkig binnenkort op met bestaan en dan zijn we weer terug bij T-Mobile.\nIk ben eind augustus/begin september op vakantie geweest. Het is nu begin oktober.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nToen ik dit in de winkel meldde begon een medewerker te roepen dat niet elke site gegarandeerd op elke browser werkte etc. etc. Ik kon alleen maar suf staan knikken bij zoveel wijsheid.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"October 15, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/bellen-in-het-buitenland/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik was trouwens gisteren in de Orange-winkel omdat ik schrok van een SMS’je. Orange stuurde mij het bericht dat ik een rekening voor €72 kreeg voor wat ik de afgelopen maand gebeld had. Ik dacht dat dit onmogelijk was maar ik kon mijn factuur niet online checken.\n","title":"Bellen in het buitenland","type":"posts"},{"content":"Vanmiddag een flinke stapel papier waaronder mijn huurcontract ondertekend en de sleutels van mijn nieuwe huis gekregen.\nDe planning is op het moment:\nDeze en volgende week opknappen: Muren schilderen/behangen, vloer doen, vloerbedekking regelen. Dit weekend al mijn troep uitzoeken en misschien mijn boeken en andere spullen die ik niet vaak nodig heb inpakken. Het weekend van 12-14 oktober zit ik in Hamburg op capoeiraweekend dus dan ligt de boel stil, maar uiteindelijk het weekend van de 19e oktober verhuizen en house warmingfeest.\nWat heb ik acuut nodig? Een clue over hoe de boel te kleuren/stofferen, een koelkast en dozen.\nVoor de rest van de spullen heb ik een lijst zo lang als mijn arm 1 maar dat komt allemaal nog wel.\nIk moet bijvoorbeeld een hele keuken, woonkamer en slaapkamer inrichten vanaf nul.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"October 15, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/sleuteloverdracht/","section":"Posts","summary":"Vanmiddag een flinke stapel papier waaronder mijn huurcontract ondertekend en de sleutels van mijn nieuwe huis gekregen.\n","title":"Sleuteloverdracht","type":"posts"},{"content":"Vanavond met een klein groepje onderweg naar Hamburg voor een weekendje capoeira. Het wordt tof.\nDit is natuurlijk oud nieuws voor diegenen die mij volgen op Dopplr.\n","date":"October 12, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/road-trip-hamburg/","section":"Posts","summary":"Vanavond met een klein groepje onderweg naar Hamburg voor een weekendje capoeira. Het wordt tof.\n","title":"Road Trip Hamburg","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik ben net bezig wat dingen te regelen voor mijn nieuwe huis en de klantenervaring als je bedrijven opbelt kan eenvoudig verbeterd worden.\nIemand aan de lijn laten wachten en per gewachte minuut laten betalen getuigt wat mij betreft van verachting voor die klant. Zeker als je iets wilt kopen voor een bedrijf maar ook als je ondersteuning wilt, want dan ben je al klant. Meestal pikken we dit omdat we of vast zitten of geen alternatief hebben.\nHoe kan dit beter?\nIk bel op naar het gegeven nummer. De verbinding wordt gemaakt, mijn probleem wordt getriaged door middel van een keuze menu en als mijn telefoonnummer uit de nummerherkenning gehaald kan worden wordt de verbinding direct verbroken zo niet, dan wordt ik gevraagd om mijn nummer in te toetsen 1. Een call center medewerker belt mij terug op een later moment. Voordeel: ik hoef niet aan de lijn te hangen wachten. Voordeel 2: Ik word niet opgelicht door de belkosten. Innovatief, gewaagd en het kost ook wat. Daarom gaat dit nooit gebeuren, tenzij in een felbevochten markt 2 een bedrijf een betere geïntegreerde klantenervaring wil aanpakken als concurrentievoordeel.\nAls je je nummer kan intikken op de website, zijn stap 1 en 2 overbodig.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nZeg, de telecom.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"October 8, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/klantenondersteuning-kan-makkelijk-verbeterd-worden/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik ben net bezig wat dingen te regelen voor mijn nieuwe huis en de klantenervaring als je bedrijven opbelt kan eenvoudig verbeterd worden.\n","title":"Klantenondersteuning kan makkelijk verbeterd worden","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik ga eind deze maand naar Berlijn om Eelke te bezoeken en acte de présence te geven op de Web 2.0 Expo en Barcamp Berlin. Nu dacht ik dat het wel leuk zou zijn om met de trein te gaan. Ik heb pas ook een Railplus Kaart bij mijn kortingskaart gekocht. Daar zou ik iets aan moeten hebben.\nVoor Berlijn staan overal advertenties van de NS dat retourkaartjes €58 kosten. Als je op de site zo\u0026rsquo;n kaartje probeert te boeken, lijkt het erop dat ze beschikbaar zijn. Ga je alleen een stap verder dan krijg je een ontzettend vage foutmelding. Het lijkt erop dat alle kaartjes van €29 via de site niet te boeken te zijn.\nIk heb toen het nummer dat op de foutmelding stond gebeld 1. Na ruim tien minuten 2 wilde ik de NS niet nog meer geld opleveren en heb ik maar opgehangen.\nNa het werk maar naar de Internationaal balie op Schiphol gelopen om daar te vragen hoe het nou zit. Het schijnt dat er per trein maar een handjevol stoelen zijn die je voor die €29 kunt boeken. Omdat er zo weinig zijn, zijn deze plaatsen meestal al maanden van tevoren weg. De rest van de 2e klas gaat voor de normale prijs. De NS denkt dus dat je door de reclame gaat proberen te boeken voor €29 en als je dan wordt geconfronteerd met een prijs die 2-3 keer zo duur is dan je had gedacht, dat je dan toch een kaartje koopt en je niet genaaid voelt.\nEr schijnt nog een andere kortingsregeling te zijn dat als je met drie mensen reist dat je voor €100 een enkeltje Berlijn kunt krijgen voor zijn drieën. Deze is online natuurlijk nergens te vinden. De vrouw achter de balie zag dat ik afgeknapt was maar vertelde me dat ze de regels niet verzonnen had. Ze voerde ze daarentegen wel uit. Mensen die bij de NS werken zitten in de rare positie dat ze extreem slecht beleid waar ze zelf weinig invloed op hebben moeten proberen uit te voeren en goedpraten. Dat is hét recept voor ongelukkige werknemers. Werknemers van de NS hebben best veel invloed maar dan moeten ze die wel pakken. Zij zijn degenen die de kaartjes controleren. Als ze dat niet meer doen, lijkt het erop dat de NS in korte tijd failliet is en rijp voor renationalisatie.\nDit alles overwegende en met de grotesk dure treinprijzen is het in je eentje al goedkoper om met de auto naar Berlijn te gaan 3 laat staan als je met een paar mensen gaat.\nJa. Soms ben ik heel dom.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nEn dus €3,50 verder\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nViamichelin begroot de benzinekosten op €63. Welk milieu?\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"October 8, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/ns-internationaal/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik ga eind deze maand naar Berlijn om Eelke te bezoeken en acte de présence te geven op de Web 2.0 Expo en Barcamp Berlin. Nu dacht ik dat het wel leuk zou zijn om met de trein te gaan. Ik heb pas ook een Railplus Kaart bij mijn kortingskaart gekocht. Daar zou ik iets aan moeten hebben.\n","title":"NS Internationaal","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik ben bezig voor mijn nieuwe huis internettoegang te regelen en de opties die ik tot nu toe voorgeschoteld krijg, zijn allemaal niet bijzonder aantrekkelijk. Ik wil alleen internet en dat lijkt tot voornog niet mogelijk.\nIk heb net met XS4All gebeld 1 en daar wisten ze me te vertellen dat ik een telefoonlijn van KPN nodig heb voor ADSL aangelegd kan worden. Nadat XS4All de boel over heeft gezet kan ik het KPN-abonnement opzeggen 2, maar ik zit wel contractueel een jaar vast aan de kosten à €9.95 per maand.\nMet de kabel werkt het hetzelfde maar dan moet je een standaard kabelabonnement hebben geloof ik 3 en de kans dat ik een televisiekabel gebruik is nog steeds een stuk groter dan de kans dat ik een vaste telefoonlijn ga gebruiken.\nHet is dus kabel of kijken of ik mijn draadloze router bij iemand op de verieping kan neerzetten.\nNormaal 020-nummer en geholpen binnen 5 minuten, trouwens.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nIk zou ook internet kunnen nemen via KPN zgn. InternetPlusBellen maar ik hoor daar alleen maar horror-verhalen over.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nDat ga ik nog even uitzoeken.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"October 5, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/internet-via-het-voormalige-staatsbedrijf/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik ben bezig voor mijn nieuwe huis internettoegang te regelen en de opties die ik tot nu toe voorgeschoteld krijg, zijn allemaal niet bijzonder aantrekkelijk. Ik wil alleen internet en dat lijkt tot voornog niet mogelijk.\n","title":"Internet via het voormalige staatsbedrijf","type":"posts"},{"content":"Artikel in de New Yorker over de plannen van Bush en Cheney om Iran aan te vallen.\nHet zou jammer zijn als Amerika unilateraal Iran zou aanvallen 1 en dat Europa daardoor een serie bomaanslagen van Hezbollah te verduren krijgt. En veel zouden we er niet eens aan kunnen doen.\nNet zoals ze met Irak gedaan hebben.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"October 1, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/provocaties-en-tegenaanvallen/","section":"Posts","summary":"Artikel in de New Yorker over de plannen van Bush en Cheney om Iran aan te vallen.\n","title":"Provocaties en tegenaanvallen","type":"posts"},{"content":"In het hoofdstuk \u0026lsquo;Waging Wars for Peace\u0026rsquo; 1 legt Popper uit dat het ons gerechtvaardigd is om desnoods geweld te gebruiken en oorlog te voeren als we de verspreiding en het gebruik van kernwapens maar kunnen tegengaan.\nOver de milieubeweging:\n“There is an anti-rationalist kernel in the Greens that leads to the exact opposite of what they are supposed to want. They also want power themselves, and are as hypocritical as they claim their opponents to be. Environmental disasters are largely due to the population explosion, which we must solve ethically. Really, only children who are wanted should come into the world 2.”\nOver de rol van de kerken in de abortus-/voorbehoedsmiddelendiscussie:\n“For the Churches, too, the first attitude to life must be: no cruelty.”\nEn over optimisme:\n“Optimism is a duty 3. One must focus on the things that need to be done and for which one is responsible. What I have said in this interview is meant to make you and others vigilant. We must live so that our grandchildren have a better life than ours - and not just in an economic sense.”\nEen interview van Popper voor Der Spiegel in 1992\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nHiermee raakt hij aan de in Freakonomics besproken correlatie tussen de legalisatie van abortus en de neerwaartse misdaadtrend.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nEn het is waarschijnlijk nog leuker ook. Als je daarvan overtuigd wil worden, kijk dan de presentatie van Bob Thurman.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"September 30, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/popper-over-de-noodzaak-van-vrede-en-rationalisme/","section":"Posts","summary":"In het hoofdstuk ‘Waging Wars for Peace’ 1 legt Popper uit dat het ons gerechtvaardigd is om desnoods geweld te gebruiken en oorlog te voeren als we de verspreiding en het gebruik van kernwapens maar kunnen tegengaan.\n","title":"Popper over de noodzaak van vrede en rationalisme","type":"posts"},{"content":"Gisteren had ik mijn buluitreiking. Geen spannende event, wel mooi voor de familie. Ik dus tot een uur of drie gewerkt, toen snel mijn pak aangetrokken.\nEn naar de uitreiking gefietst. De zaal was uiteraard veel te klein 1 en mijn familie zat vast in de file uit Amsterdam. Voor de rest good times. Deelnemen aan de ceremonie geeft je ook ongeveer de beste plek om foto\u0026rsquo;s te schieten.\nEn hoe kan ik jullie deze foto ontzeggen:\nIk snap niet dat dit soort dingen niet in de Aula gebeurt.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"September 30, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/buluitreiking/","section":"Posts","summary":"Gisteren had ik mijn buluitreiking. Geen spannende event, wel mooi voor de familie. Ik dus tot een uur of drie gewerkt, toen snel mijn pak aangetrokken.\n","title":"Buluitreiking","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik kijk televisie 1 en ik kom langs Rondom 10. Hier blijven hangen en kijken is op zich al een grote fout. De publieke discussie in dit soort televisieprogramma\u0026rsquo;s is gekaapt door zogenaamde ‘gewone mensen’ 2 waar kijkers zich in kunnen herkennen.\nDiscussie: iets met islam en scholen enzo 3\nVoorbeeld: “En dan zit er een meisjes in de klas te huilen omdat ze van d\u0026rsquo;r ouders thuis niet naast oudere jongens mag zitten.”Natuurlijk staat er een behoofddoekte moslima in de studio klaar om dit standpunt te verdedigen.\nZo lust ik er nog wel een paar. Je kunt uit naam van de islam wel elk willekeurig standpunt innemen wat aanstootgevend en ontwrichtend is. Dat wil nog niet zeggen dat dit ‘islam’ is. Iedere gelovige interpreteert dit op zijn eigen manier en er is niemand die kan zeggen of dat de goede manier is of niet 4 Er zijn genoeg moslims die redelijk en weldenkend zijn 5. Dan stuur ik later mijn kinderen naar school met een ander geloof —dat in de Linkse Kerk— waardoor ik vind dat mijn kinderen in de klas niet naast kinderen mogen zitten waarvan de ouders VVD stemmen. Waarom niet? Wie durft er aan mí­jn geloof te twijfelen?\nNiet alle moslims vinden dit soort achterlijke dingen. Het zijn alleen de achterlijken die in het oog springen zowel aan moslim-kant als aan de Wilders-kant. De media laten natuurlijk de extremen aan het woord want dat scoort zo lekker 6. En dan geven ze amateurs de schuld van een vervlakking.\nOp zich al een grote fout\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nJe bent een \u0026lsquo;gewoon mens\u0026rsquo; als je niet al te slim en redelijk makkelijk in een hokje te plaatsen bent. Al het andere is te verwarrend voor kijkers.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nAltijd goed voor een spannende uitzendinge\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nZeker in de islam niet.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nKijk bijvoorbeeld maar naar Turkije voor grote aantallen moslims die opmerkelijk normaal zijn.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nRondom 10 is van de NCRV waar ze geloven in scoren of scoren in geloven. Ik weet het niet.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"September 29, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/het-is-ook-mijn-fout-dat-ik-ernaar-kijk/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik kijk televisie 1 en ik kom langs Rondom 10. Hier blijven hangen en kijken is op zich al een grote fout. De publieke discussie in dit soort televisieprogramma’s is gekaapt door zogenaamde ‘gewone mensen’ 2 waar kijkers zich in kunnen herkennen.\n","title":"Het is ook mijn fout dat ik ernaar kijk","type":"posts"},{"content":"Goed idee trouwens van PICNIC af, doe morgen rood aan als teken van solidariteit met de monniken en de mensen van Myanmar.\n","date":"September 28, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/steun-myanmar/","section":"Posts","summary":"Goed idee trouwens van PICNIC af, doe morgen rood aan als teken van solidariteit met de monniken en de mensen van Myanmar.\n","title":"Steun Myanmar","type":"posts"},{"content":"Het leven vordert. Kleine updates.\nIk ben deze week weer begonnen met hardlopen om fitter te worden. Het gaat lekker en mijn conditie herstelt sneller dan ooit. Alleen het is nooit echt aan te raden om de dag voor capoeira (zondag of woensdag) te lopen. Trainen als je aan het herstellen bent zoals vandaag is niet leuk. Feestelijk is dat ik morgenmiddag mijn bul eindelijk mag ophalen op de universiteit samen met Oliver en Melle en talloze anderen. Diezelfde ochtend studeert ook een vriendin af. De afstudeerceremonie is redelijk saai, maar familie en andere aanhang schijnen het leuk te vinden. Event briefing: Ik raad af om bij de ceremonie zelf te zijn (begin 15:45-16:00); deze is alleen leuk voor de liefhebbers. Na afloop (rond 17:30-18:00) is er in de kelder van EWI (kaartje) een borrel met drankjes. Kom gerust langs voor een meet, een greet en een pilsje 1. Na bijna zes-en-een-half jaar los/vast bij TOPdesk gewerkt te hebben, is het be-eindigen van mijn studie ook een mooi moment om TOPdesk vaarwel te zeggen. Het was immers altijd al een soort van bijbaantje en ik zie buiten het bedrijf meer mogelijkheden tot ontwikkeling. Binnenkort afscheidsborrel aldaar. Ik heb deze week van de woningcorporatie Vestia deze woning geaccepteerd. Het is een pareltje —volgens mij zijn er in Delft geen betere woningen te krijgen in het corporatiesysteem. Ontzettend groot met aparte keuken, berginggebied en slaapgedeelte, dichter bij het centrum kan bijna niet en een mooi uitzicht op een paar kerken. Delft is best kut, maar hier valt het nog wel een tijdje uit te houden. Komende maand wordt heht opknappen en verhuizen. Ik zoek nog wat professionele consultaten van meine Designfreunden over inrichting en kleuren e.d. Voor de rest heb ik een boel dingen nodig die ik her en der bij elkaar ga verzamelen: verhuisdozen, wasmachine 2, koelkast, elektrisch fornuis, oven/magnetron, bank, tweepersoons bed, boekenkasten en nog een boel andere dingen. Werken in kleine multidisciplinaire teams met multi-disciplinaire mensen die weten van wanten en wat ze moeten doen is denk ik het leukste wat er is. Die focus wordt nog eens versterkt in een startup. Het toeval wil dat ik nu met een paar bezig ben. Tipit.to is op 90% is 3, een vooralsnog geheime startup is ongeveer op 50% is en een eigen speelprojectje dat aan het ontkiemen is en nog een keer een heuse groene startup kan worden. Update: En oh ja, ik heb de voorpagina van alper.nl veranderd in iets wat minder lelijk is en nog dynamischer. Update2: Ik ben ook bezig met het wisselen van bank. Ik heb nu mijn zakelijke en persoonlijke rekeningen bij de Rabobank ondergebracht 4. Alles goed en wel, maar ik kom er vandaag achter dat je bij de Rabobank niet de pincode op je pas kunt veranderen. Niet fijn voor mensen met een slecht feitengeheugen, zoals ik.\nMijn mobiel: 06-24553306\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nOliver bedankt!\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nWe staan op het punt van lanceren. Geef het nog 1 à 2 weken.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nIk twijfel nog of ik bij het opzeggen van mijn rekeningen bij de ABN-Amro de Barclays affaire als reden zal opgeven.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"September 27, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/kleine-updates-grote-stappen/","section":"Posts","summary":"Het leven vordert. Kleine updates.\n","title":"Kleine updates grote stappen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Gisteren een nieuw fusion restaurant/coffee-corner/danscafé/concept hier in Delft uitgeprobeerd: Yamamoto. Het ziet er aardig uit maar een ingewikkelde menukaart die niet veel toevoegt (mijn recensie).\nWokgerechten kun je fijner bij de Daily Wok kopen, Dim Sum beter in Den Haag 1, sushi beter bij Happy Sushi of een andere conveyor belt en Thai het liefste bij snackbar Bird. Bij elk van die plaatsen krijg je significant meer voldoening voor €24.\nDe aankleding, locatie en het uitzicht zijn wel erg mooi, dus als dat je ding is moet je vooral een keer gaan kijken. Het danscafé is nog niet open, maar dat zou nog weleens iets kunnen worden. Delft is op het gebied van uitgaan zwaar ondergeserveerd.\nDenk ik. Ik moet nog een keer gaan Dim Summen.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"September 27, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/fusion-is-niks-voor-mij/","section":"Posts","summary":"Gisteren een nieuw fusion restaurant/coffee-corner/danscafé/concept hier in Delft uitgeprobeerd: Yamamoto. Het ziet er aardig uit maar een ingewikkelde menukaart die niet veel toevoegt (mijn recensie).\n","title":"Fusion is niks voor mij","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik ben op mijn laatste avond in het Riad Hotel in Hama nog bijna versierd.\nIn de gemeenschappelijk ruimte van dat hotel is het goed relaxen \u0026rsquo;s avonds met Abdullah —de hotelmanager die voortreffelijk 1 Engels spreekt— en de andere veelal Franse gasten. Een agressieve parkiet, watermeloen, de internet-pc en wat plafondventilatoren; het leven is er goed na een dag lang het snikhete Syrië verkennen.\nOp die laatste avond stelde Abdullah me voor aan een meisje dat Engels studeerde in Damascus of Aleppo. Ze schijnt in allebei te wonen maar ze was toevallig in het hotel in Hama. Nu zijn er hier veel mensen die zeggen dat ze Engels studeren maar hoe lang ze het ook mogen studeren, klinken als Engels doet het niet. Communicatie met dit meisje dat Medea heette was bijna niet te doen.\nMedea had een hoofddoek op en een sluier voor d\u0026rsquo;r gezicht zodat je alleen haar ogen zag. Verder had ze ook een dikke verhullende gewaad-achtige rok aan, typisch voor de wat fanatiekere moslimmeisjes. Het is erg raar om te praten met iemand waar je alleen maar de ogen van ziet. Communiceren in een vreemde taal wanneer de mond bedekt is, is volgens mij nog een extra handicap. Uit beleefdheid praatte ik wat met haar en vroeg wat dingen in het Arabisch 2 en als Medea niet wist hoe ze iets moest zeggen speelde Abdullah voor muterjem 3.\nMedea vroeg mijn e-mailadres en telefoonnummer en veel dacht ik er niet van dus die gaf ik. Op een gegeven moment vertaalde Abdullah van Medea iets als “She likes you.”en dat vond ik toen al aan de vreemde kant maar ik schudde het af en ik richtte mijn aandacht op andere toeristen 4. De toeristen en ik praatten over de toeristen-dingen: “Waar kom je vandaan? Waar ga je heen? Wat heb je gezien?”\nOp een gegeven moment deed Medea haar sluier af zodat je haar gezicht kon zien. Ze was een niet lelijk meisje maar haar gezicht was lijkbleek. Dat gebeurt er dus als je van je geloof de zon nooit mag zien. Vroeger en op sommige plaatsen nog steeds was dat een schoonheidsideaal. Het moet toch raar zijn dat in een land met zoveel zon de helft van de mensen die nooit op haar gezicht kan voelen.\nIk heb uit beleefdheid de rest van de avond nog wat aandacht aan Medea besteedt maar het gesprek vlotte niet echt en er waren interessantere mensen om mee te praten. Aan het einde van de avond had ik uitgecheckt — ik nam de bus van 06:45 de volgende ochtend naar Palmyra— nam ik afscheid van iedereen om vroeg te gaan slapen. Toen kreeg ik van Medea compleet onverwacht een afscheidskus 5.\nDe volgende ochtend stond ik om 06:00 op 6 om mijn vroege bus naar Palmyra te halen. Ik was mijn spullen aan het pakken toen mijn telefoon ging. Je raad al dat het Medea was die me belde. Ze had gisteren iets opgevangen van “six o\u0026rsquo;clock”of mijn gebrekkige “saa:a sittah”. Over de telefoon probeerde ze in extreem onsamenhangend 7 Arabisch iets te vertellen. Ik kon alleen maar denken aan de €1,50 per minuut die dit me kostte en de bus die ik moest halen dus ik zei vriendelijk doei en hing op.\nBeneden voor het hotel stond ik een taxi te roepen toen Medea ook het hotel uitkwam. Ze had een kadotas in haar hand en een briefje met drie of vier telefoonnummers erop. Ik had geen zin om er over na te denken dus ik nam de spullen aan en sprong in de al wachtende taxi. Pas in het hotel aangekomen in Palmyra keek ik in de tas en zag een hartvormig doosje met daarin een ring.\nIk heb geen flauw idee wat ik gedaan heb of waar ik dit aan verdiend heb. In het halve uur dat we met elkaar gepraat hebben kan zo\u0026rsquo;n meisje toch met geen mogelijkheid verliefd zijn geworden? Of is mijn invloed op vrouwen zo ontzettend groot? En ben ik nu verloofd?\nEen rare omslachtige interpretatie van liefde om me wat kado\u0026rsquo;s en een paar telefoonnummers te geven. Zo duurt het toch allemaal veel te lang? Als ze nou gewoon \u0026rsquo;s nacht naar mijn hotelkamer was gekomen dan hadden we de dingen kunnen ‘bespreken’. Rare interpretatie van de liefde hebben Arabische meisjes. Ik dacht dat vrouwen hier op hun eer moesten passen maar er staan dus genoeg gesluierde meisjes klaar om zich te vergrijpen aan passerende Westerse toeristen.\nDe volgende dag nog werd ik toen ik door de ruïnes van Palmyra heenliep een keer of wat gebeld op mijn GSM. Mijn broekzak drukte dat steeds weg en na een tijdje heb ik hem uitgezet. Sindsdien is het stil. Ik heb geen interesse maar ik ben wel benieuwd naar de echte intentie. Ik twijfel of ik contact op zal nemen, maar bellen heeft met haar Engels en mijn Arabisch niet veel zin.\nAndere verhalen # Ahmet in het hotel in Palmyra kwam met het verhaal dat in een ander hotel meisjes met hoofddoekjes zaten te giechelen en hem zaten te wenken toen hij aan het roken was.\nMuhamad 8 van een ander hotel in Latakia zei me dat je niet af kunt gaan op het uiterlijk van meisjes in de Arabische wereld. Je hebt d\u0026rsquo;r die er open bij lopen en eigenlijk erg conservatief zijn en je hebt er die gesloten zijn maar die eigenlijk compleet zijn losgeslagen. Dat lijk me de beste moraal voor dit verhaal.\nIk heb niemand in Syrië ook maar in de buurt van zijn Engels horen komen.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nIk had mijn boek Arabisch bij me maar veel helpen deed dat niet.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nArabisch voor tolk.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nVlaamse meisjes!\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nTip voor Nederlandse toeristen: ga op reis in de Arabische wereld niet in het wilde weg vrouwen lopen kussen.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nVroeg opstaan is klote maar er is niks mis met verder slapen in bussen met airconditioning.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nHet was voor haar ook vroeg.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nHotelmanagers in Syrië heten allemaal Abdulah of Muhamad om het overzichtelijk te houden.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"September 27, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/de-betekenis-van-een-sluier/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik ben op mijn laatste avond in het Riad Hotel in Hama nog bijna versierd.\n","title":"De betekenis van een sluier","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik probeerde vrijdagavond na een redelijk bewogen dag in de trein terug naar Delft bijna oud-collega\u0026rsquo;s Joop en Niek ervan te overtuigen dat het merendeel van de mensen geen moreel besef heeft 1. Dit wilden ze niet geloven. Nu zal het misschien niet de meerderheid zijn 2, maar ik denk dat het een grote groep mensen is die groeit.\nTwee voorbeelden uit de praktijk:\nIk ben mijn origineel in het kopieerapparaat in de AH vergeten. Ik ren naar binnen om hem op te halen. Mijn fiets staat nog open buiten. Letterlijk vijf seconden later ben ik terug en dan staan er al een groep gastjes bij mijn fiets te loeren. Om het nog erger te maken krijg ik te horen: “Als je iets langer weg was gebleven, was je fiets weggeweest.” Ik heb nog steeds haast en ik fiets weg 3 maar ik ben wel verbaasd over zoveel onbeschaamde ploerterigheid. Na het optreden kijken we naar de b-boys op het podium. Een jongen achter ons gooit blikjes bier naar de stage. Onze vriend D. groot gebouwd en niet bang ingesteld spreekt de jongen aan op zijn gedrag en vraagt hem of hij ‘het normaal vindt wat hij doet 4.’ Hier heeft hij niet van terug en even later is de security erbij. Deze mensen hebben op geen enkele manier respect voor anderen en hoe die hun gedrag ervaren. Mensen die zo los en verwerpelijk bezig zijn moeten denk ik niet vrij in de samenleving rond kunnen lopen om het voor de rest te verpesten. Mensen zonder moreel besef zijn geestesziek en een gevaar voor de samenleving. Waarom ze niet opsluiten of heropvoeden?\nNoot over onderwijs 5: Scholen krijgen vaak de schuld maar dat geloof ik niet. Nederlandse scholen kunnen beter 6 maar zijn zeker niet slecht. Als je iets van je leven wil maken, dan kan dat echt. Er is geen excuus voor dit soort gedrag.\nRaciale disclaimer: Voor ik allemaal pro-Wilders mensen over me heen krijg, de gasten uit het eerste voorbeeld waren —ik denk— Antilliaans en de jongen uit het tweede was zo Nederlands als maar kan. Het zijn dus niet altijd de moslims die het gedaan hebben.\nEen langere post hierover komt nog een keer. Het wordt in ieder geval niet een uitsluitend pessimistisch verhaal.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nIk overdrijf weleens om een punt duidelijk te maken.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nWat moet ik trouwens anders doen?\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nNormaal gesproken doen mensen dit niet en ik denk dat dat veel verklaart.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nOok een langere post in de planning.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nHet Finse onderwijssysteem schijnt erg goed te zijn.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"September 25, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/immorele-gastjes/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik probeerde vrijdagavond na een redelijk bewogen dag in de trein terug naar Delft bijna oud-collega’s Joop en Niek ervan te overtuigen dat het merendeel van de mensen geen moreel besef heeft 1. Dit wilden ze niet geloven. Nu zal het misschien niet de meerderheid zijn 2, maar ik denk dat het een grote groep mensen is die groeit.\n","title":"Immorele gastjes","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik ben gaar aan het einde van dit gestoorde weekend. Hier nog even een foto van Todaysart. Een festival wat er erg leuk was voor zover ik kon zien en waar ik graag meer van had willen zien.\nKunnen de organisatoren volgend jaar de boel een beetje spreiden? Nu zul je zien dat er de komende weken weer helemaal niks te doen is.\n","date":"September 23, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/kunst-van-vandaag/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik ben gaar aan het einde van dit gestoorde weekend. Hier nog even een foto van Todaysart. Een festival wat er erg leuk was voor zover ik kon zien en waar ik graag meer van had willen zien.\n","title":"Kunst van vandaag","type":"posts"},{"content":"Vorig jaar toen de Skatejam in Delft was, was ook de eerste dag dat ik mijn EOS had. Het is een leuk festival en er gebeuren veel dingen om te fotograferen (set van toen). Gisteren was dus de symbolische eerste verjaardag van mijn camera en ik was van plan om die te vieren door de hele dag Skatejam te gaan schieten.\nDat ging alleen anders dan gepland. Liberdade was die dag twee keer geboekt voor een optreden, één op een braderie in Nootdorp en één op de Skatejam. Daarna moest ik snel weg naar Den Haag om Todaysart te zien en daarna door naar Robodock. Uiteindelijk weer terug in Den Haag beland voor ik naar Delft ging om te slapen.\nOp Skatejam door tijdgebrek alleen maar de b-boy battle na ons optreden geschoten. Geniet van de vette tricks.\n","date":"September 23, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/breakjam-in-delft/","section":"Posts","summary":"Vorig jaar toen de Skatejam in Delft was, was ook de eerste dag dat ik mijn EOS had. Het is een leuk festival en er gebeuren veel dingen om te fotograferen (set van toen). Gisteren was dus de symbolische eerste verjaardag van mijn camera en ik was van plan om die te vieren door de hele dag Skatejam te gaan schieten.\n","title":"Breakjam in Delft","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik heb geen idee hoe ik zo snel een Quicktime embed op dit blog plak. Vimeo even uitgeprobeerd wat een goede videosite is maar het FLV formaat is nog steeds redelijk bar qua kwaliteit.\nSunset over Palmyra from Alper Çugun on Vimeo.\nDit geeft een aardige indruk, maar kijk liever het filmpje op de volle resolutie.Toen we de zonsondergang over de ruïnes van Palmyra bekeken heb ik mijn camera neergezet op een rots en met stopwatch en afstandsbediening heb ik elke minuut een foto genomen. Het resultaat is volgens mij best aardig.\n","date":"September 21, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/zonsondergang-over-palmyra/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik heb geen idee hoe ik zo snel een Quicktime embed op dit blog plak. Vimeo even uitgeprobeerd wat een goede videosite is maar het FLV formaat is nog steeds redelijk bar qua kwaliteit.\n","title":"Zonsondergang over Palmyra","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik was net voor de één na laatste keer op de TU om bij de administratie te controleren of alles nu in orde was. Naar blijkt was dat het.\nEr staat me niks meer in de weg om mijn diploma op te halen. 28 september om 16:00 ergens op de faculteit EWI krijg ik 1 mijn bul en mag ik me echt M.Sc. noemen.\nIk heb diezelfde dag om 14:00 nog een afspraak in Amsterdam, dus dat wordt nog even passen. Een Upcoming event en uitnodigingen volgen nog om ergens een overwinningsbiertje te drinken.\nEn Oliver en Melle ook.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"September 17, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/diploma-bijna-in-het-bakkie/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik was net voor de één na laatste keer op de TU om bij de administratie te controleren of alles nu in orde was. Naar blijkt was dat het.\n","title":"Diploma bijna in het bakkie","type":"posts"},{"content":"Het verkeer in Syrië is compleet een chaos. Ik heb nog nooit zoiets gezien maar mensen verzekeren me dat het bijv. in India nog veel en veel erger is. Ik snap niet hoe dat kan.\nHet lijkt erop alsof iedereen hier dood wil. Niemand kijkt op of om als ze de weg op- of afgaan. Mijn rit Syrië in was al een soort van dodemansrit over de grens en dan naar Aleppo. Op een gegeven moment dacht ik aan de weg te zien dat we best wel hard gingen. Ik keek op het dashboard naar de snelheidsmeter, die roerloos op nul stond. Dat verklaarde.\nToeteren is hier de norm en een essentiele vorm van communicatie in het verkeer. Je moet wel want mensen kijken dus niet op als ze de weg oversteken. Toeteren is een manier om ze te vertellen dat je eraan komt. Een ander moment wanneer je altijd moet toeteren is wanneer je iemand inhaalt, want degene die je inhaalt kijkt toch niet in zijn dode hoek als hij naar rechts besluit te gaan. Blijkbaar werkt het wel want verkeersongelukken schijnen hier niet zoveel voor te komen 1.\nHierom is het ook niet echt aan te raden om zelf auto te rijden in Syrië. De kans dat je brokken maakt is levensgroot als je dit verkeer niet gewend bent en hoe de afwikkeling dan is, is me niet echt duidelijk. Daarnaast schijnt een auto met chauffeur huren niet veel duurder te zijn dan een auto voor jezelf huren.\nIn Aleppo zag ik op een gegeven moment een jongen fietsen 2 in het verkeer rond Bab al-Faraj, maar wat hij deed sloeg echt alles. Hij stond op zijn fiets met één voet op zijn zadel en zijn andere voet op de linker kant van zijn stuur. Bij het stoplicht stapte hij af en fietste rustig door. Levensgevaarlijk maar wel een bizar vette stunt waarvan ik niet had gedacht dat het mogelijk was. Binnenkort eens kijken hoe moeilijk dit is.\nNa een tijdje in Syrië denk ik dat je zelf ook beïnvloed wordt door de chaos. Ik neigde soms ook om niet meer links-rechts-links te kijken bij het oversteken. Gewoon gaan en insha\u0026rsquo;allah.\nIn Iran bijvoorbeeld aan de lopende band hoorde ik van een jongen.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nOp zich al idioot gevaarlijk.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"September 12, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/het-verkeer-in-syrie-is-gekkenwerk/","section":"Posts","summary":"Het verkeer in Syrië is compleet een chaos. Ik heb nog nooit zoiets gezien maar mensen verzekeren me dat het bijv. in India nog veel en veel erger is. Ik snap niet hoe dat kan.\n","title":"Het verkeer in Syrië is gekkenwerk","type":"posts"},{"content":" Als je rondreist door landen waar het standaard warmer dan 30-35Ëš C. is, denk je weleens bij jezelf: ‘Dit is a-relaxed. Wat kouder zou niet heel erg zijn.’\nDan kom je terug in Nederland waar het snijdend koud is en het regent 1 en denk je bij jezelf 35+ graden is zo gek nog niet.\nGisteren naar huis fietsend in de laatste 2 minuten natgeregend door een flits-stortbui.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"September 12, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/het-gras-is-altijd-groener/","section":"Posts","summary":" Als je rondreist door landen waar het standaard warmer dan 30-35Ëš C. is, denk je weleens bij jezelf: ‘Dit is a-relaxed. Wat kouder zou niet heel erg zijn.’\n","title":"Het gras is altijd groener","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik was op het einde van mijn reis afgelopen weekend nog even in Londen voor een paar leuke events.\nImpressie van Engeland # Engeland lijkt wat mij betreft erg op één van mijn minst favoriete Oost Europese landen: Polen 1. Overeenkomsten:\nMensen zijn er bovenmatig vaak dronken. Het lokale eten is niet te vreten. Dingen zien er shabby uit. Daarnaast snap ik niet waarom in Engeland alles zo duur moet zijn. Het is toch niet zo alsof ze daar een soort hyperinflatie hebben doorgemaakt, toch? En veel krijg je er niet voor terug. In Kopenhagen zijn dingen ook veel duurder dan in Nederland, maar daar ziet ook alles er beter uit 2.\nÉén ding wat rond Londen echte en ramp is, zijn de treinen. Voor mijn rit van Brighton naar Stansted betaalde ik £33,50. Dat is volgens mij best veel geld, zeker als je bekijkt wat je ervoor terug krijgt. Voor dit bedrag kun je in Turkije in alle comfort 1500km reizen en zelfs in Nederland krijg je er bijna een enkeltje Parijs voor. In Engeland mag je ervoor in een trein zitten die 30 jaar oud lijkt en nooit onderhoud heeft gehad. Deze trein boemelt door Londen heen en staat hier en daar zonder reden stil.\nTerug in Nederland # Vergeleken met Engeland en andere landen snap ik nu wel beter waarom mensen die Nederland bezoeken het zo geweldig vinden. Al zijn hier ook nadelen op te noemen. Mensen zijn hier niet op hun vriendelijkst en er is een aardige groep die de basics van beschaving niet doorheeft. Geland op Schiphol al met een paar van dit soort gevallen geconfronteerd maar niets om me druk over te maken. Ik ga me sowieso niet erg druk maken de komende tijd.\nReflectie # Morena vroeg me vandaag of ik was uitgerust op vakantie. Niet echt maar je krijgt wel andere dingen terug. Ik ben bijvoorbeeld afgevallen en niet eens echt ziek geweest 3. De stress en het continu lopen en onderweg zijn doet je heel veel calorieën verliezen, en je neemt niet altijd de moeite om dat allemaal weer aan te vullen. In ieder geval doordat je veel dingen ziet en meemaakt relativeer je meer en zijn dingen die gebeuren niet meer zo erg of boeiend. Verder zie je hoe anders mensen leven in andere delen van de wereld en daardoor kun je dingen beter plaatsen. Door de afstand die je letterlijk hebt genomen van je eigen leven doet je dingen herevalueren.\nIk heb al wat veranderingen op het oog en ik kan niet wachten om langer en verder weg te gaan.\nReizen in de toekomst # Het wordt eigenlijk alleen maar beperkt door tijd, geld en mijn beschikbaarheid. Ideeën waren al om volgend jaar of de Baltische staten en Scandinavië te doen of nog wat te sparen en een maand of vier Zuid Amerika te gaan zien.\nMaar in deze hoek wil ik nog wel meer zien. Ik heb nu gemerkt dat je in weinig tijd zonder al teveel stress veel kunt reizen en zien. Volgende keer drie of vier weken en dan invliegen op Trabzon, dan via Kars 4 naar Georgië, Tblisi en de geboorteplaats van Stalin bezoeken, dan wel of niet Armenië in met mijn Nederlandse paspoort en daarna naar Azerbaijan om het mausoleum van Nezami te bezoeken en Baku en de Kaspische zee te zien, daarna Iran in en Tabriz, Tehran en Isfahan zien, als het kan misschien nog naar Ashgabat 5 en terugvliegen via Dubai.\nAl kwam ik in Syrië wel twee coole Polen tegen uit Krakow.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nHet land en de mensen.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nIk had meer last van mijn maag in Turkije dan in Syrië.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nWaar het boek Sneeuw van Orhan Pamuk zich afspeelt.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nDit is toch wreed!\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"September 11, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/afreizen-en-afstuderen/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik was op het einde van mijn reis afgelopen weekend nog even in Londen voor een paar leuke events.\n","title":"Afreizen en afstuderen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik heb geen idee wanneer maar het lijkt me niet meer dan logisch dat mijn TU Delft e-mailadres binnenkort ophoudt met werken. Dus voor de duidelijkheid nooit meer dingen sturen naar a.cugun@student.tudelft.nl of a.cugun@student.twi.tudelft.nl of a.cugun@ewi.tudelft.nl of a.cugun@elektron.its.tudelft.nl en noem nog maar een boel aliassen voor hetzelfde adres op.\nNu nog even de forward uitzetten en kijken of er nuttige e-mail op binnenkomt.\n","date":"September 11, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/veranderingen-ook-in-de-e-mail/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik heb geen idee wanneer maar het lijkt me niet meer dan logisch dat mijn TU Delft e-mailadres binnenkort ophoudt met werken. Dus voor de duidelijkheid nooit meer dingen sturen naar a.cugun@student.tudelft.nl of a.cugun@student.twi.tudelft.nl of a.cugun@ewi.tudelft.nl of a.cugun@elektron.its.tudelft.nl en noem nog maar een boel aliassen voor hetzelfde adres op.\n","title":"Veranderingen ook in de e-mail","type":"posts"},{"content":"Via Miguel de Icaza 1 een kort filmpje naar een boek van Naomi Klein gemaakt door Alfonso Cuarón over de Shock Doctrine. Hij staat op YouTube maar neem geen genoegen met die kwaliteit, op de site van Naomi Klein staan links naar hoge kwaliteit versies in Quicktime en Windows Media.\nDownloaden die film (6'45\u0026rsquo;\u0026rsquo;) en kijken. Mooie beelden en visuals, strak gemaakt en met een boodschap die raakt.\nDie niet alleen een goed programmeur, maar ook erg politiek ge-engageerd is.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"September 11, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/shockerende-beelden/","section":"Posts","summary":"Via Miguel de Icaza 1 een kort filmpje naar een boek van Naomi Klein gemaakt door Alfonso Cuarón over de Shock Doctrine. Hij staat op YouTube maar neem geen genoegen met die kwaliteit, op de site van Naomi Klein staan links naar hoge kwaliteit versies in Quicktime en Windows Media.\n","title":"Shockerende beelden","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik zit hier aan het ontbijt, nog zonder eten maar wel al even koffie gehaald bij de Costa in de straat verderop met heel veel nerds in een kamer en bijna iedereen heeft een laptop open 1.\nGisteren tot diep in de nacht het spel Werewolf zitten spelen. Een soort combinatie van Cluedo en Diplomacy. Leuk spel waar verbale vaardigheid, logisch nadenken en assertiviteit erg belangrijk zijn. Wat lastig te spelen tegen native English speakers maar na een tijdje valt het goed te doen.\nWe hebben hier het weekend Barcamp Brighton gehad. Een community event van mensen geïnteresseerd in de hardere kant van het hacken waar niemand een toeschouwer is en iedereen iets bijdraagt.\nBuitengewoon comfortabele event waar iedereen zichzelf kan zijn, veel mensen buitengewoon leuke hardware hebben en ook nog eens bijzonder veel kennis en waar we allemaal het gevoel hebben constructief bezig te zijn voor iets goeds.\nDit mogen we vaker doen 2 maar het gaat wel goed voelen om morgen weer thuis te zijn.\nWaarvan 70% ofzo een Apple laptop is.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nBinnenkort in Berlijn bijvoorbeeld.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"September 10, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/brighton-uk/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik zit hier aan het ontbijt, nog zonder eten maar wel al even koffie gehaald bij de Costa in de straat verderop met heel veel nerds in een kamer en bijna iedereen heeft een laptop open 1.\n","title":"Brighton, UK","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik zit net door mijn access logs heen te kijken en ik zie een site die hoger rankt dan ik op de zoekterm “de meisjes van halal”. Doorklikken en ik zie een fragment waar ik best wel blij van wordt. Zie hoe deze meisjes met lichtjaren overklast worden door Hans Teeuwen. Die gast is psychologisch en verbaal te sterk voor de meeste mensen, dus zeker voor deze meisjes.\nDe embed doet raar in Gecko en geen tijd om het te repareren. Hier dus maar een link naar het fragment.\nWat aardige tv gemist, maar YouTube is ook handig als je op vakantie bent. In ieder geval, nog steeds als de meisjes van halal de beste hoop voor de integratie vertegenwoordigen, dan is het er slecht mee voorgesteld.\nBinnenkort hier te lezen: een verbijsterende verhaal over mijn ervaringen met gesluierde meisjes in Syrië.\n","date":"September 3, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/121/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik zit net door mijn access logs heen te kijken en ik zie een site die hoger rankt dan ik op de zoekterm “de meisjes van halal”. Doorklikken en ik zie een fragment waar ik best wel blij van wordt. Zie hoe deze meisjes met lichtjaren overklast worden door Hans Teeuwen. Die gast is psychologisch en verbaal te sterk voor de meeste mensen, dus zeker voor deze meisjes.\n","title":"De meisjes van de zwakke argumentatie","type":"posts"},{"content":"Waar ik al bang voor was is gebeurd, mijn terugvlucht met Corendon is ook verplaatst van 05:35 \u0026rsquo;s ochtends naar 14:30 \u0026rsquo;s middags diezelfde dag. Het toeval wil dat een meisje van een Turks stel die ik ontmoette in Palmyra diezelfde vlucht heeft.\nToen we dat bespraken kwam ook al naar voren dat het Sabiha Gökçen vliegveld niet heel erg bereikbaar is midden in de nacht en dat een taxi een flink smak geld gaat kosten. Enige optie was dus om de laatste bus erheen te pakken en dan vanaf 01:00 te wachten.\nDat hoeft nu dus allemaal niet meer en het zou perfect uitkomen. De checkin voor mijn vlucht van Eindhoven naar Londen Stansted begint een half uur na de geplande landing van mijn vlucht uit Istanbul om 17:35. Enig probleem is alleen dat Corendon het op de dag zelf ook niet zo nauw neemt met vluchttijden dus stel dat we een vertraging van een uur ofzo krijgen dan mis ik mijn aansluitende vlucht.\nIk denk dat ik zo voor de volgende dag nog een goedkope charter naar Londen boek. Beter een vlucht teveel boeken dan de belangrijke dingen daar missen.\n","date":"August 29, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/terugvlucht-ook-verplaatst/","section":"Posts","summary":"Waar ik al bang voor was is gebeurd, mijn terugvlucht met Corendon is ook verplaatst van 05:35 ’s ochtends naar 14:30 ’s middags diezelfde dag. Het toeval wil dat een meisje van een Turks stel die ik ontmoette in Palmyra diezelfde vlucht heeft.\n","title":"Terugvlucht ook verplaatst","type":"posts"},{"content":"Sorry voor de weinige berichten alhier maar de tijd en verbinding om te schrijven houden hier in Syrië niet over. Bijna iedereen hier zit op dial-up dus foto\u0026rsquo;s zitten er al helemaal niet in. Wat ik er nu over kan zeggen is dat het een mooi en apart land is.\nWat wel wat makkelijker blijkt om bij te houden is mijn microblog op Jaiku waar ik af en toe dingen die in me opkomen neer klad.\nVandaag het Krak des Chevaliers bezocht, wat inderdaad net zo\u0026rsquo;n indrukwekkend kasteel is als mensen zeggen dat het is. Op dit moment is mijn maag wat overstuur en ik zit er nog over na te denken of ik morgen naar Lattakia ga op de weg terug of wat verder nog Syrie in trek.\n","date":"August 24, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/gebrek-aan-inhoud/","section":"Posts","summary":"Sorry voor de weinige berichten alhier maar de tijd en verbinding om te schrijven houden hier in Syrië niet over. Bijna iedereen hier zit op dial-up dus foto’s zitten er al helemaal niet in. Wat ik er nu over kan zeggen is dat het een mooi en apart land is.\n","title":"Gebrek aan inhoud","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik had het al een tijdje gehad met gravatar en alle andere verschillende manieren om avatars 1 toe te voegen aan blogs en vond tijd dat er een simpele open versie kwam.\nIk heb net de MyAvatar plugin aangepast tot wat uiteindelijk de hAvatar plugin moet worden. Je ziet hem nu in actie bij de commentaren op dit blog. Als jij een hCard met photo of logo eigenschap op je URL hebt staan 2 die je achterlaat, dan haal ik die op en toon hem als je avatar.\nAardig proof of concept 3, en ik denk wel het uitbreiden waard. Probeer het maar uit. Je kunt een pagina gebruiken met een hCard of je kunt hier inloggen met OpenID en zorgen dat op je OpenID site een hCard staat zoals beschreven in mijn artikel op Four Starters.\nDeze versie gebruikt nog mijn hAvatar parse dienst zoals beschreven op Four Starters maar een definitievere versie moet hKit gebruiken om de hCard te parsen.\nDe recente commentaren op de voorpagina gebruiken nog gravatar zoals opgeleverd door de thema-bouwer, maar dat is zulke afgrijselijke PHP-code, dat de revisie daarvan niet op een luie zondagavond kan.\nPlaatjes van gebruikers.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nJe Flickr profielpagina bevat bijvoorbeeld een hCard net zoals een heleboel andere plaatsen.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nEn geïmplementeerd op dit blog, omdat hier een stuk minder mensen boos worden als ik de boel sloop.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"August 17, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/havatar-voor-wordpress/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik had het al een tijdje gehad met gravatar en alle andere verschillende manieren om avatars 1 toe te voegen aan blogs en vond tijd dat er een simpele open versie kwam.\n","title":"hAvatar voor Wordpress","type":"posts"},{"content":"Het leek me wel handig voor vrienden en familie om een continu up to date reisschema bij te houden. Een kruising zogezegd tussen een itinerary en een travelogue. Maar een blog is dat in feite al.\nIk heb nu een categorie aangemaakt \u0026ldquo;Zomerreis 2007\u0026rdquo; om alle informatie rondom mijn reis te verzamelen, reisupdates, foto\u0026rsquo;s, ervaringen enz.\nVeranderingen # De eerste update is er al. Ik werd vandaag gebeld door Corendon dat mijn vlucht AMS- ADA van vrijdagochtend is gecancelled en dat ik daarvoor in de plaats de volgende dag om 19.30 \u0026rsquo;s avonds mag vliegen. Blijkbaar zijn alle vluchten onder voorbehoud. Het wordt zo nog een interessante vakantie.\nHeel erg is het niet. Zo hou ik wat meer tijd over voor werk en surf voor ik wegga in ruil voor een iets kortere vakantie.\nIk kom om 01.00 aan in Adana en moet dan nog een slaapplaats vinden voor ik de volgende dag verder ga. Dat zal wel niet al te moeilijk zijn. Het lijkt er wel op dat ik het rondhangen in Adana en Antakya ga overslaan. Ik ga de volgende dag in één keer door naar Aleppo.\nTerug # Mijn vlucht SAW- EIN is ook met Corendon en ik heb op Eindhoven 11 uur om mijn vlucht naar Londen te halen. Nog zo\u0026rsquo;n vertraging kan ik dus niet gebruiken. In Londen zie ik Cristiano en Melinda en misschien ook Michel. Cristiano en Melinda zijn morgen toevalligerwijs hier in Delft, zoals staat op Upcoming en Four Starters.\n","date":"August 15, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/vlucht-verplaatst/","section":"Posts","summary":"Het leek me wel handig voor vrienden en familie om een continu up to date reisschema bij te houden. Een kruising zogezegd tussen een itinerary en een travelogue. Maar een blog is dat in feite al.\n","title":"Vlucht verplaatst","type":"posts"},{"content":"Afgelopen weekend wezen kamperen in Wapse 1. Hier wat foto\u0026rsquo;s: Update: Nog vergeten te zeggen: Het was echt té vet!\nJa, dat is de naam van een dorp in Nederland.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"August 13, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/capoeira-camping/","section":"Posts","summary":"Afgelopen weekend wezen kamperen in Wapse 1. Hier wat foto’s: Update: Nog vergeten te zeggen: Het was echt té vet!\n","title":"Capoeira Camping","type":"posts"},{"content":"Een stukje in het Parool over de Gay Pride waarin staat dat de loco-burgemeester Tjeerd Herrema een idee heeft: “Hij vindt ook dat bij geweldsincidenten op grond van iemands geaardheid of uiterlijk strenger moet worden gestraft.”\nErg troebel water dit en ontzettend moeilijk vast te stellen. Uitgebreide discussies hierover zijn al gevoerd (argumenten tegen) maar al met al lijkt het geen goed idee om een Gedankenpolizei in te voeren.\nUpdate: Op Sargasso nu al een goede argumentatie tegen dit onzalige plan van de PvdA.\n","date":"August 7, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/hate-crimes/","section":"Posts","summary":"Een stukje in het Parool over de Gay Pride waarin staat dat de loco-burgemeester Tjeerd Herrema een idee heeft: “Hij vindt ook dat bij geweldsincidenten op grond van iemands geaardheid of uiterlijk strenger moet worden gestraft.”\n","title":"Hate Crimes","type":"posts"},{"content":"In ander nieuws, dit weblog ondersteunt sinds zojuist OpenID. Dat is een manier van inloggen met een gebruikersnaam 1 en wachtwoord 2 op verschillende sites die veilig is en waarbij je toch zelf de controle over je gegevens houdt.Ik heb er eerder al een uitleg over geschreven op Frankwatching wat redelijk veel aandacht trok en een recent artikel op Four Starters sloeg ook lekker in. De strekking van dat laatste artikel is dat de meeste mensen als een OpenID hebben, maar zich er niet van bewust zijn. Kijken of je toch een OpenID hebt, spoed je dan naar mijn OpenID generator.Als je niet wil dat er iets verandert, verandert er ook niets. Ik heb de wpopenid+ plugin hier geïnstalleerd om wat dingen met betrekking tot OpenID en innovatieve toepassingen hiervan uit te kunnen proberen. Dus misschien gaan dingen hier een beetje kapot in de komend tijd, maar ik probeer de gewoonlijke diensten hier zo goed mogelijk doorgang te doen vinden.\nEigenlijk een URL maar dat gaat makkelijker worden. Die van mij is lekker kort \u0026ldquo;alper.nl\u0026rdquo; maar dat zal niet voor de meeste mensen opgaan.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nHet hoeft niet per se geverifieerd te worden met een wachtwoord, mag ook met een paslezer of een SMS maar wachtwoord zal voorlopig het meeste voorkomen.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"August 5, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/openid-een-robuuste-open-manier-van-single-sign-on/","section":"Posts","summary":"In ander nieuws, dit weblog ondersteunt sinds zojuist OpenID. Dat is een manier van inloggen met een gebruikersnaam 1 en wachtwoord 2 op verschillende sites die veilig is en waarbij je toch zelf de controle over je gegevens houdt.Ik heb er eerder al een uitleg over geschreven op Frankwatching wat redelijk veel aandacht trok en een recent artikel op Four Starters sloeg ook lekker in. De strekking van dat laatste artikel is dat de meeste mensen als een OpenID hebben, maar zich er niet van bewust zijn. Kijken of je toch een OpenID hebt, spoed je dan naar mijn OpenID generator.Als je niet wil dat er iets verandert, verandert er ook niets. Ik heb de wpopenid+ plugin hier geïnstalleerd om wat dingen met betrekking tot OpenID en innovatieve toepassingen hiervan uit te kunnen proberen. Dus misschien gaan dingen hier een beetje kapot in de komend tijd, maar ik probeer de gewoonlijke diensten hier zo goed mogelijk doorgang te doen vinden.\n","title":"OpenID een robuuste open manier van Single Sign On","type":"posts"},{"content":"Maar wel voldoende: 61% The Movie Quiz\nFilmCritic.com - Movie Reviews\n","date":"August 5, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/extreem-matige-score/","section":"Posts","summary":"Maar wel voldoende: 61% The Movie Quiz\n","title":"Extreem matige score","type":"posts"},{"content":"Zaterdag was ik even naar Amsterdam en kwam toen middenin de Gay Pride terecht. Ik heb het grotendeels genegeerd maar Michel heeft er foto\u0026rsquo;s van.\nIk was vroeg terug in Delft en op het sportveld in de buurt van het station was de laatste genezingsdienst net begonnen. Die diensten waar onlangs overal posters voor hingen: Ik heb collega\u0026rsquo;s die daadwerkelijk geloven in deze onzin. Het zijn geen domme mensen maar wat dit ene betreft gaat al hun verstand en moraliteit het raam uit. Ik had van één van hen gehoord dat op zo\u0026rsquo;n dienst je mensen genezen ziet worden en als j iets ziet dan moet je het wel geloven, toch?\nIets veroordelen zonder het ooit gezien te hebben moet kunnen, maar zo dicht in de buurt kon ik het niet laten om even een kijkje te nemen. Binnen werd ik allerhartelijkst begroet 1 en kon ik zitten kijken naar de dienst.\nDe aanwezigen waren een apart slag mensen, sociaal economisch niet al te best onderlegd maar daarnaast een grote groep mensen waaraan af te zien dat plezier en lol ze niet boeit. Lastig te beschrijven, mannen, kort geknipt, dun op het iele af, overhemd en das maar toch slecht en goedkoop gekleed, een beknepen gelaatsuitdrukking zonder echte emotie en vooral geen plezier. Mensen waaraan je af kunt zien dat ze niet voor dit leven leven.\nOp het podium stond een man —de prediker nam ik aan, een nogal glad type— die praatte op een rare toon en in hoog tempo. Hij leidde de dienst en hij had het over de raarste dingen. Af en toe werd er een gezamenlijk gebed ingezet waardoor veel mensen in de zaal begonnen te prevelen. Je kunt niet geloven wat je wil, maar allemaal mensen bij elkaar die hetzelfde prevelen heeft wel een machtig effect.\nDe gezamenlijke elementen van groepsgedrag zoals het bidden, zingen en samen dingen doen hebben hun beoogde dramaturgische effect op het publiek. Ik kan me goed voorstellen dat wanneer je opgevoed bent met de notie dat dit soort dingen goed zijn en je zwak van geest bent, je hierin blijf hangen.\nAf en toe werd de leiding overgenomen door een andere man die de aanwezige menigte opzweepte in gezang. Hetzelfde standaarduiterlijk als boven beschreven, maar nog wat kolderieker door een hoog opgetrokken broek met korte stropdas.\nDe prediker liet er geen gras over groeien en preekte wat standaarddingen, een paar gezegden en had het toen over geld. ‘Voor niets gaat de zon op’ en dat is waarschijnlijk dubbel waar in evangelische gemeenten. Na wat gehamer op de kosten van een bijeenkomst als deze, gingen de collectezakken rond door de zaal.\nEen goed gedeelte van dit geld ging waarschijnlijk ook naar de aanwezige Amerikaanse evangelist die de genezingen zou uitvoeren. Ik ben benieuwd naar de handjeklapregelingen waamee het geld na afloop wordt verdeeld 2 en wie hoeveel krijgt.\nDeze Amerikaan was een treurige oude man die door de aanwezigen werd onthaald als ware hij de nieuwe messiah. Hij begon een serie verhalen te vertellen die bijzonder implausibel waren en vol zaten met fouten. Maar de verhalen waren wel simpel en de thema\u0026rsquo;s vertrouwd, dus iedereen kon er rustig naar luisteren.\nVan deze Amerikaan heb ik onder andere geleerd dat ziekte voortkomt uit zonde en dat een geloof in god het enig is wat nodig is om eraan te ontkomen. Vertel dat maar aan al deze mensen: Een tijdje later werden de mensen die geheeld wilden worden in hun hart naar het podium ontboden. Mensen riepen rare dingen en achter me riepen mensen nog raardere dingen wat wel het spreken in tongen moest zijn 3. Het geheel had wat weg van een slecht theater, maar jongens laat theater en circus over aan de katholieken.\nIk zat er toen ruim een half uur en er was nog steeds niemand genezen. Nog steeds vol ongeloof en met een bekocht gevoel verliet ik de tent, deze boodschap met me meenemend: “They offered to save me from a life of sin, but I politely declined.”\nAls een verloren schaap; bijzonder naar maar tegelijkertijd te vriendelijk om boos op te kunnen worden.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nNatuurlijk geheel belastingvrij.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nNatuurlijk is het niet echt spreken in tongen, maar geloof doet rare dingen met mensen. Ik had gehoord van mijn collega\u0026rsquo;s dat er mensen zijn die dit doen. Voor hun eigen lol waarschijnlijk.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"August 5, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/nog-steeds-geneest-god/","section":"Posts","summary":"Zaterdag was ik even naar Amsterdam en kwam toen middenin de Gay Pride terecht. Ik heb het grotendeels genegeerd maar Michel heeft er foto’s van.\n","title":"Nog steeds geneest God","type":"posts"},{"content":" linksys, originally uploaded by illustir.\nSinds ik een Mac heb maak ik gebruik van het bestaande draadnetwerk in huis. Het is een beetje primitief maar met de twee kabels die er zijn kon ik op de meeste plekken wel internetten.\nDe drang naar WiFi was er wel maar het was nog niet zo makkelijk te realiseren. In de eerste plaats was onze internet router een oude Linux-bak 1 waar tegelijkertijd de webserver 2 van alper.nl op draaide. Dat moest dus blijven draaien. Met de recente migratie van alles van alper.nl naar Dreamhost is de weg dus vrij gemaakt voor het opheffen van die bak en het installeren van een echte draadloze router.\nVandaag deze oude FON router bij mijn ouders opgehaald en geïnstalleerd 3. Op Cristiano\u0026rsquo;s aanraden heb ik de Fon-firmware overschreven met dd-wrt wat bijzonder fijn werkt 4 en uit den treure configureerbaar lijkt.\nMis-configuratie # Ik probeerde na de nieuwe firmware de router draadloos te configureren en ik kwam op een langzame en vreemd uitziende gebruikersinterface uit. Hier een beetje rondgeklikt, het wachtwoord veranderd en een ACL voor Mac-adressen ingesteld.\nToen kwam ik er niet meer in en na het inpluggen van een kabel in mijn linksys kwam ik op een andere (!) —de juiste— admin interface terecht. Het blijkt dus dat ik de router van iemand anders in de buurt heb zitten configureren, maar nu kom ik (en waarschijnljk hij ook) er niet meer in.\nEerlijk delen # De enige functionaliteit die ik mis in de dd-wrt router is de mogelijkheid om mijn netwerk af te schermen maar voor mensen in de buurt een kleine internetlijn open te stellen. Ik waardeer het erg als ik ergens ben en er open WiFi is. Ik zou graag datzelfde willen aanbieden. Het schijnt dat die functionaliteit er in een volgende versie in komt.\nDie ook begon te piepen en te kraken. Ik weet niet meer hoeveel foute sectoren er op die harde schijf stonden maar blijkbaar markeert Linux die dan en gaat gewoon verder. Hij heeft prima als web-/fileserver gefunctioneerd met als enige manco dat de /-partitie minder dan 40Mb vrij had.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nDit waren zowel een Apache frontend webserver alswel een complete geproxyde Zope installatie waar het blog onder draaide. Het feit dat Zope zo bijzonder exotisch is, zorgde ervoor dat migratie naar een standaard PHP/MySQL hosting provider niet één-twee-drie geklaard was.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nHet idee was om aldaar een FON-hotspot te creëren maar UPC en die router konden niet zo goed met elkaar overweg.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nFon heb ik altijd bijzonder gebruikersonvriendelijk gevonden. Zeker niet geschikt om de burger ertoe te krijgen een draadloze revolutie voor elkaar te krijgen.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"August 4, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/eindelijk-wifi-in-huis/","section":"Posts","summary":" linksys, originally uploaded by illustir.\n","title":"Eindelijk WiFi in huis","type":"posts"},{"content":"Vrienden die komen eten is fijn. Eten, drinken en gesprekken.\nWat ik vaker ga doen is de camera in de woonkamer opstellen in studiostand: statief, afstandsbediening, egale achtergrond en dan wat foto\u0026rsquo;s van ze trekken. Of zoals in dit geval ze het zelf laten doen, terwijl ik sta te koken.\n","date":"August 2, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/vrienden-over-de-vloer/","section":"Posts","summary":"Vrienden die komen eten is fijn. Eten, drinken en gesprekken.\n","title":"Vrienden over de vloer","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ze hebben het in de politiek regelmatig over het verminderen van de regeldruk en dat het makkelijker moet worden voor mensen om te ondernemen. Dat dit met de mond beleden wordt, is zacht uitgedrukt.\nIedereen zou ondernemer moeten willen/kunnen zijn maar met de huidige complexiteit en overhead die ermee gepaard gaan is dat gewoon niet haalbaar. De regels zijn te ingewikkeld, de taal te ondoorzichtig en wat je allemaal moet bijhouden 1 is de moeite niet tenzij je een redelijk continue stroom van werk hebt.\nIk wil best een keer met een ambtenaar van MinFin of MinEZ en een zwarte stift gaan zitten aan de \u0026ldquo;startersgids ondernemen\u0026rdquo; van de belastingdienst voor een usability review. Gratis en voor nop. Dan kunnen we samen kijken op welke punten dingen simpeler en logischer kunnen.\nEen van mijn grote wensen zou zijn het compleet afschaffen van het concept omzetbelasting 2 maar als dat niet mogelijk mocht zijn, zie ik nog genoeg kansen om te komen tot een manier van ondernemen die bevatbaar is voor de gewone mens.\nOp papier! Wie gebruikt er in deze eeuw nou nog papier?\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nBeter bekend als BTW.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"August 2, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/verminderen-regeldruk-voor-de-burger/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ze hebben het in de politiek regelmatig over het verminderen van de regeldruk en dat het makkelijker moet worden voor mensen om te ondernemen. Dat dit met de mond beleden wordt, is zacht uitgedrukt.\n","title":"Verminderen regeldruk voor de burger","type":"posts"},{"content":"Maandag The Prophet van Khalil Gibran uitgelezen. Aardige teksten en immens quotebaar. Hier twee:\nAnd if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.\nFor what is your friend that you should seek him with hours to kill? Seek him always with hours to live.\n","date":"August 1, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/de-profeet/","section":"Posts","summary":"Maandag The Prophet van Khalil Gibran uitgelezen. Aardige teksten en immens quotebaar. Hier twee:\n","title":"De Profeet","type":"posts"},{"content":"Berichtje in de Parool van iets wat natuurlijk al veel langer bekend is. Als je dataverkeer verbruikt in het buitenland dan betaal je je compleet scheel aan roaming mobiele data rates. En je hoeft er niet eens voor naar het buitenland 1.\nDit is een duidelijk geval van marktfalen, maar wat te doen? Een maximumprijs instellen op deze diensten werkt niet, omdat er dan wordt onder-geïnvesteerd zoals op de energiemarkt van Californië. Nutsificeren zou tof zijn maar de animo daarvoor 2 is ontzettend laag.\nMarktfalen treedt meestal op juist door de inmenging van de overheid. Er zijn veel zogenaamd vrij markten waarvan er bijna geen een echt vrij is. Draadloos breedband werkt voor geen meter omdat de overheid wholesale monopolies heeft verkocht op de frequenties en daarin kan een operator compleet zijn eigen gang gaan. Monopolies zijn niet tof.\nIn Amerika heeft Google zich voor de veiling van de 700MHz-spectrum garant gesteld voor de reserveprijs van $4.6 miljard dollar als de spectrumovereenkomst aan een handjevol eisen wat betreft openheid zou voldoen. Dat is half gelukt en Cringely 3 had er al zijn bedenkingen bij. Monopolies uitdelen is een slecht plan, open monopolies uitdelen klinkt al een stuk beter. Dat is misschien ook een idee voor hier maar beter nog, waarom zijn er überhaupt frequentievergunningen nodig? Waarom mag niet iedereen zijn gang gaan? Het zal in het beginnen vast wel een zooitje worden maar met wat duwen in de goede richting 4 kan er vast wel een emergente orde worden gewonnen.\nIk ben niet echt een expert op dit onderwerp, maar mijn gevoel voor logica spreekt gewoon tegen monopolies van welke soort dan ook. Experts die hier iets over kwijt willen?\nDat bericht over Vodafone leidde toen geloof ik nog tot een aardig staaltje belangenverstrengeling.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nDe animo voor betrouwbare en goedkope diensten.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nIk heb geen idee wat ik van Cringely moet maken. Ik ben het wel met hem eens dat als het echt belangrijk is en Google de ballen heeft (het geld hebben ze wel) dat ze dan gewoon een grote stapel geld moeten neergooien en ermee weg moeten lopen.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nDoor de overheid.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"August 1, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/marktfalen-in-de-telecom/","section":"Posts","summary":"Berichtje in de Parool van iets wat natuurlijk al veel langer bekend is. Als je dataverkeer verbruikt in het buitenland dan betaal je je compleet scheel aan roaming mobiele data rates. En je hoeft er niet eens voor naar het buitenland 1.\n","title":"Marktfalen in de telecom","type":"posts"},{"content":"Barbecue in Uilenstede, goede vrienden en capoeira: En de hilarische: ","date":"July 29, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/het-was-weer-zon-weekend/","section":"Posts","summary":"Barbecue in Uilenstede, goede vrienden en capoeira: ","title":"Het was weer zo'n weekend","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik heb vandaag de rest van mijn tickets geboekt voor mijn reis half augustus. Het complete schema: 17/8 08.00-13.30 AMS-ADA 1 5/9 05:35-08:05 SAW 2-EIN 3 5/9 19:35-19:36 EIN-STN 4 9/9 19:20-21:25 STN-AMS\nIk ben van plan om vanuit Adana over Antakya naar Aleppo te reizen en dan verder in Syrië nog wat dingen te bezoeken als het Krak en Palmyra. Volgens berichten op verschillende plaatsen is Syrië veiliger dan Oost-Europa en ik heb er dan ook goede zin in. Mijn ouders denken er heel wat anders over, maar die zijn nu op vakantie. We zien wel wat daarvan komt.\nVerder op de planning via Konya terugreizen, familiebezoek in Kırşehir en dan een paar dagen relaxen in İstanbul voor ik via Eindhoven naar Londen vlieg.\nDeze week maar even visum en inentingen regelen en ik stel mijn ouders wel gerust als ze terug zijn.\nAdana\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nIstanbul Sabiha Gökçen\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nEindhoven\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nLondon Stansted\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"July 24, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/vliegen-van-hot-naar-her/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik heb vandaag de rest van mijn tickets geboekt voor mijn reis half augustus. Het complete schema: 17/8 08.00-13.30 AMS-ADA 1 5/9 05:35-08:05 SAW 2-EIN 3 5/9 19:35-19:36 EIN-STN 4 9/9 19:20-21:25 STN-AMS\n","title":"Vliegen van hot naar her","type":"posts"},{"content":"Fijn om gebruiksvriendelijke innovatie te zien in alledaagse producten waarvan je dacht dat het eigenlijk af was. In dit geval in het \u0026ldquo;Verse volle melk\u0026rdquo; pak van het huismerk van Albert Heijn.\nZie Flickr voor de commentaren in het Engels.\nWat het compleet af gemaakt had in mijn ogen en iets wat een stuk moeilijker in te schatten is dan hoe vol een pak is 1, is of een pak melk nog goed is. Dit is zeker voor mensen met een ondergemiddelde reukzin 2 3 nogal eens een uitdaging. Een simpele indicator 4, die vel of vies groen wordt als het pak bedorven is, zou perfect geweest zijn. En ik weet ook wel waarom dat er niet in zit. De stansvorm van die pakken aanpassen is simpel en weinig ingrijpend; een indicator verwerken in het binnenwerk lijkt me een stuk moeilijker.\nToch is ook de vloeistofmeter een geweldige innovatie. Het is goed uitgewerkt tot en met de melkfles-vergelijking aan toe en dat laat zien dat er veel aandacht heeft gezeten in het redesign. Daarnaast zijn innovaties, die grenzen doorbreken en transparantie bevorderen, fijn. In dit geval is het dichterbij brengen van de wereld binnenin het pak tot die daarbuiten, een leuk staaltje informatie-inzichtelijkheid.\nDit is goed te doen door een pak melk op te pakken. Ik kan me vergissen, maar volgens mij is dat voor de mensen van alle leeftijden en mogelijkheden makkelijker dan de juiste kant van een pak vinden en de vloeistofmaat aflezen.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nOf compleet afwezige reukzin wat weleens wil gebeuren.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nOf die gewoon vroeg zijn opgestaan en nog geen koffie hebben gehad. Het is flink afknappen als je een cappuccino probeert te maken met bedorven melk.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nMisschien een vergelijkbare cirkelvormige uitsparing onderin het pak\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"July 23, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/alledaagse-innovatie/","section":"Posts","summary":"Fijn om gebruiksvriendelijke innovatie te zien in alledaagse producten waarvan je dacht dat het eigenlijk af was. In dit geval in het “Verse volle melk” pak van het huismerk van Albert Heijn.\n","title":"Alledaagse innovatie","type":"posts"},{"content":"Morgen zijn er verkiezingen in Turkije. Dit zijn redelijk controversiële verkiezingen om een boel redenen. De belangrijkste daarvan is het feit dat de AKP afstevent op een flinke overwinning. De AKP is een islamitische partij en dat ligt wat ongemakkelijk in Turkije. Ik heb al gereageerd op Sargasso. Nu hier wat uitgebreider.\nIn de afgelopen weken heeft Ben Hammersley voor de BBC verslag gedaan van de situatie in Turkije in zijn \u0026ldquo;Turkish Journey\u0026rdquo; 1. Met een minimale bemanning en uitrusting liet Hammersley een knap staaltje van digitaal multi-channel journalistiek (motivatie) zien. Hij reisde de vier hoeken van Turkije af om de verschillende perspectieven op de verkiezingen te belichten.\nZijn verslag over Turkije is goed maar zijn berichten van achter de schermen zijn ook ontzettend interessant. Boeiend om te zien hoe met drie mensen zoveel verslag kan worden gedaan. Zie op YouTube zijn filmpjes en live segmenten op BBC World. Zijn documentaire wordt maandagochtend nog om 09.30 (CET) uitgezonden op BBC World. Ik heb hem al gemailed met de vraag of hij nog ergens online beschikbaar komt binnenkort.\nHoor ik net Ebru Umar 2 tegenover een genuanceerde Joost Lagendijk op het oog nog even wild en voorspelbaar om zich heen slaan tegen de AKP. Vergelijkbaar met de bekrompen seculier die wordt beschreven in dit artikel van Akyol. Rhetoriek en vergelijkingen dat met de AKP Turkije verandert in een soort Iran zijn grof overtrokken.\nVergelijkbaar met het feit dat in Nederland het CDA de grootste partij is, is het niet ontzettend vreemd dat in Turkije een partij als de AKP de grootste is 3. In Akyol\u0026rsquo;s vervolgstuk laat hij zien dat de moslims van de AKP ver af staan van extremisten en juist een sterke reformatie doormaken onder invloed van globalisering en economische groei. In zijn redenering zijn de rabiate tegenstanders van de AKP juist de starre reactionairen waar niet mee te praten valt.\nDe Gurbet Vote # Voor het eerst in lange tijd worden de verkiezingen gehouden in de zomer en hebben de Turkse gastarbeiders 4 de mogelijkheid om te stemmen 5. Het lijkt erop dat dit in het voordeel van de AKP kan werken.Wat zouden nou redenen kunnen zijn voor mensen hier om te stemmen op de AKP?\nEconomische groei: Turkije heeft in de afgelopen jaren meer economische groei dan ooit doorgemaakt. Er is voor het eerst in tijden sprake van economisch optimisme. Het is fijn voor Turken in Nederland als het beter gaat met de achterblijvers, maar een bijkomend effect is dat Turken remigreren omdat ze de sfeer hier niet fijn vinden en voor het eerst in Turkije betere kansen hebben. Toenadering tot Europa: De AKP is de partij die veel van de eisen van Europa heeft ingewilligd en wetswijzigingen heeft doorgevoerd. Deze toenadering tot Europa is niet onvoorwaardelijk. Onder Turken 6 leeft het idee heel sterk dat Turkije Europa minder hard nodig heeft dan Europa Turkije en dat Europa (terecht) bang is voor de economische, demografische, militaire en religieuze macht van Turkije. Turkije dat Europa nadert is fijn voor Turken die in Europa wonen. Minder invloed van het leger: De AKP is er veel aan gelegen om de macht van het leger in Turkije te beperken. Dit zou een afschaffing van de dienstplicht voor Turken in het buitenland dichterbij kunnen brengen 7. De dienstplicht is geen ramp, maar het is een verkwisting van tijd en geld waar we zonder zouden kunnen. Minder bullshit: Ik heb tot nu toe nog nooit een touw kunnen vastknopen aan de Turkse politiek. Door de opgefokte rhetoriek en onzin die van alle kanten wordt afgevuurd is het lastig te duiden. Bij de AKP heb ik het idee dat er iets minder loze rhetoriek wordt gebezigd. Het is een beetje de vraag wanneer de stemmen geteld zijn maar morgen wordt een spannende dag en maandag zien we wel met wat voor een Turkije we te maken hebben.Update: Hammersley mail terug dat ergens in de komende week de documentaire online te bezichtigen zal zijn.\nIn de Volkskrant van afgelopen zaterdag ook een aardig artikel over de Turkse splagaat.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nIk vond haar vroeger cooler dan nu.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nIk vind het geval in Nederland eigenlijk vreemder. Je zou denken dat Nederlanders losser zijn van de kerk.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\ngurbetciler\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nTurkse staatsburgers mogen op Turks grondgebied hun stem uitbrengen. Het schijnt dat er voor mensen die invliegen en dus geen kiezerspas hebben stemlokalen zijn ingericht op de vliegvelden.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nZie bijvoorbeeld de moslimmeisjes bij Hammersley.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nOok al is er op dit moment geen sprake van.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"July 22, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/turkije-kiest-jij-komt-toch-ook/","section":"Posts","summary":"Morgen zijn er verkiezingen in Turkije. Dit zijn redelijk controversiële verkiezingen om een boel redenen. De belangrijkste daarvan is het feit dat de AKP afstevent op een flinke overwinning. De AKP is een islamitische partij en dat ligt wat ongemakkelijk in Turkije. Ik heb al gereageerd op Sargasso. Nu hier wat uitgebreider.\n","title":"Turkije kiest - Jij komt toch ook?","type":"posts"},{"content":"Sterk staaltje culture jamming in de fietstunnel van het station van Delft. Het overplakken van zichzelf te serieus nemende troep is cool. Misschien komt er op dit blog binnenkort nog een stukje over godsdienstwaanzin dat de kop op steekt 1 en over de trend dat ruwweg de helft van de mensen steeds dommer wordt en steeds minder in staat om het hoofd te bieden aan de moderne complexe wereld waardoor ze hun toevlucht zoeken in dit soort bijgeloof en reactionaire politieke stromingen.\n(meer op Flickr)\nIk zag vorige nog wat andere affiches over \u0026ldquo;Kruistochten\u0026rdquo; van het een en ander.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"July 22, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/mind-the-hoax/","section":"Posts","summary":"Sterk staaltje culture jamming in de fietstunnel van het station van Delft. Het overplakken van zichzelf te serieus nemende troep is cool. ","title":"Mind the hoax","type":"posts"},{"content":"Altijd leuk om vrienden de dood te zien tarten.\n","date":"July 22, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/geronimo/","section":"Posts","summary":"Altijd leuk om vrienden de dood te zien tarten.\n","title":"Geronimo!","type":"posts"},{"content":"Maandag al een poging gewaagd om mijn allerlaatste practicum af te laten tekenen en er toen niet in geslaagd. Met mijn uitgestelde afstuderen heb ik wat vrienden de kans gegeven om toch nog eerder dan ik af te studeren. Daarnaast heb ik voor mezelf wat tijd uitgespaard om op adem te komen, te surfen en de andere dingen te doen die gedaan moeten.\nHet practicum schoot maandag niet op en niet een klein beetje niet op maar het zat echt muurvast. Na nog een poging vandaag hebben we de handdoek maar in de ring gegooid en het toch afgetekend. Storend dat je na zoveel werk, zo dichtbij het antwoord blijft steken, maar op dit moment kan het me niet zo heel veel meer schelen.\nHet lijkt erop dat ik nu ben afgestudeerd, maar na zoveel keer een valse finish geloof ik het pas als ik mijn bul in handen heb. Ik moet nu nog even wachten op een tentamenuitslag 1 en dan kan ik de tickets gaan boeken voor mijn vakantie.\nVakantieplannen: Er is nog niet heel veel zeker, maar het culmineert 5 september in Londen waarna vrijdag 7 september in Brighton 2 voor ik dat weekend weer terugreis naar Nederland. De bocht door Turkije maken en Istanbul aandoen lijkt me nog steeds leuk, maar daar beslis ik deze week verder over.\nUpdate: Ik heb een 8 voor het tentamen!\nDie uitslagen schijnen gisteren of vandaag gepost te zijn op Blackboard maar dat is nu juist deze hele week in een testopstelling vanwege de upgrade.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nVoor dConstruct 2007 \u0026ldquo;Designing the User Experience\u0026rdquo;\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"July 18, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/eindelijk-dan-voorbij/","section":"Posts","summary":"Maandag al een poging gewaagd om mijn allerlaatste practicum af te laten tekenen en er toen niet in geslaagd. Met mijn uitgestelde afstuderen heb ik wat vrienden de kans gegeven om toch nog eerder dan ik af te studeren. Daarnaast heb ik voor mezelf wat tijd uitgespaard om op adem te komen, te surfen en de andere dingen te doen die gedaan moeten.\n","title":"Eindelijk dan voorbij?","type":"posts"},{"content":"Iedereen die enige tijd online heeft doorgebracht kent de dansroutine van OK GO voor het lied “A Million Ways”wel en de vele vele keren dat het nagedaan is door mensen over de hele wereld.\nHieronder is de eerste keer dat ik het heb zien nadoen op het ijs en dan wel in een erg goed uitgevoerde routine tijdens een wedstrijd:\n(via Ben)\nIk denk niet dat iemand van de aanwezigen het snapt, maar die groep mensen wordt groter en groter. Hoe lang nog voordat LOLCATS op billboards prijken?\n","date":"July 15, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/internetcultuur-dringt-het-gewone-leven-binnen/","section":"Posts","summary":"Iedereen die enige tijd online heeft doorgebracht kent de dansroutine van OK GO voor het lied “A Million Ways”wel en de vele vele keren dat het nagedaan is door mensen over de hele wereld.\n","title":"Internetcultuur dringt het gewone leven binnen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Immens respect voor het project waarop nu dan eindelijk de storm is losgebarsten van de Gentse Feesten. Hóe veel mooie foto\u0026rsquo;s 1 en wat een gedetailleerd verslag.\nKijkje a chter de schermen bij de redaktie op Michel Vuijlsteke\u0026rsquo;s weblog.\nVolgende week misschien even naar Gent rijden om er wat van mee te maken.\nVooral als je doorklikt op de artikelen.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"July 14, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/gent-begint-te-feesten/","section":"Posts","summary":"Immens respect voor het project waarop nu dan eindelijk de storm is losgebarsten van de Gentse Feesten. Hóe veel mooie foto’s 1 en wat een gedetailleerd verslag.\n","title":"Gent begint te feesten","type":"posts"},{"content":"De politie gebruikt bij inperkingen van de privacy altijd het argument ‘Als u niets te verbergen heeft, heeft u ook niets te vrezen.’\nVolgens diezelfde logika laat dit filmpje op Geen Stijl 1 zien dat de politie zelf blijkbaar heel veel te verbergen heeft.\nÉén van de weinige keren dat Geen Stijl iets goeds doet.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"July 14, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/een-echte-vent-wordt-geen-agent/","section":"Posts","summary":"De politie gebruikt bij inperkingen van de privacy altijd het argument ‘Als u niets te verbergen heeft, heeft u ook niets te vrezen.’\n","title":"Een echte vent wordt geen agent","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik bladerde net door de feed van onze Capoeira-site heen en ik moet zeggen dat ik er toch wel erg blij mee ben. Een aardige stroom van berichten met redelijk sterke foto\u0026rsquo;s flink groot 1 geplaatst is toch wel erg cool.Dat moest ik even kwijt.\n500px\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"July 11, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/capoeira-sites/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik bladerde net door de feed van onze Capoeira-site heen en ik moet zeggen dat ik er toch wel erg blij mee ben. Een aardige stroom van berichten met redelijk sterke foto’s flink groot 1 geplaatst is toch wel erg cool.Dat moest ik even kwijt.\n","title":"Capoeira sites","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik lees nu \u0026ldquo;All life is problem solving\u0026rdquo; 1 van Karl Popper en het is zware kost 2 maar ook erg waardevol en boeiend. Vergeef het vage gezwam, maar ik ga af en toe wat inhoud van wat ik lees hier verwerken.\nZojuist heb ik de lezing over het Geest-Lichaamprobleem uit en daar komen wel wat interessante ideeën uit voort. Popper pakt dit probleem aan door alles te verdelen in drie werelden.\nWereld 1: De wereld van de fysieke dingen. Wereld 2: De wereld van onze subjectieve gedachtenprocessen. Wereld 3: De wereld van de logische inhoud van onze gedachten en objectieve stellingen 3.\nDeze drie werelden beïnvloeden elkaar in zoverre als wij met onze gedachten in wereld 2 ertussen bemiddelen. Zowel in wereld 1 als in wereld 3 zijn er onafhankelijke entiteiten de ontdekken.In het geval van wereld 1 kun je denken aan de eerste keer dat iemand de Mount Everest zag wat leidde tot nieuwe gedachten.\nVoor wereld 3 is een aardig voorbeeld de ontdekking van de priemgetallen. De natuurlijke getallen zijn voortgekomen uit de werkelijkheid en onze behoefte om dingen te quantificeren. Priemgetallen zijn een ontdekte logische eigenschap van de natuurlijke getallen ontdekt door de mensen die op onderzoek uitgingen in hun hoofd en in wereld 3.\nOp het einde van de lezing raakt Popper pas aan de boeiendere gevolgen van deze manier van kijken. Hij trekt de parallel van zijn theorie van wetenschappelijke ontdekking. Hierin staan problemen en onze pogingen om deze op te lossen door middel van hypothesen, theorieën etc. centraal. Op deze manier proberen we de werkelijkheid zo goed mogelijk te beschrijven en de objectieve waarheid uit wereld 3 zo goed mogelijk te benaderen.\nHet vertellen van verhalen en mythes zoals dat vroeger gebeurde als verklaring voor de werkelijkheid was een manier om de eerste stappen te zetten in wereld 3 of deze verhalen nou klopten of niet. Op een gegeven moment onstond te noodzaak om onderscheid te maken tussen meer en minder ware verhalen.Dit deed me denken aan het belang van het vertellen van verhalen in de privacy discussie. Niet alles van elkaar weten stelt ons in staat om eigen stellingen te construeren in wereld 3 om onszelf en onze omgeving anders —beter— voor te stellen dan het in feite is. Stel dat er overal beveiligingscamera\u0026rsquo;s zijn dan gaan gebeurtenissen uit wereld 1 voorbij aan onze subjectieve interpretaties en toevallige filtering in wereld 2 en worden ze meteen gearchiveerd als objectieve waarheid.\nVertaald, maar ik had hem al gekocht.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nGelukkig niet zo zwaar als \u0026ldquo;Objective Knowledge\u0026rdquo;\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nDie niet per se waar hoeven te zijn\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"July 9, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/drie-werelden-over-waarheid-en-menselijkheid/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik lees nu “All life is problem solving” 1 van Karl Popper en het is zware kost 2 maar ook erg waardevol en boeiend. Vergeef het vage gezwam, maar ik ga af en toe wat inhoud van wat ik lees hier verwerken.\n","title":"Drie Werelden over Waarheid en Menselijkheid","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik moest afgelopen week studeren voor mijn laatste tentamen deze woensdag 1 dus toen ging ik als vanzelf andere dingen doen.\nPlannen maken voor van de zomer is bijvoorbeeld een leuk tijdverdrijf, bijvoorbeeld alle dingen die ik wil doen op een rijtje. zetten en zien waar er gaten vallen om veel te werken of op vakantie te gaan. Toen een beetje gezocht op low-cost airlines om te zien wat er mogelijk is in die gaten.\nVandaar ook deze Jaiku. Ik heb Turkije ondertussen wel genoeg gezien, maar het is een prima uitvalsbasis om de omliggende landen te bekijken en dan gaat mijn interesse niet uit naar de Europese kant.\nFoto door xslim\nMijn moeder flipte bij het idee, maar hoe meer ik erover lees hoe veiliger, leuker en bijzonderder een reisbestemming Syrië me lijkt. Naar verluid buitengewoon vriendelijke mensen, ontzettend veel historische dingen te bekijken, geen massatoerisme en een kans om wat Arabisch in het wild te horen.\nFoto door zerega\nIk word bij reisbestemmingen wel beïnvloed of er al mensen heen zijn geweest die ik ken. Georgië zou eventueel ook kunnen, maar het is redelijk ver weg en ik ken al mensen die daar geweest zijn.\nFoto door Jungle Boy\nDus zodra blijkt dat ik mijn tentamen echt gehaald heb en ik dus vrij ben van half augusuts tot begin september, maar even wat tickets gaan boeken.\nin4012 Real Time AI and Speech Recognition wat ik gruwelijk hard heb ingekopt.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"July 5, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/plannen-van-de-zomer/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik moest afgelopen week studeren voor mijn laatste tentamen deze woensdag 1 dus toen ging ik als vanzelf andere dingen doen.\n","title":"Plannen van de zomer","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik zag net op het nieuws (!) een reclame voor de campagne Digibewust van de overheid. Toen heb ik voor de grap de test Digibarometer maar ingevuld.\nDe test staat boordevol domme en buitengewoon gekleurde vragen waaraan afgemeten wordt hoe braaf je wel niet bent geweest. Met als klap op de vuurpijl “Gebruikt u bedrijf software zonder licentie 1 en slaan medewerkers auteursrechtelijk beschermde informatie (muziek e.d.) op op bedrijfs-pc\u0026rsquo;s 2.” Verder is de acteur die de test afneemt ontzettend irritant, kneuterig en eigenlijk precies hoe ik me de gemiddelde Nederlandse ICT-adviseur voorstel.\nUiteindelijk kom ik er niet eens achter wat mijn resultaat is omdat de laatste pagina het volgende scherm is: Juist ja, je kunt het rapport alleen maar opgestuurd krijgen en of je even je bedrijfsnaam in wilt vullen nadat je een hele serie bijzonder gevoelige vragen hebt beantwoordt. En je kunt wel kans maken op bezoek van een adviseur van een of ander vaag ICT-bedrijf.\nEen ontzettende hoerenbende dus, en niet zo gek als je bedenkt dat de partners van deze test KPN, Microsoft, UPC en nog wat vage adviesorganen zijn. Gelukkig zit de hele site in een Flashtrocity en zullen deze bedrijven op deze manier niet gevonden worden. Het doel van deze test is puur om meer bedrijven afhankelijk te maken van de producten en diensten van Microsoft en haar vazallen.\nHet gezonde alternatief: bouw je ICT-infrastructuur rondom open diensten en standaarden, zo veel mogelijk web based en dan Macs, Linux-bakken of desnoods Windows XP 3 als cliënten. Neem de ICT-diensten en kennis af van kleine automatiseerders met jonge slimme gasten uit de regio.\nNoot: Ik ben er achter wat een ontzettend naar leven mensen zonder Apple computers toch moeten hebben. Ik heb gisteren mijn Macbook voor de laatste keer ingeleverd ter reparatie en heb sindsdien thuis mijn oude Linux bak opgestart 4 en nu heb ik voor een practicum maar weer even XP aangezwengeld 5. Het is bizar hoe inferieure de gebruikerservaring op deze twee besturingssystemen is vergeleken met OS X.\nIk krijg weleens het commentaar \u0026lsquo;Apple is kut want die van jou is om de haverklap stuk.\u0026rsquo; Dat mag wel zo zijn, maar als er een beter alternatief was dan zou ik dat heus wel gebruiken 6. Ik geef Ubuntu een kans over een jaar of vijf, tot dan blijft het OS X.\nElk bedrijf gebruikt wel software zonder licentie. Het gaat erom of illegale software geen gemeengoed is en er degelijk beleid omtrent wordt gevoerd.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nJa, natuurlijk als je op je werk muziek wilt luisteren. Het mag vast niet maar als je een CD gekocht hebt, is hij van jou.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nMijd Vista als de pest.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nDie kwam ik achter Sarge draait —de vorige stable versie van Debian— die moet ik binnenkort maar weer eens upgraden. Kijken of twee complete dist-upgrades goed gaan.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nToch wel handig om alle drie de OS\u0026rsquo;en thuis te hebben draaien.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nIk ben geen masochist maar ik ben er sinds gisteravond wel achter hoezeer ik dat was toen ik nog Linux gebruikte. Het herconfigureren van je netwerkinstellingen onder GNOME is geen pretje, zeker niet als je netwerk sinds kort DHCP gebruikt en je dhclient niet geïnstalleerd hebt.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"July 3, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/digibewust-maar-beter-voor-de-leverancier-dan-de-afnemer/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik zag net op het nieuws (!) een reclame voor de campagne Digibewust van de overheid. Toen heb ik voor de grap de test Digibarometer maar ingevuld.\n","title":"Digibewust maar beter voor de leverancier dan de afnemer","type":"posts"},{"content":"Hier nog even de foto\u0026rsquo;s van de tacos van laatst. Het was erg lekker maar het kan nog verbeterd. Foto\u0026rsquo;s maken terwijl je aan het koken bent is niet handig.\nFijn om nu te weten hoe je tortillas met ei en aardappel maakt. In Spanje overal te krijgen, een eenvoudige maar erg lekkere snack.\nDe tortillakoeken zijn niet heel goed gelukt 1 maar ze waren nog steeds stukken lekkerder —en minder rubberachtig— dan de dingen die je in de supermarkt koopt. Het maken van je eigen brood geeft ook een goed gevoel.\nVerkruim de boter door de bloem: Laat de deegballetjes even rusten: Snij een tortilla in blokjes: Bak de aardappelen in de maïsolie: Rol de koeken uit en bak ze: En stop ze in een geïmproviseerde tortillahouder: Bak de twee smaken tortilla. Met aardappel: Met tomaat-ui-peper: En eet het op: Waarschijnlijk door het gebrek aan bakpoeder.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"July 3, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/tacos-een-verslag/","section":"Posts","summary":"Hier nog even de foto’s van de tacos van laatst. Het was erg lekker maar het kan nog verbeterd. Foto’s maken terwijl je aan het koken bent is niet handig.\n","title":"Tacos, een verslag","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik was gisteren op de JavaONE Afterglow in Affligem en hier zijn mijn aantekeningen van een sessie daar (geconverteerd van Markdown):\nJava on the Desktop by Sebastien Stormacq\nHow much Java is out there? # 91% of all PCs run Java platform Distribution through OEMs and JR software redistribution agreements\nQ: What is the state of bundled video codecs for the Java platform (FLV)?\nExample applications # Lightzone Myspace video uploader (IILWY.com does the same with Flash and does it very well)\nNote for Roel: Inglewood\nsweet spots: First wave of applets enterprise applications developer tools (Eclipse) large consumer deskotp applications (Azureus)\nQ: Under attack from Flash, XUL and Silverlight, C#/Mono\nBadnews # Goodnews: aware of problems and working on solutions (hopefully) soon\nStartup time (coldstart) # Coldstart: 5-10 seconds, not acceptable Warmstart (after a recent run of VM): \u0026lt; 1-2 seconds Coldstart: about disk cache, java platform reads a lot from disk Solutions: preloading Java on the OS level Rearranging rt.jar Quickstarter: preloads memory pages with help from the OS pages can be flushed if needed\nInstall time and process # 7-15MB download which extracts to 40+ MB Lots of small files\nSolution: Kernel JVM Bare essentials to get your program running immediately Additional dependencies later via web Kernel is 2MB: Core JRE, Web Start, Plug-in, Installer\nRoel questions hom big a part are the Corba and RMI parts?\nJRE software detection and installation # No good way to detect JR software existence and version from browser Developers use \u0026ldquo;Get Java\u0026rdquo; button which takes users away from the site\nApplets constrained to lowest-common-denominator APIs between MS VM or JDK 1.1\nSolution: deployment toolkit Javascript solution hosted by Sun Redirects to download site, polls for succesful install and redirects back to original site\nThis already exists.\nWindows Graphics Acceleration # Directx9 based pipeline High performance for Swing and 2D\nNimbus # Modern look and feel\nhttp://nimbus.dev.java.net Scaleable and resolution independnt\nLooks quite pretty.\nComing soon: consumer Java Runtime Environment # In Java6\nQuickstarter Kernel Deployment toolkit Windows Grphics acceleration Nimbus look \u0026amp; feel Planning is subject to change\nMedia # Java Technology needs a standard media solutino Support for native formast through native players Swing components for video/audio playback\nQ: No builtin codecs?\nCross platform codec for standardization in the Java world\n3D # You can do 3D with Java right now\nAnimation # Modern desktops are getting more animated Widget toolkits which do not support this run the risk of looking outdated\nSwing supports basic control animation, very manual to do more\nNeed: \\* Better timing facilities \\* Animations and effects\nComponents # Translucent windows Shaped top-level components\nSimplifying GUI development with Netbeans # Netbeans GUI builder: Matisse # Simple and intuitive GUI layout\nSuggests component alignment and spacing\nIntroduces the Group-Layout manager\nTransparent Internationalization\nQ: How does this work? WYSIWIG code builds a DOM of controls this DOM is serialized into Java Code edits in the Java code are parsed and the visual representation of the dom is redrawn\nSwing Application Framework # Goals: \\* As small and simple as possible \\* Explain it in one hour \\* Standard basic appliaction architecture \\* Works very well for small/medium apps \\* No integral docking framework, generic data model, scripting language, GUI markup schema\nLifecycle # Actions # Nice encapsulation, behaviour manages enable/selected state\nOverhead in creating Action classes Visual properties should be l8n Asynchronous Actions are difficult enable/selection wiring can be a mess\n@Action \u0026ldquo;sayHello\u0026rdquo; ActionMap entry ActionEvent argument is optional\nBackground thread for \\* computationally intensive tasks \\* task that might block Monitor for: \\* starting, interrupting, finishing \\* progress \\* messages \\* descriptive information SwingWorker does most of this\nTask extends SwingWorker\nResources # Tasks # Session State # user preferences like window size etc.\nCreate subclass of Application Create and show your GUI in the startup method Use Application-Context services to\nFlickr Photo Viewer # Demo taks using Netbeans running on Solaris running on Parallels on a Macbook Pro\nMac version of Java has a bug concerning multiple screens\nDemos a Flickr picture retriever using Matisse\nWysiwig buildup allows you to build flexible resizable GUIs\nUses a precoded Flickr.java file with a lot of code It would be easier (in a scripting language) to do a REST call and parse the resulting XML (2 lines of code)\nAction of retrieving an image from Flickr blocks the GUI\nAlper: This would have saved me hours and hours while still at university.\nhttp://appframework.dev.java.net\nBeans Binding # Source object Target object\nSource to target: Converter Target to source: Converter + Validator\nAnother demo showing how to bind beans from various controllers to each other\nAnd another demo showing a (no lines of code written) database connection and Access style data editor\nJava FX Script by David Delabassee\nWhat is JavaFX Script? # Programming language for the java Platform\nSimple syntax somewhere between ActionScript and Javascript\nShows Silver Surfer application with animation and other graphical effects and playing of video through the Java Quicktime binding\nObject oriented Declarative syntax Statically typed + type inference Automatic data binding Extensive Widget libarry encompassing swing and Java 2D Tutorial widget where you can adjust the values of JavaFX objects and their properties live.\nHave built a JavaFX version of a lot of Flash applications to demo that the same thing is possible using Java.\nQ: Java tring to kill the Flash hegemony? Both have a ridiculous amount of presence and penetration. Flash does not have a strong mobile presence yet but Java is already there, could capitalize on that presence.\nInsted of using Quicktime binding on the mobile, use a binding to run 3GP files natively and stuff\nRoel: Quicktime for Java (ask Reinier)\nHTML5 wants to adjust HTML to be capable of most of this out of the box.\njfx.org to learn more JavaFX Mobile\nDeploy the exact same application both on desktop, web and mobile\n","date":"June 27, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/javaone-afterglow-desktop-java/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik was gisteren op de JavaONE Afterglow in Affligem en hier zijn mijn aantekeningen van een sessie daar (geconverteerd van Markdown):\n","title":"JavaONE Afterglow - Desktop Java","type":"posts"},{"content":"Treffende one liners, spectaculaire actie en wat gebeurt er toch rond tijdsindex 0:24?\nEelke studeert af en het belooft een spetterend half uur te worden. Het gaat komende vrijdag 13.45 down in de van Grintenzaal op de faculteit IO.\n","date":"June 27, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/a-bag-fitting-for-your-life/","section":"Posts","summary":"Treffende one liners, spectaculaire actie en wat gebeurt er toch rond tijdsindex 0:24?\n","title":"A bag fitting for your life","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ben Hammersley —fotograaf, schrijver, journalist, presentator, wat niet eigenlijk?— gaat voor de BBC de aankomende verkiezingen in Turkije verslaan (Frank schrijft er ook over).\nHij doet dit live voor BBC World maar hij deelt meteen een groot deel van zijn bevindingen op de site van de BBC en behind the scenes materiaal op zijn eigen blog en op YouTube.\nHoe meer ik erover nadenk, hoe leuker dit werk me lijkt. De combinatie van intelligent kunnen schrijven en om kunnen gaan met digitale media en computers is geloof ik zeldzaam genoeg.\nNu kan ik vast ergens naar een school voor journalistiek waar niet in te komen valt om mezelf te laten indoctrineren met belegen oude media paradigma\u0026rsquo;s waarna je je weg mag vinden op redacties vol met (vriendjes)politiek.\nNee dank je, ik ga volgende keer op reis wel wat oefenen met videobloggen.\n","date":"June 27, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/online-en-open-journalisme/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ben Hammersley —fotograaf, schrijver, journalist, presentator, wat niet eigenlijk?— gaat voor de BBC de aankomende verkiezingen in Turkije verslaan (Frank schrijft er ook over).\n","title":"Online en open journalisme","type":"posts"},{"content":"Vorige week al een paar foto\u0026rsquo;s opgestuurd naar de Fotobister 1 als test en opgehaald. Fysieke foto\u0026rsquo;s zijn best leuk.\nGisteren de rest van mijn selectie ge-upload naar de site en ik kon ze vanmiddag al ophalen 2. Daarna de foto\u0026rsquo;s uitgespreid, gesorteerd en gestickered.\nHerken je jezelf op één van de foto\u0026rsquo;s, dan kun je er binnenkort eentje verwachten.\nWat is dat voor een naam?\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nZe hebben ook een klaar terwijl u wacht service maar dan betaal je meer én je moet wachten.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"June 25, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/prints/","section":"Posts","summary":"Vorige week al een paar foto’s opgestuurd naar de Fotobister 1 als test en opgehaald. Fysieke foto’s zijn best leuk.\n","title":"Prints","type":"posts"},{"content":"Je kunt praten wat je wilt over het gebrek aan engagement in de samenleving en dat niemand meer bereid is tot actie maar misschien is dat wel een goed teken.\nJe moet wel heel veel tijd en heel weinig intelligentie hebben om alles wat je hebt te laten vallen, ergens heen te gaan met een grote groep andere mensen en je te scharen achter een gepolariseerd standpunt en ongenuanceerde slogans.\nNoem eens een voorbeeld van een demonstratie van intelligente mensen?\nVoorbeeld # Actievoerders van GroenFront 1 bezetten de afgelopen week onderdelen van de route van de Betuwelijn (zie IndyMedia). Die Betuwelijn ligt er nu toch, dan kun je hem toch maar net zo goed gebruiken ook? Ja, er is misschien natuur vernield maar als je de Betuwelijn nu buitenwerking stelt is dat pas echt zinloos geweest.\nIk dacht dat spoor het normaal gesproken goed deed bij milieubewuste mensen. Het lijkt me allicht beter dat dingen over deze treinverbinding worden vervoerd dan over de weg door Nederland, maar misschien ben ik dan niet goed geïnformeerd.\nLinks-autonome groene types.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"June 24, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/actievoerder-zijn-niet-de-intelligentste-mensen/","section":"Posts","summary":"Je kunt praten wat je wilt over het gebrek aan engagement in de samenleving en dat niemand meer bereid is tot actie maar misschien is dat wel een goed teken.\n","title":"Actievoerders zijn niet de intelligentste mensen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Fok meldt dat Joshua Livestro bij Buitenhof de laan uit is gestuurd. Dit is een goede zaak. Toen hij aantrad viel het al tegen en veel beter is het er niet op geworden.\nAls columnist kwam Livestro simpelweg niet scherp en intelligent genoeg over en dan is het snel afgelopen.\nUiteraard zoekt Livestro de oorzaak niet bij zijn eigen tekort geschoten kwaliteiten maar haalt hij in de Telegraaf uit naar de redactie. Die redactie is waarschijnlijk ook zo links als de pest 1, maar iemand als Paul Cliteur heeft zonder problemen bij Buitenhof zijn columns kunnen uitspreken 2.\nHad hij het venijn bij de Telegraaf 3 4 vandaag in zijn columns gestopt, was het misschien iets beter afgelopen.\nUpdate # Buitenhof komt met een persbericht als reactie:\nTelevisiecolumns vereisen een specifieke kwaliteit en helaas voldeden de columns van de heer Livestro niet aan de door Buitenhof gewenste kwaliteit.\nMijn woorden.\n“het zijn in feite veredelde melkertbaanprojecten voor kansarme linkse journalisten” bevat misschien een kern van waarheid maar om dan voor te stellen FoxNews hierheen te halen toont wel weinig benul.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nOf is dit staaltje logica te hoog gegrepen?\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nOp zich al reden genoeg om te twijfelen aan de intellectuele capaciteiten van iemand die zich vrijwillig met de Telegraaf associeert.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nEn er zijn kamervragen gesteld.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"June 19, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/livestro-rot-eindelijk-op/","section":"Posts","summary":"Fok meldt dat Joshua Livestro bij Buitenhof de laan uit is gestuurd. Dit is een goede zaak. Toen hij aantrad viel het al tegen en veel beter is het er niet op geworden.\n","title":"Livestro pakt zijn biezen","type":"posts"},{"content":" Foto Sebastiaan ter Burg\nDe foto hiernaast is genomen op het evenement Mediawijsheid (mijn verslag) waar de dagvoorzitter Pieter Hilhorst vroeg wie van de aanwezigen zijn nieuws enkel via internet tot zich nam. Ik was een van de weinigen en hoongelach uit de zaal viel mij ten deel. Hoe kon ik toch ooit verwachten goed geïnformeerd te worden door het (grote boze) internet ?\nDit incident is veelzeggend over de aanwezigen. Een grote groep mensen die zo onbekend is met het internet dat ze zich niet kunnen voorstellen dat mensen daar de voorkeur aan geven boven de traditionele media. Een schrijnend gebrek aan mediawijsheid. Hilhorst zelf had er natuurlijk alle belang bij om deze gedachtengang in stand te houden. Hij is zelf columnist en het business model Hilhorst is erbij gebaat dat het goed gaat met kranten en de papiercultus.\nSindsdien heb ik weer een krant uitgeprobeerd, maar erg bevallen doet het niet. Ik had mijn abonnement op de Volkskrant al teruggeschroefd van langweekend naar alleen zaterdag en de rest online 1 maar ik denk dat ik hem helemaal ga opzeggen.\nDe tijd/kwaliteit-afweging bij kranten is niet meer wat het geweest is. # Vroeger was er niks anders dan jouw krant 2 en misschien nog één televisiekanaal. In dat ecosysteem is het vanzelfsprekend om een krant te lezen. Die vanzelfsprekendheid is er nog steeds, niet omdat de realiteit dat vraagt maar omdat mensen slecht reageren op veranderingen.\nHet media-aanbod is ontzettend gegroeid zowel lokaal als globaal. De kans dat je iets uit een krant leest is gering. Het aanbod van kwalitatieve gratis publicaties is zo groot 3 dat er sites ontstaan met als enige doel om hier een filtering in aan te brengen.\nDaarnaast is de kans dat een artikel in een krant kwalitatief goed is ook niet al te groot. Als expert lees ik de berichtgeving over internet en nieuwe media in de kranten en deze is over het algemeen buitengewoon achterhaald en tenenkrommend slecht van kwaliteit. Moet je je voorstellen hoe slecht die artikelen zijn over onderwerpen waar ik geen expert in ben.\nTer illustratie dit bericht van Francisco van Jole over een fout in een artikel in de Volkskrant. Natuurlijk goed dat hij het toegeeft en zo\u0026rsquo;n fout kan er makkelijk insluipen 4 maar er lopen nu wel slecht geïnformeerde weinig kritische volkstammen rond die denken dat Steve Jobs Twittert. Hoe zou je met die mensen in discussie moeten: ‘Het staat in de Volkskrant 5 dus het is waar.’\n(Kranten)artikelen die geschreven worden als dialoog en waar mensen op kunnen reageren bieden een goede uitweg uit dit soort problemen. Het samen vinden van kennis en waarheid heeft wel wat. Mijn stukjes worden er beter op als ik me niet opstel als authoriteit maar de bijdragen van anderen verwelkom. Dat dit grote problemen op het gebied van vertrouwen en authoriteit met zich meebrengt klopt, maar daar zijn oplossingen voor.\nNou is de vraag natuurlijk of ik als ik gevraagd mocht worden om tegen een aardig honorarium af en toe iets willekeurigs in een krant te schrijven, dat zou kunnen weigeren? Waarschijnlijk niet. Het is niet al te moeilijk 6 werk wat vast redelijk betaalt en het gepeupel is prima nog wat langer te misleiden.\nDaarom is het in het algemeen belang dat kranten doodgaan 7 zodat iedereen gedwongen wordt om nieuwe en betere manieren van het beschrijven van de werkelijkheid te creëren.\nDus ja, ik betaal voor deze kapotte interface.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nWelke krant je las werd vrij nauwkeurig bepaald door de ouders die je had.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nGesteld dat je een brede interesse hebt en Engels kunt lezen.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nIk weet ook hoe stukjes geschreven worden.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nEen zogenaamde kwaliteitskrant.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nSla maar een willekeurige krant open.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nGoogle doet al zijn best.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"June 19, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/de-volkskrant-toch-maar-opzeggen/","section":"Posts","summary":" Foto Sebastiaan ter Burg\n","title":"De Volkskrant toch maar opzeggen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Sporten met dit weer is een flinke uitdaging maar gisteren was het echt niet meer te harden. Ik zweet normaal al redelijk veel, maar bij hogere temperaturen nog meer en als de lucht zo vochtig is kan het ook niet snel verdampen.\nEen compleet doorweekt t-shirt speelt niet zo lekker meer. Via Ben Hammersley kwam ik uit op kleding voor extreme sporters: UnderArmour.\nDeze shirts nemen als het goed is zelf geen vocht op, maar transporteren alles naar de oppervlakte waar het kan verdampen. Dat verdampen moet ik nog zien, maar tijdens de hele training een droog shirt lijkt me al fijn.\n","date":"June 17, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/beter-presteren-met-beter-spul/","section":"Posts","summary":"Sporten met dit weer is een flinke uitdaging maar gisteren was het echt niet meer te harden. Ik zweet normaal al redelijk veel, maar bij hogere temperaturen nog meer en als de lucht zo vochtig is kan het ook niet snel verdampen.\n","title":"Beter presteren met beter spul","type":"posts"},{"content":"Een nieuwsbericht op Fok over dat de doodstraf staat op mobiel bellen in Noord-Korea.\nDaaruit een plan om het regime van Kim Jong-il geweldloos omver te werpen:\nGebruik niet waarneembare nachtvluchten om pakketjes met OLPC\u0026rsquo;s te parachuteren in Noord-Korea. Zorg dat ze WiMax of een satellietverbinding hebben zodat ze met de buitenwereld kunnen praten.\nNoord-Korea kan moeilijk zeggen dat het uitdelen van gadgets aan mensen een daad van oorlog is maar open communicatie met de buitenwereld zal van binnenuit een gigantische eroderende werking hebben op het regime.\nEen open samenleving heeft vijanden, maar openheid zelf is een krachtig wapen.\n","date":"June 14, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/de-open-samenleving-en-haar-vijanden/","section":"Posts","summary":"Een nieuwsbericht op Fok over dat de doodstraf staat op mobiel bellen in Noord-Korea.\n","title":"De open samenleving en haar vijanden","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik zit vandaag en morgen op de Holland Open Software Conference en hier wat snel getikte notities van presentaties die ik interessant vind.\nDit was een erg leuke presentatie vooral ook omdat de spreker het vaag hield, niet bang was om af te drijven en grapjes te maken. Ondanks de bijzonder vage opzet van het onderwerp kreeg je wel de indruk dat de spreker goed op de hoogte was van waar hij het over had.\nDe rest van de conferentie was op het saai af. Ik heb niet het idee dat op deze conferentie van maatpakken en commerciele vendors echt iets gebeurt, en de dingen die hier gebeuren, daar kan ik me niet bijzonder over opwinden. Ik ga denk ik dan ook liever naar FOSDEM, Wikimania, OSCON waar de gasten die dingen maken rondhangen. Sinds Reboot pas in Kopenhagen kwam ik tot de realisatie wat voor een gat er ligt tussen mensen die dingen maken en mensen die alleen maar dom lullen over shit.\nAls er mensen an IBM met dit soort slides aan komen zetten, dan weet je al dat het kut is. Alan McCluskey was wel erg leuk:\nChairperson of PIC\nRead more\ndoes not do much with open software, didn\u0026rsquo;t want to come to speak\nhacker ethic\nthe second fall: learning separated from life work separated from learning and pleasure quality separated from work value indicated by the price tag the individual crowned king without a kingdom\nReunite life and work and learning and pleasure. Reitroduce the notion of ethics and the common good.\nTrying to rediscover paradise.\nPractice is the repeated way of doing things. Policy is a way of dictating practice.\nKey role of technology in the mechanics of education. Technology is believed to constrain practice. The long arm of policy makers.\nPeople find ways of doing things around technology.\nEducation system is more than the sum of its parts. Analysis cannot satisfactorily explain its workings. Analysis does not work and many decisions in change management processes are taken after analysis. The system is open and self-organizing. Change emerges spontaneously and unpredictably.\nIn complex systems things do not work as we expect them to.\nFeel about what is in the present and emerging and that will go into the future.\nMechanistic approach of policy making. Questions of relationships are going to be important.\nA feeling of the emergence of the future in the presence is necessary. We need leaders who do not know exactly what is going to happen but who can convey their feeling to others.\nSometimes I think education is over, maybe we\u0026rsquo;d better head for something different. Education is based around the idea that people need to learn subjects and need to learn it in a building from specific people. Ideas and premises in this institution that are not open, but monopolistic and closed. Guardianship and coaching roles are valid but the structures do not help them do that.\n","date":"June 11, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/hosc-alan-mccluskey-opening-education-to-the-future/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik zit vandaag en morgen op de Holland Open Software Conference en hier wat snel getikte notities van presentaties die ik interessant vind.\n","title":"HOSC - Alan McCluskey - Opening education to the future","type":"posts"},{"content":"Hier het recept uit de video. Ik heb een Engelse transcriptie gevonden die ik gebruikt heb. Mijn recept met meer Detail in het Nederlands en met metrieke maten.\nToevoegingen welkom. Woensdag mijn bevindingen en foto\u0026rsquo;s.\nRobert Rodriguez\u0026rsquo;s \u0026ldquo;Sin City\u0026rdquo; Ontbijttaco\u0026rsquo;s\nWarning: \u0026ldquo;If you learn how to make this, you will crave it every night, and every day, like I do.\u0026rdquo; - Robert Rodriguez\nBronnen. Robert Rodriguez\u0026rsquo;s video: Engelse transcriptie: http://goodeats.dyns.net/viewtopic.php?p=274440\u0026sid=83a923022c7a1944028a0023a47b71f3\nIngrediënten:\nVoor de Bloem-tortillas 500ml bloem 1/2 tel zout 1/2 tel bakpoeder 50ml boter of reuzel (of half om half) 180ml warm water (heet bij reuzel)\nVoor de vulling met aardappel en ei 1 grote aardappel maïsolie zeezout en versgemalen peper 2 maistortillas 1 grote tomaat 1 grote witte ui 1 jalapeño peper 1 klontje boter 6 eieren melk\nMeng bloem, zout en bakpoeder en doe het vet erdoorheen. Roer het vet door de bloem (met de hand of met een vork) tot een grof kruimelige structuur ontstaat. Voeg het water toe zodat het klontert. Je kunt wat poeder apart houden om bij te stellen. Kneed het deeg enkele minuten met de hand tot het glad en elastisch aanvoelt. Maak hier (8-10) balletjes van ter grootte van golfballen.\nBevochtig een theedoek met warm water en leg deze over de balletjes heen. Laat deze 20 minuten liggen terwijl je de vulling maakt.\nSchil de aardappel en snij deze in blokjes. Doe de maisolie in een pan, doe de aardappelen erbij en strooi de zout en peper erover. Laat dit op een middelhoog vuur bakken tot knapperig maar niet te gefrituurd.\nSnij de maistortillas in stukjes. Snij ook de tomaat, de ui en de jalapeño in blokjes.\nAls de aardappelen gaar zijn laat ze dan uitlekken op wat keukenpapier en voeg weer zout en peper toe. Ze zouden nu al lekker moeten zijn.\nGooi de tortillastukjes in het vet waar de aardappelen uit kwamen.\nZet een teflonpan op een middelhoog vuur en druk de deegballetjes plat en geef ze allemaal een paar rollen met de deegroller.\nAls de tortillastukjes gaar zijn, haal ze eruit en laat ze uitlekken. Voeg zout en peper toe en proef.\nHaal de olie uit de pan en gaar de tomaat, ui en jalapeño.\nGeef elke plak nog één rol en gooi ze op de teflonpan. Keer ze na 8 seconden direct om. Als ze nu al een beetje gekleurd zijn, is de pan heet genoeg. Laat nog 60-90 seconden verder bakken. De tortilla\u0026rsquo;s bollen op. Keer ze weer en druk met een druk met een spatel de randen dicht. Ze bollen nu nog verder op. Doe de tortilla\u0026rsquo;s wanneer klaar in een bak met een handdoek (of een tortillahouder) om ze warm te houden.\nGooi boter in een pan. Klop drie eieren los met wat melk. Giet dit in de pan en gooi de aardappels erop. Laat even inbakken voor je het rustig begint te keren. Stop met koken voor het té gaar is.\nIn nog een pan precies hetzelfde, boter en drie eieren losgeklopt met melk. Gooi hier de tortillachips en het ui-tomaat-jalapeño mengsel bij. Vervolg op dezelfde manier.\nAlles is nu klaar. Vul tortillas met de eimengsels en smakelijk eten.\nOnthoud: Niet kunnen koken is net als niet kunnen neuken. Je moet de rest van je leven eten, dus kun je het maar beter goed doen.\n","date":"June 9, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/recept-sin-city-ontbijttacos-door-robert-rodriguez/","section":"Posts","summary":"Hier het recept uit de video. Ik heb een Engelse transcriptie gevonden die ik gebruikt heb. Mijn recept met meer Detail in het Nederlands en met metrieke maten.\n","title":"Recept: \"Sin City\" Ontbijttaco's door Robert Rodriguez","type":"posts"},{"content":"Vandaag de geest gekregen om voor het eerst in tijden weer te koken. In de stress met afstuderen, kwam het er niet echt meer van. Doordeweeks is eten in combinatie met capoeira ook niet echt te doen. Dat komt meestal neer op een snel broodje vooraf en een stoommaaltijd erna tegen elven.\nHalf experimenteel, half pakje. Een pak lasagnetta gekocht in de supermarkt maar ik vond de variatiesuggesties wat tam. Dus er een groene paprika, prei, zwarte olijven en halve radijsen 1 doorheen gegooid. De melk was opgegaan in de cappuccino vanmiddag 2, dus die vervangen met een flink toet Philadelphia.\nTijdens het wachten op de oven nog wat radijssterretjes gesneden als garnering.\nInspiratie # Hoe kwam ik hier dan opeens op? De heren Dekker tonen regelmatig lekkere dingen op hun kookblog ter inspiratie maar vanochtend zag ik iets anders. Robert Rodriguez onthulde zijn recept voor ontbijt-taco\u0026rsquo;s —een snack voor de late uurtjes doorhalen met werk.\nHet ziet er lekker en vullend uit en het filmpje is lekker vlot gesneden met stukjes Sin City erdoorheen. Besluitend zegt Rodriguez nog: “Not knowing how to cook, is like not knowing how to fuck.” en gelijk heeft hij. Beiden horen goed, lekker en met liefde te gebeuren.\nIk ga dit recept morgen testen om te kijken of ik het in productie kan nemen.\nHet andere recept is voor Puerco Pibil.\nGaargekookte radijs is wat bijzonder maar niet storend.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nJe moet nu eenmaal prioriteiten stellen.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"June 9, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/er-wordt-weer-gekookt/","section":"Posts","summary":"Vandaag de geest gekregen om voor het eerst in tijden weer te koken. In de stress met afstuderen, kwam het er niet echt meer van. Doordeweeks is eten in combinatie met capoeira ook niet echt te doen. Dat komt meestal neer op een snel broodje vooraf en een stoommaaltijd erna tegen elven.\n","title":"Er wordt weer gekookt","type":"posts"},{"content":"Een zware week. Vier keer per week capoeira gerelateerde dingen 1, hard werken en studeren en leuke dingen doen is misschien wat veel van het goede.\nDit weekend rust en studie. Veel dingen afmaken die af moeten en veel lezen en schrijven. Steekwoorden: cappuccino en zaterdagkrant.\nOf eigenlijk vijf… Maandag trainen, dinsdag hardlopen en een beetje oefenen in het park, woensdag oefenen, donderdag trainen en vrijdag optreden.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"June 9, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/rustig/","section":"Posts","summary":"Een zware week. Vier keer per week capoeira gerelateerde dingen 1, hard werken en studeren en leuke dingen doen is misschien wat veel van het goede.\n","title":"Rustig","type":"posts"},{"content":"Een tijdje geleden praatten we met wat verlichte zielen over de stand van webstandaarden in Nederland. We vonden dat daar verbetering in moest komen en we hebben allemaal wel ons best gedaan om mensen hiervan te overtuigen. Het lijkt er nu op dat de verbetering voor een deel is gerealiseerd maar dat sommige mensen wellicht zijn doorgeschoten.\nIk kom regelmatig webboeren tegen die valide XHTML 1.0 pagina\u0026rsquo;s aan de man proberen te brengen met als argument dat dit het beste is wat er bestaat op het gebied van mooie onderhoudbare webpagina\u0026rsquo;s.\nDit is pertinent onwaar. De voordelen van XHTML boven HTML 4.01 zijn —als ze er al zijn— miniem. De genoemde voordelen schone semantische code en een scheiding van inhoud, presentatie en gedrag, kunnen net zo goed en tegen lagere kosten gerealiseerd worden met normale HTML.\nPotentiele nadelen zijn er daarentegen genoeg. Hier wat voorbeelden.\nFutiele moeite # XHTML wordt door vrijwel geen enkele browser geïnterpreteerd als XHTML. Aangeraden wordt om vrijwel altijd je pagina\u0026rsquo;s aan te bieden als mimetype text/html. Je XHTML code zal dan alsnog geïnterpreteerd worden als normale HTML. Dit doet de meeste voordelen die je dacht te hebben al teniet.\nJe kunt beter HTML 4.01 schrijven wat net zo semantisch kan zijn, niet langzamer is en beter begrepen en ondersteund wordt.\nDraconische foutafhandeling # XHTML berust op een harde foutafhandeling om onvoorspelbaar gedrag te voorkomen. Het gevolg hiervan is dat als er een fout in een pagina mocht staan, de afhandeling stopt en de gebruiker geen pagina meer te zien krijgt maar alleen een foutmelding. In een internet dat grotendeels door mensen wordt geschreven en waar content van verschillende bronnen gehaald wordt, is het moeilijk om perfecte pagina\u0026rsquo;s te garanderen.\nEen vergevingsgezinde parser zoals bij HTML met heldere 1 afspraken wat te doen bij fouten is handiger.\nDoodlopend pad # Er is geen helder migratiepad gedefinieerd van XHTML 1.0 naar XHTML 2.0 2. De XHTML 2.0 specificatie bevat significante veranderingen ten opzichte van de vorige waardoor veel code handmatig zal moeten worden aangepast. Het gebrek aan visie in deze specificatie zadelt iedereen die meedoet met XHTML 1.0 op met significante kosten wanneer er moet worden overgegaan naar de volgende versie.\nHTML 4.01 is goed begrepen en wijd ondersteund. Er is een duidelijk upgrade-pad naar de HTML5 specificatie die zowel backwards compatible is met HTML 4.01 als een groot aantal nieuwe features bevat voor de toekomst.\nConclusie # Het is op dit moment dus af te raden -zelfs schadelijk- om XHTML te gebruiken. Dezelfde voordelen kun je met een veel groter gemak bereiken door het eenvoudige ouwe semantische 3) HTML 4.01 te gebruiken 4.\nIk pleit ervoor dat we niet alleen pleiten vóór webstandaarden maar tegelijkertijd ook voor een flexibelere manier van denken en een kritische houding ten opzichte van alles 5. Ik kom 6 teveel mensen tegen die na enige deliberatie een standpunt accepteren en er dan niet meer aan twijfelen maar het uitdragen als een soort gospel.\nContinue kritiek van alles is noodzakelijk. Wat vandaag waar is, hoeft dat morgen niet meer te zijn. XHTML lijkt op dit moment dood, maar HTML5 biedt een serialisatie naar XML wat mogelijkheden biedt voor de toekomst 7.\nJe wereld kan veranderen. Het zou jammer zijn als je daar zelf als laatste achter kwam.\nUpdate: Ik denk dat ik hier nog wat aan ga schaven en het dan op Frankwatching zet.\nTemminste in het geval van HTML5.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nHet ontwikkelproces van deze standaarden bij de W3C is ook bijzonder gesloten waardoor veel moet worden gegist. Vergelijk dit met het proces van de WHATWG waar alles uit principe open is.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n[\u0026quot;\u0026gt;Plain Old Semantic HTML](http://microformats.org/wiki/posh\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nVoor een goede bespreking van de kwesties rondom XHTML, waar ik voor dit stuk ook veel inspiratie uit geput heb, zie deze pagina met alle feiten op een rijtje. In het onderzoeken voor dit stukje kwam ik ook dit stukje van hjdeboer.nl tegen die het ook begrepen heeft.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nIn het bijzonder voor je eigen denkpatronen.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nIn de ICT lijkt rigide denken en folklore nog sterker vertegenwoordigd dan elders.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nDe gasten van de WHATWG zijn serieus slim.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"June 8, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/starre-denkpatronen-in-de-webindustrie/","section":"Posts","summary":"Een tijdje geleden praatten we met wat verlichte zielen over de stand van webstandaarden in Nederland. We vonden dat daar verbetering in moest komen en we hebben allemaal wel ons best gedaan om mensen hiervan te overtuigen. Het lijkt er nu op dat de verbetering voor een deel is gerealiseerd maar dat sommige mensen wellicht zijn doorgeschoten.\n","title":"Starre denkpatronen in de webindustrie","type":"posts"},{"content":"Nu eindelijk de foto\u0026rsquo;s van afgelopen weekend een beetje naar behoren verwerkt. Hier een kleine selectie. Meer staat op de site van Liberdade en op Flickr staat alles 1.\nIk heb nu 5000 foto\u0026rsquo;s op Flickr staan. Wijs!\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"June 5, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/capoeira-liberdade-batizado-weekend/","section":"Posts","summary":"Nu eindelijk de foto’s van afgelopen weekend een beetje naar behoren verwerkt. Hier een kleine selectie. Meer staat op de site van Liberdade en op Flickr staat alles 1.\n","title":"Capoeira Liberdade Batizado Weekend","type":"posts"},{"content":"Het VVD was al een partij van populistische opportunisten, maar kennelijk schuwen ze tegenwoordig het buitengewoon stupide ook niet 1.\nAnouchka van Miltenburg (via Fok):\n“Donorregistratie heeft een heel beperkt effect op de wachtlijsten. Mensen wier organen anders zouden worden getransplanteerd, blijven langer leven door medische vooruitgang en veiligheidsmaatregelen. Door airbags en verplichte autogordel is het aantal dodelijke ongelukken afgenomen. Mensen sterven ouder en hun organen zijn dan vaak ongeschikt voor transplantatie.”\nSprakeloos, inderdaad.\nWaarschijnlijk denken ze de wedstrijd laagste IQ wél van Wilders te kunnen winnen.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"June 5, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/dodelijk-ongelukken/","section":"Posts","summary":"Het VVD was al een partij van populistische opportunisten, maar kennelijk schuwen ze tegenwoordig het buitengewoon stupide ook niet 1.\n","title":"Dodelijke ongelukken","type":"posts"},{"content":" Hier een paar foto\u0026rsquo;s van Reboot. We zitten nu in de laatste presentatie naar Matt Webb te kijken die zoals altijd fantastisch is.\nEn, oh ja. Ik heb net een gesprekssessie gehost!\n","date":"June 4, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/reboot-afsluiting/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Reboot afsluiting","type":"posts"},{"content":"Vanochtend genoot ik een geweldige brunch in het Laundromat café in Kopenhagen waarna lekker gechilled in het Ørstedspark.\nVerder een aardige chaos op het vliegveld van Kopenhagen. Denen kunnen veel dingen goed regelen, maar een vliegveld is daar niet één van.\nKwam een uur geleden thuis en heb een lasagna op van de fijne mensen van Rice \u0026amp; Pasta.\nCopenhagen is supertof, maar thuis is toch ook weer fijn. Genoeg ideeën om te verwerken, en genoeg dingen om te doen.\n","date":"June 3, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/daarheen-en-weer-terug/","section":"Posts","summary":"Vanochtend genoot ik een geweldige brunch in het Laundromat café in Kopenhagen waarna lekker gechilled in het Ørstedspark.\n","title":"Daarheen en weer terug","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik zit tot en met zondag weer in Kopenhagen met oude en nieuwe vrienden op ons aller favoriete conferentie Reboot.\n","date":"May 31, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/weer-terug-in-kopenhagen/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik zit tot en met zondag weer in Kopenhagen met oude en nieuwe vrienden op ons aller favoriete conferentie Reboot.\n","title":"Weer terug in Kopenhagen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Na het weekend van capoeira vandaag een beetje uitgebrakt in de golven. Guur weer maar prima surfen op Scheveningen.\nDe wegwerp-PowerShot komt toch goed van pas voor dit soort uitstapjes. Alleen het schieten gaat zo langzaam dat ik niet veel verder kwam dan tien foto\u0026rsquo;s (waarvan vier bewaard).\n","date":"May 29, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/surfs-up/","section":"Posts","summary":"Na het weekend van capoeira vandaag een beetje uitgebrakt in de golven. Guur weer maar prima surfen op Scheveningen.\n","title":"Surf's up!","type":"posts"},{"content":"De week van capoeira mond uit in het weekend van de Batizado. Capoeira en veel andere leuke dingen, met tussendoor ergens nog een feest.\nStraks begint het en het houdt ergens zondag laat in de namiddag weer op. In de tussentijd brand hier een waakvlammetje.\n(Daarna: maandag bijkomen, dinsdag werken en woensdag vliegen naar Kopenhagen voor de openingsborrel van Reboot. Zondagavond terug in Nederland. En daarna…)\n","date":"May 25, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/capoeira-begint-hier/","section":"Posts","summary":"De week van capoeira mond uit in het weekend van de Batizado. Capoeira en veel andere leuke dingen, met tussendoor ergens nog een feest.\n","title":"Capoeira begint hier","type":"posts"},{"content":" Net tijdens de lunch de tweede helft gevolgd van een lunchdebat georganiseerd door the Platform for Ethics and Technology hier in de Aula. Aparte timing voor zo\u0026rsquo;n discussie maanden nadat de publiciteitshype rondom SL voorbij is.\nHet ging ruwweg over wat we nu precies aanmoeten met Second Life. Helaas werd de discussie volledig gekaapt door een vent van het CDA: Harry van der Molen.\nEr vallen veel dingen voor en veel dingen tegen Second Life te zeggen. De manier waarop het platform gebruikt wordt door louche marketeers en webontwikkelaars om tijdens de hype de meest vage concepten te lanceren verdient inderdaad geen schoonheidsprijs. Een van de voorbeelden die genoemd werden, was de investering van de gemeente Zoetermeer in een virtueel stadhuis. Een slecht doordacht concept, weinig bezoekers en als enige resultaat de publiciteit na het aanvankelijke persbericht.\nVan der Molen gebruikte dit ene voorbeeld en een paar schimmige onderzoeken om Second Life compleet af te branden. Zijn argumenten die op zichzelf wel enige merites hadden, waren doorspekt met een waanizinnige hoeveelheid negativiteit. Na Second Life moesten eigenlijk alle virtuele werelden het ontgelden en uiteindelijk was volgens van der Molen alles wat virtueel was niet de moeite waard. De argumenten over substitutie, realiteit als escapisme werden handig verpakt in een roep naar de zaal: “Get a life!”1.\nDit is natuurlijk zwaar overdreven en ronduit dom. Een groter en groter gedeelte van waarde creatie speelt zich online af. In de huidige genetwerkte samenleving zoeken mensen naar nieuwe samenwerkingsverbanden. Second Life en andere virtuele werelden kunnen daarin een rol spelen als een drie dimensionele extensie van huidige media als Skype en IRC 2. Het feit dat er een ruimte is waar de interactie zich afspeelt speelt in op de manier waarop onze hersenen gebouwd zijn. Second Life en anderen werken al wel, maar de techniek is nog iets te beperkt om het vloeiend te laten plaatsvinden.\nCDA # Wat er in de zaal gebeurde en hoe Harry van der Molen discussieerde is exemplarisch voor hoe het CDA politiek bedrijft in het post-Fortuyn tijdperk. Dat ze daar veel succes mee boeken kun je betreuren.\nVan der Molen polariseerde het debat volkomen door uit te gaan van uitersten en van absoluut verwerpelijke dingen. Verslaving onder Second Life gebruikers en het zich afspelen van (virtuele) kinderporno zijn dingen waar niemand voor kan zijn. Deze paar voorbeelden kwamen van der Molen zo goed van pas, dat hij het praktisch nergens anders over had.\nNaast het kwaad had hij ook nog een argument over de zinnige besteding van publiek geld zoals in Zoetermeer niet het geval is geweest. Hier kan ook niemand tegen zijn. Iedereen wil dat publiek geld goed besteed wordt. Op mijn vraag of er in al zijn realiteitszin misschien ook nog plek was voor enige visie, kwam een nietszeggend antwoord.\nDoor zichzelf neer te zetten als tegenstander van het absolute kwaad 3 had hij het debat al bijna gewonnen. Daarna hoefde hij alleen maar alle andere argumenten terug te brengen tot zijn basisargumenten en in te spelen op angst. Argumenten mochten ook zeker niet te genuanceerd zijn of te ingewikkeld. Dat zou ervoor kunnen zorgen dat de polarisatie afneemt. Misschien van der Molen daarom steeds extremer ging formuleren. Hij hield het verder lekker makkelijk en populistisch, af en toe verpakt in een half grapje. Als je de zaal aan het lachen krijgt, maakt niet uit waarom, laat je zien dat jij een toffe peer bent en niet de kwaadste 4.\nBalkenende zelf beheerst dit kunstje uitstekend 5 en van hem wordt binnen het CDA dus dankbaar afgekeken.\nReken niet op van der Molen en het CDA om met hun conservatisme en beknepen visie van Nederland een kenniseconomie te maken. We zitten in een nieuwe eeuw met nieuwe kansen en bedreigingen. Het beste wat Balkenende en de zijnen te bieden hebben is een terugkeer naar de tijd van de VOC-mentaliteit.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nWaar trouwens ontzettend veel nuttig werk in verricht wordt door mensen in virtuele organisaties.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n‘Denk toch aan de kinderen!’\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nDat is die andere namelijk.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nZoals hij maandig in Knevel en van den Brink een vraag over cocaïne, wist terug te voeren op coffeeshops in de buurt van scholen en dat die gesloten moeten worden. De meeste mensen zijn de beginvraag al lang kwijt en zullen alleen maar denken ‘Ja, coffeeshops in de buurt van scholen is fout.’\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"May 23, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/second-life-wat-moeten-we-ermee/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Second Life: Wat moeten we ermee?","type":"posts"},{"content":"Het internet op de TU Delft is nog steeds om te huilen. Hier in de Aula ligt het er elke tien minuten uit.\nDaarnaast is de koffie hier zo ontzettend slecht dat ik neig de ‘barista’ over de toonbank te trekken en hem er met zijn neus in te drukken.\nAch.\n","date":"May 23, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/buitengewoon-barre-werkplek-op-de-universiteit/","section":"Posts","summary":"Het internet op de TU Delft is nog steeds om te huilen. Hier in de Aula ligt het er elke tien minuten uit.\n","title":"Buitengewoon barre werkplek op de universiteit","type":"posts"},{"content":" Zelfportret, originally uploaded by illustir.\nWe kunnen lang lullen. We kunnen kort lullen. Vast staat dat ik echt naar de kapper moet.\nMorgenochtendvroeg om half tien bij de Kinki.\n","date":"May 23, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/het-kan-echt-niet-meer/","section":"Posts","summary":" Zelfportret, originally uploaded by illustir.\n","title":"Het kan echt niet meer","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik zou niet graag Mark Helprin willen zijn. Denk je een aardig artikeltje over copyright te hebben geschreven in de New York Times, wordt je —extreem gebrekkige— argumentatie vervolgens door het collectieve internet totaal afgebroken en afgebrand 1.\nNiet al te raar als je het verlies van auteursrechtelijke bescherming gelijk stelt aan confiscatie.\nThe basis for Halprin\u0026rsquo;s argument appears to be a complete misreading of what is \u0026ldquo;Public Good\u0026rdquo; and how Congress is authorized to achieve that \u0026ldquo;Public Good\u0026rdquo;.\nVast staat dat Helprin de bitch is van de Free Culture beweging. Hoe zou dat voelen?\nVia Boing Boing.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"May 21, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/oneindige-bescherming-van-auteursrecht-en-andere-misverstanden/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik zou niet graag Mark Helprin willen zijn. Denk je een aardig artikeltje over copyright te hebben geschreven in de New York Times, wordt je —extreem gebrekkige— argumentatie vervolgens door het collectieve internet totaal afgebroken en afgebrand 1.\n","title":"Oneindige bescherming van auteursrecht en andere misverstanden","type":"posts"},{"content":" Punk Bikers, originally uploaded by illustir.\nThee drinken op het Spui wil weleens aparte figuren opleveren.\n","date":"May 21, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/dagje-uitrusten-in-amsterdam/","section":"Posts","summary":" Punk Bikers, originally uploaded by illustir.\n","title":"Dagje uitrusten in Amsterdam","type":"posts"},{"content":"Donderdagochtendvroeg naar Den Haag om mijn Macbook in te leveren en vrijdag eind van de middag er weer heen om hem op te halen.\nDen Haag: Nog wat gedaan op TOPdesk: Vrijdagmiddag toen net op tijd terug om te bowlen: Waarna de onvermijdelijke groepsfoto: En het heerlijke eten in het Pakhuis: Nog even langs Echte Boter geweest om te flyeren voor het feest van Liberdade en dan zaterdag vroeg op om de trein naar Utrecht te nemen voor de Batizado van Planeta Capoeira\nVeel leuke capoeirafoto\u0026rsquo;s maar zoals altijd zijn de leukste momenten niet vastgelegd.\nZondag gelukkig de zondagsrust in acht genomen en heel heel weinig gedaan.\n","date":"May 20, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/weekend-met-veel-dingen/","section":"Posts","summary":"Donderdagochtendvroeg naar Den Haag om mijn Macbook in te leveren en vrijdag eind van de middag er weer heen om hem op te halen.\n","title":"Weekend met veel dingen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Vandaag terug uit Amsterdam langs Den Haag geweest om mijn nieuwe batterij op te halen die klaar lag bij LJS. Een week later dan beloofd, maar weinig stress.\nIk ben nu bijna klaar met de eerste laad/laat leeglopen/laad weer op cyclus. Kijken hoe deze batterij het morgen in het park doet. Zes uur hoeft van mij niet, maar alles langer dan twee-en-een-half uur zou mooi meegenomen zijn.\nNiet zo tof: Hij valt nog steeds uit als de batterij leeg is. Dus toch de heatsink weer vervangen ofzo.\n","date":"May 19, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/nieuwe-batterij/","section":"Posts","summary":"Vandaag terug uit Amsterdam langs Den Haag geweest om mijn nieuwe batterij op te halen die klaar lag bij LJS. Een week later dan beloofd, maar weinig stress.\n","title":"Nieuwe batterij","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik heb vanochtend vroeg 1 mijn Macbook ingeleverd bij LJS op de Lutherse Burgwal. Daarna koffie gedronken in Florencia, grappige tent en aparte interpretatie van het concept cappuccino.\nIn tegenstelling tot wat ik dacht krijg ik mijn Macbook niet in de loop van de dag terug omdat ze al vermoeden wat er mis is met de batterij, die meteen gaan bestellen en hem dan morgenmiddag met nieuwe batterij aan me teruggeven. Dat zou wel heel fijn zijn. Dan kan ik eindelijk die beloofde zes uur lang in het park zitten werken 2\nGeen ramp, genoeg te lezen 3 en te doen 4 waar ik geen Macbook voor nodig heb maar toch een beetje onwennig. En ik heb vandaag wel een paar leuke foto\u0026rsquo;s geschoten die tot het weekend zullen moeten wachten.\nDit brengt ook weer de vraag wel of geen AppleCare dichterbij. 1 jaar garantie op een laptop is aan de lage kant en zonder verlenging van de garantie wordt mijn Macbook een soort wegwerpproduct.\nErg verdomde vroeg als je vier uur slaapt.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nZodra het weer droog is.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nNu aan het lezen The Tipping Point, Monocle #3, Foam Magazine en ik heb de Brug van Geert Mak gescoord.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nDat ene vakje nog.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"May 13, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/macbook-ingeleverd/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik heb vanochtend vroeg 1 mijn Macbook ingeleverd bij LJS op de Lutherse Burgwal. Daarna koffie gedronken in Florencia, grappige tent en aparte interpretatie van het concept cappuccino.\n","title":"Macbook ingeleverd","type":"posts"},{"content":"Op TOPdesk vandaag het nieuws dat al ons drukwerk 1 milieuvriendelijk gedrukt wordt 2\nNu vraag je je af hoe wij moderne mensen ons steentje bij kunnen dragen tegen de klimaatcrisis. Ik krijg net de Dreamhost nieuwsbrief binnen waarin staat dat alle hosting bij hen nu koolstofneutraal is. Dus alper.nl is nu koolstofneutraal net zoals fourstarters.com, tipit.to en verschillende andere sites.\nNu nog de thuisserver die hier trouw staat te brommen definitief met pensioen sturen en vervangen met een wireless 3 linksys router. Dan zijn we echt op de goede weg.\nJa, ik weet het. Zó vorige eeuw.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nVoor zover dat mogelijk is met een dode-bomen-medium.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nDoor omstandigheden heb ik inderdaad thuis nog steeds geen wireless.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"May 11, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/koolstofneutrale-is-het-nieuwe-zwart/","section":"Posts","summary":"Op TOPdesk vandaag het nieuws dat al ons drukwerk 1 milieuvriendelijk gedrukt wordt 2\n","title":"Koolstofneutraal is het nieuwe zwart","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik zit nu op een oude Windows XP bak te werken met bijna niks erop geïnstalleerd. Ik kan met Firefox de meest belangrijke dingen online wel doen.\nIk krijg van de VARA nieuwsbrieven met leuk materiaal van de afgelopen week en een van die fragmenten is de imitatie van Jochem Myjer van 8 (!) verschillende typetjes in 2 minuten. Ik was vergeten hoe grappig de Mike en Thomasshow was. Niet alleen dit stuk is erg de moeite waard, de hele aflevering zit vol met leuke (en soms flauwe) dingen 1.\nWat me wel opvalt is dat de online media ervaring op een brakke XP-machine met Firefox en wmplayer beter is dan op mijn Macbook. De omroepsite werkt nu zoals hij zou moeten, fragmenten doen het, afspelen gaat zonder problemen en full screen is één druk op de knop 2. Jammer dat de rest van de mensen dat moet missen.\nEn waar komt die vete tegen Guus Meeuwis vandaan?\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nFlash 9 kan dit ook, dus het is wachten tot je dit overal gaat zien. Verder lijkt Flash de enige optie op een videorijk internet wat iedereen kan gebruiken, temminste totdat er vrij bruikbare video codecs verschijnen.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"May 10, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/mike-en-thomas-show/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik zit nu op een oude Windows XP bak te werken met bijna niks erop geïnstalleerd. Ik kan met Firefox de meest belangrijke dingen online wel doen.\n","title":"Mike en Thomas Show","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik ben geen gigantische fan van Pauw en Witteman maar het is een solide talkshow en het doet het erg goed in hun timeslot. Mijn bezwaren zijn vooral dat het vaak te tam is, de gasten, de presentatoren en de vragen die gesteld worden.\nHet televisieseizoen duurt niet al te lang, want dit is de laatste week Pauw en Witteman. DWDD schijnt er ook binnenkort mee op te houden. Dan volgt de leegte van de zomer 1.\n30 april worden we verblijd met een nieuw daverend duo, talkshow met een christelijke moraal. Vast niet minder tam, vast wel ergerlijker.\nUpdate: Ik heb het gisteren voor het eerst gezien en ik ben aangenaam verrast. Het gesprek loopt, de gasten zijn boeiend en het is niet zo irritant als ik had verwacht. Wat wel tenenkrommend is en ik denk onoverkomelijk bij deze presentatoren zijn de leidende vragen en schijntegenstellingen waarmee ze hun gasten in de val proberen te lokken. Ik heb het gisteren een paar keer gezien en gelukkig trapte niemand erin.\nUpdate2: De leader en de tussenfilmpjes zijn zo infantiel dat het treurig is. Hun selectie van internetfilmpjes mist alle actualiteit en feeling met het medium. Het meisje van Halal dat aan tafel zit 2 is te dom om op te poepen. (En nu hou ik op met deze post.)\nUpdate3: Ik kan het niet laten. Zojuist (4 mei) weer gekeken en het lijkt nu meer op een shocklog of een slechte imitatie van DWDD. De dingen die ze lieten zien 3 hoeven van mij niet 4. Erg smakeloos of ervaren EO-kijkers dat niet zo?\nNu al?\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nVolgens mij heeft ze geen naam.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nDode Pim Fortuyn en dronken David Hasselhoff.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nEn ook niet van Lucille Werner, wat nog wel een aardige discussie opleverde tussen haar en haar presentatoren. Andries Knevel maakte zich er met een rotsmoes vanaf.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"May 10, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/knevel-van-den-brink/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik ben geen gigantische fan van Pauw en Witteman maar het is een solide talkshow en het doet het erg goed in hun timeslot. Mijn bezwaren zijn vooral dat het vaak te tam is, de gasten, de presentatoren en de vragen die gesteld worden.\n","title":"Knevel \u0026 van den Brink","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik heb net even het persbericht online gezet.\nEind deze maand (25-27 mei) houden we met Capoeira Liberdade onze batizado met allemaal leuke dingen en op zaterdagavond 26 mei in Speakers geven (traditioneel) het grootste en leukste Braziliaanse feest van Delft.\nVoor dat feest kun je trouwens bij mij kaartjes kopen voor het gereduceerde tarief van €7,50 (aan de deur €10,–). Kijk maar op de flyer beneden voor het programma op het feest. Het wordt echt heel leuk 1.\nKaartjes reserveren mag ook hier in de comments, dan hou ik er eentje voor je apart.\nDat weet je natuurlijk wel als je ooit eerder op zo\u0026rsquo;n feest bent geweest.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"May 7, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/braziliaans-festival-capoeira-liberdade/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik heb net even het persbericht online gezet.\n","title":"Braziliaans Festival Capoeira Liberdade","type":"posts"},{"content":" new beginning, originally uploaded by fubuki.\nIk lees vanmiddag een verhaal bij Cringely over dat IBM een hele sloot mensen gaat ontslaan. Zie ik nu van één van mijn favoriete Flickr fotografen 1 het bericht dat hij net ontslagen is bij datzelfde IBM.\nZijn verhaal en de nietsontziende verachting van het Amerikaanse bedrijfsleven zijn niet alleen het lezen maar misschien ook het navolgen waard.\nPas getrouwd, kijk maar een paar foto\u0026rsquo;s terug.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"May 4, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/new-beginning/","section":"Posts","summary":" new beginning, originally uploaded by fubuki.\n","title":"Een nieuw begin","type":"posts"},{"content":" Cantankerous old hag with her dog, originally uploaded by illustir.\nIk zit nu naar voorbeeld van Eelke regelmatig in het park te werken. Er zijn daar een paar bronnen van onbeveiligde WiFi en met het huidige weer is het prettig werken op de bankjes of in het gras.\nDeze \u0026lsquo;dame\u0026rsquo; liet haar hond poepen in een van de grasvelden waar expliciet een bord staat (zie de paal in beeld) met de teksten \u0026ldquo;Honden niet toegestaan\u0026rdquo;.\nToen ik haar daarop aansprak kwam er een onsamenhangende stortvloed woorden uit. Iets over honden en dat ze toch al nergens los mogen rond lopen (de uitlaatstrook is even verderop) en dat het bord niet rechtsgeldig is.\nIk kon tegen zoveel onzin weinig inbrengen. De vrouw wendde zich nog steeds boos af en liep door met haar hond.\n","date":"May 2, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/naar-oud-wijf-met-haar-hond/","section":"Posts","summary":" Cantankerous old hag with her dog, originally uploaded by illustir.\n","title":"Naar oud wijf met haar hond","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik lees bijna geen print media, maar de meeste mensen boven de 30 doen dat wel en laten zich in hun beslissingen ook daardoor leiden. Daar moeten we rekening mee houden.\nIk kreeg een week of wat geleden een mailtje van een journalist van PC Magazine die een stukje wilde schrijven over OpenID en bij mij kwam naar aanleiding van mijn stukje bij Frankwatching.\nNa een korte e-mailwisseling bleek dat deze persoon bijzonder in de war was en er redelijk op gebrand was om een ‘kritisch’ stukje 1 te schrijven over OpenID.\nIk heb geprobeerd de twijfels van deze man weg te nemen en alles wat er niet klopte te ontkrachten maar ik ben er niet zeker van of dit wel gelukt is. Mijn vraag is nu dus: Heeft iemand zo\u0026rsquo;n stukje al gelezen in PC Mag of vergelijkbare publicaties 2?\nMocht zo\u0026rsquo;n stukje namelijk verschenen zijn en misleidend zijn, dan zou ik het als mijn taak zien om zo\u0026rsquo;n stukje te ontkrachten puur als dienst in het algemeen belang.\nLiever: het zaaien van angst door middel van negativiteit en drogredeneringen.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nIk ga van de week wel in de kiosk kijken.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"May 2, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/pc-magazine-over-openid/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik lees bijna geen print media, maar de meeste mensen boven de 30 doen dat wel en laten zich in hun beslissingen ook daardoor leiden. Daar moeten we rekening mee houden.\n","title":"PC Magazine over OpenID","type":"posts"},{"content":"En dan de Koninginnedag zelf, traditioneel begonnen met een kater en dan haasten naar het optreden op het Agathaplein (video daarvan volgt nog). De rest van de dag is dan een oranje waas van capoeira en bier.\nImpressie # Hier een kleine impressie direct van de spiegelreflex:\nHet filmpje is ook iets groter te [downloaden](http://aardverschuiving.com/video/Queensday 2007 Timelapse.mov).\nFoto\u0026rsquo;s # Hier ook nog wat foto\u0026rsquo;s geschoten door Eelke.\n","date":"May 1, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/koninginnedag-zelf/","section":"Posts","summary":"En dan de Koninginnedag zelf, traditioneel begonnen met een kater en dan haasten naar het optreden op het Agathaplein (video daarvan volgt nog). De rest van de dag is dan een oranje waas van capoeira en bier.\n","title":"Koninginnedag zelf","type":"posts"},{"content":" Een extreem relaxte voor-Koninginnedagse zondag begonnen met een picknick in de Haagse Paleistuin. Daarna verder naar het huis voor de daadwerkelijke warming en door naar de Koninginnenach.\nLeuke optredens onder andere van C-Mon \u0026amp; Kypski hieronder: ","date":"May 1, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/leuke-dingen-voor-koninginnedag/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Leuke dingen voor Koninginnedag","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik heb net mijn Macbook in Den Haag laten inboeken vanwege een smerige topcase 1 en een batterij die het niet goed doet.\nDe gast achter de balie bij LJS noteerde mijn klachten en wilde toen meteen mijn Macbook inboeken voor een week om de problemen met de batterij te onderzoeken. Dat ging dus mooi niet door.\nApple adverteert hun computers als lifestyle computers en zo gebruik ik ze ook. Als ik een week zonder Macbook zit, dan kan ik weinig (nuttigs) doen. De afspraak is nu om het onderzoek plaats te laten vinden tegelijkertijd met de vervanging van de topcase wat alles bij elkaar hoogstens een dag duurt. Een dag waarop ik best in het park een boek kan liggen lezen.\nVerder ook gevraagd wat een verlenging van de AppleCare hier kost en dat schijnt €319 te zijn voor twee extra jaar. Dat is een redelijk bizar verschil met Amerika waar het $249 2 kost. Dat is bijna twee keer zo duur!\nVoor de periode na mijn garantietermijn was één optie dus AppleCare kopen en het nog een jaartje uitzingen. De andere optie die nu een stuk aantrekkelijker begint te worden 3 is wat geld achter de hand houden en als deze stuk gaat dan weer een nieuwe kopen.\nProbleem is dan alleen wat te doen met een kapotte Macbook zonder AppleCare. Is daar markt voor op Marktplaats?\nHij was al vervangen, maar de nieuwe nog sneller smerig.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nOmgerekend: €183\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nAppleCare verlenging is één derde van de prijs van een nieuwe Macbook.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"April 28, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/macbook-ondersteuning-in-den-haag/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik heb net mijn Macbook in Den Haag laten inboeken vanwege een smerige topcase 1 en een batterij die het niet goed doet.\n","title":"Macbook ondersteuning in Den Haag","type":"posts"},{"content":"Nog even ter herinnering, vanavond is de eerste editie van de netwerkborrel voor web professionals en zelfstandigen in Delft en omstreken.\nZie de aankondiging op Four Starters.\n","date":"April 27, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/open-beer-delft-vanavond-in-het-klooster/","section":"Posts","summary":"Nog even ter herinnering, vanavond is de eerste editie van de netwerkborrel voor web professionals en zelfstandigen in Delft en omstreken.\n","title":"Open Beer Delft vanavond in het Klooster","type":"posts"},{"content":"Hier nog een reisverslag uit Spanje wat ik in Wordpress had hangen. Er volgen er hopelijk nog een paar binnenkort.\nEen ding wat essentieel is als je op reis gaat is de verandering van taal. Niets doet je zozeer beseffen dat je in het buitenland bent als bordjes die je niet kunt lezen en grote aantallen mensen die je met geen mogelijkheid kunt verstaan 1.\nHet handjevol talen dat ik soort van spreek, komt op reis redelijk goed van pas. Een klein overzicht van mijn ervaringen in Spanje.\nSpaans kunnen praten met Spanjaarden hoe erg dan ook gehinderd door mijn beperkte woordenschat is handig. De overgrote meerderheid van Spanjaarden raakt in paniek als je in het Engels tegen ze begint te praten. Ze kunnen geen Engels, of als ze het wel kunnen, durven ze het niet. Als je kranten in Spanje bekijkt, lijkt het ook alsof de wereld ophoudt bij de Spaanse grens of zelfs bij de regio. Ik heb het idee dat Spanje genoeg heeft aanzichzelf en de rest van de Spaanstalige wereld.\nEngels is onder de meeste toeristen die ik tegenkwam de gebruikelijke taal. Er reizen veel Amerikanen en Britten rond en de rest past zich daaraan aan. Het spreken van de dominante taal maakt duidelijk lui. Ik krijg van sommige van die gasten de opmerking dat ‘jullie Nederlanders altijd zo goed Engels kunnen’. Moet ik dan zeggen dat zij dat ook wel zouden kunnen als ze hun best zouden doen?\nNederlanders spreken niet eens zo goed Engels 2 maar gebrek aan zelfreflectie zorgt dat een Nederlander luid en duidelijk door blijft praten.\nIk kwam op deze reis voor het eerst Amerikanen tegen en zelfs zij spraken geen Spaans. Dat schijnt beperkt te zijn tot het Zuid-Westen van Amerika. De rest maakte zich ervan af met de kutsmoes dat ze op school Frans 3 hadden gekozen.\nMet Amerikanen die alleen maar Engels spreken en Spanjaarden die helemaal geen Engels spreken kun je raden hoeveel interactie er plaats vindt tussen beide groepen. Heel handig dat vastzitten in je eigen taal en cultuur.\nIk heb op deze vakantie ook voor het eerst met echte Amerikanen gesproken en het is bijzonder om zoveel mensen met zo weinig benul te zien.\nErasmus # Het wonen in een internationale gemeenschap heeft ook invloed op je taal. Vorige keer dat ik Judith zag spraken we op vakantie Engels van best een hoog niveau. Van dat Engels is nu weinig meer over. Ze heeft in de tussentijd Spaans opgepikt en gebruikt dat bijna exclusief om in Spanje te communiceren. Dat Spaans is van een simpel Erasmus-niveau 4 en het werkt. Het Engels dat gesproken wordt in Spanje is van een laag niveau, en alle anderen passen hun Engels daar weer op aan 5. Het resultaat is de grootste gemene deler: Erasmus-Engels.\nMensen communiceren dus wel met elkaar, maar om in je studie en daarbuiten te kunnen praten over ingewikkeldere dingen denk ik niet dat baby-praat voldoende is. Dat merken we hier in Delft ook al met het opgelegde Engels wat niet iedereen even goed beheerst. Je kunt alles wel zeggen in simpelere woorden, maar dat is minder efficient. Het kost daardoor meer tijd om dezelfde ruimte te bestrijken maar erger nog mensen hebben een beperkt werkgeheugen en het is dus handig om een heleboel concepten samen te vatten met ingewikkelde woorden om het nog niet eens te hebben over nuance en kleur van taal.\nMeer Ik heb wel gemerkt dat kunnen communiceren met de meeste mensen die je op vakantie tegenkomt erg leuk is. Reizen zonder dat je de mensen verstaat 6 gaat ook prima maar dit is toch wel leuker.\nIk moet nog een paar talen voor ik kan praten met een significant deel van de wereldbevolking en één daarvan is Arabisch. Arabisch heeft alleen de nare eigenschap dat het ontzettend varieert over de hele wereld. Afhankelijk van wat je wilt kun je een lokaal dialect leren 7 of het Modern Standaard Arabisch wat in de media gebruikt wordt.\nIk denk dat het MSA wordt, nu nog een fatsoenlijke methode.\nVolgens deze definitie qualificeren bepaalde wijken van Den Haag al als ‘op reis’ en is Vlaanderen een recalcitrant onderdeel van Nederland.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nIk heb het idee dat Scandinaviërs beter Engels spreken dan wij.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nEen van de minder nuttige talen om je energie in te steken.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nIk kan het meeste ervan verstaan.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nDat heb ik nu ook als ik Engels probeer te praten met Spanjaarden of Italianen. Ik heb het idee dat ze normaal Engels niet verstaan, dus ik maak het simpeler (mooier wordt het er niet op).\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nbijv. in Hongarije of Tsjechië\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nZoals bijvoorbeeld het Egyptisch-Arabisch of het Levantijns-Arabisch.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"April 26, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/reisverslag-spanje-meer-en-minder-taligheid/","section":"Posts","summary":"Hier nog een reisverslag uit Spanje wat ik in Wordpress had hangen. Er volgen er hopelijk nog een paar binnenkort.\n","title":"Reisverslag Spanje - Meer en minder taligheid","type":"posts"},{"content":"Bij Redmonk een manifest van de Noorse Liberale Partij waar ik het heel erg mee eens ben.\nHieronder vertaald:\nDe copyrightwetgeving is achterhaald. Een samenleving waar cultuur en kennis op gelijke voorwaarden voor iedereen vrij toegankelijk zijn, is in het belang van iedereen. Grote distributeurs en auteursrechthouders misbruiken systematisch en op grote schaal het auteursrecht waardoor ze artistieke ontwikkeling en innovatie remmen. Daarom wil de Liberale Partij het evenwicht in de auteursrechten herstellen door middel van de volgende veranderingen:\nVrijelijk delen van bestanden: Technische ontwikkelingen hebben het mogelijk gemaakt om zowel populaire als aparte cultuur tegen minimale kosten over de wereld te verspreiden. Om het vrijelijk delen van bestanden mogelijk te maken, zijn er nieuwe manieren nodig om artiesten en rechthebbenden te honoreren. Nationaal en internationaal moeten wetten en regelgeving worden aangepast zodat ze alleen nog beperkingen instellen op gebruik en verspreiding in een commerciele context met winstoogmerk.\nVrij samplen: De Liberale Partij meent dat de huidige beperkende wetten rond copyright het moeilijk maken voor muzikanten, filmproducenten, schrijvers en andere kunstenaars om oude werken en producties te hernemen en te bewerken. In principe is dit nu illegaal zonder toestemming van alle rechthebbenden. De Liberale Partij wil deze situatie vereenvoudigen. Het hernemen van oude werken moet worden gereguleerd als \u0026lsquo;fair use\u0026rsquo;. De bestaande wetten tegen plagiaat zijn meer dan voldoende om auteursrechthebbenden te beschermen.\nKortere termijn van commercieel auteursrecht: Op dit moment is het Noorse auteursrecht geldig tot 70 jaar na de dood van de originele rechthebbende 1. Dit is onredelijk. Auteursrechttermijnen moeten naar een niveau wat beter in balans is met innovatie en een wijdverspreid gebruik van cultuur. De Liberale Partij wil een kortere copyrighttermijn.\nVerbied DRM: De Liberale Partij meent dat iedereen die het recht om een product te gebruiken heeft gekocht een technologisch neutrale manier moet hebben om dat product te gebruiken. Dit betekent dat platenmaatschappijen geen controle kunnen uitoefenen over hoe burgers hun legaal gekochte muziek afspelen. De Liberale Partij wil technische beperkingen (algemeen bekend als DRM) op de rechten van consumenten om informatie en cultuur vrij te gebruiken en te verspreiden verbieden. In gevallen waar een verbod op DRM buiten de Noorse bevoegdheid valt, moeten producten die DRM gebruiken duidelijk aangeven hoe ze gebruikt kunnen worden voor ze worden verkocht.\nMet welke Nederlandse politieke partij kan ik de Liberale Partij in bovenstaande stukje tekst vervangen 2?\nOndertussen lopen BN\u0026rsquo;ers te janken over het afschaffen van de MP3-heffing 3 en ander vermeend onrecht.\nVerder nog een bijzonder slap lulverhaal van de platenmaatschappijen 4 van Wouter Rutten. Die beweert dat DRM wel handig is om te voorkomen dat kinderen worden blootgesteld aan ongeschikte content. Goede les uit het marketingboek: als al je argumenten op of ontkracht zijn roep dan, ‘Denk toch aan de kinderen!’.\nOplossingen zijn nodig, dat klopt maar tien miljoen mensen criminaliseren is geen oplossing. Deze voorstellen van de Noorse Liberale Partij komen een stuk dichter in de buurt van de realiteit en de noodzaak die er is voor hervormingen.\nDit is in Nederland ook zo, net zoals overal in de EU.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nDe VVD gaat het niet zijn want dat zijn geen liberalen volgens normale definities van het woord ‘liberaal’.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nJe kunt deze mensen het beste vergelijken met trekschuitschippers en paardenkoetsiers die protesteren tegen de opkomst van de stoomlocomotief. Droog je tranen; de vooruitgang valt niet tegen te houden.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nAardige serie over dit thema van Bright trouwens.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"April 26, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/heldere-standpunten-over-copyright-in-noorwegen/","section":"Posts","summary":"Bij Redmonk een manifest van de Noorse Liberale Partij waar ik het heel erg mee eens ben.\n","title":"Heldere standpunten over copyright in Noorwegen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Het viel me al een tijdje op maar nu net op Radio 3 1 wordt het redelijk acuut. Vanochtend de megahit aangehoord: The Fray - How to save a life en nu net Nicole Willis and the Soul Investigators. Leuke spul maar royaal te laat en nu ze het hebben ontdekt gaan ze het natuurlijk helemaal stuk draaien.\nIk zet Studio Brussel wel weer op.\nZe willen zelf liever 3FM genoemd worden.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"April 24, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/de-radio-achterhaald-al-voor-het-de-ether-in-geslingerd-wordt/","section":"Posts","summary":"Het viel me al een tijdje op maar nu net op Radio 3 1 wordt het redelijk acuut. Vanochtend de megahit aangehoord: The Fray - How to save a life en nu net Nicole Willis and the Soul Investigators. Leuke spul maar royaal te laat en nu ze het hebben ontdekt gaan ze het natuurlijk helemaal stuk draaien.\n","title":"De radio, achterhaald al voor het de ether in geslingerd wordt","type":"posts"},{"content":"Gisteren dus de TEDPrize presentatie van James Nachtwey bekeken op schitterend hoog resolutie video.\nWeinig opbeurend materiaal maar des te inspirerender.\nEr is dus nu in FOAM een expositie met zijn foto\u0026rsquo;s die de moeite is om heen te gaan 1.\nIk ben wel benieuwd naar het verhaal waar hij nu mee bezig is en waarvoor hij de hulp van het TED publiek heeft ingewonnen. Zoals ze zeggen in Spanje: ‘vamos a ver’.\nZie ook het stuk op Sargasso.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"April 22, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/getuigenis-over-essentiele-verhalen/","section":"Posts","summary":"Gisteren dus de TEDPrize presentatie van James Nachtwey bekeken op schitterend hoog resolutie video.\n","title":"Getuigenis over essentiele verhalen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik heb net de onnavolgbare voetnoten plugin gedownload en geïnstalleerd op dit blog 1.\nVoetnoten en voetnoten in voetnoten en daartussen heen en weer kunnen springen zijn fijne dingen. Online nog het bekendste van onze fijnste Mac-fanboy site Daring Fireball. De opmaak is niet aller-semantischt maar het werkt wel, hoop ik.\nDus hierbij even getest.\nEn wel hiervandaan.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"April 22, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/even-testen/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik heb net de onnavolgbare voetnoten plugin gedownload en geïnstalleerd op dit blog 1.\n","title":"Even testen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik wil binnenkort bijeenkomsten voor digitale creatieven regelen in Delft. Er zijn veel mensen die hiermee bezig zijn in Delft en veel ervan zijn onafhankelijk. Het is leuk en handig als je elkaar kent en weet wat de anderen bezig houdt.\nÉén vereiste voor zo\u0026rsquo;n evenement is een leuke venue met WiFi. Die zijn er in Delft niet of nauwelijks. Het enige wat in de buurt komt is Café Verderop en dat is best een aardig café maar niet zo handig gelegen en een beetje gesloten van opzet. Ik zoek het liefst iets in het centrum.\nWie weet wat, of is Delft echt zo\u0026rsquo;n achterlijk gat?\n","date":"April 22, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/digitale-borrel-in-delft/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik wil binnenkort bijeenkomsten voor digitale creatieven regelen in Delft. Er zijn veel mensen die hiermee bezig zijn in Delft en veel ervan zijn onafhankelijk. Het is leuk en handig als je elkaar kent en weet wat de anderen bezig houdt.\n","title":"Digitale Borrel in Delft","type":"posts"},{"content":"Gisteren wat door Delft gelopen en gefotografeerd. Ik had net de presentatie van James Nachtwey gezien wat redelijk indrukwekkend was.\nEen tijdje geleden tijdens het hardlopen was me al opgevallen dat de brug naar de Calvé was opengebroken. Aangezien ik nog geen hele gave mobiele telefoon met fototoestel heb, kon ik er toen geen foto\u0026rsquo;s van maken.\nDus nu dan: ","date":"April 22, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/brug-gesloopt/","section":"Posts","summary":"Gisteren wat door Delft gelopen en gefotografeerd. Ik had net de presentatie van James Nachtwey gezien wat redelijk indrukwekkend was.\n","title":"Brug gesloopt","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik haal amper een uur leven uit mijn Macbook bij normaal gebruik. De indicator die moet laten zien hoe vol hij is heeft ook geen enkele relatie meer tot de werkelijkheid.\nMet dit weer is het erg fijn om buiten te werken maar een uur is echt te kort. Ik heb net even een rondje door Delft gedaan om plaatsen met draadloos internet op de kaart te zetten: De Plataan en Het Klooster. Het zijn er helaas niet al te veel. Het wordt tijd voor een versie van Kismac die werkt op mijn Macbook.\nIk denk dat ik maar een bezoek ga brengen aan de aardige mensen van LJS om mijn batterij te repareren. Ik denk er verder ook over om deze Mac nog een tijdje te houden en er een 100+ GB harde schijf in te zetten. Dit heen en weer slepen van bestanden naar externe harde schijven is echt geen leven. Misschien is het dan handig om nog even 2 extra jaar garantie te kopen.\nUpdate: Kom ik net op de Apple site de volgende quote tegen:\nOver batterijen gesproken: de batterij van je MacBook gaat tot 6 uur mee (2,5 uur als je een dvd afspeelt en 3,5 uur als je geheel draadloos werkt) voordat je \u0026rsquo;m weer moet opladen.\nHier klopt in mijn geval dus helemaal niks van.\n","date":"April 21, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/batterij-macook-rap-leeg/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik haal amper een uur leven uit mijn Macbook bij normaal gebruik. De indicator die moet laten zien hoe vol hij is heeft ook geen enkele relatie meer tot de werkelijkheid.\n","title":"Batterij Macbook rap leeg","type":"posts"},{"content":"Mijn nummer is vandaag zonder enige problemen geporteerd van T-mobile (klootzakken) naar Orange. En dat terwijl ik het pas tien dagen geleden had aangevraagd en iedereen zei dat dat onmogelijk was etc. etc.\nDus ik ben nog steeds bereikbaar onder: +31 - 6 24 55 33 06. Probeer het gerust even uit.\n","date":"April 19, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/nummerportabiliteit/","section":"Posts","summary":"Mijn nummer is vandaag zonder enige problemen geporteerd van T-mobile (klootzakken) naar Orange. En dat terwijl ik het pas tien dagen geleden had aangevraagd en iedereen zei dat dat onmogelijk was etc. etc.\n","title":"Nummerportabiliteit","type":"posts"},{"content":"Dit blog in zijn huidige vorm houdt op te bestaan. De huidige opstelling was niet meer te onderhouden en al bijna een jaar lang aan vervanging toe. Nu na het afstuderen, komt het eindelijk van dit soort dingen.\nDe boel verschuift van een brakke computer hier in de woonkamer naar een shared hosting op Dreamhost. Voor een preciezere beschrijving van de beweegredenen verwijs ik door naar een bericht op het zusterblog.\nWegens beperkingen en tegen spam enzo zal alle content daar statisch staan en zijn commentaren e.d. dus niet meer mogelijk.\nVoor de lezers hier verandert er niet heel veel. Ik blijf doorschrijven op de nieuwe server op een Wordpress blog onder http://alper.nl/dingen en de feeds die hier staan worden permanent doorverwezen naar http:/alper.nl/dingen/feed.\nIk kan dan weer lekker gaan schrijven en een stapel hoognodige verbeteringen door gaan voeren.\n","date":"April 18, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-830/","section":"Posts","summary":"Dit blog in zijn huidige vorm houdt op te bestaan. De huidige opstelling was niet meer te onderhouden en al bijna een jaar lang aan vervanging toe. Nu na het afstuderen, komt het eindelijk van dit soort dingen.\n","title":"Plus ça change","type":"posts"},{"content":"As was mentioned earlier and has been due for something close to a year this blog is closing in its current form and moving on.\nDuring the course of this night I will be changing the A-record of alper.nl to point to the new setup I have built on Dreamhost. From then on I will resume improving the content I have hosted on this domain.\nThe change this blog will see is that its content will be made static and linked into an index page. Not too user friendly, but it is meant for Google indexing and most visitors of my old posts come through Google anyway.\nThe current setup I have with Zope running on an ailing computer on my home machine was becoming more and more untenable. The hardware failings were bothersome but solvable.\nThe real problem lied with the Zope platform. It seemed like a good idea to host a blog on it because ‘I was going to learn it’. I never got around to learning it properly. Zope is a fine product, it is too obscure and big for my taste.\nMost comprehensive CMSes are written in PHP and in the Python space Django is just so much the more compelling for me. With platforms the size really is one of the most important reasons to choose one over the other (I think James Governor keeps saying this).\nMaintaining a blog an a —for me— dead-end hard to host platform was becoming very unattractive what with a very nice competing offering: Wordpress.\nEnglish language blogging about all things technology, education and design related will continue on our newly started initiative Four Starters. Feeds for this blog will be redirected permanently to http://fourstarters.com/feed so if all goes well, this change would not affect you much.\n","date":"April 18, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-246/","section":"Posts","summary":"As was mentioned earlier and has been due for something close to a year this blog is closing in its current form and moving on.\n","title":"Moving on","type":"posts"},{"content":"Een gesprek met Martijn over arriveren deed me denken aan een oud gedicht van Kavafis wat ik ooit heb gelezen.\nIthaca\nWhen you set out on your journey to Ithaca,\npray that the road is long,\nfull of adventure, full of knowledge.\nThe Lestrygonians and the Cyclops,\nthe angry Poseidon \u0026ndash; do not fear them:\nYou will never find such as these on your path,\nif your thoughts remain lofty, if a fine\nemotion touches your spirit and your body.\nThe Lestrygonians and the Cyclops,\nthe fierce Poseidon you will never encounter,\nif you do not carry them within your soul,\nif your soul does not set them up before you.\nPray that the road is long.\nThat the summer mornings are many, when,\nwith such pleasure, with such joy\nyou will enter ports seen for the first time;\nstop at Phoenician markets,\nand purchase fine merchandise,\nmother-of-pearl and coral, amber and ebony,\nand sensual perfumes of all kinds,\nas many sensual perfumes as you can;\nvisit many Egyptian cities,\nto learn and learn from scholars.\nAlways keep Ithaca in your mind.\nTo arrive there is your ultimate goal.\nBut do not hurry the voyage at all.\nIt is better to let it last for many years;\nand to anchor at the island when you are old,\nrich with all you have gained on the way,\nnot expecting that Ithaca will offer you riches.\nIthaca has given you the beautiful voyage.\nWithout her you would have never set out on the road.\nShe has nothing more to give you.\nAnd if you find her poor, Ithaca has not deceived you.\nWise as you have become, with so much experience,\nyou must already have understood what Ithacas mean.\n","date":"April 15, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-829/","section":"Posts","summary":"Een gesprek met Martijn over arriveren deed me denken aan een oud gedicht van Kavafis wat ik ooit heb gelezen.\n","title":"Bid dat de weg lang mag zijn.","type":"posts"},{"content":"Gisteren wezen eten bij de familie en mijn nichtje Dilara vond het raar dat ik niet wist wat een kanun is. Ik verwarde het even met de santur die ik kende uit Crossing the Bridge.\nDus ik kreeg een kleine demonstratie te horen. Zie hieronder even snel geschoten en ge-upload via de WiFi van de buren:\nDe rest van de avond zitten praten over Turkse muziek, (volks)dansen, stand-up komieken allemaal op basis van fragmenten gevonden op YouTube. Televisie, wat is dat?\n","date":"April 15, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-828/","section":"Posts","summary":"Gisteren wezen eten bij de familie en mijn nichtje Dilara vond het raar dat ik niet wist wat een kanun is. Ik verwarde het even met de santur die ik kende uit Crossing the Bridge.\n","title":"Een Turks geluid","type":"posts"},{"content":"Jippie! Meer muziek op straat.\nIn Rotterdam nog een flard van DEAF gezien, terug in Delft wat te drinken kopen en hoor ik een onwijs lawaai naast de Koornbeurs (voor ik geloof deze platenzaak). Zie je dit:\nHeel veel mensen zitten te kijken naar een band en publiek wat helemaal los gaat:\nTe zien aan de hoeveelheid publiek vinden mensen in Delft muziek op straat erg leuk. De gemeente is geloof ik het grootste obstakel, maar een oproep aan alle muzikanten: stoor je niet aan de stadswachten en reclaim de publieke ruimte.\nVorige week gaf Coco Bowles ook een paar songs weg op de Markt:\n","date":"April 15, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-827/","section":"Posts","summary":"Jippie! Meer muziek op straat.\n","title":"Straatmuziek","type":"posts"},{"content":"Dit is mijn nieuwe Wordpress blog.\nAls je dit ziet, ben je mee gekomen met de verhuizing. Op wat browser en DNS cache probleempjes na lijkt alles goed te zijn gekomen.\nNu slapen en morgen de puntjes op de i zetten.\n","date":"April 12, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/hello-world/","section":"Posts","summary":"Dit is mijn nieuwe Wordpress blog.\n","title":"Nieuw blog","type":"posts"},{"content":"Caballero komt van gast op paard en betekent zoveel als ridder/heer. Vroeger waren in Spanje —net zoals overal— mensen die op paarden reden edellieden. Dat woord heeft het overleefd in het hedendaagse Spaans en je wordt er her en der mee aangesproken. Moet je je eens voorstellen dat je in Nederland wordt aangesproken met ‘ridder’ of ‘heer’.\nRaar ja, maar wel leuk.\nOp heel veel W.C\u0026rsquo;s (aseos) op het bordje voor heren de term caballeros waardoor je dus elke keer dat je gaat pissen bevestigd wordt in je caballero-zijn.\nDie bevestiging komt ook wanneer je aan de bar iets gaat bestellen. De bar staat vol met hongerige en dorstige mensen. Na een tijdje komt de barman naar je toe en maakt oogcontact. ‘Diga-me caballero.’ (let. zeg het me, heer!) blaft hij.\nJe hebt dan een paar seconden om zonder aarzeling te zeggen wat je wilt hebben. Twijfel je ook maar eventjes, dan heb je gefaald en wordt je genegeerd of —erger nog— behandeld als toerist.\n","date":"April 11, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-826/","section":"Posts","summary":"Caballero komt van gast op paard en betekent zoveel als ridder/heer. Vroeger waren in Spanje —net zoals overal— mensen die op paarden reden edellieden. Dat woord heeft het overleefd in het hedendaagse Spaans en je wordt er her en der mee aangesproken. Moet je je eens voorstellen dat je in Nederland wordt aangesproken met ‘ridder’ of ‘heer’.\n","title":"Reisverslag Spanje - Het is fijn om een caballero te zijn","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik had een tijdje geleden via Marktplaats een Yashica D gescoord. Ik had goede dingen gehoord over middenformaat dubbele lens reflex camera\u0026rsquo;s (TLR) en ik wilde het wel een keer uitproberen.\nMet afstuderen kwam het er niet echt van om het ding vol te schieten (er zit nog film in!) maar ik had net de hele dag gewerkt en ik wilde toch het huis uit.\nJe kunt normale foto\u0026rsquo;s maken met zo\u0026rsquo;n camera, maar er is ook een Flickr groep die zich bezig houdt met Through the Viewfinder fotografie. Een TLR heeft een joekel van een zoeker er bovenop zitten. Daar kan je een lichtdichte koker opzetten en daarin weer een tweede camera om leuke foto\u0026rsquo;s te schieten met een retro effect.\nIk had de hele dag gewerkt en ik moest het huis uit. Toen heb ik snel een oude schoenendoos hersneden en erop gezet. Het resultaat:\nEn toen de stad in gefietst. Het is nog een beetje wisselvallig, maar de resultaten zijn zeker leuk.\n","date":"April 11, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-825/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik had een tijdje geleden via Marktplaats een Yashica D gescoord. Ik had goede dingen gehoord over middenformaat dubbele lens reflex camera’s (TLR) en ik wilde het wel een keer uitproberen.\n","title":"Door de zoeker","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik dacht dat ik dit jaar net zo laks als vorige jaren kon zijn met mijn aangifte tot ik in de stapel onverwerkt papier (afstuderen hè) een brief van de belastingdienst tegenkom met:\nUw elektronische aangifte moet bij de Belastingdienst binnen zijn vóór 1 apr. 2007\nTsja, vette pech. Het is nu een week later. De ombudsman concludeerde al dat het Rijk veel enthousiaster is bij het innen van belastingen dan bij het uitkeren van toeslagen (vraag maar aan Martijn). Acht dagen later moeten ze kunnen lijen.\nWel goed dat de belastingdienst aangifteprogramma\u0026rsquo;s heeft voor Windows, OS X en Linux. Het kan dus wél, waarom dat dan zoveel jaar heeft moeten duren…\nBlij dat het nu wel digitaal kan, ik heb het gehad met papier. Mijn media zijn bij voorkeur backupbaar en Spotlightbaar.\nNog een leuke zoektocht naar mijn jaaropgave van 2006, die zat ingevouwen in een loonstrookje. Tweede keer koortsachtig door mijn systeem1 heenzoeken en ik had hem. Die jaaropgave is trouwens heel simpel aangezien ik dat hele jaar bij één werkgever zat af te studeren.\nDe aangifte over dit jaar wordt een stuk interessanter.\nMensen die mij kennen zullen verbaasd zijn dat ik wél een systeem heb. Dat systeem bestaat eruit dat alle papier waar ik niet direct iets mee moet maar dat wel belangrijk genoeg is om te bewaren op één stapel gaat. Die stapel bevat alles wat belangrijk is in omgekeerd chronologische volgorde. Dit maakt opzoeken bijzonder eenvoudig. Jan-Heijn Kuipers doet zijn stukken ook op die manier dus als het goed genoeg is voor de zaak Holleeder, dan is het goed genoeg voor mij.\n","date":"April 9, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-824/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik dacht dat ik dit jaar net zo laks als vorige jaren kon zijn met mijn aangifte tot ik in de stapel onverwerkt papier (afstuderen hè) een brief van de belastingdienst tegenkom met:\n","title":"Aangifte","type":"posts"},{"content":"De NOS start met het proces tegen Willem Holleeder tegelijkertijd een videopodcast van de verslaggevers die het proces volgen. De eerste aflevering is vandaag en ik vind hem eigenlijk wel leuk.\nWat denk ik overweldigend opvalt bij al dit soort media die wel leuk zijn, is dat de authenticiteit belangrijk is. Je ziet een redelijk rommelig gemonteerd samenraapsel van een dag achter de schermen, en toch is het interessant, onder andere omdat je dit soort dingen nooit ziet.\nCompleet gladde perfect geproduceerde podcasts kunnen wel werken, daar niet van, maar dan moet alles tot en met de inhoud goed zijn.\nWat alleen nog ontbreekt is een bijbehorend blog met commentaarmogelijkheden op elke aflevering. Ik weet niet hoe lang dit proces gaat duren, maar een plaats waar een trouwe schare vaste kijkers vragen kan stellen en opmerkingen kan plaatsen is denk ik wel de moeite waard.\n","date":"April 3, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-823/","section":"Posts","summary":"De NOS start met het proces tegen Willem Holleeder tegelijkertijd een videopodcast van de verslaggevers die het proces volgen. De eerste aflevering is vandaag en ik vind hem eigenlijk wel leuk.\n","title":"Proces van de eeuw","type":"posts"},{"content":"Terug van vakantie verwacht je weer door te kunnen gaan met je normale leven. Die vlieger gaat voor mij niet op. Het leven van voor de vakantie bestaat niet meer.\nAndere dingen, morgen.\nHier in de komende dagen onder andere een reisverslag in vijf steden en nog veel meer foto\u0026rsquo;s.\n","date":"April 3, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-822/","section":"Posts","summary":"Terug van vakantie verwacht je weer door te kunnen gaan met je normale leven. Die vlieger gaat voor mij niet op. Het leven van voor de vakantie bestaat niet meer.\n","title":"Vuelta","type":"posts"},{"content":" Eindelijk internet. Even batterijen opladen en dan weer naar buiten. Vanavond schijnt de echte parade te zijn.\nDeze post wordt toch nog redelijk gevonden in Google.\nUpdate: Welkom gasten van Tweakers. Ik kan niet precies zien waar jullie vandaan komen maar ik ben wel benieuwd hoe jullie hierop komen.\nHier wat meer foto\u0026rsquo;s:\n","date":"April 1, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-821/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Semana Santa","type":"posts"},{"content":"Nu net het staartje van de Wouter Tapes op Tegenlicht.\n(Foto door Kennisland)\nIk zie een oprechte en menselijke Wouter Bos, eentje die dezelfde twijfels heeft als iedereen, eentje die ‘kut’ zegt, waar we ons dus in kunnen herkennen maar die toch idealistisch is en zijn best doet. Kortom een Wouter Bos die we tijdens de hele campagne niet gezien hebben.\nKomt dit nu door mediaconsulenten en spindoctors die de boodschap naar buiten zo erg filteren en stileren dat het echte verhaal —en daarmee de empathie van de kiezer— verloren gaat?\nDit is echt en in tegenstelling tot de campagne, gaat dit ergens over.\nBoude voorspelling: Ik denk dat als de PvdA dit materiaal tijdens de campagne elke dag direct had vrijgegeven in plaats van nu, dat ze dan de verkiezingen gewonnen hadden.\nAddendum: Hij heeft het erover dat alle woorden door anderen zijn gekaapt en gemeenplaatsen zijn geworden en zoekt naar dingen die werken. Mijn antwoord is dan dat het misschien de moeite waard is om met een écht verhaal te komen.\n","date":"March 19, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-820/","section":"Posts","summary":"Nu net het staartje van de Wouter Tapes op Tegenlicht.\n","title":"De Wouter Tapes vier maanden te laat","type":"posts"},{"content":" Meer foto\u0026rsquo;s volgen. Sowieso geen foto\u0026rsquo;s van de afgeladen kroeg in Caen op St. Patrick\u0026rsquo;s Day, van de Jolly Roger die uit het raam hing in de banlieu of van het ontzettend aardige gastgezin waar we mochten logeren.\nVolgens mij is het een regel dat als je je camera niet bij je hebt, je de meest fotowaardige dingen tegenkomt. Ik moet ook maar zo\u0026rsquo;n ding kopen: ","date":"March 19, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-819/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Terug uit Frankrijk","type":"posts"},{"content":"A.s. dinsdag studeer ik af. Zie het event op Upcoming. Lezers van dit blog zijn uitgenodigd.\nTot die tijd ben ik druk, maar het wordt leuk en het gaat voorbij.\n","date":"March 16, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-818/","section":"Posts","summary":"A.s. dinsdag studeer ik af. Zie het event op Upcoming. Lezers van dit blog zijn uitgenodigd.\n","title":"Afstuderen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Waar een avondje schieten al niet toe kan leiden. Een verkoudheid en wat ingenomen benzine, maar ook tot hele leuke ontmoetingen en foto\u0026rsquo;s:\nDeze saxofonist treedt komende dinsdag op in de Bebop. Afgaande van zijn sound en toewijding iets om heen te gaan. Toevallig studeer ik dinsdag ook af.\nMeer foto\u0026rsquo;s van mij en van Eelke.\n","date":"March 16, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-817/","section":"Posts","summary":"Waar een avondje schieten al niet toe kan leiden. Een verkoudheid en wat ingenomen benzine, maar ook tot hele leuke ontmoetingen en foto’s:\n","title":"Freestyle schieten","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik zat een beetje te dromen van de Leica M8 en vergelijkbare high end camera\u0026rsquo;s. Nu zie ik de laatste tijd de ellende die mensen als Joi Ito (en anderen) hebben met de IR-gevoeligheid van de camera en hoe ontzettend laks en leugenachtig daarop gereageerd wordt en de prille liefde is al bekoeld.\nAls ik ooit €7000 aan een camera uit wil geven, dan een 1Ds Mark III.\n","date":"March 14, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-816/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik zat een beetje te dromen van de Leica M8 en vergelijkbare high end camera’s. Nu zie ik de laatste tijd de ellende die mensen als Joi Ito (en anderen) hebben met de IR-gevoeligheid van de camera en hoe ontzettend laks en leugenachtig daarop gereageerd wordt en de prille liefde is al bekoeld.\n","title":"Leica's waardeloze klantenservice","type":"posts"},{"content":"Buitenhof heeft een nieuwe columnist: Joshua Livestro. Lees zijn column maar op de site. Hij komt met een waardeloze stelling, wat namedropping en vage vermoedens. Hier een antwoord.\nHet is puur toeval waar iemand geboren is en het is misschien gebruikelijk om daar rechten aan te ontlenen, moreel is het niet. Het besef dat je net zo goed in een arm land geboren had kunnen zijn is de basis voor naastenliefde en internationale solidariteit.\nVolgens Livestro moeten vaderlandsliefde en gevaarlijk nationalisme niet met elkaar verward worden. Politici ter rechterzijde doen niets liever dan deze en andere dingen met elkaar verwarren. Logisch en redelijk denken gaat niet samen met het bespelen van onderbuikgevoelens.\nWat heeft het aantal paspoorten dat iemand heeft te me maken met diens loyaliteit en daarbovenop nog met de vaderlandsliefde die iemand voelt? Livestro geeft geen argumenten.\nWat is logisch? Het is logisch dat als je ergens bent geboren dat je de lokale taal leert en affiniteit opbouwt —misschien zelfs liefde voelt— voor die regio. Net zoals het niet logisch is om van nieuwkomers te verwachten dat ze in één keer alle banden met hun oude thuis verbreken en overstromen van liefde.\nEn waar zouden ze die liefde dan voor moeten voelen? Het achterhaalde beeld van vroeger waar dit kabinet mee pronkt? Boerenkool en klompendans? Liefde voor de normen en waarden waar Nederland op gebouwd is. We weten waar deze discussie onder Balkenende heen heeft geleid.\nVaderlandsliefde is een achterhaald en hol begrip, niet meer dan een sentiment dat vaak gebruikt wordt om onsmakelijkere gevoelens mee te verhullen. Het is maar een kleine stap verder om de wereld te zien als markt en strijd met alle VOC-mentaliteit en Realpolitik ten gevolg.\nIk geef Livestro gelijk op één punt. We hebben hier en nu iets nodig om van te houden. Laat dat dan burgerschap en gemeenschapszin zijn. Waarden die universeel en meedraagbaar zijn en die op elke plek een concrete invulling kunnen krijgen.\n","date":"March 13, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-815/","section":"Posts","summary":"Buitenhof heeft een nieuwe columnist: Joshua Livestro. Lees zijn column maar op de site. Hij komt met een waardeloze stelling, wat namedropping en vage vermoedens. Hier een antwoord.\n","title":"Nieuwe columnisten moeten grote schoenen vullen","type":"posts"},{"content":"John Edwards is begonnen Twitter te gebruiken [via]. Amerikanen lopen lichtjaren voor in dit soot dingen. Kijk bijvoorbeeld ook naar de sociale site van Barak Obama.\nHoe moeilijk is het voor een Nederlandse politieke partij om met zoiets te beginnen?\nText en moblog updates van tumblelogs zouden niet zo moeilijk moeten zijn, zelfs voor de meest digibete politici.\nRecombineren van feeds op Jaiku of op eigen sites is daarna ook niet heel moeilijk meer.\nTechnisch kan het dus. De voordelen zijn enorm. Politiek is persoonlijker dan ooit en dat je de gevoelens van mensen moet bespelen is van alle tijden.\nBlijft over het vestigen van een sociale praktijk bij de bloggers en het op een handige manier ontsluiten van de informatie voor een Nederlands publiek.\n","date":"March 10, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-814/","section":"Posts","summary":"John Edwards is begonnen Twitter te gebruiken [via]. Amerikanen lopen lichtjaren voor in dit soot dingen. Kijk bijvoorbeeld ook naar de sociale site van Barak Obama.\n","title":"Politiek kwetteren","type":"posts"},{"content":" ","date":"March 9, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-813/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Transitionele symboliek","type":"posts"},{"content":" ","date":"March 9, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-812/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Manier om je fiets op slot te doen","type":"posts"},{"content":"De verkiezingen vandaag zijn redelijk langs me heen gegaan. Ik heb wel gestemd, maar ik kan me hier weinig voor interesseren.\nWat ik wel redelijk frappant vind de laatste paar dagen zijn deze twee nieuwsberichten:\nDonorcampagne gecancelled wegens een teveel aan bloot CDA-kamerlid wil masturbatiemarathon verbieden Het gaat er nu even niet om wat ik van bovenstaande twee verschijnselen vind (ik ben ook geen groot fan van masturbatiemarathons). Dat doet compleet niet te zake.\nWat wel ter zake doet, is dat dit kabinet koud een week zit en er al dit soort ernstige vergrijpen jegens de vrijheid van meningsuiting plaatsvinden. Dit belooft nog wat voor de komende paar jaar.\n","date":"March 8, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-811/","section":"Posts","summary":"De verkiezingen vandaag zijn redelijk langs me heen gegaan. Ik heb wel gestemd, maar ik kan me hier weinig voor interesseren.\n","title":"Christenen en hun onheilspellende voorbodes","type":"posts"},{"content":"Naar aanleiding van mijn vorige stukje over de Provinciale Statenverkiezingen, had ik een e-mail naar de Volkskrant geschreven. Het is niet mijn beste en ik had niet echt gedacht die geplaatst zou worden, maar dus toch.\nIk had er vandaag overheen gelezen, dus ik moet de moeder van Eelke bedanken.\nDie roep lees ik trouwens meer en meer in de kranten. Het aantal mensen dat deze verkiezingen serieus neemt, lijkt te tellen op één hand. Het artikel “De loze belofte” in dezelfde krant gaat over het boek “Het opgeblazen bestuur” van Klaartje Peters waarin het belang van de provincie wordt gerelativeerd.\nAlleen niet door de provincie zelf, zij blaast zichzelf graag op.\n","date":"March 4, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-810/","section":"Posts","summary":"Naar aanleiding van mijn vorige stukje over de Provinciale Statenverkiezingen, had ik een e-mail naar de Volkskrant geschreven. Het is niet mijn beste en ik had niet echt gedacht die geplaatst zou worden, maar dus toch.\n","title":"Staten (2)","type":"posts"},{"content":"I went to the Web 2.0 drink hosted by Tijs and René in the Hague tonight and I talked a bit to various internet sorts and got exposed to a whole lot of Jaiku.\nI had already claimed my online presence at Jaiku, but hadn\u0026rsquo;t given it much thought since. Mark said that their recently released version was cool and Tijs briefly showed me the Jaiku mobile client on his Nokia.\nThe site is really usable and pretty social right now and the mobile app is nothing short of impressive. This really is a solid implementation of the vision Jyri Engeström laid out during his talk at Reboot called “Blind Men\u0026rsquo;s Baseball” (great presentation).\nThe timing of this is pretty opportune since I was annoyed silly by a barrage of semi-nonsensical SMSes from Twitter lately. It seems like Twitter implements just one dimension in this space and not too well.\nI turned off the SMS notification (end the pain, please!) and left a goodbye message for the Twitter folk.\nNow just to get my hands on a somewhat more recent phone and a decent plan so I can play with the mobile presence part.\n(Cross posted at FourStarters.)\n","date":"March 3, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-245/","section":"Posts","summary":"I went to the Web 2.0 drink hosted by Tijs and René in the Hague tonight and I talked a bit to various internet sorts and got exposed to a whole lot of Jaiku.\n","title":"Taking swings at mobile presence","type":"posts"},{"content":"I must say I\u0026rsquo;m pretty thrilled that our little mashup was mentioned on stage at the Future of Web apps.\nPicture by XaOS. Thanks!\nUpdate: The slide is gone, but you can see the Last.fm deck on the FOWA website. Our slide is some way in.\n","date":"February 28, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-244/","section":"Posts","summary":"I must say I’m pretty thrilled that our little mashup was mentioned on stage at the Future of Web apps.\n","title":"The future of web apps","type":"posts"},{"content":"Een blij bericht op Mac OS X.nl dat minister Ronald Plasterk een Apple gebruiker is.\nDus Plasterk is niet alleen intelligent en welbespraakt, hij heeft ook het licht gezien wat betreft Het Enige Ware Computerplatform.\nIk zou zeggen tegen die Christen-ministers vergeet God en kijk in uw midden voor echte Verlichting.\n","date":"February 27, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-809/","section":"Posts","summary":"Een blij bericht op Mac OS X.nl dat minister Ronald Plasterk een Apple gebruiker is.\n","title":"Plasterk gebruikt een Mac!","type":"posts"},{"content":"Een van de weinige lokaal Delftse politieke thema\u0026rsquo;s die mij raakt is het fietsenbeleid rondom het station. Ik kan nooit makkelijk mijn fiets kwijt rondom het station hier.\nAls ik dan de discussies lees in de Delftse politiek (GL, LD) over dit onderwerp, dan word ik niet bijzonder gelukkig van het niveau.\nEr zijn ook ambtenaren die geloven in het weghalen van fout geparkeerde fietsen (symptoombestrijding). Dat is natuurlijk te dom voor woorden en ik heb de petitie tegen al getekend.\nEr zijn fietsparkeerplaatsen nodig, maar de VVD is tegen elke parkeerplek die verdwijnt in de stad. 1 auto staat gelijk aan een fiets of 25 dus reken uit hoe slim de VVD is.\nIn ieder geval is het ontwerp van de publieke ruimte een zooitje in Delft en moet er meer plek herwonnen worden op de auto.\n","date":"February 27, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-808/","section":"Posts","summary":"Een van de weinige lokaal Delftse politieke thema’s die mij raakt is het fietsenbeleid rondom het station. Ik kan nooit makkelijk mijn fiets kwijt rondom het station hier.\n","title":"Red je fiets","type":"posts"},{"content":"Nu ik toch tegen grote veranderingen aan zit te kijken zowel in mijn leven als wat mijn online aanwezigheid betreft, hebben jullie tips voor me?\nWat moet ik zeker wel/niet doen? Waar moet ik wel/niet over schrijven?\nTips, complimenten, kritiek? Alles is welkom in de commentaren.\n","date":"February 22, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-807/","section":"Posts","summary":"Nu ik toch tegen grote veranderingen aan zit te kijken zowel in mijn leven als wat mijn online aanwezigheid betreft, hebben jullie tips voor me?\n","title":"Een stukje reflectie","type":"posts"},{"content":"I am considering discontinuing this blog here and concentrating my English writing efforts on our new and soon to be launched weblog Four Starters.com.\nI haven\u0026rsquo;t been doing much or writing much about hard technology lately and my writings about web trends and business are a good fit for Four Starters.\nDiscontinuing this blog is going to happen in any case because I am going to migrate everything here to Dreamhost and make all the content static. Dreamhost does not offer Zope hosting (nor would I want it if they did).\nFor my Dutch blog I will be installing a fresh Wordpress but not for this one or at least not immediately.\n(Feed URLs and the like will be redirected, so you shouldn\u0026rsquo;t notice.)\nYour thoughts?\n","date":"February 22, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-243/","section":"Posts","summary":"I am considering discontinuing this blog here and concentrating my English writing efforts on our new and soon to be launched weblog Four Starters.com.\n","title":"Discontinuing","type":"posts"},{"content":"Een site concept wat ik heb bedacht en heb helpen uitwerken voor TOPdesk staat nu eindelijk online. Bekijk het nieuwe TOPdesk Magazine.nl!\nHet is een leuke site geworden en een aardige manier voor TOPdesk om een deel van het papier wat hier geproduceerd wordt te onsluiten voor een groter publiek. De site is nog niet helemaal af maar wel leuk flitsend en gebouwd in Drupal.\n","date":"February 22, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-806/","section":"Posts","summary":"Een site concept wat ik heb bedacht en heb helpen uitwerken voor TOPdesk staat nu eindelijk online. Bekijk het nieuwe TOPdesk Magazine.nl!\n","title":"Magazine site online","type":"posts"},{"content":"Voor die mensen die er nog niet van overtuigd waren dat de VVD een foute foute partij is. Europarlementariër Toine Manders is zulke goede vriendjes met het bedrijfsleven dat burgers en consumenten hem weinig meer kunnen schelen. Op zijn website schijft hij letterlijk dat hij consumenten wil criminaliseren [via].\nEen gejat plaatje van een rolex, een boude uitspraak en keiharde repressie. Dat gaat natuurlijk niet helpen maar het is wel wat de industrie wil horen.\nElke nuance ontbreekt, maar dat zijn we ondertussen bij de VVD wel gewend. Reactief handelen op Wilders eist zijn tol van een partij.\nVVD-stemmers, jullie weten wie jullie zijn, jullie werken hieraan mee.\nRita: Op de televisietoernee van Rita Verdonk de afgelopen dagen valt weer eens op hoe simpel ze is en hoezeer ze de feiten verdraait. Ze leeft compleet in haar eigen wereld: the pro-Rita zone.\nGisteren meldde ze bijvoorbeeld dat ze een commissie in het leven wilde roepen (tijdens de voorkeursstemmencoup) omdat ze er genoeg van had dat dingen in de VVD werden beslist door dezelfde 40 mensen.\nZe vergat erbij te vermelden dat bij de lijsttrekkersverkiezingen in de VVD alle leden mochten stemmen en ze dus gewoon niet populair genoeg was. ‘Iedereen is tegen me’ is natuurlijk electoraal superhandig.\n","date":"February 20, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-805/","section":"Posts","summary":"Voor die mensen die er nog niet van overtuigd waren dat de VVD een foute foute partij is. Europarlementariër Toine Manders is zulke goede vriendjes met het bedrijfsleven dat burgers en consumenten hem weinig meer kunnen schelen. Op zijn website schijft hij letterlijk dat hij consumenten wil criminaliseren [via].\n","title":"Toine Manders, vijand van de consument","type":"posts"},{"content":"I told Cris that now he\u0026rsquo;s a London resident he should not miss the number one geek/tech event in the area: Barcamp London.\nJudging from his stories and those of others and from the pictures, this was a top event and I regret very much not being there.\nThis makes me feel the itch for the next version of the Dutch Barcamp. Anybody out there wanna help me scratch?\n","date":"February 20, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-242/","section":"Posts","summary":"I told Cris that now he’s a London resident he should not miss the number one geek/tech event in the area: Barcamp London.\n","title":"Barcamping","type":"posts"},{"content":"The wireless internet at university is so flaky, it makes me want to cry.\nI could get no connection at all at Mekelweg 4 and my connection at Aula is dropping out every 10 minutes.\nAnd this is a so called high tech institution.\n","date":"February 19, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-241/","section":"Posts","summary":"The wireless internet at university is so flaky, it makes me want to cry.\n","title":"Wirelessless","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik weet wel wát af van politiek en staatsinrichting, maar ik kan me nog steeds geen enkele zinnige reden verzinnen om te gaan stemmen op de Provinciale Statenverkiezingen.\nStemmen zou inspraak betekenen in de provinciale politiek, wat dat dan ook moge betekenen. De provincie is een tussenlaag van bestuurders waar je nooit van hoort, maar die wel macht en een salaris krijgen.\nEn ze kiezen de Eerste Kamer.\nVolgens de stemwijzer moet ik stemmen op GroenLinks en volgens kieskompas op Lokaal Zuid-Holland.\nStemadvies: De verkiezingen boycotten zou een fijn statement zijn, maar ze hebben helaas wel gevolgen en dan gaat de trouwe kiesbrigade van de CDA er met de buit vandoor. Dat mag natuurlijk niet gebeuren.\nBeter nog is dus stemmen op een partij die de Provinciale Staten wil opheffen. Wie helpt?\n","date":"February 18, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-804/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik weet wel wát af van politiek en staatsinrichting, maar ik kan me nog steeds geen enkele zinnige reden verzinnen om te gaan stemmen op de Provinciale Statenverkiezingen.\n","title":"Staten","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik ben niet de enige die ongelukkig is met de chistelijke aard van dit kabinet. 2525 is ook redelijk over de zeik en hij heeft gelijk.\nIk zal mijn standpunt (vorige post) nog eens toelichten (nog harder en nog helderder).\nIk snap niet wat er niet helder is aan de uitspraak: “De ChristenUnie wil dat mensen doodgaan.”\nLogisch uiteengezet:\nEr is medisch onderzoek nodig tegen ziektes waar mensen dood aan gaan.\nDe ChristenUnie blokkeert delen van dat onderzoek.\n2.1 Hierdoor boekt de medische wetenschap niet de vooruitgang die het zou kunnen boeken.\n2.1.1 Hierdoor gaan in de toekomst grote groepen mensen onnodig dood of ze hebben een verminderde kwaliteit van leven.\nERGO: De ChristenUnie wil dat mensen doodgaan. QED\nHet verbod is praktisch gezien niet eens zo erg. Het onderzoek gaat gewoon door ook zonder embryonale stamcellen en ook buiten Nederland. Er zijn meer dan een paar Middeleeuwse figuren nodig om de medische wetenschap te stoppen.\nMaar het gaat om het principe, en in mijn optiek is het verwerpelijk dat er in Nederland een politieke partij is die wil dat mensen doodgaan.\nWaarom ben ik dan zo boos?\nIk hecht sterk aan mijn kwaliteit van leven. Dit is alles wat ik heb, wat hierna gebeurt moet ik nog zien en ik wil van het hier en nu het beste maken. De ChristenUnie c.s. proberen een verdienstelijk leven te leiden voor het hiernamaals.\nVolgens hun filosofie moet je als het allemaal niet zo goed loopt in het leven je lasten dragen. Stel je hebt een aangeboren afwijking, leukemie of wat dan ook verschrikkelijks. Ach joh, kop op, draag je last en er ligt een betere toekomst in het verschiet na dit aardse bestaan.\nDatzelfde thema van het dragen van je last komt terug in de standpunten rond euthanasie en abortus. Het maakt niet uit dat jij de situatie niet prettig vindt, anderen bepalen voor jou hoe je je leven moet inrichten.\nIk heb niet de luxe van een fantasie over een hiernamaals. Acceptatie van een inferieure werkelijkheid is niet aan mij besteed en ik word redelijk nijdig als die aan mij wordt opgedrongen.\n","date":"February 15, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-803/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik ben niet de enige die ongelukkig is met de chistelijke aard van dit kabinet. 2525 is ook redelijk over de zeik en hij heeft gelijk.\n","title":"Kabinet van betutteling (vervolg)","type":"posts"},{"content":"Thuis van capoeira aangekomen, is er pardoes een nieuw Kabinet.\nPlasterk Grote hoop van dit kabinet is Ronald Plasterk, verklaard atheïst, buitengewoon slim en iemand die weet wat hij doet.\nMensen die echt iets kunnen hebben meestal wel betere dingen te doen dan de politiek in gaan maar Plasterk speelt al te lang voor betweter. Als hij nu dan de kans krijgt om daad bij het woord te voegen, dan moet hij dat ook gaan doen. Zijn columns in Buitenhof zullen gemist worden, maar dat is het al waard als zijn atheïsme werkt als rem op hersendode CDA/CU-politiek.\nStamcellen Oudkerk (in Pauw en Witteman) maakt een goed punt dat de hele samenleving verliest door het moratorium op stamcelonderzoek. Dat de innovatie en economie op het gebied van biotechnologie een klap is toegebracht, is tot daar aan toe.\nVeel veel erger is dat door dit verbod medisch onderzoek wordt vertraagd en in de toekomst mensen onnodig ziek gaan worden, pijn gaan lijden en gaan sterven. Dat is dus wat naastenliefde inhoudt volgens de ChristenUnie.\nJe hoeft er geen doekjes omheen te winden:\n“De ChristenUnie wil dat mensen doodgaan.”\nDat ze dat voor zichzelf willen moeten ze zelf weten. Dit is een vrij land en je mag voor jezelf de meest onverstandige keuzen maken die je maar wilt. Maar de macht van de overheid gebruiken om andersdenkenden je wil op te leggen en ze te veroordelen tot hetzelfde miserabele leven als jezelf is wat mij betreft religieus fascisme.\nEn verder Als ik toch bezig ben:\nMaxime Verhagen is een gluiperd.\nCamiel Eurlings was in Europa al een hond, en dat is hij vast gebleven.\nMaria van der Hoeven heeft volgens mij op onderwijs bijna niks gedaan en wordt nu teruggeschoven naar het ministerie van EZ waar ze nog minder hoeft doen (naar goed voorbeeld van haar voorganger de bijna seniele Brinkhorst).\nMijn blog, ik schrijf wat ik wil. Schiet maar.\n","date":"February 14, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-802/","section":"Posts","summary":"Thuis van capoeira aangekomen, is er pardoes een nieuw Kabinet.\n","title":"Er is een kabinet","type":"posts"},{"content":"Een hardnekkige voetblessure de laatste week confronteerde met het feit dat ik thuis geen verbanddoos heb. Vandaag inkopen gedaan voor de meest essentiele onderdelen van een verbanddoos, waaronder Sesamstraatpleisters.\nTeleurstellend genoeg hadden ze bij het Kruitvat geen snelverbanden. Niet echt een ramp, maar als je ze nodig hebt, wil je ze wel hebben.\nKijken of ik vanavond weer kan spelen.\n","date":"February 13, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-801/","section":"Posts","summary":"Een hardnekkige voetblessure de laatste week confronteerde met het feit dat ik thuis geen verbanddoos heb. Vandaag inkopen gedaan voor de meest essentiele onderdelen van een verbanddoos, waaronder Sesamstraatpleisters.\n","title":"Eerste hulp bij...","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;ve been taking a peek at the CSS layouts at Dynamic Drive and especially at CSS Fixed Layout #2.1 and I\u0026rsquo;m slightly stumped.\nFor one, why is stuff like the following code necessary? It looks like a ridiculous hack to me:\n#leftcolumn{ float: left; width: 200px; /*Width of left column*/ margin-left: -840px; /*Set left margin to -(MainContainerWidth)*/ background: #C8FC98; } And another is the nesting of DIVs which leaves nothing semantic in the design and does not yield any advantage over tables. Trace with me:\nDIV#contentwrapper \u0026gt; DIV#contentcolumn \u0026gt; DIV.innertube \u0026gt; P And then still when copying over the style rules, the design renders differently in my template. Firebug lists an offsetTop of 16px on the first DIV and I have no clue where this is coming from. Looks like I\u0026rsquo;ll have to literally copy the Dynamic Drive example and work from that (later on).\nCSS Gurus: You have succeeded in building an elitist edifice which is inaccessible to all but the most hardcore of webdesigners. Your standards suck, they are incomplete both in conception and adoption and the tooling which we are supposed to work with is meagre at best.\nI\u0026rsquo;m not saying you have lost and should go home. I\u0026rsquo;m saying you should work even harder at sharing your knowledge because the current state isn\u0026rsquo;t anything to write home about.\nSeriously, if I can\u0026rsquo;t figure this out after some fiddling there are literal millions out there who do not stand any chance whatsoever.\nHere\u0026rsquo;s to s who might become the new black again in a year or two.\n","date":"February 13, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-240/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’ve been taking a peek at the CSS layouts at Dynamic Drive and especially at CSS Fixed Layout #2.1 and I’m slightly stumped.\n","title":"CSS is a miserable failure","type":"posts"},{"content":"Vind ik het even jammer dat ik vandaag de Volkskrant niet krijg. Ik zit hem nu online door te bladeren en het begint al met de voorpagina (die vét is!) en daarna is het pagina aan pagina grote foto\u0026rsquo;s en een special over waterbeheer, landschapsinrichting en klimaatverandering.\nTof.\n","date":"February 12, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-800/","section":"Posts","summary":"Vind ik het even jammer dat ik vandaag de Volkskrant niet krijg. Ik zit hem nu online door te bladeren en het begint al met de voorpagina (die vét is!) en daarna is het pagina aan pagina grote foto’s en een special over waterbeheer, landschapsinrichting en klimaatverandering.\n","title":"De stand van het land","type":"posts"},{"content":"The Pirate Bay lanceert de zoekmachine voor Oscar genomineerde films: Oscar Torrents.[via BoingBoing]\nDeze gasten zijn compleet ongenaakbaar en hebben moreel gelijk, hoe verwerpelijk het downloaden van materiaal ook wordt afgeschilderd door de industire. En ze zijn zo bijdehand:\nHollywoodland might not like it, but some people always have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the future.\n","date":"February 11, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-799/","section":"Posts","summary":"The Pirate Bay lanceert de zoekmachine voor Oscar genomineerde films: Oscar Torrents.[via BoingBoing]\n","title":"The toekomst van de Oscars, vandaag","type":"posts"},{"content":"Barak Obama al tijden bekend als de grote belofte van de democratische partij heeft zichzelf verkiesbaar gesteld als presidentskandidaat. Ga naar de site: Obama \u0026lsquo;08 en bekijk zijn toespraak.\nZijn aankondiging is fenomenaal en vele malen sterker dan die van Hillary Clinton eerder, die vanuit een huiskamersetting met een ‘I\u0026rsquo;m in!’ het Amerikaanse volk uitnodigt.\nObama —begaafd rhetoricus, rechte rug— gaat naar Springfield waar alles begon en spreekt een uitzinnige menigte toe met —ik schreef het al eerder— grote en toch hele simpele ideeëen: hoop, vrijheid, respect, eerlijkheid, gelijke kansen, hard werken, beterschap, trots en hij scoort ermee.\nHillary mag meer geld hebben en van het establishment zijn, haar verhaal is lauw, hol en bijna Kerry-esque. De tijd zal uitwijzen waar de democraten voor kiezen maar de man het met echte verhaal is Obama.\n","date":"February 11, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-798/","section":"Posts","summary":"Barak Obama al tijden bekend als de grote belofte van de democratische partij heeft zichzelf verkiesbaar gesteld als presidentskandidaat. Ga naar de site: Obama ‘08 en bekijk zijn toespraak.\n","title":"Obama '08","type":"posts"},{"content":"Gisteren naar Heerlen heen en weer gereisd om een lens op te halen die ik via Marktplaats gekocht had. Een trip naar Heerlen is op zich al geen feest, als de NS tussen Eindhoven en Weert een leidingbreuk heeft wordt het een kleine ramp.\nKleine chaos op Eindhoven en mijn heenreis duurde 4 uur.\nUiteindelijk in Heerlen de lens gescored en wat geschoten in de stad.\nVoor de terugreis.\nDe lens is loeizwaar en een aardige knots. Mijn 50mm voelde ik niet eens als die erop zat.\nVandaag nog wat foto\u0026rsquo;s mee in Delft geschoten om er aan te wennen.\nEen flexibele zoomlens biedt heel veel vrijheid en mogelijkheden maar juist daardoor kun je er slechtere foto\u0026rsquo;s mee maken. De beperking van 50mm is zo slecht nog niet.\n","date":"February 11, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-797/","section":"Posts","summary":"Gisteren naar Heerlen heen en weer gereisd om een lens op te halen die ik via Marktplaats gekocht had. Een trip naar Heerlen is op zich al geen feest, als de NS tussen Eindhoven en Weert een leidingbreuk heeft wordt het een kleine ramp.\n","title":"Grote knots van Sigma","type":"posts"},{"content":"Behalve Giel dan, zijn alle DJs onuitstaanbare zelfingenomen zakken.\nGelukkig is er verlossing uit het zuiden in de vorm van Studio Brussel (zie ook). In je iTunes U intoetsen en de volgende stream invoeren: http://mp3.streampower.be/stubru-high\nIk was het half vergeten. Courtesy Pietel voor de reminder.\n","date":"February 11, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-796/","section":"Posts","summary":"Behalve Giel dan, zijn alle DJs onuitstaanbare zelfingenomen zakken.\n","title":"Stubru is cool!","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik zie net op televisie reclame voor een product van Philips en ik word overvallen door dat zeldzame gevoel dat ik normaal gesproken bewaar voor Apple-producten: ik wil het hebben.\nHet gaat om LivingColors een LED-huiskamerlamp waarvan je de kleur kunt instellen afhankelijk van je stemming.\nDe reclame is een beetje cheesy maar goed, de naam niet perfect maar heel aardig, de microsite staat in afgrijselijke Flash maar is helder. Het product zelf lijkt fantastisch; het ziet er mooi uit, voegt veel sfeer toe aan je huis in een minimalistisch pakketje en de bediening lijkt simpel.\nErg cool dat de afstandsbediening een HSV-kiezer heeft. Toch de meest intuïtieve manier om een kleur te kiezen (ik zou andere fabrikanten er al voor aanzien om een RGB erop te zetten).\nHet lijkt me ook leuk om zo\u0026rsquo;n ding te gebruiken als je gaat fotograferen. 16 miljoen kleuren om uit te kiezen voor je achtergrond.\nHet enige minpunt is dat hij voor €149 te koop staat, wat aan de dure kant is voor mij.\n","date":"February 10, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-795/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik zie net op televisie reclame voor een product van Philips en ik word overvallen door dat zeldzame gevoel dat ik normaal gesproken bewaar voor Apple-producten: ik wil het hebben.\n","title":"In living color","type":"posts"},{"content":"Het lijkt erop alsof DDS de hele nacht al plat is. Dat betekent geen mail voor mij op @dds.nl of @alper.nl voorlopig.\nWe kijken wel wanneer het opgelost is. Iemand anders een betrouwbare .nl-registrar voor me voor de toekomst? De hosting van DDS gebruik ik nauwelijks en is toch veel te duur.\nUpdate: Het lijkt opgehelderd. Een alternatieve registrar blijft welkom.\n","date":"February 9, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-794/","section":"Posts","summary":"Het lijkt erop alsof DDS de hele nacht al plat is. Dat betekent geen mail voor mij op @dds.nl of @alper.nl voorlopig.\n","title":"Mail plat","type":"posts"},{"content":"Zaterdag de slotfilm van het IFFR gezien: The Prestige. Het zien meer dan dubbel waard.\nHierboven de prijsuitreiking voor Das Leben der Anderen, een film die iedereen schijnt te moeten zien.\n","date":"February 5, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-793/","section":"Posts","summary":"Zaterdag de slotfilm van het IFFR gezien: The Prestige. Het zien meer dan dubbel waard.\n","title":"Prestige","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik ben net weer de “I have a dream” speech van Martin Luther King Jr. De uitspraak kent iedereen wel maar de hele toespraak is meer dan de moeite waard om in zijn geheel te bekijken. King is een meester in tekst en presentatie.\n\u0026ldquo;No we are not satisfied and we will not be satisfied, until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.\u0026rdquo;\nCitaten en inspiratie over speeches van de week bij Signal vs. Noise over een andere speechwriter. Die speech in zijn geheel te beluisteren bij American Rhetoric (uitleg over citaat).\n","date":"February 4, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-792/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik ben net weer de “I have a dream” speech van Martin Luther King Jr. De uitspraak kent iedereen wel maar de hele toespraak is meer dan de moeite waard om in zijn geheel te bekijken. King is een meester in tekst en presentatie.\n","title":"Ik heb een droom","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik loop vandaag weer door twee zaterdagkranten heen te scheuren (het gaat steeds sneller) en er zijn in de Volkskrant toch veel dingen die me storen. Het is dat ik via CJP zo\u0026rsquo;n gunstig abonnement heb, anders zou ik weer terug gaan naar NRC.Next+Zaterdag.\nOnline Krant De online interface van de Volkskrant is al met al goed te noemen. Als LangWeekend-abonnee krijg ik op MaDiWo geen krant, maar kan ik hem online lezen. De interface is plesant genoeg en het is gemakkelijker, want ik hoef er mijn bed niet voor uit naar de brievenbus.\nVerbeterpuntjes zijn wel dat de interface een paar hikken heeft in Firefox en net niet werkt in Safari. Geen grote fouten en ik denk makkelijk te fixen als iemand er een paar uur in zou steken. Dat het ontbreekt aan die paar uurtjes is buitengewoon sneu.\nEn de online krant zou even na vier uur \u0026rsquo;s ochtends al te lezen moeten zijn (handig voor nachtbrakers en vroege vogels). Het is een groot voordeel om om vijf uur \u0026rsquo;s ochtends je krant te kunnen lezen als je dat wil, daar ben je tenslotte abonnee voor. Op mijn vraag aan de Volkskrant waarom dat niet kan, het volgende antwoord:\nDe digitale Volkskrant is dagelijks om uiterlijk half 7 \u0026rsquo;s ochtends beschikbaar, maar vaak al vroeger. De krant zelf is vaak rond 4 uur \u0026rsquo;s ochtends al klaar, maar doordat het digitaal plaatsen van de Volkskrant wordt uitbesteed, zit er helaas een discrepantie hiertussen.\nVoorpagina Een tijdje geleden is de voorpagina van de krant vernieuwd met veel bombarie. Veel beter is het er voor de lezer niet op geworden. De bovenste zesde van de pagina en een kwart van de rechterkant is navigatie. De onderste derde is bijna alleen maar reclame.\n(Doorklikken op de foto geeft een Flickr fotopagina met notities.)\nHet enige interessante op de voorpagina is de kop waarmee de krant besluit te openen en de foto die ze groot afdrukken, iets lezenswaardigs staat er niet. Alle artikelen zijn stubs die doorverwijzen naar pagina\u0026rsquo;s in de krant zelf. Op die manier wordt de voorgpina van de krant een soort internetportal à la Yahoo! .\nIk weet niet of een krant daarmee op die manier kan of moet willen concurreren. Als ik de geld en moeite heb geïnvesteerd om aan een krant te komen, dan blader ik hem toch wel helemaal door. Navigatieverwijzingen op de voorpagina negeer ik dan.\nMisschien is het handig voor de losse verkoop, maar dat kan me als abonnee geen zier schelen.\nAchterpagina De achterpagina van de Volkskrant is kut. Er is echt geen ander woord om het te beschrijven. Een achterpagina van een krant hoort leuk te zijn en je leuke weetjes en inzichten te geven. Die van de Volkskrant doet helemaal niets. Ik heb tot nu toe nog niet een keer gehad dat ik blij werd van wat er op de achterpagina stond.\nDit moeten ze bij de Volkskrant toch door hebben? Neem een voorbeeld aan de NRC, verzin een paar leuke concepten en vul dat in. Waar betaal ik anders voor?\nDe Volkskrant faalt dus op zowel de voor- als de achterpagina, de twee belangrijkste pagina\u0026rsquo;s van de krant.\nDuplicatie Nog een klein puntje: ik snap niet waarom op zaterdag er in de krant zelf een Forum-pagina moet zijn terwijl je ook al een Betoog-katern krijgt. Het lijkt me slim om de boel in het weekend te refactoren en gelijke dingen bij elkaar te plaatsen.\nMagazine Ik ben wel blij met het VK Magazine dat je —anders dan bij de NRC— elke week krijgt. Goede diepte-interviews en profielen, iets wat de rest van de week ook in de krant terug te vinden is en waar ik blij van word.\nIk ben een fan van de rubriek In Beeld en van mij mag die ook wel uitgebreid worden. Goede fotografie is een van de resterende bestaansredenen van deze dinosaurus-media.\nKranten kunnen volgens mij dus (veel) beter. Meer ideeën mogen in het commentaar.\n","date":"February 3, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-791/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik loop vandaag weer door twee zaterdagkranten heen te scheuren (het gaat steeds sneller) en er zijn in de Volkskrant toch veel dingen die me storen. Het is dat ik via CJP zo’n gunstig abonnement heb, anders zou ik weer terug gaan naar NRC.Next+Zaterdag.\n","title":"Opbouwende kritiek voor de Volkskrant","type":"posts"},{"content":"After the random shutdown episodes of the past my Macbook now has entered the more sophisticated era of nonrandom shutdowns.\nNormal Mac laptops will go to sleep when their battery is nearly empty. Mine however simply shuts down. This happens usually when the indicator says it still has 10-15 minutes of battery life left.\nA similar problem has been reported with Macbook Pros but not with Macbooks yet.\nQuite annoying to lose your work if you forget (or are unable to) plug in. LJS didn\u0026rsquo;t have a clue last time I was there. I think I\u0026rsquo;ll pay them a repeat visit and insist they do something about it.\n","date":"January 30, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-239/","section":"Posts","summary":"After the random shutdown episodes of the past my Macbook now has entered the more sophisticated era of nonrandom shutdowns.\n","title":"Macbook Predictable Shutdown","type":"posts"},{"content":"SoundManager 2 for JavaScript is a neat little library to fill in one of the blank areas of JavaScript/DOM development: decent sound output. It is very cool that it\u0026rsquo;s there, but it\u0026rsquo;s a shame that it has to use Flash to do the playback because browser sound playback is so dismal.\nJavaScript is proving more and more that it can compete full force with Flash. The 2D graphics capabilities the dojo guys have built with dojo.gfx (cross browser Canvas stuff) and dojo-svg and the likes already look quite mature.\nWhat has been missing up until now are native in browser sound support and video support. SoundManager provides sound support but its dependency on Flash is not preferrable.\nWe need a native Sound object which provides play, pause and seek support in arbitrary sound files.\nAudio\nI\u0026rsquo;m thinking about something like this:\n// Need to figure out which sound formats would be supported // Ideally a basic set of formats (wav, mid, etc.) MUST be supported // but the object should have a backend capable of playing anything: mov, ra etc. var s = new Sound(\u0026#39;sounds/haha.mp3\u0026#39;, true); s.loop(true); // do we play onload or do we play streaming? // what happens on network congestion? s.play(); // Get the length (in millis?) and allow seeking in the file (also during playback?) s.length; s.seek(3000); s.pause(); s.stop(); Just Googled a bit and it looks like WhatWG is already speccing something along these lines in Web Applications 1.0: Sound\nThey deferr streaming audio to the object element which might be reasonable for the time being, but is not going to cut it in the long run.\nThe WHATWG spec has no mention of the audio formats that COULD, SHOULD or MUST be supported. I don\u0026rsquo;t know how you would reasonably develop cross browser applications if you can\u0026rsquo;t depend on a present profile.\nPause and seek are not mentioned though they might be emulated using the current position from the spec. It is not clear if these properties are settable and the solution would be hackish and therefore not preferrable. Some stuff along these lines has already been suggested by Mathieu Henry.\nVideo\nAlong these lines JavaScript should also provide a native video implementation. This could either be a browser exposed low level codec which you pass a Canvas object.\nvar v = new Video(\u0026#39;video/blabla.avi\u0026#39;, dojo.byId(\u0026#39;player\u0026#39;)); v.play(); If low level codecs are not feasible an alternative could be a video server which passes compressed video data to the browser via something like comet and uses a JavaScript library to decompress and draw on a Canvas. (When am I going to have the time to write this?)\nRegarding the WHATWG spec, they will probably defer video to the object element seeing as most real video is streaming but I don\u0026rsquo;t think this position is tenable for the future unless you want the browser to be hollow vehicle for the Flash plugin.\n","date":"January 30, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-238/","section":"Posts","summary":"SoundManager 2 for JavaScript is a neat little library to fill in one of the blank areas of JavaScript/DOM development: decent sound output. It is very cool that it’s there, but it’s a shame that it has to use Flash to do the playback because browser sound playback is so dismal.\n","title":"JavaScript Multimedia","type":"posts"},{"content":"Het bericht op Fok dat een meisje is neergestoken terwijl ze niet eens degene was die belletje had getrokken.\nDit weekend is mij iets vergelijkbaars gebeurd. We liepen over straat in Rotterdam toen we werden gesneden door een auto. P. gaf een trap tegen die auto en we liepen door.\nStapte er dus een stuk white trash uit de auto die wat naar ons toeschreeuwde. Hij kon dit tegenover zijn homeboy negervriend naast hem natuurlijk niet over zijn kant laten gaan.\nDe-escaleren faalde en die gast rende op ons af en gaf míj een duw. Hij keek nog even arelaxed en droop toen af. Dit alles 10 meter van een politiebureau af.\nDat Rotterdam kut is wist ik al, maar volgens mij is dit een bredere trend.\n","date":"January 29, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-790/","section":"Posts","summary":"Het bericht op Fok dat een meisje is neergestoken terwijl ze niet eens degene was die belletje had getrokken.\n","title":"Meisje neergestoken","type":"posts"},{"content":"I had predicted it to be an Asian country like Singapore or something to first establish an embassy in Second Life. It seems that Sweden got there first (the CNN piece linked is quite ok).\nNot so big a deal, but interesting vision on behalf of the Swedes. This development could become really interesting of Linden had already open sourced the server component of their software and agreed upon workable and extendable APIs for virtual worlds.\nI am reading that they are going in that direction.\nGiven that, a each country or other group could host their own piece of virtual world with its own special rules, intricacies and facilities for its inhabitants, residents and citizens. Each of these being connected to all the others.\nAnother big thing missing is a haptic interface to Second Life but it seems Linden has already built that interface before even starting on building the world.\nThe future looks bright with virtual light.\n","date":"January 29, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-237/","section":"Posts","summary":"I had predicted it to be an Asian country like Singapore or something to first establish an embassy in Second Life. It seems that Sweden got there first (the CNN piece linked is quite ok).\n","title":"Second Land","type":"posts"},{"content":"Leuk weekend. Wat losse flodders geschoten:\nKlik op de foto\u0026rsquo;s voor sporadische uitleg.\n","date":"January 28, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-789/","section":"Posts","summary":"Leuk weekend. Wat losse flodders geschoten:\n","title":"Weekend","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik lees in de Volkskrant net de volgende ingezonden brief:\n** Brief van de dag**\nZeven doden door de storm. Mijn verdriet is groot als ik deze kop in de krant lees (Voorpagina, 20 januari). Hoe kan het gebeuren dat er zeven doden vallen in een storm? Nederland is een ‘ontwikkeld land’ waar genoeg mogelijkheden zijn om mensen op tijd te waarschuwen.\nWat betekent windkracht 10 voor een mens die op donderdag moet werken, zijn kinderen naar school moet brengen en afspraken heeft? Windkracht 10 bleek te betekenen: ga tijdens de storm niet naar buiten, zorg dat je kinderen veilig zijn, hou de dijken in de gaten, vouw de hijskranen op, loop niet in het bos, rij niet met een lege vrachtwagen, neem geen onnodig risico en klim vooral het dak niet op. Door de klimaatsveranderingen zullen stormen toenemen. Ik hoop dat een volgende keer duidelijker wordt gewaarschuwd en dat mensen dat weeralarm serieus nemen.\nP. Iturra, Utrecht\nOp de dag van de storm heb ik hier nog over nagedacht. Het was toch wel aanttrekkelijk om in bed te blijven liggen en House te gaan kijken. Hier in Delft hebben desondanks redelijk weinig gemerkt van de wind. Ik ben gewoon gaan werken en ben een beetje zeeziek geworden in de Torenhove. Na het werk rustig wezen pinnen en naar capoeira gefietst. Ja, die bomen in het park kraakten wel vervaarlijk.\nHad ik dit nu allemaal niet moeten doen omdat er een stormpje woedde?\nEr gaan elke dag mensen dood door ongelukken, in het verkeer of waar dan ook; meestal om de meest uiteenlopende stomme redenen.\nMoet er dan in plaats van een weeralarm niet een algeheel leefalarm worden afgekondigd. Elke handeling die je doet, elke stap die je buiten de deur zet is immers potentieel dodelijk. We kunnen beter \u0026rsquo;s ochtends in bed blijven liggen om alle risico uit te sluiten\nBang zijn voor het weer is net zoals bang zijn voor terrorisme. Het doet meer kwaad dan goed en is meestal nergens voor nodig. Als je een beetje uit je doppen kijkt en vaart op je gezond verstand, heb je een stuk prettiger leven.\n","date":"January 22, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-788/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik lees in de Volkskrant net de volgende ingezonden brief:\n","title":"Angst voor het weer","type":"posts"},{"content":"Stukje in de Trouw over studenten die alles zelf moeten uitzoeken —de wikipedia-generatie.\nIk ben het grotendeels eens met de strekking van het artikel. Maar er is een groot verschil tussen Wikipedia en het onderwijs: Wikipedia wordt steeds beter, het onderwijs steeds slechter.\nEen anekdote die ik hierover heb gehoord ging over een onderzoek waar een groep studenten in tweeën werd gesplitst. De ene helft mocht geen online bronnen gebruiken bij het studeren, de andere helft mocht alleen maar online bronnen raadplegen. Het onderzoek werd al gauw gestaakt omdat de online studenten veel teveel voor gingen lopen op de andere groep.\nDit heeft Reinier al een keer bevestigd door een vak zonder boek gewoon van Wikipedia af te leren (Reinier?). Je vraagt je af waarom die docent (of welke docent dan ook) dan nog de moeite doet om zelf een dictaat te schrijven.\nZou het niet handiger zijn als alle docenten ter wereld wikistyle zouden samenwerken aan standaardwerken over onderwerpen?\nEn moet je ooit een vak doceren, geef je leerlingen de opdracht om enkele tientallen Wikipedia-lemma\u0026rsquo;s als uitgangspunt te nemen. Als die lemma\u0026rsquo;s goed genoeg zijn, dan leren ze door te lezen. Als ze dat niet zijn, dan mogen ze leren door die lemma\u0026rsquo;s te gaan verbeteren.\n","date":"January 21, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-787/","section":"Posts","summary":"Stukje in de Trouw over studenten die alles zelf moeten uitzoeken —de wikipedia-generatie.\n","title":"De Wikipediageneratie is zo slecht nog niet af","type":"posts"},{"content":"In één van de laatste nummers van de Delta van vorig jaar een interview met Kees Zandbergen, één of andere hoge pief van de politie in Delft waarin hij laat zien zich absoluut niet te kunnen inleven in studenten.\nEr is al op gereageerd: Delta 39-1 en AD.nl.\nDit gevoel is compleet wederzijds. Als ik het met medestudenten heb over de politie, dan is de consensus dat het een stelletje “tyfuslijers” zijn.\nAls grote groepen niet-criminelen al zoveel antipathie hebben tegenover de politie, dan heb je echt een ernstig imagoprobleem.\nZe zouden hun imago kunnen verbeteren door vanachter hun bureau\u0026rsquo;s vandaan te komen. Ik kan me voorstellen dat je op een positieve manier in contact kan komen met mensen in Delft en tegelijkertijd kan zorgen voor de veiligheid.\nDe enige keer wanneer je in Delft een agent ziet is in de jeep waar ze mee door de stad rijden.\nLicht: Wat betreft licht kan de politie in Delft nog veel leren van de politie in Amsterdam. Losse en knipperende lampjes mogen niet van de overheid, maar de politie Amsterdam weigert daarop te bekeuren (Parool 1, Parool 2).\nIn het Parool staat ook dat de Amsterdamse politie ter plekke het alternatief voor een bekeuring biedt om licht te laten installeren. Daarmee los je een probleem constructief op in plaats van blinde repressie toe te passen.\n","date":"January 19, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-786/","section":"Posts","summary":"In één van de laatste nummers van de Delta van vorig jaar een interview met Kees Zandbergen, één of andere hoge pief van de politie in Delft waarin hij laat zien zich absoluut niet te kunnen inleven in studenten.\n","title":"Geen goed woord over voor studenten","type":"posts"},{"content":"De adviezen van Wim Kok voor een onafhankelijke provincie Randstad zijn de eerste stap op weg naar de afscheiding van de Randstad van de rest van Nederland.\nDit is duidelijk een goede zaak.\n","date":"January 18, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-785/","section":"Posts","summary":"De adviezen van Wim Kok voor een onafhankelijke provincie Randstad zijn de eerste stap op weg naar de afscheiding van de Randstad van de rest van Nederland.\n","title":"The road to independence","type":"posts"},{"content":"Een ander idee dat met de AH te maken heeft gaat mij om de bonuskaarten.\nZoals het mechanisme nu gaat: je rekent boodschappen af met je bonuskaart en je krijgt daarna thuis spam naar aanleiding van de gekochte spullen. Ik weet het niet precies, want ik heb een anonieme bonuskaart.\nAlbert Heijn weet dus precies wat je wanneer waar hebt gekocht. Het zou als klant erg interessant kunnen zijn om je eigen informatie op te kunnen vragen. Waarom?\nAls ik me niet vergis is het een wettelijk recht om bij een bedrijf op te kunnen vragen welke gegevens ze over je hebben verzameld. Poging waard: Ik heb net bij de AH alle gegevens rondom mijn bonuskaart opgevraagd.\nHet zou best interessant zijn voor je huishoudboekje om op de website van Albert Heijn met je bonuskaart te kunnen zien wat je allemaal ooit hebt gekocht met handige filter mogelijkheden per periode, product-categorie etc. In combinatie met een intelligente webwinkel zou deze rapportage en de bezorgdienst samen een heel interessant aanbod kunnen vormen voor de moderne consument.\nIk noem maar een toepassing: Koppel dit aan RFID in je vuilnisbak en Albert Heijn kan je SMS\u0026rsquo;jes versturen wanneer je melk bijna overtijd is.\n","date":"January 18, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-784/","section":"Posts","summary":"Een ander idee dat met de AH te maken heeft gaat mij om de bonuskaarten.\n","title":"Bonuskaart gegevens","type":"posts"},{"content":"Erg jammer om bij de Albert Heijn een manier van zaken doen aan te treffen die erg vorige eeuw is.\nBij prijsverlagingen staan er in de winkel opzichtige bordjes met “Bonusvoordeel” en “Blijvend in prijs verlaagd” en dergeljke.\nIk kocht net een kant-en-klare salade en die waren allemaal stilzwijgend verhoogd van €2,79 naar €2,99.\nJe moet dus goed opletten om het te merken. En ik vraag me af hoe vaak het gebeurt is en ik het niet gemerkt heb.\nHet zou netter zijn en getuigen van respect voor je klanten om ook dit aan te kondigen en uit te leggen waarom deze prijzen zijn verhoogd. Nog even en de tijden van ongebreideld winst maken zijn voorbij.\nIdee: Toepassing bouwen waarmee je met je GSM elke code in de supermarkt kunt scannen en direct de prijzen ziet van dat product bij andere supermarkten. Een soort bookburrow in het echte leven.\nDe toekomst is volledig transparant.\n","date":"January 17, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-783/","section":"Posts","summary":"Erg jammer om bij de Albert Heijn een manier van zaken doen aan te treffen die erg vorige eeuw is.\n","title":"Albert Heijn's stilzwijgende prijsverhogingen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Een flinke pagina in de Volkskrant vandaag gewijd aan de OV-chipkaart en wat er allemaal mis gaat met de invoering ervan.\nDe chipkaart moet het reizen makkelijker maken. Je zou denken dat het niet moeilijk moet zijn om een systeem te maken dat makkelijker is dan de strippenkaart. Dat valt wel mee, het nieuwe systeem is weinig helder en inzichtelijk en voor dat toegevoegde ongemak mogen we ook nog eens meer gaan betalen.\nLeuk idee waar de uiteindelijke gebruiker wordt genegeerd en slachtoffer wordt van getouwtrek tussen notoir klantonvriendelijke bedrijven (NS etc.).\nHet invoeren van een goed uniform en uitbreidbaar systeem om het openbaar vervoer aantrekkelijker te maken in Nederland zou een kans moeten zijn om te laten zien hoe goed dingen kunnen zijn in een welvarend en technisch hoogstaand land.\nAls Nederland dat al niet kan, moet je je af gaan vragen wat dan wél de sterke punten van dit land zijn.\n","date":"January 17, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-782/","section":"Posts","summary":"Een flinke pagina in de Volkskrant vandaag gewijd aan de OV-chipkaart en wat er allemaal mis gaat met de invoering ervan.\n","title":"OV-chipkaart invoering","type":"posts"},{"content":"For another maddening detail in the horrid world of PHP.\nI restored a Drupal backup to a webserver and didn\u0026rsquo;t bother to check if the PHP versions matched. Then I struggled for some time with pages coming up without errors but also without any content.\nIt seems that a backed up Drupal from PHP 4 does not work on a PHP 5 server. Very nice compatibility, guys.\n","date":"January 15, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-236/","section":"Posts","summary":"For another maddening detail in the horrid world of PHP.\n","title":"PHP messes it up again","type":"posts"},{"content":"De volgende aflevering in de T-mobile-saga (1, 2 en 3) waarin ik probeer om van mijn Flex-abonnement af te komen.\nT-mobile Flex is trouwens helemaal niet zo goedkoop als het lijkt. De prijzen lijken goedkoper te worden als je meer belt, maar omdat je meer belt betaal je elke maand wel gewoon meer dan je aanvankelijk dacht.\nKlantenservice Ik bel net met T-mobile en mijn contract loopt af per de 25e van deze maand. Ze hanteren alleen wel een opzegtermijn van drie maanden. Dus als ik voor de 19e van deze maand opzeg, zit ik nog tot de 19e april aan ze vast.\nDit is de manier waarop T-mobile aan klantenbinding doet. Als je er niet voor kunt zorgen dat klanten bij je blijven omdat je een goede ervaring levert, dan neem je je toevlucht tot wurgcontracten.\nDe telefoniste van de klantenservice verwijt me dat ik de algemene voorwaarden niet heb gelezen (wie doet dat?). Ik heb niks af te dingen op de letter van T-mobile\u0026rsquo;s regels maar des te meer op de geest waarin ze handelen.\nZijn er mobiele telco\u0026rsquo;s die fatsoenlijke contractvoorwaarden hanteren of zijn we als consumenten de speelbal van dit kartel?\nIdee: In een echt vrije markt zouden opzegtermijn niet langer dan een paar weken tot maximaal een maand mogen zijn. Waarom is de VVD daar nou niet voor?\nPageRank: Het linken naar dit en in het bijzonder naar het hoofdartikel mag nog steeds.\n","date":"January 15, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-781/","section":"Posts","summary":"De volgende aflevering in de T-mobile-saga (1, 2 en 3) waarin ik probeer om van mijn Flex-abonnement af te komen.\n","title":"T-mobile doet ook aan klantenbinding","type":"posts"},{"content":"I went to LJS this Saturday to switch my black streak leaving Tucano sleeve for a new one.\nI asked about the new Airport Extreme feature where the USB port can be used to mount external hard drives wirelessly. This feature is very killer if you\u0026rsquo;ve just built a 320GB external hard drive.\nBut to ameliorate the mess of cables I have on my desk, I would also like to have AirTunes. Unfortunately the Airport Extreme does not sport an audio out and the USB on the Airport Express cannot be used to mount harddrives.\nThis means I\u0026rsquo;m torn on Airport.\n","date":"January 15, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-235/","section":"Posts","summary":"I went to LJS this Saturday to switch my black streak leaving Tucano sleeve for a new one.\n","title":"Apple Goodies","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ook op ons werk begint Het Nieuwe Werken in zwang te komen.\nDaar zijn leuke bronnen over die erg de moeite waard zijn:\nEngbert Breuker bij Pentascope\nPentascope is op dit gebied al langer erg uitgesproken. Bovenstaande link is naar een opname van een interview dat Engbert Breuker -de \u0026lsquo;baas\u0026rsquo;- een keer op de radio gaf en is erg inspirerend op het zweverige af. Hij weet de droom \u0026lsquo;pentascope\u0026rsquo; erg goed te verkopen.\nRicardo Semler - \u0026ldquo;The Seven-day Weekend\u0026rdquo;\nIk ben dit boek nu aan het lezen. Het gaat over Semco een Braziliaans bedrijf dat ongeveer alles op het gebied van strategie en beleid anders aanpakt dan gebruikelijk is en er hele goede resultaten mee boekt. Dit boek wordt overal aangeraden en geldt als het schoolvoorbeeld wat betreft het nieuwe werken.\nAlexander Kjerulf - \u0026ldquo;Happy Hour is 9 to 5\u0026rdquo;\nAlexander heb ik afgelopen jaar ontmoet in Copenhagen en hij is nu een van de bekendste bloggers op het gebied van motivatie en leuk werk. Zijn boek bouwt voort op het boek van Semler en andere bronnen en is bijzonder goed leesbaar en inspirerend.\nOrganisatieadvies is te belangrijk om aan organisatieadviseurs over te laten.\n","date":"January 15, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-780/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ook op ons werk begint Het Nieuwe Werken in zwang te komen.\n","title":"Het Nieuwe Werken","type":"posts"},{"content":"Een nieuw seizoen van Wie is de mol? is begonnen. Ik kijk het zoals altijd in mijn egien tempo en ik probeer spoilers te mijden.\nDe URLs die je kunt gebruiken om het programma af te spelen, hebben deze vorm: http://cgi.omroep.nl/cgi-bin/streams?/tv/avro/wieisdemol/bb.20070111.asf\nDit is de URL van aflevering 2. Aflevering 1 eindigt zoals je zou denken op 04.asf .\nJe kunt deze URL in Quicktime (met Flip4Mac) hangen. Die speelt ze zonder problemen af en Quicktime Pro doet niet al te moeilijk over het opslaan ervan.\n","date":"January 14, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-779/","section":"Posts","summary":"Een nieuw seizoen van Wie is de mol? is begonnen. Ik kijk het zoals altijd in mijn egien tempo en ik probeer spoilers te mijden.\n","title":"Wie is de mol? kijken op de Macbook","type":"posts"},{"content":"Onze goede vrienden Cristiano (blog: “Weg uit Delft”) en Melinda gaan een nieuw leven beginnen in Londen. Het schijnt dat het goed afstuderen is aan Imperial hebben ze gehoord van deze mensen. En als Londen roept, wie blijft er dan in Delft rondhangen.\nAfgelopen donderdag hadden ze een afscheidsfeestje, en daarna zijn ze bezig geweest met het opslaan, dumpen en inpakken van al hun spullen. Morgen de bus naar Londen en dan een kamer zoeken.\nIk wens ze veel succes op dit avontuur. Ze zullen gemist worden, maar niet vergeten (temminste als ze hun blogs en Flickr bij blijven houden).\n","date":"January 14, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-778/","section":"Posts","summary":"Onze goede vrienden Cristiano (blog: “Weg uit Delft”) en Melinda gaan een nieuw leven beginnen in Londen. Het schijnt dat het goed afstuderen is aan Imperial hebben ze gehoord van deze mensen. En als Londen roept, wie blijft er dan in Delft rondhangen.\n","title":"London Calling","type":"posts"},{"content":"Nederland is in veel gevallen een bijzonder negatief en conservatief land. Ik zie om me heen op alle gebieden in alle sectoren en in alle lagen een bizarre behoudzucht.\nNieuwe ideeën worden hier tegemoetgetreden met argumenten waarom het kut is en waarom het toch niet werkt. Vergelijk dit met positievere en innovatievere landen (zeg. Amerika) waar mensen gaan verzinnen hoe zo\u0026rsquo;n idee nóg beter kan.\nOver de iPhone bijvoorbeeld zijn de discussies op Nederlands meest vooraanstaande marketingblogs bijzonder negatief.\nHet feit is dat als je nu een mp3-speler anders dan een iPod koopt dat je dan willens en wetens genoegen neemt met een inferieure gebruikerservaring. De iPod werkt extreem prettig en helder en heeft goede software-integratie.\nIk denk dat de iPhone datzelfde gaat doen voor GSMs tegen een kleine meerprijs. Dat maakt elke dicussie over trivialiteiten zoals in de blogs boven overbodig; dit wordt een succes.\n","date":"January 13, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-777/","section":"Posts","summary":"Nederland is in veel gevallen een bijzonder negatief en conservatief land. Ik zie om me heen op alle gebieden in alle sectoren en in alle lagen een bizarre behoudzucht.\n","title":"Nederland negatief","type":"posts"},{"content":"Two guys from capoeira have the same new Samsung phone. I saw them this week while they tried to figure out how to display a picture when you are called by somebody. They couldn\u0026rsquo;t make it work.\nThe message to mobile phone makers is: If you neglect user friendliness long enough, Apple will come along and eat your lunch.\n","date":"January 13, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-234/","section":"Posts","summary":"Two guys from capoeira have the same new Samsung phone. I saw them this week while they tried to figure out how to display a picture when you are called by somebody. They couldn’t make it work.\n","title":"Case for the iPhone","type":"posts"},{"content":"Twee dagen na dato —één dag te laat— komt de Volkskrant met verslaggeving over de iPhone in het Economie-katern (pagina 7).\nDe actualiteitswaarde is nihil. Dit verhaal had de dag erna op de voorpagina gemoeten. Nu hoeft het niet meer.\nVerder is het stuk van Geert Dekker buitengewoon cynisch van toon. Makkelijk negatief verhaal.\n","date":"January 11, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-776/","section":"Posts","summary":"Twee dagen na dato —één dag te laat— komt de Volkskrant met verslaggeving over de iPhone in het Economie-katern (pagina 7).\n","title":"iPhone in de dinosaurus-media","type":"posts"},{"content":"I used to play music in my room on my Marantz (Eclipse SR-110 \u0026amp; CD-110) system with a nice set of Infinity (Reference 31) speakers. The sound was great. You might think this a bit excessive, but I got it at the bargain bin at Correct.\nI had been enjoying superb audio for some years up until the standby button got up and broke. I had already lost the remote to some haphazard malfunction or other. After the Standby button broke, I had no way anymore of turning the thing on.\nOpening up the thing revealed the broken foot which wasn\u0026rsquo;t hitting a contact internally anymore. One possible plan was to replace the standby button with the much less used mute button (noted on the Flickr page).\nI don\u0026rsquo;t have a picture ready, but the internals of the receiver are a horrible mess of Phillips-head-screwed-together particles almost all of which have to come out to provide access to the buttons. I could have done it with a photographic trail of crumbs, but I wasn\u0026rsquo;t feeling particularly up to this task.\nI called Marantz and they weren\u0026rsquo;t particularly helpful. They referred me to a defunct specialty audio shop in Delft. The other remaining specialty audioshop in delft called Audiohuis took my receiver in.\nThe guy there was pretty busy and so was I, so I guess my receiver stayed over there for a couple of months. Months of Macbook speaker sound in my room which isn\u0026rsquo;t horrible, but also isn\u0026rsquo;t exactly my idea of a picnic.\nFinally when I asked the status of the repairs, the guy said he couldn\u0026rsquo;t do anything because the internals of the receiver were very cramped. No shit Sherlock.\nThat I wasn\u0026rsquo;t feeling up to taking the thing apart is one thing, but I thought the old geezer with his years of experience could pull it off blindfolded with both hands tied to his back. Apparently not.\nHe even could not order a replacement remote for me and referred me to yet another specialty audio shop somewhere in the Hague1.\nLong story short: I looked around online a bit. A Dutch guy was selling replacement remotes for €85 (!). Fortunately Charles Hyde \u0026amp; Son had the same remote for £19. Postage and handling added a tenner but it was still a lot cheaper.\nSo now I\u0026rsquo;ve got the Stevenote blasting through my speakers and John Mayer ripping it up like nothing else. Cool stuff.\nI understand where the guy is coming from. The target audiences of these kind of shops are people who have oodles money to spend and who are fundamentally stupid. I am not one of those people.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"January 11, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-233/","section":"Posts","summary":"I used to play music in my room on my Marantz (Eclipse SR-110 \u0026 CD-110) system with a nice set of Infinity (Reference 31) speakers. The sound was great. You might think this a bit excessive, but I got it at the bargain bin at Correct.\n","title":"Specialty audio stuff","type":"posts"},{"content":"The iPhone may be a distant dream, we did have a lot of fun at the keynote party at the studio of the One More Thing guys (link to the pictures).\n","date":"January 10, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-232/","section":"Posts","summary":"The iPhone may be a distant dream, we did have a lot of fun at the keynote party at the studio of the One More Thing guys (link to the pictures).\n","title":"Keynote Party","type":"posts"},{"content":"I am trying to import a database to the MAMP install on my Macbook using phpMyAdmin\u0026rsquo;s import tool. Trying to do this yields:\nSQL query:\n-- MySQL dump 10.10 -- -- Host: localhost Database: drupal -- ------------------------------------------------------ -- Server version\t5.0.24a-Debian_3-log /*!40101 SET @OLD_CHARACTER_SET_CLIENT=@@CHARACTER_SET_CLIENT */; MySQL said:\n#1065 - Query was empty This message is utterly useless. Googling around a bit did not yield a direct answer (that\u0026rsquo;s why I\u0026rsquo;m blogging this) but it did point me in the right direction.\nIt seems that PHP has a set maximum for uploads. If you go over that, you get the useful help message above. PHP also has maxima for runtime memory and the likes, going over any of these limits results in truly obtuse errors which are near impossible to debug.\nPHP is a ghetto.\n","date":"January 10, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-231/","section":"Posts","summary":"I am trying to import a database to the MAMP install on my Macbook using phpMyAdmin’s import tool. Trying to do this yields:\n","title":"phpMyAdmin also stinks","type":"posts"},{"content":"Just was at the Studio Statensingel attending the One More Thing Macworld Keynote Party. Pictures up in a bit.\nEverybody\u0026rsquo;s eagerly anticipated iPhone fortunately saw the light of day and it was everything everybody could have wished for. For instance the silde to unlock button has the tactile oomph that is just great.\nI haven\u0026rsquo;t seen any multi-touch features demoed yet, most of it was either single-tap or dragging which are already quite impressive. Also missing are displays of the backside of the thing. What does the camera look like and what kind of lens is it?\nFor us in the Netherlands it\u0026rsquo;s going to be a long walk to the iPhone. It\u0026rsquo;s due to be released somewhere halfway this year but there\u0026rsquo;s no telling yet when it\u0026rsquo;ll debut in the Netherlands.\nAlso the prices listed were including two-year Cingular deals. That leaves the question open how much they are without a two year operator shackle so you can import them and run them with your Dutch SIM.\nAnyway my cellphone has been due for replacement a while now and my contract with T-mobile is also just finished and I happen to have some extra money lying around. What shall I do?\n","date":"January 9, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-230/","section":"Posts","summary":"Just was at the Studio Statensingel attending the One More Thing Macworld Keynote Party. Pictures up in a bit.\n","title":"The long walk to iPhone","type":"posts"},{"content":"Just got my 4GB 120x Transcend CompactFlash card in the mail. Being able to take 459 RAW pictures is quite a difference from 1GB.\nFunny thing is, the number of shots indicator on the 350D only carries three digits, so if I shoot at L quality (about 1300 shots), the indicator is maxed out at 999 for a while.\nI currently have 5.79GB available, meaning I can empty the card to my Macbook once. Next up a 160GB replacement HDD.\n","date":"January 9, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-229/","section":"Posts","summary":"Just got my 4GB 120x Transcend CompactFlash card in the mail. Being able to take 459 RAW pictures is quite a difference from 1GB.\n","title":"More Memory","type":"posts"},{"content":"Dit weekend in M van NRC een special gevuld met artikelen over het internet. Leuk spul, zeker voor mensen die geen internet ademen.\nTeleurstellend artikel alleen over de 4 ‘goeroes’: Paul Molenaar (Ilse), Erik Jan Gelink (UPC), Wim Veen (TU Delft) en Rob Gonggrijp (Wij vertrouwen stemcomputers niet).\nHeb je deze mensen bij elkaar voor een gesprek, komt er een artikel uitrollen van twee pagina\u0026rsquo;s tekst zonder lijn en met niet één kritische vraag.\nDat leidt tot bizarre uitspraken als bijvoorbeeld:\nErik Jan Gelink: Netwerkbeheerders - ik werk toevallig zelf bij een kabelmaatschappij - is het een doorn in het oog dat megabedrijven als Google vrij toegang hebben op ons netwerk en geld verdienen aan onze klanten.\nGelink als kabelboer van UPC kan het slecht verdragen dat hun positie van één van de belangrijkste contentleveranciers van de huiskamer wordt gedegradeerd naar dat van tweederangs byte-schuiver. De kabel wordt met de komst van ADSL en binnenkort glas en WiMax meer en meer ondergeschikt.\nGelink verdraait hier weinig subtiel ook het feit dat zijn klanten hém betalen voor internettoegang. De discussie over net-neutraliteit gaat over dit soort upstarts die bij grote bedrijven als Google geld ruiken en daar een slaatje uit willen slaan.\nNog eentje:\nPaul Molenaar (over Google): Ik snap ook niet dat de NMA (Nederlandse Mededingingsautoriteit, MH) nog geen onderzoek heeft ingesteld naar de manier waarop een bedrijf uit Californië de Nederlandse markt overheerst.\nAls je wilt dat de overheid lokale bedrijven helpt omdat ze het verliezen van grote internationale spelers dan snap je het hele concept ‘Internet’ en eerlijke concurrentie niet.\nIn ieder geval een opvallend gehalte bedreigingsdenken bij de oude mannen van het internet in Nederland.\n","date":"January 8, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-775/","section":"Posts","summary":"Dit weekend in M van NRC een special gevuld met artikelen over het internet. Leuk spul, zeker voor mensen die geen internet ademen.\n","title":"Het wonder van het web","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik heb het ‘Waarom?’ verhaal van mijn pagina tegen softwarepatenten uitgeschreven en Google-baar gemaakt.\nMisschien niet direct van nut, maar dit moest er even uit en mensen komen op de raarste zoekwoorden mijn weblog binnen (bijv. \u0026ldquo;tmobile klantenservice\u0026rdquo;). Kijken wat dit doet.\n","date":"January 8, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-774/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik heb het ‘Waarom?’ verhaal van mijn pagina tegen softwarepatenten uitgeschreven en Google-baar gemaakt.\n","title":"Waarom geen softwarepatenten?","type":"posts"},{"content":"En dit zit erin:\n","date":"January 7, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-773/","section":"Posts","summary":"En dit zit erin:\n","title":"Nieuwe tas","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik las net het slechte stuk (origineel: Digital Maoism) van Lanier in de NRC, staat er ook een stuk over op Sargasso. De reacties daar vallen me een beetje tegen.\nZogenaamde intellectuelen hebben weinig kennis nodig om ellenlange bezwaren te kunnen formuleren bij iets vreemds als Wikipedia. Het zal liggen aan het feit dat elke nieuwe ontwikkeling die voldoende disruptive is, moeilijk te behapstukken is voor de meeste mensen.\nIk heb er maar een antwoord bij getikt:\nTreurig stuk van Lanier die selectief feiten gebruikt om zijn eigen vervlogen hype in stand te houden. Datzelfde Wikipedia vindt hem niet belangrijk genoeg om een fatsoenlijk lemma bij te houden, heeft zijn beroep hersteld en meldt dat het artikel in de NRC pas een vervolg heeft gekregen (over zes maanden te lezen in onze Dinosaurus-media!).\nDie feitelijke fouten die in Wikipedia staan, staan ook in gedrukte encyclopedieën (zie Nature). Toch wint Wikipedia het op beschikbaarheid, diepgang en actualiteit.\nWikipedia pretendeert niet foutloos te zijn. Het wordt wel beter en beter. Het is gebouwd op een open source principe (van \u0026lsquo;commons based peer production\u0026rsquo;) en volgens dat principe geldt: als jij het erg vindt dat iets kapot is, dan repareer jij het. Daarom is klagen over fouten in Wikipedia zo hol.\nWat Wikipedia doet is vooral een eigen invulling geven aan hoe je een groot werk van kennis kan organiseren. Belangrijk daarbij is dat de interpretatie van authoriteit niet zo vastomlijnd is als in de echte wereld. Iemand die een paar boeken heeft gelezen en verbeteringen wil doorvoeren heeft (terecht) meer impact dan de universiteitsprofessor die die boeken misschien wel heeft geschreven, maar geen tijd heeft.\nIdeeën om authoriteit vaster neer te zetten ook in dit soort online dingen zijn leuk maar grof onrealistisch. Het benoemen van experts door commissies en alle rompslomp die daarbij komt kijken, is duur, levert onnodige frictie op en schaalt voor geen meter.\nMeer misverstanden over Wikipedia ook hier. Er zijn legio mensen op Wikipedia die meestal in overleg verantwoordelijkheid nemen. Dat uit zich in het volgen van veranderingen, het instrueren van nieuwe gebruikers, het sluiten van artikelen en het bemiddelen in discussies. Lemma\u0026rsquo;s die mensen iets kunnen schelen worden gevolgd en op hun discussies pagina\u0026rsquo;s wordt gedebatteerd over wat er wel en wat er niet in zou moeten komen.\nWaarom zou het je moeten kunnen schelen wat er in Wikipedia staat? Omdat het niet een willekeurige site is en omdat niemand er geld aan verdient. De kennis die er op staat is van iedereen en hoe beter de kennis daar is hoe meer iedereen daaraan heeft.\nTrouwens:\nKranten staan ook boordevol fouten in meestal oppervlakkige stukken. Wat actualiteit betreft is online nieuws sneller. Wat opinie betreft zijn aggregator sites voor de meeste interessegebieden interessanter en actueler.\nIk bedacht me: kunnen journalisten als ze artikelen toch aan het researchen zijn, voor die research niet het beste Wikipedia gebruiken én aanvullen? Dan doen ze nog wat nuttigs en kunnen ze bij hun opervlakkige artikel een verwijzing naar Wikipedia voor wie meer wil weten.\n","date":"January 7, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-772/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik las net het slechte stuk (origineel: Digital Maoism) van Lanier in de NRC, staat er ook een stuk over op Sargasso. De reacties daar vallen me een beetje tegen.\n","title":"Weinig benul van Wikis","type":"posts"},{"content":"Morgen is de laatste dag van de tentoonstelling in Foam van de Joop Swart Masterclass.\nIk heb er al heel veel goede dingen over gehoord en ik ga er morgenvroeg heen.\n","date":"January 7, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-771/","section":"Posts","summary":"Morgen is de laatste dag van de tentoonstelling in Foam van de Joop Swart Masterclass.\n","title":"Risk","type":"posts"},{"content":"Overal al lijstjes over 2006 en 2007.\nIk heb in 2006 voor mijn doen redelijk weinig films gezien, weinig boeken gelezen, weinig theater bezocht; redelijk opgeslokt geweest door het afstuderen.\nIedereen die me daarin heeft gesteund afgelopen jaar bedankt. Es ist fast vollbracht.\nGoede voornemens doe ik niet aan. Het lijkt me wel aardig om wat doelen voor 2007 op een rijtje te zetten.\nAfstuderen Vakantie vieren en meer reizen Zelfstandig worden wat werk, wonen en andere dingen betreft Meer denken, spreken en schrijven Niet per se meer fotograferen, wel beter SxSW en Reboot bezoeken en dit jaar op temminste één event presenteren ","date":"January 3, 2007","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-770/","section":"Posts","summary":"Overal al lijstjes over 2006 en 2007.\n","title":"Oud en nieuw","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;m playing around with Flash a bit to try and make a dedicated player for last.tv.\nI have seldom seen such a mess on all levels. It is very reminiscent of PHP in the lack of design, documentation and compatibility.\nIt has a massive GUI which serves more to obfuscate than it helps. It\u0026rsquo;s responsiveness and polish on OS X are a joke.\nI\u0026rsquo;ll take JavaScript and browser quirks any day.\n","date":"December 31, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-228/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’m playing around with Flash a bit to try and make a dedicated player for last.tv.\n","title":"Flash Interfacing","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;ve seen it happening multiple times already but it\u0026rsquo;s always pretty funny when a blogger has posted something and afterwards they think it\u0026rsquo;s too controversial or that they have misstated something and they revise their posts.\nNetnewswire has a very useful option which shows you the diff view in the post with additions in green and removals in red.\nWish: It would great if these diffs were viewable and permalinkable somewhere for the future. In certain cases these revisions are pretty revealing about the blogger or the discourse they are involved in.\n","date":"December 29, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-227/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’ve seen it happening multiple times already but it’s always pretty funny when a blogger has posted something and afterwards they think it’s too controversial or that they have misstated something and they revise their posts.\n","title":"Blogger Revisionism","type":"posts"},{"content":"Just did a fresh Wordpress install for last.tv and man! those guys keep up the good work.\nThing that really caught my attention was the seemless skin picker. Changing your templates could not really be easier (it could be a bit faster).\nI was thinking of writing my own search for my next iteration site, but I\u0026rsquo;m really not relishing the idea of writing Yet Another Blog and having to maintain it. Especially not when there is such a fantastic offering such as Wordpress is readily available.\n","date":"December 28, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-226/","section":"Posts","summary":"Just did a fresh Wordpress install for last.tv and man! those guys keep up the good work.\n","title":"Wowpress!","type":"posts"},{"content":"De NS schaft een berg nieuwe treinen aan.\nUit het bericht:\nReizigers kunnen de twee klassen straks herkennen aan de kleur van de bekleding (rood voor eerste klasse, blauw voor tweede klasse) en aan de voorzieningen (stopcontacten in eerste klasse).\nOver WiFi wordt niet gesproken.\n","date":"December 27, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-769/","section":"Posts","summary":"De NS schaft een berg nieuwe treinen aan.\n","title":"Nieuwe treinen","type":"posts"},{"content":"I updated my essential software list. Some additions and some removals, but nothing really shocking.\nI am still looking for a good tool to make screencasts with. I tried Snapz Pro X and it worked but the experience wasn\u0026rsquo;t very satisfying (and the name\u0026hellip; ugh!).\n","date":"December 27, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-225/","section":"Posts","summary":"I updated my essential software list. Some additions and some removals, but nothing really shocking.\n","title":"Software Essentials","type":"posts"},{"content":"Normaal gooi ik hem ongelezen weg, maar ik zit nu de Nobiles te lezen —vraag me niet waarom. Daarin een interview met Alexander Ribbink van TomTom wat toch wel leuk is:\nAlexander Ribbink: Ja, we hebben creativiteit nodig! Dienstverlening is voor mensen die niet zelf iets kunnen verzinnen. Ik weet niet hoe het werkt, met die sponsors van Nobiles, maar die bedrijven willen dat je allemaal manager of consultant wordt.\nDat wil je toch niet? De kans om een verschil te maken is heel klein. En je kans om disproportionele rijkdem te maken ook. Niet dat het om dat geld gaat, maar als je dat zo graag wil, moet je ook risico durven nemen.\nToffe gast en in een opgeklopt en overspannen blad met steekwoorden: blank, man, manager, VVD.\n","date":"December 24, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-768/","section":"Posts","summary":"Normaal gooi ik hem ongelezen weg, maar ik zit nu de Nobiles te lezen —vraag me niet waarom. Daarin een interview met Alexander Ribbink van TomTom wat toch wel leuk is:\n","title":"Wijze woorden","type":"posts"},{"content":"Nu ik toch weer televisie kan kijken op mijn Macbook, ben ik even Tegenlicht aan het inhalen.\nAflevering De luiken dicht: Groepsgesprek onder leiding van Rottenberg waarom Nederland afglijdt naar een naar binnen gekeerde bekrompenheid. Interessant genoeg, maar weinig hoopvol.\nDe conclusie is dat iedereen in Nederland met gevestigde belangen de hakken in het zand zet en daardoor veel dynamiek verloren gaat. Partijen als GroenLinks die daar iets aan willen doen krijgen weinig aanhang.\nVeiligheid en geborgenheid zijn tot op zekere hoogte wel belangrijk voor dynamiek.\nAls jij drie banen moet werken om te overleven, zul je nooit de opleiding kunnen doen die je in staat stelt op te klimmen. Als de buitenwereld bedreigend is, is de kans kleiner dat je uit het warme bad van je vaste contract stapt.\nDus wél geborgenheid, maar niet smoren en mensen helpen om weer aan de slag te kunnen en te kunnen doen wat ze willen.\nHiervoor zijn grote veranderingen nodig en flink investeringen in het onderwijs. Als dat niet gebeurt gaat iedereen die wél iets kan naar het buitenland en blijft Nederland zitten met zijn bejaarde baby boomers.\n","date":"December 23, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-767/","section":"Posts","summary":"Nu ik toch weer televisie kan kijken op mijn Macbook, ben ik even Tegenlicht aan het inhalen.\n","title":"De Luiken Dicht","type":"posts"},{"content":"Een tijdje geleden ergerde ik me aan de omroep (blog, Sargasso) die ophoudt met het aanbieden van Real Media streams van de uitzendingen, terwijl de Windows Media streams niet werken op de Mac.\nMacs met de Flip4Mac plugin zouden Windows Media moeten kunnen afspelen, maar door een verkeerde instelling op de servers van de omroep werkte dat niet.\nNu lijkt daar verandering in gekomen te zijn en kan ik gewoon Tegenlicht bekijken in Quicktime. Hoera!\nDit is een aardig tussenstation tot alle uitzendingen beschikbaar komen als MPEG4/Vodcast.\n","date":"December 23, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-766/","section":"Posts","summary":"Een tijdje geleden ergerde ik me aan de omroep (blog, Sargasso) die ophoudt met het aanbieden van Real Media streams van de uitzendingen, terwijl de Windows Media streams niet werken op de Mac.\n","title":"De Omroep houdt wel van Macs","type":"posts"},{"content":"It seems our mashup Last.TV is starting to lead a life of its own. After the final event, I spent half a night bringing it up to par functionally and feature wise so we have a tolerale offering right now, but some tweaking still remains to be done.\nWhat are we going to do next? Some redesign work and stability on the site is still necessary. And a possible rebranding and domain name would be nice. The domain Last.TV has been registered by someone from Last.FM and if they are not doing anything with it we would like to borrow it.\nLinks\nOur exposure across the web, as far as I can glean from referer logs:\nNu.nl\nEmerce\nDe Standaard\nRilo\u0026rsquo;s Blinklist\nSpanish forum on Common People Music.com\nNederkaart\nBlueace\nInsane HQ\nAlternative Junkie\nTam Tam Nieuwsbrief\nLast.FM Forum\nMagnus Blog\nMichel Rijnders\nDelicious\nEmbrace\nNu blog\nEWI\nGeneration Next\nDigg\nGloballistic\nZutaten\nMroumen\nAaiboek\nProgrammable Web\n","date":"December 22, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-224/","section":"Posts","summary":"It seems our mashup Last.TV is starting to lead a life of its own. After the final event, I spent half a night bringing it up to par functionally and feature wise so we have a tolerale offering right now, but some tweaking still remains to be done.\n","title":"Last.TV Goes On","type":"posts"},{"content":"We\u0026rsquo;re over the first rush but still… Eelke and me won the “Ben jij beter dan Microsoft?” mashup contest with our Last.TV concept.\nThanks to everybody for supporting us.\nWe even got mentioned on Emerce and on the national news site Nu.nl which prompted a rapid meltdown of my home server.\nWe won 1st place for design and 2nd place for technology. Manifold celebrations ensued.\nUpdate: Put the entire thing back into working order on my Dreamhost server. This is a lot snappier overall.\n","date":"December 20, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-223/","section":"Posts","summary":"We’re over the first rush but still… Eelke and me won the “Ben jij beter dan Microsoft?” mashup contest with our Last.TV concept.\n","title":"Won!","type":"posts"},{"content":"Eelke en ik hebben net de programmeerwedstrijd “Ben jij beter dan Microsoft?” gewonnen!\nBedankt iedereen die er bij aanwezig was en die ons heeft gesteund en op ons gestemd.\n1e prijs concept en 2e prijs techniek! Woorden schieten tekort!\nUpdate: De boel weer aan gezet en nu gehost op mijn Dreamhost server. Dit is een stuk stabieler en vlotter.\n","date":"December 19, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-764/","section":"Posts","summary":"Eelke en ik hebben net de programmeerwedstrijd “Ben jij beter dan Microsoft?” gewonnen!\n","title":"Woohoo!","type":"posts"},{"content":"Sole redeeming quote in an otherwise vacuous article with vague predictions:\nDavid Heinemeier Hansson: The stigma of being a Web programmer still using Windows will increase.\nThe only predictions worth even glancing at are Cringely\u0026rsquo;s.\n","date":"December 17, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-222/","section":"Posts","summary":"Sole redeeming quote in an otherwise vacuous article with vague predictions:\n","title":"Predilection","type":"posts"},{"content":"Eelke en ik waren aan het medeoen met de mashup wedstrijd “Ben jij beter dan Microsoft?”\nWij dachten: natuurlijk zijn we veel beter dan Microsoft dus zijn we mee gaan doen. Ons concept was om een gepersonaliseerde muziek-clip zender (prototype) te maken met videoclips de we van YouTube haalden en die je voorkeur baseerde op je Last.FM profiel.\nOndanks wat technische moeilijkheden, is het ons gelukt om een werkend prototype in elkaar te draaien. Ons concept heeft de finale gehaald. Op dat evenement moeten we het presenteren en dan mag het publiek stemmen (dmv SMS\u0026rsquo;jes) of wij het zijn die uiteindelijk gaan winnen.\nWij hebben dus zoveel mogelijk mensen van jullie nodig om er te zijn en om ons te steunen. Het evenement is dinsdag 19 december (zie Upcoming) is in het Sport Café van de TU Delft, Mekelweg 8-10 in Delft en het begint om 16.00.\nEr zal gezorgd worden voor gratis bier en de hoeveelheid gratis drank zal compleet ontploffen als wij winnen.\nJe kunt de boel ook uitproberen op de demosite (maar wees er een beetje lief voor). We gaan hem nog beter maken, maar dit is voor het idee.\n","date":"December 14, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-763/","section":"Posts","summary":"Eelke en ik waren aan het medeoen met de mashup wedstrijd “Ben jij beter dan Microsoft?”\n","title":"Wij zijn écht veel beter dan Microsoft!","type":"posts"},{"content":"Eelke and myself were competing in the mashup contest “Ben jij beter dan Microsoft?” (trans. Are you better than Microsoft?).\nWell we thought, of course we are better than Microsoft so we entered the competition. Our concept was to create a personalized music video station called Last.tv with videoclips pulled from YouTube based on your Last.FM music preferences.\nDespite some technical difficulties, we managed to pull this off. And our concept made it to the final. On the finale event we have to present and audience voting (by means of SMS) has a big say in the final result.\nSo we need as many of you to be present as possible and support us. The event is Tuesday the 19th of December (see Upcoming) is in the Sport Café of TUDelft, Mekelweg 8-10 in Delft and it starts at 16.00.\nFree beer will be provided and the amount of free liquor will explode if we win.\nYou can try it out at the demo site but please be gentle.\n","date":"December 14, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-221/","section":"Posts","summary":"Eelke and myself were competing in the mashup contest “Ben jij beter dan Microsoft?” (trans. Are you better than Microsoft?).\n","title":"We are soooo much better than Microsoft!","type":"posts"},{"content":"Er is op zondagmiddagen gratis leuke en goede jazz in het Doelencafé in Rotterdam. Afgelopen zondag lekker chillen met de jazzvocalisten van het conservatorium en cappuccini in een stampvol café.\nVolgende week iets met een bigband waarvan ik het niet zo weet. De week daarna op een beetje een ongelukkige datum (24 dec) Nicole Philoména met mooie Spaanse en Portugese sounds.\n","date":"December 12, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-762/","section":"Posts","summary":"Er is op zondagmiddagen gratis leuke en goede jazz in het Doelencafé in Rotterdam. Afgelopen zondag lekker chillen met de jazzvocalisten van het conservatorium en cappuccini in een stampvol café.\n","title":"Jazzvocalisten","type":"posts"},{"content":"Vorige week nog een aardige shoot gedaan met Capoeira Liberdade. Onder andere voor onze kerstkaart dit jaar.\nHopende op een witte kerst:\nAndere leuke foto:\n","date":"December 12, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-761/","section":"Posts","summary":"Vorige week nog een aardige shoot gedaan met Capoeira Liberdade. Onder andere voor onze kerstkaart dit jaar.\n","title":"Capoeira Kerstkaart","type":"posts"},{"content":"Capoeira maandag ging erg lekker. Tot… ik een armada van Carcará hard tegen mijn slaap kreeg. Knallende koppijn gisteren en vanochtend en nu nog steeds een beetje wazig.\nPositieve noot is wel dat elke keer dat ik een klap kreeg (tot nu toe vier keer) het is door iemand met een hoger niveau. Er zit dus een stijgende lijn in.\n","date":"December 12, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-760/","section":"Posts","summary":"Capoeira maandag ging erg lekker. Tot… ik een armada van Carcará hard tegen mijn slaap kreeg. Knallende koppijn gisteren en vanochtend en nu nog steeds een beetje wazig.\n","title":"Plat","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;m moulding some of my ideas of recent and not too recent into a deck titled “Social Networks as Online Panacea”.\nIt goes on about how most of the problems of identity and trust we are faced with currently can be solved using online social networks and then delves deeper into some of the issues.\nIt looks like it could be an interesting presentation and way above the level of a lot of what I\u0026rsquo;ve seen in the last week (nay! last year). But where should I give it?\n","date":"December 8, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-220/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’m moulding some of my ideas of recent and not too recent into a deck titled “Social Networks as Online Panacea”.\n","title":"Panacea","type":"posts"},{"content":"Mijn interview met David-Michel Davies staat nu ook online bij Frank. Hier nog even voor mijn eigen archief. Daarna ook nog een kort stukje over Innovation Playground.\nHelaas nog steeds geen foto\u0026rsquo;s. Professionele fotografen enzo…\nInterview David-Michel Davies\nDavid-Michel Davies is de voorzitter van de IADAS en van de Webby Awards. Hij presenteerde over hoe je systemen ontwerpt waarin je participatie toestaat en stimuleert. Waar je dan op moet letten en hoe je je gebruikers moet behandelen. Aansluitend op het verhaal van Nitot is participatie een essentiele voorwaarde voor open innovatie. Davies lichtte zijn presentatie toe met leuke voorbeelden van dingen die gebeuren op internet.\nWebby Awards\nDe Webby Awards zijn de equivalenten van de Oscars maar dan voor websites. 600 professionals uit de industrie brengen hun stemmen uit op inzendingen. Ze vormen een groot collaboratief filter waar uiteindelijk het beste van het internet op dat moment uit komt rollen.\nDe vraag waarom mijn moeder dit interessant zou moeten vinden, leidt tot het bestaansrecht van de Webbys. Het is een plek waar iedereen dé top vijf beste dingen kan vinden op een bepaald gebied op het internet. Er zijn een heleboel categorieën waar sites bij ingedeeld kunnne worden.\nOp dit moment is het internet zo\u0026rsquo;n massacultureel fenomeen dat dit potentieel iedereen kan interesseren. Zoek je de beste autosites? De beste modesites? Kijk naar de Webbys.\nVolgens Davies is de knal van de vorige internetzeepbel niet slecht geweest voor het internet. Het heeft wat investeerders een beetje schade berokkend maar het internet zelf is sterker en populairder dan ooit. Tijdens de vorige internet-hype was het nog heel erg een niche-fenomeen maar nu is het meer en meer mainstream geworden, een algemene marktplaats voor een onvoorstelbare hoeveelheid mensen.\nInternationaal Vorige jaar heeft de Nederlandse site Fabchannel de Webby voor beste muzieksite gewonnen. Elke site is welkom om mee te doen aan de Webbys. Het is een unieke kans om in één klap internationaal op de kaart te staan.\nVoor Nederland is Jake Blok de ambassadeur van de Webbys en met zijn site I Love The Webbys werft hij Nederlandse inzendingen.\nDavies vertelt dat ze mensen erop uit sturen om internationaal goede sites te vinden. Deze mensen merken op dat de kwaliteit van werk van buiten de Verenigde Staten dramatisch toeneemt en veel sneller aan het stijgen is dan dat van binnen de Verenigde Staten.\nHet is niet vereist om een Engelse vertaling te hebben maar het helpt wel. Volgend jaar zullen er meer faciliteiten beschikbaar komen zodat de beoordelers sites in andere talen beter kunnen beoordelen.\nDirectheid Volgens Davies luidt deze tijd van totale informatie grote veranderingen in. We kunnen nu —samen of alleen— over meer dingen dan ooit nadenken terwijl we tegelijkertijd veel minder hoeven te onthouden.\nDeze totale informatie is nog wel schijn. Veel informatie is op dit moment niet online beschikbaar en de informatie die wel online staat is niet makkelijk genoeg te raadplegen. Echt moeilijke antwoorden zijn nog steeds moeilijk te vinden.\nEen ander frappant gegeven is dat ook de online media ten prooi vallen aan gemakzucht. In de zaak Litvinenko bijvoorbeeld waren de meeste online bronnen niet uit elkaar te houden omdat ze allemaal hetzelfde persbericht hadden overgeschreven.\nParticipatie De ontwikkelingen op het internet en de fenomenen die daar hun oorsprong hebben, hebben volgens Davies ook hun weerslag weer op de maatschappij.\nEen treffend voorbeeld hiervan was een idee van de Beastie Boys om fans tijdens een concert van hen videocamera\u0026rsquo;s te geven en met het resulterende materiaal en film te monteren: Awesome; I Fuckin\u0026rsquo; Shot That!. Dit heeft niks met het internet te maken, maar het is wel iets heel erg internet-achtigs om te doen.\nParticipatie wordt vanzelfsprekend en steekt overal de kop op. En op die positieve noot beëindigen we dit interview.\nInnovation Playground\nDe volgende dag vond in het gebouw van SenterNovem in Den Haag de Innovation Playground plaats waar ik ook bij aanwezig was, als deelnemer en insight provider.\nInnovation Playground is een grote bijeenkomst waar deelnemers uit de markt nieuwe ideeën genereren hoe ze innovatieve oplossingen kunnen toepassen. 90 innovatieve projecten en concepten dienden als uitgangspunt om op een creatieve manier gecombineerd te worden. De brainstorm-sessies werden begeleid door studenten en daarna werden het resultaat omgezet in beeld door een visual translator.\nDe hele dag door waren er veel kansen om ideeën uit te wisselen, geïnspireerd te worden door de concepten en vooral door de aanwezigen. Ik heb met David-Michel Davies van de Webbys en Martijn Janssen van Ebay.nl tijdens de Content Playground inputs geleverd aan de teams die een web concept moesten verzinnen.\nHet resultaat van de dag is 100 ‘innovatieve’ ideeën. Dat is nog maar het begin. Nu is het nog zaak om hieruit de geschiktste ideeën te kiezen en deze goed uit te voeren. In ieder geval worden alle ideeën gedigitaliseerd en binnenkort vrijgegeven. Enkele van die ideeën zullen dan ook op Frankwatching verschijnen.\n","date":"December 8, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-759/","section":"Posts","summary":"Mijn interview met David-Michel Davies staat nu ook online bij Frank. Hier nog even voor mijn eigen archief. Daarna ook nog een kort stukje over Innovation Playground.\n","title":"Interview David-Michel Davies en Innovation Playground","type":"posts"},{"content":"Na vorige week de verschillende events bijgewoond te hebben en ook nog eens een Capoeira-workshop tussendoor nog even mijn interviews afgemaakt.\nHet interview met Tristan Nitot staat nu op Frankwatching. Het interview met David-Michel Davies volgt snel.\nHieronder ook nog even het interview voor mijn eigen archief:\nGrowhTalk Live is een initiatief van Crosspring om te netwerken en inzichten uitwisselen rondom het thema ‘Groei’. Woensdagmiddag 29 november was de meest recente sessie in het ING-gebouw in Den Haag rondom het thema Open Innovation was.\nWat is Open Innovatie? Hoe organiseer je het? En hoe kun je er als bedrijf voordeel uit halen? Dit waren enkele van de vragen waar de aanwezigen een antwoord op probeerden te vinden.\nVerschillende sprekers deelden hun inzichten met de aanwezigen. Na hun presentaties konden er vragen worden gesteld waarna er werd afgesloten met een korte interview sessie op de sofa met Jake Blok —organisator en initiatiefnemer van GrowthTalk Live.\nHet publiek was gemengd en bestond uit professionals en uit studenten die voorafgaand aan een business plan wedstrijd op Innovation Playground dit event bijwoonden.\nIk heb het event bijgewoond voor Frankwatching en ik mocht twee uiterst boeiende sprekers op GrowthTalk Live interviewen.\nTristan Nitot, president van Mozilla Europa\nDavid-Michel Davies, Executive Director van de Webby Awards\nInterview Tristan Nitot\nTristan Nitot is de verantwoordelijke voor alle Europese zaken van Mozilla. Dit kan alles zijn van PR tot het managen van de vertaalteams of het organiseren van feesten voor de recente uitgave van Firefox 2.\nNitot begint zijn verhaal met een korte geschiedenis van de browsermarkt. Op een gegeven moment verkreeg Internet Explorer de dominante monopolie-positie in de markt en daarmee stopte de innovatie in het browserdomein. Pas nu Firefox zo populair is dat het een bedreiging vormt voor Microsoft, heeft Microsoft weer stappen gezet om hun browser te verbeteren. Het uitbrengen van versie 7 van Internet Explorer is de belangrijkste ontwikkeling op dat gebied.\nNitot hamert erop dat marktaandeel een essentiele voorwaarde is om serieus genomen te worden. Met dit argument wuift hij browsers als Opera en Safari weg als leuk maar grotendeels irrelevant. Zonder marktaandeel zullen ontwikkelaars hun sites niet testen voor jouw browser en loop je altijd achter de feiten aan.\nDaarna vervolgt Nitot zijn verhaal over de schaal van het project en de organisatiestructuur die het mogelijk maakt om samen te werken op een productieve en open manier. Mozilla maakt Firefox niet zelf. Haar voornaamste taak is het om de community met visie en middelen in staat te stellen om Firefox te maken.\nIedereen kan in principe onbetaald meewerken aan Firefox en Mozilla. Het aantal onwikkelaars is orde van grootte 100, het aantal vertalers ligt rond de 1'000 en het aantal mensen dat de nieuwe versies test tegen de 10'000. Al deze mensen werken samen rondom een compleet open structuur: alle code is open net zoals de status van elke bug, de website en de documentatie zijn wikis en de organisatie is een meritocratie. Iedereen zal naar gelang zijn bijdrage vanzelf klimmen binnen de organisatie.\nFirefox 2 De nieuwe versie van Firefox heeft een groot nieuw versienummer maar biedt expres geen grote in het oog springende features. Dit komt door de paradox van Firefox: Hoe bied je een krachtig product aan zonder de gebruiker te overspoelen met (te)veel features. In de nieuwe versie zijn heel veel verbeteringen doorgevoerd waar gebruikers geen last van hebben. Goede voorbeelden hiervan zijn de meertalige spellingscontrole en de session saver.\nDit laat ook goed zien welke vorm innovaties in Firefox in de toekomst zullen nemen. Simpel en gebruikersvriendelijk zal het allerbelangrijkste blijven. Exotische features die voor een kleine groep mensen interessant zijn, zijn beschikbaar als toevoegingen. Blijken deze toevoegingen populair dan kunnen ze geïntegreerd worden in de volgende versie.\nPopulariteit Waarom denkt Nitot dat Nederland achterblijft in de adoptie van Firefox vergeleken met andere Europese landen?\nCultuur schijnt hierin een belangrijke factor te zijn. Netscape is in Duitsland altijd groot gebleven omdat ze daar veel meer gericht zijn op privacy en veiligheid. Toen Firefox uitkwam zijn al die gebruikers overgegaan op wat eigenlijk de nieuwe versie was. Vanaf dat punt is de sneeuwbal doorgerold. In Spanje daarentegen worden bijna uitsluitend Microsoft producten gebruikt. Firefox en bijvoorbeeld Apple worden daar bijna niet gebruikt.\nDe situatie in Nederland zou volgens Nitot kunnen verbeteren als er meer werk werd gemaakt van bewustwording rondom een veilig en compatibel web en als er een paar zichtbare uitgesproken voorstanders van Firefox de publiciteit zouden opzoeken.\nInternet Explorer 7 zou voor Firefox een afvlakking van het aantal overstappers kunnen betekenen maar daar zijn nog geen aanwijzingen voor. Het is ook veel te vroeg om dat te kunnen zeggen. IE7 is 18 oktober in het Engels verspreid. Klanten van Microsoft moeten temminste Windows XP SP2 hebben om de nieuwe versie te kunnen draaien. Nitot is van mening dat het voor gebruikers makkelijker is om Firefox te downloaden en te installeren dan om door alle hoepels van Microsoft heen te springen.\nDe populariteit van Firefox heeft Microsoft gedwongen om het IE team nieuw leven in te blazen. IE7 voert ook heel veel verbeteringen door op het gebied van webstandaarden en compatibiliteit die het leven van webontwikkelaars veel makkelijker zullen maken. De vraag of IE7 zal zorgen voor een nieuwe periode van stagnatie omdat dit voor heel veel mensen ‘goed genoeg’ is of dat het zal leiden tot een nieuwe periode van innovatie.\nZoals eerder al opgemerkt is marktaandeel belangrijk en de populariteit van Firefox en internet-gerelateerde toepassingen zal grote invloed hebben op Microsoft\u0026rsquo;s strategie.\nWebstandaarden Webstandaarden zijn de afspraken volgens welke iedereen online met elkaar praat. Dit zijn technische protocollen en opmaaktalen zoals bijvoorbeeld: HTTP, HTML, XML en Atom. Microsoft heeft zich altijd bijzonder opportunistisch aan deze afspraken gehouden. Compatibiliteit en concurrentie zijn goed voor de consument, maar niet per se voor de monopolist.\nVeel van deze standaarden werden in eerste instantie opgesteld door de W3C. De stroefheid van het proces binnen de W3C en de ineffectiviteit van de W3C om ervoor te zorgen dat de afspraken werden nageleefd, heeft er op een gegeven moment toe geleid dat de open browsermakers (Mozilla, Opera \u0026amp; Apple) zich hebben verenigd in de Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WHAT-WG). Microsoft doet hier niet aan mee maar ze zijn van harte welkom.\nDe WHAT-WG stelt standaarden op op basis van de huidige realiteit en praktische noodzaak. Ze zijn een tijdje geleden begonnen met het specificeren van de volgende versie van HTML: HTML5. Dit terwijl de W3C HTML eigenlijk had afgedankt en iedereen wilde dwingen om over te gaan op XHTML. Deze ontwikkeling is veelbelovend en het lijkt er nu op dat HTML5 ook bij de W3C een plaats kan vinden.\nBijdragen Het belonen van vrijwilligers is een heikel punt in Open Source gemeenschappen. Niet iedereen die bijdraagt aan Mozilla doet dat vrijwillig. Sommige mensen worden betaald door bedrijven voor het werk dat ze doen. Wanneer de organisatie zelf mensen gaat belonen kan dit leiden tot onvrede bij de andere ontwikkelaars.\nHet Dunc-Tank initiatief in Debian is een goed voorbeeld hoe zoiets veel onrust kan veroorzaken.\nMozilla krijgt meer geld binnen dan ze hadden verwacht. Dit wordt onder andere gestoken in een stichting die het onafhankelijke voortbestaan van Mozilla moet garanderen. Verder wordt er geld besteed om de commmunity te helpen haar werk te doen. Mozilla gelooft daarbij niet zozeer in het belonen van gedaan werk, maar ze geven mensen liever de middelen die ze nodig hebben om het werk te doen.\nTenslotte adviseert Nitot bedrijven die bij willen dragen aan Open Source projecten om het gewoon te doen en open te zijn in hun motieven.\nZie ook het interview op Emerce.\n","date":"December 6, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-758/","section":"Posts","summary":"Na vorige week de verschillende events bijgewoond te hebben en ook nog eens een Capoeira-workshop tussendoor nog even mijn interviews afgemaakt.\n","title":"Interview met Tristan Nitot","type":"posts"},{"content":"I was expecting one package but I got two. So I thought the Threadless guys had messed up somehow.\nThis however did not seem to be the case. The other package was sent from the Eclipse Foundation and contained an Eclipse fleece. Very nice surprise guys. Thanks!\nThe Threadless package was courtesy of the holiday sale and contained Missing Piece, Dark Side of the Garden and Fill Me Up.\n","date":"December 5, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-219/","section":"Posts","summary":"I was expecting one package but I got two. So I thought the Threadless guys had messed up somehow.\n","title":"Clothing Boon","type":"posts"},{"content":"There was a Delft-wide power outage this afternoon at around noon. This is the reason my server at home went down (and took this blog with it). It was fun to see everybody around me get up in frustration while I could keep on typing on my Macbook\u0026rsquo;s ‘UPS’.\nA liberalized energy market is great fun all in all. Electricity which was already very cheap and very reliable is going to be made even more cheap and reliable by handing it over to market forces, or so the free market evangelists tell us.\nWhat they don\u0026rsquo;t tell us is how they lined their pockets in the process and will be long gone when we are left with the shattered remains. And good luck getting a financial restitution for today\u0026rsquo;s lack of service, either sole or class action.\nAdded note: This did not make the news today. Makes you wonder how often this happens throughout the Netherlands without anybody knowing.\n","date":"December 4, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-218/","section":"Posts","summary":"There was a Delft-wide power outage this afternoon at around noon. This is the reason my server at home went down (and took this blog with it). It was fun to see everybody around me get up in frustration while I could keep on typing on my Macbook’s ‘UPS’.\n","title":"Blackout","type":"posts"},{"content":"Words cannot express how much I am loving each and every post on Matt Webb and Jack Schulze\u0026rsquo;s blog: Pulse Laser.\nThe name alone makes me want to cry from sheer beauty. Great work!\n","date":"December 3, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-217/","section":"Posts","summary":"Words cannot express how much I am loving each and every post on Matt Webb and Jack Schulze’s blog: Pulse Laser.\n","title":"Pulse","type":"posts"},{"content":"When I was sitting in the train my Macbook became unusably unstable. Some stuff had already dight the night before, but it was still playing music and Safari was still running so I forwent the reboot.\nI have been writing some stuff in WriteRoom recently and I was liking it a lot. It was also acting strange. Then it went ahead and deleted all of my notes except one.\nNice…\n","date":"December 2, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-216/","section":"Posts","summary":"When I was sitting in the train my Macbook became unusably unstable. Some stuff had already dight the night before, but it was still playing music and Safari was still running so I forwent the reboot.\n","title":"Another application out the window","type":"posts"},{"content":"Het weblog waar ik af en toe wat voor schrijf Frankwatching.com is verkozen tot beste Nederlandstalige marketing \u0026amp; communicatie weblog.\nIk ben blij en ik ga hard doorschrijven.\n","date":"December 2, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-757/","section":"Posts","summary":"Het weblog waar ik af en toe wat voor schrijf Frankwatching.com is verkozen tot beste Nederlandstalige marketing \u0026 communicatie weblog.\n","title":"Nummer 1","type":"posts"},{"content":"Pauw \u0026amp; Witteman…\nzijn gewoon Barend en van Dorp mét hersenen!\n","date":"November 29, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-756/","section":"Posts","summary":"Pauw \u0026 Witteman…\n","title":"Aha!","type":"posts"},{"content":"I have spent today at GrowthTalk and will be spending tomorrow brainstorming concepts at Innovation Playground.\nI\u0026rsquo;ll be writing a feature about the first one somewhere this week.\nFriday it\u0026rsquo;s time for some R\u0026amp;R at Brightlive. It looks fun and nice, everybody I know from web stuff is coming and the entrance fee is quite affordable. So join the fun!\nThis week is also the week of Nokia Live in Amsterdam. Go there if you can. If you can\u0026rsquo;t you can read the reports at Jyri Engeström\u0026rsquo;s blog: 1, 2, 3. More: 4, 5\n","date":"November 29, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-215/","section":"Posts","summary":"I have spent today at GrowthTalk and will be spending tomorrow brainstorming concepts at Innovation Playground.\n","title":"Some events for your attention","type":"posts"},{"content":"Het citaat van Fok.nl:\nMarcel Companjen laat namens de ChristenUnie weten dat kunst (in dit geval muziek), niet aanstootgevend of godslasterlijk mag zijn.\nIk weet dus niet hoe accuraat het is.\nWat er wel uit blijkt is een egocentrische en domme houding ten opzichte van de wereld (ons welbekend van godsdienstfundamentalisten). Een van de bestaansredenen van goede kunst is wel degelijk het geven van aanstoot.\n","date":"November 27, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-755/","section":"Posts","summary":"Het citaat van Fok.nl:\n","title":"Duivelse Teringherrie","type":"posts"},{"content":"In the USA the shift in Congres means good tidings for the tech industry. The Democrats are going to move forward on unwiring, H-1B visas, Net Neutrality and Privacy.\nThis shows progressive parties benefit innovation. Here in the Netherlands we have had a conservative government for the past five years and the recent elections have taken a turn towards even more conservatism.\nThe future is looking dim indeed.\n","date":"November 27, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-214/","section":"Posts","summary":"In the USA the shift in Congres means good tidings for the tech industry. The Democrats are going to move forward on unwiring, H-1B visas, Net Neutrality and Privacy.\n","title":"Conservatives Bad for Innovation","type":"posts"},{"content":"Gisteren mijn aansluiting met lijn 3 net gemist.\nIn de tien minuten wachten op de volgende even aan de overkant van de straat een hele goede espresso gedronken (met complementaire chocolade-koffiebonen!).\nEn de prijs: €1,60\n","date":"November 26, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-754/","section":"Posts","summary":"Gisteren mijn aansluiting met lijn 3 net gemist.\n","title":"Ratatouille","type":"posts"},{"content":"Hilarisch filmfragment.\nDe diepere moraal is dat nare mensen het meestal slecht trekken als iemand hetzelfde bij hen doet [via].\n","date":"November 24, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-753/","section":"Posts","summary":"Hilarisch filmfragment.\n","title":"Latter Day Saints","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik zie een trend.\nMet Rabo Mobiel wordt je GSM ook je portemonnee (of dat is temminste de bedoeling). Ik denk wel dat de Rabobank hier een paar jaar te vroeg mee is, maar het is goed dat het er is.\nMijn portemonnee is op mijn werk ook al hetzelfde als mijn sleutels (RFID). Ik zou niet weten waarom sleutels niet ook in je GSM kunnen.\nVerder is je telefoonnummer bijna net zo uniek als je SoFi-nummer. Voor DigiD wordt het met SMS-beveiliging al gebruikt als je identificatie.\nDus uiteindelijk zit alles in de GSM.\n","date":"November 22, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-751/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik zie een trend.\n","title":"Mobiele Trend","type":"posts"},{"content":"I just made my first submission to JPG Magazine. Immensely difficult and a slim chance of winning anything, but you can still vote for me!\nI like how this particular picture turned out.\n","date":"November 22, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-213/","section":"Posts","summary":"I just made my first submission to JPG Magazine. Immensely difficult and a slim chance of winning anything, but you can still vote for me!\n","title":"JPG","type":"posts"},{"content":"Gisteren naar allebei de debatten gekeken. Het smurfendebat blonk uit in nietszeggendheid. Allemaal gepiep dwars door elkaar heen met domme hele domme uitspraken.\nHet echte debat was erg de moeite waard. Inhoudelijk ging het vaak wel ergens over, maar de vorm was zo mogelijk nog interessanter om te zien.\nBalkenende is een nare man maar hij beheerst het perfect. Ik snap alleen niet dat hij zo zuur moet kijken. Hij heeft goed begrepen dat je lang aan het woord moet zijn, dat je altijd moet zeggen dat je het eens bent met je tegenstander ‘maar’ dan je eigen punt erdoorheen drukken.\nDat je niet in moet gaan op dingen waar je niet op in wilt gaan. En dat je je zeker geen cijfers van het CPB ten laste moet laten leggen, ook al zijn ze waar. Het is frustrerend om Balkenende telkenmale als antwoord op een hard punt een no fact zone binnen te zien gaan met uitspraken als ‘u stelt de feiten verkeerd voor’.\nBalkenende is een soort glibberaal van de politiek smerig en niet te vatten.\nBos was goed en bleef on message.\nMarijnissen is rhetorisch een koning. Hij voert het debat op meerdere niveau\u0026rsquo;s tegelijkertijd maar hij vergeet niet om het verhaal eenvoudig te houden.\nHalsema hoorde ik te weinig maar wanneer ze iets zei scoorde ze goed. Ze laat telkens zien dat ze dit kabinet kan pakken op hun zwaarste fouten. Dat liet ze zien toen ze Verdonk aanpakte re:Hirsi Ali en nu weer toen ze Balkenende pakte op het Irak-debâcle waar in Nederland niet over gepraat mag worden. Balkenende deed verongelijkt zoals altijd maar had geen echt antwoord.\nRutte. Wie?\nIk heb nog geprobeerd om Pauw \u0026amp; Witteman te kijken, maar onder andere door vroeg opstaan om te flyeren en die avond nog hard te hebben gelopen ben ik om 01.00 op de bank in slaap gevallen.\n","date":"November 22, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-750/","section":"Posts","summary":"Gisteren naar allebei de debatten gekeken. Het smurfendebat blonk uit in nietszeggendheid. Allemaal gepiep dwars door elkaar heen met domme hele domme uitspraken.\n","title":"Glibberige aal","type":"posts"},{"content":"De rebbe blijkt ook voor GroenLinks te zijn. Gek, ik had hem altijd voor een kameraad aangezien. Zijn argumentatie laat niets aan duidelijkheid te wensen over:\nVoor wie nog zweeft: En GroenLinks snapt dat onze burgervrijheden niet mogen worden opgeofferd aan de ‘strijd tegen terreur’.\nEn GroenLinks stuurt aan op een linkse coalitie, maar anders dan de SP doet ze dat zonder daar (op oneven dagen) ook bazenpartij CDA in te willen betrekken.\nHear! Hear!\n","date":"November 21, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-749/","section":"Posts","summary":"De rebbe blijkt ook voor GroenLinks te zijn. Gek, ik had hem altijd voor een kameraad aangezien. Zijn argumentatie laat niets aan duidelijkheid te wensen over:\n","title":"Luister naar de Rebbe","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik MOET de nieuwe Zelda spelen.\n","date":"November 20, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-748/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik MOET de nieuwe Zelda spelen.\n","title":"W¡¡¡¡!!!!","type":"posts"},{"content":"Tim Bray:\nYou have no idea how much work this has been, for a whole lot of our best people; my hat is off to ’em.\nI have been snide towards Sun for their failure to open Java.\nThis does not mean I do not recognize the dedication, balls and buy-in —all probably not very easy to procure in a company this size— it took to get here.\nI\u0026rsquo;m curious to see what\u0026rsquo;s next.\n","date":"November 20, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-212/","section":"Posts","summary":"Tim Bray:\n","title":"Java Opened Up","type":"posts"},{"content":"De weegschalentest bij Kassa raakt kant nog wal.\nDe Body mass index die erbij gehaald wordt is een waardeloze maat om de fitheid van iemand te meten. Spiermassa, postuur en veel andere factoren beïnvloeden deze maat zo ontzettend dat hij nietszeggend is.\nBMI heeft ook niks te maken met het vetpercentage. Aardiger zou zijn geweest om van de proefkonijnen een accurate vetpercentage-meting te doen en die te vergelijken met de uitkomsten van de weegschalen.\nVolgens mj gaat het met mijn vetpercentage de goede kant op, maar ik kan het niet meten en ik geloof wel dat al die weegschalen die getest zijn ook niet betrouwbaar zijn.\n","date":"November 18, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-747/","section":"Posts","summary":"De weegschalentest bij Kassa raakt kant nog wal.\n","title":"Kassa Vetpercentages","type":"posts"},{"content":"Lots of props for the guys from Fleck for their brilliant gimmick for their launch at Techcrunch. Wearing white suits and having people leave their details on you is sheer genius.\nPicture by Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten\nI took a quick look at the site and Fleck looks easy and fun enough to try out. Let\u0026rsquo;s see.\n","date":"November 18, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-211/","section":"Posts","summary":"Lots of props for the guys from Fleck for their brilliant gimmick for their launch at Techcrunch. Wearing white suits and having people leave their details on you is sheer genius.\n","title":"Vlekken","type":"posts"},{"content":"Er is een gigantich blok aan zwevende kiezers en de politieke partijen zetten hun slotoffensieven in.\nWat is het verschil tussen democratie en een crapshoot?\n","date":"November 18, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-746/","section":"Posts","summary":"Er is een gigantich blok aan zwevende kiezers en de politieke partijen zetten hun slotoffensieven in.\n","title":"Onzekerheid","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik ga zo bij BestelICT mijn klikker RC-1 ophalen voor mijn Canon EOS 350D.\nHet ding is nog best slecht leverbaar. Amazon.com, .co.uk en .de leveren allemaal geen elektronica naar Nederland (om een of andere bizarre reden) en in veel winkels in Nederland is hij of heel duur of niet op voorraad.\nIk doe nu mee aan de Flickr groep 365 Days waarvoor het de bedoeling is om elke dag een zelfportret te plaatsen. De zelfontspanner van de 350D werkt net niet handig genoeg om dit leuk te maken. Hij autofocust al bij het indrukken van de knop wat in veel gevallen te vroeg is.\nMet een klikker moet dat een stuk makkelijker zijn. Dan kan ik weer wat gaan experimenteren.\n","date":"November 17, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-745/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik ga zo bij BestelICT mijn klikker RC-1 ophalen voor mijn Canon EOS 350D.\n","title":"Klikker Snapper","type":"posts"},{"content":"Na veel overleg, en ook een flink stapel werk is de nieuwe site van Capoeira Liberdade online.\nDe oude site zag er niet uit en was al anderhalf jaar (of langer) niet meer ge-update. Het is leuk om nu weer een moderne site te hebben waar recente en kloppende informatie op staat. Hij is zeker nog niet af en er moeten op plaatsen nog teksten geschreven of aangepast worden, maar hier kunnen we verder op bouwen.\nHet is ook leuk dat de site zo goed ontvangen wordt door iedereen. Mensen zijn blij dat er weer iets mee gedaan wordt en de eerste commentaren, forum berichten en contact-mailtjes zijn al binnen.\nIk heb deze site geïmplementeerd in Drupal en dat is hier een erg geschikte keuze gebleken. De diepgang van deze site is erg simpel en alles valt te realiseren met het installeren en configureren van modules. Ik ga ook zo snel mogelijk rechten weggeven aan andere mensen en ze leren hoe ze content moeten aanpassen en toevoegen zodat ik zo min mogelijk hoef te doen.\n","date":"November 17, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-744/","section":"Posts","summary":"Na veel overleg, en ook een flink stapel werk is de nieuwe site van Capoeira Liberdade online.\n","title":"Capoeira site","type":"posts"},{"content":"Job Cohen geeft commentaar op het verkiezingsdebat van vanavond en het fragment over de wachtlijsten. Volgens Balkenende zijn de wachtlijsten door het kabinet opgelost. Bos\u0026rsquo; riposte dat dat niet klopt wordt door Balkenende weggewuifd met een verwijzing naar de feiten.\nFeiten? In deze smerige onderhandse campagne wordt maar wat geroepen en wie de schijn mee heeft komt ermee weg. Echte feiten komen er niet in.\nIn Colbert-esque termen: deze campagne is een no fact zone waar de truthiness en het heilig vertrouwen in onze president JPB hoogtij vieren.\nUpdate: Heeft Sargasso op eens een stukje over hetzelfde onderwerp met meer diepgang.\n","date":"November 16, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-743/","section":"Posts","summary":"Job Cohen geeft commentaar op het verkiezingsdebat van vanavond en het fragment over de wachtlijsten. Volgens Balkenende zijn de wachtlijsten door het kabinet opgelost. Bos’ riposte dat dat niet klopt wordt door Balkenende weggewuifd met een verwijzing naar de feiten.\n","title":"Ongemakkelijke feiten","type":"posts"},{"content":"I just came across a couple of password protected unviewable PDFs.\nIt would have been very nice if OS X had utilities installed by default with which to remove such passwords. Unfortunately\u0026hellip;\nI tried a couple of very dodgy programs which could also not provide any results.\n","date":"November 14, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-210/","section":"Posts","summary":"I just came across a couple of password protected unviewable PDFs.\n","title":"Preview","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik heb voor de grap de afgelopen vijf weken een proefabonnement genomen op de NRC.next. Vijf weken voor vijf euro was wel erg goedkoop voor een goede grap.\nMijn ervaringen met de krant lezen:\nDe eerste weken vergat ik nog regelmatig om \u0026rsquo;s ochtends de krant uit de brievenbus te halen. Ik ben niet zo\u0026rsquo;n ochtend(kranten)mens.\nAchterhaald Het nieuws staat er te laat in. Een ochtendkrant moet ergens in de avonduren de dag van tevoren al bij de drukker zijn om de boel logistiek rond te krijgen. Dat betekent dat het nieuws wat erin staat minstens een uur of 8 stagnant is geweest. Zoveel voor het up to date gehalte.\nWat nog erger is, viel me op, dat sommige berichten dagen te laat erin staan. De Google YouTube overname —één van de grootste gebeurtenissen van deze bel— stond twee dagen later pas in de krant. De rel rond de parkinson-commercial van Michael J. Fox stond er een week later in.\nOnfeitelijk In het artikel over Google/YouTube stond bovendien nog een feitelijke fout. Er staan heel vaak fouten in krantenartikelen over onderwerpen waar ik iets vanaf weet. Daardoor vraag ik me af hoeveel fouten er staan in de artikelen die buiten mijn expertise liggen. Als je ergens goed over geïnformeerd wilt worden, neem dan geen krant.\nDit te laat publiceren van artikelen door ‘mensen die nauwelijks iets weten van alles’ (de definitie van een journalist) die daardoor vol met fouten staan, getuigt wat mij betreft van een zware minachting van de lezer. Blijkbaar denken ze dat je zo dom bent dat je er toch niet achter komt hoe slecht die krant is.\nKranten hebben web-abonnementen die er vaak wel aardig uitzien maar tekort schieten. Als een krant de avond van tevoren al klaar is voor de druk, dan kan hij net zo goed ook meteen in zijn geheel online gezet worden. Abonnee\u0026rsquo;s kunnen dan e-mail of RSS notificatie krijgen en het op hun PC thuis al doorbladeren en de dingen die ze interessant zijn lezen. Dit is nu technisch mogelijk en de Volkskrant heeft geloof ik een of ander halfslachtig initiatief.\nDirect marketing De afwikkeling van mijn abonnement liet ook te wensen over. Ik kreeg op het einde van mijn abonnement een brief met acceptgiro waarin het volgende stond:\nVolgens onze administartie heeft u het abonnementsgeld voor nrc.next met onderstaande specificatie op de acceptgiro, nog niet betaald. Misschien dat u daar een goede reden voor heeft wilt u dan zo vriendelijk zijn uw bezwaar schriftelijk (samen met onderstaande acceptgiro) of telefonisch aan ons kenbaar te maken.\nAfgezien van het slechte Nederlands is dit pas de eerste mogelijkheid die ik van hen heb gekregen heb om te betalen. Dat ik dan meteen wordt betricht van wanbetaling vind ik iets minder fijn.\nWat ook hoort bij zo\u0026rsquo;n proefabonnement is de telefonische follow-up om te peilen of ik in ben voor een vast abonnement. Op zich begrijpelijk vanuit een kosten/baten conversie-standpunt. Probleem is alleen dat ik misschien tien uur per week heb dat ik het niet erg zou vinden om gebeld te worden en dat ze nooit tijdens die uren bellen.\nIk ben twee keer gebeld tijdens het hardlopen, één keer om tien uur zaterdagochtend (hoe verzinnen ze het?) en nu net tijdens het werk.\nKranten? Begin er niet meer aan. Een goede selectie RSS op je Google Homepage samen met een link naar Google News is alles wat je nodig hebt.\n","date":"November 14, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-742/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik heb voor de grap de afgelopen vijf weken een proefabonnement genomen op de NRC.next. Vijf weken voor vijf euro was wel erg goedkoop voor een goede grap.\n","title":"Kranten zijn een farce","type":"posts"},{"content":"Web 2.0 startups and social sharing being what they may, I have very mixed feelings about slideshare.\nIt is a nice product and does facilitate a larger need of sharing decks or single slides to enable viewing without the horribe PowerPoint and commenting on. This is good.\nWhat is less so is that it makes it really convenient for bloggers to embed slideshows in their posts as if they are self-explaining.\nMost business decks are so dense and convoluted, you are doing your audience a severe disservice by subjecting them to unedited unaccompanied versions.\nPeople uploading to slideshare should first be subjected to the Cognitive Style of PowerPoint or an equal measure of Presentation Zen.\nOh yeah, they don\u0026rsquo;t accept raw Keynote files which pretty much precludes receiving any presentations worth looking at.\n","date":"November 13, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-209/","section":"Posts","summary":"Web 2.0 startups and social sharing being what they may, I have very mixed feelings about slideshare.\n","title":"Boreshare","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik schreef al eens over het gebrek aan een high tech kantine in Delft (buiten de TU om dan).\nIn San Francisco is de Coworking Space geopend voor hun bedrijf Citizen Agency, deels kantoor deels publieke ruimte voor iedereen die mee wil denken/helpen.\nEr is een bredere beweging om dit soort Coworking ruimtes op meer plaatsen in de wereld op te richten. Er zijn wat weifelende initiatieven aan deze kant van de vijver maar misschien leuk om zoiets in Delft op te zetten?\n","date":"November 12, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-741/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik schreef al eens over het gebrek aan een high tech kantine in Delft (buiten de TU om dan).\n","title":"Samenwerken voor onafhankelijken","type":"posts"},{"content":"Update: Ik ben gelinked van de Verkiezingen Startpagina. Welkom bezoekers! Een commentaar achterlaten mag en is niet eng.\nWaar Rutte vanmiddag in Buitenhof gelijk in had was het verhaal van de PvdA prominenten die openlijk (10 dagen voor de verkiezingen!) Bos becriticeerden.\nIk kan me nauwelijks de reacties bij Bos en zijn team voorstellen.\nAl Rutte\u0026rsquo;s opmerkingen over de huizenmarkt daarna raakten kant nog wal.\nAls nepliberaal is hij voor een zware sturing in de huizenmarkt (de hypotheekrenteaftrek). Dat terwijl die aftrek zorgt voor een gigantische economische schade en een stijging van de huizenprijzen.\nRutte ging wijselijk niet in op de vraag waarom er wel meerjaren zekerheid moet zijn voor huizenbezitters wat betreft hypotheekrenteaftrek, maar dat huurders niet kunnen rekenen op zo\u0026rsquo;n zekerheid wat betreft hun huurtoeslag.\nHuurstijgingen van een paar keer inflatie worden toegestaan en over een paar jaar worden de huren vrijgegeven voor nieuwe contracten. Dat betekent dus nog meer redenen om te blijven zitten in het huis waar je zit.\nDat wordt nog leuk wonen.\n","date":"November 12, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-740/","section":"Posts","summary":"Update: Ik ben gelinked van de Verkiezingen Startpagina. Welkom bezoekers! Een commentaar achterlaten mag en is niet eng.\n","title":"Rutte en Bos doen het niet zo goed","type":"posts"},{"content":"Hardlopen met mijn nieuwe Shuffle is een verdeeld genoegen.\nJe bent wel dubbel afgeleid van het hardlopen zelf.\nDoor de muziek die uit de Shuffle komt. Goed\nDoor het feit dat die oortjes de hele tijd uit mijn oren vallen en je ze steeds moet terugstoppen. Minder goed\n","date":"November 12, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-739/","section":"Posts","summary":"Hardlopen met mijn nieuwe Shuffle is een verdeeld genoegen.\n","title":"Shuffle 'n Run","type":"posts"},{"content":"Mensen zonder Windows kunnen nu geen online uitzendingen van de omroep meer bekijken. Mac- en Linux-gebruikers betalen wel belastingen waar die uitzendingen van betaald worden.\nNu is er goed nieuws: Informatie voor Mac-bezitters\nHet schijnt dat er eind dit jaar volwaardige MPEG4 ondersteuning komt. Wat de opslag en bandbreedte betreft is dat al eenvoudig op te lossen door alle content direct naar YouTube te streamen. Ik denk dat ze dat daar met plezier hosten.\nDe reden dat Flip4Mac niet werkt is vanwege een verkeerde server-instelling:\nIn de tussentijd hoopte ICT services van de Publieke Omroep één en ander te kunnen ondervangen met Flip4Mac, ware het niet dat hun Helix servers de WinMedia streams op een \u0026lsquo;verkeerde\u0026rsquo; manier uitsturen. Wij hebben hen er als VPRO al verschillende keren op gewezen dat de Mac community op dit moment verstoken is van alle online programma\u0026rsquo;s en dat daar op korte termijn iets aan moet gebeuren.\nGeweldig platform dat Windows Media Player.\nUpdate: Nu we toch bezig zijn, live Radio 1 luisteren via de site werkt half met Flip4Mac. Het kan ook door de URL in VLC te hangen maar dat is een gedoe en het hapert. Wie legt me verder uit waarom er 10% van een Core Duo processor nodig is om audio te decoderen.\nIk stel me toch voor dat die budgetten bij de Omroep er best wel mogen zijn. Een techniek als SHOUTcast bestaat al eeuwen, kost waarschijnlijk helemaal niets en wordt door alle mogelijke platforms goed begrepen. Wat is daar nou mis mee?\nZodra ik ben afgestudeerd, wil ik het nog best voor ze (luisteren jullie?) in elkaar zetten ook.\n","date":"November 12, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-738/","section":"Posts","summary":"Mensen zonder Windows kunnen nu geen online uitzendingen van de omroep meer bekijken. Mac- en Linux-gebruikers betalen wel belastingen waar die uitzendingen van betaald worden.\n","title":"Microsoft-vriendelijke Omroep","type":"posts"},{"content":"Yesterday I cancelled my order at the online Apple store. It was going to take them another two weeks to even begin shipping my Shuffle to me. Retailers everywhere had them in stock, so I bought it at BCC for €5 cheaper than at the Apple store.\nThe 2G means second generation, its contents is just the one Gigabyte.\nHaving never owned an iPod before, I can still say that this is the best iPod ever! It brings me music —something I\u0026rsquo;ve been missing ever since my cell phone broke 8 months ago— and besides that I hardly notice it\u0026rsquo;s there.\nThe interface is hugely intuitive.\nFor input the thing has five buttons and two sliders which do their job very well and should be enough for most functions (cell phones seem to do fine with a five-way navigator).\nFor output it has a small LED which blinks in yellow/green combinations and patterns and it has the audio jack which outputs: audio. I am amazed —looking at the cheatsheet— how much information they managed to squeeze from that single blinkenlight.\nI do wonder if Apple will ever use the audio output modality for a more sophisticated interface. I can easily imagine a computer generated voice menu interface which you control using the five-way navigator.\nThis is of course easy to botch but I would trust Apple to pull it off properly.\n","date":"November 9, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-208/","section":"Posts","summary":"Yesterday I cancelled my order at the online Apple store. It was going to take them another two weeks to even begin shipping my Shuffle to me. Retailers everywhere had them in stock, so I bought it at BCC for €5 cheaper than at the Apple store.\n","title":"Shuffle 2G","type":"posts"},{"content":"that the greatest menace to freedom is an inert people; \u0026ndash;Brandeis\nBeangstigend fenomeen hoe aan de ene kant mensen bezig zijn de democratie te verdedigen terwijl het de meeste mensen al niks kan schelen. Deze comic van FoxTrot laat goed zien waar het écht om gaat.\nOp marktplaats.nl zetten mensen hun stem te koop. Ik denk dat mensen die zo slordig omgaan met hun democratische rechten ook niet de bescherming van diezelfde rechtstaat verdienen.\nVan mij mag minjus deze bedreigingen van mijn vrijheid \u0026rsquo;s nachts van hun bed lichten en uit een vliegtuig in de Noordzee gooien. Wie zal ze missen?\n","date":"November 9, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-737/","section":"Posts","summary":"that the greatest menace to freedom is an inert people; –Brandeis\n","title":"Een inert gepeupel","type":"posts"},{"content":"Eclipse\u0026rsquo;s fifth birthday party yesterday was a big hit. Eclipse\u0026rsquo;s contribution to software development was celebrated by a merry group of beer drinking programmers.\nA lot of employees of TOPdesk were present with a delegation from 42 and a number of former employees present from Insyde and 555systems.\nThere are more pictures on Flickr.\n","date":"November 8, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-207/","section":"Posts","summary":"Eclipse’s fifth birthday party yesterday was a big hit. Eclipse’s contribution to software development was celebrated by a merry group of beer drinking programmers.\n","title":"Eclipse Birthday Bash","type":"posts"},{"content":"Een (redelijk) rustig weekend en ik ben erachter: YouTube is leuker dan televisie.\n","date":"November 6, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-736/","section":"Posts","summary":"Een (redelijk) rustig weekend en ik ben erachter: YouTube is leuker dan televisie.\n","title":"Passé","type":"posts"},{"content":"Waar kun je (=ik) in de Delftse binnenstad koffie drinken en gebruik maken van gratis WiFi?\n","date":"November 5, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-735/","section":"Posts","summary":"Waar kun je (=ik) in de Delftse binnenstad koffie drinken en gebruik maken van gratis WiFi?\n","title":"Digitale nomaad","type":"posts"},{"content":"Hier de lang verwachte post waarin ik uiteenzet hoe ik een Macbook heb gekocht en daarna compleet ben geschoffeerd door de winkel. Ik heb mijn redelijk precieze aantekeningen van toen maar in een prettigere vorm gegoten. Details zijn weggelaten om de leesbaarheid te vergroten.\nIk heb eerder al wat positiefs geschreven over Apple Center Lijnbaan. Ik heb daar toen ook mijn Macbook gekocht. Ik wilde eerst wat referentiemateriaal verzamelen voor ik het wereldkundig maakte. Ik heb pas mijn Macbook bij LJS in Den Haag laten repareren dus ik denk dat de tijd nu rijp is voor een oordeel.\nOm te beginnen met de conclusie: Koop geen spullen bij Apple Center Lijnbaan!\nApple Center Lijnbaan is een mooie winkel op een toplocatie. Je kunt er prima alle Mac hardware die op display staat testen zoals het hoort bij een goede Apple-winkel. Beter koop je er niks om twee redenen:\nSpullen zijn er duurder. Mac\u0026rsquo;s kun je online bij de Apple-winkel voor wat minder geld krijgen. Veel accessoires die ze er verkopen zijn veel duurder. Je krijgt geen service voor je geld. De enige reden die ik kan verzinnen om spullen niet online te kopen is voor het gemak van een fysiek contactpunt, de service en de klant-ervaring. Als die tekort schieten kun je net zo goed online bestellen en het laten bezorgen. Het relaas\nIk heb 3 juli 2006 bij Apple Center Lijnbaan een Macbook gekocht. In uitzinnige vreugde naar huis gegaan en het ding uitgepakt. Alles vloog als een beest, maar er was één klein probleempje: De trackpad muisknop van mijn Macbook was zompig. Dit was al bekend en stond bekend als het “squishy” button problem.\nIk bracht de Macbook een paar dagen later terug naar de Lijnbaan en vertelde mijn probleem aan een verkoper. Mijn redenering: Ik heb een Macbook gekregen die afwijkt van andere Macbooks en die afwijking betreft een verslechtering. Dus mijn Macbook is stuk. Ik wil een nieuwe.\nDit staaltje logica bleek te moeilijk voor de verkoper van Apple Centre Lijnbaan. Hij constateerde mijn probleem wel, maar wilde er niets aan doen. Volgens hem kon ik ‘ermee door werken’ en kon ik ‘ een externe muis aansluiten’ (!). Hij wilde me geen nieuwe Macbook geven omdat ze mijn huidige Macbook niet meer door konden verkopen. Ik vond het raar dat ze niet alleen mij een kapotte Macbook wilden verkopen maar dat ook bij andere klanten wilden doen.\nOm van me af te zijn —denk ik— stelde hij voor om mijn Macbook naar de reparatie te sturen. Hij beloofde dat ik mijn Macbook een weekje kwijt zou zijn. Ik heb toen mijn Macbook op 6 juli ingeleverd bij Apple Center Lijnbaan.\n**Branding en Apple-boeren** Apple Center Lijnbaan lijkt in alle opzichten op een echte Apple-winkel maar is dat niet. Echte Apple-winkels bestaan geloof ik niet in Europa behalve [eentje in Londen](http://www.flickr.com/photos/cristiano_betta/287138179/in/set-72157594357856964/). De winkel is simpelweg een ‘premium’ reseller die van Apple de naam en de stijl mag voeren. In feite zit er een bedrijf achter dat [X-Alt](http://www.x-alt.nl/) heet en dat wel meer winkels heeft. Het is raar dat Apple zijn merk op deze misleidende manier laat gebruiken door derde partijen die onder die vlag kunnen doen wat ze willen. Er lijkt nu verandering in te komen met het bericht dat Apple [de merknaam “Apple Centre” terugvordert](http://www.macfreak.nl/cgi-bin/forums/topic.cgi?forum=16\u0026amp;topic=4908\u0026amp;start=0). Die beloofde week later heb ik negen keer gebeld voor ik te horen kreeg dat ik mijn Macbook op 17 juli terug zou krijgen. Op die datum hoorde ik niks. Ik belde met de technische dienst en kreeg te horen dat ik geen probleem had.\n20 juli belde ik met de technische dienst van X-Alt. De man die ik aan de lijn kreeg was buitengewoon lomp, kapte me af, luisterde niet naar wat ik hem probeerde te vertellen en citeerde mijn probleem verkeerd. Hij ontkende alles en schoof het weer op mijn bord.\n21 juli kon ik uiteindelijk bij Apple Centre Lijnbaan mijn laptop weer ophalen. Het had ze toen 15 dagen gekost om helemaal niks te doen aan mijn laptop, mij slecht en foutief te informeren over het proces en mij als klant niet serieus te nemen, impliciet uit te maken voor leugenaar en te schofferen.\nVerlossing bij LJS\nDe dag erna ben ik naar LJS gegaan op de Lutherse Burgwal (vlakbij de Grote Markt) in Den Haag. Ook een Apple-winkel maar naar bleek een stuk aangenamer in de omgang.\nLJS heeft hun technische dienst achterin de winkel. Dit zorgt ervoor dat ze geen computers heen en weer hoeven te slepen en dat je vrijblijvend vragen kunt stellen aan de balie als je problemen hebt. Verder weten ze dat het missen van een Mac voor een Apple-bezitter een grote klap is. Ze doen daarom hun best om je down time zoveel mogelijk te beperken. Bij een manko worden onderdelen besteld en zodra deze binnen zijn wordt de reparatie uitermate strak ingepland. Als je in feite nog kunt doorwerken, kun je je Mac gewoon weer mee naar huis nemen tot de dag van de operatie.\nDe technische dienst is er niet op zaterdag maar de persoon achter de balie weet wel mijn probleem te constateren en is bereid mijn Macbook in te boeken.\nVoor de reparatie moet ik er doordeweeks een keer langs als de technici er zijn. Omdat ik in theorie wel door kan werken en het doordeweeks erg druk heb in verband met mijn afstuderen laat ik het een tijdje versloffen. De muisknop is ongemakkelijk maar bruikbaar (‘alles went’). Het wordt wel erger.\nUiteindelijk krijgt mijn Macbook ook nog eens te maken met het random shutdown-probleem (blogs 1, 2, 3). Dat is toch wel storend genoeg om acute actie te rechtvaardigen. Ik ga een ochtend langs bij LJS om mijn problemen in te laten boeken:\nRandom Shutdown Squishy knop Vlekken op de topcase Streep op de buitenkant De random shutdown is een bekend probleem en daarvoor moet de heatsink vervangen worden. De vlekken op de bovenkant ook en daarvoor moet toch al een nieuwe topcase erop gezet worden. Met het vervangen van de topcase krijg ik ook een nieuwe muis-installatie dus is mijn muisknop-probleem ook opgelost. De zwarte streep op de buitenkant komt omdat de Tucano sleeve die ik heb afgeeft. Dat is ondertussen ook erkend en als ik mijn bonnetje heb gevonden kan ik die omruilen.\nDe onderdelen worden besteld en twee weken later word ik gebeld dat ze binnen zijn. De volgende dag \u0026rsquo;s ochtends om 09.00 lever ik mijn Macbook in (samen met nogal wat anderen die ook random shutdowns hebben). Ik ben een paar uur terug in Delft als ik word gebeld dat hij klaar is en weer opgehaald kan worden.\nEffectieve downtime een uurtje of zeven en een Macbook die compleet nieuw aanvoelt. Beter kan het niet.\nWaarom?\nHet leek me nuttig om de ervaringen die ik heb gehad bij de beide winkels uit te schrijven om anderen op de hoogte te stellen van de praktijken. Ik denk dat de manier waarop ik behandeld ben —misschien op het extreme af— toch wel exemplarisch is voor de algemene tendens en filosofie van de beide bedrijven.\nLJS doet eigenlijk qua inrichting en locatie niet onder voor Apple Center Lijnbaan maar lijkt me een stuk gecomitteerder aan het no-nonsense helpen van klanten —nieuwe danwel oude.\nBij Apple Center Lijnbaan lijkt het erop dat de insteek is om toevallige passanten te verleiden om spullen te kopen en te hopen dat ze nooit meer terugkomen.\n","date":"November 4, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-734/","section":"Posts","summary":"Hier de lang verwachte post waarin ik uiteenzet hoe ik een Macbook heb gekocht en daarna compleet ben geschoffeerd door de winkel. Ik heb mijn redelijk precieze aantekeningen van toen maar in een prettigere vorm gegoten. Details zijn weggelaten om de leesbaarheid te vergroten.\n","title":"Apple Center Lijnbaan zuigt","type":"posts"},{"content":"Het was net lekker weer tijdens het hardlopen. Nu niet meer.\nWel werd ik —ik gebruik de stopwatch op mijn GSM— twee keer gebeld door telemarketeers.\n","date":"November 4, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-733/","section":"Posts","summary":"Het was net lekker weer tijdens het hardlopen. Nu niet meer.\n","title":"Hardloop Marketing","type":"posts"},{"content":"Middernacht op Net 2: Der Krieger und die Kaiserin.\nEen van mijn favoriete films. Kijk dat!\n","date":"November 3, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-732/","section":"Posts","summary":"Middernacht op Net 2: Der Krieger und die Kaiserin.\n","title":"Filmtip","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik heb vandaag een nieuwe Shuffle besteld (online natuurlijk).\nSinds mijn GSM stuk is (dat is al heel lang geleden) heb ik geen muziek meer onderweg. De mogelijkheid om de buitenwereld af te sluiten was toch wel erg fijn. Dat mis ik.\nEn de vorm en prijs van deze shuffle zijn zo aantrekkelijk dat ik het waard vind om mezelf blij te maken. Alleen leverbaar in een kleine 3 weken, dat is wel jammer.\nZodra hij binnen is gooi ik hem vol met Hannah Montana en loop rond met een grote glimlach.\n","date":"November 2, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-731/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik heb vandaag een nieuwe Shuffle besteld (online natuurlijk).\n","title":"Life is random","type":"posts"},{"content":"Erik Terpstra is een laf en hypocriet wijf. Die combinatie van eigenschappen komt binnen de VVD wel vaker voor.\nJan Mulder heeft gelijk dat er meer betaald kan worden. De belastingen in Denemarken zijn veel hoger om goede dingen van te betalen.\n","date":"November 2, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-730/","section":"Posts","summary":"Erik Terpstra is een laf en hypocriet wijf. Die combinatie van eigenschappen komt binnen de VVD wel vaker voor.\n","title":"Pauw \u0026 Witteman 2/11","type":"posts"},{"content":"Eclipse is turning five and next Tuesday November 7th there\u0026rsquo;s a slew of parties worldwide to celebrate the occasion.\nI\u0026rsquo;m trying to organize the Dutch party. Exact details forthcoming, meanwhile you can sign the birthday card.\nUpdate! It\u0026rsquo;s on. We\u0026rsquo;re now on the listing and you can check the Upcoming event.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve been trying to garner some attention for this event, the results of which are:\nBlue Ace Ian Skerrett Swapdepths Reinier Zwitserloot ","date":"November 2, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-205/","section":"Posts","summary":"Eclipse is turning five and next Tuesday November 7th there’s a slew of parties worldwide to celebrate the occasion.\n","title":"Eclipse's Fifth","type":"posts"},{"content":"The company I\u0026rsquo;m working for currently —TOPdesk— is organizing a Coding Battle Novemer 27th.\nThe aim is to program robots in Java Robocode and have them battle each other on a big cinema screen. It should provide fun. Free beer and snacks are of course provided.\n","date":"October 31, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-204/","section":"Posts","summary":"The company I’m working for currently —TOPdesk— is organizing a Coding Battle Novemer 27th.\n","title":"Coding Battle","type":"posts"},{"content":"See Joi Ito on the adoption of Creative Commons licenses by the Foreign Ministry of Bulgaria. Join this with a very forward and open attitude towards ICT and policy and these guys will be kicking our asses.\nWhy doesn\u0026rsquo;t the Netherlands follow Bulgaria and Brasil and make innovative ICT initiatives not the subsidized afterthought they are currently but a spearhead of policy?\nThe short and simple answer is the huge amount of vested interest in the Netherlands in non-ICT —all old economies— and in dead-ICT —i.e. temp consulting and the like. Pair this with a lack of guts to make significant choices and you risk becoming a stagnant backwater.\n","date":"October 30, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-203/","section":"Posts","summary":"See Joi Ito on the adoption of Creative Commons licenses by the Foreign Ministry of Bulgaria. Join this with a very forward and open attitude towards ICT and policy and these guys will be kicking our asses.\n","title":"Lowland Innovation","type":"posts"},{"content":"Afgelopen zaterdag was het de Droomtijdloop in Delft. Dat is een hardloopwedstrijd om twee uur \u0026rsquo;s nachts in de nacht dat de wintertijd ingaat. Er gaat dus boekhoudkundig een uur van je tijd af.\nTOPdesk loopt weleens, maar dit keer was de opkomst erg mager. Arjenne en ik waren de enige, de rest van ons estafette-team werd opgevuld door Teun en Lizette (vriend en vriendin van Arjenne).\nHet was erg leuk en slopend. Ik ben niet zo\u0026rsquo;n tempoloper zoals blijkt uit mijn tijd van 28'23\u0026rsquo;\u0026rsquo; maar onze teamuitslag (Estaf, Bastiaans) is goed voor een derde plaats.\n","date":"October 30, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-729/","section":"Posts","summary":"Afgelopen zaterdag was het de Droomtijdloop in Delft. Dat is een hardloopwedstrijd om twee uur ’s nachts in de nacht dat de wintertijd ingaat. Er gaat dus boekhoudkundig een uur van je tijd af.\n","title":"Droomtijd","type":"posts"},{"content":"Deze week in Pauw \u0026amp; Witteman al gezien dat Joost Eerdmans een zak poep is die nog geen populistisch standpunt tegen is gekomen dat hij niet leuk vond.\nDe halal-vlees discussie kwam Eerdmans goed uit om zich te verklaren als dierenvriend en het halal slachten en de moslims die het willen te veroordelen. Vergelijkbaar standpunten in die discussie over heel Nederland, maar niemand die weet te vermelden dat koosjer slachten dezelfde praktijk betreft.\nDubbele standaarden, opportunisme en discriminatie? Reken maar.\nMeer Eerdmans: De tweede kamer heeft moties aagenomen om de kabelnetten open te gooien voor andere aanbieders. De enigen die tegenstemden waren: Eerdmans/van Schijndel.\n","date":"October 28, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-728/","section":"Posts","summary":"Deze week in Pauw \u0026 Witteman al gezien dat Joost Eerdmans een zak poep is die nog geen populistisch standpunt tegen is gekomen dat hij niet leuk vond.\n","title":"Eerdmans","type":"posts"},{"content":"Yippee! Vanochtend mijn Macbook ingeleverd, en hij is een uur geleden alweer gerepareerd.\nNet nog met mijn afstudeerbegeleider gesproken en dit kalenderjaar nog afstuderen is realistisch.\nEn ik kreeg net ook mijn Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II lens binnen. Dat wordt leuk foto\u0026rsquo;s schieten op de Bachelor-uitreiking vanmiddag.\n","date":"October 27, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-727/","section":"Posts","summary":"Yippee! Vanochtend mijn Macbook ingeleverd, en hij is een uur geleden alweer gerepareerd.\n","title":"Oh happy day!","type":"posts"},{"content":"After sustaining numerous subsequent shutdowns yesterday, I got a bit fed up with the problem. This morning at work my Macbook also went down a couple of times, which it had never done before.\nSo I thought I would pre-emptively cal LJS to check on progress for my parts. It seems that my timing was extremely fortuitous because they had just received the parts and were in the process of calling everybody.\nTomorrow morning at nine I will hand in my Macbook and I will receive it back that same afternoon. Tomorrow I will also receive my Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II lens in the mail and I have an appointment with my graduation counselor.\n","date":"October 26, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-202/","section":"Posts","summary":"After sustaining numerous subsequent shutdowns yesterday, I got a bit fed up with the problem. This morning at work my Macbook also went down a couple of times, which it had never done before.\n","title":"Serendipity","type":"posts"},{"content":"Goed plan van Juan Enriquez om ouders met kinderen voor elk minderjarig kind een extra stem te geven.\nWil je een land worden waar bejaarden het voor het zeggen hebben, of wil je kijken naar de toekomst? Met welk argument zouden mensen hier nou tegen kunnen zijn? Wie is er nou tegen kinderen?\nDat PopTech is sowieso een conferentie om in de gaten te houden.\nBron van meer fundamentele veranderingen. William Gibson:\nThe future, wielding unimaginable tools of transparency, will have its way with you. In the end, you will be seen to have done that which you did.\n","date":"October 23, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-726/","section":"Posts","summary":"Goed plan van Juan Enriquez om ouders met kinderen voor elk minderjarig kind een extra stem te geven.\n","title":"Toekomst","type":"posts"},{"content":"Hier op het werk een discussie of het Engelse woord Tangerine hetzelfde betekent als het Nederlandse Mandarijn. Het Nederlandse vruchtbegrip is sowieso beperkter omdat dit meer een groente-stamppot land is. Wij hebben gewoon minder woorden voor hetzelfde aantal vruchten.\nNu via Chris Messina (die schijnbaar niks anders doet dan hippe OS X-applicaties testen) een de applicatie Tangerine die je iTunes-bibliotheek analyseert en je dan in staat stelt playlists te maken met een instelbaar energie(BPM)-niveau.\nVooral voor muziek op het werk wil je wel kunnen instellen of het hele actieve muziek moet zijn of dat het wat rustiger moet zijn (voor de ochtend) maar niet al teveel discussie hebben. Dit is een soort nog veel betere Party Shuffle.\nEn als je erover blogt krijg je een gratis licentie. Buitengewoon slim, nu nog kijken of ze dit oppikken (English: Are you listening guys?).\nOok een trend die je ziet is dat aan de ene kant een grote groep applicaties zich verplaatst naar het web maar wel te maken krijgt met een redelijke verschraling van de GUI-mogelijkheden. Anderzijds zijn er vooral op OS X maar binnenkort vast ook op Vista applicaties die alle mogelijkheden van een desktop met OpenGL tekenmogelijkheden benutten. De GUI van Tangerine is mooi, functioneel, speels en smaakvol.\nTangerine alleen niet verwarren met het DAAP-muziekdeelprogramma voor Linux en Windows van dezelfde naam, wat ik nog steeds uit wil proberen.\n","date":"October 20, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-725/","section":"Posts","summary":"Hier op het werk een discussie of het Engelse woord Tangerine hetzelfde betekent als het Nederlandse Mandarijn. Het Nederlandse vruchtbegrip is sowieso beperkter omdat dit meer een groente-stamppot land is. Wij hebben gewoon minder woorden voor hetzelfde aantal vruchten.\n","title":"Tangerines en Mandarijnen","type":"posts"},{"content":"I just got a random telemarketeer call from an Apple employee in English asking me if I wanted to extend my Apple Care support. It wasn\u0026rsquo;t completely clear if they were calling to extend the Apple Care on my iBook (likely) or the 90 day free phone support on my Macbook.\nIt took the caller and me a while before I got the gist of the call, and then I had no clue why I would ever use technical phon support. If my Macbook was say experiencing random shutdowns, shouldn\u0026rsquo;t I be entitled to free support?\nBad one on Apple to use my permission to harrass me with this kind of crap.\n","date":"October 19, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-201/","section":"Posts","summary":"I just got a random telemarketeer call from an Apple employee in English asking me if I wanted to extend my Apple Care support. It wasn’t completely clear if they were calling to extend the Apple Care on my iBook (likely) or the 90 day free phone support on my Macbook.\n","title":"Care for some Apple?","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik zag Femke Halsema deze week bij P-Side en ik was blij om te zien hoe goed ze haar huiswerk had gedaan en alle thema\u0026rsquo;s beheerst. Alle ‘antwoorden’ van de rechterzijde, zijn gericht op de korte termijn en lossen niks echt op, harder straffen onmenselijk behandelen. Dat soort werk.\nIk ben niet het meest typische GroenLinks-lid. Wat mij betreft wordt alle sociale zekerheid zoals het nu bestaat afgeschaft omdat:\nMensen geld geven niet hetzelfde is als mensen kansen bieden. Je helpt mensen alleen echt als je ze in staat stelt zichzelf te helpen. Dus dwang en opleidingen in plaats van hand outs. De tegenstelling met rechts is dat die de sociale zekerheid wel wil afschaffen maar daar ook geen kansen voor teruggeven. ‘Zoek het zelf maar uit’ is geen kans maar apathie.\nHet in een globaliserende markt toch niet houdbaar is. Met zo\u0026rsquo;n standpunt wordt je binnen GroenLinks niet heel populair, denk ik. Maar wat mij betreft: Vrijheid gelijk delen.\nOver de EKO-nomie nog een aardig persbericht in mijn postbus:\nDe werkloosheid stijgt weer: hoe kan dat kabinet?\n19 oktober 2006\nGroenLinks wil met spoed uitleg van het kabinet over de stijging van de werkloosheid. Het CBS meldt vandaag dat de werkloosheid in het 2e kwartaal van dit jaar gestegen is tot 417.000 personen; 14.000 mensen meer dan in het 1e kwartaal van dit jaar. Dit harde feit staat in schril contrast tot de \u0026lsquo;goed nieuwsshow\u0026rsquo; die dit kabinet op Prinsjesdag opvoerde. Het kabinet moet zich hierover verantwoorden; want GroenLinks zal de premier en zijn kabinet blijven wijzen op de \u0026lsquo;kleine lettertjes\u0026rsquo;.\nKees Vendrik zal hedenochtend bij het debat over de begroting Economische Zaken aan minister Wijn vragen hoe hij de stijgende werkloosheid denkt te kunnen verklaren. Bovendien wil Ineke van Gent een brief van de minister van Sociale Zaken ontvangen, vóór de behandeling van diens begroting, waarin de minister aangeeft hoe hij met extra maatregelen de stijgende werkloosheid ongedaan denkt te maken.\nWie, zoals dit kabinet, voortijdig succes claimt, heeft de dure plicht bij het uitblijven daarvan extra maatregelen te nemen. Want met verkiezingsretoriek help je mensen niet aan de slag.\nDit is maar één van de dingen die minder goed gaan onder dit kabinet. Het hosanna-verhaal klopt dus van geen kant.\n","date":"October 19, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-724/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik zag Femke Halsema deze week bij P-Side en ik was blij om te zien hoe goed ze haar huiswerk had gedaan en alle thema’s beheerst. Alle ‘antwoorden’ van de rechterzijde, zijn gericht op de korte termijn en lossen niks echt op, harder straffen onmenselijk behandelen. Dat soort werk.\n","title":"Verkiezingsrhetoriek","type":"posts"},{"content":"Jan Marijnissen heeft —voor een keer— gelijk. De aflevering van Tegenlicht met John le Carré was extreem boeiend. Ik zapte er langs en ik kon niet meer wegkijken. Zo boeiend was het.\nIn een uurtje meer inzicht in de geschiedenis van de geopolitiek en in de farce die de War on Terror is, dan onze regering heeft tentoongesteld in de afgelopen kabinetsperioden.\n","date":"October 19, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-722/","section":"Posts","summary":"Jan Marijnissen heeft —voor een keer— gelijk. De aflevering van Tegenlicht met John le Carré was extreem boeiend. Ik zapte er langs en ik kon niet meer wegkijken. Zo boeiend was het.\n","title":"Le Carré","type":"posts"},{"content":"Een weekje geleden in het Parool dit stukje over de site Last van de Burger waar ambtenaren een podium krijgen om terug te kunnen klagen tegen de burgers.\nHet is goed dat er een podium zoals dit is want het laat pijnlijk duidelijk zien hoe bijzonder verziekt de relatie tussen de burger en de overheid is. Dit komt door een jarenlang verkeerd beheren van de verwachtingen en een gigantisch gebrek aan transparantie, verantwoordelijkheid en aanspreekbaarheid.\nDe ambtenaren die op die site posten schrijven vanuit een bizar vijandsdenken tegenover de burgers die niets meer willen dan geholpen worden. Ze maken allemaal verwijten zonder bij zichzelf te rade te gaan.\nNatuurlijk zullen er onredelijke burgers zijn, maar in tegenstelling tot wat ambtenaren beweren zijn burgers wél klanten en dienen ze net zo goed, misschien zelfs beter geholpen te worden. Welkom in de 20e eeuw, nu nog de stap zetten naar de 21e eeuw.\nZoals ik al zei is deze site een goed begin. Net zoals bijvoorbeeld de weblogs van de ambtenaren van de gemeentes. Meer openheid, meer verantwoordelijkheid, beter uitleggen en de problemen tastbaar maken op een manier dat burgers het ook begrijpen. Dan kunnen de dingen echt beter worden.\n","date":"October 18, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-721/","section":"Posts","summary":"Een weekje geleden in het Parool dit stukje over de site Last van de Burger waar ambtenaren een podium krijgen om terug te kunnen klagen tegen de burgers.\n","title":"‘Wij betalen jouw loon’","type":"posts"},{"content":"The ever great combination of a randomly crashing Macbook and Textmate has caused me to lose all of my writing of yesterday. It wasn\u0026rsquo;t that much, nor was it that brilliant, but it was something I would have liked to hang on to.\nI probably forgot to save, but for some strange reason Textmate does not catch my Command-S keypresses (which makes saving a bitch).\n","date":"October 18, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-199/","section":"Posts","summary":"The ever great combination of a randomly crashing Macbook and Textmate has caused me to lose all of my writing of yesterday. It wasn’t that much, nor was it that brilliant, but it was something I would have liked to hang on to.\n","title":"Pute","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik zit dit weekend in Hamburg voor de batizado van Expressão Paulista.\nIk voorspel: leuke trip, leuke mensen, vermoeiend, veel foto\u0026rsquo;s.\n","date":"October 10, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-720/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik zit dit weekend in Hamburg voor de batizado van Expressão Paulista.\n","title":"Hamburgers","type":"posts"},{"content":"I will be in Hamburg this weekend.\n","date":"October 10, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-197/","section":"Posts","summary":"I will be in Hamburg this weekend.\n","title":"Travel","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik ging naar een concert en ik zag… — Michel Vuijlsteke\u0026rsquo;s Weblog Mooie foto\u0026rsquo;s van een mooi concert in Gent.\nLunapark6 » Blog Archive » Turn your Mac into a HD PVR with EyeTV Hybrid\nDigg users are dumber than goldfish [dive into mark] Dit was natuurlijk al langer bekend, maar het is goed om te zien dat iemand met authoriteit dit meldt en dat het dan ook meteen ontzettend stijgt in Digg. Holle resonantie, een slechte implementatie en cascade effecten doen afbreuk aan het idee van \u0026lsquo;The Wisdom of Crowds\u0026rsquo;.\nZeiss Apo Sonnar T* 1700 mm F4 lens: Digital Photography Review Aardige gimmick lens en leuke promo voor Zeiss. Jammer dat er geen testfoto\u0026rsquo;s zijn geplaatst die uit deze lens komen.\ncgm: Shutter Controlled Co-Creation De campagne die Nikon heeft gebouwd rondom de lancering van de D80 is erg leuk.\nLiveSimplicity discussion forum Initiatief van Philips om te luisteren naar wat mensen willen. Dus niet alleen simpliciteit als marketing-slogan maar ook echt in de praktijk gebracht.\ncrazybob.org: The Java Closure Spectrum\nConcise Instance Creation Expressions\nEr is wat onrust over een voorstel om closures toe te voegen aan Java. Het ziet er naar uit dat er nu dus een zinniger alternatief is voor het voorstel. Ik heb er doorheen gelezen en ik snap het meeste er wel van, maar op een gegeven moment verzand het stukje in Java-taalneukerij en dan haak ik af. Ik loof een prijs uit voor iemand die het kan vertalen naar leesbaar Engels (Reinier).\nSwingBling\nJoho the Blog: [berkman] Podcasting and News Media in the Classroom Aardig stuk over hoe je kunt lesgeven met podcasts en hoe je kunt lesgeven aan studenten hoe ze podcasts moeten maken.\nLinux.com | Replacing init with Upstart Goed diepgaand artikel over de problemen die het gebruik van init oplevert in Linux en hoe Ubuntu dat van plan is aan te pakken met een vervangend systeem.\nSPARQL Protocol and Query Language: Frequently AskedQuestions Aardige FAQ over SPARQL die veel elementen bevat die ik tijdens een sessie op XTech ook geleerd heb. Ik zie tot nu toe nog steeds geen toepassingen van SPARQL in de echte wereld.\nMark Shuttleworth » Blog Archive » Writing a book collaboratively? Samen schrijven in een wiki is best wel handig omdat je dan met meerdere mensen tegelijkertijd kunt werken en het niet uitmaakt waar je bent. Het is daarna nog steeds te moeilijk om het netjes uit te printen. Dit zou niet moeten omdat de semantische indeling van een wiki-pagina redelijk eenvoudig om te zetten is in Docbook/LaTeX. Shuttleworth\u0026rsquo;s vraag lokt veel zinnige reacties uit.\nLighting Setup Tools - FM Forums Photoshop bestand om studio-opstellingen mee te kunnen tekenen.\nSteelcase Office Furniture : Products : Seating : Task/Work Chairs : Think®Ik zit er nog steeds over na te denken om ooit als ik veel geld heb een goede bureaustoel te kopen. Ik breng vaak meer dan de helft van een dag zittend door, dus de investering is de moeite wel waard.\nGoogle Transit Ik wil dit soort diensten uitgebreider en makkelijker hebben om de huidige ellende met betrekking tot openbaar vervoer op te lossen.\nGawker Handig tooltje om time-lapse filmpjes mee te maken.\nVincent Laforet Fenomenaal mooie foto\u0026rsquo;s, tip van Gerben.\nSlides from my Future of Web Apps (SF06) talk\u0026hellip; (plasticbag.org) Dit is een hele vette presentatie op verschillende niveau\u0026rsquo;s, vorm, inhoud etc. Goed voorbeeld en inspirerend voor iedereen die met dit soort dingen bezig is.\nI ♥ typeworkshop.com Leuke tekeningen die principes van de typografie illustreren.\nGoogle Blog Search adds ping beacon, changes.xml Google neemt eindelijk ook snel veranderende content op in zijn index. Het zou heel veel irritatie besparen om een blog post die je net hebt gelezen in Google te kunnen vinden.\nglumbert.com | Sexual Consent Hilarische korte film van de regisseur van \u0026ldquo;Thank you for smoking\u0026rdquo;.\nYouTube - Code Monkey Aardig WoW machinima filmpje.\nIEBlog : IE7 Is Coming This Month\u0026hellip;Are you Ready? Ik vraag me af hoe voorbereid webmasters en ontwikkelaars over de wereld zijn op de komst van IE7.\nPerian - A swiss-army knife for QuickTime Het is dat ik de DivX codecs al gebruik anders lijkt dit wel een aardig alternatief. Het is handig als Quicktime filmpjes kan afspelen omdat het daarmee compleet geïntegreerd is in OS X en dus ook beschikbaar vanuit FrontRow en dergelijke.\n","date":"October 9, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-719/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik ging naar een concert en ik zag… — Michel Vuijlsteke’s Weblog Mooie foto’s van een mooi concert in Gent.\n","title":"Delicious Roundup 9/10","type":"posts"},{"content":"Tonight is the second night in a row that my Macbook suffered a random shutdown. This is a pretty common experience as testified by the site Macbook Random Shutdown or by the experiences of Reiner and Erwin.\nNow it\u0026rsquo;s my turn. At least Apple acknowledges it in a vague statement on their site. Admitting that they fucked up is probably too much to ask.\nI will pay the good folks at LJS a visit Monday morning to have it diagnosed and a strategy planned towards fixing it. What with my:\nSquishy trackpad button Loose Ethernet jack Intermittent shutdowns Visible WiFi antenna It looks as though my whole Macbook is up for replacement, though that is probably not what will happen (of course).\n","date":"October 7, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-196/","section":"Posts","summary":"Tonight is the second night in a row that my Macbook suffered a random shutdown. This is a pretty common experience as testified by the site Macbook Random Shutdown or by the experiences of Reiner and Erwin.\n","title":"Short Circuit","type":"posts"},{"content":"Wij vertrouwen stemcomputers niet heeft het rapport over de Nedap/SDU stemcomputers op de site staan.\nHet rapport is redelijk grondig gezien de beperkte tijd maar tegelijkertijd wel compleet vernietigend op alle vlakken. Daarnaast is het lezen ervan een leuke les in computer-archeologie en het uitpluizen van systemen.\n","date":"October 5, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-718/","section":"Posts","summary":"Wij vertrouwen stemcomputers niet heeft het rapport over de Nedap/SDU stemcomputers op de site staan.\n","title":"Compleet lek","type":"posts"},{"content":"The piece of shit software called Sidenote seems to have thrown away my single most important note with pretty much all my relevant information in it.\nVery nice.\nI\u0026rsquo;m restoring a backup and then Sidenote goes out the window.\n","date":"October 4, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-195/","section":"Posts","summary":"The piece of shit software called Sidenote seems to have thrown away my single most important note with pretty much all my relevant information in it.\n","title":"Sidenote","type":"posts"},{"content":"I need Keynote to jump through some hoops and the Apple online documentation is worse than worthless. It runs through the most obvious features, but I need something different.\nI have a dataset consisting of numbers and dates. Like this:\n120 28 September 2006\n193 2 October 2006\n207 3 October 2006\n222 4 October 2006\nSimple integer values for each data point but you will see that the date intervals are not uniform. I need to enter these values into Keynote (or another graphing application) and have the position of the data points on the X-axis to be relative to date * (min_date / max_date).\nIt\u0026rsquo;s not just for dates either. Whatever I put on the X-axis gets evenly spaced. Is this such a strange thing to ask? How can I best do this?\n","date":"October 4, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-194/","section":"Posts","summary":"I need Keynote to jump through some hoops and the Apple online documentation is worse than worthless. It runs through the most obvious features, but I need something different.\n","title":"Charting Keynote","type":"posts"},{"content":"Wat foto\u0026rsquo;s van de laatste tijd.\n","date":"October 4, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-717/","section":"Posts","summary":"Wat foto’s van de laatste tijd.\n","title":"Foto's","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik snap het wel, maar ik snap het toch ook weer niet. Krakers hebben veel goede dingen gedaan. Ze hebben Paradiso gered van de sloop en ze kaarten maatschappelijk onrecht aan met hun acties. Dat zijn goede dingen.\nToch snap ik het niet.\nOp mijn rondje door Delft kwam ik vandaag weer langs het pand op de Oranje Plantage hier in Delft. Dat is een mooi groot pand in het centrum waar op de gevel een spandoek prijkt: “Mede mogelijk gemaakt door de kraakbeweging” (zie foto bij Indymedia). In het pand wonen mensen royaal met uitzicht op de Schie.\nIk snap niet wat ze dan precies met dat spandoek willen zeggen.\nEen mogelijke interpretatie: Zij wonen vanwege een kraakactie in een kapitaal pand in het centrum van Delft. Dat is voor mij en veel andere mensen onbetaalbaar. Als wij de kans krijgen moeten we vooral zelf ook wat gaan kraken want de woningmarkt zit toch muurvast.\n","date":"October 2, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-716/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik snap het wel, maar ik snap het toch ook weer niet. Krakers hebben veel goede dingen gedaan. Ze hebben Paradiso gered van de sloop en ze kaarten maatschappelijk onrecht aan met hun acties. Dat zijn goede dingen.\n","title":"Mede mogelijk gemaakt door de kraakbeweging","type":"posts"},{"content":"Thomas Madsen Mygdal\u0026rsquo;s presentation at Shift shows how framing issues is very important in how they are perceived. Language shapes our thought.\nThe slide on pirates is especially telling:\nPirates\nA girl giving a friend a copy of a cd\nDoing an interesting playlist\nA guy recording a song from the radio\nA criminal making money from duplicating cd’s\nP2P Filesharing\nThe spreading of culture across the globe\nOur individual right to copy\nBorrowing somebody a dvd\nCopying a dvd to your computer\nSharing the memory of an experience\nMillions of people sharing movies and music\n","date":"October 1, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-193/","section":"Posts","summary":"Thomas Madsen Mygdal’s presentation at Shift shows how framing issues is very important in how they are perceived. Language shapes our thought.\n","title":"Language Hacking","type":"posts"},{"content":"I forwarded this sheet from Stephen Walli\u0026rsquo;s presentation on the Gartner OSS Summit to a friend. We were having the discussion that selling people software based on cost reduction is bogus because in most cases that amount of cost reduction is never going to be realized and is not really that relevant.\nTurns out we were right. From the deck:\nReturn on Investment \u0026hellip;is bogus?\nReturn on investment (ROI) is no longer seen as a key indicator of what does and what does not make technology investments work, a poll of 400 IT and financial directors in the UK has shown http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/07/09/roi_faulty_as_measurement/\nBrian Hadfield Managing Director of Unisys UK told ComputerWire that ROI is best viewed as a \u0026ldquo;trailing indicator\u0026rdquo; Executives polled for the survey see value in the ability of IT to increase customer satisfaction, improve information access or allow better knowledge sharing Innovation, improved revenue and reduced costs were not seen as being closely tied to the IT function, turning on its head the belief that technology is best sold on the promise of reduced costs or improved revenue ","date":"October 1, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-192/","section":"Posts","summary":"I forwarded this sheet from Stephen Walli’s presentation on the Gartner OSS Summit to a friend. We were having the discussion that selling people software based on cost reduction is bogus because in most cases that amount of cost reduction is never going to be realized and is not really that relevant.\n","title":"ROI","type":"posts"},{"content":"Leuk het verkiezingsspotje van GroenLinks:\nAlleen dus jammer dat Amstel nu een reclame op tv heeft met precies dezelfde muziek.\n","date":"October 1, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-715/","section":"Posts","summary":"Leuk het verkiezingsspotje van GroenLinks:\n","title":"I'm coming home","type":"posts"},{"content":"I had briefly tested Windows Vista a couple of weeks ago and I came to pretty much the same conclusions as Ken Mingis from the Computerworld piece “Hands on: A Mac fan takes on Vista”.\nI did not write them out because I thought they were overly judgmental, unnuanced and very much subjective. It seems if you do write them out you can cause quite a ripple in the blogosphere.\n","date":"September 28, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-191/","section":"Posts","summary":"I had briefly tested Windows Vista a couple of weeks ago and I came to pretty much the same conclusions as Ken Mingis from the Computerworld piece “Hands on: A Mac fan takes on Vista”.\n","title":"Hands on Vista","type":"posts"},{"content":"Yesterday my graduation project culminated in the launch of the TOPdesk Community site during the TOPdesk Symposium event.\nThe whole day was a hectic success and the site has been received extremely well by our customers. Pictures are at Flickr. I will post more later.\n","date":"September 28, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-190/","section":"Posts","summary":"Yesterday my graduation project culminated in the launch of the TOPdesk Community site during the TOPdesk Symposium event.\n","title":"3-2-1-0 Launch!","type":"posts"},{"content":"Nog een lijstje bookmarks rechtstreeks via Delicious/alper.\nCanon Digital Cameras - SLR - Tutorials | PhotoshopSupport.com Handig overzicht met alle instellingen die een EOS 350D heeft op een rijtje gezet. Het niveau is overduidelijk laag, maar er staan toch interessante vuistregels en direct gevisualiseerd.\nInterviewing Earthlings Deze film gaat voor een deel over mij. Ik heb de boeken die uit zijn gebracht door Marc Okrand en waarmee je Klingon kunt leren. Ik heb nooit echt de moeite genomen maar ik vond en vind nog steeds talen en dit soort kunsttalen leuk om te bestuderen. Als mijn boekenkast niet zo\u0026rsquo;n dubbelgestapeld zooitje was, dan kon ik de boeken tevoorschijn halen en er weer doorheen bladeren.\nGerman DJs and their living rooms Boeiende fotoserie over hoe succesvolle DJs leven.\nSargasso » Blog Archive » Jesus Camp - the response Kijkers antwoorden in video op de film Jesus Camp. Ik zag de trailer een tijdje geleden al en dat was al flink creepy. De film is wel een goede aanleiding om ook alle christenen op een hoopje te vegen en gelijk te stellen aan complete idioten.\nOla Bini on Java, Lisp, Ruby and AI: Ruby Metaprogramming techniques Speciaal voor Robbert-Jan die mijn beste doch ijdele hoop is om onze ontwikkelafdeling om te turnen naar Ruby.\nDe voorbeelden zijn best wel moeilijk te volgen als je nog niks van Ruby weet. Het helpt als je de ideeën conceptueel al kent. Dit zijn wel dé voorbeelden waarom Ruby gelijk staat aan playing with power en waarom het conceptueel sterker is dan bijvoorbeeld Java.\nGecko-O Winkel van hippe attributen via Eelke.\nBoing Boing: Open PVR from Neuros: cash money to owners who hack it Robbert-Jan is al tijden in de markt voor een PVR-oplossing. Dit ziet er erg goed uit.\nLawrence Lessig Er vinden aan de andere kant van de grote plas toch wel een partij boeiende events plaats. Deze met de provocerende titel \u0026ldquo;Ontwerp alsof het je een reet kan schelen!\u0026rdquo; sprak me wel aan.\nGigaOM » Flash In The VoIP Pan Goede prognose over de situatie van VoIP binnen Adobe. Als je ziet dat Flash eigenhandig het fenomeen online video heeft bevrijd van de incompatibele bestandsformaten en plugin-oorlogen, belooft het nog wat als ze hun pijlen gaan richten op bellen. Telco\u0026rsquo;s pack your bags.\nEating cheaply in NYC (kottke.org) Van die handige lijstjes als je nog eens in New York bent.\nBrendan Gregg : Weblog Ik hoor altijd bizar vette verhalen over DTrace. Iemand heeft die ideeën overgezet naar JavaScript. Ik heb er nog niet serieus naar gekeken, maar als dit makkelijk te gebruiken is, zou het JavaScript ontwikkeling op zijn kop kunnen zetten.\nPractically Groovy: Reduce code noise with Groovy Wat we nu nodig hebben naast de integratie van scripttalen als Ruby, JavaScript en Python met Java is nog een lichtgewicht taal met net iets andere syntaxis die het leven makkelijker moet maken. Kan iemand me uitleggen waarom je Groovy zou gebruiken?\n2525: Voor wie niet van puzzelen houdt Dit is echt een van de vetste games ooit. Vlieg met je dubbeldekker boven Amsterdam en schiet op bootjes op het IJ. Who needs MS Flight Simulator.\nCongres MA-Tilburg 2006 Lijkt een interessant congres maar is toch iets te duur nog voor de geïnteresseerde student.\nTweakers.net - Pricewatch DSLR Lenzen Na de pricewatch categorie camera\u0026rsquo;s gaat mijn aandacht nu uit naar de categorie lenzen.\nWeblog De Leeskamer Originele rede van de paus samen met twee opiniestukken over zijn uitspraak. Ik vond de sketch in Koefnoen vanavond veelzeggender.\nurbanexplorers.nl Reinier en Roel zijn aan het Urban Exploren geslagen. In Delft is al veel langer een ander duo actief dat bizar mooie foto\u0026rsquo;s heeft afgeleverd.\nSurfin’ Safari - Blog Archive » Introducing Drosera Grappige JavaScript debug tool voor Safari.\nAjaxian » Adventures in JavaScript testing slides Methodieken om JavaScript te testen. Het is niet zo onmogelijk als het lijkt.\n","date":"September 24, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-714/","section":"Posts","summary":"Nog een lijstje bookmarks rechtstreeks via Delicious/alper.\n","title":"Delicious Roundup 24/9","type":"posts"},{"content":"De wereld waarnaar ik hard op weg ben, ziet er opeens een stuk minder aantrekkelijk uit als je Bruce Sterling zijn stukje leest.\nIf \u0026ldquo;religion is the opiate of the people\u0026rdquo;, then immersive multiplayer 3D virtual worlds are hard-core Afghani heroin. My Mom will never make it back into the labor force: Mom\u0026rsquo;s way too busy building herself up to 146th-level SuperMasonic Tolkien-Fantasy Ultra-Elf Queen. Like that helps! Look, I can show you Mom\u0026rsquo;s gaming environment, right on the screen here. My Mom\u0026rsquo;s a Welfare Elf Queen (CR) (system crash) (hard reboot)\n","date":"September 22, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-713/","section":"Posts","summary":"De wereld waarnaar ik hard op weg ben, ziet er opeens een stuk minder aantrekkelijk uit als je Bruce Sterling zijn stukje leest.\n","title":"Bruce Sterling is nog steeds vet","type":"posts"},{"content":"Mijn Filmhuis Lumen iCal generator deed het niet meer. En hij was stiekem toch best wel handig.\nEven graven onthulde dat ik de python versie op mijn server had ge-upgrade maar dat python2.4 het betreffende pakket niet meer had (pakket staat niet in Debian). Even verplaatsen en hij doet het weer.\nNu wil ik in de kalender informatie opnemen over mij zodat gebruikers contact met me op kunnen nemen als het weer mis gaat en sowieso te horen als meer mensen het gebruiken. Te lezen in RFC 2445 heeft het VCALENDAR object alleen een version en een prodid.\nIn sectie 4.8.8.1 staat dat je je eigen eigenschappen kunt definieren met een X\u0026ndash;prefix maar ik kan nergens vinden welke clienten welke eigenschappen ondersteunen. Ik heb nu maar de X-AUTHOR toegevoegd maar knappe kop die mij op die manier weet te bereiken.\nGebruik jij het? Vind je het handig? Laat het weten.\n","date":"September 21, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-712/","section":"Posts","summary":"Mijn Filmhuis Lumen iCal generator deed het niet meer. En hij was stiekem toch best wel handig.\n","title":"Lumen iCal","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik heb een del.icio.us account wat ik gebruik om links bij te houden en om interessante dingen door te spelen naar mijn netwerk.\nHier mijn links van de afgelopen tijd:\nThe Gatsby picnic 2006 - a photoset on Flickr — Aparte picknick en mooie foto\u0026rsquo;s van ioerror Breathing Earth — Infographic van het CO2 verbruik van verscillende landen en de bevolkingsgroei. Hibernate can meet your validation needs — Artikel over Hibernate en hoe je dat kan gebruiken om je database te valideren. Niet ontzettend bijzonder. Misschien leuk voor de Java mensen, maar het lijkt erop dat Hibernate buiten de J2EE scene niet echt gebruikt wordt (binnen de J2EE scene worden EJB al niet gebruikt). JPG Magazine: About: How It Works — JPG Magazine gaat professioneler door. Het format blijft hetzelfde maar los van Flickr is het een stuk opener. Ik zou graag mee willen doen maar ik mis op dit moment nog de apparatuur en de skill om me met dit niveau te meten. Professors, start your blogs — Overgenomen van Jon Udell. Dit gaat over de academia maar hetzelfde verhaal gaat op in alle professionele sectoren. Als je een zinnig professioneel blog hebt waaruit blijkt dat je goed nadenkt over de zaken die spelen in je vakgebied dan is dat meer waard dan een cv. Porkrind Dot Org: MultiTunes — iTunes is niet handig te gebruiken als je meerdere plaatsen hebt met muziek die niet allemaal door iTunes beheerd worden. Tangerine en die muziek toegankelijk maken over DAAP is een oplossing maar voor losse harde schijven is dat niet echt haalbaar. Multitunes lijkt hier een oplossing voor te bieden. 37signals \u0026raquo; Visual Interface \u0026amp; Experience Design — De originele site van 37 signals met hun ideeën van toen die erg goed bewaard zijn gebleven. marbelous » Blog Archive » Paus — Marbel heeft een aardig citaat op de paus. How to talk like a pirate: video — Briljante video die het complete internet al over is gegaan in het kader van internationale Talk Like a Pirate Day. EuroOSCON 2006 \u0026ndash; Building Better Ajax Applications. — Inhoudelijk bijzonder goed presentatie triplet van Alex Russell. Te bekijken in Firefox 1.5+. Viel een beetje dood bij de ontwikkelaars waar ik hem aan liet zien, maar is inhoudelijk echt heel erg goed. Alex heeft soms de neiging wat technisch bot over te komen en dat is af te zien aan zijn manier van communiceren. Vitamin Features » Serving JavaScript Fast — Stuk van Cal Henderson over hoe je heel snel JavaScript kunt opdienen. Interessant voor grote sites en projecten. R-win.com · Het relaas van een nieuwe Mac: aan-uit-aan-uit — Erwin heeft de bekende aan/uit-problemen met zijn Macbook. Dit probleem is gelukkig onderkend door Apple dus na de reparatie zou zijn ervaring weer op par moeten zijn. SLRgear.com Product Gallery - 17-70mm f/2.8-4.5 DC Macro (Tested) — Bart raadde me deze lens aan als mogelijke upgrade binnenkort in plaats van de Tamron 24-75mm waar ik aan zat te denken. Deze aanschaf is gepland voor de middellange termijn na de 50mm f/1.8. Make Ruby on Rails Easy With RadRails and Eclipse — Ik probeer Robbert-Jan aan de Ruby te krijgen en omdat hij de hele dag in Eclipse leeft is een Eclipse-plugin een goede manier. Jonathan Ive / Designer of the Year 2003 : Product Designer (1967-) - Design/Designer Information — Recent een hele serie artikelen over het design-genie achter de meeste Apple-producten Jonathan Ive. Boeiend om te lezen waar onze gadgets vandaan komen. Wired 14.09: Can the PS3 Save Sony — Onheilspellende kritiek bij Wired over de toekomstperspectieven van Sony met hun PS3. Het gaat al tijden niet goed met Sony en het ziet er niet naar uit dat het veel beter zal gaan. Één punt wat het pijnlijk duidelijk maakt is het autistische negeren van Sony van de rest van de wereld met hun eigen standaarden (Minidisc, Memorystic, PSP UMD, etc.) die niemand wil hebben.\nVisitekaartjes, postkaarten, magneten, folders, adres stickers, uitnodigingen, lage prijzen. — Tip van Reinier voor een drukker die gratis visitekaartjes drukt met hun adres op de achterkant. Het leek me fijn om mijn del.icio.us stream wat meer onder de aandacht te brengen. Ik denk dat ik in de toekomst mijn commentaar direct in het notes veld intik en het dan gebundeld hier publiceer. Dit lijkt me minder irritant dan de mensen die met een automatisch scriptje hun kale delicious links op hun weblog dumpen.\nIk zat laatst door de Dr. Dobbs heen te bladeren en ik bedacht me dat mijn del.icio.us stream interessanter was en minder reclame bevatte. Vandaar dat dit me interessant leek. In de volgende versie van dit weblog komt er dan een aparte del.icio.us stream.\nHandig, leuk of overbodig irritant? Zeg het maar in het commentaar.\n","date":"September 20, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-711/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik heb een del.icio.us account wat ik gebruik om links bij te houden en om interessante dingen door te spelen naar mijn netwerk.\n","title":"Delicious roundup","type":"posts"},{"content":" Giel had een paar weken geleden een actie waarmee je toegang kon winnen tot de voorpremière van Snakes on a Plane.\nReinier en ik leenden Remco\u0026rsquo;s auto en trokken erop uit naar Hilversum. Blijkt dus dat als je om vier uur vertrekt uit Delft je twee-en-een-half uur later terplekke bent.\nNa de ontvangst en een lekker maaltijd mochten we de filmzaal in waar nog wat t-shirts werden verloot en andere dingen werden gedaan voor de programma\u0026rsquo;s van Giel en Claudia en de film begon.\nSnakes on a Plane is een hele leuke B-film met een makkelijk verhaal, aardige effecten en een hele sterke supporting cast van koudbloedige giftige reptielen. Samuel L. Jackson draagt de film en de rest van de cast doet wat ze moeten doen: of simpel zijn of jammerlijk omkomen. Aanbevolen vermaak voor een avondje met vrienden of voor de cultwaarde (3.5/5).\n","date":"September 20, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-710/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Slangen in een vliegtuig!","type":"posts"},{"content":"Wordt dit nu een fotolog? Die kans zit er dik in.\nVandaag achter mijn huis de jaarlijkse Skatejam in Delft (je ziet op de banners dat ze 2005 hebben veranderd in 2006). Een oefenrondje schieten is dan een no-brainer. Voor de actieschoten van de skaters schiet mijn lens tekort denk ik.\nMaar nog veel leuker waren de breakers op het podium en de battles die ze deden. Vette moves en leuke disses.\n","date":"September 17, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-709/","section":"Posts","summary":"Wordt dit nu een fotolog? Die kans zit er dik in.\n","title":"Skatejam","type":"posts"},{"content":"Sinfest vandaag is te leuk.\n","date":"September 17, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-708/","section":"Posts","summary":"Sinfest vandaag is te leuk.\n","title":"Ikaros","type":"posts"},{"content":"Na lang wachten en smachten naar de Canon EOS 350D kon ik eindelijk met de recente prijsdaling (door de introductie van de 400D) het verantwoorden om er eentje te kopen.\nVanmiddag met Michel samen naar Kamera-Express in Capelle gereden waar we na een dollemansrit na sluitingstijd aankwamen. De aardige mensen lieten ons toch binnen en stonden mij toe om hun mijn geld te geven.\nThuis zo snel mogelijk de boel in elkaar gezet, de batterij wat extra lading gegeven en toen door Delft heen gelopen om wat te schieten.\n","date":"September 17, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-707/","section":"Posts","summary":"Na lang wachten en smachten naar de Canon EOS 350D kon ik eindelijk met de recente prijsdaling (door de introductie van de 400D) het verantwoorden om er eentje te kopen.\n","title":"Groot Schieten","type":"posts"},{"content":"Naast de podcasts over taal in het vorige bericht, is er binnenkort een gebeurtenis waar een beetje training erg van pas komt.\n19 september aanstaande is het internationale ****Talk like a Pirate Day.\nNu is het zeker voor ons Nederlanders niet zo makkelijk om de Avast me hearties zomaar uit je mouw te schudden. Doorom is de volgende instructievideo niet alleen erg leuk, maar ook erg handig.\nI gonna be seein ye salty sea dogs this following Tuesday. Harrr.\n","date":"September 16, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-706/","section":"Posts","summary":"Naast de podcasts over taal in het vorige bericht, is er binnenkort een gebeurtenis waar een beetje training erg van pas komt.\n","title":"Instructionele Video","type":"posts"},{"content":"Het was nog niet bij me opgekomen, maar het is eigenlijk heel logisch. Een podcast is een uitermate geschikt medium om les in taal te geven en te krijgen.\nIk kwam op dit idee toen ik langs LearnItalianPod.com kwam. Een erg complete podcast waar je Italiaans kunt leren. Het begint erg makkelijk maar in ongeveer 60 (korte) lessen kun je een aardig niveau bereiken.\nWat het ook nog leuker maakt is dat het gegeven wordt door echte mensen in plaats van de platte karakters die de normale taal-audiotapes bevolken. Dat en de korte duur per cast maken het heel geschikt voor onderweg in je MP3-speler.\nIk ben toen een beetje gaan rondzoeken en kwam de volgende podcasts tegen.\nMandarijn ChinesePod.com biedt ook heel veel lessen aan van wat lijkt een gerenommeerd instituut in China met uitgebreide faciliteiten om het te leren. Bepaalde onderdelen zijn alleen voor leden, maar het lijkt erop dat je de podcasts gratis kunt downloaden.\nSpaans Johan van Rooyen geeft in zijn korte serie Really Learn Spanish erg verzorgd en genuanceerd tips voor mensen die al wat Spaans kunnen. Potentieel een erg goede podcast, maar in de vijf afleveringen die er waren heb ik weinig nieuws gehoord. Tegen het einde verliest de podcast zich in de politiek en is nu al een jaar niet meer ge-update.\nBraziliaans BrazilianPortuguesePod.com is net begonnen en trakteert ons op pijnlijk slecht Engels en een dubieuze kwaliteit. Na een trage start, lijkt hij de boel op de rails te hebben en dit kan nog wel wat worden.\nRussisch Ook weer een tijdje niet ge-update en maar 13 lessen is A Spoonful of Russian.\nIk zou het leuk vinden om nog een kwalitatief goede podcast te vinden die Modern Standaard Arabisch onderwijst. Maar voorlopig lijkt het erop dat de lessen Italiaans en Mandarijn de enige zijn die echt goed zijn.\n","date":"September 16, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-705/","section":"Posts","summary":"Het was nog niet bij me opgekomen, maar het is eigenlijk heel logisch. Een podcast is een uitermate geschikt medium om les in taal te geven en te krijgen.\n","title":"Talen Podcasts","type":"posts"},{"content":"Jeff Veen\u0026rsquo;s presentation (via) fromr d.Construct is excellent. It must be an absolute pleasure to hear him speak.\n","date":"September 16, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-189/","section":"Posts","summary":"Jeff Veen’s presentation (via) fromr d.Construct is excellent. It must be an absolute pleasure to hear him speak.\n","title":"Designing the Complete User Experience","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik wist natuurlijk al dat T-mobile klantenservice buitengewoon slecht is. Ze blijven hun best doen om dat beeld te bevestigen.\nIk wil mijn kapotte W800i repareren en/of doorverkopen. Het zou dan wel fijn zijn als er geen SIM-lock meer op zat.\nIk heb het toestel gekocht op 25 januari in combinatie met een contractverlenging. Ondanks dat ik buitengewoon ontevreden ben over T-mobile, zit ik een jaar vast aan het contract. Ik kom er dus niet onderuit ze te blijven betalen.\nHet verwijderen van de SIM-lock binnen de termijn van dat jaar kost €70 ook al zit je aan het contract vast. Volgens de medewerker van T-mobile is het toestel nog steeds eigendom van T-mobile. Dat vind ik raar, niemand heeft me dat verteld, en ik mag het toestel wel doorverkopen ook al is het niet mijn eigendom.\nWeer een voorbeeld van domme regels om de klant te verneuken. Wat zal ik blij zijn wanneer de breedband revolutie onze telco\u0026rsquo;s de nek om draait.\nIn de tussentijd, zal ik dit display kopen?\n","date":"September 16, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-704/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik wist natuurlijk al dat T-mobile klantenservice buitengewoon slecht is. Ze blijven hun best doen om dat beeld te bevestigen.\n","title":"T-mobile klantenservice stinkt","type":"posts"},{"content":"This afternoon I got a chance to test drive a Vista build thanks to Cris who followed a link from my delicious and installed it on his 2G RAM Macbook.\nAfter using it I must say it is an awfully composed, badly copied piece of crap. However, it does look half way sexy. They must have managed to lure a designer into the pits of Redmond.\nWindows users are going to love it or defect en masse to OS X and Ubuntu. I found this strange editorial about the subject.\nCris is a monster. In one weekend he managed to install both Vista and Leopard on his Macbook. Talk about being cutting edge. If anyone knows who has the edge, he does.\n","date":"September 14, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-188/","section":"Posts","summary":"This afternoon I got a chance to test drive a Vista build thanks to Cris who followed a link from my delicious and installed it on his 2G RAM Macbook.\n","title":"Vista Prevista","type":"posts"},{"content":"Flickr and Delicious have lately been integrating pieces of each other, what with them having the same parent company and all.\nDel.icio.us integrates the square thumbnail photographs from Flickr if you save them. This is something any service could do using the Flickr API but it probably makes more sense to them.\nFlickr sports ‘Save to del.icio.us’ buttons on their photo pages. A lot of webpages do that nowadays but it makes extra sense for them to do it (as with the Upcoming integration).\nA blatant usability lack in the integration is that when you save a Flickr photograph to delicious it does not take into account the photograph\u0026rsquo;s tags. It should copy them directly or put them in the recommended tags so as not to bother me with thinking them up and typing them in again.\nFlickr and delicious are both tag based services, this would make sense right?\n","date":"September 14, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-187/","section":"Posts","summary":"Flickr and Delicious have lately been integrating pieces of each other, what with them having the same parent company and all.\n","title":"Seriously","type":"posts"},{"content":"*************************************** Ophef over sharia-standpunt Donner *************************************** ` In de Kamer is ophef ontstaan over uitlatingen van minister Donner over de sharia.De bewindsman heeft gezegd dat als tweederde van de Nederlanders de sharia wil invoeren,dat moet kunnen. De PvdA gaat dit te ver.Donner moet de vrijheid van meningsuiting en de gelijkheid van man en vrouw beschermen, vindt de PvdA.Het Kamerlid Wilders overweegt een motie van wantrouwen als Donner zijn woorden niet terugneemt. *************************************** CDA-fractieleider Verhagen zei eerder dat de grondrechten moeten kunnen worden beperkt van mensen die de rechtsstaat bestrijden en bijvoorbeeld de sharia willen invoeren. *************************************** Het verschil is dat Donner een staatsman is en dat de Tweede Kamer wordt beheerst door populisten.\nVerreweg de beste minister van dit kabinet, maar van een uitstervend ras.\n","date":"September 13, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-703/","section":"Posts","summary":"*************************************** Ophef over sharia-standpunt Donner *************************************** ` In de Kamer is ophef ontstaan over uitlatingen van minister Donner over de sharia.De bewindsman heeft gezegd dat als tweederde van de Nederlanders de sharia wil invoeren,dat moet kunnen. De PvdA gaat dit te ver.Donner moet de vrijheid van meningsuiting en de gelijkheid van man en vrouw beschermen, vindt de PvdA.Het Kamerlid Wilders overweegt een motie van wantrouwen als Donner zijn woorden niet terugneemt. *************************************** CDA-fractieleider Verhagen zei eerder dat de grondrechten moeten kunnen worden beperkt van mensen die de rechtsstaat bestrijden en bijvoorbeeld de sharia willen invoeren. *************************************** Het verschil is dat Donner een staatsman is en dat de Tweede Kamer wordt beheerst door populisten.\n","title":"Het verschil","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik had Twitter even een mailtje gestuurd met een vraag over de kosten van de SMS\u0026rsquo;jes die ze versturen. Dit is wat ze te melden hadden:\nThanks for your email. To reduce potential costs for Euorpeans receiving texts from the US, we\u0026rsquo;ve added a UK longcode: +44 778 1488126. Germans, who also have free incoming texts, aren\u0026rsquo;t charged for texts from this number, but I\u0026rsquo;m not sure how that would work out in the Netherlands. You\u0026rsquo;ll have to check with your phone company to see what the international rate woud be from the UK to the Netherlands. Our service is free, but the text messaging charge from carriers varies.\nT-mobile klantenservice wist mij te melden dat het ontvangen van SMS alleen geld kost als het gaat om vier-cijferige nummers en nooit wanneer het gaat om normale telefoonnummers.\nHet lijkt er dus op dat we los kunnen gaan. Ik ga tetteren, wie doet er mee?\n","date":"September 13, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-702/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik had Twitter even een mailtje gestuurd met een vraag over de kosten van de SMS’jes die ze versturen. Dit is wat ze te melden hadden:\n","title":"Meer Twitter","type":"posts"},{"content":"Nu net in het Oog Maarten van Rossum die een fris geluid laat horen in het licht van de artikelen die ik eerder heb gelinkt.\nErg fijn om te horen, alleen jammer dat er zo weinig mensen naar luisteren.\n","date":"September 11, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-701/","section":"Posts","summary":"Nu net in het Oog Maarten van Rossum die een fris geluid laat horen in het licht van de artikelen die ik eerder heb gelinkt.\n","title":"Fris geluid","type":"posts"},{"content":"Regelmatig komen mensen binnen op deze site en gaan dan een beetje rondklikken. Ze komen dan uit op radicaal verouderde pagina\u0026rsquo;s (voorbeeld) waar troep staat waar ik het waarschijnlijk niet eens meer mee eens ben en waar ik zeker niet de energie voor heb om het bij te houden.\nIn zekere zin schaam ik me ook voor die pagina\u0026rsquo;s omdat ze een vertekend beeld geven van wie ik ben.\nBinnenkort (lees: ooit) komt er een nieuwe opzet van deze website waarin ik al die statische pagina\u0026rsquo;s ga verhuizen naar de wiki om hun voorlopigheid te benadrukken.\nDeze site zal dan meer een groot dashboard worden van interne en externe informatie vergelijkbaar met de huidige voorpagina maar dan met wat meer diepte.\n","date":"September 11, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-700/","section":"Posts","summary":"Regelmatig komen mensen binnen op deze site en gaan dan een beetje rondklikken. Ze komen dan uit op radicaal verouderde pagina’s (voorbeeld) waar troep staat waar ik het waarschijnlijk niet eens meer mee eens ben en waar ik zeker niet de energie voor heb om het bij te houden.\n","title":"Nieuw","type":"posts"},{"content":"Apple finally responds to the problems of Macbooks shutting down [via]. Why did this have to take so long?\nIf you are the owner of a Macbook that shuts down randomly a couple of times a day, I cannot begin to imagine the irritation and anguish that would cause you.\nAssuming a posture of moral superiority is one thing, living up to it is a whole different story.\n","date":"September 11, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-186/","section":"Posts","summary":"Apple finally responds to the problems of Macbooks shutting down [via]. Why did this have to take so long?\n","title":"Apple Suxor","type":"posts"},{"content":"Zoals al opgemerkt staan de uitzendingen van Zomergasten in hun geheel op de servers van de omroep en worden er ge-indexeerde links voorgeschoteld.\nAls je de indices eraf sloopt dan hou je gewoon asf- en rm-streams over waarmee je de hele uitzendingen kunt bekijken.\nHier de links (voor smallband bb vervangen met sb in de URL):\nJeltje van Nieuwenhoven: Real BB ASF BB\nJoep van Lieshout: Real BB ASF BB\nLeon de Winter: Real BB ASF BB\nHalina Reijn: Real BB ASF BB\nAd Verbrugge: Real BB ASF BB\nHenkjan Smits: ASF BB\nEen handige tip zou nu zijn om de juiste ecoding opties te geven waarop VLC de boel kan rippen zonder dat het beeld en het geluid asynchroon gaan lopen. Het resulterende bestand zou je kunnen archiveren in een open formaat, recoderen voor je iPod of uploaden naar YouTube.\n","date":"September 10, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-699/","section":"Posts","summary":"Zoals al opgemerkt staan de uitzendingen van Zomergasten in hun geheel op de servers van de omroep en worden er ge-indexeerde links voorgeschoteld.\n","title":"Nazomeren","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik heb weer een mobiel. Precies dezelfde als die ik al had dus nog steeds lekker vintage maar nu zonder kèk OGD-logo. Bedankt Oliver!\nEen GSM is toch best wel handig om te hebben. Een beetje heen en weer bellen met deze en gene, maar nog veel leuker zijn natuurlijk hippe nieuwe Web 2.0 diensten.\nEen Nokia 3310 is iets te oud om Plazes Mobile te kunnen gebruiken, maar wat er prima mee kan is Twitter. Twitter is een leuke nieuwe dienst van de mensen van Odeo en wordt daar rond San Francisco al veel gebruikt.\nPlazes rich geo-presence:\nHet idee is dat jij naar Twitter een SMS\u0026rsquo;je stuurt met wat je aan het doen bent. Twitter stuurt dan een SMS\u0026rsquo;je met “Alper: aan het afwassen” naar al je vrienden en iedereen die je volgt.\nHet is dus een live blogging faciliteit van één regel, vergelijkbaar met je MSN Status Message of je Hyves maar dan makkelijker om te versturen en makkelijker om te ontvangen.\nMSN:\nHyves:\nTwitter:\nEchht leuk wordt het natuurlijk pas als een meer dan 6 vrienden van je het gebruiken. Dan krijg je regelmatig dingen binnen en kun je elkaar leuk casual tracken. Ik weet alleen nog niet precies hoe de SMS kosten uit gaan pakken. Dat ben ik aan het uitzoeken. Tot dan is het misschien beter om de kat uit de boom te kijken. Maar Cristiano en ik zijn al bezig. Meedoen mag.\n","date":"September 10, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-698/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik heb weer een mobiel. Precies dezelfde als die ik al had dus nog steeds lekker vintage maar nu zonder kèk OGD-logo. Bedankt Oliver!\n","title":"Twttr","type":"posts"},{"content":"In which I reply to myself on the forum.\nThe forums is definitely not where it\u0026rsquo;s at in Drupal. IRC does seem to do stuff. Too bad that it\u0026rsquo;s blocked at work (doing a double SSH and running BitchX on my home box).\n","date":"September 9, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-185/","section":"Posts","summary":"In which I reply to myself on the forum.\n","title":"More Drupal","type":"posts"},{"content":"Mark Shuttleworth writes out his vision on the relation between Debian and Ubuntu and the tensions it creates, and in doing so extolls everything which is good about Debian and which makes it the single Linux distribution period.\n","date":"September 9, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-184/","section":"Posts","summary":"Mark Shuttleworth writes out his vision on the relation between Debian and Ubuntu and the tensions it creates, and in doing so extolls everything which is good about Debian and which makes it the single Linux distribution period.\n","title":"Ubuntu ≠ Debian","type":"posts"},{"content":"Deze twee essays geven het meest nuchtere en praktische antwoord op terrorisme tot nu toe.\nA False Sense of Insecurity? van Cato zegt dat we de dreiging niet moeten overdrijven.\nThe Dread Pirate Bin Laden geeft een nuttig juridisch gereedschap waarmee terrorisme kan worden aangepakt.\n","date":"September 8, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-697/","section":"Posts","summary":"Deze twee essays geven het meest nuchtere en praktische antwoord op terrorisme tot nu toe.\n","title":"Anti-terreur","type":"posts"},{"content":"Over vodcasten gesproken, de kans dat ik iets van televisie mee zou krijgen zou een stuk groter zijn als het allemaal werd aangeboden als vodcast.\nHet nieuwe televisieseizoen is begonnen en het schijnt dat er wel wat programma\u0026rsquo;s zijn die de moeite van het kijken waard zijn. ‘De wereld draait door’ en ‘Pauw en Witteman’ schijnen leuk te zijn maar die zijn horizontaal geprogrammeerd. Vijf uitzendingen per week in de avonduren is voor mij niet te doen omdat ik of niet thuis ben of geen tijd heb.\nJe kunt ze dan online terugkijken, maar een echte oplossing is dat niet. Ik heb geen zin en tijd meer om via allemaal onbruikbare websites uit te moeten zoeken welke vage players en streamformaten het nu weer wel of niet doen en waar de uitzending staat die ik nog niet gezien heb. Met een vodcast zijn al deze problemen opgelost en kan ik het ook nog eens offline kijken.\nHet zijn misschien aardige programma\u0026rsquo;s maar ze kunnen me eigenlijk ook gestolen worden. Als zij willen dat mensen hun programma\u0026rsquo;s kijken dan kunnen ze dat toch het beste zo makkelijk mogelijk maken?\nEr zijn genoeg andere leuke en kwalitatief goede media online te vinden, en anders heb je altijd nog YouTube.\nEn nog iets, als je toch vodcasts maakt, dan het liefst ook met hoofdstukjes zodat ik saaie items in programma\u0026rsquo;s kan overslaan. Die programma\u0026rsquo;s zijn echt niet zo goed dat je ze helemaal wil uitzien.\n","date":"September 8, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-696/","section":"Posts","summary":"Over vodcasten gesproken, de kans dat ik iets van televisie mee zou krijgen zou een stuk groter zijn als het allemaal werd aangeboden als vodcast.\n","title":"Weer de omroep","type":"posts"},{"content":"Wageningen heeft de primeur met vodcasten van colleges.\nDe TU Delft had net zo goed eenzelfde initiatief een jaar geleden kunnen lanceren en de primeur kunnen hebben. Een compleet gebrek aan visie heeft dat voorkomen. Het wordt nu achter de feiten aanhollen.\nUpdate: Marketingfacts heeft het nu ook en zoals het daar beschreven staat zitten er alleen maar voordelen aan.\n","date":"September 8, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-695/","section":"Posts","summary":"Wageningen heeft de primeur met vodcasten van colleges.\n","title":"Pod Lectures","type":"posts"},{"content":"The Flash based online presentation creator Empressr looks nice and interesting. Upon first use this feeling is replaced with sheer frustration.\nFlash GUIs\u0026rsquo; lack of anything resembling a HIG, a uniform widget look and feel or any set of consistent affordances makes me despair at every control. I have no clue if something is a button, or a list, needs to be double clicked or dragged or can be acted upon at all.\nFlash should get over itself and use the available system standard widgets.\n","date":"September 7, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-183/","section":"Posts","summary":"The Flash based online presentation creator Empressr looks nice and interesting. Upon first use this feeling is replaced with sheer frustration.\n","title":"Flash Monstrosities","type":"posts"},{"content":"Barcamp London seems to have been a complete blast understandably. I\u0026rsquo;ve been reading the reports but from Jeremy\u0026rsquo;s blog I found these two nuggets:\nWerewolf the game I knew as Mafia seems to have risen to popularity again in select nerd circles.\nI have read and loved the rules for some time now. The only question now is to get 15+ quality nerds together to play this.\nPechalicious this mashup of Pecha Kucha and del.icio.us is pure gold. If you want to fill some time or you want to answer the question ‘What have you been doing lately?’ in an interesting way. Superb.\nI just watched my last 20 links and I can imagine myself telling a half decent story about them.\n","date":"September 5, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-182/","section":"Posts","summary":"Barcamp London seems to have been a complete blast understandably. I’ve been reading the reports but from Jeremy’s blog I found these two nuggets:\n","title":"Barcamp London","type":"posts"},{"content":"This latest Screening Room on IronPython shows some great stuff about how IronPython can be used to leverage all of Microsoft\u0026rsquo;s technologies on Windows.\nThere is too much good stuff in there to list. One was the live creation and editing of WPF GUIs from a Python command line. Another one was a Python project in Visual Studio where porting a Python fuction to C# was a simple cut-n-paste and showed both a performance jump and cross language debugging.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s only too bad I don\u0026rsquo;t do Windows. Let\u0026rsquo;s see how this combination plays out on the Mono side. Being able to build Python/Winforms cross platform applications could be interesting.\nUpdate: This discussion is branching off into much more nuanced and interesting discussions. Jon Udell follows up with a best of both worlds strategy. And some more musings on Enterprise Class Software and tochnology adoption by Steve Vinoski.\nUpdate: And now Java folk can also play along with Ruby. Interesting division, this Python.NET and Java+Ruby.\n","date":"September 4, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-181/","section":"Posts","summary":"This latest Screening Room on IronPython shows some great stuff about how IronPython can be used to leverage all of Microsoft’s technologies on Windows.\n","title":"ipy","type":"posts"},{"content":"De SP had vragen gesteld over de verschillende software-contracten die de gemeente Delft heeft en de mogelijkheden tot het reduceren van kosten door het gebruik van FLOSS software.\nDe antwoorden staan er nu.\n","date":"September 4, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-694/","section":"Posts","summary":"De SP had vragen gesteld over de verschillende software-contracten die de gemeente Delft heeft en de mogelijkheden tot het reduceren van kosten door het gebruik van FLOSS software.\n","title":"Antwoorden OSOSS","type":"posts"},{"content":"Bij de NOS haten ze Mac-gebruikers. Dat was al bekend voor de radio, nu wordt ook de televisie ontoegankelijker gemaakt.\nIk heb een Favorite in Realplayer naar de volgende URL:\nhttp://cgi.omroep.nl/cgi-bin/streams?/tv/nos/journaal/bb.laatste.rm\nTot vorige vrijdag kreeg ik daarop de laatste uitzending van het Journaal te zien. Die URL wordt nu niet meer ververst.\nOp de site NOS Journaal.nl staat een knop met Het NOS Journaal waarmee je via de Mediaplayer van de Omroep het nieuws zou moeten kunnen bekijken. De Mediaplayer doet het niet voor Real en de Windows Media versie van de bestanden kan door Flip4Mac niet afgespeeld worden.\nVLC biedt gelukkig weer uitkomst. Plak deze URL erin en het is weer normaal kijken. Pauzeren is alleen niet mogelijk.\nhttp://cgi.omroep.nl/cgi-bin/streams?/tv/nos/journaal/bb.laatste.asf\nIn de tussentijd kun je altijd nog het RTL Nieuws kijken met een werkende knop en twee goede streams van het laatste journaal (in Windows Media via Flip4Mac).\n","date":"September 4, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-693/","section":"Posts","summary":"Bij de NOS haten ze Mac-gebruikers. Dat was al bekend voor de radio, nu wordt ook de televisie ontoegankelijker gemaakt.\n","title":"Journaux","type":"posts"},{"content":"Zaterdag Op een abnormaal tijdstip opgestaan om om twaalf uur aanwezig te zijn op het Nyama Wereldculturen Festival. Daar gaf Liberdade een optreden. Erg leuk en daarna met Maracutaia de stad in geweest en mensen geflyered om naar het festival toe te komen. Foto\u0026rsquo;s volgen binnenkort.\nHet festival was erg leuk en de programmering erg de moeite waard.\nZondag Half negen wakker, snel fietsen, niemand op straat (gek…) en om tien uur de trein. Wat dingen regelen in Tilburg tot om 12.40 de 10k begint.\nHet ging niet zo lekker, maar wel een aardige tijd gelopen:\n[Plts StNr Naam Vereniging/Woonplts GbJr Uitsl Categ 5 km Bruto Netto Km/Uur\n529 5031 Alper Çugun TOPdesk 1981 182e Buss 27:37 59:07 56:41 10,585](http://www.tilburgtenmiles.nl/uitslagen.php?jr=2006\u0026on=9\u0026zk=alper)Dit is tweede van TOPdesk en even snel als de City Pier City. Een beetje jammer maar ik denk wel dat er meer in zit. De laatste paar weken zijn mijn duurlopen een beetje in het water gevallen. Volgende keer onder de 55\u0026rsquo; en nog eens onder de 50'.\nMaandag De hele dag down time na de loop van gisteren. Ik had gisteren ook al hoofdpijn en wat bibbers. Dat heb ik meestal wel, maar soms wat meer dan anders. Hardlopen is wél leuk…\n","date":"September 4, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-692/","section":"Posts","summary":"Zaterdag Op een abnormaal tijdstip opgestaan om om twaalf uur aanwezig te zijn op het Nyama Wereldculturen Festival. Daar gaf Liberdade een optreden. Erg leuk en daarna met Maracutaia de stad in geweest en mensen geflyered om naar het festival toe te komen. Foto’s volgen binnenkort.\n","title":"Lang weekend","type":"posts"},{"content":"Het is tragisch, maar het enige waar ik aan kan denken bij de dood van Irwin is, wanneer de beelden op YouTube komen te staan.\nCalacanis heeft wat broodnodig commentaar.\n","date":"September 4, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-691/","section":"Posts","summary":"Het is tragisch, maar het enige waar ik aan kan denken bij de dood van Irwin is, wanneer de beelden op YouTube komen te staan.\n","title":"Crikey","type":"posts"},{"content":"First impressions of Firefox 2.0b2?\nSnappy rendering Improved two finger scroll Lots of incompatible extensions (c\u0026rsquo;mon guys get with the program) ","date":"September 2, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-180/","section":"Posts","summary":"First impressions of Firefox 2.0b2?\n","title":"Bon Echo","type":"posts"},{"content":"Who is the bitch now? Who is?\nJoel is the bitch.\nThe story goes on with Tim Bray commenting on it and Bruce Tate has a very in depth risk analysis of Java and Ruby.\n","date":"September 1, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-179/","section":"Posts","summary":"Who is the bitch now? Who is?\n","title":"Fear, Kill, Destroy","type":"posts"},{"content":"Kan iemand die Zomergasten heeft opgenomen de hele mik digitaliseren en daarna uploaden naar YouTube?\n","date":"August 31, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-689/","section":"Posts","summary":"Kan iemand die Zomergasten heeft opgenomen de hele mik digitaliseren en daarna uploaden naar YouTube?\n","title":"Algemeen belang","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;m spending a lot of time hacking Drupal and the PHP it is built out of. My impression of PHP is worsening by the day. Drupal itself is a mixed bag. It does a lot of stuff for you, which is good but the documentation is lacking if you want to do anything non-standard or slightly complex.\nI\u0026rsquo;m looking forward to spending some time again with a system which has semantics, namespaces and a sane templating system.\n","date":"August 30, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-178/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’m spending a lot of time hacking Drupal and the PHP it is built out of. My impression of PHP is worsening by the day. Drupal itself is a mixed bag. It does a lot of stuff for you, which is good but the documentation is lacking if you want to do anything non-standard or slightly complex.\n","title":"Headaches start with PHP","type":"posts"},{"content":"Voorlopig even weinig schokkende dingen hier of off-line. Ik zit de komende weken met mijn hoofd in een zwat gat van PHP waaruit weinig zinnigs ontsnappen kan.\nIn ieder geval tot 27 september, daarna een korte adempauze gevolgd door een eindsprint. Het is best leuk en als het niet moeilijk was dan was het ook niks waard.\nTegelijkertijd hebben we komende zaterdag een optreden met Liberdade, op een leuk festival met ditto openluchtfilm; en zondag nog even 10k rennen in Tilburg.\nIk blijf bereikbaar via e-mail en IM. Tot aan de andere kant.\n","date":"August 30, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-688/","section":"Posts","summary":"Voorlopig even weinig schokkende dingen hier of off-line. Ik zit de komende weken met mijn hoofd in een zwat gat van PHP waaruit weinig zinnigs ontsnappen kan.\n","title":"Laag Pitje","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik heb van het weekend op de site de uitzending van Zomergasten met Halina Reijn gekeken.\nVolgens Amanda was het niks, maar ik heb me prima vermaakt twee uur lang. Online staan alle fragmenten van haar en de paar fragmenten waar ze de rechten op hebben. Je mist dus erg veel, maar eigenlijk is dat niet een zo erg.\nTwee stukjes met televisiefragmenten die goed waren:\nJonge vrouwen in de WAO — aardig stuk cultuurkritiek van haar en Joris Luyendijk die opmerkt dat vrouwen misschien een te romantisch beeld hebben van werken. ‘Mannen weten gewoon, het wordt 40 jaar kut.’\nWim Helsen: Heden Soup — Ik vind ook geen hol aan cabaret, maar dit vind ik ook wel leuk.\n","date":"August 28, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-687/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik heb van het weekend op de site de uitzending van Zomergasten met Halina Reijn gekeken.\n","title":"God is vuur","type":"posts"},{"content":"Lezenswaardig stuk over het Perelman Poincaré bewijs: Manifold Destiny.\nWrang dat een groep Chinese wiskundigen beweert dat het bewijs van Perelman op punten onbegrijpelijk is, dat ze daarom andere argumenten hebben moeten inlassen en dat dat ze recht geeft op een groot stuk van de eer.\nNiemand gelooft ze echt, maar ze blijven volhouden en ondertussen doet Perelman een stap terug.\n","date":"August 27, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-686/","section":"Posts","summary":"Lezenswaardig stuk over het Perelman Poincaré bewijs: Manifold Destiny.\n","title":"Manifolds","type":"posts"},{"content":"Zo ik ben weer bij… Voordeel van time shifted luisteren is wel dat je gewoon de stukjes die voor jou interessant zijn eruit kunt pakken en sneller kunt doorzappen.\nTonie test AllPeers — Ik had de ‘launch’ van AllPeers al gezien tijdens The Next Web en had daar al iets over geschreven. Ik merkte toen al op dat het een lastige propositie is om een product aan te bieden als Firefox-extensie.\nVolgens Tonie bij Radio Online is dat de grootste (en waarschijnlijk fatale) beperking omdat Firefox in Nederland erg weinig gebruikt wordt. Tien procent hier tegenover 30% in Duitsland en Finland. Ja, dit is een achterlijk land.\nJe zou kunnen denken dat mensen filesharing zo graag willen dat ze daarvoor best even Firefox installeren maar dat is misschien te optimistisch. Wat wel helpt is dat de meeste mensen die bestanden met elkaar willen delen nerd genoeg zijn om Firefox al te hebben geïnstalleerd. Daarnaast kun je van de extensie vast ook wel een standalone programma maken met behulp van XulRunner. Die kunnen mensen installeren net zoals ze doen met Kazaa of Azureus.\nUpdate: CNNMoney heeft een vergelijkbare analyse.\nStrijd rond stemcomputers loopt op — Rop wil een stemcomputer lenen. Dat lijkt me echt een goede zaak. Geef die gast even een stemcomputer. Ik ben heel benieuwd wat hij daaruit weet te halen. Ik heb er ondertussen ook wat meer over geschreven.\nNieuwe paspoort gevaarlijk? — De gecentraliseerde database van biometrische gegevens wordt aangevoerd als een risico omdat hackers erin zouden kunnen komen en er dan mee zouden kunnen rommelen. Dat is natuurlijk waar, maar dat risico lijkt me verwaarloosbaar.\nHet echte risico is dat de staat de bewijslast omkeert en dat elke burger van Nederland eigenlijk bij voorbaat al verdacht is. Bij elk misdrijf hoeven ze dan geen echt onderzoek meer te doen maar kunnen ze volstaan met een match op een patroon in de database. Probeer dan als false positive nog maar je onschuld te bewijzen.\nWaar het in het hele item niet over gaat is dat er eigenlijk geen goede reden gegeven is waarom er RFID in de paspoorten moet. Bruce Schneier heeft er al heel veel over geschreven waarom dat niet een heel erg goed idee is (1, 2, 3, 4, 5).\nBart Jacobs zegt alleen maar dat als je niet wil dat het uitgelezen wordt je het dan maar in een metalen doosje bij je moet dragen.\nBrein versus UPC over uploaders — Weinig opschietende discussie met heen en weer gezemel over algemene voorwaarden die al dan niet kloppen.\nLees hoe ze dit in Zweden beter doen in een tweedelig exposé bij Wired over The Pirate Bay en de Piratpartiet (Piratenpartij):\nSecrets of the Pirate Bay\nA Nation Divided over Piracy\nParticulier glasvezelnet in Bollenstreek — Dit is een aardig item, maar Muniwireless heeft een interessante achtergrond wat de gevolgen zullen zijn in Nederland van commercieel succesvolle glasvezelnetwerken.\nDit soort glasvezel initiatieven weet conversies van 70% en meer te halen waar ze aangelegd worden. Dit is niet fijn voor de eigenaars van oude koper- en coax-netwerken die hun netwerken ontzettend in waarde zien devalueren.\n","date":"August 21, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-685/","section":"Posts","summary":"Zo ik ben weer bij… Voordeel van time shifted luisteren is wel dat je gewoon de stukjes die voor jou interessant zijn eruit kunt pakken en sneller kunt doorzappen.\n","title":"Radio Online Redux","type":"posts"},{"content":"Gelinked op een paar plaatsen is dit betoog van Sir Ken Robinson erg goed.\nHij combineert zijn idee en visie met een performance die je het beste kunt typeren als intelligente stand-up comedy. Erg vermakelijk, maar hij weet door zijn ontzettend goede presentatievaardigheden ook te overtuigen van het belang van onderwijs in creativiteit.\nIk heb ondertussen meer presentaties van TED zien langskomen en het is zeker een evenement om te volgen.\n","date":"August 20, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-684/","section":"Posts","summary":"Gelinked op een paar plaatsen is dit betoog van Sir Ken Robinson erg goed.\n","title":"Onderwijzen voor creativiteit","type":"posts"},{"content":"De jaarlijkse manifestatie van ondode herseneters heeft weer plaatsgevonden en de resultaten liegen er niet om.\nFoto door Scott Beale / Laughing Squid\n","date":"August 20, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-683/","section":"Posts","summary":"De jaarlijkse manifestatie van ondode herseneters heeft weer plaatsgevonden en de resultaten liegen er niet om.\n","title":"Eat Brains!","type":"posts"},{"content":" Mijn vorige post over stemcomputers voegde op zich niet zoveel toe aan de discussie anders dan het afzeiken van Groenendaal en consorten.\nDat ze dat verdienen staat vast, maar hoe meer ik erover nadenk hoe bizarder ik de gang van zaken vindt rond de stemcomputers.\nPapierspoor Ik snap niet waarom Nedap/Groenendaal zo halstarrig vasthoudt aan het niet aanbieden van een papierspoor. Een kind snapt dat je in een computer bits en bytes kunt veranderen en zo tot een hele andere uitslag kunt komen. Zonder papierspoor komt niemand daar ooit achter.\nDat Nedap/Groenendaal nu denkt dat ze alles perfect betrouwbaar hebben geregeld, kan wel wezen maar zo lust ik er nog wel een paar.\nDe enige reden die ik me kan bedenken dat ze dit volhouden is omdat hun huidige stemcomputers geen papierspoor ondersteunen. Maar met een klein beetje moeite en goede wil moet een papierspoor toch zo aan een stemcomputer te bevestigen zijn? Op die manier kun je snelle uitslagen combineren met achteraf verificatie door hertellen van het papier.\nMis ik nu iets, of zijn hier duisterdere krachten aan het werk?\nBroncode Ik ben de stukken van Richard Oakley gaan lezen over het Ierse geval rond stemcomputers. Daar is heel veel geld over de balk rechtstreeks in de zakken van Nedap/Groenendaal gesmeten, maar uiteindelijk heeft de rede gewonnen en worden er geen stemcomputers gebruikt.\nEen kwestie die daar speelde was de noodzaak om experts te laten kijken naar de broncode. Na lang aandringen werd het verzoek schoorvoetend ingewilligd door Nedap om een onafhankelijke commissie te laten kijken naar de code.\nOndertussen is de Kiesraad in Nederland zich eindelijk ook bewust dat het uitbesteden van een staatskritiek proces aan een micro-ISV (kleine softwareboer) die gesloten software levert geen goed idee is geweest.\nIn een brief aan minister Pechtold wordt gewezen op het aankomende opstappen van dhr. J. Groenendaal en de onduidelijkheid die dat met zich gaat meebrengen rond de continuïteit van de ondersteuning van de stemcomputers.\nNu vraag ik me af waarom bedrijven als Nedap niet gewoon de broncode van hun programmatuur vrijgeven. Ze geven daarmee een klein competitief voordeel op maar krijgen er zelf veel vertrouwen voor terug en willigen eisen in van burgers en overheden die graag transparantie en continuïteit in het verkiezingsproces willen garanderen.\nHet Open Source-proces is voor verkiezingscode bovenal principieel gewenst. Iedereen moet in principe de programmatuur waar de democratie op draait kunnen inspecteren zonder geconfronteerd te worden door de bevoogding van een of ander bedrijf.\nOnveiliger kunnen de verkiezingen niet worden als de broncode wordt vrijgegeven, want dat waren ze dan toch al.\nEen levendige beweging die die code uit probeert, er fouten in opspoort en repareert zou interessant zijn, maar is geen absolute vereiste voor een succesvol Open Source-project.\nDe kans dat er hele boeiende dingen in die broncode staan, is niet eens zo groot. Die code houdt gewoon wat lijstjes van mensen en stemmen bij met heel veel redundantie (als het goed is). De belangrijkste stem- en tel-code is denk ik niet meer dan een paar honderd regels in Python en een middagje werk.\nAndere bedrijven zullen ook niet direct zoveel kunnen met die broncode omdat die afgestemd moet worden op specifieke hardware en uitvoerig getest moet worden voordat hij gebruikt kan worden.\nConclusie: Het toevoegen van een papierspoor en het vrijgeven van de broncode zijn dingen die niet moeilijk zijn. Dat NEDAP/Groenendaal koppig weigert om hieraan toe te geven leidt mij tot de enige mogelijke conclusie dat het hier gaat om mensen van een buitengewone domheid en/of gewetenloosheid.\n","date":"August 19, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-682/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Stemming-dingen","type":"posts"},{"content":"De laatste nieuwsbrief van “Wij vertrouwen stemcomputers niet” is uit en bevat genoeg interessants.\nEerder deze week kwam ik er al achter dat het samenvattinkje dat ik in het Engels had geschreven en aangemeld had bij Digg en Slashdot ook op de Engelse pagina van de groep is gelinked. Teruglezend is het een beetje kort door de bocht geschreven, maar gaf het wel een goed overzicht van wat er tot dan toe was gebeurd.\nDaarnaast links naar een uitvoerig epistel van de schrijver van verkiezingssoftware in Nederland en patjepeeër extraordinair Jan Groenendaal. WVSCN heeft denk ik gelijk als ze zeggen:\nOf manipuleert hij bewust omdat hij gewend is om zijn producten te verkopen in een omgeving waar toch niemand iets van techniek weet?\nGroenendaal treft niet zoveel blaam als die mensen die hem in staat hebben gesteld om zijn zakken te vullen. Ik hoop dat WVSCN boven tafel krijgt welke ambtenaren er verantwoordelijk zijn geweest voor de beslissing om alle best practices in de software-wereld te negeren en zulke risico\u0026rsquo;s te nemen met de democratische processen in Nederland.\n","date":"August 19, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-681/","section":"Posts","summary":"De laatste nieuwsbrief van “Wij vertrouwen stemcomputers niet” is uit en bevat genoeg interessants.\n","title":"Nog minder vertrouwen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Desiging websites without tables is still too difficult and both counter-intuitive and counter-productive to be a realistic alternative for the vast majority of people.\nThe people who insist on tableless designs are sadist zealots who should come out and play in the real world. As long as there is no decent standards or tool support, ditching tables is impractical.\nI just came upon two cases which are quite difficult if not impossible to handle without tables. I would like to be proven wrong.\nVertical Centering There is a solution to vertical alignment using CSS but getting that to work cross browser is so hackish and uses superfluous markup.\nUsing the valign=\u0026ldquo;center\u0026rdquo; property of a TD element accomplishes the same task easily.\nFull height columns One of the most standard layouts is the three column layout where all columns are stretched vertically to match the length of the tallest column. This fundamental markup element is impossible to achieve using CSS.\nPPK suggests a script example which fixes it by reading the height value of the tallest column and setting the heights of the other columns appropriately.\nThough I appreciate the script, I don\u0026rsquo;t think it is a very sound semantic layout practice to use behavioural script to fix presentation. Furthermore, the script is as of yet too quirky for real use.\nThree columns are pretty easy to do using a table with one row and three cells. So why bother with more complicated solutions?\nDojo of course makes most of these problems go away with its LayoutContainer but I\u0026rsquo;m not ready yet to make my simple web page into a full blown dojo application.\n","date":"August 18, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-177/","section":"Posts","summary":"Desiging websites without tables is still too difficult and both counter-intuitive and counter-productive to be a realistic alternative for the vast majority of people.\n","title":"Tableless","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ligt het nou aan mij of zet het CDA met haar nieuwe programma vierkant in op de senioren demographic?\nGeen fiscalisering van de AOW dus goed voor rijke bejaarden, toch altijd al een traditionele CDA-doelgroep. En om dat te betalen moet de rest van Nederland langer —weer 40 uur— gaan werken. Daar maak je je populair mee…\nDie impopulariteit is niet zo erg. De 50+ kiezers zijn een groeiende groep en betrouwbaar. Alles daaronder zweeft grotendeels of is apathisch.\nEn passant de jongeren ook nog even naaien met wat goedkope uithalen. De maatschappelijke dienstplicht was altijd al dé natte droom van de normen en waarden fatsoensrakkers. Daarnaast strengere aanpak van verkoop van tabak en alcohol aan jongeren, alsof het dan wel gaat werken.\nHet CDA gaat voor zeker en jongeren die stemmen op het CDA kun je zeker idioot noemen.\n","date":"August 17, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-680/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ligt het nou aan mij of zet het CDA met haar nieuwe programma vierkant in op de senioren demographic?\n","title":"Programma voor Oude Zakken","type":"posts"},{"content":"This video of Seth Godin is well worth your time. The man has a funny story and he is a great presenter with fantastic presence.\nFor reference, the reasons stuff is broken are:\nNot my job Selfish jerks The world changed I didn\u0026rsquo;t know I\u0026rsquo;m not a fish Contradictions Broken on purpose ","date":"August 14, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-176/","section":"Posts","summary":"This video of Seth Godin is well worth your time. The man has a funny story and he is a great presenter with fantastic presence.\n","title":"This is not broken","type":"posts"},{"content":"Politie vriendjes op Hyves.nl\nGrappig item, maar treurig hoe van Jole en de Bie zitten te porren bij Raymond Spanjar of ze nu wel of niet gegevens zouden vrijgeven als de politie erom vraagt. Treuriger nog dat Spanjer het ‘moeilijk vindt om hier in algemene termen op te reageren’.\nAls ik een actieve gebruiker van Hyves was en daar een belangrijk deel van mijn privé-leven aan toe zou vertrouwen, had ik het leuk gevonden als hij wat resoluter was geweest. Hij had bijvoorbeeld kunnen zeggen dat Hyves erg veel waarde hecht aan de privacy van zijn gebruikers en dat ze alleen informatie zullen vrijgeven als er een door de rechter opgelegd bevel is om dat te doen.\nNiet dat het Hyves-publiek dit soort dingen ook maar een zier zal kunnen schelen, maar toch…\nNRC sluit wiki\nMoeilijk verhaal hoe je een wiki kunt inzetten om zoiets vaags als een Europese Grondwet te schrijven. Noemenswaardig wel, in de categorie extreem suggestieve vragen die nergens op slaan.\nCorrie Gerritsma: “Is het net zoals de meeste forums op internet dat mensen elkaar de hersens inslaan en uitmaken voor rotte vis?”\nActiegroep tegen stemcomputers\nLuister naar Jan Groenendaal (vanaf tijdsindex 4:59) van Nedap en bedenk bij jezelf dat in Nederland de verkiezingen zijn verkocht aan zo\u0026rsquo;n volslagen idioot.\nHij kan na herhaaldelijk vragen niet opnoemen wat nu precies de ‘zegeningen’ zijn van stemmachines, behalve dan de zegeningen voor zijn portemonee.\nIk hoop dat Rop en de zijnen dit winnen en achterhalen wie verantwoordelijk zijn geweest voor deze corruptie.\n","date":"August 14, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-679/","section":"Posts","summary":"Politie vriendjes op Hyves.nl\n","title":"Radio Online Redux","type":"posts"},{"content":"Bijkijken van film trailers op de Apple site. HDTV draait leker op mijn Macbook en Front Row is wel heel comfortabel. Veel leuke films bijgeschreven en even opgezocht wat er allemaal aankomt.\nBinnenkort en verplicht\nBabel is de nieuwe Iñárritu waar ik al een jaar of twee op wacht. Eindelijk klaar, ziet er erg boeiend uit.\nVolver, de nieuwe Almodóvar mét Penelope Cruz, hoe kun je die niet willen zien?\nLa Science des rêves met Gael García Bernal ziet er heel leuk en droomachtig uit.\nA Scanner Darkly De boeken van Dick staan altijd garant voor hele sterke filmbewerkingen. In dit geval goed toevertrouwd aan de kundige handen van Linklater. Goede acteurs en hele surrealistische stijl zijn ook nog eens mooi meegenomen.\nPerfum, verfilming van het boek van Süskind en de nieuwe Tom Tykwer komt einde dit jaar uit.\nQuinceañera, erg boeiend portret van Hispanics in Amerika.\nCrank, heeft een originele drive en lijkt erop alsof de film niemand gaat ontzien.\nChildren of Men, ziet er ijzersterk uit, een soort 28 Days Later, maar dan veel veel beter, natuurlijk alleen al verplicht omdat hij van Cuarón (let binnenkort ook op zijn México \u0026lsquo;68 met Bernal) is.\n","date":"August 14, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-678/","section":"Posts","summary":"Bijkijken van film trailers op de Apple site. HDTV draait leker op mijn Macbook en Front Row is wel heel comfortabel. Veel leuke films bijgeschreven en even opgezocht wat er allemaal aankomt.\n","title":"Upcoming Movies","type":"posts"},{"content":"Kan niemand Zomergasten opnemen en alle afleveringen op YouTube zetten?\n","date":"August 13, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-677/","section":"Posts","summary":"Kan niemand Zomergasten opnemen en alle afleveringen op YouTube zetten?\n","title":"Zomergasten op YouTube","type":"posts"},{"content":"Leuk stuk bij The Guardian over keuze in boeken en hun aantrekkingskracht op mensen.\nNot only does sitting with your nose in a book positively influence others\u0026rsquo; opinion of you, it could actually - get this - lead to sex.\nEven leuk zijn de reacties:\nJoana: you\u0026rsquo;ve pretty much summarised my literary tastes. what are you doing this weekend??? ;)\nI once had a double win on the tube when reading Salman Rushdie\u0026rsquo;s Midnight Children and a woman asked me my opinion of it as she had been thinking of reading it for a while. Before I could reply however, the woman next to me stated it was her favourite book by him and she\u0026rsquo;d read all his works. We all immediately got off at the next stop and went to the nearest hotel room for hours of debauched sex. Actually, we didn\u0026rsquo;t.\n","date":"August 13, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-676/","section":"Posts","summary":"Leuk stuk bij The Guardian over keuze in boeken en hun aantrekkingskracht op mensen.\n","title":"Lekker Lezen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Schneier analyseert de terreurdreiging in Londen en ziet daarin een grote overwinning van ouderwetse opsporingsmethoden die zich richten op de terroristen zelf.\nKleinschalige tactische maatregelen zoals het verbieden van vloeistoffen aan boord van vliegtuigen gaat niemand veiliger maken. Terroristen kunnen daar altijd omheen, ze kunnen andere middelen gebruiken of ze kunnen compleet andere doelwitten hanteren (winkelcentra, evenementen etc.). We kunnen nooit alles afvangen.\nWat we wel kunnen is ons verzoenen met het feit dat risico\u0026rsquo;s nooit compleet uit te bannen zijn. De kans dat je door een auto overreden wordt is nog steeds veel groter dan dat je omkomt door een bom. Waar neem je maatregelen tegen?\nWat kunnen jij en ik doen tegen terrorisme? Terroristen willen mensen angst aan jagen. Werk daar niet aan mee.\n","date":"August 13, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-675/","section":"Posts","summary":"Schneier analyseert de terreurdreiging in Londen en ziet daarin een grote overwinning van ouderwetse opsporingsmethoden die zich richten op de terroristen zelf.\n","title":"Wij zijn niet bang","type":"posts"},{"content":"Amerikaans steekspel in context geplaatst door een vriendelijke zuiderbuur. Met dank aan YouTube.\nColbert\u0026rsquo;s slam is op schrift al geweldig, maar onvoorstelbaar veel krachtiger wanneer hij hem uitspreekt.\n","date":"August 12, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-674/","section":"Posts","summary":"Amerikaans steekspel in context geplaatst door een vriendelijke zuiderbuur. Met dank aan YouTube.\n","title":"Itty-Bitty Nixons","type":"posts"},{"content":"Rob Enderle reads a lot into the WWDC Keynote slams Steve Jobs made on both Microsoft and Dell.\nHe does have a more valid point than he thinks with regards to the weaning users off of their Windows habit. I know a lot of people who bought Apple laptops or minis as an addition to the pcs they already had. They thought they would continue working as normal and use the Mac for some small time stuff.\nIn most of these cases their original pcs stayed all but untouched while their owners became completely hooked on the Apple platform.\nHaving the option of running Windows on your Mac will provide a necessary mental security for users hesitant to switch away from something they have a lifelong dependency on. In reality they will not use Windows anymore except for games and some specialty software.\n","date":"August 12, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-175/","section":"Posts","summary":"Rob Enderle reads a lot into the WWDC Keynote slams Steve Jobs made on both Microsoft and Dell.\n","title":"Switching Theories","type":"posts"},{"content":"Op Bright een lijstje zomerhits te bekijken op YouTube. Ze hebben gelijk, YouTube is inderdaad het nieuwe MTV.\nGrote afwezige in hun lijst (want op Google Video) zijn de geweldige nerd-hits: Boten Anna en de directe Nederlandse parodie Ik heb een boot.\nIn de lijst van Bright (eerder al op 2525) ook de nieuwe clip van OK Go: Here it goes again met 4 mannen en 6 loopbanden en een hele leuke choreografie.\nHet leuke van OK Go is dat ze eerder al een ander liedje hadden met zo\u0026rsquo;n strakke choreografie: A Million Ways. Dat dansje heeft geen loopbanden nodig en kan dus door iedereen nagedaan worden.\nDat gebeurt ook. Op YouTube staan tientallen filmpjes gelinked van mensen die dat dansje na hebben gedaan en het lijkt erop alsof er een wedstrijd aan de gang is wie het het nauwgezetst of apartst na kan doen.\nEen paar leuke pogingen zijn de volgenden:\nhele goede\nUSCD Tritones\ndeze\nen nog heel veel anderen\n","date":"August 11, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-673/","section":"Posts","summary":"Op Bright een lijstje zomerhits te bekijken op YouTube. Ze hebben gelijk, YouTube is inderdaad het nieuwe MTV.\n","title":"Zomerhits Extra","type":"posts"},{"content":"Mijn mobiele eindpunt zorgt wel voor rust, maar geen GSM hebben is toch redelijk onhandig in sommige gevallen. Als je ergens met iemand wil afspreken bijvoorbeeld.\nDaarom ben ik aan het nadenken wat ik het beste kan doen. Voor een euro of 80 kan ik hem laten repareren, maar ik denk dat ik voor hetzelfde bedrag ook de rest van mijn abonnement kan afkopen.\nDan ben ik weer vrij om ergens een abonnement af te sluiten onder nieuwe voorwaarden, met een nieuwe GSM. Nu nog zoeken naar een betaalbare GSM. Een Nokia N73 of N91 lijkt me erg leuk, maar een beetje te hoog gegrepen.\n","date":"August 9, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-672/","section":"Posts","summary":"Mijn mobiele eindpunt zorgt wel voor rust, maar geen GSM hebben is toch redelijk onhandig in sommige gevallen. Als je ergens met iemand wil afspreken bijvoorbeeld.\n","title":"Mobiel vervolg","type":"posts"},{"content":"I had been toying around with various PHP based systems for a while now but now I have finally settled on Drupal and I am liking it a lot. I have widely varying needs of scale, management and complexity and Drupal certainly fits the bill for two sites I am currently building.\nThe product is very mature, the community vibrant and I feel like I have only touched the surface of the flexibility of the node concept.\nAnd thusfar I haven\u0026rsquo;t had to write a line of code. I could Google a —usually— working module or snippet or other workaround for every task I thought of.\nThe language PHP may be the crap of the crap, but besides Drupal some other applications in it really are the dog\u0026rsquo;s bollocks.\n","date":"August 8, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-174/","section":"Posts","summary":"I had been toying around with various PHP based systems for a while now but now I have finally settled on Drupal and I am liking it a lot. I have widely varying needs of scale, management and complexity and Drupal certainly fits the bill for two sites I am currently building.\n","title":"Druping it","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik weet nu waarom ik normaal gesproken altijd de hele maand augustus niet in Nederland ben.\n","date":"August 8, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-671/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik weet nu waarom ik normaal gesproken altijd de hele maand augustus niet in Nederland ben.\n","title":"Weer kloteweer","type":"posts"},{"content":"Mijn trouwe Nokia GSM heeft het nu compleet begeven. Hij doet heel weinig meer, is erg onbetrouwbaar en een volle batterij doet het nu misschien nog een uur of vier.\nIk heb hem nu ook niet meer bij me en ben dus slecht bereikbaar. Hij ligt thuis op mijn bureau in de lader, dus ik kan het zien als mensen gebeld hebben en ze dan terugbellen.\nIk beraad me op vervanging. Mijn kapotte W800i wordt misschien gerepareerd, maar dat is voorlopig nog onduidelijk.\nGeruchten van een iPhone klinken wel erg interessant maar toch nog iets te ver weg.\nEn van het weekend zag ik op de Software Social BBQ een demo van de Nokia N80 met WiFi en de Nokia browser. Het werkt erg goed en beschermt je ook tegen de belachelijke datatarieven die operators nu nog vragen. Ik kan mijn abonnement bij T-mobile opzeggen/afkopen en dan weer ergens een nieuw abonnement afsluiten met een aardige Nokia uit de N-serie.\nTot die tijd ben ik hard aan het werk en geniet ik van de rust. Wil je me bereiken, probeer dan e-mail, MSN of Skype.\n","date":"August 7, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-670/","section":"Posts","summary":"Mijn trouwe Nokia GSM heeft het nu compleet begeven. Hij doet heel weinig meer, is erg onbetrouwbaar en een volle batterij doet het nu misschien nog een uur of vier.\n","title":"Mobiel Eindpunt","type":"posts"},{"content":"Toon is een van de coolste upcoming designers van het moment. Ga dat zien.\nYou heard it here first.\n","date":"August 3, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-669/","section":"Posts","summary":"Toon is een van de coolste upcoming designers van het moment. Ga dat zien.\n","title":"Tip","type":"posts"},{"content":"I always thought our Blackboard at DUT was a piece of crap. News that they are patenting learning CMS has cemented my opinion.\nThere seem to be viable Open Source systems out there, but of course our university is not using those.\n","date":"August 3, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-173/","section":"Posts","summary":"I always thought our Blackboard at DUT was a piece of crap. News that they are patenting learning CMS has cemented my opinion.\n","title":"Clueless in education","type":"posts"},{"content":"Op 8weekly een recensie van de film Tapas die ik vorig week in Lantaren/Venster heb gezien. Een bioscoop zonder airco tijdens de hittegolf; we zaten er met een stuk of zes mensen.\nIk ben niet zo positief over de film als Luc de Rooy. Het was onderhoudend, maar iets te gekunsteld en de clichés iets te vlak, zelfs voor Spaanse films. Ga hem zien, dat wel, geen zomer is compleet zonder een typisch Spaanse film maar kijk dan ook deze:\nSolas van Benito Zambrano, die ook het fantastische Habana Blues heeft gemaakt Piedras is sentimenteler maar dat is in dit soort films een plus of een willekeurige Almodóvar ","date":"August 2, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-668/","section":"Posts","summary":"Op 8weekly een recensie van de film Tapas die ik vorig week in Lantaren/Venster heb gezien. Een bioscoop zonder airco tijdens de hittegolf; we zaten er met een stuk of zes mensen.\n","title":"Tapas Mejores","type":"posts"},{"content":"Seeing what happens when you sell your democratic process to an incompetent company (Diebold), a group of concerned hackers in the Netherlands have started action. Quite recently the last municipality in Netherlands, that of Amsterdam, long time being the bastion of paper ballots switched to electronic voting.\nThe action committee Wij vertrouwen stemcomputers niet (lit. \u0026ldquo;We do not trust voting computers\u0026rdquo;) requested all documents concerning the adoption and use of voting computers in the Netherlands and also specifically the Amsterdam case under the Dutch Disclosure of Public Administration Act.\nQuite promptly they received a big stack of paper from the municipality of Amsterdam concerning voting computers, which they digitized and put on their wiki for anyone to peruse.\nThe companies supplying the machines are now scrambling to their lawyers trying to prevent the disclosure of the documents but the genie is already out of the bottle. Because the documents have been disclosed by the city of Amsterdam, Wijvertrouwenstemcomputersniet.nl cannot be forced to take them down (and are laughing their asses off).\nFurther the documents reveal stunning holes of security on every level of the voting process, holes in the protocols, shoddy technical implementations (the elections run Windows CE for crying out loud!), disabled virusscanners, insecure GPRS links, and laxness which amounts to an almost complete outsourcing of the democratic process in the Netherlands.\nIt is too early to proclaim victory, but the lid is off and the companies are scrambling in blind panic. Seems like the campaign is off to a good start.\nDigg this\n","date":"August 1, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-172/","section":"Posts","summary":"Seeing what happens when you sell your democratic process to an incompetent company (Diebold), a group of concerned hackers in the Netherlands have started action. Quite recently the last municipality in Netherlands, that of Amsterdam, long time being the bastion of paper ballots switched to electronic voting.\n","title":"Voting Computer Victory in Holland","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ze zeggen het zelf al en het klopt, het is inderdaad ronduit hilarisch hoe onze verkiezingen zijn verkwanseld aan compleet incompetente bedrijven.\nDe informatie die ze hebben weten op te duikelen is inderdaad opzienbarend. Virusscanners uitgezet (wat stemcomputers die draaien op Windows!?!?), onbeveiligde verbindingen, lekke protocollen en verkiezingen die alleen nog voor de schijn onder democratische controle staan. Zie de Volkskrant en Bright.\nDe bedrijven die de software en hardware maken waar de verkiezingen in Nederland op draaien hebben goed hun zakken gevuld en kunnen nu opeens bijzonder weinig daglicht verdragen.\nDit nieuws volgt heet op de hielen van nog een lek dat in Amerika is ontdekt in de beruchte Diebold Stemcomputers (Boing Boing, Slashdot). Ik hoop dat Rop en de zijnen de boel terug kunnen draaien voor hier na dubieuze verkiezingen ook een soort Bush aan de macht komt.\nWij vertrouwen stemcomputers niet\n","date":"August 1, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-667/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ze zeggen het zelf al en het klopt, het is inderdaad ronduit hilarisch hoe onze verkiezingen zijn verkwanseld aan compleet incompetente bedrijven.\n","title":"Ik vertrouw stemcomputers ook niet","type":"posts"},{"content":"Boeiend stuk van Fisk, rechtstreeks uit Libanon.\nTo call decent folk anti-Semites is soon going to make anti-Semitism respectable[…]\n","date":"July 31, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-666/","section":"Posts","summary":"Boeiend stuk van Fisk, rechtstreeks uit Libanon.\n","title":"Pity the Nation","type":"posts"},{"content":"Gezocht: Lieve mensen die Zomergasten willen kijken en het dan niet erg vinden om er een eigen zomergast bij te hebben.\nIk ben het beu om het elk jaar te moeten missen alleen maar omdat ik geen tv heb (de VPRO mag de afleveringen niet online zetten). Daarom zoek ik vanaf zondagavond 30 juli tot zondagavond 3 september elke zondag een plek waar ik mee mag kijken.\nIk bied aan: mijn aangename gezelschap voor de duur van het programma, indien gewenst conversatie voor en na, en daarnaast kan ik bier/rosé meenemen en koken.\nAanmeldingen voor één of meer zondagen kunnen hier in de reacties of via de bekende middelen.\n","date":"July 30, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-665/","section":"Posts","summary":"Gezocht: Lieve mensen die Zomergasten willen kijken en het dan niet erg vinden om er een eigen zomergast bij te hebben.\n","title":"Contactadvertentie","type":"posts"},{"content":"Apple has to think long and hard about openness when it becomes a lot less hassle for me to videochat with my friends using Skype for Mac with Video Preview than it is with iChat.\nFor a Preview version the Skype product is pretty stable and works immediately. iChat locks you in in either .Mac or AOL which —seriously— nobody has. This while everybody all over the world on either Mac, Windows or Linux has Skype.\nAnd the much touted three- or four-way iChat AV functionality was didn\u0026rsquo;t really mesh when we tried it with three Macbooks where I work.\nThanks eBay for financing this nice product.\n","date":"July 30, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-171/","section":"Posts","summary":"Apple has to think long and hard about openness when it becomes a lot less hassle for me to videochat with my friends using Skype for Mac with Video Preview than it is with iChat.\n","title":"Videochatting","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ben ik de enige die dolgraag Snakes on a Plane wil zien?\nRelease date voor Nederland: 14 september\n","date":"July 29, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-664/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ben ik de enige die dolgraag Snakes on a Plane wil zien?\n","title":"Slangen!","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik heb net de TOPwiki presentatie gegeven voor de adviseurs van TOPdesk. Algemene indruk was dat ze wel geboeid waren en ze hadden er veel reacties op. Ik heb mensen zeker aan het nadenken gezet.\nKeynote \u0026lsquo;06 op een Macbook is een feest, zeker met de afstandsbediening.\nPresentatie als PDF is hier te vinden.\n","date":"July 28, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-663/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik heb net de TOPwiki presentatie gegeven voor de adviseurs van TOPdesk. Algemene indruk was dat ze wel geboeid waren en ze hadden er veel reacties op. Ik heb mensen zeker aan het nadenken gezet.\n","title":"Presentatiefeest","type":"posts"},{"content":"I gave the presentation for the TOPdesk consultants today. Keynote did not crash my Macbook once and the presentation was well received, it is in Dutch and you can find it here.\nI am absolutely in love with my Macbook remote which also serves as a slide advancer for Keynote. Absolutely brilliant. I could walk around the reasonably big room and advance my slides with the remote from just about anywhere.\nThe room was packed and it started to feel like a sauna near the end but the reception of the presentation was uniformly positive. The content had some bitter pills which some people found hard to swallow. Overal the presentation was a succes, it got tongues talking and grew interest in the wiki.\n","date":"July 28, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-170/","section":"Posts","summary":"I gave the presentation for the TOPdesk consultants today. Keynote did not crash my Macbook once and the presentation was well received, it is in Dutch and you can find it here.\n","title":"Presentationism","type":"posts"},{"content":"Switching to full screen presenter mode in Keynote sometimes completely crashes (as in hard reset) my Macbook.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve been playing around a bit with the Web View feature of Keynote, where you can embed a web page in a presentation. Clicking the page takes you to Safari to demo and you can then —in principle— resume your presentation again.\nSeveral times already making the switch from full screen or back to it, has caused my Macbook to crash hard and emit the reboot chime of death.\nWould this be embarassing if it happened during a real life presentation? You bet it would.\n","date":"July 27, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-169/","section":"Posts","summary":"Switching to full screen presenter mode in Keynote sometimes completely crashes (as in hard reset) my Macbook.\n","title":"Keynote crashes hard","type":"posts"},{"content":"Vandaag hoognodig weer eens naar de kapper geweest.\nOm wat meer naar wens te worden geknipt heb ik er wat referentiemateriaal bij gehouden. Het helpt als je foto\u0026rsquo;s hebt van hoe je er de afgelopen anderhalf jaar uitzag die je terplekke op je Macbook erbij kunt houden.\nIk ben tevredener dan normaal met het resultaat.\n","date":"July 26, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-662/","section":"Posts","summary":"Vandaag hoognodig weer eens naar de kapper geweest.\n","title":"Geknipt","type":"posts"},{"content":"Data Loss: Yesterday after I came became from LJS after resume all of my applications had frozen. They wouldn\u0026rsquo;t work anymore even after killing.\nAfter a reboot everything seemed back to normal but today I found out that my Addressbook had deleted everything. AddressBook.data.previous also was empty.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s a good thing I could lift the file from my backup from a week ago. Let this be a lesson to you kids: Make backups and OS X will throw away your data for no reason.\nFront Row: Yesterday at LJS I had also bought some missing pieces for my laptop. With the mini DVI-to-VGA converter I can hook my Macbook up to the bigger displays at my house.\nI was duly disappointed when I saw that Front Row still starts on my Macbook\u0026rsquo;s screen. This is a stupid default, if there is a second screen attached to my Macbook Front Row should always display on that.\nSleeve: I am quite happy with my retro colored Tucano sleeve, but it would have shown real care if the sleeve had also included a tiny compartment to put the remote in.\n","date":"July 24, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-168/","section":"Posts","summary":"Data Loss: Yesterday after I came became from LJS after resume all of my applications had frozen. They wouldn’t work anymore even after killing.\n","title":"Apple getting stupider / Too close for comfort","type":"posts"},{"content":"I got my Macbook back just two hours ago. They assure me they could not find anything but the trackpad button feels more responsive than when I handed it in. I don\u0026rsquo;t think I\u0026rsquo;m imagining things, though.\nMore responsive is still nothing to write home about but if the last two weeks have taught me anything is that a Macbook is better than no Macbook.\nNow first let me catchup with two weeks of unread stuff in Netnewswire. Will keep posted.\n","date":"July 21, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-167/","section":"Posts","summary":"I got my Macbook back just two hours ago. They assure me they could not find anything but the trackpad button feels more responsive than when I handed it in. I don’t think I’m imagining things, though.\n","title":"MacbookBack","type":"posts"},{"content":"Een erg spannend verhaal bij Bijzinnen dat ik tot nu toe gemist heb (twee weken geen Netnewswire…).\nLees het nu in één keer in deze volgorde: 1, 2, 3 en slot.\n","date":"July 21, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-661/","section":"Posts","summary":"Een erg spannend verhaal bij Bijzinnen dat ik tot nu toe gemist heb (twee weken geen Netnewswire…).\n","title":"Bijster","type":"posts"},{"content":"I had been kicking around some stuff about wikis when on Rudolf van der Berg posted an article on Frankwatching about wiki practice within companies. The article is arguably a bit sloppy and neglects to even mention Mediawiki but the resulting discussion is more than worthwhile and shows that the topic is very much alive.\nI added my five cents concering Mediawiki and my experiences implementing a wiki within TOPdesk.\nThese experiences have been overwhelmingly positive. I am currently preparing a presentation for our consultants and our company at large concerning wikis and wiki principles (slides will be posted in the near future).\nBut then reading around a bit I encountered JP Rangaswami\u0026rsquo;s blog —I talked to him briefly during the Reboot boat tour but I regretfully missed his session— and found his post on this subject: Four Pillars: Does Social Software help Enterprises Dumb Down?.\nI can only second James Governor\u0026rsquo;s comment: JP is awesome.\n","date":"July 20, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-166/","section":"Posts","summary":"I had been kicking around some stuff about wikis when on Rudolf van der Berg posted an article on Frankwatching about wiki practice within companies. The article is arguably a bit sloppy and neglects to even mention Mediawiki but the resulting discussion is more than worthwhile and shows that the topic is very much alive.\n","title":"Dumbing Down the Enterprise","type":"posts"},{"content":"De identificatieplicht was ingevoerd tegen het terrorisme. Het heeft heel goed gewerkt, want sindsdien is er in Nederland geen terrorisme meer gesignaleerd.\nWaar het ook heel goed voor gewerkt heeft is als boete-verdubbelaar voor de politie, zodat je voor het minste of geringste €50 extra boete krijgt.\nNu mag je voor het nieuwe biometrische paspoort op de pasfoto niet meer lachen; ook voor de strijd tegen het terrorisme.\nWaarschijnlijk krijgen we binnenkort de regel dat je op straat ook niet meer mag lachen. Dit om beveiligingscamera\u0026rsquo;s beter in staat te stellen mensen te herkennen.\n","date":"July 19, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-660/","section":"Posts","summary":"De identificatieplicht was ingevoerd tegen het terrorisme. Het heeft heel goed gewerkt, want sindsdien is er in Nederland geen terrorisme meer gesignaleerd.\n","title":"Lach of ik schiet","type":"posts"},{"content":"Geniale quote van Poetin (vanavond op het Journaal):\nWij willen liever geen democratie zoals in Irak dat zeg ik u eerlijk.\nOpportunistische politiek en een mooi staaltje cultureel relativisme. Sinds wanneer zijn de basisvoorwaarden voor vrijheid en democratie onderhandelbaar?\n","date":"July 15, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-658/","section":"Posts","summary":"Geniale quote van Poetin (vanavond op het Journaal):\n","title":"Iraaks voorbeeld","type":"posts"},{"content":"I have finally buckled under the pressure and I am doing an attempt at learning PHP. I\u0026rsquo;m perusing the manual at PHP.net and what I am reading is highly appalling.\nWhen I see the crap that is the PHP language I only can think: ‘What were they thinking?’\n","date":"July 14, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-165/","section":"Posts","summary":"I have finally buckled under the pressure and I am doing an attempt at learning PHP. I’m perusing the manual at PHP.net and what I am reading is highly appalling.\n","title":"PHP","type":"posts"},{"content":"You might have noticed that my wiki is back up again. I saw it in my referer logs. Debian self-healing is pretty nice.\nI reverted the latest batch of spam and then I edited SpecialUserlogin.php to this:\nif (TRUE or !$wgUser-\u0026gt;isAllowedToCreateAccount()) { So nobody is able to create accounts on this server anymore. I got the hint from Peter\u0026rsquo;s Rukapedia.\nI can always make accounts, so if you think you need to edit my wiki, mail me.\n","date":"July 14, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-164/","section":"Posts","summary":"You might have noticed that my wiki is back up again. I saw it in my referer logs. Debian self-healing is pretty nice.\n","title":"Wiki","type":"posts"},{"content":"Bizar verhaal over Larry Page end Sergey Brin in het Parool vandaag. Tevens ook bizar dat het in het Parool staat.\n","date":"July 13, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-657/","section":"Posts","summary":"Bizar verhaal over Larry Page end Sergey Brin in het Parool vandaag. Tevens ook bizar dat het in het Parool staat.\n","title":"Air Google","type":"posts"},{"content":"Usability joke: On my Linux desktop the acceleration of my mouse pointer varies depending on system load.\nThis is funny as in sad, not funny as in haha.\n","date":"July 12, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-163/","section":"Posts","summary":"Usability joke: On my Linux desktop the acceleration of my mouse pointer varies depending on system load.\n","title":"Funny","type":"posts"},{"content":"De verkiezingen komen eraan. Het is campagnetijd. Dus een prima tijd om politiek actief te worden.\nIk heb me vanochtend aangemeld voor een half jaar proeflidmaatschap van GroenLinks.\nKijken of het wat is.\n","date":"July 11, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-656/","section":"Posts","summary":"De verkiezingen komen eraan. Het is campagnetijd. Dus een prima tijd om politiek actief te worden.\n","title":"Groen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Fragment van een Jabber gesprek:\n(15:10:09) alperc@chatnl/teh l33t: la vittoria?\n(15:10:23) Justin Boekestijn: si, molto bene :p\n…\n(15:10:40) alperc@chatnl/teh l33t: cazzo di cane francesi\n(15:11:08) Justin Boekestijn: devono bruciare nell\u0026rsquo;inferno\n","date":"July 10, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-655/","section":"Posts","summary":"Fragment van een Jabber gesprek:\n","title":"Azzuri","type":"posts"},{"content":"Fascisme is dichterbij dan je denkt [via].\nNiet heel veel van gemerkt vorig weekend, behalve dan inderdaad dat de Tube een worthless piece of shit is.\n","date":"July 10, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-654/","section":"Posts","summary":"Fascisme is dichterbij dan je denkt [via].\n","title":"Remember, remember the fifth of november","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik heb dit stukje geschreven als gastcolumn voor Frankwatching. Bezoekers van Frankwatching welkom! Kijk gerust wat rond.\nGisteren vond in de Sint Olofskapel in Amsterdam The Next Web conferentie plaats. Deze conferentie werd georganiseerd door de mensen van Fleck om nu een helder uiteen te zetten wat er nu aan de hand is met het internet en waar we met zijn allen heen gaan.\nDe presentaties waren goed te begrijpen en grotendeels erg de moeite waard. Het is teveel om allemaal te behandelen. Ik zal een paar interessante punten uit de dag bespreken.\nPlazes\nFelix Petersen was langsgekomen om Plazes te laten zien. Plazes is een dienst die rich geo-presence biedt. Hiervoor gebruiken ze een kleine cliënt die kijkt via welke verbinding je het internet op gaat. Als deze verbinding nog niet bekend is, wordt met jouw hulp de locatie bepaald en opgeslagen zodat de volgende persoon die gebruik maakt van die verbinding het niet meer hoeft op te geven.\nPresence is dus kunnen zien wie er zijn, geo-presence is ook nog een kunnen zien op welke plek die mensen zitten en rich betekent dat die plaatsen extra informatie hebben: commentaar, foto\u0026rsquo;s, wie die plaats heeft bezocht en wie er vaker komt. Het is ook makkelijk om te zien wie er in de buurt zijn en welke andere plaatsen er in de buurt voor jou interessant zijn.\nVeel mensen gaan bij dit soort diensten op hun achterste benen staan en komen met heel veel bezwaren op het vlak van privacy. Bij Plazes is heel fijnmazig instelbaar of je locatie en je geschiedenis (bijv. die van mij) bijgehouden worden en wie dat dan kunnen zien (jij, je vrienden, iedereen). Op deze manier kan de gebruiker zelf de afweging maken tussen meer privacy en meer functionaliteit.\nPlazes heeft pas een omkat van de hele site gehad. De oude interface en layout hadden nogal wat kritiek te verduren. Ik had op Reboot al een demo van de nieuwe versie gezien en deze zit boordevol met verbeteringen. Daarnaast hebben ze nu een mobiele versie van hun client voor S60 telefoons (binennkort ook voor Windows telefoons) die op basis van het cel-id bepaalt waar je bent. Er is ook een API waarmee je toegang hebt tot een groot deel van de functionaliteit en dus zelf locatie-bewuste applicaties kunt maken.\nDit is dus bij uitstek een goed moment om te beginnen met Plazes en te zien hoe handig rich geo-presence is.\nAllPeers\nAllPeers is een oorspronkelijk Engels bedrijf dat opereert uit Tsjechië. Wat ze bieden is een Firefox-extensie die het mogelijk maakt om bestanden uit te wisselen met mensen die je kent. Om dit mogelijk te maken bieden ze een buddy list in Firefox waarin je bestanden op mensen kunt slepen en kunt zien wie jou dingen wil sturen. Het versturen van de bestanden gaat via een eigen versie van Bittorrent, dus efficiënt en gedistribueerd.\nJe product aanbieden als Firefox-extensie lastig omdat je iemand niet alleen zover moet krijgen dat hij jouw software gebruikt, maar ook dat hij een bepaalde browser gebruikt. In het geval van AllPeers zou het weleens kunnen werken.\nIedereen heeft weleens te maken gehad met het probleem van het versturen van grote bestanden. E-mail werkt niet meer vanaf een bepaalde grootte en versturen via MSN en dergelijke is onbetrouwbaar. Tot nu toe moest je of een eigen (FTP-)server hebben of een abonnement nemen op een dienst als DropSend. Met AllPeers is deze ellende voorbij.\nNaast het incidenteel delen van bestanden is er ook een grote behoefte bij mensen om heel veel multimedia uit te wisselen (kijk maar naar traffic stats). AllPeers voegt aan dit file sharing een sociale dimensie toe. Het wordt heel eenvoudig om je media te delen met je vrienden. De kans dat je gepakt wordt —onder vrienden— is bijna nihil. Social filesharing zat eraan te komen en dit is een eerste veelbelovende implementatie.\nVan toepassing hierop is het verhaal van Mark Tluszcz van Mangrove VC. Hij vertelde tijdens zijn presentatie dat er elk moment iets groots uit Oost Europa kon komen en dat grote dingen te herkennen zijn door hun verstorende potentieel.\nKevin Kelley\nKevin Kelley, één van de oprichters van Wired Magazine was ook aanwezig om ons met de neus op de feiten te drukken hoeveel er eigenlijk veranderd is in hoe weinig tijd en hoeveel veranderingen we in de komende tijd dus nog tegemoet kunnen zien. Kelley is een man wiens visie kolossaal is en hij wist mensen erg te boeien met zijn betoog.\nVolgens hem wordt het web en het potentieel daarvan op dit moment nog steeds zwaar onderschat en underhyped. Het internet komt als een deken te liggen over alles wat we doen en alles wordt web enabled.\nIk ga niet zijn hele verhaal herhalen, dat was er lang en ging erg diep. Wat ik er wel uit wil lichten is zijn verhaal over gift economies en de trend dat dingen gratis worden. Volgens hem is de natuurlijke toestand van dingen dat ze gratis zijn en is er maar een hele beperkte ruimte waarin je geld kunt vragen voor iets. De enige dingen die waarde hebben zijn de dingen die je niet kunt kopiëren.\nDe kosten worden of verschoven naar andere dingen bijvoorbeeld de gratis vluchten van RyanAir waar je de belasting en het eten en drinken aan boord moet betalen.\nDe kosten wordend afgeschoven naar anderen, denk maar aan de content die gefinancierd wordt met behulp van AdSense advertenties.\nDe kosten bestaan helemaal niet omdat mensen vrijwillig hun bijdrage leveren. Deze laatste variant vindt zijn uitingsvorm in Open Source software, maar ook in andere open source dingen zoals Open Source kennis (Wikipedia) of Open Source hardware. Dit fenomeen dat mensen hun bijdrage vrijwillig leveren is door Yochai Benkler benoemd als commons-based peer production. Hij heeft dit eerst behandeld in zijn paper Coase\u0026rsquo;s Penguin en in zijn recent verschenen boek The Wealth of Networks (het is op de site te downloaden, ik ben het nu aan het lezen) gaat hij dieper in op dit belangrijke fenomeen.\nEind\nNa afloop was er een borrel op een mooie locatie in Amsterdam. Een geslaagde dag nabespreken met de mensen die je al dan niet tijdens de conferentie al had gesproken was een goede afsluiting van een boeiende conferentie. De volgende Next Web conferentie is op 11 mei 2007. Hou die datum alvast vrij in je agenda.\n","date":"July 9, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-653/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik heb dit stukje geschreven als gastcolumn voor Frankwatching. Bezoekers van Frankwatching welkom! Kijk gerust wat rond.\n","title":"The Next Web","type":"posts"},{"content":"Was ik net weer digitaal, is het feest weer voorbij. Ik heb een lamme muisknop op dit ding zitten en hij moet naar de technische dienst voor reparatie. Dat kan wel een weekje duren voor hij weer terug is.\nGelukkig heb ik genoeg te doen, zodat ik me niet ga vervelen.\nVrijdag: The Next Web conferentie\nZaterdag: Capoeira Liberdade optreden op de Markt in Delft\nZondag: AEGEE eindejaarsbarbecue en WK-finale\n","date":"July 6, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-652/","section":"Posts","summary":"Was ik net weer digitaal, is het feest weer voorbij. Ik heb een lamme muisknop op dit ding zitten en hij moet naar de technische dienst voor reparatie. Dat kan wel een weekje duren voor hij weer terug is.\n","title":"Macje","type":"posts"},{"content":"So I managed to reach the store today and got pretty much what I expected.\nThe guy at the store fiddled a bit with my trackpad button and he declared that it was loose. He couldn\u0026rsquo;t fix it and told me it would have to be shipped to their technical support and it could take at most two weeks for me to get it back.\nMy objections that I bought it this Monday and that for €1200 I expect a working laptop were waved away with the statement that ‘it was working’.\nSending it away seems to be the only option and a week seems to be the nominal time. That means another week without a Mac. I still have it right now to backup my stuff and make sure I can keep working during the following week while I will be disconnected again.\nWish me luck.\n","date":"July 5, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-161/","section":"Posts","summary":"So I managed to reach the store today and got pretty much what I expected.\n","title":"Macbook update","type":"posts"},{"content":"My trusty Nomad backpack is aging. The zippers are breaking and the thing has worn out on most places. Besides it is very inconvenient carrying a laptop in a large bag of only one compartment. Packing it and finding stuff in any of the two compartments is somewhat of a pain (and getting more and more so).\nMy first instinct has been to get a Crumpler bag. They have a nice store situated nicely in Rotterdam and I have been hearing nothing but good stuff about their design and usability.\nThe only problem is that a Crumpler logo on your bag screams not only that the bag was expensive but probably that its contents are very much worth having as well. Looking ripe for the plucking is not a smart idea in urban holland.\nEnter: Waterfield! I was browsing through Flickr\u0026rsquo;s whatsinyourbag tag to see what other geeks are using to trump their stuff around and I stumbled upon Joi\u0026rsquo;s ultimate bag contents photograph.\nJoi is sporting a Waterfield bag to carry his impressive load of gadgets in. I have browsed their site a bit and I am pretty much sold on their looks, design, usability and utility. Their SleeveCases alone look like great protection and transport solutions but for day to day use I think my demands require a Cargo Bag to carry my life with me during the day. Love the hanggliding and best of all, this side of the pond these bags do not have the instant aura of expensive (though they are).\nLuckily they have a combo offering which gives you that and more for a greatly reduced price. I just clicked through a possible order and it would give me the whole package including shipping for an equivalent €180 which is not that much more than a Crumpler would have costed me.\nThe only thing I am still thinking about is whether to get the Medium or the Large one. The site does not give me a decent impression of the room provided and how much you can fit inside. Besides the usual my bag would have to contain some books, a DSLR and accessories, sporting clothes and preferrably leave some room to spare for small groceries.\nRereading this, rules the Medium one out for sure, but if the Large one will accommodate my needs I am so going to get it.\n","date":"July 5, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-160/","section":"Posts","summary":"My trusty Nomad backpack is aging. The zippers are breaking and the thing has worn out on most places. Besides it is very inconvenient carrying a laptop in a large bag of only one compartment. Packing it and finding stuff in any of the two compartments is somewhat of a pain (and getting more and more so).\n","title":"Love Bag","type":"posts"},{"content":"I cut this from the previous Macbook related post:\n“I am a power user and evangelist of Apple computers. They should be nicer to me.”\nI really am advertising my Apple to anybody who will see it and several people already have bought Apple computers on my recommendations and I am fairly confident more are ready to be converted.\nShouldn\u0026rsquo;t I qualify for a special evangelizer\u0026rsquo;s pass or something, to get better service, cut ahead lines and get digital hugs from Steve?\nApple is one thing, the franchise store on the Lijnbaan in Rotterdam (it is not a real Apple store) is another. My attempt to reach them yesterday was thwarted by the Dutch Rail\u0026rsquo;s massive equipment failures, but I am going to try again today.\nLet\u0026rsquo;s see if they are worthy of my patronage.\n","date":"July 5, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-159/","section":"Posts","summary":"I cut this from the previous Macbook related post:\n","title":"Brand Loyalty Turned Sour","type":"posts"},{"content":"I now have a new Macbook from which I am blogging this.\nThe experience is quite good. The thing is a great toy and performancy is excellent. OS X is positively snappy.\nThe only grip I have about it is that I have a case of the squishy button.\nThere probably is no such thing as the perfect experience, but I\u0026rsquo;m interested in if Apple and its resellers will pick this up in a decent way. Will keep you posted.\nI just called the store and got duely patronized. They of course will not take my word and have to look at it themselves. Fair enough. The patronization was somewhat out of place though it is a common feature in all Dutch retail.\n","date":"July 4, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-158/","section":"Posts","summary":"I now have a new Macbook from which I am blogging this.\n","title":"Almost Macbook","type":"posts"},{"content":"The guys from Dojo are going at it relentlessly. The current release is so very much improved from when I last seriously looked at it half a year ago, it\u0026rsquo;s impressive.\nAt this pace we will probably have complete programming functionality in the browser in one or two years.\nI was peeking through the blog when I found two presentations of Dylan\u0026rsquo;s which are great overviews of the current frontier in web programming:\nBuilding event-driven user interfaces with Dojo, lots of tips with stuff you should keep in mind when building massively event driven browser interfaces. Engaging interfaces with Ajax and Comet, how you can use Ajax events in various tooklits and the different methods currently available to build highly responsive Comet style user interfaces. Read it, love it.\n","date":"June 30, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-157/","section":"Posts","summary":"The guys from Dojo are going at it relentlessly. The current release is so very much improved from when I last seriously looked at it half a year ago, it’s impressive.\n","title":"Good stuff","type":"posts"},{"content":"Mirroring Mark Pilgrim\u0026rsquo;s move to Linux, I have six months ago moved from Linux to OS X and have never looked back until now. Last week I sold my iBook and while waiting for my Macbook, I am typing this on my Debian GNU/Linux Etch box.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s quite a difference.\nSimilarly, lots of friends are buying Apple computers right now and they usually don\u0026rsquo;t know where to look for good software, what to get and what not to get. Here is my essential list (I have posted an initial version of this before on R-win.com):\nCross Platform\nFirefox, is best used for heavier browsing and web development with Firebug, Linky, SessionSaver, Live HTTP Headers.\nMS Office, I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t spend any money on it (DUT provides it for free here), but in today\u0026rsquo;s world being able to read and write these files unfortunately still is essential.\nOne time I had to give a presentation at a research colloquy and the university provided laptop would not do anything. So I presented using Keynote and all subsequent presenters presented on my iBook using the installed PowerPoint version without a hitch. Sufice to say this was, great advertising for Apple.\nUpdate: DUT unfortunately discontinued the free Office plan. This is a bit of a shame because I have been hearing some very good stories about Office 12. Anyway who needs Office, author your documents in Markdown or HTML.\nLaTeΧ, for writing anything beyond one page and containing more than five headings.\nVim, oddly enough, the Windows version of Vim for me is the best version. Getting the Linux and the OS X version to work sanely always seemed too much work for the hassle.\nSkype, the best and easiest VoIP client I know of. Skype sucks, Gizmo might do stuff but I don\u0026rsquo;t know anybody who has it. Most serious Asterisk based real VoIP software is pretty much unusable.\nPlazer, share your location easily. Plazes has lost most of its relevance in todays microblogging presence world.\nGaim no the new Pidgin, is the best substitute for Adium and available on both Linux and Windows.\nPython, for all your scripting needs.\nEclipse is a very nice solution if you want a monolithic IDE.\nSubversion\nOS X\nQuicksilver, with its plugins will vastly accelerate the most common actions you take on your system.\nAdium, essential cross protocol IM client, the best I have ever used.\nTextmate, one of the best all purpose text editors I have ever used.\nSaft, essential add-on for using Safari, session saving is essential in any browser.\nKeynote, best presenting software around. I cannot stress this enough. If you\u0026rsquo;re a professional presenter, Keynote alone is worth buying a Mac for.\nI might be tempted to use S5 but it\u0026rsquo;s a lot of hassle and only provides added web geek value.\nFlip4Mac, for when you need to play Windows Media files and DivX tools to add a load of codecs to your native Quicktime.\nColloquy, simply a great IRC client.\nSubethaedit, it\u0026rsquo;s nice to be able to edit text files together. Makes you wonder where else you could apply this kind of technology.\nUpdate: I have never managed to really use this piece of software. The lack of a free version may contribute to that.\nWitch, nice task switcher add on.\nVirtue, if you need multiple desktops Virtue is it at least until Leopard Spaces are in, and throwing around the cube is just plain fun.\nXyle Scope, seems to be a great HTML/CSS editor.\nOmnigroup, the omni group makes great software. OmniGraffle is a nice diagramming tool.\nAperture looks yummy judging from the movies on the site but it is very heavy weight, Adobe\u0026rsquo;s Lightroom looks like a worthy competitor. For when I finally buy the SLR.\nUpdate: I have bought my 350D and I have been using the Lightroom betas for a while now. My conclusion is that Lightroom is a fantastic product for anybody who is serious about photography. I could not live without it.\nUpdate2: I have yet to try out Aperture seriously but I have already read several reports of people switching from Aperture to Lightroom because Lightroom does not block on any of its operations and therefore offers much more flow.\nCorripio, searches for matching album art for your music. For all those peole who do not want the lockin of the iTMS.\nNetNewsWire, the essential news reader, but Endo is getting some jazz recently.\nVienna is a freeware reader which does all your offline tasks rapidly.\nSuperDuper!, backing up made easy.\nUpdate: Do the backup people! Reinier\u0026rsquo;s Macbook recently suffered from a crashed HDD. Very painful.\nMPlayer for OS X is a neatly packaged version of mplayer and if that fails VLC which also looks pretty polished on OS X, will play it.\nSeashore, nice GIMP wrapper for light weight image editing tasks.\nUpdate: Removed this, because every time I tried to use it, it managed to frustrate me even more than the GIMP normally does.\nDoubleTake looks like a good image stitching program. I haven\u0026rsquo;t really come around to shooting some real panoramas yet so this is preliminary.\nGawker is a very cool camera recording and sharing tool.\niTuneSleep has a clumsy interface but it is one of the best and most versatile alarm radio programs there are.\nCyberduck is a free and solid SCP/FTP program.\nMAMP is a nice local web development setup with Apache, MySQL and PHP neatly packaged in one bundle.\nParallels Desktop is the leading virtualization solution on the Mac. Useful if you want to run any other operating system on your Mac.\nMacFUSE with SSHFS is a nice way of attaching remote servers to your local system for easy access.\nTransmission is a very solid Bittorrent client.\nLinux\nDebian GNU/Linux is the OS of choice for my servers. The people at Debian care and work so you don\u0026rsquo;t have to. My desktop has been broken for a while now and I have been meaning to replace it with Ubuntu but have not gotten around to it yet.\nApache 2.0, my web server of choice.\nWordpress, the default blogging application, large community, easy to setup and use.\nMediaWiki, quickly start a collaboration annex content management system.\nI\u0026rsquo;ll be updating this list as I go. Probably lots more stuff will hit when I have my Macbook. Suggestions welcome.\nUpdated list: 2007-7-15\n","date":"June 30, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-156/","section":"Posts","summary":"Mirroring Mark Pilgrim’s move to Linux, I have six months ago moved from Linux to OS X and have never looked back until now. Last week I sold my iBook and while waiting for my Macbook, I am typing this on my Debian GNU/Linux Etch box.\n","title":"Essential Software List","type":"posts"},{"content":"Gisteren in de Heineken Music Hall Ivete Sangalo eindelijk zien optreden. Het concert was fastastisch. Het publiek geweldig, de sfeer goed. Ivete is een podium-monster! Ze deed alle belangrijke liedjes en idereen ging helemaal los.\nDe HMH is een hele aardige plek voor concerten, goed bereikbaar, makkelijke zaal en goed geluid.\nHet is alleen jammer dat die Arena Boulevard zo\u0026rsquo;n mislukte opeenhoping is van tegenstrijdige commerciele belangen.\n","date":"June 29, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-651/","section":"Posts","summary":"Gisteren in de Heineken Music Hall Ivete Sangalo eindelijk zien optreden. Het concert was fastastisch. Het publiek geweldig, de sfeer goed. Ivete is een podium-monster! Ze deed alle belangrijke liedjes en idereen ging helemaal los.\n","title":"Ivete ao vivo","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;m going to The Next Web Conference next week Friday. This conference, organized by the Fleck guys is a good chance to get up to date on the Web 2.0 right here in the Netherlands. Great initiative.\nhttp://thenextweb.org\nThere are good speakers and loads of interesting people coming. I\u0026rsquo;ll probably meet some guys I met during Reboot on my home turf in Amsterdam, which will be fun.\nAnd great idea: they have an actual elevator pitch during the conference you can use to throw your idea to some VC.\nSee you there?\n","date":"June 28, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-155/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’m going to The Next Web Conference next week Friday. This conference, organized by the Fleck guys is a good chance to get up to date on the Web 2.0 right here in the Netherlands. Great initiative.\n","title":"What's next?","type":"posts"},{"content":"I am currently calling customers to get their feedback, and more often than not I receive out of office, out to lunch or in meeting statuses.\nSo either I have to call them again later or they have to call TOPdesk back and get put through to me.\nWouldn\u0026rsquo;t it be so much nicer if all the people I wanted to call were in my Skype list. I could see their presence and message them to ask if it was all right to call them right there and right then.\nAnd I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t need a telephone anymore but I could just plug a USB headset into my monitor and be off.\n","date":"June 28, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-154/","section":"Posts","summary":"I am currently calling customers to get their feedback, and more often than not I receive out of office, out to lunch or in meeting statuses.\n","title":"Backward Calling","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik heb gisteren mijn iBook verkocht en ik zit nu in een korte laptoploze periode.\nIk heb het deze week heel druk en ik ga dit weekend naar Londen, dus echt missen ga ik hem niet maar het heeft toch wel een groot onthaastend effect.\nMisschien wil ik wel helemaal geen laptop hebben, misschien wil ik wel losbreken uit het digitale leven…\n…\nNah, mijn nieuwe Macbook ligt al klaar op mij te wachten.\n","date":"June 28, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-650/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik heb gisteren mijn iBook verkocht en ik zit nu in een korte laptoploze periode.\n","title":"Bookless","type":"posts"},{"content":"I am quite turned off of the whole CSS Zen table-less design ethic. It is most unpractical. The most basic layout primitives have a less than straight forward translation to CSS.\nTask: I have a series of elements which I want to put side by side hard, no wrapping.\nThe obvious solution to this using\ndisplay: inline;\nor\ndisplay: inline-block;\nfails to work completely. The divs are not placed side by side.\nGetting the divs to sit side by side is best accomplished by using\nfloat: left;\nthough that seems to be a less than ideal use of the float attribute and floats are prone to incompatibilities of their own.\nThis still does not fix the fact that the floating divs wrap at the screen edge and I wanted them to sit side by side hard. The beautifully hackish solution to this is to wrap all the divs with a parent div set at\nwidth: 10000px;\nThat makes enough room for the divs to sit in and not wrapping though it is horrible.\nSeparating style and content… yeah right. If there are better solutions to this, I would be glad to hear them.\n","date":"June 26, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-153/","section":"Posts","summary":"I am quite turned off of the whole CSS Zen table-less design ethic. It is most unpractical. The most basic layout primitives have a less than straight forward translation to CSS.\n","title":"Control-less layout","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik kwam Alexander tegen op Reboot 8.0 en ik ben sindsdien zijn blog aan het lezen. Hij legt uit waarom de hoge belastingen in Denemarken debet zijn aan het economische succes. Dit soort verhalen over meer blijdschap en meer belasting niet minder spreken me wel aan. Het past ook prima in zijn langere betogen over “Happy at Work”.\nDus voor je zeurt over de hoge belastingen in Nederland, onze belastingen zijn niet te hoog maar te laag.\n","date":"June 21, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-649/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik kwam Alexander tegen op Reboot 8.0 en ik ben sindsdien zijn blog aan het lezen. Hij legt uit waarom de hoge belastingen in Denemarken debet zijn aan het economische succes. Dit soort verhalen over meer blijdschap en meer belasting niet minder spreken me wel aan. Het past ook prima in zijn langere betogen over “Happy at Work”.\n","title":"Meer belastingen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Via Boing Boing zie ik dat dit stukje beschaving ook eindelijk de Amerikaanse kusten heeft bereikt. Weinig nuttig als je screw caps hebt, maar toch.\n","date":"June 20, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-648/","section":"Posts","summary":"Via Boing Boing zie ik dat dit stukje beschaving ook eindelijk de Amerikaanse kusten heeft bereikt. Weinig nuttig als je screw caps hebt, maar toch.\n","title":"Ploppen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik ben nu wat schijnbaar lichter materiaal aan het lezen “Ik was nooit in Isfahaan” van Tommy Wieringa. Het is nóg beter dan ik al dacht.\nHet bestaat uit korte verhalen en na elk verhaal laat Wieringa je blijer, helderder en dieper achter.\nDit is een boek wat ik in een uur uit zou kunnen lezen maar liever uitsmeer over een paar dagen om er langer mee te doen.\nCoole foto van een bijzonder coole schrijver:\n","date":"June 20, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-647/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik ben nu wat schijnbaar lichter materiaal aan het lezen “Ik was nooit in Isfahaan” van Tommy Wieringa. Het is nóg beter dan ik al dacht.\n","title":"Isfahaan","type":"posts"},{"content":"Mijn achterband is aan flarden, nieuwe buiten en binnenband nodig. Zondag natuurlijk niets te vinden, de enige banden die ik heb passen er niet op.\nVandaag na het werk om 17.30 snel naar de fietsenboer hier in de buurt gelopen: dicht op maandag. In de vijf minuten dat de winkels nog open waren naar de andere fietsenboer gelopen: ook dicht op maandag.\nIk zal me maar niet uitlaten over arbeidschuw volk maar ik vraag me wel af waarom winkels open zijn als normale mensen werken.\n","date":"June 20, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-646/","section":"Posts","summary":"Mijn achterband is aan flarden, nieuwe buiten en binnenband nodig. Zondag natuurlijk niets te vinden, de enige banden die ik heb passen er niet op.\n","title":"Fietsfrustratie","type":"posts"},{"content":"I have been invitated to present at TOPdesk to our consultants the relative merits of using a wiki to organize our knowledge as opposed to the facilities we used to have.\nI am one of the main instigators of the TOPwiki (as it is being called) and I am big on social software, so I was the obvious choice to defend it. And I will have to defend it because my prospective audience is more than a bit critical of the wiki. They want clear rationale on why we are changing from our existing knowledge management infrastructure to this one.\nFair enough. The short answer is that the existing infrastructure is a joke but it is deeply entrenched in our organizational practice. This makes for some pretty hefty switching costs both conceptually and practically.\nI can deflect all of their arguments easily but I want to solidify my footing theoretically both to give them some knowledge management concepts and social software ideas to take home and to prevent it from becoming a free for all shooting match.\n","date":"June 18, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-152/","section":"Posts","summary":"I have been invitated to present at TOPdesk to our consultants the relative merits of using a wiki to organize our knowledge as opposed to the facilities we used to have.\n","title":"Wiki Advocacy","type":"posts"},{"content":"Hangplekken voor laagopgeleiden zijn er genoeg in Delft. Toegegeven deze groep is niet veeleisend. Een afdakje buiten om onder te kunnen staan, genoeg plek om met een paar brommers rondjes te kunnen rijden en de gelegenheid om bier te drinken en de flesjes op straat kapot te gooien zijn voldoende.\nDe facilitering in Delft is uitstekend en de stad hoeft niet bang te zijn om deze groep mensen binnenkort kwijt te raken.\nAnders is het voor de hoogopgeleiden. Voor deze groep mensen is er heel weinig opvang geregeld in Delft. Filmhuis Lumen komt als enige op.\nWaar ik aan denk als ik denk aan goede hangplekken zijn de Balie in Amsterdam en in Amerika Coffee to the People of recenter het Coworking initiatief.\nDit zijn plaatsen met:\neen vriendelijke sfeer goed bereikbaar geen horeca-inflatie goede cappuccino gratis WiFi een progressieve programmering genoeg ruimte om een middagje te zitten hangen Nu is er in Delft al een tijdje iets nieuws (dus zo nieuw is het niet meer), het Meisjeshuis. Het Meisjeshuis in Delft is een historisch pand aan de Oude Delft (Wikipedia).\nVan de site:\nVia algemene activiteiten worden mensen uit diverse gelederen in een gepaste, sfeervolle omgeving bij elkaar gebracht. De activiteiten zijn oa. op cultureel, filosofisch, maatschappelijk en historisch gebied en leggen verbanden tussen bijvoorbeeld techniek en muziek of politiek en filosofie. Dit alles in de context van een historisch huis met een historische tuin in het hart van Delft.\nHet is een plezier om in de sociëteitsruimte neer te strijken voor een goed gesprek op een ontspannen manier. De grote zaal met bar in het achterhuis leent zich hier uitstekend voor. Leden kunnen elke dinsdag, woensdag en donderdag vanaf de 17.00 uur in de sociëteit terecht. In de sociëteitszaal is een leestafel en is Wifi geïnstalleerd.\nDit klinkt best ok, maar er is één grote maar aan dit verhaal: je moet lid zijn/worden om eraan mee te kunnen doen. Het inschrijven schijnt 5 (!) voordelen te hebben die niet op de site vermeld staan. En aan het lidmaatschap is een eveneens niet nader genoemde bijdrage verbonden.\nIk snap dat het geld kost om zoiets te draaien maar waarom kan er wel geld uitgetrokken worden voor buurthuizen maar niet om een initiatief als dit wat breder te trekken?\nDoor het een members only gebeuren te maken marginaliseert het Meisjeshuis zijn positie die wél maatschappelijk boeiend had kunnen zijn.\nDe meest interessante mensen gaan hier niet direct lid van worden, die hebben wel betere dingen te doen. Je beperkt jezelf heel erg door het gesloten te houden. De programmering zoals die op de site staat is wel aardig en leuk maar duidelijk dóór en vóór een beperkte doelgroep.\nHet lidmaatschap zorgt er daarnaast voor dat mensen die er niet snel over na zouden denken om naar zoiets te gaan hier al helemaal niet terecht zullen komen. Een intellectuele gated community als je wil. Het is van groot belang dat verschillende groepen mensen dezelfde publieke, culturele en sociale ruimte in de stad kunnen bezoeken. Op die manier maak je het mogelijk dat mensen elkaar gaan begrijpen en beïnvloeden, en dat er beweging tussen verschillende groepen mogelijk is.\nEn als laatste is het lid-gebeuren in Delft synoniem met ranzig geschuifel van oude jongens krentenbrood. Elke associatie daarmee zou je moeten vermijden. Ik vind het een heel aardig initiatief, maar het is wel mislukte aflevering zoveel in de doorlopende grap: Delft Kennisstad.\n","date":"June 18, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-645/","section":"Posts","summary":"Hangplekken voor laagopgeleiden zijn er genoeg in Delft. Toegegeven deze groep is niet veeleisend. Een afdakje buiten om onder te kunnen staan, genoeg plek om met een paar brommers rondjes te kunnen rijden en de gelegenheid om bier te drinken en de flesjes op straat kapot te gooien zijn voldoende.\n","title":"Hangplek voor Hoogopgeleiden","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik heb gisteren “Benim Adım Kırmızı” (Mijn naam is Karmozijn) van Orhan Pamuk uitgelezen. Dit is een van zijn grote boeken (samen met “Kar” (Sneeuw) en “Kara Kitap” (Het Zwarte Boek)) van een schrijver die terecht de beste van Turkije genoemd kan worden.\nIn Karmozijn schildert Pamuk een rustiek Istanbul, beheerst hij zowel het verhaal van die dag als de verhalen, de zeden en de mythologie van het Oosten die botsen met de nieuwe mode uit het Westen. Hij weet een historische whodunnit een filosofische, religieuze en emotionele lading te geven waardoor deze de gebeurtenis overstijgt en symbool wordt voor het voorbijgaan van een tijdperk.\nIk ben ook al een tijdje geïnteresseerd in de taal vóór het Turks, misschien moet ik maar een keer Ottomaans gaan leren.\n","date":"June 18, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-644/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik heb gisteren “Benim Adım Kırmızı” (Mijn naam is Karmozijn) van Orhan Pamuk uitgelezen. Dit is een van zijn grote boeken (samen met “Kar” (Sneeuw) en “Kara Kitap” (Het Zwarte Boek)) van een schrijver die terecht de beste van Turkije genoemd kan worden.\n","title":"Mij zullen ze moordenaar noemen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Bruce Schneier heeft zijn winnaar aangekondigd van zijn terrorisme wedstrijd (Wired artikel). Het is een buitengewoon geïnspireerd ramp-scenario.\nDe opmerkingen in het artikel zijn dezelfde opmerkingen die Schneier keer op keer maakt wat betreft terrorisme. Terrorisme is niet makkelijk, er zijn ideeën genoeg en veiligheid komt niet voort uit paniekvoetbal. Het is goed als die gedachten zich wijder verspreiden.\n","date":"June 16, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-643/","section":"Posts","summary":"Bruce Schneier heeft zijn winnaar aangekondigd van zijn terrorisme wedstrijd (Wired artikel). Het is een buitengewoon geïnspireerd ramp-scenario.\n","title":"The Big Book of Terrorist Plots","type":"posts"},{"content":"From the R Language Definition:\nDebugging code has always been a bit of an art.\nThis is them saying that they have long transcended the language\u0026rsquo;s quirks and they feel newcomers should go through the same pain they did, so they can\u0026rsquo;t be arsed to provide decent error messages and debugging facilities.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve been trying to do some statistical analysis in R (try Googling that) today and the experience has been less than satisfactory. Strange language conventions (What\u0026rsquo;s the difference between a frame, list, matrix, vector or array? And the ways of indexing them?), awkward and outdated syntax and standard library, some of the obtusest error messages known to man, too concise documentation, and a very steep learning curve.\nI\u0026rsquo;m getting less and less convinced there is a need for stuck in the mud domain specific languages such as R, Splus, Matlab and the likes.\nPython is much more consistent and easier to learn and your Python knowledge will also be applicable to other domains. Numeric provides a solid vector processing foundation on which most statistics operations can be built or imported from R.\nUpdate: I see something like this exists: R/SPlus - Python Interface but this project does not seem mature enough for real use and the wrapper abstraction looks to be laid too thin on R.\n","date":"June 12, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-151/","section":"Posts","summary":"From the R Language Definition:\n","title":"R project","type":"posts"},{"content":"Net van dit blog een paar honderd trackback spam handmatig moeten verwijderen. Flink de bezem erdoor, en vanaf nu geen trackback meer.\nSpam is echt een probleem en alles wat online content accepteert zonder Turing-test of moderatie is fundamenteel stuk.\n","date":"June 10, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-642/","section":"Posts","summary":"Net van dit blog een paar honderd trackback spam handmatig moeten verwijderen. Flink de bezem erdoor, en vanaf nu geen trackback meer.\n","title":"Trackback spam","type":"posts"},{"content":"Kottke linkt naar een erg leuk filmpje (twee als je die Simpsons meetelt) dat Powers of Ten heet.\n","date":"June 10, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-641/","section":"Posts","summary":"Kottke linkt naar een erg leuk filmpje (twee als je die Simpsons meetelt) dat Powers of Ten heet.\n","title":"Proportie","type":"posts"},{"content":"Het CDA zet met een ommezwaai op het punt van gemeentelijke glasvezel netwerken in één klap een streep door een belangrijke innovatievector (goedkoop ultra-breedband) én betoont zich ongeveer net zo\u0026rsquo;n grote hoer van het bedrijfsleven als de VVD.\nHoera! Welk een visie, wat een lef!\n","date":"June 9, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-640/","section":"Posts","summary":"Het CDA zet met een ommezwaai op het punt van gemeentelijke glasvezel netwerken in één klap een streep door een belangrijke innovatievector (goedkoop ultra-breedband) én betoont zich ongeveer net zo’n grote hoer van het bedrijfsleven als de VVD.\n","title":"Kabelbranche","type":"posts"},{"content":"Deze campagne van Amnesty is buitengewoon heftig en perfect uitgevoerd. Helaas niet zichtbaar in Nederland —het moet redelijk heftig zijn om deze zomaar op straat tegen te komen— maar de foto\u0026rsquo;s spreken voor zich [via SvN].\nOp Flickr staan er ook weer een heleboel, waaronder deze.\n","date":"June 8, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-639/","section":"Posts","summary":"Deze campagne van Amnesty is buitengewoon heftig en perfect uitgevoerd. Helaas niet zichtbaar in Nederland —het moet redelijk heftig zijn om deze zomaar op straat tegen te komen— maar de foto’s spreken voor zich [via SvN].\n","title":"Amnesty","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik zit mijn stapel spam door te werken en de Quadraad —ons faculteitsblad— is toch best een aardig blad.\nEr staat een aardig artikel over Tribler in, weinig diepte maar erg toegankelijk.\nInteressanter is het idee van Nico Baken (p. 13) om strategisch glasvezel neer te leggen en lantaarnpalen te laten dienen als WiFi-antennes om zo snel grote gebieden te kunnen dekken. Hij heeft gelijk; mensen willen altijd online zijn.\nNu zou het natuurlijk echt vet zijn als ze als testbed heel Delft even zouden dekken. Een oud idee, maar nog steeds erg wenselijk.\n","date":"June 6, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-638/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik zit mijn stapel spam door te werken en de Quadraad —ons faculteitsblad— is toch best een aardig blad.\n","title":"Quadraadloos","type":"posts"},{"content":"Mijn razendmooie Marantz-receiver doet het niet meer. De aan/uit knop zit permanent vast. Waarschijnlijk wel te repareren maar nog geen tijd voor gehad. Dat betekent dus geen radio, dacht ik…\nIk heb al eerder geklaagd over de slechte toegankelijkheid van de Radio 1 audiostream. Klikken op ‘Nu luisteren’ doet meestal Safari crashen. Mplayer deed het ook niet maar toen bedacht ik me de claim dat VLC alles kan afspelen.\nDe URL http://switch.streamgate.nl/cgi-bin/streamswitch?streamid=42\u0026a=.asx erin hangen laat een hele ingewikkelde boom van redirects zien waar ergens een speelbare audio track in zit.\nFijn dat er helden zijn die om dit soort domme regeltjes heen werken (zie ook).\n","date":"June 6, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-637/","section":"Posts","summary":"Mijn razendmooie Marantz-receiver doet het niet meer. De aan/uit knop zit permanent vast. Waarschijnlijk wel te repareren maar nog geen tijd voor gehad. Dat betekent dus geen radio, dacht ik…\n","title":"Doh!","type":"posts"},{"content":"I sympathize with Mark Hammond\u0026rsquo;s decision. Apple is the lesser evil of non-free software. In the light of Apple\u0026rsquo;s stubbornness and lack of transparency my bough creaks from time to time but it is holding strong for now.\nI\u0026rsquo;m still hoping for a good and free alternative and if I see the progress that is being made on that front —as opposed to the complete lack of progress on the Vista front— that hope may well be justified. Until that is a reality, I can hold out a bit longer.\n","date":"June 6, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-150/","section":"Posts","summary":"I sympathize with Mark Hammond’s decision. Apple is the lesser evil of non-free software. In the light of Apple’s stubbornness and lack of transparency my bough creaks from time to time but it is holding strong for now.\n","title":"Boughs","type":"posts"},{"content":"De jubileumaflevering —de 100ste aflevering— van The Colbert Report gisteren is meer dan de moeite van het kijken waard.\nColbert bouwt voort op zijn eerdere succes en scoort als niet eerder. Elk onderdeel is goed met als hoogtepunt een herhaling van zijn eerdere gravitas-off met Stone Phillips.\n","date":"June 6, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-636/","section":"Posts","summary":"De jubileumaflevering —de 100ste aflevering— van The Colbert Report gisteren is meer dan de moeite van het kijken waard.\n","title":"Me","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik post dit nu vanaf het vliegveld van Kopenhagen. Internet kun je hier kopen 40DKK voor 30 minuten, struikroverij van het ergste soort, maar je doet het er maar mee.\nOnline zijn, even je mail ophalen en chatten met vrienden is toch wel heel heel fijn. Het zou alleen nog iets fijner zijn als het geen geld hoefde te kosten. Ik betaal toch al?\nWat wel ontzettend aangenaam is, is zitten in de stilte lounge. Mark had er al een foto van. Ik begrijp nu waar hij het over heeft.\n","date":"June 5, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-635/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik post dit nu vanaf het vliegveld van Kopenhagen. Internet kun je hier kopen 40DKK voor 30 minuten, struikroverij van het ergste soort, maar je doet het er maar mee.\n","title":"CPH","type":"posts"},{"content":"Tom Armitage - Telling Stories: what Homer, Dickens and Marvel Comics can teach your (social) software\nReboot8\nsocial sofware design through the lens of serial fiction\nSerial Publishing\nDickens\u0026rsquo;s books were published in monthly installments\nPickwick Club\nFor the publisher you recoupe your costs faster\nMore people can afford it\nMore people can review\nIt makes the story more manageable and the serial structure enforces structure.\nPlacing data on public display = Publishing\nA personal blog/journal adds up to fragments of a life\n\u0026ldquo;I think all onvels are actually compounded short stories. [\u0026hellip;]\u0026rdquo; David Mitchell\nDatad data\nblog: tajmahal, infovore\nArchives\nTechnorati comments\nFeedback loops\nStatistics (see JJG\u0026rsquo;s talk)\nEpic telling the same story over and over again\nHomer\u0026rsquo;s huge stories: Illiad + Odyssey\nepithet\nconvention\nmeter\nformula\nStory you keep telling over and over again: Sign-up form\nOnly ask stuff you need to know\nProfiles should be different\nParallel stories in multiple accounts\nDon\u0026rsquo;t assume too much continuity, it\u0026rsquo;s not that important, keeping writing is\nRetroactive Continuity adding new information to historical material\ndeliberateyl changing previously established facts\nMarvel: Crisis on infinite earths\nFlickr: replace button\nFiction telling untruths to make a better sturry\nhttp://tinyurl.com/lug7c\nTruth: something with no deliberate dishonesty\nThe Doorbells of Florence\nplayful fiction on forums, MMORPG\nIdentity\nPersonas are very important, real names not so much\nExpect people to give false details\nKaycee Nicole Swenson, lying pretending to be a girl dying of leukemia\nThere\u0026rsquo;s no truth or fiction flag on the internet.\nPeople can detect if stuff is untrue or unhealthy or so.\nTelling the story Theh poet should in fact speak as little as possible in his own person since in what he himself says he is not an imitator.\nPlot vs. narrative\nVideo games make terrible films, \u0026rsquo;the narrative is always up for grabs'\nBreedster\nConclusion\nTell stories\nFiction can creep in\nhttp://infovore.org\n","date":"June 2, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-149/","section":"Posts","summary":"Tom Armitage - Telling Stories: what Homer, Dickens and Marvel Comics can teach your (social) software\n","title":"Tom Armitage - Telling Stories: what Homer, Dickens and Marvel Comics can teach your (social) software","type":"posts"},{"content":"Maya Lotan - Urbanseeder: Technology Mediated Flirting\nReboot8\nDating\n\u0026ldquo;I can get it anytime anywhere.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Love\u0026rdquo;\nCurrent online dating sites\n-Too much information, like an insurance claim\nCritical Observations\nimmediacy vs. delay\nstaged vs. improvised\nformal vs. ambiguous\nprofiling vs. mystery\nisolated vs. integral\nThe Chair\nreads your body language to tell your date what you are feeling\nTechnology will never be precise enough to replace human perception.\nTHerefore we need to mimes its role and embrace its mistakes.\nConcept\nLure the hunters into our territory\nAdd joint junctions into people\u0026rsquo;s path\nTwist fate to create accidental encounters feel like magic\n\u0026ldquo;I went to bars and spoke to a lot of people.\u0026rdquo;\nGirls want to be talked to but will not talk.\nGuys are reluctant, but may talk if they see a girl for the second time\nTag to meet again:\nIt\u0026rsquo;s less than saying \u0026ldquo;can i have your number\u0026rdquo; and more than just \u0026ldquo;hope to see you around\u0026rdquo;\nGet a person to come to your home base, where you are comfortable\nFamiliar strangers\nHunchback to pin\nOr glove compartment to do stuff with your phone\nVisual signature\nPatterns of the visual signature\nI\u0026rsquo;m interested, if you\u0026rsquo;re curious go to UrbanSeeder\nenter the code on the site, you see the persons city, activities and other things\nCopy activities to your own place\nCreate new events for yourself\nSelect symbols, you get a stem and a pattern which you can use anywhere\nYou spread the seeds etiher directly or indirectly\nSemacode\nBranding, self-branding\nShows 5 great teaser clips showing the potential of the service\nThe seeds is self-explanatory, you don\u0026rsquo;t have to be a member\nMost seeding activity is local\nQ: Could you also use it to spread events or other stuff instead of dating.\nViral marketing tools\nA: She wants to make it into a social application without too much of an emphasis on flirting\n","date":"June 2, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-148/","section":"Posts","summary":"Maya Lotan - Urbanseeder: Technology Mediated Flirting\n","title":"Maya Lotan - Urbanseeder: Technology Mediated Flirting","type":"posts"},{"content":"Alexander Kjerulf - Let\u0026rsquo;s Reboot Democracy\nReboot8\nDemocracy and Politics are broken.\nHas written a manifesto (in Danish)\nHas some ideas\nNeeds people to work with him on this idea\nSmall group of people making the decisiions\nLarge group of people are inactive\n(\u0026ldquo;The greatest threat to democracy is an inert populace.\u0026rdquo;)\nMore people vote in American Idol than they do in American Presidential Elections\nDid a quick stretching exercise.\nNY Times: Politics has become a game of meaningless, mindless battles, conducted by unscrupulous methods and peole designed to transform even the most serious policy debates into sport. \u0026ndash;Al Gore\n==BEGIN BRAINSTORM with NOVEMBERBORN.NET==\nMark Rutte heeft gewonnen = goed\nVoor stemmen hoef je niet zoveel te kunnen/weten.\nNiet erg. \u0026ndash;Wisdom of Crowds\nMakkelijke manipulatie door media en andere hypes. Waan van de dag. Negatieve tendens. = probleem\nAngst voor terrorisme, ANGST. Gevoeligheid voor negatieve campagnes gebaseerd op angst.\nLack of attention to digital civil liberties and privacy of citizens. = BAD\nShort term vision. Lack of attention to longer term things.\n==END INTERMEZZO==\nBrain storm on what is wrong with politics.\nList of bad stuff:\nLack of good participation\nNo real options\nToo expensive\nNo accountability from politicians\nRisk-taking costs votes\nAfraid to be unpopular\nLack of long-term vision\nLack of good leadership\nLack of transparency\nPlaying on fears\nLobbyists\nMonopoly of political parties on the system\nWhat politicians represent people\nMedia = race\nPeople dont want to hear truth\nVotecrs don\u0026rsquo;t like decisive decisions\nSpin and simpliciation\nCorporate domination\nFrustration over low voter turnout\nAlex\u0026rsquo;s ideas:\n-The media, the mass media distorts\n-Not transparent, how do politicians reach the decisions they make\n-Political parties, made sense 50 years ago, people are all over the place, don\u0026rsquo;t have clear cut boundaries anymore\nCan only vote for the party you disagree the least with\nWhat\u0026rsquo;s right:\nStability\nSociety works\nGlobal politics is also a problem. How can we influence America?\nWhat probably won\u0026rsquo;t work:\n-Complaining\n-Voting indifferently\n-Change inside existing parties\nWhat might work?\n-bottom up\n-participation\n-transparency\n-open at all levels\n-Fun!!!!! (Is the most radical change necessary in politics.)\nA suggestion\nWe are going to found our own party. People that don\u0026rsquo;t agree on the issues, but do agree on the process.\nThe Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki\nGroups of people can be smarter than individuals\nGroups of different kinds of people together can be smarter than experts\nAnybody can be a member\nProgram is going to be a wiki site\nPhysical meetings, organize meetings bottom up and get real life experts to attend\nA process\nAdministration\nWho will be involved with that decision? The people that care about it.\n(Won\u0026rsquo;t you get the same indifference problems that you already have. People just don\u0026rsquo;t care that much.)\n(Idea: figurehead elected officials that are controlled by the crowd behind it)\n(Wikipediazing or WisdomOfCrowdsing politics is an interesting idea, but this guy does not lay forth any kind of vision.)\nThis has not been thought out in that much detail yet but we should be able to solve it.\n","date":"June 1, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-147/","section":"Posts","summary":"Alexander Kjerulf - Let’s Reboot Democracy\n","title":"Alexander Kjerulf - Let's Reboot Democracy","type":"posts"},{"content":"I got a hold of Felix of Plazes here at Reboot and showed him the new incarnation of my Dashboard Widget. The new version performs a different (arguable) more useful function and should suck a bit less.\nIt should also sport some decent artwork instead of the mess it is right now as soon as Cristiano gets around to making some.\nHooking in on that, Felix showed me the upcoming new version of Plazes which indeed looks very cool. New icons and other graphics on the maps, better search, a better API and statistics.\nThe new site has a stat listing the average amount of kilometers you have travelled based on the plazes you log in on. Word has it that Joi Ito travels an average 1500km each day.\n","date":"June 1, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-146/","section":"Posts","summary":"I got a hold of Felix of Plazes here at Reboot and showed him the new incarnation of my Dashboard Widget. The new version performs a different (arguable) more useful function and should suck a bit less.\n","title":"Plazes update","type":"posts"},{"content":"T.L. Taylor - Play\nReboot8\nTalking about MMOGs?\nBreakthrough titles:\nUltima Online\nEverQuest\nWorld of Warcraft\nSocial Life: Contexts and Networks\nStereotype of games being social isolation zones.\nGamse are social spaces. Social is not the icing on the cake. The social is the way that the system becomes playable, pleasurable, manageable.\nSocial is key.\nComplicated mix of off/online connections. People play with real world friends, co-workers etc.\nCommunities around a game bring about an emergent set of practices. It teaches people how to become players. Socialize people into the common practices.\n(Communities of Practice?)\nFormal voluntary organization form: Guilds\n-trust, responsibility, reputation\nThere is a lack of tools for players to manage their communities inside the games.\nWho you know, skills in the game, people you know.\nHas a chat transcript from everquest and has people read those lines aloud.\nPlayers have different relations to different characters. Some have multiple characters.\nComplex relations in the networks. People sharing accounts with each other based on trust.\nCollaboration and teams, people coordinating very complex problems\nHigh level raiding, 40+ people organizing as a team sport\nSocial practices make the game fun\nCo-creative culture\nPlayers add value and content around the games, produce and design stuff\nPlayers change the game in deep ways.\nExtending the boundaries of the game\nWebsites\nFanfiction\n3rd Party Apps\nEbay auctions\nWoW has a modifiable UI\nHigh level raid leaders have radically modified UIs giving them the information they need\nDon\u0026rsquo;t only make game easier but fundamentally change the nature of the game and play\nWho should be the designer of the game?\nPeople sell their avatars on Ebay to get money back. Game companies do not allow that. You do not own your avatar.\nSony owns Everquest. Protest in the game against how their character class works. Meet in Ironforge as a big group of level 1 dwarfs.\nMessage broadcast: Gathering on a realms with intent to hinder gameplay is considered griefing and will not be tolerated. [\u0026hellip;] We appreciate your opininon, but protesting in game is not valid way to give us feedback.\nDesigners have ideas of what users want to do and these sometimes collide with what users really do want to do.\nGame culture highlights bigger cultural conversations, intellectual property, aesthetics of appropriation, mashup. It mirrors some of our bigger conversations.\nBook: \u0026ldquo;Play between worlds: exploring online game culture\u0026rdquo;\nQ: It is hard to rhyme being for property rights in games and against trading.\nWhat are the lessons we can draw from games for the future of how we work and visualizations? If games are technological forerunners.\nA: Division between work and play. People can\u0026rsquo;t make the distinction.\nSecond life is not a game. A virtual being space where you own your stuff.\nQ: Problem of ownership and the fact that your playing on someone else\u0026rsquo;s property. More limitations create diversification?\nWoW has a lot of preloaded content\nSecond Life has a lot less by default\nA: If you have massively multiplayers games owned by corporate stakeholders you get different forms of government.\nQ: Is there an end to the game? What is beyond level 60?\nA: End is defined by the player. If players reach the technical limit, they are still part of communities which they find enjoyable. Players define their endpoints.\nGames are not good at helping people leave. Designers haven\u0026rsquo;t facilitated people leaving the game in a nice way (not being deleted).\nQ: Is there a sign theat these platofrms can become the productive work platforms that replace the current platforms.\nA: Pepole learning management skills in MMORPGs. Managing large groups of people organizing things.\nQ: News fact that someone got a job because he was a guild master.\nQ: The long term effects of all these people playing is going to be huge. It is going to have a big impact on culture.\nQ: Alternate reality games\nA: Game called Majestic. Uses telephone facts, websites. You get messages about the game. Game about conspiracy theories, and hidden knowledge.\nThey put the game on hold because of 9/11.\nQ: Thousands of chinese players employed by american players working for them.\n","date":"June 1, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-145/","section":"Posts","summary":"T.L. Taylor - Play\n","title":"T.L. Taylor - Play","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik kom hier op Reboot8 net André Ribeirinho and Pedro Custódio tegen die allebei zijn afgestudeerd op INESC-ID in Lissabon. Redelijk toeval.\nZe kennen JJ, MJF en AR ook. Vooral de eerste naam zorgt voor een grote hoeveelheid afgrijzen.\nAndré heeft een immens goed idee met Adegga om een soort Flickr te maken voor wijn om mensen in staat te stellen hun wijnvoorkeuren te delen met anderen en die te gebruiken om erover te praten en nieuwe dingen te ontdekken.\nHeel veel wijnliefhebbers houden proeflijstjes bij, briljante inval om deze dingen te socialiseren.\nIk ga overmorgen met ze naar Louisiana.\nIk mis Lissabon wel. Pedro is een conferentie Shift.pt aan het organiseren over dezelfde onderwerpen.\n","date":"June 1, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-634/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik kom hier op Reboot8 net André Ribeirinho and Pedro Custódio tegen die allebei zijn afgestudeerd op INESC-ID in Lissabon. Redelijk toeval.\n","title":"Português","type":"posts"},{"content":"Adam Arvidsson - Sociology ABC\nReboot8\nUnstable bond of sociology\nLanguage\nSimian vs. Human sociality\nSimian sociality is unsntable, monkeys have to continuously reaffirm relations\nHumans have more stability inherent because of technology eg. language\nReligion is also an important technology\nEarly religions:\n-totems, identity, who you are\n-myths, explains how the world works, purpose, why, how\n-rituals\nMake society possible, enduring set of social relations specific to human beings\nTechnology: state, print, government etc.\nNew set of technologies, industrial production, mass consumption, mass literacy, state, bureaucracies, rational organizations\nIl Principe as the first sociological tract?\nSociology as a academic scientific discipline develops in the 1850s\nCommunity, permanent enduring in time, linked to the land\nvs.\nSociety, money, state etc.\nSociety: Social facts, regularities within the mobile mass\nStatistics, application of arithmetic ot the administration of population and territory\nModern society consists of a network of social facts which is called social structure\nParsons: we have values that influence culture (norms, principles, tangible forms of behaviour) which influences personality (internalized version of social structure) which influences the biological structure of action\nAgency\nParsons: people act according to the implementation of the structure\nsocial structures construct actors, can be different social structures\nwhen two actors interact, the outcome is uncertain, the relation is still undetermined\nWhere does social structure end and where does agency start?\nSymbolic interactionism, how people construct social relations in the freedom they have\nhow do people use items from social structure to construct relations\nExperiment: told students to take other people literally\nDisembedding\nRemediation\nUprooting\nTaking apart the natural bonds of community\nSociety marked by social structure, large scale regularities in behaviour maybe institutionalized maybe immaterial\nCritical Theory: continuation of German romantic philosophy\u0026hellip;\n21st century sociology\nStructure is gone, dissolved into flows of money, people, information\nAgency dissolves into intensities\n20th century agent had a coherent personality re: Freud\ndifferent contexts situation yield different personalities\nhome vs. work\nnet vs. real life\nDifferent intensities\nReturn of the social object\nConclusion:\n21st century society begins to look like simian society\nMuch less stable social bonds\nType of sociality now continuously activates us as productive agency, have to keep reproducing the social bond\n","date":"June 1, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-144/","section":"Posts","summary":"Adam Arvidsson - Sociology ABC\n","title":"Adam Arvidsson - Sociology ABC","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik heb nou vandaag de hele dag in Kopenhagen rondgelopen en ik kan er niet onderuit. Het is echt een fantastische stad.\nHet weer is heerlijk, de mensen zijn er ontzettend vriendelijk en er is heel veel te zien en doen.\nIk za zodirect loungen op een boot met de andere Reboot gasten op de preboot event.\n","date":"May 31, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-633/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik heb nou vandaag de hele dag in Kopenhagen rondgelopen en ik kan er niet onderuit. Het is echt een fantastische stad.\n","title":"København","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik vlieg morgenochtend (08:55) naar Kopenhagen. Nu naarnstig aan \u0026rsquo;t inpakken.\nBloggen en bericht zal afhangen van de WiFi-dekking aldaar.\n","date":"May 30, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-632/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik vlieg morgenochtend (08:55) naar Kopenhagen. Nu naarnstig aan ’t inpakken.\n","title":"Gekte","type":"posts"},{"content":"Emil gives Joel\u0026rsquo;s list of stuff you couldn\u0026rsquo;t do so far in web applications and this list is rapidly decreasing. We will probably get very decently usable web applications by the end of this year. Expect to see the arena explode.\nDojo\u0026rsquo;s client side storage is a very impressive feat of cross browser bug slaying. Taking the arrows in the back for you, like they say at the Dojo.\nNext up is a Dojo widget wrapper for the Canvas implementation on IE implemented using VML (CrossBrowserCanvas.js). The Canvas Painter is still a bit buggy in alternative browsers but the main functionality is there.\nDraw hardware accelerated 3D graphics Done: Canvas3D\nDecode MPEG Video in Javascript and draw on Canvas My pet peeve is that audio and video are still not first class citizens of the browser and need badly controllable plugins to make them work. If we could get DOM accessible APIs for this we could implement SMIL (or something better) as a JavaScript library and have a multi-media boom.\n","date":"May 30, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-143/","section":"Posts","summary":"Emil gives Joel’s list of stuff you couldn’t do so far in web applications and this list is rapidly decreasing. We will probably get very decently usable web applications by the end of this year. Expect to see the arena explode.\n","title":"Applications on the Web","type":"posts"},{"content":"Eergisteren X3 gezien in Pathé Schouwburgplein waar trouwens het hele kaartjessysteem eruit lag. Dit leidde tot een redelijke chaos bij de kassa\u0026rsquo;s.\nX3 was een extreem matige film die je als kijker ontevreden achter laat. Op 8Weekly staat uiteengezet wat er allemaal mis mee is.\nIk heb X2 nog niet gezien, dat moet ik maar eens snel doen en ik ben benieuwd naar de Wolverine film.\nHet lijkt me sowieso goed als we deze tijdslijn voor gezien houden. Laat Wolverine lekker graven in zijn verleden, voor de volgende X-Men film lijkt het me cool als we naar de Age of Apocalypse gaan, lekker science-fiction met Cable, Apocalypse en Nimrod.\nEn ik wil verdomme Gambit zien meedoen.\n","date":"May 27, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-631/","section":"Posts","summary":"Eergisteren X3 gezien in Pathé Schouwburgplein waar trouwens het hele kaartjessysteem eruit lag. Dit leidde tot een redelijke chaos bij de kassa’s.\n","title":"X4","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ben van Ben \u0026amp; Jerry\u0026rsquo;s doet mee met True Majority om de Amerikaanse federale begroting uit te leggen met behulp van oreos.\nDit is nog beter dan de Death and Taxes infographic van een tijdje geleden.\n","date":"May 24, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-630/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ben van Ben \u0026 Jerry’s doet mee met True Majority om de Amerikaanse federale begroting uit te leggen met behulp van oreos.\n","title":"10 Billion Dollar Oreos","type":"posts"},{"content":"Vernauwing van de gedachtenruimte in China.\nEen Chinese krant kunnen lezen na het leren van 900 karakters spreekt me wel aan. Chinesen zullen wel niet beter weten, maar ik word er niet blij bij het idee van taalreductie in ruil voor efficientie.\nChinese gemeenschappen overzee worden erdoor beïnvloed staat er, maar ik vraag me af of dit totalitaire cultureel compleet arme China ooit een cultureel exportproduct gaat voortbrengen.\n","date":"May 24, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-629/","section":"Posts","summary":"Vernauwing van de gedachtenruimte in China.\n","title":"Newspeak","type":"posts"},{"content":"Revision 0.4 of Firebug was just released and this revision also sports an impressive number of added features mostly focused on JavaScript debugging right within the Firebug console.\nIt just keeps on getting better and better and now the only question is what\u0026rsquo;s in stall for the next release and how awesome is this going to be when it hits the 1.0 mark.\nMust have.\n","date":"May 24, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-142/","section":"Posts","summary":"Revision 0.4 of Firebug was just released and this revision also sports an impressive number of added features mostly focused on JavaScript debugging right within the Firebug console.\n","title":"Firebug!","type":"posts"},{"content":"I have been trying to run a mediawiki based wiki on my main site for a while now (alper.nl/wiki) and the general results have been pretty awesome.\nThe wiki is currently down which is not too bad because activities on my part had taken a lull anyway. I\u0026rsquo;m too busy graduating right now.\nThe problem lately was that my edits have been greatly outnumbered by edits committed by spammers. Reverting 10-20 pages every week and blocking a handful of users gets old real fast.\nThe same is happening right now to the Reboot wiki. It is a great place for the participants of Reboot8 to gather and collaborate but at the moment most anyone can do is revert the spammed pages.\nThere does not seem to be a standard out of the box solution to prevent spam on a wiki. I have looked and tried some tentative solutions. I think blacklisting is too much of a hassle as to provide an answer.\nMaking edits restricted to registered users does not help, because spammers are perfectly capable of registering. Moderation of new users by admins would be a leap in preventing spam.\nUntil spam prevention techniques such as the one described above are implemented in a default mediawiki install and work without much hassle, running a wiki on a public server is a downhill battle against spammers.\nGettings some attention to this would help. Dig it.\n","date":"May 24, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-141/","section":"Posts","summary":"I have been trying to run a mediawiki based wiki on my main site for a while now (alper.nl/wiki) and the general results have been pretty awesome.\n","title":"Wikispam","type":"posts"},{"content":"Tien geboden met Ramsey Nasr [via].\n","date":"May 23, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-628/","section":"Posts","summary":"Tien geboden met Ramsey Nasr [via].\n","title":"Ik kan overal en nergens aarden","type":"posts"},{"content":"Vandaag een aflevering van Buitenhof met een discussie over de toekomst van Europa.\nIn die discussie snap ik de volgende drogredenering niet:\nIn de Europese Grondwet staan naast heel veel troep ook goede dingen die Europe effectiever en efficienter zouden kunnen doen werken. De bevolking heeft tegen de Europese Grondwet gestemd. Dus kunnen we die maatregelen die Europa effectiever en efficienter zouden kunnen doen werken ook niet meer doorvoeren. (Maar een euro kon er wel zomaar doorheen gedrukt worden en daar was geen algemene volksraadpleging voor nodig.)\nVerder ook nog een ijzersterke column van Désanne van Brederode in deze aflevering (ergens na minuut 32).\nDorien Pessers is vervolgens ook vlijmscherp in haar analyse van Verdonk. Een analyse die op Fok uit zijn verband is gerukt.\n","date":"May 21, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-627/","section":"Posts","summary":"Vandaag een aflevering van Buitenhof met een discussie over de toekomst van Europa.\n","title":"Goede Buitenhof","type":"posts"},{"content":"I just threw away 2 Gigabytes worth of podcasts waiting to be listened to. Who knew podcasts were such a storage hog. This batch can wait some more. I also unsubscribed from five or six podcasts.\nI have pretty much had it with podcasts and won\u0026rsquo;t bother with them unless the content or the speaker are really really good. I\u0026rsquo;m talking Malcolm Gladwell- or Bruce Sterling-good.\nI don\u0026rsquo;t have the time (who has?) to drudge through hours and hours of keynotes of mindless executives or startup drones going on and on about how their product is going to revolutionize the industry.\nMake your argument in a one page writeup and blog it. If it is interesting I\u0026rsquo;ll pick it up and scan it in due course.\n","date":"May 21, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-140/","section":"Posts","summary":"I just threw away 2 Gigabytes worth of podcasts waiting to be listened to. Who knew podcasts were such a storage hog. This batch can wait some more. I also unsubscribed from five or six podcasts.\n","title":"Podstrain","type":"posts"},{"content":"In Radio Online een item over Het Nieuwe Stemmen. Een initiatief dat op een grappige manier de lijsttrekkersverkiezing binnen de VVD probeert te persifleren maar zelf veel serieuzere pretenties heeft.\nHet begint met een dikke fout en het wordt er daarna niet veel beter op. Peter de Bie en Franscisco van Jole zijn presentatoren en Arend Zwaneveld vertegenwoordigt de stichting.\nPdB: Hoezo dit initiatief?\nAZ: Dit is eigenlijk omdat ik en een paar goede vrienden al een tijdje lang politieke interesse hebben waar wij zagen dat de VVD-leden in dit geval van de eerste lijsttrekkersverkiezingen gewoon qua opbouw niet repesentatief zijn voor de Nederlandse bevolking en we waren eigenlijk erg benieuwd om te zien of we zelf het land in konden gaan om te zien of daar hele andere dingen uit komen.\nFvJ: Het hele idee van de VVD is toch dat ze niet representatief zijn voor de bevolking?\nAZ: Nou ja. Wij konden niet rijmen dat je 40'000 VVD-leden hebt en toch richting de 2 miljoen VVD-stemmers.\nPdB: En dan vond je van die moeten mee kunnen doen en dat is belangrijk want ik bedoel ook als buitenstaander moet je de mogelijkheid hebben om dan die lijsttrekker van die partij te kiezen.\nAZ: In Amerika is dit al de gewoonste zaak van de wereld.\nPdB: Daar hoef je geen partijlid te zijn, he?\nAZ: Nee. Precies! En dat kost toch ruim 80 euro per jaar in Nederland dus dat is toch een drempel voor mensen.\nFvJ: En jullie zijn geïnspireerd door de situatie in de VS. [Gaat vervolgens door met een verhaal over Howard Dean wat totaal niet aankomt bij AZ.]\nDit is onzin.\nSinds wanneer is Amerika een voorbeeld van een goed functionerende democratie of een populair voorbeeld?\nDaarnaast lijkt het erop dat niemand in die studio een flauw benul heeft van hoe Primaries in Amerika werken.\nIn Amerika worden kandidaten van beide partijen genomineerd door Nationale Conventies waar gedelegeerden de kandidaten aanwijzen. Deze gedelegeerden worden gekozen in voorverkiezingen of caucuses. In allebei die apparaten is in de meeste staten het recht op inspraak beperkt tot mensen die geregistreerd lid zijn van de partij waar ze voor willen stemmen.\nDit heeft als voornaamste doel om te voorkomen dat buitenstaanders een zwakkere kandidaat naar boven kunnen stemmen om de partij te verzwakken. Niet een compleet ondenkbaar idee in de strijd Rutte vs. Verdonk.\nBronnen:\nU.S. presidential primary#Types Closed primary How do caucuses work? Verder willen ze dit systeem verder schalen en vaker gaan gebruiken. Ze denken dat ze met een simpele DigiD koppeling dit systeem zouden kunnen inzetten voor complete landelijke verkiezingen. Mensen die er zo slecht over nagedacht hebben lijken me niet de aangewezen personen om de toekomst van onze democratie toe te vertrouwen.\nTenzij we natuurlijk willen dat de democratie in Nederland nog verder verwordt tot een Idols-achtige populariteitswedstrijd.\nHuiswerk: Lees alles wat Bruce Schneier in de afgelopen jaren heeft geschreven over elektronisch stemmen (zoekwoord ‘voting’ op de Cryptogram site) en aanverwante zaken en laat daarna zien dat je de materie hebt gesnapt en kunt toepassen.\nLuister het interview zelf maar als je durft. Deze mensen krijgen subsidie van de overheid en ze hebben geen idee waar ze het over hebben.\n","date":"May 21, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-626/","section":"Posts","summary":"In Radio Online een item over Het Nieuwe Stemmen. Een initiatief dat op een grappige manier de lijsttrekkersverkiezing binnen de VVD probeert te persifleren maar zelf veel serieuzere pretenties heeft.\n","title":"Verwarring in Voorverkiezingen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Hartverscheurend verhaal bij Kirsten over arme en zielige Chinese kinderen.\nIk snap haar wel en ik voel ook sympathie maar ik snap iets niet.\nWij worden hier steeds bang gemaakt met het verhaal dat de Chinezen komen en dat China zo\u0026rsquo;n economische grootmacht is. Een economische grootmacht dus die het niet voor elkaar krijgt om voor zijn eigen allerzwaksten te zorgen.\nVan dat soort macht kan ik niet erg onder de indruk raken.\nDie collecte van geld voor die kinderen is natuurlijk sympathiek maar als je bekijkt hoe groot China is, dan kunnen we wel bezig blijven. China kan het best zelf —ze hebben geld zat— maar ze kiezen ervoor om hun problemen te negeren. Meewerken aan die immorele strategie zie ik niet zitten.\nEr moet een structurelere aanpak uit China zelf komen. In dit ene geval geld geven lijkt me niet een hele constructieve oplossing. Dat lijkt me alleen maar China helpen to both have their cake and eat it.\nIk krijg meer en meer het idee dat China een door en door rot land is waar grenzeloos kapitalisme en egoïsme bovenop Mao\u0026rsquo;s graf worden gebouwd. De VS zijn op dit moment de geslagen hond wat betreft mensenrechten (Gitmo) en buitenlands beleid (olie), maar China is op allebei die terreinen nog veel slechter bezig.\n","date":"May 21, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-625/","section":"Posts","summary":"Hartverscheurend verhaal bij Kirsten over arme en zielige Chinese kinderen.\n","title":"China","type":"posts"},{"content":"An interesting article in the New York Times about the increasing popularity of Media Immersion Pods.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s probably typically Japanese but Japan is usually a precursor of trends we are going to see in the near future. People in other parts of the world may have different ways to unwind, but for an increasing number of people ‘escape’ online is becoming more and more common.\n","date":"May 20, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-139/","section":"Posts","summary":"An interesting article in the New York Times about the increasing popularity of Media Immersion Pods.\n","title":"Media Immersion","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ok, after three days of session after session, bad WiFi following bad WiFi, XTECH has finally come to an end. My general thoughts are positive but with some reservations.\nI enjoyed some of the presentations\u0026rsquo; topics but mostly I was interested enough in those topics that the presentation did not have much added value anymore. Most of the presentations were bird\u0026rsquo;s eye views of the topic.\nI also saw a couple of presentations that were really too boring to sit through. The presentation quality in this field seems to be quite widely distributed.\nOne thing I couldn\u0026rsquo;t help noticing was that any time a presentation would be about the semantic web1, the average age in the room would rise with at least 10 years. I don\u0026rsquo;t know if these people haven\u0026rsquo;t figured out that if nobody is using their technology after a couple of decades, than maybe it might not be that big an hit.\nLet\u0026rsquo;s get out of the semantic web and into quick and dirty semantics.\nIt was very interesting and cool to see and talk to people whose writings I am already very familiar with. Seeing the real faces behind the blogs and the passion for the topics is inspiring.\nPresentations concerning the semantic web can be easily recognized because they have the acronym RDF somewhere in the description.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"May 20, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-138/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ok, after three days of session after session, bad WiFi following bad WiFi, XTECH has finally come to an end. My general thoughts are positive but with some reservations.\n","title":"XTECH Closing Thoughts","type":"posts"},{"content":"I got a mail this week that I had won a FON router.\nThey had a contest some time ago that you could win a router if you sent in a picture of the view from your front window. I sent one in, and now they\u0026rsquo;re going to send me a router.\nSo Oliver, you can have yours back (I had borrowed his to test some stuff). I think I\u0026rsquo;ll be flashing it to Advanced immediately and spend some more time trying to configure it at home.\n","date":"May 20, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-137/","section":"Posts","summary":"I got a mail this week that I had won a FON router.\n","title":"Oh happy day!","type":"posts"},{"content":"Not much happening on this blog. I might have to reconsider its future.\nOn the study front, last week I handed in my Literature Report after a long period of drudging through bad writing of others to create similar writing of my own.\nIt feels good having unloaded that burden and being able to focus on stuff I think is really important.\nLast week Amanda and myself also had a meeting with my thesis supervisor Charles van der Mast. The meeting was pleasurable enough.\n","date":"May 19, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-studies-409/","section":"Posts","summary":"Not much happening on this blog. I might have to reconsider its future.\n","title":"Literature Report","type":"posts"},{"content":"Yesterday I saw the talk Treating Digital Broadcast as just another API and other such ruminations (Suw Charman transcript) by Tom Loosemore from the BBC here on XTECH. He showed us some interesting trends and advances in digital broadcasting but he also shattered my perception that the BBC is very ahead in these matters.\nBroadcasting I used to think the Dutch Broadcasting Corporation (we call it de Omroep but in English DBC seems easier) was lagging behind the BBC\u0026rsquo;s new media efforts but it seems that it had already got something over them with the old Uitzendinggemist.nl (literally: “Missed a show”) site. Then yesterday they released the vastly improved new version of Uitzendinggemist.nl.\nOnline DVR DBC has had Uitzendinggemist.nl for years now. It\u0026rsquo;s a repository where television shows produced by Dutch broadcasting are recoded (to Real and Windows Media) and stored after broadcast. People can watch them streaming from the server if they\u0026rsquo;ve ‘missed a show’. There are two quality levels, the higher of which is completely acceptable to watch on a television-like display. You\u0026rsquo;re not meant to store stuff locally, but you can manage if you try hard enough.\nWhat\u0026rsquo;s so great about this service?\nI haven\u0026rsquo;t owned a television for two years now and have been getting by completely by the DBC provided DVR service. DBC are serving about 20TB of archive video material from their website and it is widely popular with people. The news alone was requested almost 4 million times in 2005. A lot of people (myself included) don\u0026rsquo;t feel the need for a PVR anymore.\nI don\u0026rsquo;t have a lot of time to watch television anyway and I mostly watch News and Commentary stuff which I can track perfectly using Uitzendinggemist.nl even on a Mac. The only things I\u0026rsquo;m missing out on are commercials, video clips and live events.\nDigital Rights The BBC has similar initiatives but most of these are tied hand and foot by the various rights and regulations limiting the distribution. Most of their content is not wholly owned by them and they have to use Windows Media DRM on it (bad for Mac users). Most of the stuff they have, they can\u0026rsquo;t distribute outside of the UK in any case.\nDBC content from Uitzendinggemist.nl is available world wide, so Dutch speaking expats can follow Dutch news but als watch the newest drama productions and anything produced by the DBC actually.\nThe New Site That was just the old stuff, yesterday the new site went live and it rocks. Changes:\nThe new site is going to drop support for Real Media in the near future. This is partly due to the greatly reduced popularity of the media format. They will then add MPEG4 coding to enable VODcast distribution of the programs.\nIt incorporates basic social features such as ratings and number of views for a show and recommendations based on those statistics: What\u0026rsquo;s popular!, What are people watching now? and What shows am I going to miss tomorrow?. The next logical step is to incorporate social networks into this and recommend shows to me based on what my friends are watching. More features seem to be coming soon. Soon they will enable queueing of programs so you can compose your own personalized tv night.\nDigital television providers are looking to incorporate the DBC programming into their services and players. That way their customers can watch the full catalogue of DBC on their televisions using a remote.\nAPIs What the BBC does do a lot better than the DBC for now, is the APIs and metadata initiatives they have released. At DBC you have to navigate your way through a crowded web site missing a lot of uniformity and searchability and a lot of the URLs to the media files are (intenionally) mangled or hidden.\nBuilding a customized interface or any other kind of innovative mashup is only possable by screen srcaping the site (and that\u0026rsquo;s not easy).\nDBC could use an openness injection from the BBC very badly.\nBandwidth To reduce the costs in bandwidth, DBC wants to host the most popular media files at the providers themselves.\nDBC has also funded research of Tribler at Delft, University of Technology. Tribler is a social Peer to Peer program both to offload part of the bandwidth they are spending serving all the media files and to help people use social information to discover video that they will find interesting.\nDutch sources:\nFok.nl Bright Webwereld Webwereld Marketingfacts Emerce ","date":"May 18, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-136/","section":"Posts","summary":"Yesterday I saw the talk Treating Digital Broadcast as just another API and other such ruminations (Suw Charman transcript) by Tom Loosemore from the BBC here on XTECH. He showed us some interesting trends and advances in digital broadcasting but he also shattered my perception that the BBC is very ahead in these matters.\n","title":"Auntie's Island","type":"posts"},{"content":"WiFi connectivity at the XTECH conference here in Krasnapolsky is very poor. They have bought a conference wide login for everyone on the commercial network already in place and it is not cutting it.\nThese commercial networks cost a lot of money and you would expect it to have an accompanying high amount of bandwidth and availability. Apparently this is not the case if a couple of hundred laptop-toting people get together.\nGetting online is a challenge and if you do manage to the bandwidth available is meager.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s not that big a problem for us conference-goers that we can\u0026rsquo;t check our e-mail and stuff but it\u0026rsquo;s more of a hassle for speakers who can\u0026rsquo;t do their demoes live while speaking.\n","date":"May 18, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-135/","section":"Posts","summary":"WiFi connectivity at the XTECH conference here in Krasnapolsky is very poor. They have bought a conference wide login for everyone on the commercial network already in place and it is not cutting it.\n","title":"Bad WiFi Bad Bad","type":"posts"},{"content":"I was thinking along the line of calendars and events and such, among others after the talk of Frank Mantek about the Google Data API on XTECH and I had the idea:\nWhy don\u0026rsquo;t we save and share historical data using Google Calendar and the GData API?\nYou could create a Google Calendar called ‘History’ and just put in historical events in it. Calendars can also be shared, so other people could subscribe to your history and get your historical event stream. Or you could make specific Calendar for a part of history, say Dutch history or history of the VOC.\nSnag So I ran into a snag when I tried to enter the discovery of America (October 12, 1492) in my calendar. Google Calendar does not accept year values smaller than 1901.\nI have no idea why. GregorianCalendar (which most Java applications use for their date handling) is proleptic, which means it should be good for any year you can think of.\nWorkaround The alternative is to get your historical data and input it into the current year. Wikipedia\u0026rsquo;s date pages seem to be a good candidate for this eg. the page for October 12th lists all events, holidays, births and deaths on that day.\nThose pages can be crawled and inserted wholesale into my Google Calendar using its API. For each item you could create one event in the year 2006 and set it to repeat yearly.\nVoilà, complete historical birthday calendars for your iCal inclusion (as soon as I get around to writing the script).\nThat\u0026rsquo;s a lot of event data. How are we going to browse that? I think we need different ways of representing calendars than we are doing right now. I\u0026rsquo;ll blog some more about one such way (probably) later this week.\n","date":"May 18, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-134/","section":"Posts","summary":"I was thinking along the line of calendars and events and such, among others after the talk of Frank Mantek about the Google Data API on XTECH and I had the idea:\n","title":"Google Calendar History Buffing","type":"posts"},{"content":"XTECH\nMost things we now have words for have existed for ages (blogs, microformats etc.). These words give us a way of talking about them.\nWebapps being produced by declarative markup\nWe have got lots more power to use right now. Why don\u0026rsquo;t we use it?\nHigh level programming languages\nInterpreted programming languages\nDeclarative approach\nApplications over the web guarantee the latest version\nDifferent devices\nDifferent users (disabled etc.)\nSoftware is difficult to write, lesscode.org\nMost people don\u0026rsquo;t write softwaer, they do write spreadsheets because Excel® just works.\nDeclarative code leads to less code, less fidgeting with details, housekeeping and such\nSidewinder rich web browser\nCombination of XHTML, XForms, SVG and XBL\nSVG is a stylesheet for XForms bound using XBL\nAlso did a recode of Google Maps in XForms which was a lot smaller.\nXerox uses XForms on their new copiers and it takes them a lot less time.\nAccessible applications - clean MVC separation can bind accessible interfaces\nDevice independent applications - same\nRe-use - segmenst are not hard wired to each other\nLesscode -\n","date":"May 17, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-133/","section":"Posts","summary":"XTECH\n","title":"Steven Pemberton - The power of declarative thinking","type":"posts"},{"content":"XTECH\nex Microsoft\ncurrently working for Google\ncomputers make things simpler so you can do stuff you like\nGoogle has lots of APIs widely different\n(WSDL?)\nUse case:\nsimple data protocol\nquery!\nupdate data\nneed RESTific design\neasy to understand format, easy to consume (easy to produce?)\ndata format -\u0026gt; Syndication Atom 1.0 (let\u0026rsquo;s forget about RSS ~Alper)\nURL -\u0026gt; Atom feed of calendar data\nnamespaced extensions for semantic entitiies beyond the scope of Atom?RSS\ngoogle extensions have own namespace with types and kinds\nsemantical grouping of types\ntypes can appear anywhere\ndo not have own semantic meanings\nkinds\nContacts\nEvents\nMessages\nEntry with category of Event implies several types are either compulsory or optional\ncategory URL query model\nhttp://test.com/-/xtech/talks/2006?q=bla\nparameter query model\nq=\nauthor=\nupdated-min=\nupdated-max=\ngives you the entity\nUpdates based on APP (still in development)\nOptimistic Concurrency\nNew entry: POST to sevice.post URI\nDELETE to entries edit URI\nPUT to entries edit URI\n(hack to pass strange methods past firewalls)\n1 property supporting GData more will follow\nActive community at code.google.com\nLibraries available for Java + C#\nShows C# code for reading and adding data to a Google calendar. Looks very clean but would prefer a JS implementation.\nShows OS X Dashboard Widget Google Calendar widget written in JS.\nUses programmatic Login, username, password returns token\nWebservice authentication enables mashups\nFirst step.\nQuestions: Javascript support? does that use sane JSON conversion?\nQuestoins: What does the C# update API do in case of conflict? Raise exception?\nQuestion: Does Google Calendar use the API to get its data?\nNo, Calendar was made before API was thought of. Might switch later.\nQuestion: Can we just forget about RSS?\n","date":"May 17, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-132/","section":"Posts","summary":"XTECH\n","title":"Frank Mantek - Google Data API","type":"posts"},{"content":"XTECH\nMr. Baird (invented tv)\nMr. Moore (moore\u0026rsquo;s law)\nMr. Berners Lee (web)\nLong Tails\nWisdow of Crowds\nmore bandwidth\ndigital television, more choice\nFreeview (30 digital tv channels, some audio) as an API?\nRich\nOpen\nWell structured\nScalable\nVery High Availability\nAccessible\nProven\nLicense?\nDocumented (closed standard)?\nDisk storage is also increasing exponentially\n1TB stores 4 channels for a week\ntelevision is a very inefficient means of distributing information\nyou miss a lot of the things you would like to watch\nSuppose you could record EVERYTHING (Time Machine)\nWhen you have so much choice existing TV interfaces do not cut it\nNeed better metadata\nPeople like to browse by actors \u0026lsquo;stuff with X in it\u0026rsquo;\nRecode to MPEG4 -\u0026gt; 1TB stores a channel for 3 months\nmade an internal site for BBC use of all programs with a web based frontend\nchannel information is worth saving because it has a brand associated with it\nsocial scheduling proved to be very popular\nYahoo! term extractor to generate tags for entries\nclosed beta, would have been too popular for general use\n(So people want this kind of stuff. What are we going to do to give it to them? ~Alper\nWhy is it illegal for people to pool their resources?)\nBroadcasters would want to incorporate metadata to enable people to find their programs. You want people to come to your program.\n","date":"May 17, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-131/","section":"Posts","summary":"XTECH\n","title":"Tom Loosemore - Treating Digital Broadcast as just another API and other such ruminations","type":"posts"},{"content":"XTECH\nWeb caching\nHTTP services\nTOPdesk Enterprise cache-ing mogelijkheden\nglobal audience\nflexible scaling\najax = more requests\nmore interactive\nmore dynamic\nASP = high reliability\nWeb 2.0 is more demanding than servers.\nThree Tier architecture, LAMP PAID\ncustom code on the server\nscaling means adding more servers, expensive\nadding them on different locations to reduce latency\nLAMP\nP = slow 50-250 req/s\nM = complex\nA = 2-3000 req/s\nL = ok\nstatic content can be served much faster (duh)\nit\u0026rsquo;s easier to deploy a commodity box without application specific code\nthere are more clients than servers and they are idle most of the time\nthink outside of the box\nhighly scalable web servers\nexisting caching infrastructure\najax magic on the client\ncaches in the network\nTake processing offline and remove the bottleneck from the server.\nC100k Apache is slow\nApache was not made for speed\nSerious web servers use event loops\nhttp://www.kegel.com/c10k.html\nlighthttpd.net\n30000 req/s\n(But applications need to change to enable this. Base things on Twisted, adjust Servlet spec? ~Alper)\nLeveraging the caching infrastructure\nFreshness\n\u0026lsquo;Expires\u0026rsquo;\n\u0026lsquo;Cache-Control: max age\u0026rsquo;\nQoS for caching\nValidation\n\u0026lsquo;Last-Modified\u0026rsquo;, \u0026lsquo;If-Modified-Since\u0026rsquo;\nETag, \u0026lsquo;If-None-Match\u0026rsquo;\nInvalidation by Side effect\nPOSTing to a page should invalidate its cache\nInvalidation not supported by most browsers (\u0026lsquo;cept Safari)\nWork-around: invalidate.js, rewrites URIs based on HTTP methods, stores state in cookies\nCache Targeting\nCache-Control: Private\n(We can win a lot by caching just have to enable it by design. Nice URLs, use HTTP properly. Logging of profile information to be able to track down bottlenecks when they do occur. ~Alper)\nBrowsers misbehave pretty much\nBasic validation + freshness supported well\nPrivate caches work\nhttp://mnot.net/blog\nDevelopers use no-cache because they are scared of the cache.\nForwards compatible AJAX\nDynamic content can be cached (YES!, API\u0026rsquo;s RSS etc.)\nHTML Includes can make pages composable of different parts on the client and use appropriate cache levels for each part\nhinclude.js\ncan specify default fallback content\nPersonalisation does not require server code\ndifferent modules are client based\nDowngraded clients still need to be handled\nOpen Sourcec intermediary caches aren\u0026rsquo;t as fast/functional as they could be\nWhat else?\nneed to use this for services as well\nMore testing of behaviour\nDistributing authentication\nOffline operation\n","date":"May 17, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-130/","section":"Posts","summary":"XTECH\n","title":"Mark Nottingham - Web 2.0 On Speed","type":"posts"},{"content":"XTECH\neditor of the SQL standard\nXQUERY - language for querying trees of XDM nodes\nSQL/XML crosses boundaries between XML and SQL\nRDF\nRDF in a table a column for every triple\nRDF has class membership\nRDF is a graph (graphs do not sit well in tables)\nOWL is a particular vocabulary of RDF\nrelations\ncardinality\nequality\nRDF vs. Relational Model\nXDM = XPath and XQuery Data Model\nRDF vs. XDM\nXDM\ntree structured RDF trees are more general than XDM trees\nRDF relations inherent\nRDF triples are tiny pieces of data\nSPARQL : Protocal and RDF Query Language\nmatches graph patterns\nsql-like syntaxis\nSQL Great for finding data from tabular representations.\nXQUERY Great for finding data in tree representations, can get complex when many relations have to be traversed\nSPARQL Good pattern matching paradigm, especially when relationships are the poitn of the query\nSPARQL can be translated to SQL\nRDF in relational tables?\n","date":"May 17, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-129/","section":"Posts","summary":"XTECH\n","title":"Jim Melton - SQL, XQUERY and SPARQL","type":"posts"},{"content":"Here at XTECH I see lots of other people taking notes (probably very similar to mine). Why aren\u0026rsquo;t any of these people using SubEthaEdit? Let\u0026rsquo;s work together and not waste effort.\n","date":"May 17, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-128/","section":"Posts","summary":"Here at XTECH I see lots of other people taking notes (probably very similar to mine). Why aren’t any of these people using SubEthaEdit? Let’s work together and not waste effort.\n","title":"Subethaedit","type":"posts"},{"content":"XTECH\nyahoo is opening up services to 3rd party innovation, participation platform\nroadmap\nopenness is benefit to the business, accellerates\nvalue in creating ecosystems for users and developers\nopen all of Yahoo up as much as possible\nFeb 2005 first API : Search\nRSS\nJun 2005 simple maps API\nAug shopping API\nNov Ajax + Flash maps\nJan 2006\nopen source JS pattern library\ncompatibility matrix for browsers\ndo acquisitions of services with APIs\ndoes some maps demoes\nRollyo, list of domains to search in\ndoes some flickr demoes\nnothing very enlightening\ncommercial access?\nis currently hugely inefficient and inconsistent, want to make it clearer and get more consistency\nwant to expand beyond read-only webservices (Gdata?)\n","date":"May 17, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-126/","section":"Posts","summary":"XTECH\n","title":"Jeffrey McManus - Building a participation platform at Yahoo!","type":"posts"},{"content":"Paul Graham - Is it possible to create a Sillicon Valley outside of the US?\nXTECH\nsilicon valley needs the rgiht kind of people\nneeed rich people and nerds\ngovernment would ont work as invseter\nstart up investers have their money in it\nit\u0026rsquo;s the peopole not the buildings? (against technology parks)\nstartups don\u0026rsquo;t need buildings\nnerds flock together -\u0026gt; universities\ngreat CS departments\nbootstrap by hiring great people and then letting them attract the rest (innovatieplatform)\nrich people and investers want to live there\nstudents want to stay after they graduate (!Delft)\n(he\u0026rsquo;s just reading aloud one of his essays)\ntown with personality? not prefab\ntown with nerd personality, people walk around smiling (!Delft)\nvery negative about NY, Vegas etc. takes the nerd PoV\ngo to Blue counties\ntowns with active centers (no subursb)\nBoulder + Portland\nabroad?\n10 Deciding Factors\nallow immigration, SV is about immigration not in poor countries (india could rise out of it) US is not yet a police state, police state also not conducive hacking == dissent decent CS universities german and dutch try to assure all universities are equal in quality professors need good colleagues \u0026lsquo;controversial bit\u0026rsquo; about the lack of jews in Germany you can fire people, rigid labour laws football clubs can hire and fire people at will, nice precedent work is less identified with employment startups will break laws of business, startups don\u0026rsquo;t have time to adhere to all laws america has huge domestic market (!Netherlands) EU was supposed to be a domestic market different languages, but soon everybody will probalby be going to speak English america has venture capital startups beget startups but a slow cycle private universities have VC funds dynamic typing for careers people can change more naturally lousy public schools make you wait for college before choosing duplicate SV but better failings?\ntoo far from SF\nconstrain the amount of land available, no sprawl\npublic transportation, consider cars last\nlower capital gains taxes\nsmarter immigration policy, make a technology hub that lets in smart people (!Netherlands)\nmake great universities\n","date":"May 17, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-125/","section":"Posts","summary":"Paul Graham - Is it possible to create a Sillicon Valley outside of the US?\n","title":"Paul Graham - Is it possible to create a Sillicon Valley outside of the US?","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik ben van het weekend in Donner geweest en dat betekent boeken.\nDeens Ik had hem nog nodig voor mijn reis naar Reboot8 en nu ik er toch was, heb ik maar meteen de Rough Guide Kopenhagen gekocht. De inhoud ziet er goed en handig uit. Ik heb een paar zinnen gelezen over het openbaar vervoer in Denemarken en ik ben er nu al van onder de indruk.\nPortugees Mijn zwakke Portugees begon me ondertussen op capoeira een beetje te irriteren. In Donner heb ik voor twee tientjes het boek Colloquial Portuguese op de kop getikt. Een beetje gedateerd maar alle grammatica staat er in en het tempo is goed te noemen.\nIk ben nu bij bladzijde 70 en het meeste komt vrij makkelijk weer terug. Het is fijn om een keer alle werkwoordsvormen op een rijtje te hebben. Lastig wordt wel de termen die in het Spaans heel erg op dingen in het Portugees uit elkaar te houden.\nRussisch Ik had vorige week ook van Robbert Jan (gefeliciteerd met zijn bul!) zijn boek Het nieuwe Russisch zonder moeite geleend met het idee om een beetje Russisch te leren. Ik heb nu een beetje door hoe het alfabet werkt en hoe de taal in elkaar zit en ik moet zeggen het valt me alleszins mee. Het is een beetje een rare mengvorm van Grieks, Latijn en Frans, maar moeilijk… nee.\nIk ben alleen wel bang dat Russisch even achter Portugees geschoven gaat worden.\n","date":"May 15, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-624/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik ben van het weekend in Donner geweest en dat betekent boeken.\n","title":"Talen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Als twee bekende webloggers schrijven over hun perikelen met Radio 1 dan kan ik niet achterblijven. Ik heb ook het probleem dat als ik \u0026rsquo;s avonds Met het Oog op Morgen wil kijken, de ontvangst bar slecht is en flink ruist.\nDaarom laat ik het vaak maar voor wat het is en kijk ik een aflevering van The Colbert Report of The Daily Show. Dat is ook leuk, maar het ontspant niet genoeg voor het slapen gaan.\nHoe blij was ik, toen Francisco van Jole berichtte over hetzelfde probleem op zijn weblog. Zo blij dat ik hem een mailtje stuurde met mijn instemming en een suggestie hoe dingen beter kunnen.\nHier middenin Delft is de ontvangst meestal ook ellendig. Het heeft ook iets met het weer te maken volgens mij. Nu in de zomer is het wat beter.\nIk zou niet zoveel problemen hebben met de slechte ontvangst als de webstream het deed. Wat boeit radio als je een iBook hebt, toch? Maar ik krijg de stream die op de site staat totaal niet aan de praat op een Mac.\nMisschien weet jij of één van je lezers hier wat op. En jij zendt uit op Radio1. Kun je niet iemand daar hierover aanspreken?\nAls reactie op FvJ komt Corrie (collega van FvJ) met een vergelijkbare post over Radio 1.\nEn nu dus ik ook met een bericht op mijn weblog aangezien ik tot nu toe geen antwoord heb gekregen op mijn mailtje van hierboven. Ik zou eerder geneigd zijn om in te tunen op een webstream dan om mijn radio aan te zetten maar dat kan niet. Op de site van Radio 1 staat een grote knop met: “Luister Radio1 Live” maar op een Mac is daar geen leven in te krijgen.\nFrancisco en Corrie werken allebei bij Radio 1 en maken daar godbetert een programma over internet. Je vraagt je af of zij niet zouden kunnen zorgen voor een webstream die werkt en niet ruist.\n","date":"May 12, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-623/","section":"Posts","summary":"Als twee bekende webloggers schrijven over hun perikelen met Radio 1 dan kan ik niet achterblijven. Ik heb ook het probleem dat als ik ’s avonds Met het Oog op Morgen wil kijken, de ontvangst bar slecht is en flink ruist.\n","title":"Radio 1","type":"posts"},{"content":"Hirsi Ali heeft veel dingen verzonnen. Is dat erg?\nRebbe Hiram tells it like it is:\nImmigratiebeperkingen zijn voor mietjes […]\n","date":"May 12, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-622/","section":"Posts","summary":"Hirsi Ali heeft veel dingen verzonnen. Is dat erg?\n","title":"Koosjer","type":"posts"},{"content":"Very cool ideas for some nice technology (Wired: MIT Fashion Design Takes Cue From Virus) and the thing they did for a prototype is a great illustration. Now if only they could get the per unit price down (Zauruses don\u0026rsquo;t come cheap).\nImagine if your clothes changed color on your mood, or on who\u0026rsquo;s in your proximity or based on anything really. You could indicate your concentrated or Away. Very fun but probably only for the ultra-geek until some designer makes it fashionable and usable at the same time.\n","date":"May 12, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-124/","section":"Posts","summary":"Very cool ideas for some nice technology (Wired: MIT Fashion Design Takes Cue From Virus) and the thing they did for a prototype is a great illustration. Now if only they could get the per unit price down (Zauruses don’t come cheap).\n","title":"Online Fashion","type":"posts"},{"content":"Als elke GSM een camera heeft (Parool), leven we in een:\nPolitiestaat Open Samenleving Keuze en commentaar in de reacties.\n","date":"May 12, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-621/","section":"Posts","summary":"Als elke GSM een camera heeft (Parool), leven we in een:\n","title":"Ik heb niets te verbergen","type":"posts"},{"content":"“Creative Commons licentie versimpelt auteursrecht op internet” kopt een artikel van het NRC waar ik op kom via Livre.\nIk vind het erg goed allemaal maar ik wil toch een beetje muggenziften als ik mag.\nSimpeler Wat Creative Commons niet doet is het auteursrecht simpleer maken. Simpeler dan de binaire propositie waar je nu voor staat in kan het nauwelijks. Overal staat All Rights Reserved op en je wordt kapot gesued als je er ook maar iets mee doet.\nCreative Commons is zeker ook niet ingewikkeld. Het zijn hele heldere en eenvoudige licenties die leesbaar en begrijpbaar zijn door mensen.\nWat Creative Commons biedt is mensen de keuze geven om andere mensen vrijheden toe te staan. Ik kan met een CC-licentie duidelijk maken dat je mijn teksten en foto\u0026rsquo;s mag verspreiden, of dat je ze mag aanpassen als jij dat wilt, zonder het mij te vragen.\nSommige van deze vrijheden hadden we altijd al, maar deze zijn door het landjepik van de auteursrechtorganisaties ondergesneeuwd. Andere vrijheden zoals bijvoorbeeld het recht op afgeleide werken, worden nu belangrijk om mensen online in staat te stellen te bouwen op elkaars creativiteit.\nKrant Livre zegt in haar stuk dat het NRC:\nde eerste Nederlandstalige krant [is] die op deze wijze haar nieuws brengt\nDit sugerreert dat het NRC meer dan dit ene artikel onder een Creative Commons licentie verspreidt. Dit zou natuurlijk koren op de molen van Livre zijn maar is helaas niet waar.\nHet artikel waar het om gaat staat onder een Creative Commons-licentie als gimmick omdat het artikel zelf over Creative Commons gaat.\nDe rest van NRC.nl wordt geloof ik nog niet onder die licentie verpsreidt. Er staat geen licentie op de hoofdpagina.\n","date":"May 12, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-620/","section":"Posts","summary":"“Creative Commons licentie versimpelt auteursrecht op internet” kopt een artikel van het NRC waar ik op kom via Livre.\n","title":"Simpeler?","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik vind T-mobile nog steeds een schofterig bedrijf maar vandaag in Webwereld het bericht dat mobiel internet zelfs onder de huidige kreupele omstandigheden populairder wordt.\nHet onbeperkt gebruik van HSDPA kost €70 per maand en de bandbreedte tot 1,8Mbs is schraal te noemen zelfs al als dat theoretische maximum gehaald wordt. T-mobile\u0026rsquo;s dienst wordt ook al gefileerd op Muniwireless en de Amerikaanse 3G netwerken schijnen een ‘normaal’ gebruik van internet niet aan te kunnen; dan wordt je afgeknepen.\nZeventig euro per maand is heel veel geld, als je veel van je tijd besteed op je werk of de universiteit waar je een netwerk hebt, en de rest van je tijd of gratis WiFi kunt vinden of geen behoefte hebt aan internet.\nAls de grote corporate entiteit het betaalt, is het natuurlijk allemaal best maar de particulier en de kleine zelfstandige moeten gewoon een realistische afweging maken en altijd overal online zijn is die prijs niet waard.\nMet always on mobiel internet zou je wel heel veel leuke dingen kunnen doen en kunnen innoveren. Dingen als mobiel IM\u0026rsquo;en of televisie kijken of continu Plazes gebruiken of locatie gebaseerde sociale netwerken en spelletjes bijvoorbeeld maar die diensten gaan het pas halen als het betaalbaar is voor de gemiddelde tiener.\nDom marketingverhaal: Ik werd door T-mobile gebeld met het aanbod op hun WiFi hotspot abonnement met de argumenten dat ze hotspots hadden bij Macdonald\u0026rsquo;s en wegrestaurants. Dat zijn ten eerste niet de plaatsen waar ik ooit kom. De mensen die daar wel regelmatig komen, hebben waarschijnlijk wel betere dingen te doen dan internetten (bijv. eten en snel naar huis rijden).\n","date":"May 11, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-619/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik vind T-mobile nog steeds een schofterig bedrijf maar vandaag in Webwereld het bericht dat mobiel internet zelfs onder de huidige kreupele omstandigheden populairder wordt.\n","title":"‘Breedband’ Mobiel Internet","type":"posts"},{"content":"Elias has an important post on something very necessary: enabling client side Javascript developers to consume any kind of RESTific data without going through the pains of cross-platform XML parsing.\nSome time back I have been a victim of the XML thing and since then I would like my data in Javascript either with JSON or with a data binding client library like the one for XML-RPC.\n[…] we can explain our thinking by sort of saying that we avoid parsing XML like the plague.\nAmen.\n","date":"May 10, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-123/","section":"Posts","summary":"Elias has an important post on something very necessary: enabling client side Javascript developers to consume any kind of RESTific data without going through the pains of cross-platform XML parsing.\n","title":"Atom 2 JSON","type":"posts"},{"content":"Love the domain name “escape from cubicle nation”, love the piece and love the goals: Open letter to CEOs, COOs, CIOs and CFOs across the corporate world (via).\n","date":"May 10, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-122/","section":"Posts","summary":"Love the domain name “escape from cubicle nation”, love the piece and love the goals: Open letter to CEOs, COOs, CIOs and CFOs across the corporate world (via).\n","title":"Corporate Bitch Slap","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ok, zie net een goede reden om in Londen te wonen langskomen op BoingBoing: De Sultan\u0026rsquo;s Olifant en de Kleine Reus liepen daar afgelopen week rond zie ook de foto\u0026rsquo;s.\nWel een hele goede reden om in juli naar Antwerpen te gaan waar de olifant en de reus ook drie dagen zullen vertoeven tijdens de Zomer van Antwerpen.\n","date":"May 10, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-618/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ok, zie net een goede reden om in Londen te wonen langskomen op BoingBoing: De Sultan’s Olifant en de Kleine Reus liepen daar afgelopen week rond zie ook de foto’s.\n","title":"De Sultan's Olifant","type":"posts"},{"content":"Er zijn een paar bedrijven actief bezig met bloggen. Deze initiatieven zijn lovenswaardig en ik heb het idee dat ze echt hun best doen om een leuk verhaal naar buiten te brengen.\nMacaw had natuurlijk al wat dingen naar buiten gebracht over hun interne weblogcultuur en hoe leuk dat bij hun is. Nu moet ik zeggen dat die cultuur naar buiten vertalen nog wat werk kan gebruiken. Op blogs.macaw.nl staan wat blogs van Macaw medewerkers die erg leuk begonnen maar op het moment maar sporadisch ge-update lijken te worden.\nHet blijkt dus dat het heel belangrijk is dat een blogger zelf een drang heeft om te schrijven die niet van boven opgelegd is. Het blijven verzinnen van nieuw materiaal en het schrijven van leuke stukjes kun je niet afdwingen. Het resultaat daarvan is uiteindelijk negatief voor zowel de weblogger als zijn publiek.\nUitdaging voor Macaw is het leven inblazen van hun goed neergezette blog infrastructuur en het momentum van hun lancering weer op te pakken.\nAMIS is een Java/Oracle solution provider die een puur technisch blog heeft over Oracle en Java. Ze hebben een waanzinnig hoge frequentie van schrijven van meestal een paar stukjes per dag over verschillende onderwerpen. Ik ben er niet achter of dat nou door één persoon gedaan wordt of door meerdere (er staat geen naam bij de stukjes).\nIk ga meestal zelf niet diep genoeg in op de stukjes om een uitspraak te kunnen doen over de kwaliteit en diepgang. Ik ben niet echt een fan van Java en aan Oracle brand ik me liever niet. Het ziet er in ieder geval goed uit.\nEn wat doet TOPdesk in dit verhaal? Na een tijdje stil gelegen te hebben, is er weer vooruitgang te bespeuren. De lancering komt binnen de komende paar weken, tot dan zou ik zeggen: ‘watch this space.’\n","date":"May 8, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-617/","section":"Posts","summary":"Er zijn een paar bedrijven actief bezig met bloggen. Deze initiatieven zijn lovenswaardig en ik heb het idee dat ze echt hun best doen om een leuk verhaal naar buiten te brengen.\n","title":"Corporate Blogging","type":"posts"},{"content":"Wat staat er de komende tijd in de agenda? Nogal wat…\n11 - 14 mei\nKomende donderdag naar Berlijn voor het weekend. Ik ben er een tijd geleden een dag geweest, wat langer is geen slecht plan.\nVerwacht: een paar musea, koffie op de juiste plekken, Unter den Linden en veel aardige foto\u0026rsquo;s.\nOf toch niet wegens gebrekkige organisatie.\n17 - 20 mei\nXTECH in Amsterdam met aansluitend Barcamp II.\nVerwacht: Veel kennis en een paar gesprekken met mijn helden.\n26 - 28 mei\nHemelvaartsweekend met Batizado van Capoeira Liberdade.\nVerwacht: Veel spierpijn, uitdaging en hopelijk een koord.\n31 mei - 5 juni\nReboot 8 in Kopenhagen.\nVerwacht: deels stimulerende conferentie, deels ontspannende vakantie.\nSterling 31/5/2006 08:55 Amsterdam 10:10 Kopenhagen\nSterling 5/6/2006 16:45 Kopenhagen 18:40 Amsterdam\n","date":"May 8, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-616/","section":"Posts","summary":"Wat staat er de komende tijd in de agenda? Nogal wat…\n","title":"Drukjes","type":"posts"},{"content":"It\u0026rsquo;s about time and way too late to see Sun making Java more Linux-friendly after both:\nThe public relations nightmare Sun has caused for Java on Linux, partly amended for by IBM. Linux people will not touch Java unless it is for either Azureus or Eclipse.\nMono all but stole the shop at least on the GNOME desktop and is going on to be the most viable platform for cross-platform GUI applications on both Linux, Windows and Mac (using native Winforms ports).\n","date":"May 7, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-121/","section":"Posts","summary":"It’s about time and way too late to see Sun making Java more Linux-friendly after both:\n","title":"Opening Up","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik kreeg van Oliver pas de tip dat er in Delft een nieuw lunchcafé is geopend waar ze Portugese specialiteiten verkopen. Lunchcafé Vrij is een leuk klein zaakje op de Brabantse Turfmarkt (zie Iens \u0026amp; Dinnersite en openingsbericht).\nWe zaten gisteren op het terras op de Beestenmarkt vlakbij de Brabantse Turfmarkt. Toen het in de stad te koud werd voor een terrasje liepen we even langs om deze nieuwe tent temminste even gezien te hebben.\nZe waren toen al een half uurtje dicht en de twee mannen op deze foto waren bezig het terras op te ruimen. Het blijkt dus dat familie van hen Portugees is (schoonzus ofzoiets) en dat ze niet meer in Portugal wonen, maar wat van Portugal hierheen hebben gebracht.\nOp het menu staat naast goede koffie en Pasteis de Nata ook Caldo Verde. We moeten hier zeker nog een keer terug om dat uit te proberen.\nZe hadden nog wel wat Pasteis de Nata over waarvan we er een paar hebben gekocht. Lekkere koffie kan ik thuis ook maken, maar pasteis zijn iets moeilijker.\nToen bij mij thuis de Pasteitjes in de oven even een klap gegeven (30sec. op 200 graden) en toen met espresso en kaneel opgegeten. Dit waren zeker wel wat van de beter pasteitjes die we hebben gegeten.\n","date":"May 6, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-615/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik kreeg van Oliver pas de tip dat er in Delft een nieuw lunchcafé is geopend waar ze Portugese specialiteiten verkopen. Lunchcafé Vrij is een leuk klein zaakje op de Brabantse Turfmarkt (zie Iens \u0026 Dinnersite en openingsbericht).\n","title":"Pasteis de Nata","type":"posts"},{"content":"¡Si se puede!\nBoing Boing had afgelopen week geweldige (foto)verslagen van de verschillende demonstraties in Amerika voor de illegale landgenoten die goed genoeg zijn om het vuile werk te doen maar niet goed genoeg voor een status.\nHartverwarmende solidariteit tegen hartverscheurend onrecht. Doet je toch denken dat zoiets in Nederland afgestompt door apathie niet mogelijk is.\nHoe kan het zijn dat mensen in Amerika solidairder zijn dan in Nederland, makkelijker in staat zijn zich uit te spreken en te demonstreren tegen onfatsoen. Het enige waar men hier aan denkt —murw gebeukt door angst— is hoe we in godsnaam de Polen buiten de deur kunnen houden.\n…\n¡Si se puede!\n","date":"May 4, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-614/","section":"Posts","summary":"¡Si se puede!\n","title":"Un día sin migrantes","type":"posts"},{"content":"Klinkt eng, hè? Dit is de titel van een NOVA-item over het uitwisselen van films met behulp van Peer2Peer programma\u0026rsquo;s. Iets wat in Nederland overigens legaal is.\nDe tendentieuze titel is een voorbode van de rest van het item. Ze slaan nogal wat planken mis en dit zijn de journalisten die een genuanceerd verhaal zouden moeten brengen?\nWat gaat er fout?\nZe nemen klakkeloos cijfers van de MPAA over waar je wel erg naïef voor moet zijn om die te geloven.\nEr wordt nergens verteld dat met P2P-programma\u0026rsquo;s ook legale dingen mogelijk zijn. Videorecorders en keukenmessen zijn ook niet verboden omdat je er iets illegaals mee kunt doen.\nFilms downloaden is in Nederland legaal omdat de politiek een handhavingsprobleem voorziet. Als je de trend bekijkt, dan zie je al dat dit alleen maar erger gaat worden. Nieuwe applicaties zoals AllPeers gaan het delen van bestanden met nog makkelijker maken. De strijd is hopeloos.\nNOVA laat dan natuurlijk fossielen uit de traditionele filmwereld aan het woord die met alle macht proberen vast te houden aan hun oude manier van leven. Innovate or die gaat hier mooi op.\n","date":"May 4, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-613/","section":"Posts","summary":"Klinkt eng, hè? Dit is de titel van een NOVA-item over het uitwisselen van films met behulp van Peer2Peer programma’s. Iets wat in Nederland overigens legaal is.\n","title":"Overheidssubsidie gebruikt voor illegale verpsreiding pornofilms","type":"posts"},{"content":"Al vorige week op Boing Boing het bericht dat Colbert absoluut had lopen heersen tijdens het Correspondents\u0026rsquo; Dinner.\nIk heb het gedownload en gekeken en Colbert had meerder rake klappen en een algemeen goed optreden (de video-skit vond ik wel wat flauw). Jon Stewart is er ook over te spreken.\nIn de New York Times nu een stuk (met geweldige foto) over de gemengde gevoelens die Colbert\u0026rsquo;s optreden achter liet.\n","date":"May 3, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-612/","section":"Posts","summary":"Al vorige week op Boing Boing het bericht dat Colbert absoluut had lopen heersen tijdens het Correspondents’ Dinner.\n","title":"Cojones Muy Grandes","type":"posts"},{"content":"De Economist heeft een survey —een serie artikelen— over de revolutie die het internet teweeg brengt in het nieuwe media landschap.\nHet begint met het artikel “Among the audience” en vanaf daar kun je opeenvolgend doorklikken door: “It\u0026rsquo;s the links, Stupid!”, “Compose yourself”, “The wiki principle”, “Heard on the street”, “Wonders of the metaverse”, “The gazillion-dollar question” en “What sort of revolution?”.\nDe artikelen zijn goed, leesbaar en bieden een hele goede inleiding tot de veranderingen die nu plaatsvinden. Voor de internet technorati misschien wat te simpel maar ideaal om door te sturen naar vrienden en collega\u0026rsquo;s die het willen snappen.\n","date":"May 2, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-611/","section":"Posts","summary":"De Economist heeft een survey —een serie artikelen— over de revolutie die het internet teweeg brengt in het nieuwe media landschap.\n","title":"Nieuwe Media Revoluties","type":"posts"},{"content":"Hele leuke koninginnedag gehad. Het optreden van Liberdade op het Agathaplein was erg leuk om te doen en vooral om te zien hoeveel publiek zo\u0026rsquo;n optreden trekt.\nFoto\u0026rsquo;s op Flickr:\n","date":"May 1, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-610/","section":"Posts","summary":"Hele leuke koninginnedag gehad. Het optreden van Liberdade op het Agathaplein was erg leuk om te doen en vooral om te zien hoeveel publiek zo’n optreden trekt.\n","title":"Camara","type":"posts"},{"content":"I think most Mac fans read Cult of Mac but I especially liked the ominous comment at the bottom of this post:\nProbably the most exciting moment of the meeting came near the end.\nIn a response to a question about Microsoft\u0026rsquo;s Media Center, Jobs replied, \u0026ldquo;we hear you loud and clear.\u0026rdquo;\n","date":"April 28, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-120/","section":"Posts","summary":"I think most Mac fans read Cult of Mac but I especially liked the ominous comment at the bottom of this post:\n","title":"Loud and Clear","type":"posts"},{"content":"Catching the widget fever in a bad way last night\u0026rsquo;s Colbert Report episode inspired Reinier and me to create a widget based on the Backwards Bush counter.\nThe Backwards Bush site does offer a Dashboard widget but it is utter crap. We knew we could do better than that. So we grabbed the still from the Report and inspired by the “Do It!” it also leaves you with a happy message.\nGet it here: Days of Dubya Dashboard Widget\nor if my server can\u0026rsquo;t handle it anymore, get it from Reinier.\nAnd if you like this widget digg it.\n","date":"April 28, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-119/","section":"Posts","summary":"Catching the widget fever in a bad way last night’s Colbert Report episode inspired Reinier and me to create a widget based on the Backwards Bush counter.\n","title":"Days of our Dubya","type":"posts"},{"content":"I love TextMate!\nI am writing a big old LaTeX file and I do not have time to cope with LyX\u0026rsquo;s idiosyncracies. I know LaTeX pretty well, and if you do, a Word-like WYSIWIG editor only gets in your way.\nEnter TextMate! TextMate has very good LaTeX support but the thing I am using most is the built in instabuild shortcut. Pressing Command-B immediately saves my document, builds it with pdflatex and displays both progress and the result in a TextMate output window. If the build fails, it also parses the output and clicking an error jumps you to the corresponding line in the document.\nLove it!\nVim prolly could do this stuff as well, but I had a hard time getting my Vim to behave the same on OS X as it did on Linux and it still doesn\u0026rsquo;t feel right. This does.\n","date":"April 26, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-118/","section":"Posts","summary":"I love TextMate!\n","title":"Me Mate","type":"posts"},{"content":"Podshaala from Barcamp Bangalore: When will every course be podcast right after the fact?\nI\u0026rsquo;m talking enhanced Quicktime with Audio/Video and chapter marks and slides in the form of album art. I could view any course on any topic I want right from within iTunes.\nThis raises the question: How does a professor catch students\u0026rsquo; attention in a long tail environment?\n","date":"April 25, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-studies-408/","section":"Posts","summary":"Podshaala from Barcamp Bangalore: When will every course be podcast right after the fact?\n","title":"Course Casting","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik ben al tijden op zoek naar de teksten van dit capoeira lied en het is zo goed als onvindbaar. Ik kreeg gisteren van Gary een goede lead en vond daarmee in Google 1 (!) hit op een halve versie en in MSN één hit op een soort van volledige versie.\nIk heb een redelijke pagerank, dus ik post hem hier nog maar een keertje:\nTerra de Tempero\nOh Bahia - terra de tempero,\nPimenta de cheiro e acarajé¦\nNo suingue do pandeiro\nMorena baiana tem samba no pé¦\nLadeira do pelourinho morena baiana traz o vatapé\nBahia de Todos Santos quem fica parado sé® fica a olhar\nOh Bahia - terra de tempero,\nPimenta de cheiro e acarajé¦\nNo suingue do pandeiro\nMorena baiana tem samba no pé¦\nLembro do Farol da Barra, Mercado Modelo, jogo faceiro e da timbalada\nVou jogar a capoeira com minha baiana que tem um samba\nOh Bahia \u0026hellip;\nEr waren een paar karakters verpest in de originele versie tussen het Cyrillisch. Ik heb er een paar kunnen reconstrueren maar de rest weet ik niet. Hulp zou fijn zijn.\nHier nog een ander liedje wat iets makkelijker te vinden is:\nAreia do Mar\nSereia, sereia\nEu nunca vi tanta areia no mar\nSereia, sereia\nEu nunca vi tanta areia no mar\nSereia, sereia\nEu vim aqui foi pra vadiar\nEu vim aqui foi pra vadiar\nOh vadeia, vadeia tô vadiando\nEu vi a pomba na areia\nOh vadeia, vadeia to vadiando\nEu vi a pomba na areia\nSeu guarda civil não quer\nA roupa no quarador\nSeu guarda civil não quer\nA roupa no quarador\nMeu Deus onde eu vou quará\nQuara minha roupa\nMeu Deus onde eu vou quará\nQuara minha roupa\n","date":"April 25, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-609/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik ben al tijden op zoek naar de teksten van dit capoeira lied en het is zo goed als onvindbaar. Ik kreeg gisteren van Gary een goede lead en vond daarmee in Google 1 (!) hit op een halve versie en in MSN één hit op een soort van volledige versie.\n","title":"Terra de Tempero","type":"posts"},{"content":"Het is de week van de poëzie. Vandaar Menno Wigman in Casa Luna zojuist. Drie kwartier is te kort voor zo\u0026rsquo;n geweldige dichter.\nWigman merkt op dat het toevallig deze week ook TV Turnoff Week is. En leest dan het gedicht “Telefunken” voor:\nNa jaren zwoegen werd ik kleurenblind,\nsloeg vonken uit, kreeg klappen, gaf de geest.\nNu sta ik vaal en uitgepraat op straat\nen moet steeds denken aan dat lege masker\ndat mij zo schaamteloos heeft aangestaard.\nNagepraat. Aanbeden. Stukgemaakt.\nDe zak. Dat hij niet zag hoe levensecht\nik de tijd uit zijn ogen at. De zak.\nIk gaf hem Hitchcock, borsten, rampen, sikhs.\nIk gaf hem ogen. Oorlog. Noorderlicht.\nMaar ik kon gaan. En hij kijkt weer tv.\nStraks word ik opgehaald en sterven kilo\u0026rsquo;s\ndode uren op de stortplaats met mij mee.\nIk moet nog steeds een keer een bundel van hem kopen.\nIk doe het al twee jaar zonder televisie, heb meer tijd dan ooit, volg een paar dingetjes via Uitzendinggemist. Kun jij een week zonder?\n","date":"April 25, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-608/","section":"Posts","summary":"Het is de week van de poëzie. Vandaar Menno Wigman in Casa Luna zojuist. Drie kwartier is te kort voor zo’n geweldige dichter.\n","title":"Week van","type":"posts"},{"content":"Lang verhaal by the New York Times over de (soms problematische) entree van Google in China. Aardig wat inzichten verborgen tussen heel veel claims. De meeste Chinezes schijnen erg lakoniek te zijn over de maatregelen van hun overheid.\nEen stukje:\n\u0026ldquo;Google has struck a compromise,\u0026rdquo; he said, and compromises are sometimes necessary. Yahoo\u0026rsquo;s behavior, he added, put it in a different category: \u0026ldquo;Yahoo is a sellout. Chinese people hate Yahoo.\u0026rdquo; The difference, Zhao said, was that Yahoo had put individual dissidents in serious danger and done so apparently without thinking much about the human damage. (Yahoo did not respond to requests for comment.) Google, by contrast, had avoided introducing any service that could get someone jailed. It was censoring information, but Zhao considered that a sin of omission, rather than of commission.\n","date":"April 23, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-607/","section":"Posts","summary":"Lang verhaal by the New York Times over de (soms problematische) entree van Google in China. Aardig wat inzichten verborgen tussen heel veel claims. De meeste Chinezes schijnen erg lakoniek te zijn over de maatregelen van hun overheid.\n","title":"Google.cn","type":"posts"},{"content":"After mucking around with Dashboard some more, I gave up last night. My widget worked fine in Safari but every time I installed my widget in Dashboard the widget would disappear. The fact that Dashboard does not give you any feedback does not really help in solving this problem.\nProgramming Dashboard is really really painful experience.\nToday I took a widget which was doing something similar to what I wanted: the GMaps Dashboard Widget and tore that apart to see why it was working and my widget was not. I\u0026rsquo;m thinking it was either the sizes which were not correct or the AllowNetworkAccess directive from the plist file.\nUsing that as a starting point I could bootstrap my widget into existence and finally have a working prototype: Download Plazes Maps Widget.\nThe dimensioning thing is still not really clear to me but that shouldn\u0026rsquo;t be too difficult to figure out. I do not know in how far the dimensions specified in the plist file override any other dimension settings or how they interact.\nThe same goes for the confusing number of ways you can specify a background image for your widget.\nIt is functional and not much more than that. It could use at least some graphics that I haven\u0026rsquo;t bothered with. Partly because I do not have any graphics editing software installed on my iBook and mostly because I\u0026rsquo;m not so good with graphics work.\nSo don\u0026rsquo;t be confused with the strange icon and the horrible background, the functionality should be there. I\u0026rsquo;ll try to arrange some polish for the next version.\n","date":"April 23, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-117/","section":"Posts","summary":"After mucking around with Dashboard some more, I gave up last night. My widget worked fine in Safari but every time I installed my widget in Dashboard the widget would disappear. The fact that Dashboard does not give you any feedback does not really help in solving this problem.\n","title":"Plazes Widget First Version","type":"posts"},{"content":"After I had seen the innards of the Tigergotchi widget, it certainly didn\u0026rsquo;t seem too difficult anymore to build a widget of my own.\nIt seemed like a good idea to make a Plazes widget listing the locations of your buddies and of people in your vicinity on your Dashboard or do something else nifty.\nPlazes recently added an API to expose some of its functionality. The API is in XML-RPC which is quite ok, but my preference would have been to have a RESTful API optionally returning JSON for easiest access and use.\nPython has a very useful xmlrpc library to prototype the functionality and call some methods. The API docs are down currently and the API does work but I have had some trouble getting my current plaze from the API.\nMy best bet is to get my traze with user.trazes and the most recent plaze from my traze (I\u0026rsquo;m getting a bit fed up with the z\u0026rsquo;s) will be my current plaze.\n","date":"April 22, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-116/","section":"Posts","summary":"After I had seen the innards of the Tigergotchi widget, it certainly didn’t seem too difficult anymore to build a widget of my own.\n","title":"Plazes Widget","type":"posts"},{"content":"Yesterday after work on a very sunny flip-floppy afternoon caught the train to Amsterdam with Yun and Redmar.\nI met the guys Mek \u0026amp; Tosj who have a site with a lot of OS X software and who know a lot about OS X development showed me their site and their widgets (on of which: the Tigergotchi widget). I hadn\u0026rsquo;t really looked into widget development really but after a brief run through of their widget bundle I could see that there really is nothing to it (more on that later).\nThe guys from Fleck were very evasive about their startup not saying much about it but saying a lot more about other things. Their new site betafy is funny enough and taps into the hype that is the Next Web.\nAfter a night of chaos, socializing and demonstrations, I decided to take the last train home with Redmar and Yun. This train due to some freakish chance of the schedule took us one and a half hour to get back to Delft.\nI was planning on coming back today but the reality of my schedule hit and I couldn\u0026rsquo;t. Reinier went today to the hackathon part and I have kept track of it partly through the video stream.\nI\u0026rsquo;ll be back for BarCamp II.\n","date":"April 22, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-115/","section":"Posts","summary":"Yesterday after work on a very sunny flip-floppy afternoon caught the train to Amsterdam with Yun and Redmar.\n","title":"Cocoa Amsterdam","type":"posts"},{"content":"Interesting piece by Anthony Townsend on municipal wireless touching on some issues which are too important to ignore. For us here in the Netherlands the whole debate is pretty much moot seeing as we do not have any worthwhile wireless initiatives anywhere.\nHis focus on using the internet to enable local providers instead of providing an escape route from local use is a very valid one. Used correctly concentrating content providers and other services around the locality of a single access point can be a very empowering thing for that local community.\nWhat is needed to realize this is just a tiny dash of vision.\nMore interestingly the internet of things as recently envisioned by Bruce Sterling can really meld the real world with the virtual and revolutionize the way we live. The vision that when all objects are spimes, wireless is everywhere and systems are intelligent enough makes me think about gift economies (again).\n","date":"April 21, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-114/","section":"Posts","summary":"Interesting piece by Anthony Townsend on municipal wireless touching on some issues which are too important to ignore. For us here in the Netherlands the whole debate is pretty much moot seeing as we do not have any worthwhile wireless initiatives anywhere.\n","title":"Municipalities off the wire","type":"posts"},{"content":"Just handed in my registrations for both XTECH and Reboot to Marleen here at TOPdesk. Both should come through fine and send me happily off for some conference fun in May and June.\nXTECH looks great this year. I think the topics are more interesting than last year and the list of speakers they have lined up is simply incredible. My list of heroes who I am looking forward to see:\nDavid Baron\nTom Coates\nMiguel de Icaza\nPaul Graham\nRyan King\nHåkon Lie\nSimon Willison\nBrendan Eich\nAlex Russell\nAnd after XTECH Barcamp Amsterdam II starts off.\nAnd I heard so much good stuff about Reboot last year and read some blogs of people who are going again this year. It looks fun and I could use a weekend off in beautiful Copenhagen.\nYou coming?\n","date":"April 18, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-113/","section":"Posts","summary":"Just handed in my registrations for both XTECH and Reboot to Marleen here at TOPdesk. Both should come through fine and send me happily off for some conference fun in May and June.\n","title":"Conferr","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik zat gisteren een uurtje in de Balie te relaxen met drinken en WiFi en ik zag niet minder dan vier iBooks en twee Powerbooks ook rondhangen. En dit terwijl er niet eens een Mac-meeting aan de hand was.\nDit ondersteunt de theorie dat non-Apple laptops in café\u0026rsquo;s ongezellig zijn.\n","date":"April 18, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-606/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik zat gisteren een uurtje in de Balie te relaxen met drinken en WiFi en ik zag niet minder dan vier iBooks en twee Powerbooks ook rondhangen. En dit terwijl er niet eens een Mac-meeting aan de hand was.\n","title":"Super","type":"posts"},{"content":"The Origami PC story is just too funny. I guess that happens when Steve Jobs makes doing demos look so very easy.\nI\u0026rsquo;ll stick with my iBook thank you very much.\n","date":"April 16, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-112/","section":"Posts","summary":"The Origami PC story is just too funny. I guess that happens when Steve Jobs makes doing demos look so very easy.\n","title":"Oriental Laptop Very Tiny","type":"posts"},{"content":" http://www.flickr.com/photos/termie/123753213/\n","date":"April 12, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-111/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"You coming?","type":"posts"},{"content":"Lang maar boeiend artikel over de generatie volwassenen van nu die nooit de moeite hebben genomen om echt volwassen (en saai) te worden. Grups (zo worden ze genoemd) luisteren nog steeds nieuwe muziek, dragen gympen, spelen games, skateboarden en gaan uit.\nHet interessantste deel van het artikel graaft in op de vraag waarom ze niet hetzelfde doen als hun ouders en het antwoord is: “Passie”.\nThere’s that tricky word again: passion. What’s with the Grups and passion? It’s all anyone wants to talk about. Passionate parents, passionate workers, passionate listeners to the new album by Wolf Parade. Even Rogan lights up when he talks about touring Japanese textile factories to find the perfect denim for his jeans. And I start to realize: Under the skin of the iPods and the $400 ripped jeans, this is the spine of the Grup ethos: passion, and the fear of losing it.\nWhich brings me back to my father: the one who wore suits, not jeans; the one who, when he was my age, already had four kids; the one who logged a lifetime at exactly the kind of middle-management jobs that no one wakes up excited about going to in the morning, and who then found himself sandbagged by the late-eighties recession, laid off in what must have felt like the worst kind of double whammy. All the adult trade-offs he’d made turned out to be a brutal bait-and-switch. Is it any wonder that the Grups have looked at that brand of adulthood and said, “No thanks, you can keep your carrot and your stick.” Especially once we saw just how easily that stick can be turned around to whap your ass as you’re ushered out the door, suit and all. Just how easily a bona fide, by-the-book adult can be made to wonder where it all went wrong, and why you ever bothered to grow up in the first place.\n","date":"April 10, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-605/","section":"Posts","summary":"Lang maar boeiend artikel over de generatie volwassenen van nu die nooit de moeite hebben genomen om echt volwassen (en saai) te worden. Grups (zo worden ze genoemd) luisteren nog steeds nieuwe muziek, dragen gympen, spelen games, skateboarden en gaan uit.\n","title":"Grups","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik vind het echt ontzettend irritant dat ze in Rotterdam nergens —of temminste op de drie metrostations waar ik vandaag geweest ben— op de perrons zelf een kaart hebben van de metrolijnen, of temminste van de huidige lijn.\nMensen zouden er weleens achter kunnen komen waar ze heen moeten.\n","date":"April 10, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-604/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik vind het echt ontzettend irritant dat ze in Rotterdam nergens —of temminste op de drie metrostations waar ik vandaag geweest ben— op de perrons zelf een kaart hebben van de metrolijnen, of temminste van de huidige lijn.\n","title":"Metro","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik ben vandaag in het Apple Centre Lijnbaan geweest. Ik liep door Rotterdam en ik werd naar de tempel van alles wat Apple en mooi en goed is toegezogen. Dit Apple Centre is daar net een week open.\nLeuke winkel, lekker veel spullen on display en inderdaad aardig personeel (zoals ze ook opmerken bij MacOSX.nl).\nIk ben het alleen zat dat ze me behandelen als een doorsnee consument en me allemaal troep aan willen smeren die ik niet wil of niet nodig heb. Het meisje in het Apple Centre was heel aardig en ze wist keurig de technische specificaties en aanbiedingen op te sommen, maar ik had iemand nodig met kennis van zaken.\nOver die kennis van zaken: Ik wil misschien een Airport Express kopen (of een FON router) om in huis draadloos te kunnen internetten en muziek te kunnen streamen naar de speakers in de woonkamer. Nu vraag ik me alleen af of die Airport Express in mijn huidige —enigzins rare— netwerk-topologie gaat passen.\nDe Apple-site is redelijk waardeloos voor deze informatie. Ik wil graag weten of dat ding óf een DMZ optie heeft zodat ik mijn huidige webserver daarin kan zetten óf dat ik hem aan de huidige switch vast kan pluggen.\nDegene in de winkel die dit zou moeten weten wist dit niet. Hij wilde me wel even in de Airport Admin Utility laten zien wat je allemaal kunt instellen. Daar had ik wel wat mee gekund, maar hij kon het wachtwoord voor het base station niet vinden.\n","date":"April 10, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-603/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik ben vandaag in het Apple Centre Lijnbaan geweest. Ik liep door Rotterdam en ik werd naar de tempel van alles wat Apple en mooi en goed is toegezogen. Dit Apple Centre is daar net een week open.\n","title":"Apple Centre","type":"posts"},{"content":"Geniale term van Steve Stevaert (Vlaamse socialist) in NOVA Politiek gisteren (vanaf minuut 25 ongeveer): “Bruto Nationaal Geluk”.\n","date":"April 8, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-602/","section":"Posts","summary":"Geniale term van Steve Stevaert (Vlaamse socialist) in NOVA Politiek gisteren (vanaf minuut 25 ongeveer): “Bruto Nationaal Geluk”.\n","title":"Bruut","type":"posts"},{"content":"Manon Uphoff:\nEr is geen enkele samenleving zonder strijd en pijn, zonder tegenstellingen en botsingen. Die volledig en radicaal willen uitbannen, de betrokkenheid verliezen, woede, teleurstelling of ergernis niet meer willen ervaren omdat je je hebt vastgebeten in een glad ideaal van een land, een wereld waarin het altijd goed toeven is, dat is uiteindelijk het ware drama, waarin we onze concrete menselijkheid verliezen.\n[van]\n","date":"April 6, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-601/","section":"Posts","summary":"Manon Uphoff:\n","title":"Vervanging","type":"posts"},{"content":"Superleuke filmpjes op 10 april.nl [via].\n","date":"April 6, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-600/","section":"Posts","summary":"Superleuke filmpjes op 10 april.nl [via].\n","title":"Shiznit","type":"posts"},{"content":"Even een stukje syndiceren van mijn interne blog:\nEcht tegenhouden kunnen we het niet, we uiten ons als TOPdesk al op een boel informele manieren naar buiten toe.\nZo kun je al collega\u0026rsquo;s sparen op LinkedIn, een professioneel netwerk-netwerk (mijn profiel) maar een stuk leuker is een sociaal netwerk als Hyves. Er zitten al een berg collega\u0026rsquo;s op en er is zelfs een speciale plek voor TOPdesk.\nHyves groeit in rap tempo zowel in aantallen gebruikers als in functionaliteit. Ze hebben Schoolbank.nl al half uit de markt gedrukt door vergelijkbare functionaliteit te bieden maar dan gratis en nu lees ik op Molblog (leuk artikel) dat ze CV-functionaliteit gaan inbouwen.\nIk zie nu al regelmatig vacatures langskomen via mensen die ik ken. Met de nieuwe functionaliteit kunnen bedrijven makkelijk door Hyves heenzoeken, maar belangrijker nog: mensen kunnen zelf kijken wie er bij een bepaald bedrijf werken en of dat leuke mensen zijn. Je kunt ook zien of je via-via mensen kent bij een bepaald bedrijf die je kunnen introduceren.\nAls dit een beetje doorgroeit zijn hier veel kansen zowel voor werknemers als voor slimme werkgevers. Tegenhouden kun je het niet echt meer. De grenzen tussen werk/sociaal, publiek/privé beginnen te vervagen.\nMensen van nu moeten zich misschien aanpassen, de volgende generatie weet al niet beter meer.\nAmerikaanse tegenhangers van Hyves zijn MySpace en Facebook. Deze netwerken zijn daar gigantisch en worden belachelijk hoog gewaardeerd.\n","date":"April 3, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-599/","section":"Posts","summary":"Even een stukje syndiceren van mijn interne blog:\n","title":"TOPdesk Hyve","type":"posts"},{"content":"Na al het gezeik, ook weer eens tijd voor wat goed nieuws. Ze hebben bij NOVA voor de items in het weekarchief nu ook een RSS feed. Dit is iets wat ik al heel lang wilde en waar ik pas met een screen scraper aan was begonnen te schrijven. Dat hoeft nu dus niet meer.\nHun feed valideert zelfs volgens de Feed Validator.\nIk zou als simpele eindgebruiker nog een paar kleine suggesties hebben:\nAutodiscovery aanzetten voor de pagina\u0026rsquo;s door deze code in de template te zetten Een nieuwerwets standaard feed-icoon gebruiken (verkrijgbaar in verschillende kleuren)\nIn de title van een item zoals in het geval “03/29 - Asielzoekerskinderen achter de tralies” staat de datum er op zijn Amerikaans. Dat zou vriendelijker kunnen bijv. 29 maart.\nIn de description staat de eerste alinea van het verhaal op de site. Het zou fijner zijn als dit het complete verhaaltje was.\nDe directe links naar de rm- en asf-streams in de description zetten zodat ik in één keer naar de video van het item kan.\n","date":"April 2, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-598/","section":"Posts","summary":"Na al het gezeik, ook weer eens tijd voor wat goed nieuws. Ze hebben bij NOVA voor de items in het weekarchief nu ook een RSS feed. Dit is iets wat ik al heel lang wilde en waar ik pas met een screen scraper aan was begonnen te schrijven. Dat hoeft nu dus niet meer.\n","title":"NOVA RSS","type":"posts"},{"content":"Bergen spectaculaire foto\u0026rsquo;s op Flickr uit Parijs van Gonzale, een vrouw met ballen en een 20D.\nVandaag deze binnen gekregen (klik voor groter):\n","date":"April 2, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-597/","section":"Posts","summary":"Bergen spectaculaire foto’s op Flickr uit Parijs van Gonzale, een vrouw met ballen en een 20D.\n","title":"Paris","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;m getting increasingly frustrated with COREBlog the Zope based blogging software that runs this show.\nThis week an upgrade had de-installed the COREBlog Product from my Zope instance so my entire blog was broken. After some looking around a simple symlink fixed that problem. But now I find out that it is impossible to add comments to my posts. Trying yields:\nZope Error\nZope has encountered an error while publishing this resource.\nError Type: KeyError\nError Value:\nTroubleshooting Suggestions\nThis resource may be trying to reference a nonexistent object or variable .\nThe URL may be incorrect.\nThe parameters passed to this resource may be incorrect.\nA resource that this resource relies on may be encountering an error.\nFor more detailed information about the error, please refer to the HTML source for this page.\nIf the error persists please contact the site maintainer. Thank you for your patience.\nZope Management Interface logs are useless and I am at work so I don\u0026rsquo;t have shell access to the box (nice…). I can\u0026rsquo;t investigate deeper here but I will try to fix this problem tonight or tomorrow.\nCOREBlog did its job reasonably well for the time that I have used it, but it has been increasingly lagging behind other mainstream blogging software and it is too niche for its own good.\nA recent visit to the COREBlog site revealed to me that my version of COREBlog is being end-of-life\u0026rsquo;d in favor of a new version that runs on top of Plone. Though it is feature richer than my current version I am not prepared to add another point of failure and obscurity (Plone) to my already beleaguered setup. I would much sooner switch to Wordpress 2 which is as mainstream as it gets and has a divine management interface.\nUpdate: Comments are now fixed on all blogs. It seems that the new 1.2.4 version has an additional option to stop spam. The feature does not display a \u0026ldquo;Post Comment\u0026rdquo; button before you have previewed at least once. Because I am using a heavily modded skin without those adjustments some stuff was going wrong in the session and throwing a horrible error message.\nI had debugged the error to line 536 from Entry.py and I was just about to tear the offending piece of code out when I thought it would be better to play well. So I added to adjustment from the news message to my custom skin.\nThis means you have to at least Preview your comments once before you can post them and makes my blog slightly better protected against spammers.\n","date":"March 31, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-110/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’m getting increasingly frustrated with COREBlog the Zope based blogging software that runs this show.\n","title":"COREMuck","type":"posts"},{"content":"If you are web developer you should already have installed Firebug because it makes life so much easier for the DOM/CSS/JavaScript programmer. Get it now (I mean it!) from addons.mozilla.org.\nNow Joe Hewitt is bringing us even more goodness with the new 0.3 release of Firebug. It looks a lot fresher and it has a slew of features which are going to make stuff even easier. Brief rundown:\n“View Source Live” — I used this one today to debug the placement of the Plazes badge on my site. You include some Javascript, and it then mucks around with your DOM. Without a ‘live’ source view, you can\u0026rsquo;t see what is going on.\nEvents Inspector — Life saver for when you have to debug a particularly troublesome sequence of nasty events.\nDom Editing — This one looks really really killer! Always wanted to muck around with pages after they have loaded.\nCSS Quick Search\nHover Outlining — Mousing over DOM elements and CSS selectors in Firebug will outline them all on the page. Just like the Web Developer extension but much more flexible.\nMiddle Click\nObject Hyperlinks\nAnd it even does not explode. How great is that?\nI ran it around the block today for a small debugging session and most of the new features work out well and are easy to use. It almost makes me feel sorry that my work is no longer focused on pure web development. Where has this extension been all my life?\n","date":"March 31, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-109/","section":"Posts","summary":"If you are web developer you should already have installed Firebug because it makes life so much easier for the DOM/CSS/JavaScript programmer. Get it now (I mean it!) from addons.mozilla.org.\n","title":"Bugs on Fire","type":"posts"},{"content":"Remco heeft deze week een Powerbook 12\u0026rsquo;\u0026rsquo; gekocht. Kon ik op het werk fijn spelen met een klein zilverkleurig werkpaard (1 1/4G RAM). En Cris krijgt morgen zijn MacBook Pro binnen.\nApple verspreidt zich epidemisch door mijn omgeving heen. Binnenkort heeft iedereen het.\nOm Cris zijn voorpret een beetje te voeden stuurde ik hem de link naar een recensie van de MBP op Radio Online. Cris zijn reactie:\nhet argument: er draait geen windows op geeft alweer de kijk van de tester aan. kut artikel dus.\nEen beetje ongenuanceerd, de recensie van Marie-Claire is misschien wat simpel maar ze concludeert wel bijna alles wat ze bij Ars Technica een maand geleden ook al hadden bedacht.\n","date":"March 30, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-596/","section":"Posts","summary":"Remco heeft deze week een Powerbook 12’’ gekocht. Kon ik op het werk fijn spelen met een klein zilverkleurig werkpaard (1 1/4G RAM). En Cris krijgt morgen zijn MacBook Pro binnen.\n","title":"Plaag","type":"posts"},{"content":"Net nog even mijn belastingen ingevuld en opgestuurd. Elektronisch met mijn pincode van vorig jaar (niks geen DigiD). Ik had bijna alles al af, maar ik moest nog een ding weten van de Belastingtelefoon.\nFijn dat er dit jaar een versie van het aangifteprogramma is die draait op OS X. Ik wil niet zeggen Macversie want het programma dat ze hebben gemaakt druist regelrecht tegen ongeveer elke GUI-conventie van OS X in. Maar het werkt wel.\n","date":"March 30, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-595/","section":"Posts","summary":"Net nog even mijn belastingen ingevuld en opgestuurd. Elektronisch met mijn pincode van vorig jaar (niks geen DigiD). Ik had bijna alles al af, maar ik moest nog een ding weten van de Belastingtelefoon.\n","title":"Op het nippertje","type":"posts"},{"content":"I heard Plazes can make you famous, so I thought I\u0026rsquo;d give it a whirl.\nIt is actually pretty cool and has a client for Mac and GPS support for the Netherlands. I now have a user account and have just created my home as a Plaze.\nI have to claim some more Plazes tomorrow and then you can track my whereabouts either via the Plazes site or using the badge on my blog main page.\nUpdate: I can\u0026rsquo;t use it on my work because the Plazer does not understand my proxy settings. Bummer.\n","date":"March 30, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-594/","section":"Posts","summary":"I heard Plazes can make you famous, so I thought I’d give it a whirl.\n","title":"Plaaz","type":"posts"},{"content":"Vandaag met behulp van Reinier een kleine chirurgische ingreep in mijn iBook gedaan.\nDe laatste tijd was het ding niet vooruit te branden. iBooks zijn leuke computers maar ze zijn niet gemaakt voor hypertaskend nieuwsverslaafde programmeurs. Grote applicaties (Firefox, Netnewswire, Eclipse) naast elkaar draaien was een hel.\nKleine weinig gebruikte dingen als Dashboard en Quicksilver raakten meestal uit het geheugen geswapped wat ontzettend irritant is.\nEen gangbare werkomgeving ziet er bij mij zo uit:\nDeze week dus maar wat extra geheugen besteld bij PC Platform. Dit kwam vanochtend binnen. Hiermee vliegt de boel het raam uit. Firefox en Dashboard worden bruikbaar. Quicksilver is een genot om te gebruiken. Ik kan doen en laten wat ik wil.\n","date":"March 30, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-593/","section":"Posts","summary":"Vandaag met behulp van Reinier een kleine chirurgische ingreep in mijn iBook gedaan.\n","title":"Hij vliegt!","type":"posts"},{"content":"Nice article about continuation based webservers and their implementation in Java [via].\n","date":"March 28, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-108/","section":"Posts","summary":"Nice article about continuation based webservers and their implementation in Java [via].\n","title":"Continue","type":"posts"},{"content":"Hurray for Google making up for all the shoddy work Microsoft has done on their browser. IE7 is coming out soon with a lot of fixes, but still not quite up to par with the rest of the civilized browser world.\nAjaxian reports about a \u0026lt;canvas\u0026gt; implementation for IE so stuff like this will be cross browser.\nUpdate: The story behind the project.\n","date":"March 28, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-107/","section":"Posts","summary":"Hurray for Google making up for all the shoddy work Microsoft has done on their browser. IE7 is coming out soon with a lot of fixes, but still not quite up to par with the rest of the civilized browser world.\n","title":"Canvas Usable","type":"posts"},{"content":"On work I dock my iBook on a Dell setup with LCD display and keyboard and mouse combo. This setup works pretty well but the reverse position of the Command and Option keys on the Dell keyboard was driving me mad.\nAfter some looking around on the Interweb I finally found a tool which helps me swap these keys: DoubleCommand\nNow to find out how I can get it to only swap my Dell keyboard and not my laptop keyboard.\n","date":"March 27, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-106/","section":"Posts","summary":"On work I dock my iBook on a Dell setup with LCD display and keyboard and mouse combo. This setup works pretty well but the reverse position of the Command and Option keys on the Dell keyboard was driving me mad.\n","title":"DoubleCommand","type":"posts"},{"content":"Gisterenmiddag na de City Pier City deed ik wat boodschappen in Delft. Ik heb wat boeken gekocht die ik al besteld had. De boekenweek was nog net niet afgelopen.\nEn toen liep ik langs de T-mobile winkel. Het gedoe met mijn toestel duurt nog steeds. De reparatie had hem teruggestuurd naar de winkel en ik kon hem dus ophalen. Ik heb bedankt voor de slechte service en een foto van het ding gemaakt.\n","date":"March 26, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-592/","section":"Posts","summary":"Gisterenmiddag na de City Pier City deed ik wat boodschappen in Delft. Ik heb wat boeken gekocht die ik al besteld had. De boekenweek was nog net niet afgelopen.\n","title":"Kapot","type":"posts"},{"content":"Bloedstollende beelden op het nieuws uit Wit Rusland, de achtertuin van Europa.\nNu te zien op NOVA de hele week niet één item hierover.\nSymbool voor het falen van het vrije Westen of gewoon onverschillige journalistiek?\n","date":"March 26, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-591/","section":"Posts","summary":"Bloedstollende beelden op het nieuws uit Wit Rusland, de achtertuin van Europa.\n","title":"De laatste dictator van Europa","type":"posts"},{"content":"Vandaag de 10 kilometer gelopen op de City Pier City-loop of zoals zij het willen de AD Haagsche Courant 10 km loop.\nHet was lekker weer en deze 10k is een stuk minder zwaar dan die van Egmond. Een goed stuk opgelopen met Daniël en uiteindelijk eerder gefinishet dan Robbert Jan!\n[\n](http://www.flickr.com/photos/68599430@N00/117684828/in/set-72057594090290285)\nDe organisatie was net zoals vorig jaar redelijk bout. Deze keer schoot het bij de start niet op en stonden we de eerste twee minuten grotendeels stil door de grote aantallen hele langzame mensen.\nLangzame mensen waren sowieso een plaag en wij waren ook veel te ver achteraan begonnen. Ik heb de complete 10k lang mensen lopen inhalen. Aan de ene kant werkt dit heel motiverend, maar het vergt ook heel veel energie die je beter kunt steken in lopen.\nDe finish was beter maar er stonden hordes mensen voor de hekken te wachten waardoor het niet opschoot. De Haagse binnenstad lijkt niet geschikt voor grote evenementen.\nHet AD heeft een complete site rond het evenement waar de uitslagen heel laat en netjes gepagineerd (en dus compleet niet doorzoekbaar) zijn.\nIk heb alle pagina\u0026rsquo;s even aan elkaar geplakt.\nDe tijden van TOPdesk:\n23\tTeun\t37:25 - 37:48\n419\tAlexander Lohn\t46:22 - 49:27\n410\tJurgen Koster\t46:40 - 49:14\n514\tPaul Middelkoop\t48:23 - 50:45\n661\tWouter Hooghiemstra\t49:32 - 52:26\n1848\tDaniël Huijbens\t55:55 - 1:00:38\n1867\tAlper Cugun\t56:02 - 1:00:44\n1649\tArjenne Bastiaansen\t56:36 - 59:31\n2347\tMarianne Griffioen\t59:07 - 1:03:54\n2413\tMarleen de Vries\t59:42 - 1:04:28\n2449\tRobbert Jan Grootjans\t1:00:05 - 1:04:47\n2794\tMonique\t1:05:04 - 1:07:57\nUpdate: Zoals Jurgen hieronder opmerkt, dit zijn de brutotijden en moeten we wachten tot het AD zo goed is om de nettotijden te plaatsen. Ik had mezelf in ieder geval geklokt op 56'00\u0026rsquo;'.\nDe verwachte spierpijn vandaag —waar ik me half op verheugd had— blijft uit. Bij de volgende loop (Golden Ten in Delft) dan maar onder de 50 minuten duiken.\nUpdate: Ik heb de nettotijden toegevoegd. Er gaan bij mij inderdaad vier minuten af.\n","date":"March 25, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-590/","section":"Posts","summary":"Vandaag de 10 kilometer gelopen op de City Pier City-loop of zoals zij het willen de AD Haagsche Courant 10 km loop.\n","title":"Lekker lopen","type":"posts"},{"content":"It seems like Apple is in a confused place. Maybe an intrinsic part of the creative process, but being more thoughtful about the real world should not hurt them too much.\nThe French courts have upheld a judgement by Steve Jobs in 2002 where he ruled that:\n“If you legally acquire music, you need to have the right to manage it on all other devices that you own.”\nAnd they have rightfully not heeded Apple\u0026rsquo;s (and ergo Jobs\u0026rsquo;s) confused state.\nClosed formats and DRM are bad.\nWe want to be able to play our stuff whenever wherever. More support for this closed source anti-competititve stance has come from free market advocates extraordinaire: the Cato Institute. Quoting from the quote:\n“Rather, progress is promoted in a technological marketplace of interoperable products, consumer choice, and fierce competition.”\nAnd closing off: Apple firing an employee of theirs for the only talented performance at a talent show, is so sectarian that it scares the shit out of me.\n","date":"March 25, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-105/","section":"Posts","summary":"It seems like Apple is in a confused place. Maybe an intrinsic part of the creative process, but being more thoughtful about the real world should not hurt them too much.\n","title":"DRM hurts people","type":"posts"},{"content":"A gem of a presentation by Tim Sweeney from Epic about the next generation of programming languages (via).\nSweeney posts an excellent take on the current state of programming languages and what is necessary to push stuff further on future platforms. Game developers being on the forefront of consumer high performance computing, he has some interesting insights.\nMost of his comment relate to the compile time fetishism school of programming and static analysis. His main conclusion is that currently used programming languages (C++, C#, Java) can learn a whole lot from Haskell.\nThe problems that he mentions: high demand for productivity and performance, necessary use of frameworks and third party libraries and troubles with concurrency are inherent in most software development and the solutions he gives should be interesting for most.\n","date":"March 25, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-104/","section":"Posts","summary":"A gem of a presentation by Tim Sweeney from Epic about the next generation of programming languages (via).\n","title":"No more NullPointers","type":"posts"},{"content":"Op het nieuws hoorde ik dat een van de maatregelen die de Europese Unie afkondigde tegen het bewind van Loekasjenko was dat hij niet meer welkom zou zijn in Europa.\nDit doet natuurlijk de vraag rijzen: ‘Waarom was Loekasjenko ooit welkom in Europa?’ Behalve dan om te verschijnen voor het Europese Hof voor de Rechten van de Mens natuurlijk?\n","date":"March 25, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-589/","section":"Posts","summary":"Op het nieuws hoorde ik dat een van de maatregelen die de Europese Unie afkondigde tegen het bewind van Loekasjenko was dat hij niet meer welkom zou zijn in Europa.\n","title":"Spijkerbroeken","type":"posts"},{"content":"I made a presentation to evangelize my project to my colleagues at TOPdesk and I just put it online.\nThe PDF version is 6M and contains some errors where the builds are not accurate.\nThe Quicktime version is 16M and does have all the transitions and builds.\n","date":"March 24, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-studies-406/","section":"Posts","summary":"I made a presentation to evangelize my project to my colleagues at TOPdesk and I just put it online.\n","title":"TOPdesk Community","type":"posts"},{"content":"Disclaimer: Dit is een ruw verslag van de seminar Power to the People die ik vanmiddag heb bijgewoond. Vrijwel zeker klopt niet alles en heb ik niet iedereen eer kunnen geven waar dat toekomt. Addenda en errata mogen in het commentaar.\n‘Power to the People’ is een kreet die je verwacht bij demonstraties van anti-globalisten maar het was de titel van de corporate blogging seminar van Magnus vanmiddag in het Rosarium in Amsterdam. Het lijkt erop dat bedrijven beginnen te snappen dat er veel dingen aan het veraneren zijn.\nDe bedrijven die vanmiddag aanwezig waren, waren over het algemeen erg goed op de hoogte. Magnus heeft een goede groep mensen bij elkaar weten te krijgen.\nVoor het begin van de conferentie sprak ik Jacqueline Fackeldey waar ik al eerder stukjes van had gelezen op Frankwatching. Zij vertelde interessante dingen over haar baan als Business Innovation bij de ING. Toevallig had ik de week daarvoor in Nuenen ook al een gesprek gehad met Ruud Smeulders die vergelijkbaar werk doet bij de Rabobank.\nHans Appel Het eerste verhaal van de dag was van Hans Appel industrieveteraan, lector multidisciplinaire informatica aan de Hanzehogeschool in Groningen en werkzaam bij Sun.\nZoals ik al voorspeld had draaide hij hetzelfde verhaal af waar Sun al een tijdje mee bezig is over community en verantwoord ondernemen. Ik heb een vergelijkbaar verhaal gehoord tijdens Holland Open vorig jaar en erg overtuigend is het niet. Sun is een bedrijf dat al tijden noodlijdend is en veel moeite heeft met de nieuwe orde.\nAppel weet in ieder geval leuk en erg gedreven te vertellen. Het moet een genot zijn om college van hem te krijgen. Zijn verhaal over beraakt worden en outreach is relevant, maar niet op Sun. Dat blijft nog steeds een bedrijf dat servers schuift.\nIn zijn verhaal over de nieuwe ontwikkelingen en trends weet hij alleen niet echt een lijn te vinden en de meeste dingen die hij noemt zullen voor het aanwezige publiek niet echt nieuw geweest zijn. Iemand die dit beter doet is John Thackara waar ik pas een lezing van heb bijgewoond en waar ik ook het boek ‘In the Bubble’ van heb gelezen.\nThackara schetst de grote trends die ons nu bezig houden en laat de noodzaak zien om door middel van goed ontwerp en slimme technologie de wereld beter te maken voor iedereen.\nFrank Janssen Hierna volgt Frank Jansssen met een dieper verhaal over corporate blogging en daarna de case van het postzegelblog dat TPG pas heeft opgezet om haar relaties met de postzegelverzamelaars aan te halen.\nFrank zet een boeiend verhaal neer met de bekende items als de prosumers en de gigantische aantallen blogs die er op dit moment zijn. Volgens Technorati was de aanwas op een gegeven moment 1 nieuw blog per seconde.\nBloggers zijn ideaal als direct feedback kanaal en testers van nieuwe dingen maar ze moeten wel ervoor zorgen dat ze hun onafhankelijkheid behouden. Zodra een weblog een marketingpraatje wordt, verliest het al zijn waarde.\nEen marketingblogger pur sang is Hugh Macleod van de Hughtrain. Hij weet bloggen effectief te gebruiken als marketing tool en om zoals hij het noemt globale micro-brands neer te zetten.\nHij is betrokken bij de weblog product initiatieven English Cut en Stormhoek.\nEnglish cut is het blog van Thomas Mahon een bijzonder goede maker van maatpakken op Savile Row die met zijn blog en zaak een wereldwijd publiek weet te bereiken.\nStormhoek is een Zuid-Afrikaanse wijn en blog dat Hugh promoot door op diners van webloggers aan te bieden om de wijn te verzorgen: 100 Geek Dinners.\nSun kwam pas met een vergelijkbaar initiatief. Ze bieden aan om iedereen die er eentje wil uitproberen geheel gratis een Niagara server toe te sturen. Als je er dan in de termijn van 60 dagen ook nog over blogt is de kans aanwezig dat je hem mag houden.\nMacaw Een voorbeeld van business blogging dat Frank lang geleden had gepost (en waar ik toen negatief over was) was dat van Macaw. Ik was toen zo negatief omdat meer een PR-stunt was dan een serieuze poging om te bloggen. Ze hebben zich nu goed gerevancheerd met een serieuze business blogging site. Reactiemogelijkheid, RSS en prominent gelinked op de voorpagina; dit mag er zijn.\nFrank had goed op een rijtje waarom de gemiddelde bedrijfswebsite niet geschikt is voor communities. Ik had dit lijstje deels ook zelf bedacht maar ik kan het in mijn eigen opdracht goed gebruiken.\nMoeilijk te vinden in Google\nOnduidelijk wanneer er nieuwe content staat\nAlles moet erop waardoor onderwerpen verdrinken\nMoelijk te updaten en daardoor up to date te houden\nKille en zakelijke teksten\nGeen mogelijkheden behalve het kopen van het product\nGeen vertrouwde plek\nZe hebben toen voor heel weinig geld een weblog opgezet voor de postzegelliefhebbers: Postzegelblog. Door het gebruik van een weblog kun je voor lage kosten dingen snel neer zetten en je krijgt dan zowel een redelijke pagerank, als aandacht van journalisten, media en opinieleiders en een direct contact met je markt. Ze hebben tot nu toe alleen maar enthousiaste reacties gekregen van influentials in de postzegel-scene.\nVoor de normale gebruiker die toch op de hoogte wil blijven hebben ze een eigen gebrande RSS reader gemaakt die automatisch al het postzegelnieuws ophaalt. Als je Netnewswire gewend bent is het natuurlijk niks, maar voor de consument is het een uitkomst.\nLessen die ze hebben geleerd is dat een klein team met veel vrijheid goed werkt (no shit!). Intern moet de affiniteit met weblogs wel vergroot worden. Een slimme manier waarop ze dit hebben gedaan is door screenshots van sites die linken intern rond te sturen. Dan gaat het bij mensen leven hoe de bekendheid van de site zich verspreidt.\nEen andere belangrijke les was dat het 24/7 in de gaten houden van zo\u0026rsquo;n kanaal meer tijd kost dan ze hadden verwacht.\nIwan Hullegie Daarna hield Iwan Hullegie van Qi een verhaal van hoe zij virale marketing doen op het internet.\nNaast leuke voorbeelden van Heineken, 7up e.d. te laten zien wist hij een paar kernachtige dingen te melden.\nHet belangrijkste is het om leuke content te hebben en mensen met reclame te vermaken. Niet meer spammen maar zorgen dat dingen vanzelf worden verspreid omdat ze leuk zijn. Bij Qi hebben ze iemand in dienst die filmpjes dropt bij funlogs als marketingmiddel.\nVerder zag hij een grote toekomst in de convergentie van media en internet en de middelen die dat biedt voor direct adverteren. Het schijnt dat KPN hier heel ver mee is maar veel concreets kwam er niet uit.\nPanel Als laatste was er een paneldiscussie met Colby Stuart CCO van ICC, Frank Janssen en Ronald Egas van Sanoma Uitgevers. Van Colby Stuart had ik een tijdje geleden het weblog al opgepikt omdat het me relevant leek voor mijn onderwerp Communities.\nIn de discussie met de zaal probeerden mensen de ontwikkeling van ‘Power to the People’ te rijmen met het zakenleven voor zover dat kon. Bedrijven hebben zich lang de baas gevoeld en binnenkort zijn ze dat niet meer.\nOrganisaties worden transparanter en consumenten (consumensen) krijgen meer te zeggen. Het bloggen heeft niet direct een direct commercieel doel maar is meer een extensie van het merk en een plek waar je service kunt vinden.\nFrank: In ieder geval zijn bedijven de hele tijd al bezig in contact te komen met hun klanten. Via een weblog gaat het alleen maar veel directer.\nEgas van Sanoma droeg niet zoveel bij behalve een van de eerste vragen waaruit goed duidelijk werd hoe erg de oude print media nog worstelen met deze nieuwe en bedreigende trends.\nDe managing director van FON Nederland vertelde een voorbeeld hoe bij hun lancering ze weblogs en buzz hebben gebruikt om in één klap bekend te worden.\nVerder kwam nog wel de vraag naar boven hoe dit soort dingen werkt in de B2B waar mensen in het algemeen een stuk conservatiever zijn. Een goede vraag en er zijn zeker verschillen ook al gaat het nog steeds over mensen.\nNog de vraag waar de grenzen liggen tussen de macht van de mensen ten opzichte van de bedrijven. Het beste antwoord is natuurlijk dat er geen grenzen zijn. Colby zei geloof ik dat er geen grenzen zijn aan kennis delen en dat bedrijven hun consumenten nodig hebben.\nHet liefste zou ik geloven in een ****inevitable victory of the commons zoals beschreven door Tara maar het is de vraag of en hoe we dat voor elkaar gaan krijgen.\nBorrel Het hele punt van conferenties zoals deze is natuurlijk puur om mensen met dezelfde interesses bij elkaar te brengen om ideeën uit te wisselen. Echte dingen gebeuren in de wandelgangen en tijdens de borrels.\nDe sessies zijn alleen maar een smoes om bij elkaar te komen. Het is daarom ook de taak van de organisatoren om de sessies draaglijk (kort en interactief) te houden en genoeg tijd tussenin in te plannen. Het lezen van Presentation Zen is natuurlijk altijd een goed idee.\nTijdens de borrel sprak ik nog de man van FON die zijn bedrijf (natuurlijk) als beste optie ziet om overal betaalbare wireless te krijgen. Ik moet zeggen dat het verhaal best oké klinkt (ik kreeg een button van hem) en ik zit erover na te denken om een pre-loaded FON router te kopen.\nOok nog kort met Rutger van Waveren gepraat. Zijn weblog had ik deze week gevonden toen ik zocht naar blogs die over dit evenement schreven. Niet zo gek aangezien hij het heeft georganiseerd.\nHans van Mestrum die er wel was heb ik helaas niet kunnen ontmoeten.\nTenslotte Voor de mobiele werker was het in ieder geval niet makkelijk gemaakt. De WiFi in het Rosarium was €3 per uur. Veel tijd om mijn batterij op te laden had ik niet en aangezien de NS nog steeds geen stopcontacten heeft zat ik op de terugweg zonder stroom.\nDie terugweg: rennen naar station RAI daarbij allemaal huisvrouwen ontwijkend om precies de drie treinen te halen die ik moest hebben om om zeven uur weer in Delft te zijn. Dat lukt anders nooit.\n","date":"March 24, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-588/","section":"Posts","summary":"Disclaimer: Dit is een ruw verslag van de seminar Power to the People die ik vanmiddag heb bijgewoond. Vrijwel zeker klopt niet alles en heb ik niet iedereen eer kunnen geven waar dat toekomt. Addenda en errata mogen in het commentaar.\n","title":"Forza","type":"posts"},{"content":"Stories of Microsoft changing are doing the rounds, but one thing they don\u0026rsquo;t seem to be able to change is their inability to release Vista (press release).\nAnother delay to early 2007 leaves a window of about one more year for Apple and Linux to make their forays.\nOm has more dirt.\n","date":"March 22, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-103/","section":"Posts","summary":"Stories of Microsoft changing are doing the rounds, but one thing they don’t seem to be able to change is their inability to release Vista (press release).\n","title":"Tee-hee-hee","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;m attending the Magnus ‘Power to the People’ seminar this Thursday in Amsterdam. The theme of this seminar fits in perfectly with my Masters project and I thought it would be good to get out and meet some new people, exchange some ideas.\nI was looking around the blogosphere this afternoon to find if other people had written about it, but I could not find very much. One post on the blog of one of the organizers, but not substantially more conversation.\nThe program:\nHans Appel from Sun; I expect him to tell some kind of vague outreach story.\nFrank Janssen; is doing a lot of pioneering work in this field on his weblog and is all over the Dutch corporate Web 2.0 scene. I\u0026rsquo;m pretty curious what he has to say.\nIwan Hullegie; marketer going to talk about viral marketing. This is probably going to be more fun than insightful.\n","date":"March 21, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-studies-405/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’m attending the Magnus ‘Power to the People’ seminar this Thursday in Amsterdam. The theme of this seminar fits in perfectly with my Masters project and I thought it would be good to get out and meet some new people, exchange some ideas.\n","title":"Power to the People","type":"posts"},{"content":"I have a big list of light reading, idea-heavy non-fiction which sort of fits in with my Masters project and with today\u0026rsquo;s payday I thought I would splash out on a bit.\nOne book I wanted —“Naked Conversations” by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel— was not available in all of the web shops I investigated and was ridiculously expensive at ABC at €29. After some clicking around I found out that shipping it from Amazon.co.uk would only net me a slightly lower price than at ABC with the 10% student discount. I\u0026rsquo;ll pick it up in the Hague one of these days.\nYou might recall the Scoble Israel clip from a recent Rocketboom episode.\nI also had a gift certificate from Bol.com lying around so the splashing out did not really have that much financial consequences. What I did get:\nSeth Godin — “Permission Marketing” Malcolm Gladwell — “The Tipping Point” Paul Arden — It\u0026rsquo;s not how good you are, it\u0026rsquo;s how good you want to be Jonathan Safran Foer — “Everything is Illuminated” I\u0026rsquo;m especially looking forward to the Gladwell book.\n","date":"March 21, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-studies-404/","section":"Posts","summary":"I have a big list of light reading, idea-heavy non-fiction which sort of fits in with my Masters project and with today’s payday I thought I would splash out on a bit.\n","title":"Books","type":"posts"},{"content":"Eind april is er eindelijk weer een bijeenkomst van Web 2.0 mensen in Amsterdam: CocoaDevHouse. Een leuke onconferentie waar veel mensen die actief bezig zijn met Web 2.0 en andere hippe techniek bij elkaar komen om de boel op stelten te zetten.\nMeer verhaal en de bronnen in mijn tech blog.\n","date":"March 21, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-587/","section":"Posts","summary":"Eind april is er eindelijk weer een bijeenkomst van Web 2.0 mensen in Amsterdam: CocoaDevHouse. Een leuke onconferentie waar veel mensen die actief bezig zijn met Web 2.0 en andere hippe techniek bij elkaar komen om de boel op stelten te zetten.\n","title":"Super Blije Ontwikkelaars","type":"posts"},{"content":"Pretty interesting article about implementing Mutex functionality in Javascript using very basic primitives (because that is all you have got).\n","date":"March 21, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-102/","section":"Posts","summary":"Pretty interesting article about implementing Mutex functionality in Javascript using very basic primitives (because that is all you have got).\n","title":"Mutex","type":"posts"},{"content":"Katie recently announced (Upcoming, Macwereld) on April 21st. CocoaDevHouse is an Amsterdam incarnation of similar popular unconferences across the world.\nCocoaDevHouse Amsterdam is going to be a really cool gathering where the technically fantastic meet up to create great things. I had missed Barcamp Amsterdam, so this is my chance to catch up.\nTalk about lighting the Web 2.0 fire in Europe. Amsterdam is where it happens.\n","date":"March 21, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-101/","section":"Posts","summary":"Katie recently announced (Upcoming, Macwereld) on April 21st. CocoaDevHouse is an Amsterdam incarnation of similar popular unconferences across the world.\n","title":"Chocolate Happy Dev House","type":"posts"},{"content":"Good break down by David Heinemeier Hansson of the standard Enterprise bullshit and how overpriced consultants use it to cover their assess.\n","date":"March 21, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-100/","section":"Posts","summary":"Good break down by David Heinemeier Hansson of the standard Enterprise bullshit and how overpriced consultants use it to cover their assess.\n","title":"I am so Enterprise","type":"posts"},{"content":" In mijn missie om alle films van Fatih Akin te zien heb ik net de hele leuk romantisch komedische road movie “Im Juli” gezien.\nDe thema\u0026rsquo;s zijn standaard: liefde vinden waar je het niet zoekt, opkomen voor jezelf etc. Er zitten nogal wat gaten in het plot maar die maken de film niet minder leuk. Misschien maken ze de film zelfs leuker.\nJe moet je niet storen aan de onwaarschijnlijke plotwendingen en de compleet geflipte karakters maar je moet je gewoon mee laten nemen op de reis door Europa heen. Wie weet wat je uiteindelijk vindt.\nEn let even goed op de Roemeense grenswacht, dat is een leuk rolletje van Akin zelf.\n","date":"March 20, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-586/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Warum kempfst du nicht dafür?","type":"posts"},{"content":"Fijn om te zien dat Sarah McLachlan nog steeds erg goed bezig is [via].\n","date":"March 18, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-585/","section":"Posts","summary":"Fijn om te zien dat Sarah McLachlan nog steeds erg goed bezig is [via].\n","title":"Wereld","type":"posts"},{"content":"Deze kaart van de Amerikaanse belastinguitgaven is erg cool en laat mooi zien hoe je complexe informatie kunt visualiseren. (Hij doet me ook verlangen naar muurvullende displays maar dat terzijde.) [via]\nNu zou ik graag eenzelfde soort kaart zien voor Nederland. De overheid mag het best financieren, het informeren van het publiek bestaat toch niet alleen uit het publiceren van dikke rapporten met cijfertjes-ellende?\n","date":"March 18, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-584/","section":"Posts","summary":"Deze kaart van de Amerikaanse belastinguitgaven is erg cool en laat mooi zien hoe je complexe informatie kunt visualiseren. (Hij doet me ook verlangen naar muurvullende displays maar dat terzijde.) [via]\n","title":"Dood en Belastingen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Miguel citeert Chomsky en signaleert hoe over de hele wereld landen zich links orienteren en zich afkeren van Amerika om niet meer de bitch te zijn.\nWaarom kunnen wij dat niet? Of moet Bos links voorstellen?\n","date":"March 17, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-583/","section":"Posts","summary":"Miguel citeert Chomsky en signaleert hoe over de hele wereld landen zich links orienteren en zich afkeren van Amerika om niet meer de bitch te zijn.\n","title":"Forza","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik heb vandaag in de trein vanaf Nuenen terug het boek “Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking” uitgelezen.\nGladwell is een geweldig schrijver (schrijft in de New Yorker en heeft sinds kort een weblog) en dit boek is niet mis. Het hoofdonderwerp is perceptie en wat de omstandigheden zijn waarin deze perceptie in de eerste paar seconden heel vaak heel goed is (en wat de omstandigheden zijn waarin het faalt).\nHet boek lijkt op boeken zoals “The Wisdom of Crowds” waarin een wetenschappelijk verhaal wordt gestut met (vaak amusante) anekdotes. Maar dit is beter.\nHet verschil onder andere met het boek van Surowiecki is dat Gladwell een veel kundiger schrijver is. Hij weet goed te schrijven en te beschrijven, op te bouwen en de lezer te bewegen.\nDaarnaast gaat hij ook nog eens dieper in op zijn anekdotes. Hij heeft natuurlijk de onderzoeken gelezen die zijn verhaal steunen maar hij heeft ook vaak de mensen ontmoet en ondervraagd (en schrijft daar goed over).\nIk neem aardig wat mee uit dit boek in anekdotes en (contra-intuïtief) inzicht:\n-Over the Pepsi challenge -Over het transfer-effect van verpakkingen -Over de veertien smaakdimensies van mayonaise -Over de blinde audities van muzikanten -Waarom high speed chases vaak een gewelddadig einde hebben -Hoe handig FACS is om te kunnen\nen nog zo veel meer…\nIk wil meer. Volgende non-fictie wordt óf “The Tipping Point” (ook van Gladwell) óf Freakonomics (de meest directe concurrent).\n","date":"March 15, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-582/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik heb vandaag in de trein vanaf Nuenen terug het boek “Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking” uitgelezen.\n","title":"Knipper","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ignite the European Web 2.0 conversation? I\u0026rsquo;m all for.\nIt seems like London and Amsterdam already have quite a bit going for themselves.\n","date":"March 15, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-99/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ignite the European Web 2.0 conversation? I’m all for.\n","title":"EuroBubble","type":"posts"},{"content":"Garr diggs up pretty good stuff in a very cool essay spectacularly titled: “Let there be stoning!” The following excerpt is a gem:\n\u0026ldquo;Failure to spend the [presentation] time wisely and well, failure to educate, entertain, elucidate, enlighten, and most important of all, failure to maintain attention and interest should be punishable by stoning. There is no excuse for tedium.\u0026rdquo;\nThe measure suggested —stoning— may seem a bit too Old Testament-ish in nature but seems about right to me.\nLet\u0026rsquo;s institute this at my university. I know one or two teachers that would hold up.\n","date":"March 15, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-studies-403/","section":"Posts","summary":"Garr diggs up pretty good stuff in a very cool essay spectacularly titled: “Let there be stoning!” The following excerpt is a gem:\n","title":"Let there be… stoning","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik liep vanmiddag de Paagman binnen om geld uit te geven om een krant te kopen (de nieuwe NRC.Next). Geld uitgeven voor een print medium, stel je voor…\nMaar ze hadden hem niet eens.\nOp mijn werk had Amanda er gelukkig eentje meegenomen van de exemplaren die ze uitdelen op de stations en het ziet er best kèk uit. De vormgeving had wat mij betreft nog best wat extremer gemogen.\nZie ook de hippe site met weblog.\nStel van de week is hij leverbaar, dan zit er een kans in dat ik hem koop.\n","date":"March 14, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-581/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik liep vanmiddag de Paagman binnen om geld uit te geven om een krant te kopen (de nieuwe NRC.Next). Geld uitgeven voor een print medium, stel je voor…\n","title":"Surreëel","type":"posts"},{"content":"Nog als vervolg op het T-mobile gezeik (nu trouwens nr. 3 in Google. Help mee!).\nToen ik de originele brief met de reparatieofferte kreeg stond er strafporto op. De brief zat in een T-mobile envelop met daarop een Port betaald-merkje maar niet dus.\nDie brief mag je dan weigeren, of je maakt hem open en dan moet jij de porto voldoen. Het kon mij niet zoveel schelen en die brief was toch al hier, dus ik maakte hem open en zag het slechte nieuws. Het bedrijf dat de brief verstuurde (Solid Vision) snapte ook niet hoe het kon en wilde best mijn porto vergoeden maar het is daar nooit meer echt van gekomen.\nKreeg ik vandaag een Herinnering Nabetaling frankeerkosten in de bus met daarin een aanslag voor €0,50. Nu is het echt mijn schuld, maar ik vind het alsnog een redelijk onsmakelijke praktijk. Ze bezorgen de brief wel maar zetten me dan voor het blok. Als ik hem terugstuur kom ik er nooit achter wat er in die brief zat.\nIk heb nog twee velletjes postzegels over die niks anders doen dan mijn portemonnee dikker maken. Ze stikken er maar in. Ik ga toch nooit meer postzegels gebruiken. Wie verstuurt er nou nog post?\n","date":"March 14, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-580/","section":"Posts","summary":"Nog als vervolg op het T-mobile gezeik (nu trouwens nr. 3 in Google. Help mee!).\n","title":"TPG Post","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik zat er een beetje tegenop te hikken maar ik kom binnenkort in situaties dat een goed pak toch echt heel handig gaat zijn.\nMijn vorige twee pakken gingen het echt niet meer doen. Één donkerblauw pak van een jaar of zes geleden dat niet zo vaak gedragen is maar waar een raar gat in de broek zit en dat alleen nog past in mijn fantasie.\nEen ander strak grijs-groen pak dat ik dagelijks aan had in onze commissietijd. Het ziet er voor dat gebruik nog verbazingwekkend goed uit en zou het vast nog een maand of zes goed doen maar dat pak is voor de kroeg niet voor de echte wereld.\nVandaag maar even naar de Haagsche Bluf geweest om een flitsend nieuw pak op de kop te tikken. Bij Suit Supply hebben ze veel leuke dingen en het resultaat mag er best zijn.\nWat een budget pakkenverkoper heet te zijn valt nog best mee, maar duurder kan altijd nog.\n","date":"March 12, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-579/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik zat er een beetje tegenop te hikken maar ik kom binnenkort in situaties dat een goed pak toch echt heel handig gaat zijn.\n","title":"Op voorraad","type":"posts"},{"content":"The Laszlo Application Platform was already quite impressive with its XML descriptors rendering into full fledged Flash applications. Now on Ajaxian you can see that they can also render into Ajax so no more Flash.\nIs this the start of Ajax == Flash equivalence?\nAnd Flash suddenly got a whole lot more indispensible.\n","date":"March 9, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-98/","section":"Posts","summary":"The Laszlo Application Platform was already quite impressive with its XML descriptors rendering into full fledged Flash applications. Now on Ajaxian you can see that they can also render into Ajax so no more Flash.\n","title":"Ajax Renderer","type":"posts"},{"content":"Alex Russell recently gave three presentations on JavaScript, one at FOSDEM and two at ETECH. Some of it is basic stuff, some of it is more advanced and some of it is controversial.\nFP and AOP in JavaScript — These little known but quite advanced and useful possibilities of the essentially functional language JavaScript are fun to know and supported well by Dojo.\nAjax Tutorial — This should be pretty basic knowledge for anyone involved with Ajax but it still touches on some interesting points.\nComet — This re-introduction of an admittedly old technique is probably the most controversial because it introduces another new word. The technique does have some merit and may finally prompt webservers to catch up from their threaded inheritances.\nAnd Simon Willison also gave a JavaScript tutorial on ETECH. Useful for beginners and for advanced programmers to touch up their knowledge.\n","date":"March 9, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-97/","section":"Posts","summary":"Alex Russell recently gave three presentations on JavaScript, one at FOSDEM and two at ETECH. Some of it is basic stuff, some of it is more advanced and some of it is controversial.\n","title":"The Little Language That Could","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;ve kind of started my Masters project at TOPdesk implementing social sofware for them and the meme is spreading around the office.\nTangentially related I shouted out the idea to install a Jabber server internally for our communication. Niels picked it up immediately and installed Wildfire on a virtual server he had lying around.\nWildfire install with LDAP authentication was a breeze as far as I could tell (I wasn\u0026rsquo;t there most of the time). The Spark client they provide is pretty solid but cool people of course use either Adium or Gaim to connect.\nThe interesting bit was how fast it caught on. It only took one company wide e-mail with basic instructions and the location of the Spark installer to get everybody online like —exactly— wildfire.\nEveryone from our nerds to our most non-tech savvy employees got online and started chatting and putting their creativity into making fun buddy icons to display their identity.\nNot all is lost. I have proof that work was done because some people had also discovered the custom status message and put themselves on “Away - Aan het werk”.\n","date":"March 9, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-studies-402/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’ve kind of started my Masters project at TOPdesk implementing social sofware for them and the meme is spreading around the office.\n","title":"Social Vibes","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik was al redelijk onder de indruk van Pentascope maar dat gevoel neemt alleen maar toe. Ik weet inhoudelijk niet precies wat ze doen, maar ze zijn een kampioen in het cultiveren van een gevoel.\nEen hele tijd geleden had ik in Casa Luna een interview gehoord met hun Chief Emotions Officer Engbert Breuker en dat was genoeg voor mij om hun site te blijven volgen.\nIk ben gisteren begonnen het interview opnieuw te luisteren en het is nog steeds even sterk. Als je een rustig uur hebt, dan is het erg de moeite waard.\nHet gevoel dat ze uitdragen is dat mensen elkaar nodig hebben en het samen goed kunnen hebben ook op hun werk. Breuker ondersteunt het met goede soundbites, plezier en passie en legt een visie neer hoe het allemaal beter kan.\n","date":"March 8, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-578/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik was al redelijk onder de indruk van Pentascope maar dat gevoel neemt alleen maar toe. Ik weet inhoudelijk niet precies wat ze doen, maar ze zijn een kampioen in het cultiveren van een gevoel.\n","title":"Implementeren is een vak","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik kom er net tot mijn grote verbazing achter dat morgen (of eigenlijk vandaag over zes uur) de stemlokalen hun deuren openen.\nVerkiezingen waren toch altijd op woensdag?\nNou ja, in ieder geval maar stempas opgegraven en er is een lokaal in de Torenhove.\n","date":"March 7, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-577/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik kom er net tot mijn grote verbazing achter dat morgen (of eigenlijk vandaag over zes uur) de stemlokalen hun deuren openen.\n","title":"Verkiezingen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Zoals beloofd, hier dan mijn advies.\nNoodzaak\nDe noodzaak voor een dergelijk netwerk is er wel degelijk omdat er in het huidige breedbandlandschap in Delft (draadloos danwel wired) nog duidelijk plek is voor concurrentie.\nDe huidige draadloze aanbieders bieden nauwelijks dekking maar vragen wel toptarieven voor het gebruik van hun netwerken. Niemand zal er vreemd van opkijken dat niemand hier gebruik van maakt. Wat hebben ze eigenlijk teruggegeven aan de stad in ruil voor de toestemming om draadloze kastjes op te mogen hangen?\nDe noodzaak is niet voor een gratis draadloos netwerk, maar voor een publiek netwerk. Een netwerk waar de eerste afweging inclusiviteit is, niet hoeveel winst er mogelijkerwijs uit geperst kan worden. Dus een netwerk dat mensen echt kunnen en willen gebruiken, alleen dan kunnen de voordelen ook echt gerealiseerd worden.\nPartijen\nDe politieke partijen die mijn brief hebben beantwoord zijn overwegend positief (PvdA, Leefbaar Delft, CDA, VVD, GroenLinks, STIP) over het idee maar doen —natuurlijk— weinig toezeggingen. Er wordt nu in ieder geval over gepraat en dat is al heel wat.\nWel is iedereen het erover eens dat de gemeente een terughoudende rol moet spelen in het initiatief en dus niet zelf een draadloos netwerk gaat betalen, aanleggen of beheren.\nTechnologie Tsaar\nWat er op dit moment dan concreet aan het gebeuren is op breedband gebied in Delft is voorlopig nog een beetje onduidelijk. Een paar jaar geleden stond in een beleidsnota de volgende prijzenswaardige ambitie:\nIn het collegeprogramma 2002 –2006 is de ambitie opgenomen, dat in 2006 een kwart van de Delftse adressen is aangesloten op een glasvezel-ethernet infrastructuur. Om dit te organiseren zou in 2003 de Breedband Ontwikkelingsmaatschappij opgericht worden.\nmaar dat gaat mooi niet door:\nDelftenaren krijgen voorlopig geen supersnel internet. De gemeente Delft kan geen financiers vinden voor een project, dat ervoor zou moeten zorgen dat een kwart van de Delftenaren in 2006 op een glasvezelnet is aangesloten.\nBlijft toch de vraag staan: “Waar is mijn glas?”\nIk denk dat Delft wat ze in Amerika een Technology Czar noemen hard kan gebruiken. Iemand die op een hoog niveau verstand heeft van technologie en de contacten heeft om dingen echt te kunnen realiseren.\nIn Nuenen hebben ze wel glas en volgens mij is dat door zoiemand gerealiseerd. Op de site staat betrekkelijk weinig informatie over de tot stand koming van het netwerk maar ik ga er de week na volgende week heen en zal dan wel wat vragen stellen over het hoe en wat.\nBoek\nIk heb het paper What\u0026rsquo;s the price of free? met interviews met mensen die bij dit soort initiatieven in Amerika betrokken zijn (geweest) gelezen en daarna ben ik grotendeels teruggekomen op het concept gratis.\nZoals de schrijver al zegt:\n\u0026ldquo;Now, for the rest of you who care about what broadband wireless can do, and you have a vision of seeing it address government business operations, social issues and economic development needs, the vision is the dog. Free is the tail. Stop letting the tail wag the dog.\u0026rdquo;\nZodra je begint met praten over gratis, dan verlies je de echte baten en kosten van je netwerk compleet uit het oog en het werkt als een rode lap op allemaal foute dingen. Teveel focusen op gratis kan de beste deals afschrikken. Aangezien de gemeente waarschijnlijk toch met een bedrijf gaat samenwerken, moet er een win-win situatie voor alle partijen worden onderhandeld, en die situatie betekent voor het bedrijf: geld.\nHet probleem met het netwerk compleet buiten de invloed van de overheid houden (het model waar we nu goed naar op weg zijn) is dat het uitvoeren van toegevoegde eisen dan nodeloos moeilijk en ingewikkeld wordt.\nEen overheid zou dingen als toegang, privacy, service en noodvoorzieningen willen garanderen. Deze dingen zijn meestal niet in het grootste belang van de implementerende bedrijven en er zal dus veel zachte dwang nodig zijn.\nEen gemeente heeft wel heel veel macht om een markt te vormen. De (grote hoeveelheid) diensten die een gemeente wil afnemen maken haar een fundamentele klant. Verder kan de gemeente bemiddelen met klanten en de vraag bundelen.\nWat je nu veel ziet bij netwerken in Amerika is dat het lage gratis segment van het netwerk betaald wordt door middel van advertenties. WiFi netwerken hebben natuurlijk een ongekend potentieel om locatie-gebaseerde advertenties los te laten maar advertenties zijn zeker geen panacee.\nAls het bedrijf dat de diensten aanbiedt zich enkel en alleen bouwt op advertenties en het faalt uiteindelijk (wat niet zo onwaarschijnlijk is) dan moet je ook goede afspraken hebben hoe je uit die overeenkomst komt. Verder zijn de inhoud en de hoeveelheid advertenties imagobepalend voor het netwerk en voor de stad. Het is niet makkelijk om dat goed te doen.\nAl met al is iedereen het erover eens dat goede overeenkomsten mogelijk zijn, maar dat de belangrijkste prijs die betaald moet worden, de prijs van heel veel zweet is. Het formuleren van eisen en aanbiedingen, het afwegen van alle mogelijke opties, het verzinnen van creatieve oplossingen voor problemen die niemand eerder heeft gehad.\n(Dit stukje is nog een beetje ruw, maar het is laat. Morgen herlees ik etc.)\n","date":"March 6, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-576/","section":"Posts","summary":"Zoals beloofd, hier dan mijn advies.\n","title":"Wireless Delft Recap","type":"posts"},{"content":"GroenLinks steunt de kandidatuur van Istanbul als Culturele Hoofdstad van Europa in 2010.\nHet zal wel een of ander Europees (dus goor en semi-corrupt) politiek spel worden, maar als je de concurrentie bekijkt dan kan het Istanbul al bijna niet ontgaan. Iedereen die weleens in Istanbul is geweest weet bij voorbaat al zeker dat steden als Pecs, Kiev, Essen of Gorlitz onbeschaafde dorpen zijn in vergelijking.\nUpdate: Istanbul heeft gewonnen (Fok.nl).\n","date":"March 5, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-575/","section":"Posts","summary":"GroenLinks steunt de kandidatuur van Istanbul als Culturele Hoofdstad van Europa in 2010.\n","title":"Cultuurhoofdstad","type":"posts"},{"content":"Shit, weer niet genomineerd…\nMaar komende zaterdag zijn de Dutch Bloggies en ik denk dat ik toch wel ga. Het programma ziet er leuk uit en zit vol met freebies. En het lijkt me wel leuk om gezichten te kunnen koppelen aan blogs die ik lees.\n","date":"March 5, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-574/","section":"Posts","summary":"Shit, weer niet genomineerd…\n","title":"Bloggies","type":"posts"},{"content":"Thank god Google has remembered how to make useful stuff. The Safe Browsing extension (which is going to be integrated into Firefox proper) is something that users —especially naive ones— can really benefit from via.\n","date":"March 5, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-96/","section":"Posts","summary":"Thank god Google has remembered how to make useful stuff. The Safe Browsing extension (which is going to be integrated into Firefox proper) is something that users —especially naive ones— can really benefit from via.\n","title":"Safe Browsing","type":"posts"},{"content":"Dacht je dat telefoonmaatschappijen leuk waren… banken zijn ook kut.\nUpdate: en Jake hoeft natuunlijk maar een scheet te laten en het staat op Boing Boing.\n","date":"March 5, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-573/","section":"Posts","summary":"Dacht je dat telefoonmaatschappijen leuk waren… banken zijn ook kut.\n","title":"Citibank","type":"posts"},{"content":"Wat een gezever in NOVA Politiek van gisteren. Prem Rhadakishun die zijn onvoorwaardelijke steun betuigt voor zijn kleurgenoot Laetitia Griffith.\nMisschien dat nu nog minder mensen Prem serieus nemen.\nGriffith was eerder deze week ook al in NOVA Politiek en kwam daar buitengewoon onbenullig over als een groentje dat net komt kijken en nergens iets van af weet.\nEn dat vlak nadat ze terug was gekomen op het foutje van de inkomenseis voor sociale woningen. Ook al zo amateuristisch.\n","date":"March 4, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-572/","section":"Posts","summary":"Wat een gezever in NOVA Politiek van gisteren. Prem Rhadakishun die zijn onvoorwaardelijke steun betuigt voor zijn kleurgenoot Laetitia Griffith.\n","title":"Discriminatie","type":"posts"},{"content":"Hilarious Post-Traumatic Apple Event Disorder cartoon at Joy of Tech [via].\n","date":"March 2, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-95/","section":"Posts","summary":"Hilarious Post-Traumatic Apple Event Disorder cartoon at Joy of Tech [via].\n","title":"Less than stellar Apple event","type":"posts"},{"content":"Deze week geen Xing Yi en op donderdag geen Capoeira. De zaaltjes zijn dicht vanwege de schoolvakantie (vraag me niet waarom…).\nDaarom maar wat hardgelopen door de zacht dwarrelende miezersneeuw. Mooi oplichtend in het halogeenlicht van de lantaarns en de hemel die onweer flitste. Delft was mooi en de kou was alleen de eerste tien minuten ondraaglijk.\n","date":"March 2, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-571/","section":"Posts","summary":"Deze week geen Xing Yi en op donderdag geen Capoeira. De zaaltjes zijn dicht vanwege de schoolvakantie (vraag me niet waarom…).\n","title":"Olele","type":"posts"},{"content":"Het hele Draadloos Delft gebeuren is nogal troebel en erg veel actie zit er niet in, lijk het. Ik ga me beraden en ik kom van het weekend met een advies.\nOpmerkelijk detail gisteravond was dat de hele Markt van Delft eigenlijk al gedekt is. Zowel in La Dolce Vita als in Café Luna kon er naar hartelust ge-internet worden en er was zelfs een FON-hotspot zichtbaar.\n","date":"March 2, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-570/","section":"Posts","summary":"Het hele Draadloos Delft gebeuren is nogal troebel en erg veel actie zit er niet in, lijk het. Ik ga me beraden en ik kom van het weekend met een advies.\n","title":"Draadloos Teaser","type":"posts"},{"content":"Wie wordt daar beticht van vreemdelingenhaat?\n[via]\n","date":"March 2, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-569/","section":"Posts","summary":"Wie wordt daar beticht van vreemdelingenhaat?\n","title":"Bommetje leggen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik heb van GroenLinks ook een positief antwoord gehad.\nDe PvdA heeft schriftelijke vragen gesteld. Ik wist hiervan en ik zou ze ook ontvangen, maar dat is blijkbaar vergeten. Ik zag ze staan (en een link naar mijn site) op politiekdelft.nl een leuke verzameling lokaal nieuws (helaas zonder RSS).\nHet lijkt er in ieder geval op dat ik iets dat tot nog toe weinig aandacht kreeg heb aangezwengeld.\nGratis Ik ben via MuniWireless (uitstekend blog) een paper “What\u0026rsquo;s the price of free?” op het spoor gekomen met interviews met mensen die dit al eens gedaan hebben.\nIk moet het nog uitlezen maar ik kom ten dele terug op het feit dat het netwerk gratis moet zijn. Gratis is te kortzichtig en er zittent veel nadelen aan vast.\nWaar ik wel aan vast wil blijven houden is dat het netwerk het publieke belang moet dienen in plaats van het huidige kartel van telecombedrijven.\nGlas Een paar politieke partijen hebben het al gehad over glasvezelinitiatieven. Als dat enige indicatie is voor de actie die mogelijk is dan ben ik pessimistisch.\nIk betaal me nu half blauw aan Wanadoo voor een hele slechte verbinding die er om de haverklap uit ligt. Glasvezel? Graag! Maar waar is het?\nEven ter vergelijking wat ze in Nuenen betalen:\n€14 Televisie\n€10 Telefoon\n€16 Internet 10Mbit symmetrisch (+ €20 verplicht lidmaatschap)\nvoor €45 extra krijg je 100Mbit\nDe helft geld voor drie keer zo snel internet?\n","date":"March 1, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-568/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik heb van GroenLinks ook een positief antwoord gehad.\n","title":"Antwoord GroenLinks (en meer)","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik was het ziek om elke week de films van Lumen in mijn agenda te moeten te typen (ik was er meestal ook te lui voor). Dus nu heb ik het structureler opgelost.\nEen iCal generator voor de films die er draaien:\nwebcal://alper.nl/cgi-bin/lumen-ical.py\nOok op mijn tech blog.\n","date":"March 1, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-567/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik was het ziek om elke week de films van Lumen in mijn agenda te moeten te typen (ik was er meestal ook te lui voor). Dus nu heb ik het structureler opgelost.\n","title":"Gemakkelijk Lumen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Every week I get a mailing from Filmhuis Lumen —my favorite art house theatre— with their movie schedule in it. I was entering them into my iCal as events when I got bored with the repetitivity and the obsolesence of the task.\nSo I decided to solve this problem once and for all. Voilà! my Filmhuis Lumen iCal Generator: webcal://alper.nl/cgi-bin/lumen-ical.py\n(In iCal: Calendar -\u0026gt; Subscribe and enter the URL above.)\nAnd the proof is in the screenshot below:\nApple\u0026rsquo;s iCalendar documentation is a bit sparse but they point you to the iCalendar RFC which is supposed to say everything. Wikipedia also has a nice writeup.\nI\u0026rsquo;m not that big a fan of RFC\u0026rsquo;s for implementing. Their layout is unusable and finding stuff is a pain.\nFortunately there is a pretty solid Python library for iCalendar which you can feed your data and it will spit out a valid file.\nFeel free to use it, any comments are welcome.\n","date":"March 1, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-94/","section":"Posts","summary":"Every week I get a mailing from Filmhuis Lumen —my favorite art house theatre— with their movie schedule in it. I was entering them into my iCal as events when I got bored with the repetitivity and the obsolesence of the task.\n","title":"Filmhuis Lumen iCal","type":"posts"},{"content":"At first I thought it was a cheesy rip off but this video actually very nicely demonstrates the difference both in philosophy and execution between Microsoft and Apple.\nGuess who comes out best.\n","date":"February 28, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-93/","section":"Posts","summary":"At first I thought it was a cheesy rip off but this video actually very nicely demonstrates the difference both in philosophy and execution between Microsoft and Apple.\n","title":"Box redesign","type":"posts"},{"content":"Deze vrijdag om 17.00 “Gegen die Wand” in de MovieZone bij Filmhuis Lumen.\nEen van de beste films van dat jaar. Absoluut verplicht.\n","date":"February 27, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-566/","section":"Posts","summary":"Deze vrijdag om 17.00 “Gegen die Wand” in de MovieZone bij Filmhuis Lumen.\n","title":"Nochmals Sibel und Cahit","type":"posts"},{"content":"Vanmiddag bij TOPdesk onze eerste les Ashanta Yoga gehad. De nieuwe lunchruimte helemaal leeggeruimd en een berg matjes neergelegd. We kregen les van Jeanet Heilbron.\nHet was erg leuk, en redelijk inspannend. Veel van de houdingen in de rekbewegingen kende ik wel van de capoeira warming up maar dit was meer gericht op ontspanning. Schouderstand bijvoorbeeld (volgende keer gaan we de hoofdstand doen). En de pilates oefeningen waren een stuk ‘tammer’ dan ik gewend ben. Uiteindelijk sloten we af met een totale ontspanningsoefening.\nHet is best wel inspannend (zweet) en ik geloof wel dat het goed voor je is. Ik moet alleen wel mijn best doen om niet hard te lachen elke keer als het gaat over chakra\u0026rsquo;s en dat soort onzin.\nEn toen —klaar met de les— helemaal opgewarmd en uitgerekt was het afgelopen. Wat dan? Voortaan als ik tijd heb, ga ik maandag na yoga wel naar capoeira. Dat lijkt me een goed vervolg.\n","date":"February 27, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-565/","section":"Posts","summary":"Vanmiddag bij TOPdesk onze eerste les Ashanta Yoga gehad. De nieuwe lunchruimte helemaal leeggeruimd en een berg matjes neergelegd. We kregen les van Jeanet Heilbron.\n","title":"Namaste","type":"posts"},{"content":"Het leven zonder televisie wordt steeds makkelijker. Lang verwacht, gesmeekt maar niet gelukt bij Uitzendinggemist komen er nu wel Vodcasts bij Talpa van BvD en NSE.\niTunes podcatcher functionaliteit is toch echt wel een hele makkelijke manier om dit soort episodische multimedia bij te houden. Het scheelt me een berg zoeken en downloaden, gaat allemaal automatisch en ik kan voortaan de boeiende stukjes van BVD terugkijken wanneer het mij uitkomt.\n(En dan heb ik het er nog niet eens over als je forenst en een iPod Video hebt…)\nNu nog iets vergelijkbaars voor NOVA en ik ben helemaal blij. Misschien ga ik dat binnenkort dan zelf schrijven met een sitescraper.\n[via]\nUpdate: Jan Mulder is nog steeds even vervelend.\n**Update 2:**De URLs zijn van de hele eenvoudige vorm:\nhttp://www.talpa.tv/web/show/id=46292/presentationid=271612/cachetimeout=300/output=vodcast/program=18\nHet programma id is een simpel getal en dit komt overeen met de ids op “Programma gemist”. Barend en Van Dorp is bijvoorbeeld id 9:\nhttp://www.talpa.tv/web/show/id=47822/progid=9\nVoor elk programma op programma gemist bestaat nu dus al een vodcast url (vul maar gewoon een andere id in en vraag het bestand op met curl ofzo) maar de meeste zijn gewoon leeg (zoals ook die van NSE).\nDit roept wel de vraag op of dit een pilot is en ze binnenkort de andere programma\u0026rsquo;s ook aan gaan zetten.\n","date":"February 27, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-564/","section":"Posts","summary":"Het leven zonder televisie wordt steeds makkelijker. Lang verwacht, gesmeekt maar niet gelukt bij Uitzendinggemist komen er nu wel Vodcasts bij Talpa van BvD en NSE.\n","title":"Tv-loos","type":"posts"},{"content":"Why does every operating system known to man have a decent facility to set up dual heads with mirroring and extending options and boxes representing the head and its position with respect to the other head.\nEvery operating system except Linux of course. In Linux I have to edit a strange file called /etc/X11/xorg.conf and manipulate obscure stanzas such as:\nSection \u0026#34;ServerLayout\u0026#34; Identifier \u0026#34;XFree86 Dual-Head\u0026#34; InputDevice \u0026#34;Generic Keyboard\u0026#34; InputDevice \u0026#34;Configured Mouse\u0026#34; Screen \u0026#34;Screen0\u0026#34; 0 0 Screen \u0026#34;Screen1\u0026#34; LeftOf \u0026#34;Screen0\u0026#34; Option \u0026#34;Xinerama\u0026#34; \u0026#34;True\u0026#34; EndSection And then brutishly kill and restart my X.\nIf this is not bad enough, a recent upgrade b0rked my previously working x setup completely. I haven\u0026rsquo;t had the time or the courage yet to tackle this problem, but I will have to. I have a practical assignment due which requires me to use my linux box.\n","date":"February 27, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-92/","section":"Posts","summary":"Why does every operating system known to man have a decent facility to set up dual heads with mirroring and extending options and boxes representing the head and its position with respect to the other head.\n","title":"Two Heads Are Better Than One","type":"posts"},{"content":"Het vervolg van de saga…\nDe VVD had afgelopen vrijdag ook nog een reactie op mijn vraag geplaatst en wel regelrecht in mijn wiki. Petje af, de meeste mensen halen dat niet.\nEn dan nog een erg genuanceerd standpunt ook. Zo genuanceerd had ik het in ieder geval niet verwacht van de VVD. Ja, de gemeente moet het niet betalen maar wel sturen.\nEn waar ik het niet mee eens ben if you build it they will come en in ieder geval, als je het niet bouwt komen ze zeker niet.\nAls ik de score van antwoorden bekijk, is dat toch redelijk depressief te noemen. Van de 15 lijsten heb ik nu vier antwoorden en wat flarden binnen.\nVolgende week ga ik kijken wat ik hier verder mee ga doen. De meeste antwoorden die ik heb zijn over het algemeen nogal vrijblijvend, nog vrijblijvender dan verkiezingsbeloften. Dat zal wel politiek zijn.\n","date":"February 27, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-563/","section":"Posts","summary":"Het vervolg van de saga…\n","title":"Antwoord VVD","type":"posts"},{"content":"Alex Russell has posted his presentation on FOSDEM about advanced Javascript usage. Interesting scan and nice mix of advanced js trickery and bits and pieces of dojo.\n","date":"February 27, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-91/","section":"Posts","summary":"Alex Russell has posted his presentation on FOSDEM about advanced Javascript usage. Interesting scan and nice mix of advanced js trickery and bits and pieces of dojo.\n","title":"The language everyone loves to hate","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik had dit weekend last van een flinke knoop in een spier bij mijn schouder. Erg ongemakkelijk en pijnlijk. Ik heb toen maar veel plat gelegen en de complete serie Vuurzee gekeken.\nGoed te vinden online in het mediaarchief van de VARA (Real en Windows streams). De serie komt uit op DVD maar met de Flip4Mac plugin kun je de WMV streams gewoon opslaan en de kwaliteit ervan is meer dan goed genoeg.\nDe serie is erg goed gemaakt en sterk geacteerd. Het verhaal begint interessant maar de ongeloofwaardigheid van sommige karakters stoorte en beetje. Daarna trekt het goed bij maar tegen het einde dwaalt de boel goed af. Menno heeft gelijk het duurt te lang, er zitten teveel voorspelbare cliff hangers in en het einde is niet te harden.\nNog een reden om niet de DVDs te kopen maar rustig online te kijken.\n","date":"February 26, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-562/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik had dit weekend last van een flinke knoop in een spier bij mijn schouder. Erg ongemakkelijk en pijnlijk. Ik heb toen maar veel plat gelegen en de complete serie Vuurzee gekeken.\n","title":"Vuurzee","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik had pas mijn rijbewijs gehaald.\nMaar om nou te zeggen dat ik er echt wat aan heb… ik heb dat ding meer voor de hep. Wanneer heb ik nou een auto nodig?\nGisteren bij mijn ouders langs geweest om vanaf daar door te gaan naar mijn oom. Die woont sinds een tijdje in het onbereikbare ghetto Hoofddorp. Product van de (na de witte) gekleurde vlucht uit Amsterdam.\nDe auto wilde eerst niet zo. Mijn ouders gebruiken hem ook niet zo vaak en het koude weer had de accu ook geen goed gedaan. Na een kleine operatie met startkabels en buurmannen konden we toch nog vertrekken.\nIk heb voor het eerst sinds mijn examen autogereden \u0026rsquo;s nachts in een vreemde auto en dat ging eigenlijk best goed. Niks aan dat autorijden.\n","date":"February 26, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-561/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik had pas mijn rijbewijs gehaald.\n","title":"Starten","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik zit nu de toespraak van Robert Fisk aan de UCLA te luisteren en het is ongelofelijk hoeveel die man weet en hoe goed hij kan vertellen over de situatie in het Midden Oosten nu en vroeger.\nExtreem het luisteren waard.\nIk vraag me af of hij weleens bij The Daily Show te gast is geweest. Ik denk dat hij het daar heel goed zou doen.\nHet valt me op hoeveel verschrikkelijke dingen hij heeft gezien en hoe makkelijk hij erover praat. De meeste van deze dingen krijg je met geen mogelijkheid te zien op de journaals in het Westen. Wat Fisk betreft verdoezelt dit de gruwelijkheid van oorlog (zie ook: Alper - Oorlog is hel) en vergroot het de bereidheid daartoe door het publiek.\nHij pleit voor een nieuw soort journalisme dat de daadwerkelijke feiten weergeeft. Dit lijkt me een boeiende grond voor citizen journalism en het overal beschikbaar zijn van foto\u0026rsquo;s en camera\u0026rsquo;s.\n","date":"February 23, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-560/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik zit nu de toespraak van Robert Fisk aan de UCLA te luisteren en het is ongelofelijk hoeveel die man weet en hoe goed hij kan vertellen over de situatie in het Midden Oosten nu en vroeger.\n","title":"Fisk","type":"posts"},{"content":"Pak ze en pak ze hard!\nDe NLUUG heeft samen met een boel andere goede organisaties een brief gestuurd om Brein wat nederigheid bij te brengen.\nLeuke vragen van Planet Multimedia, maar dit soort initiatieven (en de publiciteit) is wel degelijk belangrijk om bewustwording van FLOSS in Nederland te doen groeien.\nDe Firefox gebruikscijfers van Nederland zijn schandalig laag (alleen Ukraïne scoort lager).\n","date":"February 23, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-559/","section":"Posts","summary":"Pak ze en pak ze hard!\n","title":"Libre","type":"posts"},{"content":"Sun is giving away servers for trial [via] and maybe even for keeps.\nDesperation or marketing genius? Anyway it is bound to elecit quite some blog storm.\nUpdate: Yes, the stunt was so daft that Schwartz needs to clarify stuff on his blog.\n","date":"February 23, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-90/","section":"Posts","summary":"Sun is giving away servers for trial [via] and maybe even for keeps.\n","title":"Sun Bonanza","type":"posts"},{"content":"In Radio Online een hoogleraar die uitlegt dat we wat internet betreft in Nederland naar het Chinese model toe moeten.\nLinks naar goksites worden verboden, dus Google moet binnenkort ook in Nederland zoekresultaten filteren op bepaalde zoekwoorden (online casino\u0026rsquo;s) en onderaan de pagina een bericht neerzetten:\nDe zoekresultaten zijn aangepast in overeenstemming met de lokale wetgeving.\nOverheden moeten extreem terughoudend zijn in het uitoefenen van censuur. Het resultaat kan weleens erger zijn dan het probleem. Maar wil iedereen die Google in China veroordeelde opstaan en op dezelfde verontwaardigde toon reageren?\n","date":"February 22, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-558/","section":"Posts","summary":"In Radio Online een hoogleraar die uitlegt dat we wat internet betreft in Nederland naar het Chinese model toe moeten.\n","title":"Chinees model","type":"posts"},{"content":"Leuk de grenzen dicht en een klein beetje economische groei en het Parool bericht: ‘Nu al personeelstekort’. Dat geldt voor de vaklieden maar probeer maar fatsoenlijke Java/Javascript/CSS programmeurs te vinden.\nDe grote groep kanslozen en outsiders in Nederland, die moet je bijscholen en mee laten doen. Iets anders weet ik er ook niet op. Je kunt die mensen niet in de prullenbak gooien, maar in de tussentijd moeten we wat anders.\nNu het net weer goed gaat met de economie, vlakt de groei weer af door onze gesloten grenzen en gebrek aan goed personeel.\n","date":"February 22, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-557/","section":"Posts","summary":"Leuk de grenzen dicht en een klein beetje economische groei en het Parool bericht: ‘Nu al personeelstekort’. Dat geldt voor de vaklieden maar probeer maar fatsoenlijke Java/Javascript/CSS programmeurs te vinden.\n","title":"Dichte grenzen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Nial Kennedy heeft bij een bezoek aan het Google hoofdkwartier de topgeheime strategie van Google weten vast te leggen.\nGrapje, maar nog steeds leuk om te zien hoe goed Google dingen begrepen heeft. Dit is dus het essentiele DNA van een bedrijf.\n","date":"February 22, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-556/","section":"Posts","summary":"Nial Kennedy heeft bij een bezoek aan het Google hoofdkwartier de topgeheime strategie van Google weten vast te leggen.\n","title":"Topgeheim","type":"posts"},{"content":"Het antwoord van Leefbaar Delft is misschien een beetje moeilijk leesbaar, maar er zitten wel goede punten in.\nhoi alper op zich staan we zeer positief tegenover draadloze netwerken, dat is de toekomst, maar, de gemeente moet geen taken uitvoeren die bij het bedrijfsleven thuis horen de gemeente moet ook niet investeren in risicodragende ondernemingen. het doorgeven van informatie is geliberaliseerd, nu nog veel monopolie posities bv met ups en casema hier moet de gemeente zich met haar kerntaken bezig houden, geen monopolie positie nastreven en zeker niet op het politiek gevoelige vlak van informatievoorziening. maar de gemeente kan het faciliteren dat er snel een draadloos internet netwerk over delft komt te liggen dat zou kunnen door bv een onderzoek te starten naar de technische mogelijkheden en lobby bij de grote hardware makers van draadloze netwerken om die te enthousiasmeren. delft heeft het hoogste aansluitingspercentage van nederland per huishouden op internet 78% (2004) je ziet nu dat in de huishoudens veel draadloze netwerken komen (meestal beveiligd) maar in de binnenstad kan bijna overal kan al op een onbeveiligd netwerk van iemand of bedrijf(café) verbinding gemaakt worden. de burgers hebben eigenlijk zelf al geruisloos voor een technische doorbraak gezorgd. de gemeente heeft niet lang geleden nog gekozen voor glasvezel kabels mede een bijdrage te financieren (meen €60.000) maar dat is nu al weer achterhaalde technologie aan het worden. kortom ik zie het als taak van het bedrijfsleven om hier op in te springen. wie durft? maar de gemeente zou hier in de opstartfase wel in kunnen investeren met kennis, onderzoek, daadkracht, informatie, lobby en contacten met bedrijfsleven zodat delft inderdaad niet in de achterhoede terecht komt mvrgr jan peter de wit nr 3, lijst 2 www.leefbaar-delft.nl\nDe publieke sector is —ik denk terecht— huiverig om te concurreren met de private sector in dit soort gebieden. Maar er is nu wel degelijk een probleem wat betreft de dekking en de prijs. Het is nog zeker niet zo dat je overal in de binnenstad kunt internetten (toevallig wel bij de Griek op de Markt) en bepaalde marktpartijen misbruiken hun monopolieposities om belachelijke prijzen te vragen.\nZoals ook in het antwoord staat kan de gemeente veel sturing en druk leveren om iets algemeens voor alle Delftenaren van de grond te krijgen. Een beetje concurrentie tegen de gevestigde partijen zou niet weg zijn en het zou ook fijn zijn voor de stad.\n","date":"February 22, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-555/","section":"Posts","summary":"Het antwoord van Leefbaar Delft is misschien een beetje moeilijk leesbaar, maar er zitten wel goede punten in.\n","title":"Antwoord van Leefbaar Delft","type":"posts"},{"content":"Spectaculaire trailer van “A Scanner Darkly” de nieuwe film van Richard Linklater en waarschijnlijk een waardige Dick-verfilming [via].\n","date":"February 22, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-554/","section":"Posts","summary":"Spectaculaire trailer van “A Scanner Darkly” de nieuwe film van Richard Linklater en waarschijnlijk een waardige Dick-verfilming [via].\n","title":"Everything is being recorded","type":"posts"},{"content":"Buitengewoon fijne reactie van de BOP op mijn brief:\nFrom: peetsmit@xs4all.nl\nDate: 21-Feb-2006 00:08\nSubject: Re: Vraag Programma Draadloos Netwerk\nhi alper\nEen draadloos netwerk in Delft is een gelopen race.\nKPN biedt sinds kort flatfree umts.\nMeld je aan en betaal het zelf.\nGeen publieke taak meer.\nMeer dan 65% van de Delftenaren beschikt over internetaansluiting.\ngroet\npeter smit (bopdelft.nl)\nDe kans dat ik op de BOP ging stemmen is nu zo mogelijk nog kleiner geworden.\nWat de heer Smit mist, is het verschil met een abonnement van €80 per maand voor relatief traag internet en universeel publiek toegankelijk relatief snel draadloos.\nIk weet nog niet of het draadloze netwerk gratis moet zijn, maar wel dat het erg goedkoop en toegankelijk moet zijn. Juist om mensen die geen vaste aansluiting of €80 per maand kunnen/willen betalen ook te helpen.\nIk heb het al over de innovatieruimte bovenop zo\u0026rsquo;n netwerk gehad. De diensten die mensen kunnen gebruiken overal en altijd, de diensten die je kunt aanbieden (ook locatie-gebonden) zijn maar één innovatie-vector.\nLangs een andere kant kun je je voorstellen dat het dan opeens nuttig wordt voor heel veel apparaten om internettoegang te hebben. Er zijn al plaatsen waar parkeermeters internet hebben en je kunt betalen met creditcard. Ik kan me voorstellen dat je WiFi stopt in de volgende generatie stroommeters. Je kunt op handige plekken WiFi-camera\u0026rsquo;s ophangen voor toezicht of publieke bewustwording. Waar zou je geen internet in willen stoppen?\nHet argument van sfeer en elan schijnt moeilijk te zijn voor veel mensen. Dat wordt vast nog moeilijker over een paar jaar wanneer we aan alle kanten voorbij gestreefd zijn.\n","date":"February 21, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-553/","section":"Posts","summary":"Buitengewoon fijne reactie van de BOP op mijn brief:\n","title":"Reactie BOP","type":"posts"},{"content":"Als je me wil helpen zet dan ergens in een kleine blogpost of op een andere server de volgende link neer: T-mobile klantenservice is heel heel slecht en Sony Ericsson W800i is zo stuk. Google ziet alles.\nOk.\nIk ben op zijn lichtst gezegd niet blij met T-mobile en wat bij hun voor klantenservice doorgaat.\nProbleem met SonyEricsson W800i\nIk ben ondertussen 7 (!) jaar abonnee van T-mobile. Omdat ik geen zin had moeite te doen heb ik nooit mijn contract verlengd. Pas toen mijn Nokia 3310 kuren begon te vertonen ben ik bij ze langsgeweest voor een nieuw contract (Flex 10 1 jaar) en een nieuwe GSM.\nDeze GSM was de SonyEricsson W800i, een leuke Walkman GSM met fotocamera en allemaal andere leuke features. Ik was er erg blij mee (blogpost). De verkoopster vertelde me toen dat ik er 2 jaar garantie op had.\nDe Bluetooth gaf vanaf het begin al problemen. Je moest de W800i uit en weer aan zetten om een verbinding te kunnen maken. Bluetooth uitzetten deed de GSM crashen. Ik had geen haast met dat te laten repareren en had erover met de helpdesk gebeld. Zij zeiden dat ik de firmware moest updaten, iets wat niet lukte.\nToen in de bus naar de wintersport haalde ik de W800i uit mijn broekzak en toen bleek dat de volledige bovenkant van het display aan de binnenkant kapot was. Dit is best wel raar voor een nieuwe GSM. Op dat moment had ik het toestel misschien drie weken. Ik heb het normaal gebruikt en niet één keer laten vallen.\nSolid Vision\nZodra ik terug was van wintersport heb ik het toestel ingeleverd bij dezelfde T-mobile winkel waar ik hem gekocht heb. Het meisje achter de balie zei dat het goed zou komen en nam mijn toestel in.\nEen week later kreeg ik een brief van T-mobile/Solid Vision met daarin een diagnose (blogpost) dat ik het toestel zelf stuk heb gemaakt en dat dat niet binnen de garantie valt. Of ik voor reparatie graag €100 zou willen betalen.\nAls je GSM stuk is, ben je al niet blij. Een brief van een derde partij krijgen waarin wordt gemeld dat het je eigen schuld is (terwijl dat niet zo is) en of je geld wil ophoesten is een buitengewoon laffe en onpersoonlijke manier om iemand te behandelen.\nDat is ervan uit gaande dat ze je willen helpen, dat wil T-mobile niet of ik heb er geen enkel teken van kunnen ontdekken. Als je eenmaal het contract hebt getekend, willen ze je alleen nog maar uitwringen voor zoveel mogelijk geld.\nHet blijkt dat T-mobile een overeenkomst heeft met Solid Vision dat zij alle reparaties doen. Zij gaan ervan uit dat als het display van binnen beschadigd is, dat het dan aan mij ligt. Dit soort schade wordt niet gedekt door de garantie.\nIk heb geen echte opties. Ik kan hen niet bewijzen dat ik het toestel normaal heb gebruikt. Stel ik laat het repareren en na twee weken blijkt het weer op mysterieuze wijze stuk te zijn, moet ik dan weer €100 betalen? En daarna?\nT-mobile\nBij de T-mobile balie word ik te woord gestaan door weinig intelligente, koude, onwillige en niet betrokken baliemedewerkers. Ze willen of kunnen mij niet helpen: “Ik kan u niet helpen,” is geen klantenservice.\nWat ze wel kunnen is je dingen verkopen en contracten aansmeren. Als dat eenmaal gebeurd is, ben je dus niet interessant meer.\nHet enige wat ik kan doen is mijn GSM terugkrijgen en dan een brief schrijven aan de klachtenafdeling van T-mobile. Wat daaruit komt, moeten we nog maar zien.\nIk ben zeven jaar klant geweest van T-mobile en ik had elk jaar een contractverlenging met nieuwe GSM kunnen krijgen. Dat heb ik niet gedaan. Ik behoor dus tot de categorie goede naïeve trouwe klanten. Het soort klanten dat je zou moeten willen houden.\nVoor T-mobile is dit soort trouw dus niks waard en ook geen reden om je te helpen.\nSonyEricsson\nBij Solid Vision verwezen ze me ook nog even door naar de [SonyEricsson helpdesk](http://www.sonyericsson.com/spg.jsp?cc=nl\u0026lc=nl\u0026ver=4000\u0026template=ph1_2\u0026zone=ph\n). Dat is fijn, je hebt een probleem met je GSM en voor je het weet zit je met drie verschillende bedrijven te bellen.\nVolgens SonyEricsson is het dragen van een GSM in je broekzak geen normaal gebruik en bestaat er dan een risico op drukschade. Dat veel mensen de GSM in hun broekzak bewaren maakt niet uit; het is geen normaal gebruik. Mensen voorlichten over het feit dat hun garantie dan niet geldig is, vinden ze ook niet belangrijk.\nWaarom het bij iedereen goed gaat, en toevallig bij mij niet en waarom ik daar dan de dupe van moet worden kon de vrouw aan de telefoon me niet uitleggen.\nDe logica is helder, een kapotte GSM is meer business voor Sony Ericsson dan een GSM die het jaren blijft doen. Mensen voorlichten over potentiele risico\u0026rsquo;s schrikt alleen maar af bij het verkopen.\nConclusie\nT-mobile heeft mij een defect product verkocht en ze leveren een extreme wanprestatie met hun klantenservice. Ik vind dit genoeg reden om mijn contract bij T-mobile op te zeggen maar dat mag schijnbaar niet.\nNu is het voor mij wachten op mijn GSM retour (dan post ik wel een foto van de schade) en een brief opsturen naar de afdeling klachten waar dan weer weken overheen gaan. Als de gang van zaken tot nu toe enige indicatie is, heb ik weinig hoop maar ik ben wel benieuwd.\nUpdate: Ik heb hem nu eindelijk terug en ik heb een foto gemaakt van de schade.\n","date":"February 20, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-552/","section":"Posts","summary":"Als je me wil helpen zet dan ergens in een kleine blogpost of op een andere server de volgende link neer: T-mobile klantenservice is heel heel slecht en Sony Ericsson W800i is zo stuk. Google ziet alles.\n","title":"T-mobile klantenservice is heel heel slecht en Sony Ericsson W800i is zo stuk","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik ga deze brief zo versturen naar de lokale partijen van Delft. Een leuk lokaal issue, wat me interesseert. Kijken hoe ze het oppakken. De laatste versie zonder veel van de fouten die hieronder staan, staat in de wiki.\nL.S., Als inwoner van Delft, doe ik mijn best om mezelf optimaal voor te lichten over de aankomende gemeenteraadsverkiezingen. Over één bepaald punt dat mijn interesse heeft zou ik graag een uitgebreidere toelichting ontvangen. Als u mijn onderstaande vragen zou willen lezen en mij een antwoord hierop zou willen geven, zou ik u erg erkentelijk zijn.\nMijn vragen betreffen de aanleg en exploitatie van een dekkend publiek draadloos netwerk voor internettoegang door de gehele gemeente Delft. Internettoegang op locatie is voor mobiele creatieve kenniswerkers van essentieel belang. Als Delft de naam Kennisstad waardig wil zijn, zou zij er goed aan doen de internettoegang op een fundamenteel niveau te regelen en te zorgen dat er in de stad ontmoetingsplaatsen zijn voor deze mensen. Een dergelijk netwerk zou niet alleen voor deze kenniswerkers erg waardevol zijn maar voor alle burgers van Delft. Als er eenmaal een dergelijk netwerk ligt en toegankelijk is, zijn de diensten die ermee aangeboden kunnen worden en er bovenop gebouwd kunnen worden schier eindeloos.\nDit soort initiatieven zijn door andere gemeentes zoals Philadelphia, San Francisco en dichter bij huis Leiden al genomen. Voor de aanleg van deze netwerken worden meestal overeenkomsten gesloten met private partijen maar in Delft heeft de Technische Universiteit ook de technische kennis en de infrastructuur om een dergelijk netwerk op te zetten.\nEr zijn op dit moment al commerciele aanbieders van vergelijkbare diensten maar deze hebben allemaal twee grote bezwaren:\nZe zijn niet dekkend Ze zijn niet publiek Dit soort essentiele basisvoorzieningen zou voor iedereen, overal voor een lage prijs (gratis) toegankelijk moeten zijn.\nMijn argumenten:\nInternet is een essentiele voorziening. Essentiele voorzieningen moeten publiek geregeld worden. Een grootschalig publiek draadloos netwerk zou Delft Kennisstad het nodige prestige en elan geven. Een dergelijk netwerk zou hoogopgeleide kenniswerkers naar Delft toe trekken. Een dergelijk netwerk zou kostenbesparingen opleveren voor burgers en de lokale economie een impuls geven. Aanleg en exploitatie van een dergelijk netwerk is haalbaar is samenwerking met derden. Voor deze aanleg zou de gemeente sturing en impuls moeten geven. Mijn vraag aan u is: Is uw politieke partij het eens met bovenstaande argumenten en bent u bereid te handelen op bovenstaand platform? Als u het ermee eens bent, in wat voor handelingen gaat u dit standpunt vertalen? Als u het er niet mee eens bent, op welke punten verschilt u dan van mening en wat zijn uw argumenten?\nDeze brief is verstuurd naar alle politieke partijen die deelnemen aan de gemeenteraadsverkiezingen in Delft van maart 2006. De antwoorden die ik ontvang zal ik bewerken en publiceren.\nMet vriendelijke groet, Alper Çugun IT Professional\nAls er commentaar is, zou ik het op prijs stellen. Ik verstuur de boel ergens aan het einde van de middag. Meer documentatie en antwoorden verschijnen op de wikipagina.\n","date":"February 19, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-551/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik ga deze brief zo versturen naar de lokale partijen van Delft. Een leuk lokaal issue, wat me interesseert. Kijken hoe ze het oppakken. De laatste versie zonder veel van de fouten die hieronder staan, staat in de wiki.\n","title":"Draadloos Delft Brief","type":"posts"},{"content":"Hele schrale economische analyse van het verschil tussen huwelijk en prostitutie bij Forbes:\n…we assume that the only downside of marriage for a woman is the forgone opportunity for prostitution.\n","date":"February 19, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-550/","section":"Posts","summary":"Hele schrale economische analyse van het verschil tussen huwelijk en prostitutie bij Forbes:\n","title":"Economisch hoereren","type":"posts"},{"content":"I managed to make it to the Happy Clog meeting (pictures) one hour late. It was fun having a couple of drinks in de Bruine Boon and talking about standard standards stuff.\nNot having any internet (Wireless Leiden is not all that it is made up to be), options for discussion and show and tell were quite limited. Luckily I keep recent checkouts of both dojo and django on my iBook. I showed a couple of dojo widgets and explained the logic behind, so I could get some evangelizing in.\nThe first comment I got was that the dojoType in the widgets \u0026lt;div dojoType=\u0026quot;FisheyeList\u0026quot;… would not validate. On page load dojo scans the dom to see where it has to replace nodes with widgets. The dojoType attribute is one of the handles it can grab hold of.\nThese guys are really into their validators and were not easily swayed by all this widget loveliness.\nI could not dig up the relevant bits then and there, but now at home I can find the relevant FAQ entry. Above code could be made to validate like this:\n","date":"February 18, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-89/","section":"Posts","summary":"I managed to make it to the Happy Clog meeting (pictures) one hour late. It was fun having a couple of drinks in de Bruine Boon and talking about standard standards stuff.\n","title":"Valid Dojo","type":"posts"},{"content":"En wat voor een antwoord\u0026hellip;\nMijn toestel was stuk en ik krijg vandaag een (onvoldoende gefrankeerde) brief van T-mobile in de bus. TPG verwacht dus dat ik de portokosten betaal maar het leukste zit nog in de brief:\nHet blijkt dat de door u opgegeven klacht een gevolg is van een defect aan het toestel dat niet wordt gedekt door de garantiebepalingen van de fabrikant importeur.\nHet betreft namelijk Val stoot- of drukschade\nDe reparatiekosten daarvoor bedragen €107,70 (inclusief BTW)\nDe onderzoeks/verzendkosten bedragen €35,70 (inclusief BTW)\nDit is belachelijk. Ik heb het toestel niet eens lang genoeg om het schade te hebben toegebracht. Daarnaast was de GSM al stuk toen ik hem kreeg, de Bluetooth heeft het nooit goed gedaan.\nDat wordt een prettig gesprek met T-mobile maandag. Fijn.\n","date":"February 18, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-549/","section":"Posts","summary":"En wat voor een antwoord…\n","title":"Antwoord van T-mobile","type":"posts"},{"content":"Cool stuff about pluggable type systems at Lambda. I\u0026rsquo;m not academic enough to understand all the nuances of the arguments posed, but I do enjoy any type of argument against static typing.\n","date":"February 18, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-88/","section":"Posts","summary":"Cool stuff about pluggable type systems at Lambda. I’m not academic enough to understand all the nuances of the arguments posed, but I do enjoy any type of argument against static typing.\n","title":"Typaholics","type":"posts"},{"content":"Waarom zie je dit soort voorbeelden van vlijmscherp engagement en debat wél in Amerika en niet in Nedeland?\nLantos: Have you reached out to the family? I can ask it 10 more times if you refuse to answer it. You are under oath.\n[via]\nAls je het originele stukje leest, dan zie je dat Google er nog het beste afkomt van de grote drie.\nGoogle: We don\u0026rsquo;t offer a service that puts anyone in that situation, and the best way we honor their situation is to ensure that we are not associated with a similar situation. We don\u0026rsquo;t offer products that would put us in a position of putting people like that in danger.\n","date":"February 18, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-548/","section":"Posts","summary":"Waarom zie je dit soort voorbeelden van vlijmscherp engagement en debat wél in Amerika en niet in Nedeland?\n","title":"Shaming","type":"posts"},{"content":"Het spotje van de VVD in Nova Politiek (Real stream vanaf 3'40\u0026rsquo;\u0026rsquo;) wordt door Jorritsma ontvangen met gelach. Bij de VVD vinden ze dit soort suffe dingen grappig.\nZo\u0026rsquo;n negatief spotje lijkt me in Nederland voorlopig alleen maar contra-productief. Het Nederlandse publiek lijkt me nog niet voldoende afgestompt door een media-terreur en handelaren in angst om goed te reageren op negatieve spotjes.\nIn Amerika zijn ze al verder met dit soort dingen en dat is ongetwijfeld de kant die de VVD op wil.\nMeer commentaar op de uitzending bij Brechtje.\n","date":"February 18, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-547/","section":"Posts","summary":"Het spotje van de VVD in Nova Politiek (Real stream vanaf 3'40’’) wordt door Jorritsma ontvangen met gelach. Bij de VVD vinden ze dit soort suffe dingen grappig.\n","title":"Roos","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;m happy that our new technologies are making this kind of thing (it\u0026rsquo;s called copresence) possible.\n","date":"February 17, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-87/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’m happy that our new technologies are making this kind of thing (it’s called copresence) possible.\n","title":"It's the people stupid!","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik weet nu wat gaat bepalen hoe ik ga stemmen in de aankomende gemeenteraadsverkiezingen. Er zijn twee factoren van belang:\n1. Niet op de leefbaren. Ik vind het bij voorbaat al een vieze partij en ze hebben een lijsttrekker met een hele enge snor.\nIk bedoel maar.\n2. Ik ga stemmen op de partij die het idee Wireless Delft het beste oppakt. Elke partij hier heeft de mond vol van Delft Kennisstad. Draadloos internet is het zuurstof voor de moderne kenniswerker.\nIk mis gratis internet en ontmoetingsplaatsen waar creatieve mensen samen kunnen werken in de stad (denk aan de Balie). Binnen de universiteit is er genoeg ruimte, maar die is niet toegankelijk genoeg (WiFi zit dicht bijvoorbeeld).\nHoe doe je dit? Ik ga van het weekend uitzoeken hoe andere steden dit aanpakken. Bestaande draadloos aanbieders (KPN, T-mobile) zullen er niet blij mee zijn, maar dan moeten ze hun prijzen maar niet zo belachelijk hoog hebben.\nIn ieder geval zal het denk ik een soort publiek-private samenwerking worden, de gemeente kan zoiets vast niet allen. En je zit natuurlijk ook met dingen als concurrentievervalsing door de overheid maar als ze in Nuenen glasvezel kunnen leggen (en dat staat ook bij sommige partijen in Delft in het programma), moet dit ook kunnen.\nLeuk, eindelijk een issue dat de moeite waard is. Stay posted.\n","date":"February 17, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-546/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik weet nu wat gaat bepalen hoe ik ga stemmen in de aankomende gemeenteraadsverkiezingen. Er zijn twee factoren van belang:\n","title":"Gemeenteraadsverkiezingen","type":"posts"},{"content":"I was writing my literature report in Wikitext and that was working fine up until a point. My teacher had already complained that the resulting print version was not as readable as could be. I do agree with him and I would not want him to be distracted with such trivialities so I went looking for a solution.\nIt seemed that wt2db was the answer to my problems and would convert my Wikitext document into a suitable Docbook for further processing. After some minor (but unnecessary) bugs in the XML output, I managed to go through the toolchain to produce a PDF, but it looked like hell and essential Wikitext features (like definition lists) were not supported.\nLooking a bit further it seems that other people have struggled with this and there are a lot of half baked ways to do this. Not having the time to get frustrated with each and every one of them, I opted for the one way full transformation to LaTeΧ.\nThe result looks pretty good and I stored it in the wiki anyway. It\u0026rsquo;s versioning and document management features are pretty nice in any way.\n","date":"February 17, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-studies-401/","section":"Posts","summary":"I was writing my literature report in Wikitext and that was working fine up until a point. My teacher had already complained that the resulting print version was not as readable as could be. I do agree with him and I would not want him to be distracted with such trivialities so I went looking for a solution.\n","title":"Wiki Books","type":"posts"},{"content":"I don\u0026rsquo;t think there\u0026rsquo;s a decent dutch Linux podcast/magazine yet, is there?\n","date":"February 16, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-86/","section":"Posts","summary":"I don’t think there’s a decent dutch Linux podcast/magazine yet, is there?\n","title":"Linux Podcast","type":"posts"},{"content":"Wat ben ik blij als de Olympische Spelen zijn afgelopen. De NOS maakt heel veel mensen blij met hun livestreams van verschillende sport evenementen, dit is alleen allemaal Windows Media ellende. Daar heb ik dus niks aan.\nNu vind ik het niet zo erg. Schaatsen kan me gestolen worden. Maar ze hebben ook de streams met de laatste journaals ontoegankelijk gemaakt voor Real Player. Dit in verband met de draconische eisen (uitgelegd bij Radio Online) die het IOC stelt aan mensen die beelden uitzenden.\nWaar al die miljoenen rechtengeld heen gaan…\n","date":"February 16, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-545/","section":"Posts","summary":"Wat ben ik blij als de Olympische Spelen zijn afgelopen. De NOS maakt heel veel mensen blij met hun livestreams van verschillende sport evenementen, dit is alleen allemaal Windows Media ellende. Daar heb ik dus niks aan.\n","title":"OS","type":"posts"},{"content":"The feature list for KDE 4 is pretty impressive and is a nice pre-emption of Vista. They are both adding a slew of necessary features and innovating around a number of areas.\nI can\u0026rsquo;t help but get the feeling that the Gnome desktop —though clean— is lagging behind KDE in sheer feature richness. Though I haven\u0026rsquo;t run a recent SUSE Linux Desktop with all the whistles and bells yet. Debian/Testing tends to be a bit spartan.\n","date":"February 15, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-85/","section":"Posts","summary":"The feature list for KDE 4 is pretty impressive and is a nice pre-emption of Vista. They are both adding a slew of necessary features and innovating around a number of areas.\n","title":"KDE 4","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ok, that was slightly uncomfortable. I had installed the 10.4.5 OS X upgrade —quite petite at 6,5 MB— yesterday night and I had just rebooted when I was confronted with a password screen.\nNow firstly I never use a password to boot into my machine. I\u0026rsquo;m the only user and I never let the iBook out of my sight, so a password is less than necessary.\nBut this screen would not accept my usual password whichever way I tried it, so that was a bit scary. I hardly know enough about OS X to be able to hack reset my password.\nAfter a call to Reinier, during which I rebooted, the system came back up just fine.\nMood = Relieved\n","date":"February 15, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-84/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ok, that was slightly uncomfortable. I had installed the 10.4.5 OS X upgrade —quite petite at 6,5 MB— yesterday night and I had just rebooted when I was confronted with a password screen.\n","title":"Mac Scare","type":"posts"},{"content":"Erg intiem verhaal op Tegenlicht: “Drie Kameraden”.\nOver wat er gebeurt met gewone mensen als er opeens oorlog is. Deel twee volgende week.\nVergelijkbaar met Fools Rush In, niet zo dichtbij als Sarajevo, wel net zo erg.\n","date":"February 15, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-544/","section":"Posts","summary":"Erg intiem verhaal op Tegenlicht: “Drie Kameraden”.\n","title":"Grozny","type":"posts"},{"content":"Cory is doing monster posts on Boing Boing. This one about Google Book Search and the case for fruit baskets.\n","date":"February 14, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-83/","section":"Posts","summary":"Cory is doing monster posts on Boing Boing. This one about Google Book Search and the case for fruit baskets.\n","title":"Google Book Search Summary","type":"posts"},{"content":" Wintersport was leuk, zelfs de busreis. Het snowboarden was de eerste twee dagen geweldig (moeilijk), daarna heb ik het door blessures opgegeven, maar ik wil het nog wel een keer leren.\nGelukkig hebben we de foto\u0026rsquo;s nog.\n","date":"February 14, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-543/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Wintersport redux","type":"posts"},{"content":"Great presentation (PDF) by Tom Coates of Yahoo! A nice big collection of Web 2.0 concepts and ideas. I especially love the style of presenting.\nBig holes in the slides, but I imagine it must have come over quite well in the room.\n","date":"February 14, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-82/","section":"Posts","summary":"Great presentation (PDF) by Tom Coates of Yahoo! A nice big collection of Web 2.0 concepts and ideas. I especially love the style of presenting.\n","title":"Native to a web of data","type":"posts"},{"content":"Een leuk quotable item uit Buitenhof afgelopen zondag over de krimp van de bevolking en van de economie.\nAls dit zo doorgaat, dan is Nederland over 30 jaar een Florida aan de Noordzee en is het enige werk wat hier nog gedaan wordt het afvegen van de billen van die bejaarden.\nHier hebben we wat aan.\n","date":"February 14, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-542/","section":"Posts","summary":"Een leuk quotable item uit Buitenhof afgelopen zondag over de krimp van de bevolking en van de economie.\n","title":"Florida aan de Noordzee","type":"posts"},{"content":"Heerlijke en hele controversiele film: Kurtlar Vadisi (IMDb en Fok!). Foute actie en anti-Amerikaanse en anti-Semitische elementen, ziet er half leuk maar vooral interessant uit.\n","date":"February 14, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-541/","section":"Posts","summary":"Heerlijke en hele controversiele film: Kurtlar Vadisi (IMDb en Fok!). Foute actie en anti-Amerikaanse en anti-Semitische elementen, ziet er half leuk maar vooral interessant uit.\n","title":"Vallei van de wolven","type":"posts"},{"content":"Nothing made a more lasting impression during my journey through America than the semi-comatose state in which I found the American left.\nEn daarnaast nog wat schrijven van Paul Craig Roberts:\nConsidering the feebleness of the opposition, perhaps the best strategy is for the opposition to shut up, not merely for our own safety but, more importantly, to remove any impediments to Bush administration self-destruction.\n","date":"February 14, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-540/","section":"Posts","summary":"Nothing made a more lasting impression during my journey through America than the semi-comatose state in which I found the American left.\n","title":"Een brief","type":"posts"},{"content":"In the bizarre world of iframe hacks, Alex Russell brings on another one buried inside of GMail+Gtalk code.\nCool, if you care about this kind of stuff.\n","date":"February 13, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-81/","section":"Posts","summary":"In the bizarre world of iframe hacks, Alex Russell brings on another one buried inside of GMail+Gtalk code.\n","title":"iframe hacks","type":"posts"},{"content":"Mijn leuke nieuwe gave GSM is stuk. Het Bluetooth probleem kon ik nog half mee leven. In de bus naar Flaine haalde ik hem uit mijn broekzak en toen bleek het scherm half stuk. De LCD is van binnen kapot en de helft van het scherm is onbruikbaar. Leuk, zo op vakantie.\nVandaag bij de T-mobile winkel het ding weer ingeleverd. Ik heb er twee jaar garantie op en als dit een indicatie is hoe duurzaam SonyEricsson GSM\u0026rsquo;s zijn dan heb ik die garantie hard nodig.\nDe doorlooptijd van een serviceverzoek bij T-mobile is tien dagen. Je krijgt geen vervangende GSM (gelukkig heb ik er nog eentje liggen). Ik heb mijn W800i niet één keer laten vallen (en zelfs dan), daar heb ik hem nog te kort voor. Het is maar de vraag wat een reparatie me gaat opleveren. Erg blij word ik er niet van.\nTer vergelijking: mijn tweedehands Nokia 3310 heeft het zes jaar zonder problemen gedaan en die heb ik te vaak laten vallen om te tellen.\nIk heb mijn SIM kaart weer in mijn 3310 gedaan en ben nu dus weer bereikbaar. Alternatief kan het ook via Skype (illustir) of Gizmo (illustir of SIP 1-747-629-3440).\n","date":"February 13, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-539/","section":"Posts","summary":"Mijn leuke nieuwe gave GSM is stuk. Het Bluetooth probleem kon ik nog half mee leven. In de bus naar Flaine haalde ik hem uit mijn broekzak en toen bleek het scherm half stuk. De LCD is van binnen kapot en de helft van het scherm is onbruikbaar. Leuk, zo op vakantie.\n","title":"Kaput","type":"posts"},{"content":"These notes from the Carson Web Apps Summit —which I could not attend— are well worth reading.\n","date":"February 9, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-80/","section":"Posts","summary":"These notes from the Carson Web Apps Summit —which I could not attend— are well worth reading.\n","title":"Web Apps","type":"posts"},{"content":"Geheel onverwacht, ga ik morgenavond mee op wintersport voor het weekend.\nMet Topdesk voor de halve prijs, dan kan ik geen nee meer zeggen.\nIk ga mijn best doen om te leren snowboarden. Lijkt me een leuk vervolg op het surfen van de zomer.\n","date":"February 8, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-538/","section":"Posts","summary":"Geheel onverwacht, ga ik morgenavond mee op wintersport voor het weekend.\n","title":"Wispo","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik kon trouwens in Nova gisteren ook Naema Tahir zien. Ik had haar op de radio gehoord, maar toen haar naam gemist. Toen dacht ik al dat ze ontzettend leuk was en dat blijkt op tv te kloppen (kijk het fragment). Inderdaad, ze is te leuk om zomaar uit te huwelijken.\nDat boek lijkt me boeiend. Zou ik zo\u0026rsquo;n voorlees-sessie kunnen regelen?\n","date":"February 8, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-537/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik kon trouwens in Nova gisteren ook Naema Tahir zien. Ik had haar op de radio gehoord, maar toen haar naam gemist. Toen dacht ik al dat ze ontzettend leuk was en dat blijkt op tv te kloppen (kijk het fragment). Inderdaad, ze is te leuk om zomaar uit te huwelijken.\n","title":"Kostbaar bezit","type":"posts"},{"content":"Crossing the Bridge\nAfgelopen weekend was voor mijn een overdadig feest van Turkse films. Eerst zaterdagavond in Lantaren 1 als een van de laatste films op het IFFR de nieuwe film van Fatih Akin gezien: Crossing the Bridge: The Sound of Istanbul (trailer).\nFatih Akin is gaaf en ik ben hard op weg om al zijn films te zien. Crossing the Bridge is een muzikale follow-up op Gegen die Wand (ook al zo\u0026rsquo;n geweldige film). Alexander Hacke van de Duitse band Einstürzende Neubauten —een echte ouwe Duitse rocker— verzorgde de muziek van Gegen die Wand en werd toen verliefd (angetan) op Istanbul. Hoe kan het ook anders?\nSelim Sesler —de muzikanten op de oever van de Bosporus uit Gegen die Wand— komen ook terug.\nUitgerust met een boel microfoons, ander opnamespul en een Powerbook struint Hacke Istanbul af om de muziek van de stad te vangen. Wat volgt een diverse schakering aan muzikanten, stijlen, invloeden en geluiden die ik niet voor mogelijk had gehouden.\nDe meest uiteenlopende muzikanten (er zitten echt grote namen tussen), van Turkse rappers en breakers, Roma, psychedelische formaties, Turkse grunge, een Koerdische zangeres, straatmuzikanten, volkmuzikanten op hun saz, supersterren en klassieke ensembles, vertellen. Ze vertellen hoe ze cultureel zijn gevormd op de breuklijn van oost en west, de invloeden die ze gehad hebben, hun persoonlijke geschiedenis en hun relatie met de stad en hoe dat uitwerkt in hun muziek. En beste van alles, ze spelen dat het een lieve lust is. Je kunt op de officiele site fragmenten van de muzikanten bekijken.\nDie muziek is zonder uitzondering goed en meestal heel persoonlijk. Doordat je van iedereen het verhaal bij hun muziek meekrijgt krijgt de muziek nog meer diepgang. Als ik dit bekijk, dan zie ik in wat voor een muzikale armoede ik ben opgevoed (het dieet van TRT-int) en wat een rijkdom er is. De soundtrack met alle muziek en een leuke cover van Sertab is net zo goed als de film.\nHacke wordt dus op de hielen gezeten door Akin die met een handcamera de inpromptu opnamesessies, de gesprekken en de stad schiet. De diversiteit en grootsheid van Istanbul komt goed naar voren in deze film en zelfs dan kan deze film haar eigenlijk geen recht doen.\nCrossing the Bridge komt in Nederland uit in maart.\nNeredesin Firuze\nAls er iets is in Turkije, is het in Istanbul. Daarom speelt de film Neredesin Firuze zich ook daar af.\nIk had hem al eerder gezien, maar ik heb hem mijn moeder voor d\u0026rsquo;r verjaardag kado gedaan. Online in Nederland niet te vinden, heb ik hem maar besteld bij Ideefixe.com. Rare naam voor een Turkse webwinkel, maar goede prijs en het werkt prima.\nNeredesin Firuze is een film die alle clichés over de Turkse muziekindustrie op de hak neemt en uitvergroot. Een absurd maar sterk verhaal, leuke typetjes, lekkere dialogen, perfect uitgevoerd door een complete sterrencast maken dit een van de beste Turkse films ooit.\nNog meer muziek! Deze film gaat over muziek en zit ook vol met muziek. Het is een halve musical, en de loopjes tussen de aktes worden gedaan door uiteenlopende Turkse muzikanten. De muziek past perfect bij de film, is van hele hoge kwaliteit en onderstreept de emotionele lading van het moment.\nDeze soundtrack bevat alle stukken en is goddelijk met nummers als: Şarkıların Büyücüsü, Beni Affet, Yanlızım Dostlarım en İnleyen Nameler Ruhumu Sardı. Kennis van het Turks helpt wel, maar ik hoor graag hoe anderstaligen deze film en de muziek waarderen.\nBij deze film zijn kosten noch moeite gespaard om iets fantastisch neer te zetten. Dat zie je overal aan af. Het enige jammere is, dat er niet veel meer Turkse films van dit kaliber zijn.\nNeredesin Firuze is al een paar jaar uit en te vinden bij de betere cult-videotheek.\nConclusie\nIstanbul is geweldig. De enige plek in Turkije die echt de moeite waard is (wat Amsterdam is voor Nederland, maar dan erger). Ik moet er nog maar een keer heen.\nIk heb van Veysel een DVD met Turkse klassiekers gekregen. Als daar leuke dingen tussen zitten, schrijf ik nog wel een stukje.\n","date":"February 8, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-536/","section":"Posts","summary":"Crossing the Bridge\n","title":"Turks Filmfeest","type":"posts"},{"content":"There are some hot new videos up on Miguel\u0026rsquo;s blog showing very sizzling Gnome desktop hardware acceleration. Watch the video\u0026rsquo;s, especially the cube variant.\nThese are Novell\u0026rsquo;s long awaited Xgl improvements and they will introduce a vast amount of Linux users to something which was commonplace on OS X years ago.\nA big difference is that development of desktop eye candy on OS X is highly controlled. When the plugin architecture for this stuff is released into the wild, I expect to see a very great number of additions, fun stuff, experimental stuff on the Linux desktop. Most of it will probably be unusable, but let the long tail roll.\nThen a follow-up up on the development of the Xgl stuff with a mail which is of such beauty that Nat says:\n‘they should teach from that mail in software classes’\nOh. I read the CNet article and Nat is saying the exact same thing:\n“That\u0026rsquo;s not something people can do on a Mac. I want to see 1,000 flowers bloom here.”\nAnd indeed, these improvements are very timely with regards to the ever awaited Vista with its new graphics layer.\n","date":"February 8, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-79/","section":"Posts","summary":"There are some hot new videos up on Miguel’s blog showing very sizzling Gnome desktop hardware acceleration. Watch the video’s, especially the cube variant.\n","title":"Desktop Sugar","type":"posts"},{"content":"Mijn W800i is best een leuke GSM. Het is alleen jammer dat de Bluetooth na een tijdje niet meer reageert. Bluetooth dan uit proberen te zetten resulteert in een hele harde crash van de telefoon (batterij eruit halen en opnieuw proberen). Leuk dat GSM\u0026rsquo;s dat kunnen.\nNa het uit en aanzetten van de telefoon doet alles het wel weer.\nDit komt er dus op neer dat ik elke keer dat ik iets wil doen met Bluetooth, ik mijn GSM uit en aan moet zetten. Heel irritant.\nT-Mobile klantenservice zegt dat de firmware update van SonyEricsson dit fixet. De updater is natuurlijk een EXE-bestand (dat werkt niet op een Mac).\nP.S. De site van T-Mobile is trouwens compleet onbruikbaar onder Safari, Firefox en Opera 9. Bij binnenkomst krijg je al een waarschuwing dat de site eigenlijk alleen onder Internet Explorer werkt. Dit klopt.\nIn het klantengedeelte rondkijken resulteert in pagina\u0026rsquo;s die oneindig naar elkaar door verwijzen. Na een paar keer houden browsers ermee op.\n","date":"February 7, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-535/","section":"Posts","summary":"Mijn W800i is best een leuke GSM. Het is alleen jammer dat de Bluetooth na een tijdje niet meer reageert. Bluetooth dan uit proberen te zetten resulteert in een hele harde crash van de telefoon (batterij eruit halen en opnieuw proberen). Leuk dat GSM’s dat kunnen.\n","title":"Rotte tand","type":"posts"},{"content":"De VVD heeft altijd de mond vol van marktwerking maar ze zijn te opportunistisch om dat te vertalen in consequent beleid.\nPas een stuk in het Parool over de liberalisering van de huren met horrorverhalen van huren die meer dan verdubbeld worden.\nNu zal het best kloppen dat huurbescherming en huurtoeslag niet goed is voor de doorstroming. Daar moet ook iets aan gebeuren maar begin liever met het aanpakken van de bovenkant van de markt.\nVeel mensen die in de sociale woningbouw zitten verdienen teveel voor een nieuwe sociale woning, maar te weinig om een vergelijkbaar huis te kunnen kopen. Die kunnen dus nergens heen. Daar verandert niks aan als je opeens hun huren flink omhoog gooit.\nAls je de markt in beweging wil krijgen, creëer dan kansen. Pak de hypotheekrenteaftrek aan en bouw er huizen bij.\n","date":"February 7, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-534/","section":"Posts","summary":"De VVD heeft altijd de mond vol van marktwerking maar ze zijn te opportunistisch om dat te vertalen in consequent beleid.\n","title":"Huren","type":"posts"},{"content":"Interessant vervolg op de Flexmens bij Tegenlicht. Een programma verzorgd door Felix Rottenberg (goed voor fijne televisie) in een lege fabriekshal. Illustratief voor de toekomst van Nederland.\nCitaten:\nDe onderkant van de samenleving heeft een vangnet gekregen maar niet meer kansen.\nZekerheid op bepaalde vlakken is een voorwaarde voor creativiteit op andere vlakken.\nHet programma van GroenLinks lijkt op het enige dat hier een antwoord op heeft. Zoals in het programma al gezegd, je kunt het negeren en je kop in het zand steken, maar dat maakt de klap wanneer die komt alleen maar harder.\n","date":"February 7, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-533/","section":"Posts","summary":"Interessant vervolg op de Flexmens bij Tegenlicht. Een programma verzorgd door Felix Rottenberg (goed voor fijne televisie) in een lege fabriekshal. Illustratief voor de toekomst van Nederland.\n","title":"Land van losers","type":"posts"},{"content":"Je kunt minister Verdonk ook niet echt beschuldigen van consequent beleid. Ik kijk net Woestijnruiters met Taida Pasic en is er eindelijk iemand die gewoon Nederlands spreekt, wordt ze uitgezet…\n","date":"February 7, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-532/","section":"Posts","summary":"Je kunt minister Verdonk ook niet echt beschuldigen van consequent beleid. Ik kijk net Woestijnruiters met Taida Pasic en is er eindelijk iemand die gewoon Nederlands spreekt, wordt ze uitgezet…\n","title":"Logisch","type":"posts"},{"content":"16 Miljoen Rechters is een aardig televisieprogramma wat The Wisdom of Crowds en vox populi toe past op rechtspraak.\nHet meest leerzame van het programma voor mij is dat rechtspraak of heel heel moeilijk is, of dat rechters goed zijn in het vellen van contra-intuitieve vonnissen.\nIk heb alleen tot nu toe de discussie nergens echt scherp zien worden. Een beetje een Lagerhuis-niveau met minder tijd voor debat en elementen van een spelshow zonder prijzen.\nHet publiek moet in het programma met stemkastjes vonnissen vellen. Tijdens dit stemmen blijft de tussenstand zichtbaar. Mensen die nog niet gestemd hebben worden dus beïnvloed door mensen die al gestemd hebben.\nVolgens The Wisdom of Crowds zijn er vier regels waarmee groepen mensen tot een goed oordeel kunnen komen:\nVerschillende meningen Onafhankelijkheid Decentralisatie Aggregatie Onafhankelijkheid is hier dus verminderd. Ik denk dat het in dit geval wel meevalt. Mensen gaan vast niet blind achter elkaar aan stemmen, maar het is toch een beetje slordig.\n","date":"February 6, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-531/","section":"Posts","summary":"16 Miljoen Rechters is een aardig televisieprogramma wat The Wisdom of Crowds en vox populi toe past op rechtspraak.\n","title":"16 Miljoen Rechters","type":"posts"},{"content":"De AEL heeft volkomen gelijk om anti-semitische spotprenten te publiceren. Dit is logisch sluitend: als jullie dat mogen doen, dan mogen wij iets vergelijkbaars doen.\nHet leuke aan vrijheid van meningsuiting is dat het domme en slechte mensen zichzelf laat ontmaskeren. De AEL laat zich zien als negatief, provocatief en confronterend, maar dat wisten we al wel.\nHet is toch op zijn minst een beetje hypocriet om iets niet leuk te vinden en dan meteen hetzelfde te gaan doen. Mensen die zo makkelijk bereid zijn de moral high ground weg te gooien, moet je niet vertrouwen.\nEn wat willen ze bereiken door te laten zien dat mensen in het Westen geconfronteerd met anti-semitische spotprenten niet en masse Arabische ambassades en AEL-kantoren in de fik gaan steken?\n","date":"February 6, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-530/","section":"Posts","summary":"De AEL heeft volkomen gelijk om anti-semitische spotprenten te publiceren. Dit is logisch sluitend: als jullie dat mogen doen, dan mogen wij iets vergelijkbaars doen.\n","title":"Dyab","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik vond net in Google het dagboek van de pas gedechargeerde stadsdichter Ramsey Nasr. Een terugblik op een jaar.\n","date":"February 4, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-529/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik vond net in Google het dagboek van de pas gedechargeerde stadsdichter Ramsey Nasr. Een terugblik op een jaar.\n","title":"Nasrabilia","type":"posts"},{"content":"You\u0026rsquo;ve got to love John Stuart Mill:\n[…] the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that is robbing the human race, posterity as well as the current generation, those who dissent from the opinion, even more than those who hold it.\nIf the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.\n","date":"February 2, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-studies-400/","section":"Posts","summary":"You’ve got to love John Stuart Mill:\n","title":"Mill","type":"posts"},{"content":"Erg surreële trailer van het soort waar ik wel van hou: Brick (trailer, site, IMdB).\n","date":"February 2, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-528/","section":"Posts","summary":"Erg surreële trailer van het soort waar ik wel van hou: Brick (trailer, site, IMdB).\n","title":"He shined a gat as he blew the burg.","type":"posts"},{"content":"Replacing the previous monstrosity with a new one. I\u0026rsquo;ve got a new portal page. Utterly unusable and not tested in IE but soit.\nUsing dojo.style and dojo.html to do the nasty stuff for me.\nLove it? Hate it?\n","date":"February 2, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-78/","section":"Posts","summary":"Replacing the previous monstrosity with a new one. I’ve got a new portal page. Utterly unusable and not tested in IE but soit.\n","title":"Fade me baby","type":"posts"},{"content":"Het lijkt dat de liefde voor Pastors erg snel bekoelt. De nieuwe peilingen zien er rampzalig uit voor ze en LR is in rep en roer.\nDat worden nog spannende verkiezingen.\n","date":"February 1, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-527/","section":"Posts","summary":"Het lijkt dat de liefde voor Pastors erg snel bekoelt. De nieuwe peilingen zien er rampzalig uit voor ze en LR is in rep en roer.\n","title":"Rotterdam Leefbaar","type":"posts"},{"content":"Two of my favorite frameworks Django and Dojo are making love [via].\n","date":"February 1, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-77/","section":"Posts","summary":"Two of my favorite frameworks Django and Dojo are making love [via].\n","title":"Love is in the air","type":"posts"},{"content":"aan politici die “klip en klaar” zeggen.\n","date":"February 1, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-526/","section":"Posts","summary":"aan politici die “klip en klaar” zeggen.\n","title":"Grondige hekel","type":"posts"},{"content":"Lori Kendall — Hanging out in the Virtual Pub\nI recently finished this book (see my wiki summary). Kendall provides an interesting and personal account of life in a virtual world and provides insights in the types of people that gather there, their interactions and the relations that they develop.\nThe MUD surroundings described struck me as being very similar to a lot of in-crowd IRC channels. These are made up of a group of people, social codes, symbols, boundaries and automated actions encounters and the likes. Such a channel can have the same community characteristics.\nMore recently online worlds such as the MUDs described have been migrated to realistic and compelling virtual reality worlds. This movement has always been present if you look at the early attempts of creating VRML worlds and avatar based interaction.\nBut I think those early attempts showed clearly that technology was not yet sufficiently mature for this kind of sophisticated interaction.\nSecond Life Most similar to MUD style interaction Second Life is becoming increasingly popular with a growing number of internet users (I have to try this out).\nSecond Life also sporst user generated content as one of its main features. Users are free to create their own avatars, various objects and also buildings on land they own all to their own design. Because it is not in everybody\u0026rsquo;s ability to make these objects, people who can do this will offer their services up for trade.\nThere also is a lively trade of services which is paid for in an online currency called Linden Dollars (L$). This currency is tradeable for real money on an exchange. The amount of money exchanged monthly is valued in the hundreds of thousands of dollars (Wikipedia, CNN, Second Life).\nWorld of Warcraft The in game play is in a lot of cases in character and very much story oriented (I think) but a lot of people that are closely bound in the game already have prior relations and have agreed to meet up in the game or they strike up more casual contact using any of other internet communication means (if only to agree upon on which times to run together).\nSome of my colleagues play WoW and they sometimes run together or they compare their level rankings with each other.\n","date":"January 31, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-studies-399/","section":"Posts","summary":"Lori Kendall — Hanging out in the Virtual Pub\n","title":"Virtual Pubs","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik wilde dit zelf blogggen maar Marjolein was me voor. Ik heb daar dan ook maar flink gereageerd.\nPrivacy is dood.\n","date":"January 31, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-525/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik wilde dit zelf blogggen maar Marjolein was me voor. Ik heb daar dan ook maar flink gereageerd.\n","title":"Dead man walking","type":"posts"},{"content":"The literature study part of my graduation has taken long enough both schedule wise and with regards to the effort invested. I have a next milestone deadline this week on the report and I am not planning to spend much more time on it after that.\nMost of the literature on the topic really has no new insights at all. It is usually either d\u0026rsquo;oh truisms or vagueness all over the place. I do not really get the feeling I am learning much (well, that\u0026rsquo;s new…) compared to the time invested.\nAnd I like to read this kind (any kind) of stuff, but when it is forced it immediately becomes much less appealing and much more boring to me.\nAs an alternative I have started reading ‘Benim Adım Kırmızı’ which is stunning from page one.\nIt seems like I am wasting my time on this stuff only to produce more paper of my own. I am eager to start doing something real. Fortunately I have an opportunity to do somethin really fun (more on that later).\n","date":"January 31, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-studies-398/","section":"Posts","summary":"The literature study part of my graduation has taken long enough both schedule wise and with regards to the effort invested. I have a next milestone deadline this week on the report and I am not planning to spend much more time on it after that.\n","title":"Literature Report","type":"posts"},{"content":"Een interessant out-of-character interview bij The Onion met Stephen Colbert over zijn geschiedenis met The Daily Show en The Report. [via BoingBoing]\nEn een scheur in Colbert\u0026rsquo;s vierde wand bij masless.\n","date":"January 31, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-524/","section":"Posts","summary":"Een interessant out-of-character interview bij The Onion met Stephen Colbert over zijn geschiedenis met The Daily Show en The Report. [via BoingBoing]\n","title":"Put on your Colbert","type":"posts"},{"content":"Google lanceert pas een Nederlandstalige nieuwsdienst (hoera!). Het voorspelbare gebeurt, de traditionele noodlijdende pers ruikt geld en gaat dreigen [via Breuls].\nDit is suf.\nPunt 1: Vindbaar zijn in Google is een voorrecht. Als je niet in Google staat, word je niet gevonden. Dus als je nog minder bezoekers wilt, dan kun je het beste jezelf laten verwijderen uit Google.\nPunt 2: Onder het Amerikaanse systeem van Fair Use mag dit (al eerder over geschreven). Je mag dus dingen overnemen én zonder het te vragen én om er geld aan te verdienen.\nIn Nederland hebben we dat niet, maar hebben we het vergelijkbare citaatrecht wat in een ruime interpretatie dit gebruik van Google moet kunnen dekken.\nPunt 3: Dit soort defensieve acties draagt vast bij aan het feit dat Amerikanen Europa zien als een plek waar archaïsche gevestigde belangen worden verdedigd in lieu van durf en innovatie.\nLaat de Nederlandse Dagblad Pers en aanverwante organisaties zelf eens met iets komen dat zowaar innovatief is. Bluf!\n","date":"January 30, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-523/","section":"Posts","summary":"Google lanceert pas een Nederlandstalige nieuwsdienst (hoera!). Het voorspelbare gebeurt, de traditionele noodlijdende pers ruikt geld en gaat dreigen [via Breuls].\n","title":"Google Nieuws","type":"posts"},{"content":"Een stukje uit Letterman met iemand die beter is dan Jon in het nadoen van Bush [via Miguel].\n","date":"January 30, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-522/","section":"Posts","summary":"Een stukje uit Letterman met iemand die beter is dan Jon in het nadoen van Bush [via Miguel].\n","title":"Gobble Gobble","type":"posts"},{"content":"Te lang geleden, nu maar weer mijn filmlijst ge-update.\n","date":"January 29, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-521/","section":"Posts","summary":"Te lang geleden, nu maar weer mijn filmlijst ge-update.\n","title":"Films","type":"posts"},{"content":" Matige avond gisteren in Rotterdam. Twee films gezien, allebei geen hoogvliegers.\nBubble De veelbelovende nieuwe Soderbergh levert niet veel op. Realistische acteurs in een werkelijk troosteloze setting ergens in Amerika levert een interessant tijdbeeld op maar geen leuke film. De inhoud is te kaal en het verhaal te plat [3/5].\nTideland Terry Giliam zowaar aanwezig hield een kort verhaaltje van te voren om de mensen op de film voor te bereiden. Dit was niet overbodig.\nTideland is een film vanuit de ogen van een klein meisje die een bizarre werkelijkheid probeert te overleven. Ze doorstaat een verhaal dat voor de helft werkelijk en grotesk is en voor de andere helft fantasie en kinderspel. Ik ga het verhaal niet uitleggen, maar er zit geen enkele lijn in.\nWel goed uitgevoerd en heel mooi gefilmd [3/5][1].\n[1] Speciale regel voor elke film: Als er een piraat in voorkomt, +1 punt.\n","date":"January 29, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-520/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"IFFR","type":"posts"},{"content":"Antwerpen heeft een nieuwe stadsdichter (zijn eerste gedicht) en ik werk het lemma van Nasr maar bij [via].\n","date":"January 29, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-519/","section":"Posts","summary":"Antwerpen heeft een nieuwe stadsdichter (zijn eerste gedicht) en ik werk het lemma van Nasr maar bij [via].\n","title":"Gedichtendag (vervolg)","type":"posts"},{"content":"Sociale videosites boomen ontzettend en zolang ze niet door copyrighthouders de kop ingedrukt worden zijn er nogal wat juweeltjes te vinden.\nOp vSocial een hele berg The Daily Show fragmenten waaronder:\nHet legendarische Jon Stewart Crossfire interview: “Stop hurting America”\nEen uur lang interview op C-SPAN over de achtergronden van TDS\n","date":"January 28, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-518/","section":"Posts","summary":"Sociale videosites boomen ontzettend en zolang ze niet door copyrighthouders de kop ingedrukt worden zijn er nogal wat juweeltjes te vinden.\n","title":"Meer Stewart","type":"posts"},{"content":"Pas via Boing Boing de link naar de korte films van het Sundance festival die je allemaal online kunt bekijken. Erg leuk, zitten een paar mooie bij.\nTot nu toe gezien:\nThe Beginning of the End\nA Half Man\nFourteen\nYou Turned Your Back and Held My Hand\nEn vanavond in Rotterdam naar twee films:\nBubble\nTideland\n","date":"January 28, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-517/","section":"Posts","summary":"Pas via Boing Boing de link naar de korte films van het Sundance festival die je allemaal online kunt bekijken. Erg leuk, zitten een paar mooie bij.\n","title":"Festivals","type":"posts"},{"content":"Meer goed advies van Guy.\nThings are never as good or as bad as they seem.\nPrecies, geen paniek.\nIf you think someone is an orifice, everyone else does too. \u0026amp; Life is too short to deal with orifices.\nFilter je interacties en ga door met je leven.\nJudge others by their intentions and yourself by your results.\nDeze had ik ook via pinds gelezen en dit komt tegelijkertijd zo vanzelfsprekend maar ook oh zo waardevol op me over.\nNever ask people to do something that you wouldn\u0026rsquo;t do.\nDe gouden regel van het management.\nRock on, Guy!\n","date":"January 26, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-516/","section":"Posts","summary":"Meer goed advies van Guy.\n","title":"Kawasaki schiet raak","type":"posts"},{"content":"Gedichtendag slaat toe, hier, hier en hier.\nKiezen is heel heel erg moeilijk, maar redelijk vast stond al wel dat het een gedicht van Ramsey Nasr zou worden.\npsalm 23\nmijn lieveling menne mij\nen niets zal mij mankeren\nop plekken van bloei daar entte ze me\nop krachtwater kweekte ze me\nmijn adem draaide ze\nze richtte mijn ziel\nontvoerde me langs paden van rechtvaardigheid\nomwille van haar naam\nwant zelfs als ik in het hart van de schaduw van de dood zal hebben rondgedwaald\nik zal het kwaad niet vrezen\nnoch gebreken\nomdat je met me bent\nje stok heeft mij tot bedaren gebracht\nje hebt mij een feestmaal tegen hen aangerecht die mij uitzuigen\nmijn hoofd heb je geheiligd met olie\nen meer dan helder is de wijn\ndie mij doordrenkt\nen verduistert\nje medelijden volgt mij op de voet\nen overal en eeuwig\nen o\ndat ik mag huizen in het huis van mijn geliefde\nen overal\nin lengte van dagen\n","date":"January 26, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-515/","section":"Posts","summary":"Gedichtendag slaat toe, hier, hier en hier.\n","title":"Gedichtendag 2006","type":"posts"},{"content":"Bij Radio-Online hebben ze een item over iets waar Erwin Boogert (die in dezelfde uitzending was over dit) al eerder over berichtte: Arnoud Engelfriet\u0026rsquo;s juridische gids voor bloggers.\nWat begint als een standaard-gesprek, ontaardt in een halve rel die tegelijkertijd triest en hilarisch is.\nVan Jole maakt eerste een paar nare toespelingen voor hij overgaat op onverbloemde verdachtmakingen. Hij weet Engelfriet te ‘pakken’ met een paar oude teksten die hij ge-Googled heeft. Engelfriet zou een dubbele agenda voeren over anonimiteit omdat hij ooit pedofielen heeft verdedigd.\nJe moet echt goed zoeken om in het verhaal van Engelfriet een dubbele agenda te vinden. Tenzij je zelf de dubbele agenda van de ranzige scoringsdrang voert, dan is het goed te doen.\nEngelfriet reageert een beetje slapjes. Hij is op het verkeerde been gezet, natuurlijk, maar hij zou toch goed doen om iets van de stelligheid over te nemen van de bloggers die hij heeft bestudeerd.\nDreigen het gesprek te be-eindigen? In de weblogwereld kun je niet vluchten (en krijg je de tijd om te antwoorden). Het gesprek gaat altijd door… tot de volgende rel.\nWat hebben ze nu bereikt bij Radio-Online? De karaktermoord op Engelfriet is één ding. Een ander ding is de zoveelste keer dat in dit programma (digitale) burgerrechten verkeerd worden uitgelegd of anderzins worden zwart gemaakt.\nNu weer mooi anonimiteit in hetzelfde hoekje geduwd als criminelen en pedofielen. Kudos, jongens!\nDe presentatoren missen heel veel kennis over (digitale) burgerrechten. Het grote publiek mist dat ook. Met wat goede wil zou een programma als dit hen kunnen informeren, hen argumenten aanbieden en een eerlijke intelligente discussie kunnen faciliteren.\nMet een heel klein beetje goede wil.\n","date":"January 26, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-514/","section":"Posts","summary":"Bij Radio-Online hebben ze een item over iets waar Erwin Boogert (die in dezelfde uitzending was over dit) al eerder over berichtte: Arnoud Engelfriet’s juridische gids voor bloggers.\n","title":"Wat een rel","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik liep vanmiddag de T-mobile winkel binnen met het idee om een SonyEricsson K700i te regelen. Daar kreeg ik te horen dat ding al hopeloos verouderd was. De opvolger, de K750i, was ook niet echt meer leverbaar.\nHet leek een hopeloze situatie. Het enige wat erop zat was om een W800i Walkman Phone aan te schaffen.\nBij T-mobile hebben ze nu een nieuwe abonnementssoort: Flex. Dit abonnement schaalt elke maand op (naar goedkopere tarieven) als je meer gebeld hebt. Het is dus het voordeligst om het goedkoopste abonnement te nemen.\nFijne klantenservice in de winkel ook, goed advies en prettige sfeer (bedankt Maartje).\nDe enige reden om een duurder abonnement te nemen is als je meer korting wilt op een nieuwe telefoon. Ik kwam voor een contractverlenging (van 6 jaar oud), dus dat was op mij niet van toepassing. Daarom heb ik nu een T-mobile Flex 10 abonnement.\nMet dit abonnement moest ik nog €25 bijbetalen voor het toestel. Een GSM met camera, FM-radio, hands free set, in-ear hoofdtelefoons en een MemoryStick van 512MB meegeleverd. Volgens mij een hele fijne deal.\nHet ding bevalt geweldig. Ik heb al mijn eerste foto naar Flickr ge-MMS\u0026rsquo;t, de radio doet het prima, Bluetooth synchronisatie van contacten en afspraken ging ook vlekkeloos en ik moet alleen nog even uitzoeken hoe ik die MemoryStick vol krijg met MP3s (nog niet zo voor de hand liggend op een Mac).\n","date":"January 25, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-513/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik liep vanmiddag de T-mobile winkel binnen met het idee om een SonyEricsson K700i te regelen. Daar kreeg ik te horen dat ding al hopeloos verouderd was. De opvolger, de K750i, was ook niet echt meer leverbaar.\n","title":"Gadget-gekte","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik vind Femke wel cool, al maakt ze het me soms wel wat moeilijk. Nu zag ik dat je op Linkse Lente kunt reageren op dingen. Dus dat heb ik maar gedaan.\nIk heb mijn reactie maar in de stijl van een brief geschreven. Dat pende het lekkerst, een stukje:\nLieve Femke,\nHet nieuwe Vrijheid Eerlijk Delen heeft GroenLinks voor me op de kaart gezet. Fijn dat eindelijk iemand de false claim van de VVD op de vrijheid doorprikt. Vrijheid is niet alleen voor rijke mensen!\nIk wil nu dolgraag in de linkse lente overtuigd worden hoe goed de standpunten van GroenLinks zijn en mijn vrienden overtuigen en eigenlijk iedereen overtuigen. Helpen jullie me daarbij?\nNu maar kijken of ik een antwoord krijg.\n","date":"January 24, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-512/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik vind Femke wel cool, al maakt ze het me soms wel wat moeilijk. Nu zag ik dat je op Linkse Lente kunt reageren op dingen. Dus dat heb ik maar gedaan.\n","title":"Open kattebelletje","type":"posts"},{"content":"Het huidige zevende seizoen van The West Wing wordt het laatste. Met het afscheid van president Bartlett, houdt ook de serie op. Dan hoef ik nog maar 2 1/2 seizoen.\nWaardig einde van een goede serie.\n","date":"January 23, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-511/","section":"Posts","summary":"Het huidige zevende seizoen van The West Wing wordt het laatste. Met het afscheid van president Bartlett, houdt ook de serie op. Dan hoef ik nog maar 2 1/2 seizoen.\n","title":"Aan alles","type":"posts"},{"content":"Last week I finished the book[^1] “In the Bubble” by John Thackara (my summary).\nThe book is part of a tradition of more recent popular scientific book in that it practices science-by-anecdote. It is a vast collection of mostly interesting anecdotes, tidbits from other scientists, entertaining stories and luminous examples conveniently arranged chapterwise in trends. It is very personal and at times a bit careless but mostly interesting.\nThe book does read well and spouts its vision to make the reader aware of the problems we are faced with and their possible solutions. This has become more and more necessary as we are faced daily with systems which are completely out of touch with the human(e).\n[1]: And have been ill since, no causality there I hope. Mostly recovered now.\n","date":"January 23, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-studies-397/","section":"Posts","summary":"Last week I finished the book[^1] “In the Bubble” by John Thackara (my summary).\n","title":"Bubbles","type":"posts"},{"content":"Old-school tech companies are very stubborn and not really agile enough for the new world order. Even Apple, poster boy for everything that is cool, does not really get it.\nMark Pilgrim puts his finger on a lot of sore points in iTunes and iPhoto syndication support and is summarily dismissed by Apple development (Sam Ruby has the overview).\nThere are a lot of people who mean well and working with them not against them would benefit Apple a lot.\nWe don\u0026rsquo;t care about getting your code (we have enough of our own), and we don\u0026rsquo;t care about getting your money (we are offering our expertise for free). But we do care about knowing that our time is well-spent, that our feedback is really being heard, and that real progress is being made.\nNobody expects superhuman efforts, not even from Apple but we expect:\nSomething. But please don\u0026rsquo;t end every answer with \u0026ldquo;we can\u0026rsquo;t comment on that.\u0026rdquo; Sure you can. Try harder.\n","date":"January 23, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-76/","section":"Posts","summary":"Old-school tech companies are very stubborn and not really agile enough for the new world order. Even Apple, poster boy for everything that is cool, does not really get it.\n","title":"Syndication-dev","type":"posts"},{"content":"En GroenLinks wil met het kabinet een Doe Eens Normaal contract afsluiten. Met een paar simpele regels:\nDoe gewoon je werk en kom op voor alle burgerlijke vrijheden.\nBeperk je als kabinet tot de aanpak van serieuze kwesties en laat je niet verleiden tot het oplaten van lachwekkende luchtballonnen.\nStel je op als dienaar van het algemene belang, laat je niet emotioneel meeslepen in deelbelangen.\nBedrijf geen symboolpolitiek om het gebrek aan een echte oplossing te maskeren.\nSpreek als kabinet met één mond en sta op waardige wijze boven de partijen.\nStap als minister op als het beleid je niet zint of je je collegas vervelend vindt en misbruik je positie niet voor je ijdele roem.\nKortom, wees een kabinet voor alle Nederlanders.\nOp dovemansoren, want dit kabinet krijg je met geen orkaan van zijn plek, ben ik bang.\n","date":"January 23, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-510/","section":"Posts","summary":"En GroenLinks wil met het kabinet een Doe Eens Normaal contract afsluiten. Met een paar simpele regels:\n","title":"Doe ff normaal","type":"posts"},{"content":"Net De Flexmens van Tegenlicht (aangekondigd en besproken op Sargasso) gezien en er zaten een heleboel dingen in die niet nieuw voor me waren maar ook veel interessante dingen.\nHet AVV (Alternatief Voor Vakbond) van Mei Li Vos is de eerste en enige vakbond waar ik iets in zie. De meeste vakbonden zijn schuilplaatsen voor oude en vastgeroeste mensen die zich moeten indekken tegen veranderlijk economisch weer.\nEindelijk iemand die het opneemt voor jonge hoogopgeleiden (wie betaalt straks de uitkeringen?).\nDaarna ook Femke Halsema die met haar GroenLinks ziet waar de problemen liggen en die echt wil aanpakken. Ik ben niet zo\u0026rsquo;n fan van Femke maar des te meer van haar ideeën. Ik vind het goed dat zij de gevestigde belangen van de insiders (CDA + VVD) wil aanpakken (ontslagbescherming, hypotheekrenteaftrek etc.).\nMeer Femke bij Woestijnruiters diezelfde avond.\nEn voorspelbaar meteen die reactie van Marijnissen op zijn weblog die weer tegen is. Ik dacht dat ze van het tegen-zijn af waren, maar blijkbaar zit het heel diep ingebakken.\nDe plannen van GroenLinks kregen bij de SP dezelfde behandeling. Niet dat de SP enig alternatief biedt (belastingen op 80% en iedereen een uitkering is geen alternatief). De SP brengt niks en probeert samen met de vakbonden een oud en kreupel systeem overeind te houden over de rug van de jongeren.\nSolidariteit hoeft van mij niet op deze manier.\n","date":"January 23, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-509/","section":"Posts","summary":"Net De Flexmens van Tegenlicht (aangekondigd en besproken op Sargasso) gezien en er zaten een heleboel dingen in die niet nieuw voor me waren maar ook veel interessante dingen.\n","title":"Ik ben een untouchable","type":"posts"},{"content":"Een apologie (zie: van Dale) van Amerika door Bernard-Henri Lévy in een interview en een recensie [via].\n","date":"January 23, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-508/","section":"Posts","summary":"Een apologie (zie: van Dale) van Amerika door Bernard-Henri Lévy in een interview en een recensie [via].\n","title":"Anti-anti-Amerikanisme","type":"posts"},{"content":"Amanda en vrienden zetten dagelijks met Rocketboom items neer waar televisie het niet bij haalt. Afgelopen vrijdag het hilarische: Why is President Bush so awesome?\nEn eerder deze week vraag het de Ninja.\n","date":"January 22, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-507/","section":"Posts","summary":"Amanda en vrienden zetten dagelijks met Rocketboom items neer waar televisie het niet bij haalt. Afgelopen vrijdag het hilarische: Why is President Bush so awesome?\n","title":"Great President or the Greatest President?","type":"posts"},{"content":"Hans Teeuwens afscheid van de cabaret en de achtergronden bij zijn eerste film eerder al te zien bij de eerste aflevering van Woestijnruiters.\nNu is ook de film Masterclass zelf te zien (Omroep media player) via de Uitzendinggemist portal.\n","date":"January 22, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-506/","section":"Posts","summary":"Hans Teeuwens afscheid van de cabaret en de achtergronden bij zijn eerste film eerder al te zien bij de eerste aflevering van Woestijnruiters.\n","title":"Masterclass","type":"posts"},{"content":"Cris pimpt zijn phone, die van mij begeeft het nu echt. Mijn prachtige vintage Nokia 3310 (hoe zag die er ook alweer uit?) gaat nu vanzelf uit tijdens telefoongesprekken.\nDe draadloze breedbanddroom (EVDO klinkt heel fijn) komt nog niet echt van de grond, maar er lijkt het komende jaar wat beweging in te zitten. Dus vrij rondlopen Skypen over WiFi wordt het (nog) niet.\nEen GSM heb je niet nodig —als mensen je willen bereiken lukt het ze toch wel— maar handig is het wel.\nIk wilde mijn GSM toch al inwisselen voor iets met Bluetooth en een agenda-functie. Als ik die dan sync met mijn iBook kan ik meteen mijn Zire 31 afdanken.\nMinder gadgets is goed. En ik hoor goede verhalen over Romeo (PC bedienen via Bluetooth).\nDat wordt dan een tussentoestel voor het komende jaar of tot de breedbanddroom uitkomt.\nIk wil best bij T-mobile blijven en contract verlengen. Een K700i klinkt best goed voor €48,\u0026ndash; maar dat is hetzelfde bedrag als voor een nieuw contract. Morgen maar eens bellen ofzo.\nBetere suggesties? Andere afwegingen?\n","date":"January 21, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-505/","section":"Posts","summary":"Cris pimpt zijn phone, die van mij begeeft het nu echt. Mijn prachtige vintage Nokia 3310 (hoe zag die er ook alweer uit?) gaat nu vanzelf uit tijdens telefoongesprekken.\n","title":"Phone upgrade","type":"posts"},{"content":"zie titel\nUpdate: Dingen zijn beter maar ik lig er nog steeds redelijk af. Zo maar even fruit, groente en vruchtensap (en zakdoekjes) halen.\nOp aanraden van mijn pril ge-Mac\u0026rsquo;te broeder ga ik maar weer vitamines slikken. Ik dacht dat ik het niet nodig had, wel dus.\nUpdate update: Ik wil een Slanket voor die lange West Wing sessies op de bank.\n","date":"January 21, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-504/","section":"Posts","summary":"zie titel\n","title":"Ontzettend verkouden","type":"posts"},{"content":"Guy Kawasaki blijft maar doordraaien op zijn blog en hij is van plan elke dag een stuk van buitengewone kwaliteit neer te zetten[1].\nHij had gisteren en vandaag advies voor aspirerende sprekers en het is allemaal erg de moeite waard. Ik wil er even een punt uithalen dat ik direct ga toepassen:\nPre-circulate with the audience. True or false: the audience wants your speech to go well. The answer is True. Audiences don\u0026rsquo;t want to see you fail\u0026ndash;for one thing, why would people want to waste their time listening to you fail?\nAnd here\u0026rsquo;s the way to heighten your audience\u0026rsquo;s concern for you: circulate with the audience before the speech. Meet people. Talk to them. Let them make contact with you.\nEspecially the ones in the first few rows; then, when you\u0026rsquo;re on the podium, you\u0026rsquo;ll see these friendly faces. Your confidence will soar. You will relax. And you will be great.\nMeestal sta je aan het begin van een presentatie voor de zaal een beetje te niksen te stressen en je slides door te nemen. Dat laatste zou in ieder geval niet meer hoeven als je genoeg oefent.\nEn hier dus een goed advies om dan een beetje met de mensen op de voorste rijen te gaan kletsen. Je wint ze dan al meteen voor je en misschien kom je nog achter een paar dingen die je direct kunt toepassen.\n[1] Wat hem elke dag zo\u0026rsquo;n twee uur kost om te schrijven.\n","date":"January 19, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-503/","section":"Posts","summary":"Guy Kawasaki blijft maar doordraaien op zijn blog en hij is van plan elke dag een stuk van buitengewone kwaliteit neer te zetten[1].\n","title":"Staande ovaties","type":"posts"},{"content":"Van een van mijn favoriete blogs het volgende citaat:\nDon’t be afraid to jump right into the middle of a project and allow yourself to work both ways at once. If you’re staring at a blank piece of paper, an empty canvas, or a white screen, you need to find a place where you already know what’s going to happen. Attack it from that angle and let the rest follow.\nDit is een goede filosofie om veel dingen aan te pakken.\nHet is beter dan aan iets beginnen en je schuldig voelen omdat je niet bij het begin begint. En nog veel beter dan ergens niet aan beginnen omdat beginnen bij het begin te moeilijk lijkt.\n","date":"January 19, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-502/","section":"Posts","summary":"Van een van mijn favoriete blogs het volgende citaat:\n","title":"Niet bij het begin beginnen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik heb even alle indices opgeschreven waarop Pastors iets zegt en deze in een RAM bestand (Real Playlist) gestopt. Nog een hels karwei en niet overal even goed gelukt maar ik krijg met de gratis Real Player mijn handen niet op het hele bestand om het in iMovie aan te pakken.\nDe Realplayer is ook niet zo slim, hij snapt niet dat alle URLs naar hetzelfde bestand wijzen en dat je dus niet elke keer een nieuwe connectie hoeft aan te maken.\nIk heb geprobeerd het item van de vorige blogpost wat minder saai te maken. Dit is een proof of concept en teveel werk om vaker te doen. Het zou fijn zijn als de omroep dit soort hergebruik van hun materiaal zou faciliteren.\nLees ook Lessig over een Internet dat niet strict Read-Only is maar dat mensen in staat stelt om zelf ook dingen bij te dragen.\nPastors Leefbaar Rotterdam Buitenhof Remix\nNog even, ik ben niet echt voor Pastors en al zeker niet voor zijn partij, maar ik heb wel respect voor politici die helder kunnen praten.\n","date":"January 18, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-501/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik heb even alle indices opgeschreven waarop Pastors iets zegt en deze in een RAM bestand (Real Playlist) gestopt. Nog een hels karwei en niet overal even goed gelukt maar ik krijg met de gratis Real Player mijn handen niet op het hele bestand om het in iMovie aan te pakken.\n","title":"Pastors Remix","type":"posts"},{"content":"Marco Pastors maakt in Buitenhof zondag (Real fragment) een erg sterke indruk.\nPopulistisch, nichterig, helder, simpel en hard. Klinkt als Fortuyn én klinkt als een goede combinatie om de verkiezingen mee in te gaan.\nVolgens mij hebben de andere partijen hier (weer) geen antwoord op.\nP.S. Slap verhaal en een non-discussie van de tegenstander die niets te melden heeft.\nAls ik de tijd had sneed ik alles behalve Pastors eruit om van het fragment een verkapte campagnefilmpje te maken.\n","date":"January 18, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-500/","section":"Posts","summary":"Marco Pastors maakt in Buitenhof zondag (Real fragment) een erg sterke indruk.\n","title":"‘Dat mag allemaal wel wat harder’","type":"posts"},{"content":"Het CDA komt met een nieuw ‘plan’ om haatzaaien in de samenleving pre-emptiever en effectiever aan te pakken. Het argument van de kamer tegen dit voorstel is dat dit niks toevoegt en de rechterlijke macht afvalt.\nWat erger is dat deze regel helemaal niet gaat over haatzaaien in welke vorm dan ook. Het gaat puur om het aanpakken van alles wat moslim is en in de ogen van CDA\u0026rsquo;ers eng is.\nAls iemand een baard en een dubbele nationaliteit heeft, dan is het makkelijk en politiek opportuun om hem te bestempelen als haatzaaier en zijn nationaliteit af te pakken. De nationaliteit afnemen van Nederlandse extreem-rechtsen ligt dan wat lastiger, maar zou hetzelfde moeten gaan.\nWilders en andere politici het kiesrecht ontnemen op basis van haatzaaiende uitspraken ligt dan weer wat moeilijker. Bart Nooitgedacht (advocaat van een terreurverdachte) legt al de vergelijking ‘gevestigde politici die haatzaaien tegen Fortuyn’ in het NOVA item.\nDit is natuurlijk allemaal onzin. Je moet vrijheid van meningsuiting niet zo drastisch inperken voor politiek gewin. Als je het al inperkt dan moet daar lang en diep over nagedacht worden.\nLang en diep nadenken dat is iets wat rechters heel goed kunnen. CDA-politici moeten nog maar eens bewijzen dat ze iets kunnen.\nUpdate: Het kapen van Lucebert —het rapport heeft de titel ‘alles van waarde is weerloos’— was me ook al opgevallen maar anderen zijn beter in staat om daar iets van te zeggen.\n","date":"January 17, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-499/","section":"Posts","summary":"Het CDA komt met een nieuw ‘plan’ om haatzaaien in de samenleving pre-emptiever en effectiever aan te pakken. Het argument van de kamer tegen dit voorstel is dat dit niks toevoegt en de rechterlijke macht afvalt.\n","title":"Wat je zaait…","type":"posts"},{"content":"Bij Frackers het idee van Godcasting. Religieuze content die direct op je iPod wordt geplaatst.\nTechnisch mogelijk, hip en ik denk wel boeiend is denk ik hetzelfde idee uitgevoerd voor moslims. Een iPod die vijf keer per dag je normale playlist onderbreekt voor een oproep tot gebed.\nVerder islamitische teksten en motto\u0026rsquo;s (die al erg populair zijn als kalender) dagelijks als iCal boodschap ook op je iPod.\nIk denk dat veel mensen het zouden gebruiken.\n","date":"January 17, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-498/","section":"Posts","summary":"Bij Frackers het idee van Godcasting. Religieuze content die direct op je iPod wordt geplaatst.\n","title":"Allah-casting","type":"posts"},{"content":"90% van alle DJs kan vervangen worden door een iPod Shuffle.\n","date":"January 15, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-497/","section":"Posts","summary":"90% van alle DJs kan vervangen worden door een iPod Shuffle.\n","title":"Prutsers","type":"posts"},{"content":"It seems Cringely is slipping. Though I would not want to task myself with so hard a task as predicting where this industry is headed.\nI read his predictions for this year. Most of it makes sense, but I am still left with a couple of questions.\nThis one is easy: Apple will eventually announce all the products they were supposed to have announced at this week\u0026rsquo;s MacWorld show, but didn\u0026rsquo;t… This one makes sense. Jobs already announced the entire product line to transition and PVR style Minis and Plasmas make a lot of sense if Apple does not want to concede the home media market to Windows Media Center.\nThe reason Apple changed its MacWorld announcements at the last minute was because the company sued little Burst.com a few days before… I don\u0026rsquo;t know much about Burst. Worth investigating?\nBut Apple WILL make some inroads against Microsoft.… Like Cringely I do think that Intel OS X will be made to run on generic x86 boxes but I do not see Apple making any kind of official move to support this movement. It seems very unApple-ish.\n2006 is a building year for Google.… Sounds plausible.\nStill no good news for Sun.… Java is still going unstoppable but yeah Sun is pretty much dead.\nIBM will get in trouble with its customers as it becomes clear that Sam Palmisano didn\u0026rsquo;t learn much… Don\u0026rsquo;t know about this one.\nMicrosoft still sucks at security and users suffer for it.… The only kinds of users suffering are those that are not running on Macs.\nHis prediction that XP will get another service pack seems off to me. Getting a service pack out of the door taks a lot of effort for Microsoft and they seem so close to finishing Vista now that it would not make much sense diverting their resources.\nAnother option of course would be that Vista adoption is so slow at first that Microsoft will be forced to make a service pack for their users still on XP. Not dxoing that would alienate a lot of users with potentially high costs.\nSony\u0026rsquo;s PS3 hits the market with a dearth of games\u0026amp;hellip The PSP could be big but it is technologically so closed to be nearly useless for the non-hacker. Getting free (ad-paid) content would help a lot though.\nWiMax is still 12 months away… Unfortunately he\u0026rsquo;s probably right here. It still remains to be seen how and when we will get EVDO here in the Netherlands or how long WiFi hotspot access prices will be at their current ludicrous heights (prices for T-mobile and prices for KPN).\nEmbedded devices will hurt Media Center PC sales, which will continue to be pitiful. Agree.\nTiVO will be bought by another company. Agree. Yahoo?\nIntel is spending $2 billion to re-brand itself as a consumer electronics company… I don\u0026rsquo;t really get this one.\nGoogle WON\u0026rsquo;T go head-to-head with Microsoft for a desktop operating system or a cheap PC. No, they won\u0026rsquo;t have to because they don\u0026rsquo;t care really about what kind of hardware or OS you run on.\nEBay stumbles with Skype… Agree. With Asterisk, Gizmo and libjingle out in the open, it is the question how long something like Skype can last.\nWhatever we expect from Google might just as easily appear from Yahoo… I\u0026rsquo;m inclined to believe this, but I\u0026rsquo;m also still waiting for signs of it.\nWell, that was it. Next year we\u0026rsquo;ll see who was right.\n","date":"January 15, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-75/","section":"Posts","summary":"It seems Cringely is slipping. Though I would not want to task myself with so hard a task as predicting where this industry is headed.\n","title":"Annotated Predictions","type":"posts"},{"content":"Jon Stewart is niet de enige die terug is. Stephen Colbert is ook terug en hoe!\nNa een succesvolle campagne gevoerd te hebben om Kerstmis te redden van de heidenen is hij nu bezig de waarheid, nee de waarachtigheid boven de tafel te krijgen.\nwaarachtigheid (zelfst. nw., Eng: truthiness)\nwaarheid die zich niet de mond laat snoeren door feiten\nDit woord dat door Stephen is bedacht is pas benoemd tot woord van het jaar door AP maar in het bericht hebben ze nagelaten om Stephen om commentaar te vragen. Dit soort nalatigheid is een klap in het gezicht van de waarachtigheid.\nNu voert Stephen campagne (via reddit) om het gevaar dat AP vormt voor Amerika (en indirect de rest van de Vrije Wereld) aan het licht te brengen.\nEn nog: Jon Stewart presenteert de Oscars die de nacht van 5 op 6 maart waarschijnlijk door Cinenova worden uitgezonden. Wie kan dat ontvangen?\nDe Oscars kunnen me gestolen worden, maar Stewart wil ik graag zien.\n","date":"January 15, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-496/","section":"Posts","summary":"Jon Stewart is niet de enige die terug is. Stephen Colbert is ook terug en hoe!\n","title":"Werkelijk waar","type":"posts"},{"content":"The browser wars have returned in earnest. Firefox market share has been growing steadily and it is making inroads in Internet Explorers market with a superior product, aggressive marketing and a loyal fanbase.\nSeeing their stranglehold on browsing slip, Microsoft has been forced to pull the IE7 team back together and set them to work on a next version. The team has been given a surprisingly candid blog to get feedback on their efforts and they have recently released beta builds which do most of what Firefox does but much less usably.\nThis is bad news for web standards.\nThe producers of real browsers (Firefox, Opera, Safari) have good track records with web standards and are quite keen to go on developing the next versions with support for stuff like: CSS3, SVG, XForms and HTML5.\nIE7 has a horrible record on web standards and it is now claiming an undeserved and unproven credibility by implementing a set of features present in real browsers two years ago. Stuff such as the fixing of bugs (imagine that!), partial CSS 2.1 support, RSS and basic security.\nThis announcement is a very effective measure to halt the landslide adoption of standards driven browsers. Just the announcement of a next version is enough to stop people and companies thinking of switching to Firefox.\nThe announced feature list for IE7 is only very barely adequate. Paying lip service to standards for now is one thing, it remains to be seen if they will keep it up. I do not doubt the dedication of the team, but they are not the ones that make the strategic decisions.\nMy guess is they will only release the next set of features after a similar amount of arm twisting. It is in Microsoft\u0026rsquo;s best interest to stall the market at this outdated status quo.\nMicrosoft\u0026rsquo;s strategy is two part. They not only want to halt the adoption of Firefox as an alternative browser but it is also in their best interest to sabotage the maturing of the web into a sane platform. Even with their recent announcement of Windows Live, Web 2.0 is not a space Microsoft is well positioned to compete in.\nThe Web (2.0) platform is characterized by small innovating players, that use open stack technology (LAMP, Ruby, PostgreSQL) to build open user centric services. These are all the things Microsoft is not about.\nMicrosoft has its own proprietary offering which it is eager to push. It has been long touting their .NET Windows Forms applications which can use all of the possibilities Windows has (within reasonable security constraints) and can be easily deployed over the network. In short everything that Java Webstart should have been.\nThe amount of tooling they have lined up for developers to effectively use these new technologies is impressive and the ease of use of developing in Avalon, Winforms or Indigo is something most AJAX developers can only distantly dream of.\nMicrosoft is betting big on that either web applications are a fad, or that they can be converged and the distinction between the(ir) desktop and the internet can be blurred. IE7 is just a filibuster until Microsoft gets its developers, tools and installed base (Vista) aligned and deployed wide enough to enable it to make the next step in their effort to dominate the applications market.\n","date":"January 12, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-74/","section":"Posts","summary":"The browser wars have returned in earnest. Firefox market share has been growing steadily and it is making inroads in Internet Explorers market with a superior product, aggressive marketing and a loyal fanbase.\n","title":"IE7 Bad for Web","type":"posts"},{"content":"I recently discovered Guy Kawasaki\u0026rsquo;s blog and its content is as great as its title: “Let the Good Times Roll”.\nHis commentary on all aspects tech-entrepeneurial makes a lot of sense and is fun to read. His piece on evangelism hit home with me because I try to do quite a bit of that.\nI am the person most ahead on the tech curve at our local shop and trying to get people to go along with recent developments involves quite a lot of pulling.\nTrying to inject innovation into an adverse environment such as this gets a bit tiring after a while.\n","date":"January 12, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-73/","section":"Posts","summary":"I recently discovered Guy Kawasaki’s blog and its content is as great as its title: “Let the Good Times Roll”.\n","title":"Good Times","type":"posts"},{"content":"Helemaal gemist dat vorige week The Daily Show weer begonnen is en dat vanaf maandag ook een nieuw seizoen van The Colbert Report van start is gegaan.\nGisteren van Reinier een aflevering van TDS gekregen op Macworld Amsterdam. En terug in de trein zaten we allebei met een iBook, hij te werken en ik onderuitgezakt de aflevering te kijken. Ik was de enige die het geluid hoorde, maar ik denk wel dat de hele coupé van mijn gelach kon meegenieten.\nEen iBook als draagbaar media center is echt super. Ik heb geen Slingbox nodig, alleen een constante invoer van torrents.\n","date":"January 11, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-495/","section":"Posts","summary":"Helemaal gemist dat vorige week The Daily Show weer begonnen is en dat vanaf maandag ook een nieuw seizoen van The Colbert Report van start is gegaan.\n","title":"‘We're back bitch!’","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik weet niet wat de vertaling van ‘Fair Use’ is maar Redelijk Gebruik klinkt niet zo lekker. Volgens Wikipedia lijkt het op het Nederlandse citaatrecht.\nWat wel erg goed is, is Lessig\u0026rsquo;s analyse van de weerstand tegen Google Book Search en waarom de toegang en het gebruik onder Fair Use wel toegestaan moeten zijn.\nTermen die vallen zijn Intellectueel Eigendom-extremisme (IP-extremism), landjepik (land grab) en het smoren van de innovatie (stifling innovation).\nKrachtige termen om de corruptie die het complete copyright-wezen doordringt (terecht) hard te veroordelen.\nTwee dingen die veel mensen denk ik gewoon niet beseffen, zijn dat het wel toegestaan is om werk van andere mensen te nemen\nzonder het te vragen en\nom er zelf beter van te worden als het maar onder Fair Use gebeurt.\nZie bijvoorbeeld het ellenlange verhaal over Podjacking bij Hans. Veel van de argumenten die daar gebruikt worden zijn van de soort van ‘ze hebben het niet gevraagd’ en ‘ze worden er zelf beter van’.\nDrogredeneringen dus, maar wel drogredeneringen die voor veel mensen die zich bedreigd voelen heel aantrekkelijk lijken. In de werkelijkheid ligt het dus allemaal subtieler en veel minder zwart/wit.\nLessig\u0026rsquo;s stijl van presenteren is ook prettig en het emuleren waard (zie Dick Hardt). Ik ben al een tijdje bezig met de principe\u0026rsquo;s van Presentation Zen en Beyond Bullets, maar Lessig blijft de absolute meester.\nIk zal voor mijn volgende presentatie mijn Keynote op dezelfde manier (kleuren, lettertype) proberen in te stellen. Om dezelfde sfeer te creëren en als eerbetoon.\nUpdate: En frappant, hetzelfde verhaal nu bij Frank-ly maar dan over Steve Jobs.\n","date":"January 11, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-494/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik weet niet wat de vertaling van ‘Fair Use’ is maar Redelijk Gebruik klinkt niet zo lekker. Volgens Wikipedia lijkt het op het Nederlandse citaatrecht.\n","title":"Redelijk Gebruik","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik zit nu in de Balie op de Amsterdam Macworld meetup. Ik zet straks de foto\u0026rsquo;s online maar je kunt alvast de foto\u0026rsquo;s van Katie bekijken.\nUpdate: Het was ook vrij snel weer voorbij. Alle Powerbooks ingepakt en iedereen weer weg. De Balie is wel een hele fijne plek, leuke locatie en de WiFi werkt erg fijn. Ik heb ondertussen mijn foto\u0026rsquo;s online gezet.\nKenneth heeft een paar stukjes geschreven met een fijne samenvatting van het gebeuren en links naar Engadget en de stream van de keynote.\nLeuk detail was dat Breyten (als enige) zijn niet Mac notebook openklapte, die toen spontaan een BSOD gaf.\n","date":"January 10, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-493/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik zit nu in de Balie op de Amsterdam Macworld meetup. Ik zet straks de foto’s online maar je kunt alvast de foto’s van Katie bekijken.\n","title":"Apple Flashmob","type":"posts"},{"content":"De Washington Post (naar verluid een van de beste kranten van Amerika) begrijpt het echt.\nBij dit artikel over het lobbyschandaal rond Abramoff staan er direct RSS feeds en een kader met daarin (via Technorati) blogs die over dat artikel schrijven.\nDit lijkt me een heel goed voorbeeld hoe traditionele media en user generated content prima naast elkaar kunnen bestaan.\nEn ze hadden ook al Post Remix een API waarmee mensen de gegevens van de krant kunnen mashen met andere dingen.\n","date":"January 10, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-492/","section":"Posts","summary":"De Washington Post (naar verluid een van de beste kranten van Amerika) begrijpt het echt.\n","title":"De Post","type":"posts"},{"content":"Hilarisch fenomeen. Mensen Goatse aandoen is één ding, het documenteren is nog veel leuker.\n","date":"January 9, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-491/","section":"Posts","summary":"Hilarisch fenomeen. Mensen Goatse aandoen is één ding, het documenteren is nog veel leuker.\n","title":"Geiten","type":"posts"},{"content":"Zo, lang niet meer in Egmond geweest, of in Alkmaar of Heiloo. Vanochtend om 07.00 opgestaan om het mee te kunnen maken.\nAfknapper wel dat Paul die mijn nummer en championchip™ had er niet was. Ik neem toch altijd mijn GSM mee als ik loop, dus ik heb mijn eigen tijd geklokt.\nDe loop zelf was zwaarder dan verwacht. Memorabel waren de af- en opgang naar en van het strand; en de duinen.\nIdioot waren ook de kilometeraanduidingen. Doseren is erg moeilijk als je niet weet hoe ver je nog moet lopen. Op het einde had ik nog ontzettend veel over voor een hele harde sprint over de finish (niks mis met fogo a vista).\nMijn tijd: 1 2\u0026rsquo; 12''\nJurgen rond de 50\u0026rsquo;, RJ een minuut of twee vóór mij en Marleen en Lonneke wat achter me.\n","date":"January 8, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-490/","section":"Posts","summary":"Zo, lang niet meer in Egmond geweest, of in Alkmaar of Heiloo. Vanochtend om 07.00 opgestaan om het mee te kunnen maken.\n","title":"Kwart van Egmond","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik krijg net een persbericht van GroenLinks binnen met daarin een leuke lezing van Femke Halsema die ze gaat geven vanavond bij haar verkiezing als liberaal van het jaar door de JOVD.\nHet bericht staat onder embargo, maar bloggers zijn geen journalisten dus hier volgt:\nUpdate: Ik heb de post toch maar gesloten gehouden omdat ik op de JOVD site zag dat ze daar nog niet bekend hadden gemaakt wie de prijs gewonnen had.\nNiet dat ik me voorstel dat hier nou zoveel mensen komen (met Google en Technorati kom je een heel eind), maar een beetje om het idee.\nSpeech Femke Halsema bij toekenning liberaal van het jaar\nVrijdag 6 januari 2006, 20.00 uur, JOVD-secretariaat, Herengracht 38 te Den Haag\nEMBARGO TOT 6 JANUARI, 20.00 UUR\nSociale vrijheid begint met armoedebestrijding\n\u0026ldquo;Een gelukkig nieuwjaar voor allen!\nToen ik gebeld werd door de JOVD met de mededeling dat ik verkozen was tot liberaal van het jaar was mijn eerste gedachte moet ik bekennen dat mij een kunstje werd geflikt. Op zijn best was het een persiflage op alle beste lijstjes, waarop wij permanent worden getrakteerd. Op zijn slechtst werd mijn oudlinkse critici het bewijs geleverd dat moderne progressieve opvattingen vooral een verrechtsing zouden zijn. Je kan in gedachten Jan Marijnissen triomfantelijk horen snuiven.Maar nog eens rustig nagedacht, kon ik eigenlijk niet verzinnen waarom de Jongerenorganisatie voor Vrijheid en Democratie zich de moeite zou getroosten om mij een poets te bakken. Electoraal ben ik geen concurrent van de VVD: over het algemeen zijn GroenLinks- en VVD-stemmers onverzoenlijke tegenstanders die zelden tot nooit naar het andere kamp overlopen. Ik pas ook in dat polaire schema. Het enige waarover ik het meestal met VVDers eens ben, is dat wij het oneens zijn. Zo bezien was er maar een conclusie te trekken en dat was dat niet mij, maar de VVD een kunstje wordt geflikt door haar onafhankelijke jongerenorganisatie. Waarom niet Van Aartsen of Wiegel gekozen tot liberaal van het jaar? Waarom niet Hirsi Ali, die dit jaar op veel minder lijstjes voorkomt en best een opstekertje kan gebruiken. Waarom niet Verdonk gekozen, die bij een groot deel van de Nederlandse bevolking ongekend populair is? Waarom juist een heel uitgesproken tegenstander van haar? Het lijkt mij een niet mis te verstaan signaal aan de conservatief-liberalen in dit kabinet en in de kamer en ik bedank het bestuur van de JOVD daar heel hartelijk voor. Zoals ik na rijp beraad ook dankbaar ben dat ik mag treden in deze eerbiedwaardige traditie, waarin niet de minsten staan. Ik noem Aart Jan de Geus, ik noem Sybilla Dekker. Dit zijn conservatieve bestuurders waarvoor ik als progressief en oppositioneel politicus een heilig ontzag heb.\nMaar goed, nu even voldoende stekelige grappen. Ik ken de JOVD als een serieuze en levendige groep jonge mensen die houdt van het politieke debat en conflict niet schuwt. Ik veronderstel dat het bestuur goede inhoudelijke redenen heeft om mij te selecteren en ik wil hen niet teleurstellen.\nEen aantal jaren geleden merkte Dick Pels op dat het de hoogste tijd was om het liberalisme van rechts te redden. Aanleiding was de dreigende schending van klassieke vrijheidsrechten (zoals de vrijheid van meningsuiting, van religie en organisatie) als een gevolg van de strijd tegen de Islam en de terrorismebestrijding. Migranten werden in toenemende mate behandeld als tweederangs burgers met een beperktere toegang tot klassieke en sociale rechten dan andere burgers. En onder invloed van de eigen-verantwoordelijkheids-doctrine van Balkenende en consorten werd een groeiende groep kansarme burgers aan zijn lot overgelaten.In een aantal artikelen en recent in het sociale manifest Vrijheid eerlijk delen heb ik het vrijzinnige streven naar vrijheid van rechts geprobeerd te redden. De titel van het manifest Vrijheid eerlijk delen, waarnaar het bestuur van de JOVD ook verwijst, is niet willekeurig gekozen. Westerse democratieen, zoals de onze, mogen zichzelf wat mij betreft pas in Thorbeckiaanse traditie een liberale democratie noemen, als zij er in slagen alle burgers in dezelfde mate toegang te geven tot sociaal-economische en politieke vrijheid. Als burgers vrij van sociaal-economische, culturele of politieke obstakels deel kunnen nemen aan het maatschappelijke en politieke verkeer. De politiek filosoof Bert van den Brink noemt dat in een bijdrage aan een recent boek van ons wetenschappelijk bureau publieke vrijheid Hij bedoelt daarmee dat vrijheid pas een publiek goed (of een gedeeld goed is) is als alle burgers gelijkwaardig en vrij kunnen deelnemen aan de besluitvorming over hun eigen lot en over het algemeen belang.Het behoeft weinig betoog dat in onze huidige samenleving hiervan geen sprake is.Als eerste zijn, door sociale afkomst, door klasse, milieu en opleidingsniveau, veel mensen beperkt in hun beroepskeuze, hun financiele omstandigheden, in hun emancipatiekansen. Armoede is onvrijheid in de meest letterlijke zin van het woord: onvoldoende geld om je gezondheid te beschermen, je kinderen kansen te bieden en je zelf te kunnen ontwikkelen of bevrijden uit uitzichtsloosheid mag niet, zeker niet door vrijheidsminnende liberalen, worden gerelativeerd. Culturele herkomst, culturele tradities maar ook achterstelling, discriminatie en uitsluiting beperken, als tweede, veel migranten en allochtonen in hun vrijheid zichzelf te mogen zijn, en in hun vrijheid om te mogen integreren (we vergeten nog wel eens dat integratie een recht is, veel meer dan het een plicht is).Daarbij leidt, ten derde, de introductie van nieuwe repressieve bevoegdheden tezamen met het wegvallen van rechtstatelijke waarborgen, tot de selectieve achterstelling van groepen mensen. De bijna ongeclausuleerde bevoegdheid tot preventief fouilleren, de uitgebreide toepassing van de identificatieplicht, de Rotterdamwet die vrije vestiging beneden bepaalde inkomensgrenzen verhindert, beperkt onevenredig de vrijheid van jongeren, bewoners van achterstandswijken, migranten en dan in het bijzonder moslims.\nIn onze samenleving is vrijheid met andere woorden een schaars goed dat vooral toevalt aan Nederlandse autochtone burgers die wat ouder zijn, die bemiddeld zijn, beter zijn opgeleid en mondig zijn, en die zich vrijwillig bewegen binnen de benauwde burgermansmoraal van het kabinet CDA-VVD. Alle anderen hebben in toenemende mate te maken met beperking van hun vrijheid. En de VVD werkt daar helaas - enthousiast aan mee. Wat te denken bijvoorbeeld van het initiatief van de VVDer Weekers om buiten blowen te verbieden. De opmerkingen in de VVD-integratie-nota dat een allochtoon pas goed is geintegreerd als hij juicht voor het Nederlands elftal of de voorstellen van Ayaan Hirsi Ali om de staat de opvoeding te laten overnemen van kansarme, allochtone ouders. En dan zijn dit nog willekeurige binnenlandse voorbeelden en heb ik het niet over het gedogen van de Amerikaanse martelpraktijken in Guantanamo Bay en in de beruchte Amerikaanse gevangenis in Kabul, Afghanistan.\nIk vind het niet acceptabel dat vrijheid een schaars goed is, dat als dit kabinet doorgaat en zijn zin krijgt, vrijheid van velen zelfs schaarser wordt. Het bestuur van de JOVD veronderstelt dat GroenLinks zich hiermee losmaakt van zijn wortels. Als je nagaat dat een van de voorlopers van GroenLinks de CPN is, dan zijn we inderdaad van ver gekomen. Maar met mijn opvattingen over gedeelde vrijheid keer ik juist terug naar de wortels van het GroenLinks dat meer dan tien jaar geleden is opgericht. In ons beginselprogramma staat het begrip sociale vrijheid centraal. Dat wil zeggen: de gelijke kans voor ieder individu om zich te kunnen ontplooien, zonder dat de vrijheid van anderen of van toekomstige generaties wordt aangetast. En in ons beginselprogramma wordt uitdrukkelijk geconludeerd dat GroenLinks zich hiermee plaatst in de vrijheidslievende tradities van links. Met andere woorden: als er een ommezwaai heeft plaatsgevonden, dan was dat bij de oprichting van het moderne Groen Links. Wat niet wegneemt, dat het publieke beeld van GroenLinks lang anders is geweest en dat ik de publieke erkenning van groenLinks als linkse vrijheidslievende partij wel onbescheiden op mijn conto schrijf.Wat betekent die vrijheidslievende linkse traditie, waardoor ook de JOVD zich kennelijk voelt aangetrokken, nou eigenlijk? De inmiddels overleden essayist, beroemd anarchist en PC-Hooftprijs-winnaar Arthur Lehning, vatte dit ooit mooi samen: Als vrijheid het hoogste goed is, dan heeft iedereen er recht op, dat wil zeggen dat er gelijkheid van vrijheid moet bestaan. Nu mag iedereen dan volgens de mensenrechten vrij zijn, het komt er op aan ook van de vrijheid gebruik te kunnen maken.\nGenoeg abstracties nu! De vraag is natuurlijk wat dit betekent voor praktische politiek. Als je vindt dat er gelijkheid van vrijheid moet zijn, dan kun je armoede niet accepteren. Je kan het ook niet, onder een verwijzing naar de derde wereld, relativeren. Het is een klap in het gezicht van honderduizenden mensen dat Gerrit Zalm die zelden over de rand van zijn huishoudboekje kijkt, nu het buitenland er met de haren bijsleept om hun misere te bagatelliseren. Armoede in Nederland is achterstand, is kansarmoede. Armoede betekent minder kansen voor je kinderen, betekent het gevaar van overdracht naar volgende generaties, betekent onderklassevorming, erfelijk bepaalde onvrijheid. Nederland kent volgens een schatting van Minister de Geus op korte termijn twee miljoen kansarmen. Dat zijn met name laagopgeleide jongeren, alleenstaande moeders, allochtonen en gedeeltelijke arbeidsongeschikten. Zij dreigen de outsiders van onze samenleving te worden, arm omdat zij tot bijstand of arbeid op het allerlaagste inkomensniveau veroordeeld zijn, perspectiefloos omdat zij vaardigheden en emancipatiekansen missen. Bij hen is er een groot vrijheidstekort, en is er in een liberale democratie de dure opgave hen te bevrijden. Daarover gaat het manifest vrijheid eerlijk delen, met voorstellen varierend van inkomensnivellering, de invoering van een gedeeltelijk basisinkomen voor werkenden, het goedkoper maken van arbeid, afschaffing van de bijstand in ruil voor participatiecontracten op minimumloonniveau en verandering van het ontslagrecht. Als je outsiders kansen wil geven, vrijheid wil geven, dan heeft dat een prijs. En die prijs komt terecht bij de beter bemiddelde werknemers. Goud gerande ontslagregelingen zijn fijn als je er toegang toe hebt, maar ze benadelen de outsiders. Wil je toegang tot de WW hebben dan moet je ongeveer 15 jaar voor dezelfde baas hebben gewerkt; als je beter hebt verdiend, krijg je ook meer geld. Vut-regelingen, de WAO, levensloopregelingen bevoorrechten allen de beter bemiddelden, terwijl de toegang tot de arbeidsmarkt en het maatschappelijke leven voor een groeiende groep outsiders belemmerd blijft. Geld dat we hard nodig hebben voor met name onderwijs voor outsiders, gaat hierdoor bovenmatig naar de inkomenszekerheid van de mensen die het over het algemeen al goed hebben.\nTot de JOVD mij ontdekte, moest de VVD niet zoveel van deze GroenLinkse plannen hebben. Woorden als staatsdirigisme vielen en vooral vindt men de gedachte dat de vrijheid van de meest kansrijke landgenoten wel iets minder kan worden gesubsidieerd (door de pensioen- en hypotheekrente-aftrek te beperken), zacht gezegd afschrikwekkend. Om kort te zijn. Bij de VVD geldt in ieder geval tot vanavond vrijheid eerlijk delen? OK, maar ikke wel ietsje meer dan jij. Het zou een fantastisch perspectief bieden als de JOVD afstand neemt van deze conservatieve opvattingen waardoor de oneerlijke verdeling van vrijheid in stand blijft.\nDat de VVD mij kritiseerde lag in de lijn van de verwachting maar dat mijn linkse broeders, Marijnissen en Bos, zich er met gemakzuchtige one-liners van af maken, is verontrustend. Zeker aangezien zij zelf geen nieuwe plannen hebben om de groeiende armoede te verminderen en outsiders werkelijk perspectief te geven. Nu kun je van Marijnissen nog zeggen dat het past bij de SP-habitus van altijd nee-zeggen, zelfs al leidt dat er toe dat de SP nu vooral de weinig sociale politiek van Paars verdedigt. Maar van Bos, zeker nu hij de ambitie heeft om premier te worden, mag je toch verwachten dat hij beter kan. Het is echter niet Bos, maar premierskandidaat en hors concours Job Cohen die de eer te beurt valt armoede terecht in zijn nieuwjaarstoespraak te hebben geagendeerd. En het is misschien ook niet toevallig dat hij daarbij uitgebreid naar Groenlinks verwijst, aangezien zijn eigen partij hem weinig ideeen aanreikt. GroenLinks heeft een nieuw fundament gelegd voor een progressief kabinet dat de verzorgingsstaat moderniseert en de vrijheid eerlijker deelt. Ik roep Bos en Marijnissen op hierop voort te bouwen of om met een beter en concreet alternatief te komen.\nHebben jullie overigens Bos zijn boekje gelezen? Een aanrader, je hebt het uit in een vloek en een zucht. En wat ook je politieke achtergrond is of je ideologische overtuigingen zijn: het is onmogelijk om er aanstoot aan te nemen. Maar je komt er ook niet echt verder mee. Inzicht in zijn opvattingen gaf Bos pas in een recent interview in de Telegraaf met als veelzeggende titel Van Basten is mijn grote voorbeeld. Zonder inhoudelijke motivatie, kiest Bos voor het CDA als toekomstige regeringspartner. Vergeten is de mislukte formatie, vergeten is de kritiek van de afgelopen jaren, vergeten is het conservatisme van Verhagen en anderen. In zijn angst betrapt te worden op een politieke koers, kiest hij voor een grijs middenkabinet. Met Bos op naar Balkenende III. Dat bracht mij op een gedachte. In mijn kast heb ik een ander boekje staan: namelijk van onze premier. En zie: wat een overeenkomsten. Niet alleen in de titel (Anders en Beter versus Dit land kan zoveel beter), maar ook in foto en styling. Inmiddels heeft Wouter Bos zijn liefdesverklaring aan het CDA weer een beetje teruggenomen en zijn wij weer terug bij af. En dat allemaal onder het mom van bindend leiderschap. Dat lijkt mij eerder behaagziek leiderschap. Job Cohen heeft dat toch beter begrepen, door tegen de wind in ruimhartig te kiezen voor de arme kant van Nederland. Die begrijpt hoe belangrijk het is om ook, en juist hen te binden aan onze gemeenschappelijke toekomst door hen vrij te maken. Om in sportvergelijkingen te blijven lijkt Cohen toch meer op Marco van Basten en Wouter Bos op Hilbert van der Duim die uitglijdt over het eerste het beste vogelpoepje van machtspolitiek.\nKort en goed. Ik dank het bestuur voor de toekenning van deze prestigieuze titel. Het betekent voor mij dat de JOVD, anders dan de moederpartij, sociale vrijheid centraal stelt en een progressief kabinet wel degelijk een wenkend perspectief vindt. Ik hoop dat deze ommezwaai duurzaam is. Mocht dat zo zijn dan zou ik me kunnen voorstellen dat volgend jaar Job Cohen de prijs in ontvangst mag komen nemen.\u0026rdquo;\nFemke Halsema.\n","date":"January 6, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-489/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik krijg net een persbericht van GroenLinks binnen met daarin een leuke lezing van Femke Halsema die ze gaat geven vanavond bij haar verkiezing als liberaal van het jaar door de JOVD.\n","title":"Liberaal Links","type":"posts"},{"content":"Neem Ae Fond Kiss. Filter alle drama en intelligentie eruit en gooi de boel neer in Zweden.\nDan krijg je Jalla! Jalla! Wat nog best een leuke film is.\n","date":"January 6, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-488/","section":"Posts","summary":"Neem Ae Fond Kiss. Filter alle drama en intelligentie eruit en gooi de boel neer in Zweden.\n","title":"Jalla!","type":"posts"},{"content":"This week I read the book “The Wisdom of Crowds” by James Surowiecki.\nThe book defends the premise that many people of arbitrary intelligence often come to better conclusions than one or a few people of exceptional intelligence. This counterintuitive statement which I first saw in Condorcet\u0026rsquo;s Jury Theorem is made quite plausible with a very readable mix of theory, anecdotes and loads of studies.\nOverall a very fun book which makes some pressing statements about the way we organize society and perceive knowledge that prompted me to rethink my own views.\nI put my summary on the wiki, but I\u0026rsquo;ll past it here completely for your reading pleasure comments can be placed here and I am receptive towards edits in the wiki (register before editing).\nChapter 1\nThe many may very well be smarter than the smartest few. This may seem counterintuitive, Surowiecki gives a lot of interesting reasons backed up with tons of studies and anekdotes about why this is the case.\nIf you put together the information of a lot of people and the error of a lot of people in the right way, the information is filtered and the error is cancelled out. Preconditions for the effect:\nDiversity of opinions Independence Decentralization Aggregation Chapter 2\nYou want to generate as many loser as quickly as possible and kill them. So you need diverse creators, financers and also diverse decision makers. This way the best will be created and will survive.\n(The internet is widely diverse and creating a lot of stuff, what is missing currently is a smart way of aggregating the wide wide variety of information.)\np.31 Adding in a few people who know less, but have different skills actually improves the groups performance.\nThe fields of decision making and strategy are impossible to become an expert in single-handedly.\nHomogenous groups often fall prey to group think. Their isolation from the outside world and self-convincedness makes dissent highly improbable.\nChapter 3\nIndependence means using private information. This not only relates to facts but also to more indirect forms of knowledge, interpretation and analysis. Rationality and impartiality is not required.\nProblems lie in herding and risk averseness.\nInformation cascades a sequential decision making process where people stop using their own knowledge and look at what other people are doing, thinking that they are using their own knowledge while they are not (they are also looking at others)\n(Sunstein, cybercascades?)\np.60 groups are better at deciding between possible solutions to a problem than they are at coming up with them\nSmart selection by:\nWide array of options and information Willingness of some people to put their own judgement ahead of the group Most people are usually overconfident.\nChapter 4\nDecentralization is a good thing, if it is paired with adequate aggregation.\nChapter 5\nFriedrich Hayek (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Hayek) on coordination problems\nChapter 6\nCooperation problems\nstrong reciprocity the willingness to punish bad behaviour at no benefit (or even at a cost) to yourself\nA kind of prosocial behaviour depends on being:\nnice forgiving retaliatory Markets increase prosociality out of a purely selfish necessity. The cost of distrusting each transaction is too high.\nMancur Olson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mancur_Olson) - \u0026ldquo;The Logic of Collective Action\u0026rdquo;\nPublic goods are only valuable if enough people participate (see Sunstein).\nexperiments by Ernst Fehr and Simon Gächter: the Dictator Game (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictator_Game)\nChapter 7\nA wide discourse on traffic systems and how these could be more efficiently priced hyper responsive traffic pricing systems and people\u0026rsquo;s resistance to them.\nChapter 8\nHomogenous small groups do not work well, even a single minority opinion will nuance the group and prevent group polarization.\n(We need Devil\u0026rsquo;s advocates.)\nCass Sunstein - \u0026ldquo;Why Societies Need Dissent\u0026rdquo;\nGroups made better decisions than their smartest members.\nChapter 10\nA discussion on layers of management and bureaucracy versus dynamic loosely coupled organizations.\nInauthentic behaviours from subordinates are usually rewarded. It is usually not in your best interest to report failure to your boss.\nThe setting of targets ellicits gaming the targets (advertedly setting them too low) and then cheating on them in any way possible.\nGiving people the possibility to influence their working conditions is often enough to get better results (even if they will not use the possibilty at all).\nSuccess is usually a question of luck and not of skill because the problems are so difficult.\nChasing the expert is a mistake.\nChapter 11\nInvestors herd, they are overconfident, they underestimate randomness, explain good results on skill and bad results on malfortune.\nInvestors do not have to be rational for markets to work well.\nOnce everyone starts piggybacking on the wisdom of the group, then no one is doing anyting to add to the wisdom of the group.\nToo much information also influences, especially if it comes with hype or commentary from people in power.\nChapter 12\nNational Issues Convention Deliberative Poll (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deliberative_opinion_poll) James Fishkin proposed Deliberation Day\nGiven enough information and the chance to talk things over with peers, ordinary people are more capable of understanding complex issues and making meaningful choices about them.\nEfforts to stop inertia in the people.\nPublic Choice Theorists (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_choice_theory)\nMost decisions are about what to do, involving values, trade-offs and choices about which kind of society we should live in. There is no reason to think that experts are better at making these decisions than the average voter.\n","date":"January 5, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-studies-396/","section":"Posts","summary":"This week I read the book “The Wisdom of Crowds” by James Surowiecki.\n","title":"Wise Crowds","type":"posts"},{"content":"Our Leader hasn\u0026rsquo;t caught Osama bin Laden, but he\u0026rsquo;s doing a bang up job rounding up brown people.\nVan de Jesus\u0026rsquo; General stukjes uit Persons of Interest. Een documentaire over de gewone Amerikanen van Arabische afkomst die op belachelijke gronden worden opgepakt en zonder reden vastgehouden.\nDit soort dingen gebeurt hier niet?\n","date":"January 4, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-487/","section":"Posts","summary":"Our Leader hasn’t caught Osama bin Laden, but he’s doing a bang up job rounding up brown people.\n","title":"Angst is geestdodend","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik schreef net in mijn samenvatting van The Wisdom of Crowds van James Surowiecki dat als je targets stelt mensen er alles aan zullen doen:\nom die targets zo laag mogelijk in te stellen\nen dan desnoods vals zullen spelen om die targets te halen\nZie hier het plan van de NS (NOVA) om in de dienstregeling de tijden met één minuut op te rekken. Treinen komen virtueel op tijd en de NS mag de kaartjes duurder maken.\n","date":"January 4, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-486/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik schreef net in mijn samenvatting van The Wisdom of Crowds van James Surowiecki dat als je targets stelt mensen er alles aan zullen doen:\n","title":"Targets","type":"posts"},{"content":"Dit is prijsloos.\nEn in de meeste gevallen waarschijnlijk nog waar ook.\n","date":"January 4, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-485/","section":"Posts","summary":"Dit is prijsloos.\n","title":"Neuken?","type":"posts"},{"content":"Het moest er ooit van komen: Reclame op Uitzendinggemist.nl.\nIk heb al vaker gezegd dat ik er op zich geen problemen mee heb te betalen (in geld of het kijken van reclame) voor diensten. Dan is wel de voorwaarde dat de prijs redelijk is en dat de dienst makkelijk en van een goede kwaliteit is.\nDat is ook mijn belangrijkste commentaar op het bericht. Nu maar hopen dat ze er iets mee doen. Alleen niet je adem inhouden.\nNormaal gesproken kun je nergens een e-mailadres vinden om een vraag heen te sturen. Dat ze hier een reactieformulier hebben geopend is al een zeldzaamheid, maar de kans dat er iemand van binnen op zal reageren lijkt me nihil.\nDe tijd van kutsmoezen als ‘geen tijd’ en ‘druk, druk, druk’ en ‘de klant heeft toch geen flauw benul van wat hij wil’ is voorbij. Organisaties moeten zich gedragen volgens de Cluetrain niet als politburo\u0026rsquo;s.\n","date":"January 4, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-484/","section":"Posts","summary":"Het moest er ooit van komen: Reclame op Uitzendinggemist.nl.\n","title":"Reclame","type":"posts"},{"content":"Net 47 minuten gelopen en nu niet heel veel pijn. Ik denk dat ik er dus wel klaar voor ben. Komende zondag de kwart marathon van Egmond (met een van de weinige niet storende flash splashes).\nKijk op deze plek voor uitslagen.\n","date":"January 3, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-483/","section":"Posts","summary":"Net 47 minuten gelopen en nu niet heel veel pijn. Ik denk dat ik er dus wel klaar voor ben. Komende zondag de kwart marathon van Egmond (met een van de weinige niet storende flash splashes).\n","title":"Ik ben er klaar voor","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik ben er ondertussen achter dat ik aan het spelen ben met mijn leven. Net fietsend over het stationsplein word ik van de weg af gedrukt door een rechtsafslaande auto. Hij wat lakschade, ik geschrokken.\nOok al voer ik geen licht dan nog weet ik zeker dat als hij een nacontrole had gedaan, hij me dan had gezien.\nOok op klaarlichte dag ben ik hier in Delft meer dan eens door auto\u0026rsquo;s geschept of hard afgesneden.\nAchttien jaar in Amsterdam en nooit licht gehad en nooit geschept. Mensen in Delft zijn achterlijk in het verkeer. Licht voeren gaat niet alles oplossen, maar het geeft me wel het morele gelijk om volgende keer ontzettend boos te worden.\n","date":"January 2, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-482/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik ben er ondertussen achter dat ik aan het spelen ben met mijn leven. Net fietsend over het stationsplein word ik van de weg af gedrukt door een rechtsafslaande auto. Hij wat lakschade, ik geschrokken.\n","title":"Ik ben om","type":"posts"},{"content":"University Library sites may have dog ugly interface which score horribly on usability but they have one killer feature:\nThe possibility to renew your loan on books while sitting at home.\nUser control is great.\n","date":"January 1, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-studies-395/","section":"Posts","summary":"University Library sites may have dog ugly interface which score horribly on usability but they have one killer feature:\n","title":"Lazy Chair","type":"posts"},{"content":"I read Rasmus\u0026rsquo;s 30 second AJAX tutorial [via] and though it is nice enough in its own respect, it is missing two things: Dojo and Python.\nSo I rewrote it using Dojo. I am really liking Dojo, last Friday at the shop I used termie\u0026rsquo;s Dojo Done Quick (main file seems to be down or moved) to roll my first own widget, but this is really just about the IO part.\nMain improvement here is that after a while you get sick rolling your own XmlHttpRequest all the time, concatenating your own request parameters and checking for readyStates.\nRather than rolling your own library, use one which is terrific and takes most of the redundancy out (working HTML):\n\u0026lt;html\u0026gt; \u0026lt;head\u0026gt; \u0026lt;script type=\u0026#34;text/javascript\u0026#34; src=\u0026#34;dojo/dojo.js\u0026#34;\u0026gt;\u0026lt;/script\u0026gt; \u0026lt;script type=\u0026#34;text/javascript\u0026#34;\u0026gt; dojo.require(\u0026#34;dojo.io.*\u0026#34;); function sendRequest(action) { // Documentation here: http://manual.dojotoolkit.org/io.html dojo.io.bind({ url: \u0026#39;/cgi-bin/30action.py\u0026#39;, // URL to call content: {action: action}, // mimetype: \u0026#39;text/plain\u0026#39; is implied // method: \u0026#39;GET\u0026#39; is implied // sync: false (asynchronous) is implied load: function(type, data, evt) { var parts = data.split(\u0026#39;|\u0026#39;); dojo.byId(parts[0]).innerHTML = parts[1]; } // error: function(type, errorObject) {} omitted for brevity }) } \u0026lt;/script\u0026gt; \u0026lt;/head\u0026gt; \u0026lt;body\u0026gt; \u0026lt;a href=\u0026#34;javascript:sendRequest(\u0026#39;foo\u0026#39;)\u0026#34;\u0026gt;[foo]\u0026lt;/a\u0026gt; \u0026lt;div id=\u0026#34;foo\u0026#34;\u0026gt; \u0026lt;/div\u0026gt; \u0026lt;/body\u0026gt; \u0026lt;/html\u0026gt; 11 lines of Javascript.\nAnd the simple Python code:\n#!/usr/bin/env python import os print \u0026#39;Content-type: text/plain\u0026#39; print query = os.environ[\u0026#39;QUERY_STRING\u0026#39;] parts = [part for part in query.split(\u0026#39;\u0026amp;\u0026#39;) if \u0026#39;=\u0026#39; in part] query = {} for part in parts: query[part.split(\u0026#39;=\u0026#39;)[0]] = part.split(\u0026#39;=\u0026#39;)[1] if \u0026#39;action\u0026#39; in query and query[\u0026#39;action\u0026#39;] == \u0026#39;foo\u0026#39;: print \u0026#34;foo|foo done\u0026#34; ","date":"January 1, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-72/","section":"Posts","summary":"I read Rasmus’s 30 second AJAX tutorial [via] and though it is nice enough in its own respect, it is missing two things: Dojo and Python.\n","title":"30 Second Dojo","type":"posts"},{"content":"Nu nog maar even het jaaroverzicht van afgelopen jaar.\n61 Films met de top 9 van het afgelopen jaar:\nMar Adentro\nCloser\nBefore Sunset\nSin City\nCrash\nFinding Neverland\nBatman Begins\nSeeing Other People\nUn Long Dimanche de Fiançailles\nen de top 11 oudere films:\nHeaven\n21 Grams\nCidade de Deus\nY tu mamá también\nDas Leben ist eine Baustelle\nKurz und Schmerzlos\nAbsolute Giganten\nBig Fish\nTouching the Void\n¡Átame!\nZoolander\nEn maar 18 boeken gelezen met deze top 5:\n“Joe Speedboot” van Tommy Wieringa\n“Disgrace” van J.M. Coetzee\n“Fools Rush In” van Bill Carter\n“27 gedichten \u0026amp; geen lied” van Ramsey Nasr\n“De Schaduw van de Wind” van Carlos Ruiz Zafón\nVerder 9 keer naar het theater met als absolute hoogtepunt Gilgamesj door de Theatercompagnie.\nEn nog even wat betreft televisie, ik heb er nog steeds geen maar wat erg de moeite waard was:\nRome (ik, ik weer en Kenneth)\nSeizoen 4 afsluiting van The West Wing, ik heb nog nooit zulke spannende televisie gezien\n","date":"January 1, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-481/","section":"Posts","summary":"Nu nog maar even het jaaroverzicht van afgelopen jaar.\n","title":"Afgelopen jaar","type":"posts"},{"content":"Het duurde even voor ik dit filmpje bekeek, omdat ik niet verwachtte dat het echt leuk kon zijn. Dat is het dus wel.\nEen leuk muziekje eronder, bijpassende tekst en Flickr wordt nog leuker dan het al is.\n","date":"January 1, 2006","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-480/","section":"Posts","summary":"Het duurde even voor ik dit filmpje bekeek, omdat ik niet verwachtte dat het echt leuk kon zijn. Dat is het dus wel.\n","title":"Flickr Idylle","type":"posts"},{"content":"Goed nieuws van het pro-Pamuk front. De aanklagers hebben één van de twee aanklachten laten vallen (BBC: “Partial Reprieve for Turk Writer”).\nTypisch politiek spel in Turkije om het conflict hoog op te laten lopen (Lagendijk is ook aangeklaagd) en dan als puntje bij paaltje komt natuurlijk niet door te zetten. Deze domme aanklacht doorzetten wil niemand, alleen sommigen kunnen dat niet te duidelijk laten zien.\nLaat ze maar voorlopig, praat met ze en laat ze zien hoe het ook anders kan. Ze leren het wel.\n","date":"December 30, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-479/","section":"Posts","summary":"Goed nieuws van het pro-Pamuk front. De aanklagers hebben één van de twee aanklachten laten vallen (BBC: “Partial Reprieve for Turk Writer”).\n","title":"Net binnen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Joel can be a bit obnoxious from time to time, but he is also right more often than not. The two tend to go hand in hand.\nIn his latest column —“The Perils of JavaSchools”— he dismisses Java as a programming language and colleges where it is the only programming language that is taught. The wording may be a bit from the hip, but he is quite right.\nJava is useless for most work, if you can just as easily use Python.\nAnd we do not call the schools that only teach Java universities in Holland, we call them HBO (vocational training school).\nNow we like to gripe about DUT a lot but seeing what Joel thinks makes a good programmer, I think DUT is doing a pretty good job educating us:\nC Yes, we get a introductory course of C with pointer arithmetic and homegrown data structures.\nFunctional Programming This has also always been included in the curriculum and thankfully they switched away from CaML to Haskell. Functional programming, if done in Haskell is (difficult but) great.\nNow, let\u0026rsquo;s see what extra stuff we get to chew on:\nAssembly The first year practical in assembly is something most students look back upon with dread (at least I do), but it is a formative course for any computer science student.\nLogic Programming A practical in Prolog is part of the course in Logic. I liked it but most people think it is difficult.\nAnd I also spent six years of my life learning Latin and I do agree that it trains your mind, your memory and your language skills.\nSo, Joel, am I overqualified or what?\n","date":"December 29, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-studies-394/","section":"Posts","summary":"Joel can be a bit obnoxious from time to time, but he is also right more often than not. The two tend to go hand in hand.\n","title":"Schools of Java","type":"posts"},{"content":"De complete New Yorker, alle jaargangen op 8 DVDs. Klinkt goed? Toch, niet zo goed.\n","date":"December 29, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-478/","section":"Posts","summary":"De complete New Yorker, alle jaargangen op 8 DVDs. Klinkt goed? Toch, niet zo goed.\n","title":"love/hate","type":"posts"},{"content":"…\nNiks meer. Dit wou ik even gezegd hebben.\n","date":"December 29, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-477/","section":"Posts","summary":"…\nNiks meer. Dit wou ik even gezegd hebben.\n","title":"Idealisme is het nieuwe zwart","type":"posts"},{"content":"De gasten van Monochrom zijn geweldig. Als je er toch niks mee doet, kun je nu bij hen je ziel verkopen; en nog voor een aardig prijsje ook.\n","date":"December 29, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-476/","section":"Posts","summary":"De gasten van Monochrom zijn geweldig. Als je er toch niks mee doet, kun je nu bij hen je ziel verkopen; en nog voor een aardig prijsje ook.\n","title":"Wir kaufen Seele","type":"posts"},{"content":"Vandaag een stuk in de groene gelezen met aan het einde de melding dat je online verder moet.\nNet op de site het stuk “Terug naar de Hel” gevonden (de WiFi in Leiden deed het natuurlijk weer niet) en de aansluitende foto-roman bekeken.\nHet is inderdaad echt gruwelijk maar ik wil hier door het begeleidende verhaal (lees dat!) en de artistieke omlijsting wél naar kijken (kijk het!).\n","date":"December 27, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-475/","section":"Posts","summary":"Vandaag een stuk in de groene gelezen met aan het einde de melding dat je online verder moet.\n","title":"Oorlog is hel","type":"posts"},{"content":"Blake Ross\u0026rsquo;s predictions for the new year are pretty hilarious and are closer to the truth than comfortable.\n","date":"December 27, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-71/","section":"Posts","summary":"Blake Ross’s predictions for the new year are pretty hilarious and are closer to the truth than comfortable.\n","title":"Furniture-related injuries","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik was Rome aan het kijken en dat was voorbij voor ik het wist.\nHoe verder de serie vorderde hoe meer er werd afgeweken van de geschiedenis en de tijd werd opeens heel vloeibaar.\nDat moet natuurlijk ook wel als je zoveel gebeurtenissen (om en nabij zes jaar) in tien afleveringen wilt proppen. En op het einde voelde het een beetje afgeraffeld aan.\nOp het einde wachtte ik op een ‘και συ, τεκνον?’ maar die kwam niet.\nDe volgende serie —als die er komt— kan dan fijn verder gaan met de opvolgingsstrijd.\nPullo en Vorenus zijn (ook) mijn favoriete karakters. Het is erg leuk om te zien hoe ze kris kras door het verhaal heen lopen. Aardige parallel tussen de opkomst van Vorenus en de ondergang van zijn geliefde republiek.\n","date":"December 26, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-474/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik was Rome aan het kijken en dat was voorbij voor ik het wist.\n","title":"Rome af","type":"posts"},{"content":"Overgenomen van Reddit: For God\u0026rsquo;s Sake Please Stop the Aid\nWeinig context erbij maar dit is een verhaal dat regelmatig terugkomt.\n","date":"December 26, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-473/","section":"Posts","summary":"Overgenomen van Reddit: For God’s Sake Please Stop the Aid\n","title":"Geen Hulp","type":"posts"},{"content":"De NRC heeft een aardig eindejaarsproject: “Halte 2005”. Videocolumns met gedachten van hun columnisten vanaf hun bushalte.\nIk had graag gezien dat er wat meer ook bij de halte was stilgestaan (vanwege de naam enzo) maar het zijn best aardige filmpjes geworden. Leukste tot nu toe is natuurlijk om Merel te zien.\n","date":"December 25, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-472/","section":"Posts","summary":"De NRC heeft een aardig eindejaarsproject: “Halte 2005”. Videocolumns met gedachten van hun columnisten vanaf hun bushalte.\n","title":"Mijn Halte","type":"posts"},{"content":"Adium is the best ever Instant Messaging client I have ever used. It looks nice and works well all over the board. And you have to love the Link Duck Dock Icon.\nGizmo is the VOIP client from the good guys. It is fully open source and works with SIP (built on SIPhone).\nRecently Gigaom had a post blogging about an Adium plugin that allows you to use Gizmo functionality. This is great! There is more and more VoIM news bustling from Om Maliks weblog also mentioning Gizmo/Gtalk interop.\nIn any case, talking to people is going to get easier and easier.\n","date":"December 25, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-70/","section":"Posts","summary":"Adium is the best ever Instant Messaging client I have ever used. It looks nice and works well all over the board. And you have to love the Link Duck Dock Icon.\n","title":"Gizmodium","type":"posts"},{"content":"En niet te vergeten de blije kerstboodschap van de vriendelijke mensen van Monochrom:\n","date":"December 25, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-471/","section":"Posts","summary":"En niet te vergeten de blije kerstboodschap van de vriendelijke mensen van Monochrom:\n","title":"Wederopstanding","type":"posts"},{"content":"Het college van Jojanneke had gisteren kerstdiner met het thema: “Hoera! Het is een jongen!”.\nHet kostte mij (en anderen) minstens 10 seconden nadenken voor de link met het kinneke Jezus er was. Ik vroeg me in de eerste plaats af wie er van hen nou pas zwanger was geweest.\nHet zal wel aan mij liggen maar ik associeer kerstmis in de eerste plaats met familiestress en overmatige consumptie; niet met de datum van een religieuze gebeurtenis.\n","date":"December 25, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-470/","section":"Posts","summary":"Het college van Jojanneke had gisteren kerstdiner met het thema: “Hoera! Het is een jongen!”.\n","title":"Roze met Blauw","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik ben dan misschien niet joods maar als mede niet-kerstvierende, klinkt ****International Jews Go To The Movies And Have Chinese Food Day mij ook best goed in de oren [via].\nIemand? Ik ken nog wel een goede Chinees in Den Haag.\n","date":"December 24, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-469/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik ben dan misschien niet joods maar als mede niet-kerstvierende, klinkt ****International Jews Go To The Movies And Have Chinese Food Day mij ook best goed in de oren [via].\n","title":"Film en Chinees","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik heb net aflevering 4 gezien van de toch wel erg vermakelijke HBO-serie Rome. Stewart en Colbert zijn met winterstop en dan moet je toch wat.\nIk was bij de eerste aflevering al blij verrast om Cicero, Cato en Scipio in de Senaat te zien zitten. Nu is het bij een Amerikaanse serie de vraag, hoe historisch correct het is. Dat Cicero en Caesar tijdsgenoten waren wist ik, maar als je het hebt over Cato en Scipio is het altijd een beetje de vraag wélke Cato en Scipio.\nEven de cast opgezocht in Wikipedia:\nde held Gaius Julius Caesar\nzijn hulp Marcus Antonius\nMarcus Tullius Cicero\nMarcus Portius Cato Uticensis, Cato de Jongere dus\nMetellus Scipio (ofwel Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Cornelianus Scipio Nasica), een van de vele Scipio\u0026rsquo;s\nde dominante moeder is Atia Balba Caesonia (in aflevering vier leuke grafiti op de muur van haar huis: Atia amat omnes), let vooral op het highly fictionalized version\nhaar dochter Octavia Thurina Minor, ook weer highly fictionalized\nen haar zoon Gaius Octavius Thurinus, de latere keizer Augustus (en van het Mark Antony later charged that he had earned his adoption by Caesar through sexual favors zien we een aanwijzing in aflevering 4)\nEn als je wat wilt lezen over de voorgeschiedenis: het eerste triumviraat, en wat erna (in ieder geval na dit seizoen) gebeurde: het tweede triumviraat.\n","date":"December 22, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-468/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik heb net aflevering 4 gezien van de toch wel erg vermakelijke HBO-serie Rome. Stewart en Colbert zijn met winterstop en dan moet je toch wat.\n","title":"Caesar","type":"posts"},{"content":"Recently there has been a barrage of negative news about Wikipedia with class action law suits, various individuals editing their own biographies, false fact injections offset by the news fact that Wikipedia is pretty good compared to Encyclopedia Britannica (and that Dutch Wikipedia compares similarly to the Winkler Prince).\nThe negative news spurs are cheap potshots towards a project which is run on the good will of volunteers in a fashion which is as near to open source management as you can get.\nIn open source, if you see something is wrong you fix it. You cannot force someone else to fix it because nobody is getting paid to do the work and everybody has lives of their own.\nComplaining vocally is usually not the best way of getting the improvement you want. In the same time and effort you could have fixed it yourself.\nUpdate: Weblogsky has more on the story and the necessary links.\n","date":"December 22, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-69/","section":"Posts","summary":"Recently there has been a barrage of negative news about Wikipedia with class action law suits, various individuals editing their own biographies, false fact injections offset by the news fact that Wikipedia is pretty good compared to Encyclopedia Britannica (and that Dutch Wikipedia compares similarly to the Winkler Prince).\n","title":"Wiki FUD","type":"posts"},{"content":"I had a batch of final presentations for a course today, and the age old adage by Tufte still holds:\nFinish early! Something good is bound to happen.\nNow if only people would get a clue.\n","date":"December 22, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-studies-393/","section":"Posts","summary":"I had a batch of final presentations for a course today, and the age old adage by Tufte still holds:\n","title":"Final Presentations","type":"posts"},{"content":"Sterk staaltje culturejamming van eurodusnie in de Metro (zie Fok).\ncul·ture jam·ming (Eng. act.):\n1 actie waarbij bestaande media worden gemanipuleerd om een alternatieve boodschap te propageren\nHet jammen van massamedia is goed™. De meeste mensen zijn toch Lost in the Noise.\nP.S. Bij Fok! wordt er redelijk geflipt door het gepeupel, maar het is duidelijk dat iedereen die langer dan 10 seconden na kan denken links is en de Groene leest.\n","date":"December 19, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-467/","section":"Posts","summary":"Sterk staaltje culturejamming van eurodusnie in de Metro (zie Fok).\n","title":"Jam!","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik heb geen flauw idee wat Wouter Bos nu eigenlijk te melden heeft. Afgelopen vrijdag zat hij in Nova Politiek dingen te vertellen over zijn nieuwe boek.\nDinsdag in Radio Online over zijn podcast (BoscastFM) waar hij wel een paar interessante dingen zei.\nOnder andere dat hij het een natuurlijke evolutie vindt dat politiek steeds persoonlijker wordt (met behulp van blogs en podcasts enz.), maar waarom dat zo is en of dat goed is zijn natuurlijk te moeilijke vragen voor een politicus.\nEn verder ook dat hij ziet dat in de volgende campagne dit soort media een grote rol gaan spelen. Hij (en ik denk niemand) weet nog precies hoe, maar de volgende campagne wordt een nog completer overwelmend mediaoffensief dan de vorige.\nEn net de nieuwe aflevering van BoscastFM uit met weer een of ander zwamverhaal over dat boek van hem.\nHet is niet interessant, ik kan er niet naar luisteren en ik zet het niet uit omdat ik hoop dat er nog wat boeiends uitkomt. Dit is redelijk slecht, en ik lees bij Brechtje ook al dat dat boek van hem flut is: ****Dit boek kan zoveel beter.\n","date":"December 19, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-466/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik heb geen flauw idee wat Wouter Bos nu eigenlijk te melden heeft. Afgelopen vrijdag zat hij in Nova Politiek dingen te vertellen over zijn nieuwe boek.\n","title":"Het bos niet meer zien","type":"posts"},{"content":"Some guys are planning to hold a Macworld event in Amsterdam which sounds a like pretty neat idea.\nFrom the Upcoming.org blurb:\nWho?\nAnyone in Amsterdam on the 10th January if you\u0026rsquo;re a Mac geek, developer, user, evangelist, enthusiast, whatever! Some of us will be more geeky than others, everyone\u0026rsquo;s welcome, (even if you don\u0026rsquo;t own a Mac (but you might want to after this)).\nPretty much most of the above description applies to me after my recent conversion to the Cult of Mac. So keep Tuesday, January 10th free and join in the fun.\n","date":"December 19, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-68/","section":"Posts","summary":"Some guys are planning to hold a Macworld event in Amsterdam which sounds a like pretty neat idea.\n","title":"Can't be at Macworld","type":"posts"},{"content":"Django now too has its own screencast of making an extremely simple application in it [via].\n","date":"December 19, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-67/","section":"Posts","summary":"Django now too has its own screencast of making an extremely simple application in it [via].\n","title":"Django Quick","type":"posts"},{"content":"Normaal gesproken doe ik op zaterdag niet zo veel en voel ik me daarna schuldig daarover. Vandaag heb ik besloten om gewoon niet zo veel te doen en me er niet schuldig over te voelen.\nZo\u0026rsquo;n ingelaste vrije dag om films te kijken is best fijn na een drukke week met stress.\nBegonnen met ****Desperado, aardige film. Ik denk dat ik de vorige en het vervolg allebei beter vond. Hier wel ook een goed mariachi lied in (grof overgetikt):\nme gusta tocar guitarra\nme gusta cantar el sol\nmariachi mi acompana\ncuando canto mi cancion\nme gusta tomar mis copas\naguardientes lo mejor\ntambien el tequila blanco\ncon su sal y da sabor\nToen dwars door een hagelbui de stad in om boodschappen te doen en pasfoto\u0026rsquo;s te laten maken. Ik moet maandag 2 pasfoto\u0026rsquo;s inleveren bij mijn rijleraar.\nDaarna relaxed doorgegaan met ****5x2. Een film die bijna compleet moet hebben van de volgorde. Het is een standaard verhaal over een stel met karakters die nauwelijks inhoud hebben. De acteurs speelden dat toch best goed.\nZelfde idee als Irréversible (“Le temps détruit tout”) maar dan niet zo schokkend uitgewerkt. Ik ben wel benieuwd naar meer werk van Ozon. Ik las al goede dingen over Le Temps Qui Reste.\nVervolgens ook maar even ****Das Leben ist eine Baustelle bekeken. Hele leuke film, mooi, niet te traag en ook niet te snel, aandoenlijk maar soms ook weer vaag. Duidelijk goede samenwerking tussen Becker en Tykwer.\nVan Tykwer heb ik al veel gezien, van Becker valt niet zoveel te zien.\nEn uiteindelijk afgesloten door die filmpjes van The Hire te bekijken die ik nog niet gezien had: Ticker, Chosen, The Follow en Powder Keg. Deze waren als film een stuk meer geslaagd dan bijvoorbeeld Hostage, of Ambush.\n","date":"December 18, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-465/","section":"Posts","summary":"Normaal gesproken doe ik op zaterdag niet zo veel en voel ik me daarna schuldig daarover. Vandaag heb ik besloten om gewoon niet zo veel te doen en me er niet schuldig over te voelen.\n","title":"Luie dag","type":"posts"},{"content":"Schneier maakt een goed punt1 over het neerschieten van een gestoorde man door een Sky Marshall.\nTwo, I\u0026rsquo;m not convinced the sky marshals\u0026rsquo; threat model matches reality. Mentally ill people are far more common than terrorists. People who claim to have a bomb and don\u0026rsquo;t are far more common than people who actually do. The real question we should be asking here is: what should the appropriate response be to this low-probability threat?\nDitzelfde punt gaat ook op voor treinen die in Nederland gestopt worden omdat iemand zich weer ‘verdacht’ gedraagt. Als elke trein waarin mensen zich verdacht gedragen, moet stoppen, dan haalt de NS nooit haar target.\nEigenlijk maakt Schneier alleen maar goede punten.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"December 16, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-464/","section":"Posts","summary":"Schneier maakt een goed punt1 over het neerschieten van een gestoorde man door een Sky Marshall.\n","title":"Verdacht","type":"posts"},{"content":"Afgelopen woensdag in De Wereld Draait Door een geweldig gesprek met Diederik van Vleuten over zijn aanbidding voor Gerard Reve. [Real Breedband]\nIk heb nog niks van Reve gelezen, maar hierna moet ik iets van hem hebben en lezen. Ik denk dat ik voor gedichten ga.\n","date":"December 16, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-463/","section":"Posts","summary":"Afgelopen woensdag in De Wereld Draait Door een geweldig gesprek met Diederik van Vleuten over zijn aanbidding voor Gerard Reve. [Real Breedband]\n","title":"Reviala","type":"posts"},{"content":"PRdV maakt vanmiddag bekend of hij de politiek in gaat.\n","date":"December 16, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-462/","section":"Posts","summary":"PRdV maakt vanmiddag bekend of hij de politiek in gaat.\n","title":"Adem in, kruis je vingers","type":"posts"},{"content":"Op 14 december in Straatsburg heeft het Europese parlement het besloten. Alle telefoon en e-mail gegevens van Europese burgers worden bewaard. Persbericht Bits of Freedom\nIedereen die er wat van af weet is er tegen, maar expertise en gezond verstand wegen natuurlijk minder zwaar dan een kabinet en publieke opinie die repressie als heilig beschouwen en privacy verdacht vinden. Ja, het is echt zo erg.\nBits of Freedom en Netkwesties (1 \u0026amp; 2) berichten al tijden en tijden over deze wet.\nDeze wet is eenduidig slecht. Het invoeren van deze wet is winst voor de terroristen. Missie geslaagd.\n","date":"December 15, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-461/","section":"Posts","summary":"Op 14 december in Straatsburg heeft het Europese parlement het besloten. Alle telefoon en e-mail gegevens van Europese burgers worden bewaard. Persbericht Bits of Freedom\n","title":"Data Retention Act","type":"posts"},{"content":"Wat mijn toekomstbeeld al een tijdje vertroebelde wordt nu bevestigd. Ik wil best deel uitmaken van de creatieve klasse in Amsterdam, maar dan zou ik ook graag ín die stad willen wonen.\nErg makkelijk is het niet om er een betaalbaar huis te vinden. De complete woningmarkt is verstopt.\nIn het stuk op de site van Amsterdam scoort het als een van de steden waar het het moeilijkst is om een huis te vinden [via].\nVolgens de kaart is het goed wonen in Leipzig, Berlijn, Luik, Antwerpen, Brussel en Lissabon maar niet overal goed werken.\nMijn plan: een half jaar reizen zodat ik dat peiljaar weinig verdien en daarna in aanmerking kom voor een aardige sociale woning.\n","date":"December 15, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-460/","section":"Posts","summary":"Wat mijn toekomstbeeld al een tijdje vertroebelde wordt nu bevestigd. Ik wil best deel uitmaken van de creatieve klasse in Amsterdam, maar dan zou ik ook graag ín die stad willen wonen.\n","title":"Huizenmarkt","type":"posts"},{"content":"Leuk item gisteren in Nova over de leuke Vlaamse politica Freya van den Bossche.\nGraag ook zulke mensen hier in Den Haag. Peter R. de Vries is een goed begin.\n","date":"December 15, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-459/","section":"Posts","summary":"Leuk item gisteren in Nova over de leuke Vlaamse politica Freya van den Bossche.\n","title":"Kleinburgerlijkheid","type":"posts"},{"content":"Leuk meme op Flickr over wat er in je tas zit.\nDie van mij is nogal bescheiden maar als ik door de set heen blader zie ik bijvoorbeeld volgepropte gadget-pakhuizen als de tas van Joi Ito.\n","date":"December 15, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-458/","section":"Posts","summary":"Leuk meme op Flickr over wat er in je tas zit.\n","title":"Mijn tassie","type":"posts"},{"content":"Buitengewoon goed verhaal (zoals altijd) bij Kluun: deel 1 \u0026amp; deel 2.\nVrouwen…\n","date":"December 14, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-457/","section":"Posts","summary":"Buitengewoon goed verhaal (zoals altijd) bij Kluun: deel 1 \u0026 deel 2.\n","title":"Adoratie","type":"posts"},{"content":"Europe is indeed a relative backwater in the wireless revolution. Quote Cory: “locked down, overpriced and metered”.\nNow if only I could figure out where such an EVDO device would fit into my iBook, I would have high hopes for the future.\n","date":"December 14, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-66/","section":"Posts","summary":"Europe is indeed a relative backwater in the wireless revolution. Quote Cory: “locked down, overpriced and metered”.\n","title":"EVDO","type":"posts"},{"content":"We staan aan de vooravond van een Rembrandtjaar —Rembrandt\u0026rsquo;s 400ste geboortejaar— waarin een complete hausse op gaat treden rondom een van de grootste kunstenaars die Nederland ooit heeft gekend.\nNet in het Oog op Morgen Ernst van den Wetering een van de organisatoren over de goede, de slechte en de lelijke evenementen die gepland staan. Alles van tentoonstellingen, wandelingen, musicals tot ijssculpturen aan toe om elke denkbare Rembrandtfetisj te bevredigen.\nDe website van het jaar is erg Leiden gericht (en gemaakt door een bekende) terwijl de leukste dingen toch buiten Leiden gebeuren.\nRembrandt-Caravaggio lijkt mij de leukste tentoonstelling. Daarin worden werken van Rembrandt naast die van Caravaggio gezet. Beide kunstenaars waren experts op het gebied van **chiaroscuro en van Caravaggio ben ik al een tijdje fan.\nRembrandt-Caravaggio met wat beeldmateriaal op de hoofdsite.\nDaarnaast is er in het Rembrandthuis nog een tentoonstelling Rembrandt — Zoektocht van een genie die ook wel boeiend moet zijn (volgens die vent), maar die loopt wat later (vanaf 1 april) en heeft nog geen informatie beschikbaar.\n","date":"December 14, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-456/","section":"Posts","summary":"We staan aan de vooravond van een Rembrandtjaar —Rembrandt’s 400ste geboortejaar— waarin een complete hausse op gaat treden rondom een van de grootste kunstenaars die Nederland ooit heeft gekend.\n","title":"Rembrandt Mania","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik kwam deze tegen in een signature:\nEn tres tristes trastos de trigo,\ntres tristes tigres comían trigo.\nComían trigo, tres tristes tigres,\nen tres tristes trastos de trigo.\nen verder zoekende nog hele bergen van dit soort waaronder deze:\nTengo una gallina pinta pipiripinta gorda pipirigorda pipiripintiva y sorda que tiene tres pollitos pintos pipiripintos gordos pipirigordos pipiripintivos y sordos. Si la gallina no hubiera sido pinta pipiripinta gorda pipirigorda pipiripintiva y sorda los pollitos no hubieran sido pintos pipiripintos gordos pipirigordos pipiripintivos y sordos.\nLeent Spaans zich hier nou gewoon beter voor?\n","date":"December 13, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-455/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik kwam deze tegen in een signature:\n","title":"De kat krabt de krullen…","type":"posts"},{"content":"Nu er meer en meer van dit soort leuke camera\u0026rsquo;tjes uitkomen is het nog gewoon de vraag waarom je eigenlijk nog voor een volledig formaat SLR zou gaan (tenzij je er echt heel serieus mee aan de slag wil). [via]\n","date":"December 13, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-454/","section":"Posts","summary":"Nu er meer en meer van dit soort leuke camera’tjes uitkomen is het nog gewoon de vraag waarom je eigenlijk nog voor een volledig formaat SLR zou gaan (tenzij je er echt heel serieus mee aan de slag wil). [via]\n","title":"Panasonic","type":"posts"},{"content":"I am running on a new Eclipse 3.2.0 in the shop right now. It\u0026rsquo;s pretty nice with some cosmetic tweaks and it feels a bit faster.\nMost noticeably it has a Memory Monitor in the bottom with a button to force GC. I like the indication but I am opposed against the GC button.\nIt was always common practice to teach Java programmers that calls to System.gc() are harmful. The system usually is the better judge when it is necessary to collect. Programmers calling gc() can never really know if it is necessary and end up harming performance.\nTwo problems:\nIf a programmer of an application cannot even be the judge of when to call gc(), how can a user know when to call it? It is pretty ridiculous exposing a call like this to the GUI. And the usability is zero. Pressing the button completely freezes the system (as expected) and ends up with some more free memory. If you needed that free memory, the system would already have collected the garbage for you.\nMore subtly, the message sent by exposing this button to a programmer who is building his own Java application in Eclipse is that it is ok to call gc(). This is a bad message promoting bad programmer practices spreading gc calls throughout Java applications because Eclipse says it is all right. Thoughts?\nMaybe it is not completely evil. Right clicking on it reveals some memory profiling options which might be handy if you\u0026rsquo;re into that sort of thing.\nIDEs should promote good programmer practices.\n","date":"December 13, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-65/","section":"Posts","summary":"I am running on a new Eclipse 3.2.0 in the shop right now. It’s pretty nice with some cosmetic tweaks and it feels a bit faster.\n","title":"Eclipse 3.2","type":"posts"},{"content":"Woestijnruiters van gisteren weer erg goed.\nLet vooral op het stuk in het begin met Peter R. de Vries en het stuk op het einde met Youp van \u0026rsquo;t Hek met veel heen en weer gesteek tussen van \u0026rsquo;t Hek en de presentatoren.\nReal Stream\n","date":"December 12, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-453/","section":"Posts","summary":"Woestijnruiters van gisteren weer erg goed.\n","title":"Woestijnruiters","type":"posts"},{"content":"Meetro looks rather nifty (watch the movie). Shame they don\u0026rsquo;t have a Mac version available.\nI see more and more corporate sites that slam a movie on the front page with actual people talking about their software experience. I like this a lot. I like it even more when the movie has a pause button.\n","date":"December 11, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-64/","section":"Posts","summary":"Meetro looks rather nifty (watch the movie). Shame they don’t have a Mac version available.\n","title":"Locality","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik kijk nog meer uit naar de Narnia film (trailer) film dan naar King Kong.\nOf toch Kong?\nI\u0026rsquo;ve never seen a movie that so comprehensively crapped on any and all opposition, that so savagely went for your throat and held you by it until you begged for mercy. -Tom Coates\n","date":"December 11, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-452/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik kijk nog meer uit naar de Narnia film (trailer) film dan naar King Kong.\n","title":"Kerstfilms","type":"posts"},{"content":"The presentations from the previous SuperHappyDevHouse are really cool. I had already seen the Using Python to get money and chicks but the following two are also very worth watching:\nAjaxWar is a very nice proof of concept real time strategy game in Javascript\nDojo Maps is a GoogleMaps clone using Dojo\nThey have their sixth iteration today.\nUpdate: The Laughing Squid has pictures from the night.\nWouldn\u0026rsquo;t it be fun to do more stuff like that here in our Dutch polder?\n","date":"December 10, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-63/","section":"Posts","summary":"The presentations from the previous SuperHappyDevHouse are really cool. I had already seen the Using Python to get money and chicks but the following two are also very worth watching:\n","title":"Super Happy","type":"posts"},{"content":"Fragmentje NOVA Politiek waarin D'66 goed afgezeken wordt door Pauw.\nEen fusie PRDV en D'66 zou nog wel eens erg interessant kunnen zijn (samen 8 zetels). Maar ik blijf Femke ook nog wel leuk vinden.\nFragement van de Politieke Barometer\n","date":"December 10, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-451/","section":"Posts","summary":"Fragmentje NOVA Politiek waarin D'66 goed afgezeken wordt door Pauw.\n","title":"4 Zetels!","type":"posts"},{"content":"A-TEMBO is nog steeds de liefste computerwinkel van Delft.\nEn ik ben de trotse bezitter van een vijf meter lange groene netwerkkabel.\n","date":"December 10, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-450/","section":"Posts","summary":"A-TEMBO is nog steeds de liefste computerwinkel van Delft.\n","title":"Patch","type":"posts"},{"content":"Gisteren was ik bij de boekpresentatie van Het Huis van de Moskee hier in Delft. Ik heb wat filmpjes geschoten met mijn digitale camera en deze naar Google Video gestuurd. Dat werkt best prima. Op deze manier kan Dena, die vast zat in Londen het toch ook een beetje zien.\nIk had geen geld bij me anders had ik het boek wel gekocht (en laten signeren). Ik ben ondertussen wel benieuwd maar nog zoveel te lezen…\n","date":"December 10, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-449/","section":"Posts","summary":"Gisteren was ik bij de boekpresentatie van Het Huis van de Moskee hier in Delft. Ik heb wat filmpjes geschoten met mijn digitale camera en deze naar Google Video gestuurd. Dat werkt best prima. Op deze manier kan Dena, die vast zat in Londen het toch ook een beetje zien.\n","title":"Moskee","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik had Taxi gehuurd. Hij moest vandaag terug maar ik wilde hem toch nog even zien. Hij zit erg goed in elkaar, heel leuk en geen seconde verveeld.\nNu kreeg ik die film drie dagen mee en heb ik hem voor een avond even aan een vriend meegegeven. Volgens de melding bij het begin van de DVD heb ik daarmee een strafbaar feit begaan.\n","date":"December 10, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-448/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik had Taxi gehuurd. Hij moest vandaag terug maar ik wilde hem toch nog even zien. Hij zit erg goed in elkaar, heel leuk en geen seconde verveeld.\n","title":"Taxi","type":"posts"},{"content":"Bij Frankwatching wordt de laatste tijd (makkelijk) gescoord door artikelen uit de mainstream media te vertalen. Het doet het goed. Er zijn blijkbaar genoeg mensen in Nederland die het Engels nog (te) slecht beheersen.\nNu duikt dus hetzelfde artikel over Kennisbeheer bij Google dat ik al had gelezen (via andere bronnen) met een paar dagen vertraging op in het Nederlands. Apart wel, en doet me weer nadenken over in welke taal ík nou wil schrijven.\nWat wel heel sneu is, is dat de meeste bezoekers niet door lijken te hebben dat het artikel geen origineel werk is. Lees de reacties er maar op na.\nDe strekking van het artikel of je het nou in het Nederlands of in het Engels leest blijft in ieder geval boeiend. De eerste reactie is ook interessant en wijst weer op het feit dat technisch sterke mensen in Nederland worden ondergewaardeerd en over-gemanaged.\n","date":"December 10, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-447/","section":"Posts","summary":"Bij Frankwatching wordt de laatste tijd (makkelijk) gescoord door artikelen uit de mainstream media te vertalen. Het doet het goed. Er zijn blijkbaar genoeg mensen in Nederland die het Engels nog (te) slecht beheersen.\n","title":"Vertalingen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Asa is terecht boos.\nNiet te vroeg juichen iedereen. De vijand is pas dood als de romp en het hoofd van elkaar gescheiden zijn (iets wat ze in actiefilms nooit snappen). De strijd gaat door tegen de satan en iedereen die met hem heult.\nEigenlijk kunnen al die mensen die onveilig browsen omdat ze door Microsoft in de steek zijn gelaten me niet eens zoveel schelen. Ik wil gewoon een fatsoenlijk platform hebben om op te ontwikkelen.\n","date":"December 10, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-446/","section":"Posts","summary":"Asa is terecht boos.\n","title":"Oneerlijk","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik heb net Crash gezien. Hele heftige film, die laat zien dat niets zwart of wit is en dat mensen zich laten verdelen op het makkelijkste verschil: ras.\nDe film heeft een goed punt. De meeste mensen leven in een wereld van vooroordelen. Er zijn mensen die discrimineren en er zijn mensen die gediscrimineerd worden en horen mensen bij allebei die groepen.\nDan heb je ook nog de mensen die zeggen dat ze niet geloven in vooroordelen, dat ze er boven staan. Ik weet niet of zij zo verlicht zijn, of dat ze te naïef zijn om het te beseffen.\nEn misschien is dat wel hetzelfde.\nUpdate: Ik denk dat ik 21 Grams toch (veel) beter vind. Crash houdt in op kritieke momenten. (Hele verdekte spoiler) ze hadden bijvoorbeeld die persoon toch niet moeten redden. De film zou daar interessanter door geworden zijn.\n","date":"December 9, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-445/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik heb net Crash gezien. Hele heftige film, die laat zien dat niets zwart of wit is en dat mensen zich laten verdelen op het makkelijkste verschil: ras.\n","title":"Knal","type":"posts"},{"content":"Kijk deze filmpjes op aanraden van Nat.\nIk kan me net voorstellen dat mensen dat kunnen en dat ik dat misschien ooit ga kunnen. Capoeira is in ieder geval een heel heel erg leuk begin.\n","date":"December 9, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-444/","section":"Posts","summary":"Kijk deze filmpjes op aanraden van Nat.\n","title":"Parkour","type":"posts"},{"content":"What!? First Flickr and now Yahoo! buys del.icio.us as well? It pretty much comes down to all my favorite sites being bought by them.\nAnd what does Google do in the midst of this acquisition frenzy? Bring out more half baked products…\nI\u0026rsquo;m having serious loyalty doubts.\n","date":"December 9, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-62/","section":"Posts","summary":"What!? First Flickr and now Yahoo! buys del.icio.us as well? It pretty much comes down to all my favorite sites being bought by them.\n","title":"Yahoo.us!","type":"posts"},{"content":"It seems to be slightly impossible for me to select items from a HTML control using the keyboard.\nTabbing it into focus does work, but using the down arrows to go through the possible options does not work. The lack of this very basic functionality is very frustrating when filling out a lot of web forms.\nI did find a problem for my Safari crashing. Open the Activity Window, Command-A, Command-C gives me a list of all the urls of the tabs I have open currently. Great!\n","date":"December 9, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-61/","section":"Posts","summary":"It seems to be slightly impossible for me to select items from a HTML control using the keyboard.\n","title":"Lazyweb?","type":"posts"},{"content":"I was reading this article on the future of web technology. It gives a good overview of the current state of technology, future directions and a two way consolidation which I hope is going to take place.\nOn one hand the standards will mature to capture the current needs of application developers and the browser developers (save IE of course) will move ahead with new functionality.\nOn the other hand the toolkit builders will use whatever is available right now to create some sane baseline to develop against. I got my Django to play with Dojo last night.\nSVG support is all over the map and is now even bleeding into Canvas if you see this arguably impressive demonstration (and especially the tiger).\n","date":"December 9, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-60/","section":"Posts","summary":"I was reading this article on the future of web technology. It gives a good overview of the current state of technology, future directions and a two way consolidation which I hope is going to take place.\n","title":"HTML 5","type":"posts"},{"content":"Peter R. de Vries heeft diskette\u0026rsquo;s op de kop getikt die een veiligheidsdienst kwijt is geraakt. Dit verhaal is veiligheidstechnisch een grap.\nJe zou je af kunnen vragen hoe dom je bent als je zoiets belangrijks in een auto laat liggen. Daarna zou je je af kunnen vragen hoe zulke domme mensen dan de veiligheid moeten garanderen.\nJe zou je ook af kunnen vragen hoe moeilijk het is om gegevens te versleutelen.\nJe begrijpt natuurlijk wel dat het onthouden van al die wachtwoorden niet makkelijk is voor domme mensen. Je vraagt je ook af of ze zich raad zouden weten als de criminelen wél encryptie zouden gebruiken.\nMaar ik verbaas me nog het meest over het feit dat het verplaatsen van vertrouwelijke informatie gebeurt met behulp van floppy\u0026rsquo;s. Dat zegt misschien nog het meeste over het tijdperk waarin de inlichtingendiensten leven.\n","date":"December 8, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-443/","section":"Posts","summary":"Peter R. de Vries heeft diskette’s op de kop getikt die een veiligheidsdienst kwijt is geraakt. Dit verhaal is veiligheidstechnisch een grap.\n","title":"Floppy","type":"posts"},{"content":"Reinier implemented what I always thought was a pretty fun game: Closeline.\nGetting it to play was usually a big pain in the ass because he had an implementation in written in assembler1 and it always had problems with joystick recognition and stuff like that (this is how it has stuck in my mind).\nSo thank god for the web and its newfound cross platformness (for everyone except for IE).\nThe Javascript code for this version (which I strongly suggest you do not look at) still bears that heritage. It reads like a direct rewrite of the original assembler code. Mind putting that on the web as well, Reinier?\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"December 8, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-59/","section":"Posts","summary":"Reinier implemented what I always thought was a pretty fun game: Closeline.\n","title":"Closeline","type":"posts"},{"content":"Economie voor beginners\nHier gelukkig niet zo van toepassing, maar het wordt hoog tijd om Artikel 23 eens aan te pakken. In afgelopen Buitenhof behandelt Herman Phillipse virtuoos en puur op argumenten de kwestie. Ik heb hem niet eerder zo goed en zo overtuigend gezien.\nAlleen jammer dat een discussie voeren op argumenten irrelevant is.\n","date":"December 8, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-442/","section":"Posts","summary":"Economie voor beginners\n","title":"Afgoderij","type":"posts"},{"content":"Google is het walhalla, ook op management gebied. Meer bedrijven zouden Google\u0026rsquo;s filosofie moeten volgen en niet hun werknemers dwarsbomen met domme regels.\nUpdate: Herschreven. Niet bloggen als je moe bent.\n","date":"December 6, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-441/","section":"Posts","summary":"Google is het walhalla, ook op management gebied. Meer bedrijven zouden Google’s filosofie moeten volgen en niet hun werknemers dwarsbomen met domme regels.\n","title":"Het kan wel goed","type":"posts"},{"content":"Being at a different location and not having WiFi internet available (like at my parents\u0026rsquo; place) is seriously disturbing. There was a wireless network within range but it was password protected.\nWouldn\u0026rsquo;t it be nice if everybody opened up their wireless for passers by to use?\nEnter FoN. It\u0026rsquo;s not completely perfect but it has a lot of ideas headed into the right direction.\nRecognizing the vital importance of free WiFi should be (for institutions) the incentive to open up their networks. For people it could be more motivated by hospitality and kindness.\nAnyway, I don\u0026rsquo;t care why you do it. I just do not want to pay €5 for 30 minutes of internet access. Paying for internet by the minute? That is so last century and it wasn\u0026rsquo;t even cool back then.\n","date":"December 6, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-58/","section":"Posts","summary":"Being at a different location and not having WiFi internet available (like at my parents’ place) is seriously disturbing. There was a wireless network within range but it was password protected.\n","title":"FoN","type":"posts"},{"content":"Hartverscheurend inderdaad.\nDe hele serie eigenlijk (begin hier). Ik ben er nog niet over uit of ik de baan van Maj. Steve Beck de vreselijkste baan ooit vind, of niet.\n","date":"December 5, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-440/","section":"Posts","summary":"Hartverscheurend inderdaad.\n","title":"Foto des Tages","type":"posts"},{"content":"Stumbling on a thread in Python-Dev yields this quite funny quote by Python luminary Tim Peters:\nIndeed, when I design my killer language, the identifiers \u0026ldquo;foo\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;bar\u0026rdquo; will be reserved words, never used, and not even mentioned in the reference manual. Any program using one will simply dump core without comment. Multitudes will rejoice.\n\u0026ndash; Tim Peters, 29 Apr 1998\n","date":"December 5, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-57/","section":"Posts","summary":"Stumbling on a thread in Python-Dev yields this quite funny quote by Python luminary Tim Peters:\n","title":"Metasyntactic","type":"posts"},{"content":"I am currently reading the book “The Internet and Society” by James Slevin which went off to a rough start but which I am getting into more and more.\nIn chapter three it discusses ‘the study of the internet as a modality of cultural transmission’. Interesting stuff, I will post more about this later.\n","date":"December 4, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-studies-392/","section":"Posts","summary":"I am currently reading the book “The Internet and Society” by James Slevin which went off to a rough start but which I am getting into more and more.\n","title":"Society","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik heb een van de betere Turkse blogs, Turkish Torque, wat bijgelezen. Aandacht voor de Turkse dichter Necati Cumalı met wat mooie gedichten.\nIk lees gedichten alleen liever niet vertaald, daarom handig dat er een coole site is met heel veel van zijn gedichten (waaronder al deze).\n","date":"December 4, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-439/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik heb een van de betere Turkse blogs, Turkish Torque, wat bijgelezen. Aandacht voor de Turkse dichter Necati Cumalı met wat mooie gedichten.\n","title":"CUMALI","type":"posts"},{"content":"You probably would not have noticed, but I installed Explorer Destroyer on the front page. Most regular visitors of these pages do not use IE, most people stumbling by via Google or another search do use it.\nAnd playing further with AdSense I thought I would see what an ad bar to the left here would do. It\u0026rsquo;s pretty unobtrusive and I would be surprised if it would have any noticeable effect.\nComments, objections?\n","date":"December 4, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-56/","section":"Posts","summary":"You probably would not have noticed, but I installed Explorer Destroyer on the front page. Most regular visitors of these pages do not use IE, most people stumbling by via Google or another search do use it.\n","title":"Adsense","type":"posts"},{"content":"Al veel te lang (2 maanden) niet meer gereisd. Het gaat niet snel gebeuren maar het is wel even leuk om vooruit te kijken.\nWaar zou ik heen kunnen?\nLonden — Een vriendin van me studeert daar nu. Leuk om daar op bezoek te gaan.\nParijs — In deze stad ben ik ook nog nooit geweest. Les Blogs begint morgen. Dat zou wel leuk geweest zijn.\nWarschau — Lente Agora van AEGEE, goede kans dat ik daarheen ga.\nSt. Petersburg — Hier wil ik al tijden heen, en het is weer eens een andere (ontzettend mooie) vakantiebestemming.\nSpanje — Altijd Spanje! Fantastisch land en er is nog heel veel wat ik nog niet gezien heb (Madrid, Barcelona, Andalusia).\nOf het maakt eigenlijk niet uit. Alles is prima. Suggesties voor leuke (en voor het komende jaar realistische reizen) in de comments.\n","date":"December 4, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-438/","section":"Posts","summary":"Al veel te lang (2 maanden) niet meer gereisd. Het gaat niet snel gebeuren maar het is wel even leuk om vooruit te kijken.\n","title":"Jeuk","type":"posts"},{"content":"Net de trailer gezien van Bandidas. Mexicaanse variant op het Baise-moi principe met Salma Hayek en Penélope Cruz (maar dan een stuk minder serieus).\n","date":"December 4, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-437/","section":"Posts","summary":"Net de trailer gezien van Bandidas. Mexicaanse variant op het Baise-moi principe met Salma Hayek en Penélope Cruz (maar dan een stuk minder serieus).\n","title":"Bandidas","type":"posts"},{"content":"I am in awe.\nI have a DVD ISO on my desktop PC and I was wondering how much trouble it was going to be to play that on my iBook. Very little to none, it seems.\nI can mount my $HOME on my desktop using smb:// and so I can read all my files there. This took me some time to set up because samba is a hassle. But once setup it is very easy (Command-K).\nThe ISO I found waiting for me, could simply be double-clicked and it automatically mounted on my iBook. So I had an ISO mounted over smbfs.\nThen I started DVD Player and seeing the only place I had a DVD medium was on a mount (DVD drive empty) it started playing that without asking questions. Playback was over the network and very smooth.\nSo concerning announcements of the new Mac Mini Media Center Edition, will it work? Hell, yes!\n","date":"December 4, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-55/","section":"Posts","summary":"I am in awe.\n","title":"Mac Media Center","type":"posts"},{"content":"I have seen the first place where annotations are useful on this blog by Reinier.\nIt is an annotation which removes the traditional Java getters and setters from the code.\nprivate @Get @Set(Access.PROTECTED) String field; You end up with something which is very similar to C# Properties but using standard Java syntax.\nAnother one which is slightly more complex is MOX, an annotation based XML parser (you can Digg! it if you like).\nI can see where this comes handy, if you need to parse XML in Java. In Python I would usually use something like xmltramp or whatnot.\nA cross-platform Javascript solution which provides the same results would be pure heaven. I would have to look into this.\nAnnotations are dandy to use, but from what I have seen slightly annoying to write (same goes with generics). So we have to wait and leave the heavy lifting to the pros and then we can use the resulting library goodness.\n","date":"December 4, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-54/","section":"Posts","summary":"I have seen the first place where annotations are useful on this blog by Reinier.\n","title":"Annotate","type":"posts"},{"content":"Bij Radio Online zowaar een half positief item over Ubuntu Linux. Wel weer wat weinig inhoud, maar het is een goed begin.\nHet zou bijvoorbeeld leuk geweest zijn om te vertellen dat Ubuntu ‘menselijkheid’ betekent en dat het zich beroept de enige Linux-distributie voor mensen te zijn.\nLinux is een heel eind gekomen en het wordt alleen maar beter. Ik zag pas wat screenshots van de nieuwe linux van Novell/Suse (link kwijt) en dat zag er erg goed uit.\n","date":"December 4, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-436/","section":"Posts","summary":"Bij Radio Online zowaar een half positief item over Ubuntu Linux. Wel weer wat weinig inhoud, maar het is een goed begin.\n","title":"Menselijkheid","type":"posts"},{"content":"Aardig fragment uit Nova Politiek (2 minuten) met een vergelijking tussen de Rotterdamse gemeentepolitiek en het evangelie naar Mattheüs. De PvdA dat zijn de Romeinen.\nToch leuk zo vlak voor kerst.\n","date":"December 3, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-435/","section":"Posts","summary":"Aardig fragment uit Nova Politiek (2 minuten) met een vergelijking tussen de Rotterdamse gemeentepolitiek en het evangelie naar Mattheüs. De PvdA dat zijn de Romeinen.\n","title":"Romani ite domum!","type":"posts"},{"content":"On my work there exists a slight tendency to use Ajax just for Ajax\u0026rsquo;s sake. So drag and drop controls, the most outrageous refreshes and hyper-dynamic webpages. Little thought is spent on the eventual user experience. I do not mind really, playing with Javascript is fun if you get paid for it.\nAlex Bosworth gives a fine list where you should and where you should not use Ajax.\n","date":"December 3, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-53/","section":"Posts","summary":"On my work there exists a slight tendency to use Ajax just for Ajax’s sake. So drag and drop controls, the most outrageous refreshes and hyper-dynamic webpages. Little thought is spent on the eventual user experience. I do not mind really, playing with Javascript is fun if you get paid for it.\n","title":"Ajax Everywhere","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik kom er via achter dat Jon Stewart binnenkort een optreden geeft in Londen (flyer).\nTe stoer voor woorden natuurlijk, vast ook onbetaalbaar.\n","date":"December 3, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-434/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik kom er via achter dat Jon Stewart binnenkort een optreden geeft in Londen (flyer).\n","title":"Jon across the pond","type":"posts"},{"content":"Gisteren naar de voorstelling Tirannie van de Tijd geweest en het was tien keer niks. Hoofdschuldigen waren de slechte tekst, het vage verhaal en het buitengewoon matige spel.\nIk denk dat ik het maar opgeef om naar dit soort pretentieuze voorstellingen in de Grote Zaal te gaan. Op de een of andere manier stelt me dat meestal teleur.\nRotterdam is ook niet echt de leukste theaterstad maar afgelopen dinsdag heb ik ook in de Schouwburg TITUS van Dood Paard gezien en dat was wel goed en ontzettend leuk.\n","date":"December 2, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-433/","section":"Posts","summary":"Gisteren naar de voorstelling Tirannie van de Tijd geweest en het was tien keer niks. Hoofdschuldigen waren de slechte tekst, het vage verhaal en het buitengewoon matige spel.\n","title":"Tirannie","type":"posts"},{"content":"Peter R. de Vries kaart weer iets aan dat electoraal niet geweldig ligt. De overdreven en overtrokken aanpak van het terrorisme door het kabinet.\nVolgens Wilders wereldvreemde ultralinkse prietpraat maar als je een extreem-rechtse crypto-fascistische Amadeus-wannabe bent dan lijken dingen al snel ultralinks.\nFisk had het al over dat iedereen al de hele vorige eeuw loopt te rotzooien in het Midden Oosten dus de\nonderdrukking, koloniale overheersing, uitbuiting, geheime wapenleveranties en discriminatie\nuit het artikel.\nDe Vries heeft dus wel opgelet bij geschiedenisles en is niet verblind door roekeloze haat.\n","date":"November 30, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-432/","section":"Posts","summary":"Peter R. de Vries kaart weer iets aan dat electoraal niet geweldig ligt. De overdreven en overtrokken aanpak van het terrorisme door het kabinet.\n","title":"Wilders's pissed","type":"posts"},{"content":"A good part of my reading consists of books which I would like to buy but I am slightly pressed for money. In cases such as this the archaic institution of the library comes to the rescue.\nI had not been to the library of the DUT for years. It appears they have expired my card (they do that every two years) and I can only renew it if I have an ID which lists my address.\nOf course I usually do not carry such ID so it\u0026rsquo;s back home to get one.\nMy university does not carry most of the books I want so I am filing requests to have those acquired. A quick look did show the library of the RUL does have most of them, so I will be paying them a visit in the following week.\nUpdate: I now have procured a library card and am tracking down the books. I am hit with how archaic the concept of a library actually is. You have to walk to a physical location to get text for free. I usually get my texts for free from the internet which I think is a whole lot better.\nI have found out that the collections of our various university libaries are horribly outdated. I have some suggestions for new acquisitions which I am submitting to the various authorities who decide on these matters, but I am going to get these books faster if I just hop on a train to Leiden.\nI do think having an up to date library for books (which can be costly) is something the university should facilitate and I am going to follow up on this. It seems to be a big problem that my field of study is inter-facultary and that the books I am requesting could be filed under any of IT, architecture, industrial design, or policy analysis.\nAnd these are just the books which are directly related to my reseach. I think a technical university should also carry popular scientific books to promote interest into science and society in general.\nI am thinking of books like Freakonomics or Blink which I would love to read but have not yet budgetted to buy.\n","date":"November 30, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-studies-391/","section":"Posts","summary":"A good part of my reading consists of books which I would like to buy but I am slightly pressed for money. In cases such as this the archaic institution of the library comes to the rescue.\n","title":"Library Frustration","type":"posts"},{"content":"Read two more papers on the subject.\nOne quite negative about the virtualization of community and its impact on the public sphere.\nThe other quite positive about the experiences advanced internet users have integrating the internet into their day to day social life.\n","date":"November 30, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-studies-390/","section":"Posts","summary":"Read two more papers on the subject.\n","title":"Two more papers","type":"posts"},{"content":"Deze week draaien in Filmhuis Lumen de belangrijkste films van de Poolse filmmaker Krzysztof Kieslowski in het kader van een landelijk Kieslowski festival.\nIk heb al veel over deze filmmaker gehoord en zijn films schijnen onvoorstelbaar goed te zijn. Ik ben al een tijdje erg benieuwd. Leuke kans om er wat van op groot scherm te zien.\n","date":"November 29, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-431/","section":"Posts","summary":"Deze week draaien in Filmhuis Lumen de belangrijkste films van de Poolse filmmaker Krzysztof Kieslowski in het kader van een landelijk Kieslowski festival.\n","title":"Kieslowski","type":"posts"},{"content":"Brechtje schrijft echt goede dingen.\nRijst de vraag nu dus meer en meer of ik in zo\u0026rsquo;n bekrompen en verkrampt land als dit wil blijven wonen.\n","date":"November 28, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-430/","section":"Posts","summary":"Brechtje schrijft echt goede dingen.\n","title":"Innovatieklimaat","type":"posts"},{"content":"I am currently following a course on internet technology aptly named “Internet Technology”. The contents of the course are unfortunately horribly outdated and detached from reality.\nI offered the teacher to give a talk about current issues in webservices, standards, accessibility, ajax and whatnot. I could unleash a whole torrent of Web 2.0 superciliousness onto the classroom, get mad propz and polish my presenting skills in the process.\nI proposed to do this (and essentially relieve my teacher\u0026rsquo;s work load) but I was denied because of pressing time concerns.\nA positive side about this course is that the research assignment is completely free. I am planning to make a kick ass assignment on either Identity 2.0 or on Google Base.\n","date":"November 28, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-studies-389/","section":"Posts","summary":"I am currently following a course on internet technology aptly named “Internet Technology”. The contents of the course are unfortunately horribly outdated and detached from reality.\n","title":"Internet","type":"posts"},{"content":"Televisie af kunnen spelen op mijn nieuwe media center setup zou erg fijn zijn. Het is alleen erg jammer dat de publieke omroep nog niet de drie hoofdnetten integraal streamt.\nZe hebben wel themakanalen waar hele specifieke dingen terecht komen. Dat is wel grappig om aan te hebben staan maar het boeiendste themakanaal Journaal 24 is alleen maar beschikbaar voor Windows Media Player. Dus ik zit nu een beetje Holland Doc te kijken met verslaggeving van het IDFA.\nTips voor meer goede online televisie welkom.\n","date":"November 27, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-429/","section":"Posts","summary":"Televisie af kunnen spelen op mijn nieuwe media center setup zou erg fijn zijn. Het is alleen erg jammer dat de publieke omroep nog niet de drie hoofdnetten integraal streamt.\n","title":"Behang","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik had een Web 2.0 evenementenkalender bedacht en wilde al iets in elkaar draaien maar blijkt dat dat al lang bestaat: Upcoming.org.\nNu lijkt het wel alsof er in Delft niks gebeurt dus heb ik maar een event aangemaakt voor het volgende M.E.A.T. feest dat 9 december plaats vindt.\n","date":"November 26, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-428/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik had een Web 2.0 evenementenkalender bedacht en wilde al iets in elkaar draaien maar blijkt dat dat al lang bestaat: Upcoming.org.\n","title":"Upcoming","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik heb vandaag wat aanpassingen gedaan aan de feeds op dit blog. Het Atom formaat (wat sowieso de enige is die ik ga onderhouden) geeft nu in de volledige tekst van elke post weer. Dat scheelt weer naar de site toe klikken.\nEn er is nu ook een Atom feed voor de laatste commentaren. Dat maakt het volgen van dingen makkelijker (ook voor mij).\nProblemen of wat dan ook, laat het dan weten.\n","date":"November 26, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-427/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik heb vandaag wat aanpassingen gedaan aan de feeds op dit blog. Het Atom formaat (wat sowieso de enige is die ik ga onderhouden) geeft nu in de volledige tekst van elke post weer. Dat scheelt weer naar de site toe klikken.\n","title":"Feeds","type":"posts"},{"content":"Stukje uit NOVA Politiek waar Peter R. de Vries Bibi de Vries aanpakt. (Real fragment).\nBibi de Vries vice-voorzitter van de VVD is een fantastisch voorbeeld van alles wat er fout is aan haar partij. In het boven gelinkte fragment nailt Peter R. de Vries zijn naamgenote genadeloos en daar wenst ze liever niet op te reageren.\nDe presentatoren van NOVA stellen dit soort vragen bijna nooit en gaan er nooit zó hard op in. Waarschijnlijk omdat ze die politici nog vaker aan hun tafel willen krijgen en ze te vriend moeten houden.\nProbleem met de Vries is dat hij veel meer een ideeënpartij heeft dan dat hij een praktische populist is. Hij wil allemaal moeilijke dingen consistent gebouwd op zijn principes. Logica en consistentie verkoopt nooit ook niet in de politiek. Dat zal zijn gebrek aan steun verklaren. Mensen willen hele makkelijke dingen waar zij beter van worden (zie het appeal van partijen als de VVD en de SP).\nMet het willen afschaffen van het speciale onderwijs daar maak je buiten de Randstad in Nederland geen vrienden mee. De meeste mensen atrás das vacas hebben geen benul van de situatie in de grote stad en zijn waanzinnig gehecht aan hun speciale scholen.\n","date":"November 26, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-426/","section":"Posts","summary":"Stukje uit NOVA Politiek waar Peter R. de Vries Bibi de Vries aanpakt. (Real fragment).\n","title":"de Vries \u0026 de Vries","type":"posts"},{"content":"Is anybody busy writing a simple MPEG decoder in Javascript? Would it be difficult to port the standard routines from mplayer?\nI would envision a purely Javascript decoder which gets it data packets using successive XmlHttpRequests. It would then decode the data and render into a suitable pixel array ( or something).\nIn the current state of browsers the resulting implementation would be too slow to be workable, but it would be nice to already have it. Because if I predict right, browsers are going to become more important and faster in the future. Probably fast enough to make this feasible.\n","date":"November 25, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-52/","section":"Posts","summary":"Is anybody busy writing a simple MPEG decoder in Javascript? Would it be difficult to port the standard routines from mplayer?\n","title":"Next Step","type":"posts"},{"content":"A jaw dropping display of current web technology at Goowy. It features a quite usable desktop replacement and runs completely in your browser.\nIt is all Flash by the way, but in this day and age does that really matter anymore?\n","date":"November 25, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-51/","section":"Posts","summary":"A jaw dropping display of current web technology at Goowy. It features a quite usable desktop replacement and runs completely in your browser.\n","title":"My Online Desktop","type":"posts"},{"content":"Het is vandaag Thanksgiving en zoals iedereen weet krijg je dan bij de American Book Centre 10% extra korting op je boeken (voor een totaal van 20% dus). Dus als je in de buurt van ofwel Amsterdam, Den Haag of Leuven woont schiet op en pak je kans. Den Haag is nog tot 21:00 open en Amsterdam volgens mij ook.\nMijn buit:\nChina Miéville - “Iron Council”\nMiéville is voor mij een van de ontdekkingen van de laatste tijd. Hij schrijft lekker, fantasierijk en niets-ontziend. Zijn New Crobuzon is een soort Ankh-Meurbork maar dan mét horror en zonder die irritante Pratchett.\nDan Simmons - “Olympos”\nIk heb het eerste deel “Ilium” hiervan gelezen en dat was redelijk interessante science-fiction met wat tussendoortjes over mythologie en literatuur. Nu ik eraan terugdenk vond ik het eigenlijk niet eens zo\u0026rsquo;n goed boek maar wel boeiend genoeg om te willen weten hoe het afloopt.\nJammer alleen dat het met Simmons sinds Hyperion nooit meer goed gekomen is.\nNeil Gaiman - “Anansi Boys”\nIk heb pas een proefhoofdstuk uit dit boek gelezen en dat smaakte wel naar meer. Al had ik dat niet gedaan, een nieuwe Gaiman is natuurlijk altijd verplichte kost.\nTristan Egolf - “Lord of the Barnyard”\n(subtitel: Killing the Fatted Calf and Arming the Aware in the Cornbelt) Dit was ooit een tip van Jaeggi en ik raakte geïnteresseerd.\n","date":"November 24, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-425/","section":"Posts","summary":"Het is vandaag Thanksgiving en zoals iedereen weet krijg je dan bij de American Book Centre 10% extra korting op je boeken (voor een totaal van 20% dus). Dus als je in de buurt van ofwel Amsterdam, Den Haag of Leuven woont schiet op en pak je kans. Den Haag is nog tot 21:00 open en Amsterdam volgens mij ook.\n","title":"Happy Thanksgiving!","type":"posts"},{"content":"Er was laatst een of ander item dat maximumsnelheden van 80km/h het aantal files deed toenemen.\nLijkt me logisch. Evenveel auto\u0026rsquo;s die langzamer rijden over dezelfde afstand betekent die auto\u0026rsquo;s langer op de weg en dus meer auto\u0026rsquo;s per wegdeel. Voilà, congestie.\nCorollarium: In de spits alle maximumsnelheden opheffen. Hoe sneller alle auto\u0026rsquo;s rijden, hoe eerder ze op hun bestemming zijn en dus van de weg af. Legere wegen zijn het gevolg.\n","date":"November 23, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-424/","section":"Posts","summary":"Er was laatst een of ander item dat maximumsnelheden van 80km/h het aantal files deed toenemen.\n","title":"80","type":"posts"},{"content":"Vanochtend het mannetje van de post met een pakje voor mij. Eindelijk na lang wachten mijn nieuwe paar hoofdtelefoons voor mijn privé-muziekbehoefte. Die speakers van mijn iBook zijn leuk maar ze worden niet overal even hard op prijs gesteld.\nIk heb online de MDR-EX51LP in-ear hoofdtelefoons van Sony besteld. Geen enkele elektronica winkel in de buurt verkoopt dit exotische slag oortjes. Te raar en te duur.\nGa ik voortaan nog zoeken bij detailhandel? Nee.\nIk had niet gedacht dat ik ooit €40 voor een paar hoofdtelefoons uit zou geven maar ze zijn het dubbel en dwars waard.\nDe geluidskwaliteit is ordes van grootte beter dan van mijn vorige paar (€5). Vol, warm, lekker en slecht gecodeerde MP3\u0026rsquo;tjes vallen me nu wél op. Ik weet nog niet of dat iets goeds is.\nAfsluiting Ik ben niet zo\u0026rsquo;n audiofiel. Ik heb ze gekocht voor de afsluiting. Als je redelijk snel bent afgeleid (zoals ik) en als je (zoals ik) regelmatig moet werken in rumoerige ruimtes dan heb je persoonlijke audio nodig.\nNormale hoofdtelefoons vallen er alleen om de haverklap uit en ze laten heel veel extern geluid door. Voor echte afsluiting moet je ze dan zo hard zetten dat je vanzelf doof wordt. Geen goed plan.\nIn-ear hoofdtelefoons gaan in je oor en ze isoleren de boel zodat je bijna niks meer hoort van buitenaf. Je verstaat jezelf amper, laat staan andere mensen.\nZet de muziek aan en je bent compleet ondergedompeld. Een fully immersive audio experience en je kunt rustig doorwerken.\n","date":"November 23, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-423/","section":"Posts","summary":"Vanochtend het mannetje van de post met een pakje voor mij. Eindelijk na lang wachten mijn nieuwe paar hoofdtelefoons voor mijn privé-muziekbehoefte. Die speakers van mijn iBook zijn leuk maar ze worden niet overal even hard op prijs gesteld.\n","title":"Plug","type":"posts"},{"content":"Eerder wees ik al op onze troetel-Kazach Borat. Ik doe nu een halve poging om te zien hoe goed mijn Kazachs is. Het Kazachs is een Turkse taal. Vandaar dat ik er wel een beetje wegwijs in kan.\nHet alfabet van het Kazachs is een soort Cyrillisch. Nu heb ik nooit Cyrillisch gekund maar vond ik het wel een gemis om dat niet te kunnen lezen (rare alfabetten zijn leuk!). Dat is bij het lezen van Kazachs meteen het meeste werk: de letters ontcijferen. Als ik wat daaruit komt voorlees kan ik er fonetisch wel wat Turks van maken.\nGrappige maar erg korte bron van leesstof is de Kazachse Wikipedia. Deze heeft maar 49 lemma\u0026rsquo;s.\n","date":"November 22, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-422/","section":"Posts","summary":"Eerder wees ik al op onze troetel-Kazach Borat. Ik doe nu een halve poging om te zien hoe goed mijn Kazachs is. Het Kazachs is een Turkse taal. Vandaar dat ik er wel een beetje wegwijs in kan.\n","title":"Kazakh","type":"posts"},{"content":"Weggelegd voor de goede mensen die een Mac gebruiken: de Rijksmuseum Widget (via).\nEr is ook een Konfabulator versie maar dat kan natuurlijk nooit wat zijn…\nErg goed uitgevoerd, mooi en informatief; een waardevolle toevoeging aan mijn widget-arsenaal. Leuke manier om de gigantische archieven van musea te ontsluiten.\n","date":"November 22, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-421/","section":"Posts","summary":"Weggelegd voor de goede mensen die een Mac gebruiken: de Rijksmuseum Widget (via).\n","title":"Rijk","type":"posts"},{"content":"Today I finally finished my notes on the paper “Group, Community or Social Network” by Lois Ann Scheidt.\nThe paper studies 6 forms of CMC and examines how they measure up in the form of Group, Community and Social Network and it also provides definitions of those three terms.\nThe conclusion is that the concept of community is nebulous.\n","date":"November 21, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-studies-388/","section":"Posts","summary":"Today I finally finished my notes on the paper “Group, Community or Social Network” by Lois Ann Scheidt.\n","title":"Group, Community or Social Network","type":"posts"},{"content":"I am thinking of doing something with the Web 2.0 angle and how it connects to the ‘new’ communities that are emerging online.\nThusfar I had not really found an adequate definition of the Web 2.0 concept. It is too new and it means different things to different people. I just read the Web 2.0 piece by Paul Graham and he nails a couple of important points I had thought about myself earlier.\nI distilled something of a definition from his talk and the core of it is that the web has certain values which you do not want go against (because it is not going to work).\n","date":"November 21, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-studies-387/","section":"Posts","summary":"I am thinking of doing something with the Web 2.0 angle and how it connects to the ‘new’ communities that are emerging online.\n","title":"Web 2.0","type":"posts"},{"content":"There is a very cool event called Ultrasound in Huddersfield going on right now and just seeing this installation could make me hop over there if it was at all realistic.\nCheck it out, most of the other performances and installations look pretty interesting as well.\n","date":"November 21, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-50/","section":"Posts","summary":"There is a very cool event called Ultrasound in Huddersfield going on right now and just seeing this installation could make me hop over there if it was at all realistic.\n","title":"Kung Fu","type":"posts"},{"content":"The graphic on this blogpost pretty much captures the spirit of current web trends.\n","date":"November 20, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-studies-386/","section":"Posts","summary":"The graphic on this blogpost pretty much captures the spirit of current web trends.\n","title":"Graphic 2.0","type":"posts"},{"content":"Neelie Kroes in Buitenhof over het vrijgeven van de energiemarkt.\nZe heeft het compleet bij het verkeerde eind. Mensen willen niet kiezen. Mensen willen iets dat goed is en goedkoop is, de rest kan ze geen fuck schelen.\nIk zit niet te wachten op telemarketeers uit andere Europese landen die mij bellen met aanbiedingen. Wie heeft die tijd om dat af te wegen, kleine lettertjes te lezen, consumenten vergelijk-sites te bezoeken?\nIk heb al vijf jaar lang hetzelfde GSM-abonnement.\nEn als je dan kiest, dan zit je er minstens een jaar aan vast. Dat is geen vrije markt, dat is een farce. Maak een wet die zegt dat je aan geen enkel abonnement (krant, telefoon, internet, energie, etc.) langer dan 1 maand vast mag zitten. Dan zijn we pas echt vrij.\n","date":"November 20, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-420/","section":"Posts","summary":"Neelie Kroes in Buitenhof over het vrijgeven van de energiemarkt.\n","title":"Ik wil niet kiezen!","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ontzettend non-item op Nova over computerveiligheid. Dit soort items is altijd makkelijk scoren voor de programmamakers en voor de bedrijven die het zogenaamd aantonen. Angst verkoopt.\nOud nieuws en het maakt niet uit of je draadloos of met een kabeltje het internet op gaat, alles wat je onversleuteld het internet op gooit is openbaar, ga daar maar van uit.\n","date":"November 20, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-419/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ontzettend non-item op Nova over computerveiligheid. Dit soort items is altijd makkelijk scoren voor de programmamakers en voor de bedrijven die het zogenaamd aantonen. Angst verkoopt.\n","title":"Draadloos Onveilig","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik kan het niet vaak genoeg zeggen: Lees Brechtje.\nGlobalisering als beste argument tegen discriminatie en segregatie.\n","date":"November 20, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-418/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik kan het niet vaak genoeg zeggen: Lees Brechtje.\n","title":"Glocalization","type":"posts"},{"content":"Paul Graham gives a great talk about evolution, open source, entrepeneurship, and inadequate management. Funny and insightful.\n","date":"November 19, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-49/","section":"Posts","summary":"Paul Graham gives a great talk about evolution, open source, entrepeneurship, and inadequate management. Funny and insightful.\n","title":"Hacker Conversation","type":"posts"},{"content":"Due to a slight mishap at the mail server of my university I have not been able to receive any e-mail in the past 48 hours. All of it seems to have disappeared into a gaping black hole.\nThings had never been this quiet before in my Gmail. It got me spooked.\nResend if it was important, or try something else.\nUpdate: No mail has been lost, it was merely displaced. I have recovered everything and set up proper filtering again.\n","date":"November 19, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-48/","section":"Posts","summary":"Due to a slight mishap at the mail server of my university I have not been able to receive any e-mail in the past 48 hours. All of it seems to have disappeared into a gaping black hole.\n","title":"Lost mail","type":"posts"},{"content":"Door een slecht (=niet) gecommuniceerde verandering bij de mailservers van mijn faculteit heb ik de afgelopen 48 uur geen e-mail ontvangen. Ik vond het al zo rustig…\nStuur het maar opnieuw als het belangrijk is.\nUpdate: Opnieuw sturen hoeft niet. De mail is niet zoek, maar was verplaatst naar een onduidelijk plek. Ik heb alles nu binnen en de forwarding weer goed ingesteld.\n","date":"November 19, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-417/","section":"Posts","summary":"Door een slecht (=niet) gecommuniceerde verandering bij de mailservers van mijn faculteit heb ik de afgelopen 48 uur geen e-mail ontvangen. Ik vond het al zo rustig…\n","title":"E-mail zoek","type":"posts"},{"content":"Kort maar interessant stukje over Robert Fisk in Nova afgelopen week.\nRobert Fisk is verslaggever en woont al tientallen jaren in Beiroet. Zijn boeken moet ik nog lezen, maar het schijnt dat hij ontzettend boeiend en goed schrijft over de situatie in het Midden Oosten.\n","date":"November 18, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-416/","section":"Posts","summary":"Kort maar interessant stukje over Robert Fisk in Nova afgelopen week.\n","title":"Pity the Nation","type":"posts"},{"content":"Yippee! Ik heb gisteravond de knop maar omgezet om het hele alper.nl domein op mijn bak thuis te hosten.\nDus nu werkt de URL: http://www.alper.nl/blog/alper eindelijk fatsoenlijk en hoef ik niet meer dingen tussen twee servers heen en weer te shufflen.\nDat gedoe met dat IP-adres in je adresbalk, was ook eigenlijk te belachelijk voor woorden. En dit is ook weer beter (nog beter!?) voor mijn pagerank.\nHet ging verbazingwekkend soepel op wat kloten met directory permissies na. Koekjes zijn nu wel (onvermijdelijk) ongeldig geworden, dus je moet je naam enzo opnieuw intikken in de commentaar velden.\n","date":"November 17, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-415/","section":"Posts","summary":"Yippee! Ik heb gisteravond de knop maar omgezet om het hele alper.nl domein op mijn bak thuis te hosten.\n","title":"A Record","type":"posts"},{"content":"The decision by the UN to hold the WSIS in Tunis almost seems like a deliberate attempt not to be taken seriously by the free world. Holding a summit on internet freedom and participation in a country where Boing Boing reports journalists are being attacked by the authorities, is pretty paradoxical.\nIf that is the UN\u0026rsquo;s idea of freedom, do you want to hand over control over the internet to them?\nNot to mention the UN is also notoriously corrupt.\nI had a previous post on the WSIS with links to opinion pieces and other news bits.\n","date":"November 17, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-47/","section":"Posts","summary":"The decision by the UN to hold the WSIS in Tunis almost seems like a deliberate attempt not to be taken seriously by the free world. Holding a summit on internet freedom and participation in a country where Boing Boing reports journalists are being attacked by the authorities, is pretty paradoxical.\n","title":"Free Summit","type":"posts"},{"content":"I have a problem with our radio broadcasting organization. I have detailed it below in the mail I sent them:\nIk heb sinds kort een Mac met Windows Media Player (beide laatste versie) en ik kan daarmee met geen mogelijkheid de live radio1 stream afspelen.\nDit is bijzonder storend, ik heb hierdoor al ruim een maand geen radio meer kunnen luisteren omdat ik redelijk ben aangewezen op jullie online diensten?\nKunnen jullie kijken of jullie dit kunnen repareren of misschien een ander stream formaat aanbieden? Ik heb tot nu toe nog nooit problemen gehad met de real streams.\nEn als jullie het zouden willen overwegen om in plaats van deze rare formaten iets in de zin van een mp3 stream aan te bieden zouden jullie denk ik nog veel meer mensen blij maken. Ik moet de eerste media speler die dat niet snapt nog tegenkomen.\n(Als ik het dan af kan spelen als radiostation in iTunes zou het helemaal geweldig zijn.)\nIk hoop dat jullie me verder kunnen helpen. Met vriendelijke groet,\nAlper Çugun\nThe nice thing about these guys is that you can send them a thousand of these kinds of mails and they will not bother replying once.\nLet us just hope that it is not because of a closed company culture and a lack of customer focus but because they are too busy working on the Good Stuff.\n","date":"November 17, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-46/","section":"Posts","summary":"I have a problem with our radio broadcasting organization. I have detailed it below in the mail I sent them:\n","title":"Shouting at a Deaf Dude","type":"posts"},{"content":"I am completely into the literature. Made some major additions to the literature list today (see the changelog) and printed out about a kilo\u0026rsquo;s worth.\n","date":"November 16, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-studies-385/","section":"Posts","summary":"I am completely into the literature. Made some major additions to the literature list today (see the changelog) and printed out about a kilo’s worth.\n","title":"Literature","type":"posts"},{"content":"I am this close to throwing the steaming piece of shit browser Safari out of the window. I would have long ago, but it is so damn sexy.\nYou know she\u0026rsquo;s bad for you, but you just keep coming back.\nI had three or four Safari crashes today. “Safari crashed unexpectedly”. Yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s always when you least expect it, just like the Spanish Inquisition.\nAnd then it asks if I want to Reopen it. Yeah, I want to Reopen it, with al the bleedin\u0026rsquo; tabs I had open when the damn piece of shit crashed!\nSorry, had to get that off my chest.\n","date":"November 16, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-45/","section":"Posts","summary":"I am this close to throwing the steaming piece of shit browser Safari out of the window. I would have long ago, but it is so damn sexy.\n","title":"Killing me softly","type":"posts"},{"content":"Het is donker, ontzettend koud en het regent. Ik ben nat en fiets keihard door de TU-wijk naar het Cultureel Centrum; woensdagavond Capoeira les. Het is druk op de weg, overal fietsen mensen letterlijk en figuurlijk als debielen.\nBij de parkeerplaats van Elektro komt er iemand in een BX de uitrit uit. Ik fiets erlangs maar ik denk dat ze me niet gezien heeft. Het is pikkedonker, guur en ik heb geen licht.\nIk krijg gelijk.\nZe raakt mijn fiets frontaal (mij niet). Ik schuif een halve meter op, fiets door en kijk terug. Mij is niets gebeurd en zij is vast geschrokken. Ik fiets keihard verder, anders kom ik te laat.\nZij had beter uit kunnen kijken, maar ik had haar daarbij kunnen helpen. Misschien moet ik toch maar lichten opdoen. Ík kan wel fietsen, maar ik vertrouw de rest hier voor geen meter.\n","date":"November 16, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-414/","section":"Posts","summary":"Het is donker, ontzettend koud en het regent. Ik ben nat en fiets keihard door de TU-wijk naar het Cultureel Centrum; woensdagavond Capoeira les. Het is druk op de weg, overal fietsen mensen letterlijk en figuurlijk als debielen.\n","title":"Dikke Mazzel","type":"posts"},{"content":"Kazachstan is cool. Getuige Borat. Simpele linkdump van Sargasso, volg de daar genoemde links.\n","date":"November 16, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-413/","section":"Posts","summary":"Kazachstan is cool. Getuige Borat. Simpele linkdump van Sargasso, volg de daar genoemde links.\n","title":"Kazachstan","type":"posts"},{"content":"Nice presentation on how to get money and chicks by programming Python by Andy Smith\n","date":"November 16, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-44/","section":"Posts","summary":"Nice presentation on how to get money and chicks by programming Python by Andy Smith\n","title":"Hot Python","type":"posts"},{"content":"Deze Turkse EU-vlag is geweldig.\n","date":"November 16, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-412/","section":"Posts","summary":"Deze Turkse EU-vlag is geweldig.\n","title":"Halve Maan en Sterren","type":"posts"},{"content":"Just finished reading “Persuasive Technology” by Fogg. I dumped my notes on the wiki page.\nFirst impression is that it is a very interesting topic but this book is a shallow entry level guide into the field of captology.\nI have worked out my notes into somewhat coherent ramblings about the book. As I said a good foundation of basic concepts any interaction engineer should be aware of but nothing extremely new or noteworthy.\n","date":"November 15, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-studies-384/","section":"Posts","summary":"Just finished reading “Persuasive Technology” by Fogg. I dumped my notes on the wiki page.\n","title":"Persuasion","type":"posts"},{"content":"My flatmate is having troubles with his kUbuntu installation. It would be too easy right now to laugh at him from behind the iBook.\n","date":"November 14, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-43/","section":"Posts","summary":"My flatmate is having troubles with his kUbuntu installation. It would be too easy right now to laugh at him from behind the iBook.\n","title":"Glee","type":"posts"},{"content":"Had bij Groenteman al gehoord over het trein-incident van de meisjes van Halal. Daarom en omdat het onderwerp me een beetje interesseert, heb ik maar wat teruggekeken. Het staat niet op UitzendingGemist maar op hun eigen site.\nHet treinincident is te zien in de laatste aflevering in de laatste minuten (directe link).\nDit is natuurlijk belachelijk maar je komt wel meer gekken tegen in de trein. In deze tijd van non-beschaving is het gekkenwerk (om niet te zeggen ronduit gevaarlijk) om overal op in te gaan.\nHet programma zelf was voor de meisjes vast erg leuk om te maken maar wat mij betreft een flop. Blije feel good televisie waarin de meisjes kunnen laten zien dat niet alle vrouwen met een hoofddoek achterlijk zijn (maar sommigen wel erg snel uit hun tent gelokt).\nHet informatieve gedeelte is nog wel aardig, maar in wat voor dialoog of discussie door moet gaan ontbreekt elke vraag die ook maar een beetje als kritisch opgevat zou kunnen worden zowel van de kant van de meisjes als van de mensen waar ze mee aan het praten zijn (ik weet er wel honderd te verzinnen). Ik krijg een beetje het gevoel dat ze angstig om de hete brij heen aan het dansen zijn. Bang voor elke vorm van confrontatie. Geloof is normaal gesproken ook een persoonlijke kwestie maar als zij dat op deze manier gaan uitdragen, dan vind ik dat ze ook wel een bèètje tegenwind mogen krijgen.\nTijd en aandacht zijn schaars en er zijn betere televisie programma\u0026rsquo;s.\nTegenlicht had pas twee hele goede documentaires waar de vrouwen juist uit hun hoofddoek naar vrijheid en gelijke rechten toe emanciperen Femmes Fatales in Marokko en Arabische vrouwen aan de top in Saudi-Arabië.\nEn Woestijnruiters weet me zelfs zonder interessante gasten te boeien met goed interview-werk en wèl kritische vragen.\n","date":"November 14, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-411/","section":"Posts","summary":"Had bij Groenteman al gehoord over het trein-incident van de meisjes van Halal. Daarom en omdat het onderwerp me een beetje interesseert, heb ik maar wat teruggekeken. Het staat niet op UitzendingGemist maar op hun eigen site.\n","title":"Halal","type":"posts"},{"content":"Scheiße! Mijn nieuwe favoriete band Wir Sind Helden trad twee weken geleden op in de Melkweg zonder dat ik het wist!\n","date":"November 14, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-410/","section":"Posts","summary":"Scheiße! Mijn nieuwe favoriete band Wir Sind Helden trad twee weken geleden op in de Melkweg zonder dat ik het wist!\n","title":"Held","type":"posts"},{"content":"While we are talking about language upgrades, here are Graham Hamilton\u0026rsquo;s best dead boilerplate from Java Tiger.\nThese are all clear wins and in most cases it is not really clear why the previous versions have ever existed at all.\n","date":"November 14, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-42/","section":"Posts","summary":"While we are talking about language upgrades, here are Graham Hamilton’s best dead boilerplate from Java Tiger.\n","title":"Best kind of boilerplate","type":"posts"},{"content":"Jaren geleden al zoiets verzonnen, toen meer als ethisch gedachtenexperiment. Met de huidige stand van de technologie zijn de meeste van dat soort dingen mogelijk. Een site ‘Map Sex Offenders’ waarop ze aan Google Maps informatie over zedendelinquenten hebben toegevoegd (via Digg)[^1].\nZo ontzettend jammer dat Google Maps zich niet uitstrekt tot Nederland. De ‘leuke’ dingen die je daarmee kunt doen (getuige boven)…\n[^1] Digg: een leuke nieuwe site die een beetje een mashup is van slashdot, kuro5hin en del.icio.us/popular.\n","date":"November 13, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-409/","section":"Posts","summary":"Jaren geleden al zoiets verzonnen, toen meer als ethisch gedachtenexperiment. Met de huidige stand van de technologie zijn de meeste van dat soort dingen mogelijk. Een site ‘Map Sex Offenders’ waarop ze aan Google Maps informatie over zedendelinquenten hebben toegevoegd (via Digg)[^1].\n","title":"Offenders","type":"posts"},{"content":"Interessante bespiegelingen bij Marbel over de rellen.\n","date":"November 13, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-408/","section":"Posts","summary":"Interessante bespiegelingen bij Marbel over de rellen.\n","title":"Rellen","type":"posts"},{"content":"I have been meaning to try out Django (=Python on Rails) for a while now and yesterday I finally managed to do and complete the tutorial. I totally love it!\nGetting an environment up and running was not a completely smooth experience. Development on the Mac is more difficult than it is on Debian. I wanted to have a full working environment on my iBook so I can play with Django when I am offline.\nChecking out Django and staying up to date is a cinch with subclipse. You symlink a the trunk checkout into your python site-packages and you are set to go.\nThen I wanted to spare myself the installation of mysql or postgresql so I opted to run it on sqlite3. A solid file based database which you get with OS X. But to use that I needed to build pysqlite, because they do not have OS X packages.\nI could find some pre-built packages lying around on the internet but they were massively outdated (as were the packages in darwinports).\nBuilding pysqlite is very easy —distutils takes care of that — but it does require a C compiler environment present. That is something you do not get out of the box with OS X. So I was off to the Apple developer site, getting an account there and downloading an 800MB (!) Xcode package. From this package I think I installed over a gigabyte of stuff and then finally I could do:\npython setup.py build\nwithout errors. Django got along fine with the resulting pysqlite package.\nRunning Django is easier if you set the PYTHONPATH to appropriate values and export some environment variables. I was never good at that stuff, but I absolutely stink at it on OS X.\nI worked around it by doing a\nsys.path.append('PATH')\nhack somewhere in Django code and I pass\n--settings=alperdjango.settings\nto django-admin.py every time.\nCompared to Debian, setting up development stuff and installing libraries is something of a disappointment on OS X. This is partly due to my lack of knowledeg about the system and its policies but not having apt-get is also a big part of it.\n","date":"November 13, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-41/","section":"Posts","summary":"I have been meaning to try out Django (=Python on Rails) for a while now and yesterday I finally managed to do and complete the tutorial. I totally love it!\n","title":"Django Rocks","type":"posts"},{"content":"Bizar en onthullend portret van modernisering en de positie van de vrouw in de Saoudi-Arabische samenleving in Tegenlicht: Saoudische Oplossingen.\nEn het tweede deel vanavond lijkt nog veel veel bizarder te gaan worden. Dat gaat over de schatrijke Prins Alaweed Bin Talal Alsaud die eigenhandig de Saoudische samenleving probeert te moderniseren.\n","date":"November 13, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-407/","section":"Posts","summary":"Bizar en onthullend portret van modernisering en de positie van de vrouw in de Saoudi-Arabische samenleving in Tegenlicht: Saoudische Oplossingen.\n","title":"Saoud","type":"posts"},{"content":"Managing a home network on a shoe string budget is not easy. I am simply glad if most of the time our crappy old computer here keeps routing the internet. The hardware borking up the Debian install tends to happen from time to time. Then it is usually a frantic search for the last Sarge installer which was lying somewhere last week but now is hopelessly lost and reinstalling everything.\nHosting my blog and wiki on this crummy server is not a recipe for less stress. The blog was down shortly tonight, because I tried to install a wireless card in the server. My iBook is currently tethered to one of two places in the house and I want that to end.\nHaving the WiFi card in the pc was a very short exercise. It will not boot with the card plugged in. So there go my wireless dreams for the foreseeable future. Anybody know base stations which are cheaper than Apple\u0026rsquo;s Airports?\n","date":"November 12, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-40/","section":"Posts","summary":"Managing a home network on a shoe string budget is not easy. I am simply glad if most of the time our crappy old computer here keeps routing the internet. The hardware borking up the Debian install tends to happen from time to time. Then it is usually a frantic search for the last Sarge installer which was lying somewhere last week but now is hopelessly lost and reinstalling everything.\n","title":"Crappy Hardware","type":"posts"},{"content":"High profile security vulnerabilities led to the Greasemonkey\u0026rsquo;s disappearance some time ago. It appears that it is now back from the dead.\nThis article by Mark Pilgrim lists the ways in which it was vulnerable and what they did to make it safe again. It comes down to mainly wrap everything Greasemonkey does in XPCNativeWrappers to get untampered access to page elemets. A disadvantage is that it makes Greasemonkey scripts even harder to write.\nMust read for anybody interested in Javascript security.\n","date":"November 12, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-39/","section":"Posts","summary":"High profile security vulnerabilities led to the Greasemonkey’s disappearance some time ago. It appears that it is now back from the dead.\n","title":"Monkey Lives","type":"posts"},{"content":"Niet dit weekend, maar volgend weekend is er weer het Crossing Border festival in Den Haag. Erg leuk met voor ieder wat wils (via).\n","date":"November 12, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-406/","section":"Posts","summary":"Niet dit weekend, maar volgend weekend is er weer het Crossing Border festival in Den Haag. Erg leuk met voor ieder wat wils (via).\n","title":"Grenzeloos","type":"posts"},{"content":"The amount of new features in C# 3.0 is vast. This score card is not completely positive about all of them. Additions to a programming language should be extremely well thought out and absolutely necessary.\nThough I like C# and I think some of the new features are dead sexy, I am seeing that they expand the language surface a great deal.\nIt just is more to learn. That and recent news that there is a shortage in C# programmers will probably combine to drive up the price of C# sharp programmers and to slow adoption.\n","date":"November 12, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-38/","section":"Posts","summary":"The amount of new features in C# 3.0 is vast. This score card is not completely positive about all of them. Additions to a programming language should be extremely well thought out and absolutely necessary.\n","title":"C# 3.0","type":"posts"},{"content":"Groen Links kwam gisteren met het manifest Vrijhed Eerlijk Delen. Er staan heel veel verstandige en goede dingen in waar ik me erg in kan vinden. Ik wist niet dat er bij GroenLinks zulke slimme mensen actief waren.\nIk heb wel wat punten waar ik mijn bedenkingen bij heb en het hele nivelleren hoeft wat mij betreft niet zo heel erg maar zeker een aanrader.\n","date":"November 12, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-405/","section":"Posts","summary":"Groen Links kwam gisteren met het manifest Vrijhed Eerlijk Delen. Er staan heel veel verstandige en goede dingen in waar ik me erg in kan vinden. Ik wist niet dat er bij GroenLinks zulke slimme mensen actief waren.\n","title":"Eerlijk Delen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Als je van Parijs en/of heel erg hard rijden houdt, moet je even het volgende filmpje bekijken: Vroem in Parijs. Gekkenwerk.\n","date":"November 12, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-404/","section":"Posts","summary":"Als je van Parijs en/of heel erg hard rijden houdt, moet je even het volgende filmpje bekijken: Vroem in Parijs. Gekkenwerk.\n","title":"Vroem","type":"posts"},{"content":"I wanted to install the Explorer Destroyer to Kill Bill\u0026rsquo;s Browser and to make an extra buck on the side, but it seems that as of yet international AdSense customers cannot participate in the referral program.\nPity.\n","date":"November 12, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-37/","section":"Posts","summary":"I wanted to install the Explorer Destroyer to Kill Bill’s Browser and to make an extra buck on the side, but it seems that as of yet international AdSense customers cannot participate in the referral program.\n","title":"Take Back the Web, With a Vengeance","type":"posts"},{"content":"I just had a meeting with two Australian researchers who were visiting my teacher Jeroen van den Hoven.\nOne of the researchers Yeslam Al-Saggaf has done a research assignment for his Ph.D. that has a great similarity to my research questions. An important detail is that he has doen that research specifically in Saudi Arabic culture and how the internet affects personal relationships there.\nHe is currently busy researching political communities and new sites in the Arab world. This is a very interesting and important subject as there exists a lot of confusion and misinformation in the western world about Arabic culture. I am looking forward to reading his results.\n","date":"November 9, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-studies-383/","section":"Posts","summary":"I just had a meeting with two Australian researchers who were visiting my teacher Jeroen van den Hoven.\n","title":"Australians","type":"posts"},{"content":"Interessant item in Nova met de relschoppers uit Parijs. Interessante onthulling: het blijkt dat ze ook internet en blogs gebruiken om contact met elkaar te krijgen.\n","date":"November 8, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-403/","section":"Posts","summary":"Interessant item in Nova met de relschoppers uit Parijs. Interessante onthulling: het blijkt dat ze ook internet en blogs gebruiken om contact met elkaar te krijgen.\n","title":"Relblogs","type":"posts"},{"content":"As mentioned before there was a social drink after the Adaptive Path workshop in Amsterdam yesterday. It was great.\nThere were a lot of people from the Amsterdam User Interaction scene present, who had either attended the workshop or had friends or colleagues who had. It was pretty crowded upstairs at the Cantina and the atmosphere was very positive.\nI have already attended a meeting from the webstandards people and it\u0026rsquo;s good to see the UI people have similar meetings.\nJesse James Garrett was present wearing an AJAX shirt. I talked to him briefly and to lots of other people. It\u0026rsquo;s nice to be able to talk to people about Flickr or Delicious without having to explain all of the basic concepts.\nThere were some people present from Info.nl. They have a group blog on which I comment sometimes and the photograph on Kars\u0026rsquo;s Flickr stream prompted me to attend today. Coincidentally at Info.nl they use software from the company I work for: Topdesk.\nI also talked to Jasper and Taco from Medialab who have a search application that looks pretty flashy and to Tjeerd from User Intelligence who is also involved in SigChi. We thought it strange that I had never heard of SigChi\u0026rsquo;s activities and that SigChi has no real base in Delft. We might change that.\n","date":"November 8, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-36/","section":"Posts","summary":"As mentioned before there was a social drink after the Adaptive Path workshop in Amsterdam yesterday. It was great.\n","title":"Adaptive Amsterdam (2)","type":"posts"},{"content":"De dag begint pas echt goed als ik The Daily Show en The Colbert Report heb getorrent en gekeken. \u0026rsquo;s Ochtends lachen is een goede start.\nVandaag bij Jon Stewart een geweldige behandeling van de rellen in Frankrijk:\nFrance\u0026rsquo;s decision not to go to war in Iraq suddenly made a whole lot more sense. Why go all the way to Iraq when you can fight muslims in your own suburbs?\nKijken! Het hele stuk is goed en daarna ook nog een aardig interview met Democratische superster Barack Obama.\n","date":"November 8, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-402/","section":"Posts","summary":"De dag begint pas echt goed als ik The Daily Show en The Colbert Report heb getorrent en gekeken. ’s Ochtends lachen is een goede start.\n","title":"Dagelijkse Kost","type":"posts"},{"content":"Net een overleg (meer dus op mijn studie-blog) gehad met mijn beide afstudeerdocenten en het kader en het eerste verloop voor mijn afstuderen overlegd.\nIk ben dus begonnen!\nDat is dus stap 1 en voelt wel goed. Nu nog stap 2, het afmaken.\n","date":"November 7, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-401/","section":"Posts","summary":"Net een overleg (meer dus op mijn studie-blog) gehad met mijn beide afstudeerdocenten en het kader en het eerste verloop voor mijn afstuderen overlegd.\n","title":"And so it begins…","type":"posts"},{"content":"Interesting article on Wired about if video games can provoke emotions in players beyond simple victory and frustration. To see if people get carried away so totally into a game that they make personal connections with a character.\nThe question is:\n‘Did a videogame ever make you cry?’\nThe killing of Aerith in Final Fantasy VII is named as a pivotal moment in video game history with regards to emotional weight. I cannot find an image or movie of that scene. If anybody can, I woul be very interested to see it.\nA similar question was posed concerning the medium of photography last week in De Wereld Draait Door. Erwin Olaf was present Friday and they showed some fragments of his new movie work.\nOne of the reasons he gave for moving on to the more complicated discipline of movies was that movies have a greater capacity to touch people on an emotional level. Ask yourself the question have ever cried over a photograph? Over a movie?\nI knew some work by Olaf before and I must say that his movie work had the same feeling about it but was much much more compelling.\nA similar extrapolation can be made from movies to videogames. Videogames are becoming more and more realistic and have the added component of interaction and user identification to provide for a far deeper almost enveloping experience.\n","date":"November 7, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-studies-382/","section":"Posts","summary":"Interesting article on Wired about if video games can provoke emotions in players beyond simple victory and frustration. To see if people get carried away so totally into a game that they make personal connections with a character.\n","title":"Cry me a river","type":"posts"},{"content":"At last we managed to have ourselves the meeting with both of my sponsors to determine the course of action for my Masters.\nWe had a constructive meeting and I now have a clear vision of how I am going to proceed with my Masters. First stage is a quarter of the work (10 weeks) and involves doing a literature study of the topic at hand.\nIt feels good to finally have an official start of this big work of mine. Let\u0026rsquo;s get to work.\n","date":"November 7, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-studies-381/","section":"Posts","summary":"At last we managed to have ourselves the meeting with both of my sponsors to determine the course of action for my Masters.\n","title":"Kick off","type":"posts"},{"content":"Annoying thing about a lot of stuff on OS X is that they block and block a lot. And too often they stay blocked and I have to kill the application.\nDoing so many things well and failing at non-blocking I/O is a bit of a shame.\nSome day-to-day examples.\nSafari — Certain stages of loading a page block the UI and tabs so you are stuck on that tab waiting. Usually these stages do not take too long but given a slow network and slow servers sometimes they do. Another gripe is that when a page is done loading, in certain cases, its tab will get focus to indicate it is finished loading. This is not what tabs are for and I have closed GMail more than once because of this ‘feature’.\nDashboard — Usually after sleeping or after a network outage (which tends to happen when you are mobile) all of the Dashboard Widgets will feel they need to rebalance themselves. This proces takes 5-10 seconds on a reasonably crowded Dashboard and makes it useless for looking up stuff on a whim.\nFire — Network outages and other connect/disconnect events to networks will have Fire block the entire GUI. This means you cannot continue typing chat messages until Fire is done and well. This takes the Instant out of my Instant Messaging.\nFire will also happily show me error messages about failed network connections, probably thinking I give a damn. I do not. I can see perfectly well if a network is not connected. Just keep trying to connect (silently) at reasonable intervals.\nFinder — Connecting to SMB shares, or FTP servers or browsing networks will hang Finder indefinitely in some cases. I know this behaviour, I am used to it in Windows though Windows does it somewhat better. Havin one of the most important pieces of software in the OS hang and crash on a regular basis is not cool.\nI did not know that stuff could be too cool for Apple people. It seems that async-I/O is.\n","date":"November 7, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-35/","section":"Posts","summary":"Annoying thing about a lot of stuff on OS X is that they block and block a lot. And too often they stay blocked and I have to kill the application.\n","title":"Blocking (or","type":"posts"},{"content":"Weinig hoopgevend verhaal in le Figaro “Les fiancées turques de Hamburg” over de integratie van Turken in Duitsland (via Turkish Torque).\nIk ben bang dat het hier niet echt anders is.\n","date":"November 6, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-400/","section":"Posts","summary":"Weinig hoopgevend verhaal in le Figaro “Les fiancées turques de Hamburg” over de integratie van Turken in Duitsland (via Turkish Torque).\n","title":"Importbruiden","type":"posts"},{"content":"XMLGenerator from xml.sax.saxutils is a steaming piece of crap. It is badly documented and it does not work. It does simple XML output just fine, but as soon as things become namespace aware I get Keyerrors which I cannot debug.\nExample:\ngenerator .startElementNS((ATOM_NAMESPACE, u\u0026#39;feed\u0026#39;), u\u0026#39;feed\u0026#39;, AttributesNSImpl()) Luckily I have stumbled upon JAXML which looks a lot friendlier to use.\n","date":"November 5, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-34/","section":"Posts","summary":"XMLGenerator from xml.sax.saxutils is a steaming piece of crap. It is badly documented and it does not work. It does simple XML output just fine, but as soon as things become namespace aware I get Keyerrors which I cannot debug.\n","title":"XML Generator","type":"posts"},{"content":"Morgen is Minister Pechtold te gast in Buitenhof. Hij is de laatste tijd vanuit het kabinet lekker bezig te boel te fucken. De boel fucken is goed, zeker in Den Haag. Ik zou het leuker vinden als hij niet zo makkelijk zou terugkrabbelen, maar als dat moet dan moet het.\nLaat hij in ieder geval hard doorgaan met wat hij nu aan het doen is: de boel fucken. Peter van Ingen presenteert morgen. Ik zou er wat voor over hebben als Pechtold hem tot zijn Biatch! zou maken.\n","date":"November 5, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-399/","section":"Posts","summary":"Morgen is Minister Pechtold te gast in Buitenhof. Hij is de laatste tijd vanuit het kabinet lekker bezig te boel te fucken. De boel fucken is goed, zeker in Den Haag. Ik zou het leuker vinden als hij niet zo makkelijk zou terugkrabbelen, maar als dat moet dan moet het.\n","title":"Pimp-Pechtold!","type":"posts"},{"content":"Kenneth is pissed en ik ook. Ik raak meestal pissed als ik zie wat voor achterlijke ideeën en plannen de overheid heeft over computers. Maar pissed blijven is moeilijk en nutteloos, je kunt beter iets doen.\nMaar wat kun je doen? Je kunt de petitie tekenen, maar dat voelt aan als zo weinig. Verder kun je politieke partijen waarvan je denkt dat ze je standpunt zouden moeten behartigen spammen. Misschien luisteren ze, misschien zijn ze voor rede vatbaar…\nPolitieke partijen zijn tegenwoordig redelijk goed toegankelijk via het internet. GroenLinks, de PvdA, D'66 en de SP hebben allemaal web formulieren waarmee je iets naar ze toe kan sturen. Ik heb ze zojuist per partij gelinked. Partijen aan de rechterkant van het spectrum daar doe ik geen moeite voor, die zijn toch hopeloos.\nWat schrijf je dan? Ik schrijf het volgende. Neem het alstjeblieft niet letterlijk over maar gebruik het als inspiratie om te verwoorden wat jíj vindt.\nHallo,\nIk (en met mij vele anderen) heb een groot probleem met Stichting de Thuiskopie. Deze ondemocratische intransparante organisatie gaat het voor elkaar krijgen dat er op datadragers (MP3 spelers e.d.) een door hen bepaalde heffing betaald moet worden. Dit is belachelijk en onrechtmatig.\nDeze heffing gaat er vanuit dat alle muziek illegaal verkregen is. De mensen die hun muziek legaal verkrijgen moeten dus dubbel betalen. En of het geld verder komt dan de diepe zakken van de directie van bovengenoemde stichting is ook nog maar de vraag. Inzage in het reilen en zeilen van deze stichting is tot op de dag van vandaag onmogelijk gebleken.\nAuteursrechten in Nederland zijn al overgereguleerd in een woud van verschillende semi-zelfstandige stichtingen. Deze heffing voegt niks toe behalve meer heffingen en stimuleert het importeren van datadragende elektronica uit het buitenland.\nVoor referenties over deze heffing, de verontwaardigin en diepergaande argumentatie waarom het een slecht idee is verwijs ik u naar de volgende twee pagina\u0026rsquo;s:\nKenneth Verburg: Kopieerheffing komt er ook nog\nKenneth Verburg: Chagrijnig\nZoals ik al zei opereert Stichting de Thuiskopie ondemocratisch, eenzijdig en intransparant. Deze stichting is ingesteld door de overheid en ik hoop dat de overheid in de vorm van uw partij ze wellicht een halt kan toeroepen en kan dwingen verantwoording af te leggen.\nMet vriendelijke groet,\nAlper Çugun\nICT/Web Professional\n","date":"November 5, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-398/","section":"Posts","summary":"Kenneth is pissed en ik ook. Ik raak meestal pissed als ik zie wat voor achterlijke ideeën en plannen de overheid heeft over computers. Maar pissed blijven is moeilijk en nutteloos, je kunt beter iets doen.\n","title":"Actie Thuiskopie","type":"posts"},{"content":"This article on xMax technology gives us nice perspectives for the wireless future.\n","date":"November 5, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-33/","section":"Posts","summary":"This article on xMax technology gives us nice perspectives for the wireless future.\n","title":"Wireless","type":"posts"},{"content":"A very ill-conceived shootout between Java and C# giving fuel to stupid inflammatory discussions about both platforms.\nThe paltry benchmarks performed might prove that the .NET platform is faster than Java but the speed is usually only the absolutely most trivial part for language choice. Fast enough is fast enough and there are lots of other more important factors for adoption of a language.\nMost of these factors are soft and cannot be easily graphed in Excel. Meaning they are too subtle for a quick score article like I linked above.\n","date":"November 5, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-32/","section":"Posts","summary":"A very ill-conceived shootout between Java and C# giving fuel to stupid inflammatory discussions about both platforms.\n","title":"Faster, Stronger, Better","type":"posts"},{"content":"I attended an interesting symposium in the Museum for Communication in the Hague this afternoon. It was called \u0026lsquo;Fill the Gap: towards an inclusive information society\u0026rsquo; and was to be about the upcoming World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis about the Information Society and how ICT affects developing countries.\nThe whole day and especially the information market had a strong focus on developing countries but the speakers approached this subject from a wide variety of perspectives.\nCivil Liberties vs. Terrorism: First speaker was Gus Hosein who could not attend the conference because the Canadian government would not renew his passport. He had spent the previous night in his London office making a video presentation to present the issues he wanted to discuss.\nHe briefly introduced this video over the telephone and then we spent the following half hour watching him orate about online civil liberties and how they are being encroached upon by governments all over the world in the name of the fight against terrorism.\nHe gave a lot of examples of how things are headed the wrong way.\nA main point in his talk were that civil liberties are not relative values but they are absolute rights. Another important point was that it is somewhat understandable that China does not respect civil liberties because they have never had them and do not have a tradition of freedom. That makes it all the more reprehensible that the Free West could knowingly throw its hard earned liberties out the window in the face of relatively minor adversity.\nBy not simply admitting defeat but using digital video to get the message out anyway, this was a great example of how ICT can enable dialogue. It was a shame they did not get Hosein back on the telephone (or Skype AV) for an interactive session with the audience.\nIntellectual Property and Development: The second speaker Willem Grosheide was also not present due to a conflict of schedules or a communications mishap or something. He did his talk live over the telephone which went quite ok.\nMost salient thing he told was that the Netherlands itself used a lack of intellectual property (or patent) law to foster its economic growth by copying the industries of Germany and the UK. Only after the Netherlands had grown economically so it could innovate itself, did they deem intellectual property protection necessary and instituted it.\nThird world countries should currently be in a similar lawless state to enable them to catch up with the West. Copying Windows and manufacturing AIDS medicine without paying IP fees would greatly help them bootstrap their economies. However most of them have been forced to sign a WTO trade agreement with a clause about IP that prohibits piracy. This forces them to play by the same rules as the West, pay fees they cannot afford to companies who already have lots and lots of money.\nFre for all: After this we had a free session at the information market where there were some people discussing the topic of freedom of speech on the internet.\nThis discussion was aimless and if they had not stuck to this topic so rigidly it could have been much more interesting. There was one guy (Zoran Djukanovic) who had been to Iraq and Armenia to give ICT advice. I thought he could have much more interesting things to say than to comment on the topic of freedom of speech in a Dutch context.\nMost people (myself included) preferred to talk to people while drinking coffee. I talked a bit with various representatives on the information market about their topics. This was mostly about development in third world countries using ICT.\nInclusive Information Society: After the break we had a panel discussion with three people: Edith Mastenbroek (former Xs44all employee and staunch defender of digital liberty), Hans Franken (senator for the CDA and dissonant intelligent voice within that party concering digital law, he is in favour of not intsituting a massive bewaarplicht in the EU) and Paul Maassen (someone from HIVOS).\nBecause these were all \u0026lsquo;good guys\u0026rsquo; there was no heavy discussion but the conversation was really interesting and informative. They discussed the issues of internet access, e-government, public access to scientific research, civil liberties restrictions in the free West and more.\n","date":"November 4, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-studies-380/","section":"Posts","summary":"I attended an interesting symposium in the Museum for Communication in the Hague this afternoon. It was called ‘Fill the Gap: towards an inclusive information society’ and was to be about the upcoming World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis about the Information Society and how ICT affects developing countries.\n","title":"Fill the Gap!","type":"posts"},{"content":"Nat writes about a speedup of OOo startup times. So this means that it starts up in half a century?\nOn the Mac we do not get real versions of Open Office, though they have been promised. On the site you can choose between an Advanced 2.0 build or a NeoOffice/J version.\nThe advanced 2.0 version still uses Xwindows which probably is not good. I think I tried this but did not get it to work. I now have the NeoOffice version but I cringe everytime I have to start it. It takes ages and ages before it opens a simple spreadsheet and operation is unbearably slow.\nThis is a bit of a shame. I do get a free license for MS Office from the university maybe I should use that.\n","date":"November 4, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-31/","section":"Posts","summary":"Nat writes about a speedup of OOo startup times. So this means that it starts up in half a century?\n","title":"Slow Office","type":"posts"},{"content":"I have an updated course list online for this final year of mine doing courses at our fine university.\nI have a pretty clear strategy how I am going to get each of those courses that are still missing. It should not be such a big deal.\nThe only problem currently is that I do not have the course list I handed in to the exam committee. They should have given me back a copy, and I should have given a copy to Mr. van der Mast.\nI\u0026rsquo;ll hunt that down this week.\n","date":"November 1, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-studies-379/","section":"Posts","summary":"I have an updated course list online for this final year of mine doing courses at our fine university.\n","title":"Course List","type":"posts"},{"content":"I finally have another appointment with my Masters coordinators. Planning an appointment with three people two of which are extremely busy is not an easy feat.\nThis time it is Monday, November 7th from 14:00-15:00. Let\u0026rsquo;s hope it sticks.\n","date":"November 1, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-studies-378/","section":"Posts","summary":"I finally have another appointment with my Masters coordinators. Planning an appointment with three people two of which are extremely busy is not an easy feat.\n","title":"Finally","type":"posts"},{"content":"Erg fijn stuk over David Cronenberg in de NYT (via). Wel jammer dat ik nauwelijks films van hem gezien heb (eXistenZ is volgens mij de enige), maar ik denk dat dat komt door mijn slechte maag voor horror en ranzigheid.\n","date":"November 1, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-397/","section":"Posts","summary":"Erg fijn stuk over David Cronenberg in de NYT (via). Wel jammer dat ik nauwelijks films van hem gezien heb (eXistenZ is volgens mij de enige), maar ik denk dat dat komt door mijn slechte maag voor horror en ranzigheid.\n","title":"Cronenberg","type":"posts"},{"content":"Even more networking: this thime it is from the guys from Holland Open who are having a networking event.\nI probably will not attend due to lack of time (tomorrow) and transportation (Amstelveen is a pretty desolate suburb) but it might be interesting.\n","date":"November 1, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-30/","section":"Posts","summary":"Even more networking: this thime it is from the guys from Holland Open who are having a networking event.\n","title":"Holland Open","type":"posts"},{"content":"I already knew Jesse James Garrett from Adaptive Path was coming to Amsterdam to give a workshop. For a student like me these kind of things have too high price cards attached, but in the recent newsletter there is also the announcement of an open cocktail drink afterwards.\nIn Amsterdam, on November 7, we will be at Rose\u0026rsquo;s Cantina, Reguliersdwarsstraat 38-40, 1017 BM, Amsterdam, from 5:30 p.m.-7:30 p.m.\n","date":"November 1, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-29/","section":"Posts","summary":"I already knew Jesse James Garrett from Adaptive Path was coming to Amsterdam to give a workshop. For a student like me these kind of things have too high price cards attached, but in the recent newsletter there is also the announcement of an open cocktail drink afterwards.\n","title":"Adaptive Amsterdam","type":"posts"},{"content":"Last night I have been discussing with Renier about our happy Mac situation:\nthe respective differences between iBooks and Powerbooks The differences are negligible. I upgraded my VGA-output to support extending mode (use the Screen Spanning Doctor) instead of solely mirroring and I am quite content.\nAirport cards with monitor mode enabled (like they have on Powerbooks) would have been nice though. The KisMAC project promises active opening of WiFi points. Closed WiFi is a big frustration if you walk around a bit and feel a need to get online.\nthe recent Tiger update Nice though pretty minor stuff in the recent Tiger update. Looking ahead, the next version (10.5, Leopard) of OS X is planned for end of 2006 so we\u0026rsquo;ll be stuck with this one for a while (not that I am complaining).\nthe Intel transition I found an authoritative Macintel Q\u0026amp;A with all the answers I need about the Intel transition. Shortly said, there is no need to wait buying Mac hardware, now (six months before the transition) may even be the best time ever to buy it rather than to wait a couple more months. After transition the old hardware will be supported for several more years, so that covers the complete lifecycle of my iBook.\nNot that this iBook is going to see its end of life anyway. I think I am going to use this iBook like crazy for one and a half or two years and then switch to an Intel Powerbook with lots of juice.\nthe ridiculously expensive Airport basestations Apple sells a couple of base stations, but most of them are both too expensive and overfeatured for what I am planning to do with them. I will have to find a slightly cheaper solution to break my wires at home.\nSummarizing: I am a very happy switcher to Apple. And it is a clear testament that more choice (cough… Linux) is not necessarily something good. People do not want choice, people want the Good Stuff™.\nYou can compare it to the Dutch energy market liberalizations. People (me included) do not want to choose. Do not make me think!\n","date":"November 1, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-28/","section":"Posts","summary":"Last night I have been discussing with Renier about our happy Mac situation:\n","title":"Mac-daddys","type":"posts"},{"content":"It\u0026rsquo;s nice to see more dynamism in the web application sphere championed by smart people.\nI would love for serious web applications to move away from their sole focus on Java to more fun and free languages such as Python or Ruby. I am not the only person thinking programming should and could be fun, am I?\n","date":"November 1, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-27/","section":"Posts","summary":"It’s nice to see more dynamism in the web application sphere championed by smart people.\n","title":"Beyond Java","type":"posts"},{"content":"This Dashboard Widget is indeed one of the more important ones out there (from Havoc Pennington).\nGet it! Do it!\n","date":"November 1, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-26/","section":"Posts","summary":"This Dashboard Widget is indeed one of the more important ones out there (from Havoc Pennington).\n","title":"Do It!","type":"posts"},{"content":"Over at the BBC they are doing really really interesting stuff (of which I hope our broadcasting corporations would take serious note).\nOne of them is the BBC program catalogue which they are turning into a public website. Just couple this resource to direct streaming downloadability and you have an incredibly valuable archive of cultural heritage.\nThe whole thing is built in Rails and they are going to talk about it during the London Web Frameworks Night which I would love to attend.\nAnother cool one is the Annotatable Audio Project. Anotating stuff is cool, and this would really help us deal with the huge reams of podcasting that is springing into existance. Metadata, annotating and tagging really is key to making sense of that (or any) jungle.\n","date":"October 31, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-25/","section":"Posts","summary":"Over at the BBC they are doing really really interesting stuff (of which I hope our broadcasting corporations would take serious note).\n","title":"Beeb Beeb","type":"posts"},{"content":"A pretty light video at Javalobby (login required) of Knut Risvik telling about the Google infrastructure and how they use Java for a lot of their stuff. A good watch if you do not already know stuff about GFS and MapReduce, if you do there is not much news in there.\nAbout their Java use: Adwords and GMail use a lot of Java, they use lots of JNI to talk to the low level Google systems, they are friendly with Sun and they employ a lot of very high profile Java people.\n","date":"October 31, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-24/","section":"Posts","summary":"A pretty light video at Javalobby (login required) of Knut Risvik telling about the Google infrastructure and how they use Java for a lot of their stuff. A good watch if you do not already know stuff about GFS and MapReduce, if you do there is not much news in there.\n","title":"Java Google","type":"posts"},{"content":"Geen televisie hebben is het helemaal. Gewoon met Bittorrent dingen die hier toch nooit op tv komen binnenhalen.\nWas The Daily Show al lange tijd een van de weinige dingen op tv die de moeite waard zijn. Nu is er de spinoff: The Colbert Report (/koʊlbɛɹ ɹəpɔɹ/ zie Wikipagina). Belangrijk! Let op de Franse uitspraak.\nHet format is iets beperkter dan dat van The Daily Show maar wat ze missen in breedte en ervaring maakt Colbert persoonlijk meer dan goed in de vorm van ****Balls!.\nAls je er maar eentje kijkt kijk dan The Daily Show, maar waar het programma het meerendeel van zijn kijkers vandaan haalt is mensen die blijven hangen. Dus als je dan toch aan het hangen bent kun je net zo goed The Report meepakken. Het zijn allebei vrij korte programma\u0026rsquo;s.\nVia Amerikalog (waar het per abuis The Colbert Factor wordt genoemd) ook nog een fragmentje gelinked dat wel erg leuk is.\nWat zegt het over een land als een comedykanaal de beste actualiteitenprogramma\u0026rsquo;s verzorgt? En kan hetzelfde in Nederland?\n","date":"October 31, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-396/","section":"Posts","summary":"Geen televisie hebben is het helemaal. Gewoon met Bittorrent dingen die hier toch nooit op tv komen binnenhalen.\n","title":"The Report","type":"posts"},{"content":"Elke keer als je een blanco CD koopt dan betaal je een heffing omdat de overheid ervan uit gaat dat je illegale dingen met die CD gaat doen. Je bent bij voorbaat al schuldig. Een vergelijkbare heffing wil men nu ook gaan invoeren op draagbare muziekspelers en andere datadragers.\nDit begint ondertussen een beetje belachelijk te worden. De heffingen zijn grotesk en intransparant en daarnaast is het nooit een goed idee om de overheid failliete business-modellen te laten ondersteunen.\nJe kunt er nu wat tegen zeggen. Laat je stem horen op www.wegmetdestichting.nl.\n","date":"October 28, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-395/","section":"Posts","summary":"Elke keer als je een blanco CD koopt dan betaal je een heffing omdat de overheid ervan uit gaat dat je illegale dingen met die CD gaat doen. Je bent bij voorbaat al schuldig. Een vergelijkbare heffing wil men nu ook gaan invoeren op draagbare muziekspelers en andere datadragers.\n","title":"Jouw Kopie","type":"posts"},{"content":"In de Groene van vorige week een goed stuk over Orhan Pamuk en hoe hij in zijn boeken de moeizame samenkomst van Oost en West beschrijft.\nIk dus even op Wikipedia zijn lemma opgezocht en ik kom erachter dat het Nederlandse lemma zowat leeg is en dat in zowel de Engelse als de Nederlandse bibliografie niet alle boeken opgenomen staan.\nVan die bibliografie heb ik het grootste deel al in mijn bezit en ook al best wel wat gelezen. Die heb ik dus maar in beide lemma\u0026rsquo;s gecompleteerd. Voor het Nederlandse lemma heb ik met behulp van het artikel in de Groene maar wat tekst getikt zodat het er iets minder schraal uit ziet.\nEn dan zie ik nu ook nog eens dat de Turkse pagina niet echt in Wiki-stijl is.\nLastig als je drie talen kunt. Dan moet je opeens drie keer zoveel Wikipedia lemma\u0026rsquo;s beheren.\n","date":"October 28, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-394/","section":"Posts","summary":"In de Groene van vorige week een goed stuk over Orhan Pamuk en hoe hij in zijn boeken de moeizame samenkomst van Oost en West beschrijft.\n","title":"Pamuk","type":"posts"},{"content":"Mijn lichaam heeft nog nooit zo oud aangevoeld. Op latere leeftijd beginnen met extreme sporten als Capoeira eist toch meer tol dan ik had verwacht.\nIk voel me vandaag beurs over mijn hele lichaam. Hevige spierpijn in armen buik en lichaam. Beurs rond de rug, buik en armen en ook gewoon pijn aan mijn armen en schouders (eentje waarvan er netjes uit de kom ging gisteren). Hierboven op nog twee grote blaren onder mjn beide grote tenen en een lichte verkoudheid.\nEn toch heb ik vandaag een dag gewerkt. Lig nu op bed films te kijken en te lezen. Vandaag twee boeken gekocht: Sneeuwdorp en Blauwe Maandagen.\n","date":"October 27, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-393/","section":"Posts","summary":"Mijn lichaam heeft nog nooit zo oud aangevoeld. Op latere leeftijd beginnen met extreme sporten als Capoeira eist toch meer tol dan ik had verwacht.\n","title":"Parana E","type":"posts"},{"content":"Zelfs op onze universiteit is er een Studium Generale programma en dit is best wel heel erg goed. Alleen de verhouding tussen de kwaliteit van het programma en hoe vaak ik het bezoek is iets minder goed. Dat gaan we proberen te verbeteren.\nVolgende maandag is er de lezing Politiek in de Symfonieën van Sjostakovitsj (om 20:15 in Speakers, Delft). Dit lijkt redelijk onbekend maar ik ben me een tijdje geleden begonnen te interesseren voor Dmitri Dmitrijevitsj Sjostakovitsj. Een tijdje geleden, precies nadat ik het gedicht Wintersonate van Ramsey Nasr (uit de bundel ‘Onhandig Bloesemend’) had gelezen.\nIn dit schitterende gedicht verbeeldt Nasr heel erg mooi de moeizame verhouding van een kunstenaar met de dictatuur. Sjostakovitsj haalt herrineringen op aan zijn leven en zijn vrienden vanaf zijn sterfbed. Een paar stukjes:\nik ben het volkomen eens met de uitspraak van de pravda\nik ben een worm\n…\niemand kreeg een brief uit amerika en hij werd doodgeschoten\nen de geallieerden bleven maar brieven sturen\nen elke brief was een doodvonnis\nelk geschenk elk souvenir het einde\n…\nik heb geprobeerd me te herinneren\neen paar maal uit alle macht\nik dacht aan al mijn vrienden\nen ik zag alleen maar lijken\n","date":"October 27, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-392/","section":"Posts","summary":"Zelfs op onze universiteit is er een Studium Generale programma en dit is best wel heel erg goed. Alleen de verhouding tussen de kwaliteit van het programma en hoe vaak ik het bezoek is iets minder goed. Dat gaan we proberen te verbeteren.\n","title":"Wintersonate","type":"posts"},{"content":"Terug van mijn korte vakantie probeer ik de boel weer een beetje op te pikken. Het schiet niet heel erg op maar ik doe mijn best.\n","date":"October 27, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-391/","section":"Posts","summary":"Terug van mijn korte vakantie probeer ik de boel weer een beetje op te pikken. Het schiet niet heel erg op maar ik doe mijn best.\n","title":"Terug","type":"posts"},{"content":"I had been eagerly anticipating the announced developer feature list for Firefox 1.5 for a while now.\nI had just read that the beta 2 just had maybe 20 bugs in it and most of them not really serious ones. So I got one at work and installed it. It works like a charm. Nice feel, very stable and I got it to spin some of the canvas demos linked at Simon\u0026rsquo;s page.\nThe SVG and support is cool enough. What is getting me really excited in a more and more AJAX-ish world are the E4X extensions for JavaScript. Having native XML support is just what we need to harness the real power on the client.\nBig Problem: We cross platform web developers are now faced with something of a problem. Firefox is now very much there in advanced feature support and I expect Safari and Opera to catch up some time soon.\nProblem is that I do not know where our sick old man IE stands with this. It seems like they have a difficult enough time implementing security features, tabbed browsing and CSS with their 7.0 release. Hoping they implement stuff like canvas may just be a pipe dream.\nNow the question is: for the really cool web applications. Do we just drop support for IE and tell them there are better and free alternatives?\n","date":"October 26, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-23/","section":"Posts","summary":"I had been eagerly anticipating the announced developer feature list for Firefox 1.5 for a while now.\n","title":"FireWow","type":"posts"},{"content":"I may be a newly found Mac user but my main pc is still running Linux (if I turn it on) and I still see that platform as having a future.\nFor the Dutch Linux users (=enthousiasts) there is a Linux Meeting this Saturday. For some strange reason it is located in Tiel, but it may just be worth the trip. The programme for the day looks interesting and it is a good opportunity to meet likeminded individuals.\nDepending on how this week develops (and if they have conference WiFi) I will be there. If you\u0026rsquo;re also coming, please make a comment to this post.\n","date":"October 26, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-22/","section":"Posts","summary":"I may be a newly found Mac user but my main pc is still running Linux (if I turn it on) and I still see that platform as having a future.\n","title":"Linux Gathering","type":"posts"},{"content":"On Schiphol International Airport 30 minutes of wireless connectivity is €6 (courtesy of Attingo). On İstanbul Atatürk International Airport there is an open wireless network near the hotel in the airport waiting hall.\nStrange contradictions that boggle the mind.\n","date":"October 25, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-21/","section":"Posts","summary":"On Schiphol International Airport 30 minutes of wireless connectivity is €6 (courtesy of Attingo). On İstanbul Atatürk International Airport there is an open wireless network near the hotel in the airport waiting hall.\n","title":"Wireless","type":"posts"},{"content":"Interesting interview at OnDotNet: C#: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow: An Interview with Anders Hejlsberg, Part 1 about the future of the C# language.\nC# is so un-Microsoft in a lot of ways that it is spooky. It works great, looks good and does what people want. With the 3.0 (numbering is hard) version they are moving the language ahead a big deal in providing language level support for common programming tasks.\nAnd with the Mono open source implementation it is essentially more salonfähig than Java is in the open source world.\nI like what the Mono guys are doing but I still feel that they are more helping Microsoft people achieve their platform dominance than taking away their market share.\nFor most of my work I will stay with Python and that is also being greatly helped by the rapidly maturing IronPython project. It\u0026rsquo;s nice to see that their implementation is getting faster and faster.\n","date":"October 25, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-20/","section":"Posts","summary":"Interesting interview at OnDotNet: C#: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow: An Interview with Anders Hejlsberg, Part 1 about the future of the C# language.\n","title":"C# 3.0","type":"posts"},{"content":"As soon as I find the time, I should get my feet wet in OS X/Cocoa programming. It seems to be a pretty cool and fresh way to make stuff.\nI just read an article contrasting it with Java GUI programming.\n","date":"October 25, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-19/","section":"Posts","summary":"As soon as I find the time, I should get my feet wet in OS X/Cocoa programming. It seems to be a pretty cool and fresh way to make stuff.\n","title":"Sweet Chocolate","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik ga zo naar Schiphol en dan vlieg ik naar İzmir om deel te nemen aan de Herfst Agora van AEGEE.\nHet gaat ontzettend leuk worden. Erg druk, veel dingen te doen en te bespreken en vooral heel veel oude vrienden weer zien.\nMaandagochtend vroeg ben ik terug.\n","date":"October 19, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-390/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik ga zo naar Schiphol en dan vlieg ik naar İzmir om deel te nemen aan de Herfst Agora van AEGEE.\n","title":"Agora","type":"posts"},{"content":"Browsing with Safari is pretty snappy, but that is probably the tradeoff for a further quite unstable browser.\nMy typical browser usage consists of opening lots and lots of tabs and then also closing lots and lots of tabs but never all of them. I always have 5-10 tabs open which I need to pay attention to at a certain point in time (but not now). My brower ToDo-list.\nEvery once in a while Safari will crash completely and take my entire todo-list with it. This combined with no feature to restore crashed sessions makes it unusable for serious browsing.\nSo from now on, for fast browsing Safari, for anything serious Firefox with the SessionSaver extension.\n","date":"October 18, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-18/","section":"Posts","summary":"Browsing with Safari is pretty snappy, but that is probably the tradeoff for a further quite unstable browser.\n","title":"Safari Unstable","type":"posts"},{"content":"Eindelijk hebben we de kans om te stemmen tegen de Softwarepatentenrichtlijn in het Europees Parlement. Niet direct stemmen natuurlijk; stel je voor dat ze de burgers dat soort macht zouden geven.\nNee, we kunnen stemmen op de Europeaan van het Jaar en Florian Mueller grondlegger van de anti-softwarepatentenbeweging is genomineerd. Nu kan iedereen die het eens is met het gevecht tegen de softwarepatenten zijn stem laten horen door op hem te stemmen.\nHier is de pagina met de stemrichtlijnen. Neem vijf minuten en zorg dat Europa bewaard wordt voor de innovatie.\nZie ook het stuk op mijn tech blog.\n","date":"October 18, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-389/","section":"Posts","summary":"Eindelijk hebben we de kans om te stemmen tegen de Softwarepatentenrichtlijn in het Europees Parlement. Niet direct stemmen natuurlijk; stel je voor dat ze de burgers dat soort macht zouden geven.\n","title":"Red de innovatie!","type":"posts"},{"content":"After a long period of undemocratic manoeuvring in European policy making surrounding the Software Patentability Directive we finally get a chance to cast a vote and to be heard.\nFlorian Mueller respected anti-patent lobbbyist has been nominated for the position of European of the year. See the article at NoSoftwarePatents.com.\nIf he wins this election, this will be a very visible blow against software patents. Winning in the media and for the eye of the public is incredibly important step towards achieving a political victory.\nSo go to the page with voting recommendations from NoSoftwarePatents.com and take five minutes to help fight the fight.\nThis is the future of our innovation that is at stake.\n","date":"October 18, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-17/","section":"Posts","summary":"After a long period of undemocratic manoeuvring in European policy making surrounding the Software Patentability Directive we finally get a chance to cast a vote and to be heard.\n","title":"Say no to patents!","type":"posts"},{"content":"Another article debunking the various performance myths surrounding the Java language. With something about Escape Analysis and a public service announcement: “Object pooling is now a serious performance loss for all but the most heavyweight of objects, and even then it is tricky to get right without introducing concurrency bottlenecks.”\nArticle: Urban Performance Legends Revisited at Developerworks\n","date":"October 18, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-16/","section":"Posts","summary":"Another article debunking the various performance myths surrounding the Java language. With something about Escape Analysis and a public service announcement: “Object pooling is now a serious performance loss for all but the most heavyweight of objects, and even then it is tricky to get right without introducing concurrency bottlenecks.”\n","title":"Java Performance","type":"posts"},{"content":"Zeg, GroenLinks klinkt me opeens helemaal zo gek niet in de oren. Ik ben al een tijdje fan van Brechtje maar ze begint nu opeens wel hele wijze dingen te schrijven. Ik word daar wel blij van.\nNu weet ik alleen nog niet of dit meer gezweef is van mij of een nieuw thuis. Moeilijk.\nUpdate: En oh ja, Femke Halsema heeft nu ook een blog waar ze hier al over had bericht.\n","date":"October 16, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-388/","section":"Posts","summary":"Zeg, GroenLinks klinkt me opeens helemaal zo gek niet in de oren. Ik ben al een tijdje fan van Brechtje maar ze begint nu opeens wel hele wijze dingen te schrijven. Ik word daar wel blij van.\n","title":"LinksBlauw of GroenVrij","type":"posts"},{"content":"Toch even uitgeprobeerd wat ik nodig heb volgens Ome Google:\nAlper needs to do more homework\nAlperneedsclan\nAlper needs help with windows stuff\nAlper needs replaying\nAlper needs a room/place\nAlper\u0026gt; needs to be defined\nAlper Needs Help - URGENT\nalper needs to fix his scripts then\nEr valt voor het meeste wel wat te zeggen, behalve voor het help with windows stuff\n","date":"October 16, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-387/","section":"Posts","summary":"Toch even uitgeprobeerd wat ik nodig heb volgens Ome Google:\n","title":"Meme (= stokje)","type":"posts"},{"content":"A former teacher of mine, Ruben van Wendel de Joode, was writing a Ph.D. thesis on the organizational structure of FLOSS communities.\nRecently I had heard that he was nearly finished and so I asked him if I could read it. He sent me a PDF copy but slightly intimidated by its size (a couple of hundred pages) it has been lying on my ToRead pile ever since.\nJust now I have read the most recent Bits of Freedom newsletter about his research on FLOSS organization.\nThe piece in Bits of Freedom referred to the thesis and to an article in the Automatiseringsgids and set a very negative tone about corporate adoption of open source methodologies. These companies would risk ‘chasing phantoms’ and companies are set off diametrically against FLOSS.\nThis misguided conclusion certainly ignores any involvement of very high profile companies such as IBM, Novell and Sun both with existing open source projects as well as by releasing large parts of their source code to the communities. Companies large and small are increasingly becoming aware of the importance of FLOSS for their business.\nOpen Source developers need a reliable income just like other people. If companies become more attuned to Open Source, it makes life easier for those developers because they do not have to work in their free time anymore.\nBack to Ruben: On his site a summary written by him (in Dutch) is linked. I have read that summary and the conclusion of the thesis (the rest I skimmed for now). The story he tells is far more positive, balanced and theoretical.\nHis thorough and understandable model of the functioning of FLOSS communities should be of interest to organizational scientists and to lay people who are unfamiliar in how these communities function. I am already very familiar with the projects he studies and the examples he notes. So for me it is not so interesting, only some of his observations are —to me— a bit counterintuitive.\nHe is actually cautiously optimistic (and I am more so) about the possibility for corporations to adopt FLOSS methodologies.\nCorporations want to release a piece of software, create a sustainable community around it and usually also keep a hand in the future direction of developments. Not all of these goals are easy (or possible) but it is good for companies to learn how to let loose control and participate in an increasingly networked knowledge community.\nAnother strategy is internalizing FLOSS methodologies in the development process of a company. This is quite promising because one of the most important weaknesses of FLOSS is that unpopular features (documentation, user friendly menu\u0026rsquo;s, etc.) have a hard time being implemented. Having contractual enforcement or money incentives for the developers greatly eases this process.\n","date":"October 16, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-studies-377/","section":"Posts","summary":"A former teacher of mine, Ruben van Wendel de Joode, was writing a Ph.D. thesis on the organizational structure of FLOSS communities.\n","title":"Open Organization","type":"posts"},{"content":"Having just received the new iBook logging in to the WiFi network of our university proved to be somewhat frustrating. Like most univerity networks ours is also completely sealed off with paranoid security restrictions.\nTo get on the network I had to use some account I had received five years ago and never used ever since. Of course I had forgotten my login details but these were easily obtained.\nThe second frustration that hit us was that the preferred way of connecting to the wireless network involves a making a VPN connection to the network. The university provides a VPN client by Cisco which looks completely un-Macish and useless. One frustration is that it requires you to retype your password on every connect.\nThe website provided by the university implied that it should also be possible to connect using 802.1X but it was not completely clear how to do this. Not wanting to settle for the horror of VPN, I looked further into the 802.1X issue.\nThe website also suggest using various proprietary clients to connect using 802.1X but I found out most modern operating systems have it enabled in the network stack. It seems that it is a secure way of connecting to wireless networks which is widely in use on university networks.\nI prodded my friend Reinier via MSN to try it out (I was not on the campus so I couldn\u0026rsquo;t) and after some fiddling he managed to get it to work and gave me a terse instruction how to repeat it.\nNow I am at the campus and also have gotten it to work and have made a series of screenshots accompanying the process. These steps seem to work for Reinier and me. They may not all be strictly necessary and you can try to use less options or different settings. YMMV.\nIn the Wireless menu of your Mac you select the WLAN network and then Open Internet Connect.\nIn Internet Connect choose File and then New 802.1X Connection.\nIn the 802.1X tab of Internet Connect we are going to make a new configuration. Don\u0026rsquo;t worry about the details, we are going to fill these in on the next screen.\nGive your configuration an appropriate name. As the Network Port select your AirPort. The User Name should be your Service Account User Name + \u0026quot;@tudelft\u0026quot; (I have no clue how Reinier figured this out), the Password is your Service Account Password. The Wireless Network is WLAN and for Authentication you have to use TTLS.\nNext we configure the TTLS Authentication to use PAP for Inner Authentication and anonymous@tudelft for Outer Identity.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s it. Your WiFi internet should be ready to go and you never have to use a stinking VPN client anymore.\n","date":"October 14, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-15/","section":"Posts","summary":"Having just received the new iBook logging in to the WiFi network of our university proved to be somewhat frustrating. Like most univerity networks ours is also completely sealed off with paranoid security restrictions.\n","title":"WiFi Goodness","type":"posts"},{"content":"To finalize the topic of my Masters Thesis, I planned a meeting with my two sponsors. These are the people that will be in the commission judging the work I have done.\nThe issue is that there currently exists some vagueness about the precise topic of my Masters and the research questions that I am going to pursue. On that meeting the plan is to stamp out these issues.\nMy first sponsor is Jeroen van den Hoven from the department of Technology, Policy and Management where I am currently taking a couple of courses. That department is doing a lot of interesting work in societal implications of ICT.\nMy second sponsor is Charles van der Mast from the department of Media and Knowledge Engineering. He is a well known teacher of my department and I already have taken several courses by him. His field of expertise is closest to the subject I want to investigate.\nNow to prepare for this meeting…\n","date":"October 11, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-studies-375/","section":"Posts","summary":"To finalize the topic of my Masters Thesis, I planned a meeting with my two sponsors. These are the people that will be in the commission judging the work I have done.\n","title":"Meeting","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;ve got a brand new toy and I\u0026rsquo;m very busy playing with it. Getting the hang of Mac OS X\u0026rsquo;s applications, shortcuts and idiosyncracies is going to take me a while, but it is a lot of fun.\nOne thing I already know for sure. Apple is so far ahead of the game of both Windows and Linux as far as usable desktops and it just works go. In no time I\u0026rsquo;ve downloaded, installed and set up Skype, Real Player and MSN Messenger for my use. My computing experience just went up by several orders of magnitude.\n","date":"October 11, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-14/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’ve got a brand new toy and I’m very busy playing with it. Getting the hang of Mac OS X’s applications, shortcuts and idiosyncracies is going to take me a while, but it is a lot of fun.\n","title":"Brand New Toy","type":"posts"},{"content":"My first step on joining the microformat frenzy is by converting my contact details to a hCard format.\nBoth the hCard and the hCalendar microformats are derivatives of the vCard and iCalendar standards transformed into XHTML.\nThe specifications are probably complete enough, but not really exhaustive. Both of them point back to the RFCs of the original formats.\nSince I have neither the time (or the inclination) to read two huge RFCs, I went looking for clear examples. For the hCard these are easily found on the wiki but not so for the hCalendar.\nThere are enough resources (eg. simple generators), but nothing beats a comprehensive set of examples.\n","date":"October 11, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-13/","section":"Posts","summary":"My first step on joining the microformat frenzy is by converting my contact details to a hCard format.\n","title":"Microformat Frenzy","type":"posts"},{"content":"Nee, het is niet uit. Maar deze vrijdag word ik weer vrijgezel.\nIk ontving netjes op tijd mijn uitnodiging voor de uitreiking van mijn Bachelordiploma.\nVrijdag 14 oktober om 16:00 mag ik de titel B.Sc. achter mijn naam plakken. Het is in zaal A van het EWI-gebouw (Mekelweg 4). Als je erbij wilt zijn, dan kan dat als mijn gast. Na afloop is er een borrel.\n","date":"October 10, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-386/","section":"Posts","summary":"Nee, het is niet uit. Maar deze vrijdag word ik weer vrijgezel.\n","title":"Vrijgezel","type":"posts"},{"content":"Referer-logs zijn een leuk ding. Loop ik na een rustig weekendje er een beetje doorheen te bladeren en zie ik iemand binnenkomen van een vrij helder domein: bennyvanreeven.nl.\nIk heb geen idee wie bennyvanreeven is maar geïntrigeerd neem ik een kijkje op de pagina waar de referrer vandaan komt. Daar vind ik een heldere parodie op mijn persoonlijke pagina waar iemand zich erg mee heeft zitten vermaken. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, zullen we maar zeggen.\nDe twee jongens die daar genoemd staan (Bart \u0026amp; Mike) daar heb ik ooit een vak mee gedaan. Wie Benny is blijf mij nog steeds een raadsel.\n","date":"October 10, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-385/","section":"Posts","summary":"Referer-logs zijn een leuk ding. Loop ik na een rustig weekendje er een beetje doorheen te bladeren en zie ik iemand binnenkomen van een vrij helder domein: bennyvanreeven.nl.\n","title":"Impact","type":"posts"},{"content":"I just read the need for a hAtom microformat at Torres. Microformats have appealed to me for a while now but I am a new tochnology junkie.\nThe question is what kind of advantages will a richly annotated semantic web have to offer for most of us? Mark Pilgrim offers a vision and a very practical path to reach it.\n","date":"October 10, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-12/","section":"Posts","summary":"I just read the need for a hAtom microformat at Torres. Microformats have appealed to me for a while now but I am a new tochnology junkie.\n","title":"Micro metadata","type":"posts"},{"content":"Signalen over Peak Oil en de uiteindelijke gevolgen zijn overal hoorbaar. Moeilijker is het om de complete implicatie tot je te laten doordringen.\nJim Kunstler tiert en raast wekelijks op zijn blog dat de Amerikaanse manier van leven (en dus ook de onze) niet vol te houden is. De manier van leven die afhankelijk is van goedkoop lokaal en globaal transport om je altijd te brengen waar je naartoe wil en naar je te brengen wat je wil hebben.\nJohn Thackara zei in zijn lezing laatst dat de maximale radius waaruit je je levensmiddelen zou mogen halen —wil het ecologisch houdbaar zijn— 20km is. Vergelijk dat eens met de huidige situatie.\nKunstler heeft het over de alternatieven (koolzaadolie en windenergie enzo) als leuke speeltjes. Speeltjes die ons bij lange na niet in staat gaan stellen om het huidige niveau van consumptie voort te zetten.\nDe meeste mensen weten het niet of willen het niet weten. Dat het dagelijks in de file staan onderdeel is van een zieke afhankelijkheid van olie die niet vol te houden is. Dat de manier van leven waar ze gewend aan zijn en waar ze zo gehecht aan zijn noodgedwongen moet veranderen (en niet ten goede).\nOntkennen is het makkelijkste.\nElke keer als ik het hoor dan is mijn eerste reactie: “Nee! Het kan niet waar zijn. Ik wil lekker blijven leven!”\nMaar míjn ontkennen is een aflopende zaak. De realiteit is hard, maar ik word waarschijnlijk minder hard getroffen dan de meer materialistische (de meeste) mensen.\n","date":"October 6, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-384/","section":"Posts","summary":"Signalen over Peak Oil en de uiteindelijke gevolgen zijn overal hoorbaar. Moeilijker is het om de complete implicatie tot je te laten doordringen.\n","title":"Lekker Leven","type":"posts"},{"content":"Net mijn eerste Capoeira les gehad. Onderweg ernaartoe ging ongeveer alles wat er mis kon gaan mis, maar toch was ik maar vijf minuten te laat.\nDaar viel ik in een warming up die wat weg had van mijn Xing Yi warming up (gisteravond…). De rest van de les wat basispassen, radslagen en overgangen geleerd. En ook veel gedaan aan lichaamsconditie. Ik ben benieuwd hoeveel spierpijn ik morgen heb.\nHet is in ieder geval ontzettend leuk. De beweging vloeien natuurlijk en het idee is al redelijk duidelijk. Belangrijk onderdeel van de bewegingen tegen elkaar is de interactie en oogcontact.\nHet niveau schiet lekker op en is voor mij met mijn Xing Yi kennis goed bij te houden. Ik werd er ook even uitgepikt om met de Mestre een paar gingas te doen.\nNu nog even een goede broek vinden om dit in te kunnen doen. Want met mijn huidige broek, kom ik er de volgende keer niet in.\n","date":"October 5, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-383/","section":"Posts","summary":"Net mijn eerste Capoeira les gehad. Onderweg ernaartoe ging ongeveer alles wat er mis kon gaan mis, maar toch was ik maar vijf minuten te laat.\n","title":"Troca!","type":"posts"},{"content":"By default Flash is turned off in my browser. The FlashBlock extension takes care of that.\nThat is why I was surprised to see a very dynamic Rijksmuseum homepage. I thought it was some Flash that had slipped by my blocker. It is not. This is what is possible by JavaScript in the browser currently and this is only the beginning.\nThe only shame is that the pages do not degrade gracefully if you turn off scripting in your browser.\n","date":"October 5, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-11/","section":"Posts","summary":"By default Flash is turned off in my browser. The FlashBlock extension takes care of that.\n","title":"Forget Flash","type":"posts"},{"content":"Interesting news that Sun and Google are allying to further their respective technologies.\nGoogle is becoming more and more a champion of open source and open standards. Internally they use huge amounts of FLOSS. So it is in their best interest that the various projects continue to grow and improve. Their summer of code was a great initiative to improve FLOSS projects but more importantly to get young developers in touch with FLOSS.\nThe technologies they adapt for their own services are not always completely open but they are moving more and more into that direction. Google Talk uses Jabber/XMPP which is open and easy. The alliance with Sun focuses on promoting the JRE and OpenOffice.org (two arguably open parts of Sun\u0026rsquo;s business). They already employ a couple of Mozilla developers and now I read they have hired Ian Hickson from the WHATWG.\nEmpowering FLOSS gives Google a tactical advantage because the projects they are helping help Google. More importantly in this Great Game for who is going to rule the web: strategically it poises them head on straight against Microsoft.\nSun is our troubled old tech company that makes solid products but nobody seems to like. They are trying adjust to this new world of free and open but they are not very fast at it.\nThey could take a lead from Google in how you can not be evil and be loved at the same time.\n","date":"October 5, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-10/","section":"Posts","summary":"Interesting news that Sun and Google are allying to further their respective technologies.\n","title":"Beauty and the Beast","type":"posts"},{"content":"Mijn plannen om een 12\u0026quot; iBook te kopen worden steeds concreter. Veel in de trein zitten doet je sterker voelen dat je een laptop nodig hebt. De kortingsactie van een zekere winkelier helpt daar dan ook wel bij.\nNiet alleen voor die lange ritten in de trein, maar ik denk dat ik over de hele lijn veel veel plezier van dat ding ga hebben.\nIk kan genieten van alle fijne features van OS X: Spotlight, Expose, Rendez Vous, iCal, Safari+RSS, Keynote en noem maar op. Laptops vergelijken op hardware is één ding, deze software krijg je nergens anders.\nMijn desktop kan ik dan gebruiken als backup en lekker Debian/unstable draaien. Hartstikke bleeding edge en het mag stuk.\nIk wil al een tijdje grotere Linux applicaties hacken en een ontwikkel-PC helpt dan wel.\n","date":"October 5, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-382/","section":"Posts","summary":"Mijn plannen om een 12\" iBook te kopen worden steeds concreter. Veel in de trein zitten doet je sterker voelen dat je een laptop nodig hebt. De kortingsactie van een zekere winkelier helpt daar dan ook wel bij.\n","title":"Mac","type":"posts"},{"content":"It\u0026rsquo;s nice to see someone from Creative Commons being published in the Financial Times speaking out against the ludicricity of intellectual property legislation.\n","date":"October 5, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-9/","section":"Posts","summary":"It’s nice to see someone from Creative Commons being published in the Financial Times speaking out against the ludicricity of intellectual property legislation.\n","title":"WIPO","type":"posts"},{"content":"I am in the process of convincing myself I can justify the purchase of an iBook. I was in a Mac store in Amsterdam this afternoon to get a feel for the 12\u0026quot; models and was pretty close to buying it on the spot.\nNow I get a link to a special offer for students at DUT at Apple Centre MacHouse which gives me 15% off of the normal price. At these rates I\u0026rsquo;m definitely going for it and might even consider buying a Powerbook.\nOne of the arguments I\u0026rsquo;m using to convince myself I\u0026rsquo;ll need it is that buying a Mac will be a life changing experience. It will, won\u0026rsquo;t it?\n","date":"October 4, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-8/","section":"Posts","summary":"I am in the process of convincing myself I can justify the purchase of an iBook. I was in a Mac store in Amsterdam this afternoon to get a feel for the 12\" models and was pretty close to buying it on the spot.\n","title":"Mackin'","type":"posts"},{"content":"So finally this feels like real work. I read one of the papers I had copied from the proceedings of the Conference of Computer Ethics by Introna called:\n“Strangers and hospitality: on the social and ethical conditions of virtual communities”\nThis is an interesting paper for me giving me some needed context for communities and especially for this paper of hospitality.\nIt was my first contact with Heidegger\u0026rsquo;s phenomenological philosophy and the first time I have ever heard of Levinas and his philosophies of the Other and the Third.\nI looked both of these up in Wikipedia to get some founding. So I\u0026rsquo;m crash coursing myself through philosophy.\nI made extensive notes with interesting parts and parts where I have more questions.\n","date":"September 29, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-studies-374/","section":"Posts","summary":"So finally this feels like real work. I read one of the papers I had copied from the proceedings of the Conference of Computer Ethics by Introna called:\n","title":"Work","type":"posts"},{"content":"I wrote about the lecture by John Thackara I was going to attend. I went there and it was pretty interesting. My impressions:\nThackara gave the talk primarily for the new batch of students of an institution called DasArts which trains performance artists or something along those lines. I don\u0026rsquo;t really think it matters what exactly they do. They are a bunch of artistic people doing very artistic things.\nThackara\u0026rsquo;s talk fits into the current theme which is called The Grand Integration Game.\nThackara gave a very interesting lecture about how design and high technology can and should improve the way in which we live.\nHis opening statement is about the wave of technological determinism that has brought us where we are now. Now should be the first time when we are able to and when it is necessary to foresee the possible effects technology might have before releasing it into the wild.\nI have some issues with the above:\nWhy has the need to rethink the scientifical process arisen now? Is it now more urgent than before or are people simply more aware?\nHow can we foresee all the possible effects of technology? Sometimes (maybe even usually) technologies are used in ways that were completely unforeseen by their original creators.\nIsn\u0026rsquo;t this just a version of the Precautionary Principle?\nThinking whether or not it is wise to use certain technologies is fine but getting global concensus is impossible. It only takes one country to clone people or create self-reproducing nanotechnology.\nThen he described ways in which we can alter the current state of things for the better. He gave us a set of principles (you might also call them values or best practices) which were permeating each of these redesigns of the world.\nHe did not get through all of the principles due to a lack of time but as far as I got them they were something like:\niPod time vs. fixed time\nCloser rather than faster\nHuman Agency\nand in general stuff like: humanity, durability, flexibility, dynamicity, organicity\nMost of the examples came down to employ even more technology but desiging more humane and more ecologically sound systems with them.\nSo out with the big inflexible, inhuman system that nobody understands and wants and bring in the new systems which empower people to do the stuff they want. Sounds pretty good to me.\n","date":"September 29, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-studies-373/","section":"Posts","summary":"I wrote about the lecture by John Thackara I was going to attend. I went there and it was pretty interesting. My impressions:\n","title":"In the Bubble","type":"posts"},{"content":"Eerst het slechte nieuws:\nIk heb nog steeds geen nieuwe tweedehands fiets.\nDan het goede nieuws:\nIk ben het ondertussen wel redelijk gewend om trams, bussen en treinen voor mijn neus te zien wegrijden.\nUpdate: Ik heb net uit Amsterdam een oude fiets geïmporteerd die er redelijk werkbaar uitziet. Alerte opa\u0026rsquo;s zijn erg handig om te hebben.\n","date":"September 29, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-381/","section":"Posts","summary":"Eerst het slechte nieuws:\n","title":"Vervoer Update","type":"posts"},{"content":"Easily the most impressive AJAX application I have seen thusfar (Slashdotted). The Zimbra Collaboration Suite is unbelievably cool and I want it. Hula is promising the same and getting there, but these guys are here now and everything looks spick and span. This is really really polished.\nCompetition is a good thing and with all these different Open Source solutions biting at Exchange\u0026rsquo;s ankles, let\u0026rsquo;s see how long the old man can stand.\nIt provides a lot of very cool GMail-ish interaction but taken further, solid integration of calendaring, e-mail and other group work features and Web 2.0 style combination of different services such as Skype and Google Maps.\nWatch the Flash demos to get a feel what is possible and then try it yourself at the site.\nAnother thing they have gotten down right is blogging straight forward about what is happening, what they are doing and why. These are smart people.\nUpdate: Of course Jon Udell has more information about this. Reading the whitepapers only makes me more positive about the technological merit of the project.\n","date":"September 29, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-7/","section":"Posts","summary":"Easily the most impressive AJAX application I have seen thusfar (Slashdotted). The Zimbra Collaboration Suite is unbelievably cool and I want it. Hula is promising the same and getting there, but these guys are here now and everything looks spick and span. This is really really polished.\n","title":"Impressive","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;m reading a lot about sociality and online possibilities lately. Reading articles, blogposts, watching and listening to presentations and just about anything I can get my hands on.\nI have to say this is just about as exciting a field of study as I could wish for.\nOne person I\u0026rsquo;d like to highlight is Jyri Engeström (wiki) and his talk at reboot about Object Sociality. It\u0026rsquo;s great stuff.\nI also came across the book “In the Bubble; Designing in a complex world” by John Thackara (wiki) who is currently located in Amsterdam. Today I listened to the ITConversation with him1 in it. That was pretty interesting and gave me a couple of ideas.\nI then went to the website of the company he works for: Doors of Perception. On the blog there it says he is giving a talk tomorrow evening in Amsterdam. This is a great coincidence because I\u0026rsquo;m going to be in Amsterdam tomorrow to pick up my plain ticket anyway.\nI love ITConversations! They have some of the best people in the industry talking about what makes the world of technology tick at the moment.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"September 26, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-studies-372/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’m reading a lot about sociality and online possibilities lately. Reading articles, blogposts, watching and listening to presentations and just about anything I can get my hands on.\n","title":"Design the Future","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik heb geen televisie maar het wordt steeds makkelijker om die dingen die de moeite waard zijn te volgen. Kort overzichtje:\n****Woestijnruiters: Nieuw interview-programma van Jeroen Pauw en Paul Witteman. Interessante gasten Ahmed Aboutaleb en Hans Teeuwen in de eerste aflevering, als ze dat vol kunnen houden dan blijft dit wel de moeite waard.\nIk snap alleen nog niet compleet waar de titel op slaat, maar cowboys zijn wel cool, natuurlijk.\nThe Charlie Rose Show: Via Miguel weer een link naar Crooks and Liars met een fragment van een interview van Viggo Mortensen in dit programma.\nMortensen is erg goed en hij heeft inderdaad een heel helder, rustig en zo genuanceerd mogelijk verhaal over waarom hij gelijk had toen hij zei dat Bush zo slecht is voor Amerika.\nEn dat boek: Howard Zinn\u0026rsquo;s ‘Voices of a People\u0026rsquo;s History of the United States’ dat is dus heel goed als je deze mensen mag geloven. Dat moet ik dan ook maar aanschaffen.\nBuitenhof: Keek ik altijd al maar in de aflevering van afgelopen zondag een interview met Francis Fukuyama. Daarom dus extra verplicht maar ik wacht nog tot ze die aflevering online zetten.\n","date":"September 26, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-380/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik heb geen televisie maar het wordt steeds makkelijker om die dingen die de moeite waard zijn te volgen. Kort overzichtje:\n","title":"Geen Televisie","type":"posts"},{"content":"ITConversations is a great resource for information of computer happenings. They have great interviews with leading figures from all over the industry.\nToday I listened to one from Jason Friedman about how his company 37 Signals developed their web project management application Basecamp.\nHe tells a great story how they made agile software development techniques work and what you should pay attention to when implementing them in your own project.\nMost of it is common sense but it is still valuable insight: keep light, keep smart and keep focused. If you are missing on any of these then you are already wrong.\n","date":"September 25, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-6/","section":"Posts","summary":"ITConversations is a great resource for information of computer happenings. They have great interviews with leading figures from all over the industry.\n","title":"Agile","type":"posts"},{"content":"In our gathering about identities, ethics and philosophy some interesting points were discussed.\nI will talk some more about certain specifics from Michiel\u0026rsquo;s notes.\nFor those interested in identities I would like to point out my blogpost discussing the presentation Dick Hardt gave at OSCON about Identity 2.0. This is at a very practical level and talks about identity, privacy and verifiability. The presentation is well worth watching, it is fun and it has a visionary air about it.\nOne interesting point was a slight redefinition of privacy (or a single facet of it) that it should not be limited to your information getting out but also to other people\u0026rsquo;s information getting in. Hearing someone else talk in your close proximity burdens you with having to process that information and therefore is a breach of your privacy.\nCurrently you see a lot of people reclaiming this privacy by using portable media players (iPods and such) to disconnect auditorily from the world. I do it myself in the train.\nThe important part of privacy is the part of moral identity. It is a person\u0026rsquo;s right to tell their own story even if it is false or vain or overly ambitious. It is the need to reduce the chance of other people making up their mind about who you are based on second hand evidence.\nThe —now common— practice of Googling prospective dates tells us we have already lost this one.\nBibi\u0026rsquo;s research topic on the coming irrelevance of location struck home with me. My ties to locations are pretty loose so I feel I could be anywhere as long as I have an internet connection. I already do most of my work via the internet and a lot of my friends keep in touch via MSN.\nBibi\u0026rsquo;s research is more practically oriented on ambient intelligence in locations that adapt to users\u0026rsquo; preferences. She did not go into such futuristic domains as augmented reality where the complete notion of space becomes redefinable.\nCathy talked about Trusted Computing. This is a very difficult subject and before trusting anything the companies have to say about it, always first read what Bruce Schneier has to say about it.\nTrusted computing initiatives are certainly going to be used to restrict use of some kinds of hardware and some kinds of data. They are inevitably going to decrease interoperability and annoy customers. And they will be broken within days after launch but that will only slightly reduce the pain.\nMr. Miller then talked about collective actions such as elections and how they come to an outcome using someting called a Joint Procedural Mechanism. This same mechanism applies to expert systems with computers.\nThinking about this I could not come up with other JPMs where the mechanism is purely computer based.\n","date":"September 25, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-studies-371/","section":"Posts","summary":"In our gathering about identities, ethics and philosophy some interesting points were discussed.\n","title":"Values in Technology Meeting","type":"posts"},{"content":"Dacht ik net van mijn belastingaangifte af te zijn, hebben ze iets nieuws bedacht: De zorgtoeslag. Ik krijg een buitengewoon vage folder binnen met een formulier dat ik in zou moeten vullen.\nHet begint fijn (nadruk van mij):\nEr gaat heel wat veranderen op 1 januari 2006. Nederland krijgt een nieuwe zorgstelsel met dezelfde zorgverzekering voor iedereen. Het ziekenfonds en de particuliere verzekering verdwijnen dus. De nieuwe zorgverzekering is in grote lijnen dezelfde verzekering als het huidige ziekenfondspakket en de meeste particuliere verzekeringen. U blijft dus verzekerd voor dezelfde zorg. Ook betaalt iedereen ongeveer dezelfde premie voor de nieuwe zorgverzekering. Om te zorgen dat iedereen de premie kan betalen, is er zorgtoeslag. Zorgtoeslag is een bedrag dat u helpt de kosten van uw zorgverzekering.\nDit is een sterk staaltje overheidscommunicatie. Er gaat dus heel wat veranderen. Wat dan precies? Alleen wat hieronder staat of nog meer of weet niemand dat nog en moet ik toch voor de zekerheid maar even dit formulier invullen?\nEn iedereen betaalt ongeveer dezelfde premie. Maar als je ongeveer dezelfde premie gaat betalen dan heb je toch helemaal geen zorgtoeslag nodig? Ik ga ervan uit dat als je nu je ziektekostenverzekering kunt betalen en de premie blijft ongeveer gelijk dat je dat dan straks ook kunt.\nIk ga dat formulier toch maar invullen. Met dit kabinet weet je het maar nooit op welke manier je genaaid wordt.\nNaar Amerika\nMijn wantrouwen wordt ook een beetje gevoed als ik lees hoe het in Amerika geregeld is. Een stukje van Malcolm Gladwell in de New Yorker legt uit wat daar allemaal mis is.\nDaar nemen ze een actuarieel model voor de verzekering. Als je meer gebruikt, dan betaal je ook meer. Dat baseren ze op het concept van moral hazard. Moral hazard wil zeggen dat als je iets onbeperkt vergoed (zeg ziektekosten) dat je dan frivool gebruik van dat goed (mensen die voor hun plezier naar het ziekenhuis gaan) in de hand werkt.\nDit hele idee gaat dus in tegen het concept van herdistributie van risico\u0026rsquo;s en sociale solidariteit. Het feit dat jij de mazzel hebt dat je geen chronische ziekte hebt, of dat jij de juiste genen hebt, of niet betrokken bent geweest bij een ongeluk zorgt ervoor dat je minder betaalt. Leven als roulette.\nDat dat niet klopt snapt iedereen behalve de overheid van de VS. Dit kabinet van CDA en VVD neigt ook wel die kant op. Vooral het VVD waar ze kritiekloos achter Amerika aan lopen en over het algemeen net zo slim zijn als George W. Bush.\nHet niet meer vergoeden van de fysiotherapie was hier al de eerste stap naar het Amerikaanse model.\nEr waren vast wel wat mensen die de fysiotherapie gebruikten als een soort sportschool maar nu wordt er niks meer vergoed. Mensen met klachten lopen er langer mee rond en die uiten zich later in een veel ergere vorm (vergelijk het voorbeeld van de huidkanker uit het artikel).\nEn nu gebeurt hetzelfde met de medicijnen (item op het Journaal). Voor bepaalde indicaties mogen van de verzekeringen maar een paar typen medicijnen worden uitgeschreven. Deze medicijnen die uitgeschreven mogen worden hoeven niet altijd het beste geneesmiddel voor die patient te zijn.\n","date":"September 25, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-379/","section":"Posts","summary":"Dacht ik net van mijn belastingaangifte af te zijn, hebben ze iets nieuws bedacht: De zorgtoeslag. Ik krijg een buitengewoon vage folder binnen met een formulier dat ik in zou moeten vullen.\n","title":"Toeslag","type":"posts"},{"content":"Attending conferences is very cool but it is disproportionally difficult for those people on the wrong side of the pond with limited financial resources (i.e. me).\nSo every time one of these conferences drops by in our lovely city of Amsterdam, I should pay notice. The EurOSCon conference is due in October but early bird registration for that has passed and even then it would have been too expensive for me.\nWhat seems to be an alternative (or complementary) conference for that is the Bar Camp Amsterdam which is planned to run simultaneously. Looking at the people involved and the photographs of the previous event this looks pretty cool.\n","date":"September 25, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-5/","section":"Posts","summary":"Attending conferences is very cool but it is disproportionally difficult for those people on the wrong side of the pond with limited financial resources (i.e. me).\n","title":"Bar","type":"posts"},{"content":"Alsof ik het nog niet druk genoeg had, heb ik vandaag ook nog even een vlucht geboekt. Ik heb met wat vrienden van de zomer afgesproken om elkaar weer te zien op de Herfst-Agora van AEGEE en deze is in İzmir.\nDe meeste charters en andere budget luchtvaartmaatschappijen kwamen niet uit met de data dus waren we uiteindelijk aangewezen op onze vrienden van Turkish Airlines. Het is een duur grapje en gelukkig krijg ik een deel van mijn reiskosten vergoed (en dan nog is het een duur grapje). Dit is de vlucht:\n1 TK1954 AMS IST 17:30 / 19.Oct 22:00 / 19.Oct Wednesday X\n2 TK0354 IST ADB 23:45 / 19.Oct 00:45 / 20.Oct Wednesday N\n3 TK0305 ADB IST 05:10 / 24.Oct 06:10 / 24.Oct Monday N\n4 TK1951 IST AMS 07:45 / 24.Oct 10:35 / 24.Oct Monday X\nADB: Izmir - Adnan Menderes Airport\nAMS: Amsterdam - Schipol Airport\nIST: Istanbul - Ataturk Airport\nHet lijkt maar vier dagen maar dat is bedriegelijk. Slapen gebeurt eigenlijk alleen maar tussen 03:00-06:00. De rest van de tijd wordt ‘efficient’ gebruikt.\n","date":"September 24, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-378/","section":"Posts","summary":"Alsof ik het nog niet druk genoeg had, heb ik vandaag ook nog even een vlucht geboekt. Ik heb met wat vrienden van de zomer afgesproken om elkaar weer te zien op de Herfst-Agora van AEGEE en deze is in İzmir.\n","title":"Vliegen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik had mijn afweging om in het Nederlands te schrijven een tijdje geleden al zitten herdenken.\nIk blijf erbij dat het niveau van IT-journalistiek en vakliteratuur in Nederland diep droevig is met een paar positieve uitschieters. Je kunt wel proberen dat moeras te gaan verheffen maar om me heen schrijven de meeste mensen in het Engels (of gaan dat doen).\nEn eerlijk gezegd heb ik ook meer met die Engelstaligen. Daar hebben ze het meestal toch beter begrepen.\nDaarom de herdefinitie maar uitvoeren. Blogs doen het sowieso beter als ze over één specifiek onderwerp gaan. Mikken op niches dus.\nDit blog blijft en blijft ook de plek waar schrijf over de dingen die me dagelijks bezig houden (in het Nederlands).\nComputers: Voor het schrijven over computer en programmeren en dingen die daarmee te maken hebben heb ik een nieuw blog: Alper\u0026rsquo;s Tech Blog. Mensen die zich interesseren in computers kunnen (meestal) vloeiend Engels dus die zouden het prima moeten kunnen volgen.\nStudie: Ik ben pas begonnen met afstuderen. Ik ben nu vooral bezig met de voorbereidingen en de literatuur. Het leek me handig om het verloop daarvan (toch goed voor een jaar) bij te houden in een eigen weblog. Dus is er nu ook mijn afstudeerblog met wiki.\nDit is ook allemaal in het Engels: de academische voorkeurstaal op mijn universiteit. Niet iedereen beheerst dat zo goed zoals ik beschrijf in een stukje op dat blog maar dat mag de pret niet drukken.\nOp de wiki staat een grove schets te lezen van het onderwerp waarop ik wil afstuderen. Over dat onderwerp en dan vooral de filosofische kant ervan ga ik me binnenkort maar wat inlezen.\nVoorpagina: De nieuwe voorpagina probeert een handige plek te zijn vanaf waar je de structuur in kunt stappen. Er moeten ook nog kruisverwijzingen tussen de verschillende sites komen maar het is allemaal nog work in progress.\nSuggesties en commentaar zijn altijd welkom.\n","date":"September 24, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-377/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik had mijn afweging om in het Nederlands te schrijven een tijdje geleden al zitten herdenken.\n","title":"Herdefinitie","type":"posts"},{"content":"After seeing Django I came upon a new Python framework that combines the existing web technology into a nice package: Turbogears.\nI have not had the time to play with either Django or Turbogears but I am quite familiar (and happy) with CherryPy one of the components of Turbogears.\nBriefly reading what other people are saying about it (Technorati, Google) gives the same impression as Subway and Django. Light and very accessible frameworks to quickly develop a site with (Wiki\u0026rsquo;s in 20 minutes are killer).\nBetween the lines I read a lot of positive stuff about Zope 3.1 but like most people I have been planning to but I still have not gotten around to learning that.\n","date":"September 24, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-4/","section":"Posts","summary":"After seeing Django I came upon a new Python framework that combines the existing web technology into a nice package: Turbogears.\n","title":"Python getting on the rails","type":"posts"},{"content":"Leuk t-shirt voor als je naar Londen op reis gaat.\n","date":"September 24, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-376/","section":"Posts","summary":"Leuk t-shirt voor als je naar Londen op reis gaat.\n","title":"Dreiging","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik kom er net aan toe om de presentatie van Dick Hardt te kijken op OSCON 2005 die gaat over Identity 2.0. Een vergelijkbaar concept met Web 2.0 maar dan wel iets concreter.\nDe presentatie (streaming Flash video) is erg de moeite waard omdat Hardt erin laat zien wat op dit moment de problemen zijn waar iedereen mee te maken heeft (teveel wachtwoorden voor teveel sites), de ontwikkelingen die nu aan de gang zijn en een heldere visie voor hoe dit in de toekomst opgelost kan worden.\nDat en hij presenteert in goed, leuk, in rap tempo en (volgens hem) met de stijl van Lawrence Lessig.\n","date":"September 24, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-375/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik kom er net aan toe om de presentatie van Dick Hardt te kijken op OSCON 2005 die gaat over Identity 2.0. Een vergelijkbaar concept met Web 2.0 maar dan wel iets concreter.\n","title":"Identiteit","type":"posts"},{"content":"Als je een beetje om je heen kijkt zie je het meeste al gebeuren maar het is wel fijn om het allemaal netjes op een rijtje te zien.\nDe trends van het moment, wat er gebeurt en vooral wat er gaat gebeuren: het verslag van het congres Consumententrends op Frankwatching.\n","date":"September 24, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-374/","section":"Posts","summary":"Als je een beetje om je heen kijkt zie je het meeste al gebeuren maar het is wel fijn om het allemaal netjes op een rijtje te zien.\n","title":"Trendwatching","type":"posts"},{"content":"Today I helped a friend set up a new blog for his writing aspirations. Configuring Wordpress was amazingly painless for a PHP application.\nThere\u0026rsquo;s no content there yet, but you can seet it at: RoelonSoftware.com\n","date":"September 23, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-3/","section":"Posts","summary":"Today I helped a friend set up a new blog for his writing aspirations. Configuring Wordpress was amazingly painless for a PHP application.\n","title":"New Blog on the Block","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik heb redelijk dringend een nieuwe tweedehands fiets nodig. De mijne heeft het nu echt voorgoed begeven.\nAls iemand iets heeft liggen dan hou ik me aanbevolen.\n","date":"September 23, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-373/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik heb redelijk dringend een nieuwe tweedehands fiets nodig. De mijne heeft het nu echt voorgoed begeven.\n","title":"Vervoer","type":"posts"},{"content":"Atom 1.0 has been out for a while and the deprecation of the previous 0.3 version should have everyone updating their feeds to be 1.0 compliant.\nI had implemented 1.0 quite quickly after the release but some sloppiness prevented that feed from validating on the feed validator.\nLooking at an example of a validating feed and an incitation that I should also produce similar made me better my feed.\nAtom 1.0 feeds for: personal, tech \u0026amp; study.\n","date":"September 23, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-2/","section":"Posts","summary":"Atom 1.0 has been out for a while and the deprecation of the previous 0.3 version should have everyone updating their feeds to be 1.0 compliant.\n","title":"Atomize","type":"posts"},{"content":"Lees het verslag van Kottke van de AIGA Design conferentie. Dat design niet alleen maar over tekenen gaat temminste niet als je naar deze ontzettend visionaire mensen luistert.\n","date":"September 22, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-372/","section":"Posts","summary":"Lees het verslag van Kottke van de AIGA Design conferentie. Dat design niet alleen maar over tekenen gaat temminste niet als je naar deze ontzettend visionaire mensen luistert.\n","title":"Design is meer","type":"posts"},{"content":"Recently news came out on Jetty continuations and they are indeed looking pretty good.\nI cannot really tell how Jetty compares to Tomcat. I only work with Jetty as an end user and my experiences with Tomcat have been limited to drowning in the XML configuration quagmire.\n","date":"September 22, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-tech-1/","section":"Posts","summary":"Recently news came out on Jetty continuations and they are indeed looking pretty good.\n","title":"Jetty","type":"posts"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;m spending a lot of my time lately speaking English with people who are for a large part not able to. This is for a large part due to the fact that English has been chosen as our academic lingua franca. All Master programmes at Delft, University of Technology are taught in English.\nThis would be all right if the people involved (teachers and students) in this international academical interchange were able to speak English at a certain level. Of course they are not. Most of them have had very basic English lessons and they can convey most concepts only in the most rudimentary of ways.\nThis is very nice if your complete communication is strictly business and consists of purely nouns and transitive verbs. If however you think communication should also include a certain level of figurative speech —or even colorful expressions and slang words— then you are in for something of a disappointment. These more subtle and interesting points you are trying to make will —all of them— not be understood.\nThe international English used by most you should best call Jip en Janneke-taal. Obviously this dirt poor linguistic landscape with misunderstandings lurking behind every corner is the best environment for academical interchange of ideas.\n","date":"September 22, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-studies-370/","section":"Posts","summary":"I’m spending a lot of my time lately speaking English with people who are for a large part not able to. This is for a large part due to the fact that English has been chosen as our academic lingua franca. All Master programmes at Delft, University of Technology are taught in English.\n","title":"Academic English","type":"posts"},{"content":"Vandaag een nette 35'09\u0026rsquo;\u0026rsquo; gelopen op de 7km van de Dam tot Dam loop. Let wel, de 7km gaat van Zaandam naar Zaandam. Als ik dat had geweten, had ik nog wel twee keer nagedacht over meedoen.\nDesondanks was het erg leuk.\nUpdate: Jurgen heeft de boel uitgezocht:\nIk heb even de tijden uitgezocht.\nMet het hele TOPdeskteam zijn we 6e !!! geworden. Dit is gebaseerd op de\neerste 5 van TOPdesk. Om 3e te worden hadden we meer dan 1 minuut en 51\nseconden sneller moeten zijn. We hadden 2 minuut en 46 seconden sneller\ndan de nummer 7.\nIk hoop dat ik de juiste namen bij de juiste afwezigen geplaatst heb.\nGemiddelde snelheid over de wedstrijd staat achter je plek overall vermeld.\nAlexander Lohn 26:26 (6e!! 15,9 Km/h) Jurgen Koster 31:22 (48e, 13,4 Km/h, volgens de lijst heet ik S. Rejhons) Ard van Spelde 33:22 (77e, 12,6 Km/h, volgens de lijst heet Ard, PaulM) Elizabeth Correa 33:35 (85e, 12,5 Km/h) Robbert Jan Grootjans 34:23 (94e, 12,2 Km/h) Arjenne Bastiaansen 34:33 (98e, 12,2 Km/h) Alper Cugun 35:10 (116e, 11,9 Km/h, volgens de lijst heet Alper, MarleenV)\nAmanda Dirkse 35:19 (123e, 11,9 Km/h) Wendy van Slooten 43:42 (308e, 9,6 Km/h) ","date":"September 18, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-371/","section":"Posts","summary":"Vandaag een nette 35'09’’ gelopen op de 7km van de Dam tot Dam loop. Let wel, de 7km gaat van Zaandam naar Zaandam. Als ik dat had geweten, had ik nog wel twee keer nagedacht over meedoen.\n","title":"Dam","type":"posts"},{"content":"Met de herorientering van dit blog heb ik het ook maar naar een eigen server verplaatst. Dit blog wordt het Nederlandstalige persoonlijke lifeblog. Er komen een paar andere blogs voor andere onderwerpen. Later meer daarover.\nAls je naar www.alper.nl gaat dan wordt je goed doorgestuurd. De syndicatie-voedingen voor dit blog veranderen van plek: nieuwe Atom en RSS. Dus pas de URLs aan in je favoriete RSS-cliënt.\nHet adres is nu nog een IP maar als alles goed gaat dan komt daar www.alper.nl te staan en worden de oude pagina\u0026rsquo;s vervangen door permanente doorverwijzingen.\nUpdate: Na een noodzakelijke server herinstallatie draait de boel hier weer. Ik heb een hartgrondige hekel aan hardware (zeker als die het niet doet).\nKijken of hij het nu blijft doen.\n","date":"September 17, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-370/","section":"Posts","summary":"Met de herorientering van dit blog heb ik het ook maar naar een eigen server verplaatst. Dit blog wordt het Nederlandstalige persoonlijke lifeblog. Er komen een paar andere blogs voor andere onderwerpen. Later meer daarover.\n","title":"Verhuizing","type":"posts"},{"content":"Technology Transfer is een hot issue op universiteiten. Hoe zet ik de kennis die op een universiteit ligt om in business en innovatie. Niemand die het weet maar het kabinet heeft het bevolen dus iedereen doet wat maakt niet uit wat.\nIk las een tijdje geleden een stukje over die patenten op YES! Delft —de technology incubator van de TU— wat ik nu op de site niet meer terug kan vinden.\nIn ieder geval moest ik daar nu weer aan denken na dit artikel in de Fortune over hoe het Amerikaanse patent systeem en de gretigheid van universiteiten om een graantje mee te pikken verkeerd uitpakt (via Frans Nauta).\n","date":"September 16, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-369/","section":"Posts","summary":"Technology Transfer is een hot issue op universiteiten. Hoe zet ik de kennis die op een universiteit ligt om in business en innovatie. Niemand die het weet maar het kabinet heeft het bevolen dus iedereen doet wat maakt niet uit wat.\n","title":"Technology Transfer","type":"posts"},{"content":"Bij Open Source Nieuws Nederland veel herkauwen van het internationale nieuws maar veel interessanter natuurlijk, de verslaggeving van de situatie zoals deze in Nederland is.\nDie situatie is lang zo slecht nog niet als je leest dat de belastingdienst met een Linux-versie van het aangifteprogramma komt en een advies aan de overheid om het gebruik van Open Standaarden wettelijk verplicht te stellen.\n","date":"September 15, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-368/","section":"Posts","summary":"Bij Open Source Nieuws Nederland veel herkauwen van het internationale nieuws maar veel interessanter natuurlijk, de verslaggeving van de situatie zoals deze in Nederland is.\n","title":"Open Nieuws","type":"posts"},{"content":"Erg leuke voorbeeldjes hoe AJAX technologie op dit moment toegepast wordt om systemen gebruiksvriendelijker te maken. Er zitten een paar technische hele knappe en gelikte oplossingen tussen. Veel ervan zit helaas wel vast aan IE, maar daar is wel een verschuiving zichtbaar.\n","date":"September 15, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-367/","section":"Posts","summary":"Erg leuke voorbeeldjes hoe AJAX technologie op dit moment toegepast wordt om systemen gebruiksvriendelijker te maken. Er zitten een paar technische hele knappe en gelikte oplossingen tussen. Veel ervan zit helaas wel vast aan IE, maar daar is wel een verschuiving zichtbaar.\n","title":"Voorbeeldjes","type":"posts"},{"content":"In het stukje van Andy Kessler staan een paar van de gevolgen beschreven die gratis gemeentelijke WiFi zou kunnen hebben.\nKort gezegd komt het neer op een complete transformatie van het telecom-landschap. Alles verandert: hoeveel we betalen voor communicatie, aan wie we dat betalen en wat we dan kunnen doen met al die mogelijkheden. Het is grenzeloos.\nDacht je dat we nu verbonden —wired— waren, wacht maar tot iedereen overal wireless is.\n","date":"September 13, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-366/","section":"Posts","summary":"In het stukje van Andy Kessler staan een paar van de gevolgen beschreven die gratis gemeentelijke WiFi zou kunnen hebben.\n","title":"Telecom is going nuts","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik doe nu één keer per week minder Kung Fu. Ik hou op met de kong li oefeningen op donderdag en hou me voorlopig alleen maar bezig met de vorm. Wat langzamer is niet echt een probleem. Dit Xing Yi is toch een meerjaren-onderneming.\nGisteren op de eerste les begonnen met diervormen. Een beer is niet echt het meest vriendelijke dier dat je tegenover je wilt hebben. Diep inzakken en dan vrij hard slaan naar boven of ellebogen. Ik krijg meer en meer het gevoel dat Xing Yi best wel een hele harde vechtsport is. En ook een goede basis voor heel veel vechtsporten. De bewegingen van de beer lijken erg op wat boksers doen.\nIk heb me wel net ingeschreven voor 10 lessen Capoeira voor beginners op het Cultureel Centrum, op woensdagen om 18.00 een uurtje.\nHet kost maar €35. Dat is geen geld, dus wie doet er nog meer mee?\n","date":"September 7, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-365/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik doe nu één keer per week minder Kung Fu. Ik hou op met de kong li oefeningen op donderdag en hou me voorlopig alleen maar bezig met de vorm. Wat langzamer is niet echt een probleem. Dit Xing Yi is toch een meerjaren-onderneming.\n","title":"Capoeira","type":"posts"},{"content":"Net mijn afstudeervoorstel laten zien aan mijn docent en die was er positief over.\nIk moet het langs nog een docent krijgen, daarna publiceer ik het hier wel ergens.\n(Ik ga dit weblog nog herbezinnen. Het lijkt me sowieso handig om een Engelstalig weblog op te richten voor mijn afstuderen en alles wat ik ga lezen aan literatuur.)\n","date":"September 7, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-364/","section":"Posts","summary":"Net mijn afstudeervoorstel laten zien aan mijn docent en die was er positief over.\n","title":"Afstuderen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Grote veranderingen en veel werk zorgt voor sporadische updates en andere prioriteiten.\nWe zien wel wat het wordt. Het leven gaat in ieder geval harder dan ooit.\n","date":"September 5, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-363/","section":"Posts","summary":"Grote veranderingen en veel werk zorgt voor sporadische updates en andere prioriteiten.\n","title":"Rustig","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik heb de afgelopen week in een bijna compleet media-isolement geleefd. Geen kranten, boeken, films, nauwelijks internet en in het vliegtuig een oude Groene. Gelukkig hebben we dan toch Miguel om te wijzen op wat ik gemist heb.\nHet afgelopen jaar lang zo ongeveer het enige wat er de moeite van het kijken waard is op tv (als ik het zo eens van een afstand bekijk) is The Daily Show. Het beste politieke commentaarprogramma van Amerika wordt uitgezonden door de omroep Comedy Central. Leuker kunnen ze het niet maken.\nIk zou er wel een voorstander van zijn om Den Haag Vandaag hier te restylen naar het voorbeeld van The Daily Show.\nHet gesprek tussen Jon Stewart en Christopher Hitchens is erg de moeite waard. Hitchens schijnt een van de intelligentste personen uit het voor-kamp te zijn. Stewart maakt daar goed gerbuik van door te beginnen met een vraag als ‘vertel mij waar ik fout zit’.\nBush is voor een komiek zo\u0026rsquo;n ontzettend makkelijk onderwerp om grappen te maken. Het **ontleden van Bush zijn Talking Points is erg de moeite waard maar als je maar één fragment kijkt, kijk dan het vorige.\n","date":"August 29, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-362/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik heb de afgelopen week in een bijna compleet media-isolement geleefd. Geen kranten, boeken, films, nauwelijks internet en in het vliegtuig een oude Groene. Gelukkig hebben we dan toch Miguel om te wijzen op wat ik gemist heb.\n","title":"Dagelijkse Show","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik wist dat Joe Gasiorek bezig was een erg gave webinterface te maken voor het Hula kalenderpakket, maar dat het zo gaaf zou worden als dit dat ik had ik niet durven dromen.\nBekijk het filmpje en sta versteld.\n","date":"August 25, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-361/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik wist dat Joe Gasiorek bezig was een erg gave webinterface te maken voor het Hula kalenderpakket, maar dat het zo gaaf zou worden als dit dat ik had ik niet durven dromen.\n","title":"Meer Web","type":"posts"},{"content":"In die Groene in dat vliegtuig las ik ook een artikel over 100 jaar Stanley Kunitz met daarin een ontzettend mooi gedicht van de man. Ik zat een beetje te dubben of ik hem nu wel of niet ging posten maar zo lang twijfelen is niet goed en zoiets moois voor mezelf houden zou gewoon egoïstisch zijn.\nAls tegenprestatie koop ik zijn bundel wel.\nTOUCH ME\nSummer is late, my heart.\nWords plucked out of the air\nsome forty years ago\nwhen I was wild with love\nand torn almost in two\nscatter like leaves this night\nof whistling wind and rain.\nIt is my heart that\u0026rsquo;s late,\nit is my song that\u0026rsquo;s flown.\nOutdoors all afternoon\nunder a gunmetal sky\nstaking my garden down.\nI kneeled to the crickets trilling\nunderfoot as if about\nto burst from their crusty shells;\nand like a child again\nmarvelled to hear so clear\nand brave a music pour\nfrom such a small machine.\nWhat makes the engine go?\nDesire, desire, desire.\nThe longing for the dance\nstirs in the buried life.\nOne season only,\nand it\u0026rsquo;s done.\nSo let the battered old willow\nthrash against the windowpanes\nand the house timbers creak.\nDarling, do you remember\nthe man you married? Touch me,\nremind me who I am.\n","date":"August 25, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-360/","section":"Posts","summary":"In die Groene in dat vliegtuig las ik ook een artikel over 100 jaar Stanley Kunitz met daarin een ontzettend mooi gedicht van de man. Ik zat een beetje te dubben of ik hem nu wel of niet ging posten maar zo lang twijfelen is niet goed en zoiets moois voor mezelf houden zou gewoon egoïstisch zijn.\n","title":"Wat doet de motor draaien?","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik ben aan het bijlezen, maar echt veel ononderbroken computertijd heb ik niet dus het kan even duren en het kan hier een beetje stormen in die tussentijd.\nIk heb (nog) geen laptop om in de trein te kunnen lezen maar ik heb wel drie Groene Amsterdammers. Wat misschien zelfs wel beter is. Ik had er eentje meegenomen naar Spanje en die heb ik uitgelezen op de terugweg in het vliegtuig.\nHet is een bizar goed tijdschrift. Lees dat!\n","date":"August 25, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-359/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik ben aan het bijlezen, maar echt veel ononderbroken computertijd heb ik niet dus het kan even duren en het kan hier een beetje stormen in die tussentijd.\n","title":"Information Overload","type":"posts"},{"content":"Kottke schrijft het al en ik ben het grotendeels met hem eens. We zijn op de goede weg om alles ‘Web’ te maken. Web is goed (of temminste goed genoeg).\nIk kan nergens op zijn blog reageren, maar ik vind dat hij de Flickr mogelijkheid niet ver genoeg trekt. Digitale camera\u0026rsquo;s van de toekomst zullen —hoop ik— allemaal GPS en WiFi/Bluetooth ingebouwd hebben.\nWiFi/Bluetooth en dus internet in digicams zou geweldig zijn. Geweldig om foto\u0026rsquo;s te kunnen nemen en ze dan direct op Flickr te kunnen zetten. En ik laat regelmatig foto\u0026rsquo;s van mijn vakantie zien van mijn digicam, met een internet verbinding zou ik de complete Flickr altijd tot mijn beschikking hebben.\nGPS-getagde foto\u0026rsquo;s daar kun je ook zo ontzettend veel leuke dingen mee doen dat de noodzaak me duidelijk lijkt. Met een internetverbinding kun je direct een kaart opvragen van de plek waar je bent of foto\u0026rsquo;s die andere mensen al van die plek gemaakt hebben.\nMisschien moet ik nog even wachten tot ik een 350D koop.\n","date":"August 25, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-358/","section":"Posts","summary":"Kottke schrijft het al en ik ben het grotendeels met hem eens. We zijn op de goede weg om alles ‘Web’ te maken. Web is goed (of temminste goed genoeg).\n","title":"Goede Weg","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik neem morgen om 17.13 de IC147 trein op Amsterdam Centraal en ik kom om 20.07 aan op Osnabrück Hbf.\nIk ben blij, maar dat spreekt voor zich.\n","date":"August 25, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-357/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik neem morgen om 17.13 de IC147 trein op Amsterdam Centraal en ik kom om 20.07 aan op Osnabrück Hbf.\n","title":"Blij","type":"posts"},{"content":"Hij is toch wel erg leuk: de handleiding voor de man.\n","date":"August 25, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-356/","section":"Posts","summary":"Hij is toch wel erg leuk: de handleiding voor de man.\n","title":"Echte Mannen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik ben dus terug. De vakantie was compleet perfect.\nNog niet echt ergens tijd voor gehad. Wel de foto\u0026rsquo;s op Flickr gezet.\n","date":"August 25, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-355/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik ben dus terug. De vakantie was compleet perfect.\n","title":"De Regreso","type":"posts"},{"content":"Dit is mijn laatste blog vanuit Nederland, morgen vertrek ik naar Spanje.\nEven voor wie het interesseert mijn reisschema:\n4 augustus vertrek Bruxelles Charleroi - Valladolid - Oviedo (13:00 - 14:55)\ntwee weken in Oviedo blijven\n18 augustus vertrek uit Oviedo waarschijnlijk naar Madrid\n23 augustus terugvliegen van Valladolid naar Charleroi (15:30 - 17:15)\nUpdates volgen waarschijnlijk.\n","date":"August 3, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-354/","section":"Posts","summary":"Dit is mijn laatste blog vanuit Nederland, morgen vertrek ik naar Spanje.\n","title":"Vakantie!","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik ben veel aan het lezen om een beetje een indruk te krijgen waar ik nou precies wil afstuderen. Ondertussen was ik in de stapels papier een beetje het overzicht aan het kwijtraken.\nDaarom ben ik maar begonnen een leeslijst bij te houden specifiek voor papers en boeken die met dit onderwerp te maken hebben.\n","date":"August 3, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-353/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik ben veel aan het lezen om een beetje een indruk te krijgen waar ik nou precies wil afstuderen. Ondertussen was ik in de stapels papier een beetje het overzicht aan het kwijtraken.\n","title":"Afstuderen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Weinig geblog, vakantie en pre-vakantie-stress is altijd een goede smoes. Ik heb nu meer tijd maar eigenlijk is het nooit genoeg.\nNormaal gesproken lees ik geen papier maar ik heb nu een kleine ontdekking gedaan. Op Poetry International een paar weken geleden is me een Groene Amsterdammer aangesmeerd en nog eentje beloofd. Ik hoefde alleen maar mijn persoonsgegevens in te vullen en ondertekenen met bloed. Daar had ik geen problemen mee.\nDat tweede nummer liet op zich wachten maar ik werd wel gebeld door iemand van de Groene. Dat was mijn beste telefonische verkoopervaring ooit. Nummer niet geheim, iemand aan de lijn met een relaxed verhaal die zich gewoon voorstelt en die je een fatsoenlijk aanbod doet (4 nummers voor €7,95) met een abonnement dat vanzelf afloopt.\nIk ben nu de dikke zomerspecial aan het lezen over “De Jeugd De Toekomst” en die is erg leuk. De Groene Amsterdammer is echt goed en niet alleen voor groene mensen of Amsterdammers.\nInteressante artikelen over boeiende onderwerpen met een diepgang die je niet gewend bent. Essentieel tegengif in deze tijd van Telegraaf en Geen Stijl.\n","date":"August 3, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-352/","section":"Posts","summary":"Weinig geblog, vakantie en pre-vakantie-stress is altijd een goede smoes. Ik heb nu meer tijd maar eigenlijk is het nooit genoeg.\n","title":"Groen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik raak er steeds meer van overtuigd dat San Francisco een ontzettend leuke plek is om te wonen en werken.\nGisteren bericht van de Zombie Flash Mob Event: “Eat Brains”. Een groep mensen begint in de stad als zombies en verplaatst zich zombie-style door de stad, terwijl ze de besmetting verspreiden over voorbijgangers.\nDe foto\u0026rsquo;s zijn leuk en staan op Flickr en elders.\n","date":"July 31, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-351/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik raak er steeds meer van overtuigd dat San Francisco een ontzettend leuke plek is om te wonen en werken.\n","title":"Eat Brains","type":"posts"},{"content":"Dit stukje bij massless doet me mijn lijstje weer even afstoffen. Eens in de zoveel tijd kijk op IMDb naar mijn favoriete regisseurs en acteurs om te zien waar ze mee bezig zijn.\nAlleen jammer dat de meeste voor 2006 staan en sommige dat niet eens zullen halen.\nTrue (2004)\nKorte film van Tykwer, is al een tijdje uit en schijnt er goed te zijn. Ik moet hem nog zien.\nChe (2005)\nBiopic over Che Guevara door Steven Soderbergh met sterke cast: del Toro, Bardem en Franka Potente!\nVolver (2006)\nEen nieuwe Almodóvar over drie vrouwen met Penelope Cruz!\nPerfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006)\nThriller van Tykwer met een bizar verhaal.\nAs You Like It (2006)\nNieuwe Shakespeare verfilming van Kenneth Branagh.\nBabel (2006)\nNieuwe Iñárritu. (Niet meer woorden nodig.)\nZodiac (2006)\nNieuwe seriemoord-film van David Fincher.\nThe Departed (2006)\nNieuwe Scorcese, klinkt erg goed.\nA Scanner Darkly (2006)\nGoed verhaal, goede regisseur en aparte manier van filmen.\nInglorious Bastards (2006)\nNieuwe Tarantino (moet ik hier meer over zeggen?).\nBubble (2006)\nNieuwe Steven Soderbergh zou goed moeten zijn.\nThe Good German (2006)\nGrote publieksfilm van Soderbergh (Clooney en Blanchett) is vast op zijn minst vermakelijk.\nPirates of the Carribean: Dead Man\u0026rsquo;s Chest (2006) \u0026amp; Pirates of the Carribean 3 (2007)\nAbsoluut verplichte films van Verbinski en Depp.\n","date":"July 28, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-350/","section":"Posts","summary":"Dit stukje bij massless doet me mijn lijstje weer even afstoffen. Eens in de zoveel tijd kijk op IMDb naar mijn favoriete regisseurs en acteurs om te zien waar ze mee bezig zijn.\n","title":"Upcoming","type":"posts"},{"content":"Het is altijd leuk om je eigen ideeën bevestigd te horen door die mensen die het beter kunnen weten. Deze IT Conversation van Adam Bosworth werd een tijdje geleden op Slashdot en andere plaatsen gelinked. Hij duurt eventjes maar hij is dat meer dan waard.\nIT Conversations heeft nog veel veel meer boeiend spul. Luister dat.\nBijna alles wat Bosworth doet is goed en het idee dat syndicatie ideaal is als medium én metadata had ik ook al overgenomen (samen met de rest van het web).\nHij zegt dat dat het dominante data model van het internet gaat worden omdat het simpel en schaalbaar is vergeleken met de concurrentie.\n","date":"July 28, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-349/","section":"Posts","summary":"Het is altijd leuk om je eigen ideeën bevestigd te horen door die mensen die het beter kunnen weten. Deze IT Conversation van Adam Bosworth werd een tijdje geleden op Slashdot en andere plaatsen gelinked. Hij duurt eventjes maar hij is dat meer dan waard.\n","title":"Alles is web","type":"posts"},{"content":"Klik even door de presentaties in deze twee stukken op Frankwatching. De slides zijn van wisselende kwaliteit maar ze geven samen een goed beeld van de ontwikkelingen in media, telecom, content en The Long Tail.\nVoor iedereen die er (nog niet) in geïnteresseerd is.\n","date":"July 28, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-348/","section":"Posts","summary":"Klik even door de presentaties in deze twee stukken op Frankwatching. De slides zijn van wisselende kwaliteit maar ze geven samen een goed beeld van de ontwikkelingen in media, telecom, content en The Long Tail.\n","title":"Convergentie","type":"posts"},{"content":"Via Barbara de eerste podcast waar ik echt heel blij mee ben en die ik compleet ga luisteren. De stadsdichters van Antwerpen, Ramsey Nasr \u0026amp; Tom Lanoye, dragen hun gedichten voor.\nDe meeste podcasts hebben wel boeiende onderwerpen maar het blijven mensen die een eindje slap in de ruimte lullen. Temminste als de Daily Shoulder Complaint van Adam Curry een indicatie is.\nDe podcast van de stadsdichters is een voorbeeld van een schaars goed (dichters die voordragen) met een beperkte doelgroep (ik bijvoorbeeld) dat nu met behulp van dit nieuwe medium ontsloten en gepubliceerd wordt voor een groot publiek. Daarnaast is het blog dat erbij hoort handig als community en agenda.\nDe auteursrechten liggen natuurlijk nog steeds bij de dichters maar iets zegt me dat ze het helemaal niet erg vinden als zoveel mogelijk mensen hun gedichten horen.\n","date":"July 27, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-347/","section":"Posts","summary":"Via Barbara de eerste podcast waar ik echt heel blij mee ben en die ik compleet ga luisteren. De stadsdichters van Antwerpen, Ramsey Nasr \u0026 Tom Lanoye, dragen hun gedichten voor.\n","title":"Poëziecast","type":"posts"},{"content":"Wat een schijtweer wordt het in Nederland de komende week. Zul je net zien dat het daarna —als ik in Spanje zit— hier weer mooi weer wordt.\nLeuke boel. Hmm… in Oviedo is het ook kloteweer. Zal wel iets Europees zijn.\nUpdate: Vandaag bij de Bever coole survival gadgets gekocht voor de reis: flight bag, zomerslaapzak en ophangbare toilettas.\n","date":"July 24, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-346/","section":"Posts","summary":"Wat een schijtweer wordt het in Nederland de komende week. Zul je net zien dat het daarna —als ik in Spanje zit— hier weer mooi weer wordt.\n","title":"Weer","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik ben net terug uit Leiden van de DEWD-meeting. Foto\u0026rsquo;s te vinden op mijn Flickr en er volgen er vast meer.\nBelangrijk gesprekspunt was het erbarmelijke niveau van webstandaarden in Nederland. Gebrek aan kennis, wil, durf en elan zijn er debet aan dat de meeste sites bar slecht zijn.\nEen site goed opzetten hoeft niet meer tijd te kosten en heeft veel positieve gevolgen: onderhoudbaarheid, toegankelijkheid, lichtgewichtheid, vindbaarheid etc.\nFaruk wil hier in Nederland een conferentie organiseren vergelijkbaar met @Media. Dat moet dan de gelegenheid worden om in de lage landen de noodzaak van standaarden gebaseerd webontwerp aan de man te brengen en de partijen met elkaar in gesprek te krijgen.\nVerder veel ge-ouwehoer over CSS en (helaas) minder over JavaScript.\nEen ander punt waar ik nog over moet nadenken is dat iedereen van DEWD in het Engels schrijft op hun weblogs. Iedereen behalve ik. Ik heb de beslissing genomen om in het Nederlands te schrijven omdat dat makkelijker schrijft en omdat ik vind dat de Nederlandse markt onderbediend wordt wat betreft inhoudelijke stukken over IT.\nToch sta ik in dubio. Iedereen die serieus met IT bezig is in Nederland kan Engels. Dus dat mag geen obstakel zijn.\nVerder wilde ik dit blog toch splitsen. Deze gecombineerde weergave is misschien redelijk bijzonder wat betreft de diversiteit aan onderwerpen maar erg handig en gericht is het niet. Dus binnenkort één deel met computers waarschijnlijk in het Engels en één deel zonder computers in het Nederlands.\nUpdate: Play-by-Play verslag door Faruk\n","date":"July 24, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-345/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik ben net terug uit Leiden van de DEWD-meeting. Foto’s te vinden op mijn Flickr en er volgen er vast meer.\n","title":"Sweet!","type":"posts"},{"content":"Erg pittig artikel van r0ml op O\u0026rsquo;Reilly: Calculating the True Price of Software (via). Ploeg door de eenvoudige wiskunde en ingewikkelde financiele terminologie heen, want er zitten wel erg goede ideeën tussen.\nIdee 1 is dat het feitelijke product maar een klein onderdeel is van de prijs die men ervoor bereid is te betalen. De optie op onderhoud op dat product en de mogelijkheid toekomstige versies tegen een gereduceerde prijs aan te schaffen zijn samen meer waard dan de kosten om het product te maken.\nIdee 2 is dat in FLOSS je voor onderhoud en nieuwe functionaliteit niet meer vast zit aan één leverancier. Voor die beide waardevolle goederen is een aparte markt ontstaan waar iedereen aan mee kan doen.\nHow capitalistic is that?\n","date":"July 24, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-344/","section":"Posts","summary":"Erg pittig artikel van r0ml op O’Reilly: Calculating the True Price of Software (via). Ploeg door de eenvoudige wiskunde en ingewikkelde financiele terminologie heen, want er zitten wel erg goede ideeën tussen.\n","title":"Software Opties","type":"posts"},{"content":"Natuurlijk op Slashdot de trailer van de “V for Vendetta” film. Strip van Alan Moore en gemaakt door de Wachowski\u0026rsquo;s.\nHet lijkt erop dat de film visueel veel uit de kast trekt. Op de trailer zie ik veel gelijkenis met de comic, maar Moore zelf is het er niet mee eens. Ik heb de strip een tijdje geleden samen gelezen. Voor twee tientjes duwt Proxis hem zo bij je in de brievenbus. Geen moeite, doen dus!\nLaat je dan niet afschrikken door de grimmige tekenstijl. Die hoort gewoon bij het verhaal en ik denk ook bij de comics van die tijd. Wij zijn verwend met The Sandman, dat hadden ze toen nog niet. Goede verhalen wel, gelukkig.\n","date":"July 23, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-343/","section":"Posts","summary":"Natuurlijk op Slashdot de trailer van de “V for Vendetta” film. Strip van Alan Moore en gemaakt door de Wachowski’s.\n","title":"Ideas are bulletproof","type":"posts"},{"content":"Gisteren met collega\u0026rsquo;s naar **A Clockwork Orange geweest. Ik heb er een paar kiekjes van, weinig serieus werk.\nVoor de betere fotografie moet je kijken bij mijn semi-buren Alex en Anneke. Die hebben net een serie luchtfoto\u0026rsquo;s gemaakt met fantastische beelden.\nZo was de foto van de tramremise achter ons huis, compleet desoriënterend. Ik had geen flauw idee hoe groot dat ding wel niet was en zeker niet hoe hij er van boven uit zag.\nEn het is erg grappig om te zien dat de Mirandabad een nieuw dak krijgt.\n","date":"July 23, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-342/","section":"Posts","summary":"Gisteren met collega’s naar **A Clockwork Orange geweest. Ik heb er een paar kiekjes van, weinig serieus werk.\n","title":"Foto's","type":"posts"},{"content":"Er is een Flickr groep met mooie foto\u0026rsquo;s uit de moslimcultuur. Gewoon voor de leuk, of om te laten zien dat het ook anders kan, ik weet het niet. De allermooiste foto\u0026rsquo;s staan op het blog met dezelfde naam (via).\nDaar werd recent een nieuwe thread gepost bij de foto\u0026rsquo;s van het monument bij Srebrenica waar afgelopen week de herdenking was. Er staat een verwijzing naar de fotoserie van de New York Times (de moeite van het inloggen meer dan waard).\n","date":"July 19, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-341/","section":"Posts","summary":"Er is een Flickr groep met mooie foto’s uit de moslimcultuur. Gewoon voor de leuk, of om te laten zien dat het ook anders kan, ik weet het niet. De allermooiste foto’s staan op het blog met dezelfde naam (via).\n","title":"Srebrenica","type":"posts"},{"content":"Als ik postzegels zou verzamelen zou ik deze Richard Feynman-zegel zeker willen hebben.\nOnbetwiste superheld van alles wat βèta is.\n","date":"July 19, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-340/","section":"Posts","summary":"Als ik postzegels zou verzamelen zou ik deze Richard Feynman-zegel zeker willen hebben.\n","title":"Postzegelverzameling","type":"posts"},{"content":"Dat klinkt toch lekker:\nI am in my penultimate year of the Masters course in Media and Knowledge Enigneering.\n","date":"July 18, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-339/","section":"Posts","summary":"Dat klinkt toch lekker:\n","title":"Einde in zicht","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ha! Ik ga vrijdag naar A Clockwork Orange op Over het IJ.\nCool of niet!\n","date":"July 18, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-338/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ha! Ik ga vrijdag naar A Clockwork Orange op Over het IJ.\n","title":"Alex","type":"posts"},{"content":"Nu net op Developerworks een artikel waar denk ik redelijk wat behoefte aan is. Het legt in heldere, bewoordingen uit hoe een typische J2EE en een Ruby on Rails eruit zien en wat de verchillen zijn.\nDit is interessant voor Ruby mensen en J2EE mensen die geïnteresseerd zijn in elkaars eco-systemen. Maar ook de meer all round webontwikkelaar die een goed stuk gereedschap zoekt heeft er veel aan.\nEn de PHP-programmeurs —voor zover die zijn te helpen— hebben een kans om te ontsnappen uit hun ghetto.\nJava\nDe J2EE stack die ze gebruiken is heel typisch zoals die draait op de meeste Tomcats (of Jetty\u0026rsquo;s). Dit is niet echt J2EE maar dat is niet zo erg. De meeste mensen zullen van hun leven toch geen missie kritieke volledig ge-load-balance\u0026rsquo;de op Oracle draaiende JBoss applicatieservers met JMX, JMS en nog wat andere J*-afkortingen ontwikkelen.\nRails krijgt in de Java wereld navolging met Trails. Trails gebruikt Spring en Tapestry (allebei hele goede componenten) en werkt veel van de complexiteit weg onder de kap.\nRuby\nWat vooral opvalt is dat de hoeveelheid Ruby code die je moet schrijven voor een vergelijkbare applicatie ongeveer 1/6 tot 1/4 van de Java (en XML) code is. Het is ook niet zo gek dat een Ruby on Rails prototype in een kwestie van uren staat als een huis, terwijl je met Java nog bezig bent je verschillende tools te installeren en alle XML-bestanden goed te krijgen.\nEen ander groot voordeel van zó weinig code gebruiken is dat je heel veel wint aan helderheid en onderhoudbaarheid. Minder code staat gelijk aan minder bugs.\nPython\nHet Python verhaal is wat moeilijker. Dit komt omdat het zo makkelijk is om in Python iets te maken dat ‘web’ doet. Iedereen kan het en daardoor is er een gigantische wildgroei aan web frameworks in Python. Veel van deze doen hetzelfde, een paar ervan doen compleet verschillende dingen.\nWat ik heb gedaan is kijken wat ik nodig had en kijken wat er op dit moment leefde. Uiteindelijk kwam ik daarmee op SQLObject, CherryPy en Cheetah uit.\nZelf mixen is dus goed haalbaar, maar ook bij Python zijn er mensen die de filosofie van Rails proberen over te nemen. De twee belangrijkste zijn Subway en Django. Django is pas uit en ziet er goed uit vooral omdat het al erg bewezen is. Lees het stuk van Simon Willison maar en bekijk vooral het **Game voorbeeld (ontwikkeld in 2(!) dagen).\n","date":"July 18, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-337/","section":"Posts","summary":"Nu net op Developerworks een artikel waar denk ik redelijk wat behoefte aan is. Het legt in heldere, bewoordingen uit hoe een typische J2EE en een Ruby on Rails eruit zien en wat de verchillen zijn.\n","title":"Goed op de rails","type":"posts"},{"content":"Nee, dit gaat niet over de hele brakke browser van Apple maar over de online boekendienst van O\u0026rsquo;Reilly. Met een abonnement op Safari kun je zoeken door en lezen in alle(!) boeken van O\u0026rsquo;Reilly.\nNu kwam ik een nieuwe dienst van ze tegen: SafariU. Met SafariU kunnen leraren voor een vak zelf een boek samenstellen uit onderdelen van bestaande boeken en eigen materiaal en dit laten drukken voor weinig geld. Er kan nog veel meer maar dat wordt uitgelegd in deze goede Flash-presentatie.\nIk vind dit interessant omdat mijn leraren op de TU hier tegenaan lopen. Voor de meeste vakken zijn geen goede boeken dus proberen leraren zelf dat gat op te vullen met zelf bij elkaar geraapt materiaal. SafariU maakt dat makkelijk en biedt nog wat meer faciliteiten.\n","date":"July 17, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-336/","section":"Posts","summary":"Nee, dit gaat niet over de hele brakke browser van Apple maar over de online boekendienst van O’Reilly. Met een abonnement op Safari kun je zoeken door en lezen in alle(!) boeken van O’Reilly.\n","title":"Safari","type":"posts"},{"content":"Geert Mak heeft een antwoord geschreven op zijn “Gedoemd tot kwetsbaarheid” (marbel, brechtje). Een stuk hiervan stond ook in de NRC.\nZijn vorige vond ik niet echt heel goed maar deze ziet er wel veelbelovend uit. Hoop is goed.\nIk weet alleen niet of hij al uit is. Morgen maar even kijken.\n","date":"July 17, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-335/","section":"Posts","summary":"Geert Mak heeft een antwoord geschreven op zijn “Gedoemd tot kwetsbaarheid” (marbel, brechtje). Een stuk hiervan stond ook in de NRC.\n","title":"Flessenpost","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik lees bij Anne dat Atom 1.0 is vrijgegeven. Zo wordt mijn recente interesse in syndicatie een klein beetje ‘beloond’. Ik zie niet direct wat er nou veranderd is vergeleken met de 0.3 versie maar het is vast goed.\nEen vergelijkend overzicht met RSS 2.0 is wel voorhanden. Het is leuk dat RSS ook nog steeds bestaat maar ondertussen is het een beetje overbodig aan het worden.\nEn ja, ik ga er binnenkort (=ooit) voor zorgen dat het blog op deze site Atom 1.0 uitspuugt.\nUpdate: Hij staat er sneller dan ik dacht: Atom 1.0.\n","date":"July 16, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-334/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik lees bij Anne dat Atom 1.0 is vrijgegeven. Zo wordt mijn recente interesse in syndicatie een klein beetje ‘beloond’. Ik zie niet direct wat er nou veranderd is vergeleken met de 0.3 versie maar het is vast goed.\n","title":"Atom","type":"posts"},{"content":"Erg mooie posters van MTV (via). Toen niet gepubliceerd omdat het wat te gevoelig lag.\nNaast de torens elke keer de tekst “2863 muertes” (2863 doden). En eronder:\nOp het bordje dat de man vasthoud: Seropositief. Help alstublieft. Naast de man: 40 miljoen geïnfecteerden op de wereld.\nDe wereld verenigd tegen het terrorisme zou hetzelfde moeten doen tegen AIDS.\n824 miljoen mensen op de wereld zijn ondervoed De wereld verenigd tegen het terroisme zou hetzelfde moeten doen tegen de honger.\n630 miljoen armen op de wereld De wereld verenigd tegen het terrorisme, zou hetzelfde moeten doen tegen de armoede.\n","date":"July 16, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-333/","section":"Posts","summary":"Erg mooie posters van MTV (via). Toen niet gepubliceerd omdat het wat te gevoelig lag.\n","title":"Censurada a MTV","type":"posts"},{"content":"Xing Yi training is in zomerreces maar ik heb deze week (op mijn werk) toch nog best wat tijd in een dojo doorgebracht. Een dojo van een ander soort, dat dan wel.\nIk ben er vooral naar begonnen te kijken voor dojo.io.bind(). Ik kan best data heen en weer sturen met behulp van XmlHttpRequest maar dit is nog iets makkelijker en belooft meer te kunnen.\ndojo.io.bind() is redelijk tam maar dat zijn de rest van de ambities van de Dojo-toolkit zeker niet. Waar ik echt mee aan de slag wilde was het zelf schrijven van widgets in een mooie combinatie van HTML, CSS en JavaScript. Erg cool en dit lijkt heel veel van de rotzooi die bij JavaScript componenten komt kijken op te ruimen.\nDe stukken code die nodig zijn om dat aan de praat te krijgen zijn of niet meegeleverd met de standaard release of ik kreeg ze niet aan de praat. Ik heb met code uit de SVN zelf een release gebouwd maar ook dat werkte niet echt. Ik moet er van de week maar eens wat verder naar kijken.\n","date":"July 15, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-332/","section":"Posts","summary":"Xing Yi training is in zomerreces maar ik heb deze week (op mijn werk) toch nog best wat tijd in een dojo doorgebracht. Een dojo van een ander soort, dat dan wel.\n","title":"Dojo","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik zit deze week vier dagen op mijn werk achter de pc. Thuis ben ik achter de pc dan niet heel geconcentreerd meer. Ik heb wel wat vooruitgang met een project geboekt, maar daar moet zeker nog meer aan gebeuren. Zou het dit weekend slecht weer worden?\nWat me dan nog wel kan boeien zijn goede boeken. Ik lees deze maand meer papier dan in de zes maanden daarvoor.\nNet door “Fools Rush In” heen gescheurd. Het verslag van Bill Carter\u0026rsquo;s ervaringen in Sarajevo, een insprirerend, bijzonder en verplicht boek.\nNog één boek en heb ik alle drie de boeken uit mijn laatste lading uit.\nDus zal ik aan Danielewski\u0026rsquo;s pil beginnen of durf ik de laatste twee delen van de Baroque Cycle aan die hier nog liggen? Eigenlijk wil ik een klein boekje lezen voor tussendoor maar daar heb ik er niet zo veel meer van.\n","date":"July 14, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-331/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik zit deze week vier dagen op mijn werk achter de pc. Thuis ben ik achter de pc dan niet heel geconcentreerd meer. Ik heb wel wat vooruitgang met een project geboekt, maar daar moet zeker nog meer aan gebeuren. Zou het dit weekend slecht weer worden?\n","title":"Lezen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Niet vaak een betere combinatie gezien dan FlickrCity. Dit combineert Google Maps met GPS-getagde foto\u0026rsquo;s van Flickr om te laten zien wáár er foto\u0026rsquo;s zijn genomen.\nDe datum/tijd waarop een foto genomen is wordt door de meeste camera\u0026rsquo;s al opgeslagen in EXIF. Het zal —hoop ik— niet heel lang meer duren voor ook GPS-informatie automatisch wordt vastgelegd.\nFlickrCity is een visuele lokatie-gebaseerde weergave van foto\u0026rsquo;s. Flickr heeft zelf in de Organizr al een mooie tijd-gebaseerde weergave voor foto\u0026rsquo;s. Als je tijd en lokatie combineert kun je voor een plek zien hoe die zich ontwikkelt.\n","date":"July 10, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-330/","section":"Posts","summary":"Niet vaak een betere combinatie gezien dan FlickrCity. Dit combineert Google Maps met GPS-getagde foto’s van Flickr om te laten zien wáár er foto’s zijn genomen.\n","title":"FlickrCity","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik kwam op een cursus Mandarijn (Putonghua) van de BBC (via) in Flash die heel praktisch is. Heel veel leer je niet, maar het is genoeg om een beetje een gevoel voor de taal te krijgen.\nIk had het aan zien komen maar het feit dat het een tonale taal is, is echt verreweg het grootste probleem. Bij het uitspreken de tonen goed leggen en bij het luisteren niet alleen naar de klank maar ook naar de toon luisteren móet gewoon.\nAls het goed gaat, is het ook erg leuk en die zinnen zingen dan. Ik moet mijn andere zinnetjes nog herhalen maar paraat weet ik wel Nǐ Hǎo en Xièxie te zeggen.\nIk hoop dat de sifu me snapt als ik het morgen uitprobeer.\n","date":"July 9, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-329/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik kwam op een cursus Mandarijn (Putonghua) van de BBC (via) in Flash die heel praktisch is. Heel veel leer je niet, maar het is genoeg om een beetje een gevoel voor de taal te krijgen.\n","title":"Hail To Our New Overlords","type":"posts"},{"content":"Gistermiddag al ademloos de ongeveer 200 (nu 700) foto\u0026rsquo;s in de Flickr 7/7 Community (toen de London Bomb Blasts Pool) bekeken. Ik heb geen tv; ik heb geen tv nodig. De aanslagen gisteren hebben meer dan ooit bewezen dat de nieuwe media niet meer weg te denken zijn in het internetlandschap.\nOok al gingen in de eerste instantie de meeste mensen voor hun informatie naar de grote media sites (die daardoor plat gaan), op de community sites van Wikipedia, Flickr en de verschillende blogs lees je de persoonlijkere berichten (!), de anekdotes en de verschillende manieren waarop mensen om gaan met het gebeurde en er zin aan proberen te geven.\nKenneth was me voor (ik had al een tijdje een blogpost idee liggen met dezelfde titel): Wij zijn de media. Breuls vangt de parallel ook.\nDe vroegst verschijnende foto\u0026rsquo;s op Flickr zijn —met toestemming— gebruikt in het Wikinews artikel over de aanslagen.\nIn Engeland waren ze net bezig om de identificatieplicht in te voeren. In een stuk in de Guardian is Ian McEwan (fantastisch schrijver) bang voor de mogelijke uitbreiding van die macht van de overheid. Bruce Schneier blijft zeggen dat dat soort kortzichtige maatregelen niet helpen. Weten wie iemand is (voor zover mogelijk), vertelt je niks over wat hij van plan is.\nDe Britten houden zich sterk. Ik hoop ook dat wij dat hier ook kunnen, maar ik maak me geen illusies.\n","date":"July 9, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-328/","section":"Posts","summary":"Gistermiddag al ademloos de ongeveer 200 (nu 700) foto’s in de Flickr 7/7 Community (toen de London Bomb Blasts Pool) bekeken. Ik heb geen tv; ik heb geen tv nodig. De aanslagen gisteren hebben meer dan ooit bewezen dat de nieuwe media niet meer weg te denken zijn in het internetlandschap.\n","title":"Londen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik ga\nbijna zeker\nniet met de trein.\nUpdate: Ik ging naar de internationaal balie van de NS op Den Haag HS. Daar duurde het ontzettend lang voor men me kon vertellen dat de nachttrein van Paris Austerlitz af vol zat. Treinen reserveren ging in Budapest sneller en daar sprak niemand mijn taal en hadden ze geen computers.\nNaar Valladolid zou eventueel wel kunnen maar dan moest je toch bijna €30 boekingskosten bijbetalen. Dat is één kant op. Dan nog terug en rondreizen met de trein zou een duur grapje worden.\nIk ga alleen een interrail-kaartje kopen als ik er wat aan heb. Dus als de treinen niet vol zitten en niet veel te duur zijn. Makkelijk rondreizen met interrail was het in Oost Europa als je volledig vrij bent om te kiezen waar je wanneer heen wilt. (Wachten dus tot Estland, Letland en Litouwen een interrail-zone krijgen.)\nIk heb nu net voor 4 augustus een vlucht van Bruxelles S. Charleroi naar Valladolid geboekt met Ryanair. 23 augustus vlieg ik terug, dan heb ik nog een dag of vier/vijf over om Madrid (en evt. Salamanca) te bekijken.\n","date":"July 7, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-327/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik ga\n","title":"Vol","type":"posts"},{"content":"Zo, na veel uitstellen en zelfs nog meer zwoegen heb ik mijn presentatie voor morgen af, over RSS en Metadata. Lees hem gerust door, en aanmerkingen zijn welkom (en nuttig tot 09:00 donderdagochtend).\nDat S5 wordt trouwens best wel volwassen. Tekstgrootte past zich nu automatisch aan en de ondersteuning voor opeenvolgend oplichtende lijsten is ook erg leuk.\nIk ga nu bowlen. (Niet lachen!)\n","date":"July 6, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-326/","section":"Posts","summary":"Zo, na veel uitstellen en zelfs nog meer zwoegen heb ik mijn presentatie voor morgen af, over RSS en Metadata. Lees hem gerust door, en aanmerkingen zijn welkom (en nuttig tot 09:00 donderdagochtend).\n","title":"Presentatie'tje","type":"posts"},{"content":"Vandaag een beetje gechat en de vakantieplannen wat definitiever gemaakt. Ik ga morgen mijn interrail-kaartje kopen en de volgende rit boeken:\n1 augustus:\n15:06 - 15:18 Delft - Rotterdam CS\n15:24 - 17:15 Rotterdam CS - Bruxelles Midi (IC 637)\n17:40 - 19:05 Bruxelles Midi - Paris Nord (THA 9448)\n20:32 - 08:24 Paris Austerlitz - Barcelona Sants (EN 477)\nTwee dagen Barcelona bekijken en daarna door naar Oviedo voor de Summer University.\n","date":"July 6, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-325/","section":"Posts","summary":"Vandaag een beetje gechat en de vakantieplannen wat definitiever gemaakt. Ik ga morgen mijn interrail-kaartje kopen en de volgende rit boeken:\n","title":"Barça","type":"posts"},{"content":"Het vrijgeven van de Maps API door Google is toch een van de leukere dingen die er de laatste tijd is gebeurd. Als ze nu ook nog net zulke goede kaarten van Nederland zouden hebben dan was het helemaal een feest.\nEen van de leuke nieuwe mogelijkheden: Flickrcity.\n","date":"July 6, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-324/","section":"Posts","summary":"Het vrijgeven van de Maps API door Google is toch een van de leukere dingen die er de laatste tijd is gebeurd. Als ze nu ook nog net zulke goede kaarten van Nederland zouden hebben dan was het helemaal een feest.\n","title":"Flickrcity","type":"posts"},{"content":"Het programma Radio Online is best aardig. Het is een laagdrempelig iets; Internet voor iedereen, als het ware. Ze zijn het beste in onderwerpen als:\n“Help! Mijn internet date heeft het uitgemaakt.”\n“Kan mijn oma Firefox gebruiken?”\n“Ik durf niet online te winkelen.”\nBij de serieuze onderwerpen laten ze het meestal afweten.\nZo ook bij het [volgende onderwerp](http://www.radio-online.nl/pivot/entry.php?id=138\n) over de uitspraak van het Amerikaanse Hooggerechtshof inzake Grokster. Twee presentatoren en één hoogleraar intellectueel eigendomsrecht wisten geen significante legale toepassingen te noemen voor Peer-to-Peer software.\nHet wil er bij sommige mensen nog niet in dat de creatie en de verspreiding van intellectueel eigendom drastisch op de schop gaan. Dat alles verandert en dat de dinosaurussen achterblijven.\nEr worden grote hoeveelheden nieuwe media gemaakt en vrijgegeven onder een Creative Commons licentie. Veel van wat er bestaat —ons gezamenlijke culturele erfgoed, niet de cashcow van multinationale bedrijven— zou hergebruikbaar (remixbaar) moeten zijn onder temminste fair use licenties.\nAlle belastingbetaalde uitzendingen zouden direct vrijgegeven moeten worden in het publieke domein. Er is al royaal voor betaald. Het is van ons. Give it up!\nGrokster is vooral veroordeeld wegens het aanzetten tot illegaal gebruik. Het is een bedrijf en het maakt winst op gebruikers die allemaal illegale dingen doen op hun netwerk. Dit is precies hetzelfde wat de aanbieders van breedband internet in Nederland doen. Reclameslogans als: “Download nu zoveel film als je wilt met Casema Breedband.” zouden dan ook strafbaar (moeten) zijn.\nTechnologisch gesproken valt er weinig aan te doen. Peer-2-Peer software is triviaal om te schrijven (15 regels Python code) en er zijn genoeg open source netwerken die niet makkelijk aan te pakken zijn.\nHet verbieden is net zoiets als de post verbieden omdat er poederbrieven worden verstuurd. Bij Radio Online komen ze met een krommere vergelijking de andere kant op (dat komt ervan als je ongelijk hebt).\n","date":"July 6, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-323/","section":"Posts","summary":"Het programma Radio Online is best aardig. Het is een laagdrempelig iets; Internet voor iedereen, als het ware. Ze zijn het beste in onderwerpen als:\n","title":"Falen","type":"posts"},{"content":"De 2005 IDEA Awards zijn uitgereikt en er zitten toch een heleboel hele leuke dingen tussen.\nMijn favoriet is het totaalsysteem voor de sporter van Nike. Alleen al vanwege de term haptic audio.\n","date":"July 5, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-322/","section":"Posts","summary":"De 2005 IDEA Awards zijn uitgereikt en er zitten toch een heleboel hele leuke dingen tussen.\n","title":"Idea","type":"posts"},{"content":"Het leven van de webontwikkelaar is de laatste tijd een stuk leuker. Het AJAX neemt de boel compleet over en er zit schot in de ontwikkeling van de grote browsers, zowel in het voldoen aan standaarden als in nieuwe functionaliteit.\nEr komt binnenkort een IE 7 die belooft veel verbeteringen wat betreft standaarden door te voeren. Eindelijk…\nDe andere browsermakers zijn daar over het algemeen al lang voorbij en hebben weinig zin om te wachten tot IE besluit mee te spelen. Zij gaan rustig door met nieuwe dingen ontwikkelen, zoals:\n****Ecmascript for XML (E4X): Een manier om natuurlijker om te gaan met XML gegevens in JavaScript. XML verwerken voor gebruik in een webpagina is redelijk onaangenaam. Kijk alleen al naar het whitespace probleem.\n****XForms: zou ons van de huidige primitieve formulieren af moeten helpen en nog meer gave dingen.\nFirefox Deer Park Alpha biedt hier ondersteuning voor. Je kunt XForms dan als extensie installeren.\n****SVG: Iedereens favoriete volgende generatie vector graphics standaard. Opera 8 onderseunt het en huidige ontwikkelversies van Firefox ook.\n: Dit staat in ieder geval in de voorstel specificatie Web Applications 1.0 van de WhatWG. Het zou een makkelijk manier moeten bieden om bitmap plaatjes te tekenen in je webpagina. Ik heb het al eens geprobeerd met 640x480 \u0026lsquo;jes maar dat is niet echt de manier. Safari is begonnen dit te implementeren (vooral voor Dashboard) en Firefox heeft het overgenomen voor de volgende versie.\n****XUL: is de Mozilla manier voor het tekenen van GUIs (moet ik nog steeds een keer leren). Het bestaat al heel lang, en het wordt op best wel wat plaatsen gebruikt. Firefox heeft dit dus al en er is nu een project om Konqueror een complete XUL implementatie te geven. Dan zou Safari niet ver achterblijven.\nDie volgende versie van Firefox, dat wordt me wat. Misschien zelfs wel een sterk argument om IE-ondersteuning weg te gooien en zulke stoere webpagina\u0026rsquo;s te bouwen dat iedereen Firefox zal willen gaan gebruiken.\nMicrosoft gaat met XAML sommige van de bovenstaande functionaliteiten ook in IE inbouwen maar dat gaat dus anders werken. Het valt niet zo goed te rijmen met hun voornemen om standaarden te gaan volgen.\nGroter probleem is dat dat weer gaat zorgen voor fragmentatie van de technologie en vooral van de ondersteuning. Als webontwikkelaar wil je met één stuk code zoveel mogelijk gebruikers raken. Daarom zit je vast aan een redelijke kleine en relatief achterhaalde grootste gemene deler. En dat wordt dan alleen maar erger.\nEen mogelijke oplossing voor dit probleem is om bovenstaande componenten niet direct te gebruiken. Ze zijn allemaal nog niet overal bruikbaar. Er is een hoger niveau applicatie-programmeertaal nodig die onder de kap deze dingen gebruikt en waar niet beschikbaar ze emuleert of netjes weglaat. Dan kunnen we zorgeloos programmeren zonder al teveel energie kwijt te zijn aan quirks.\n","date":"July 3, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-321/","section":"Posts","summary":"Het leven van de webontwikkelaar is de laatste tijd een stuk leuker. Het AJAX neemt de boel compleet over en er zit schot in de ontwikkeling van de grote browsers, zowel in het voldoen aan standaarden als in nieuwe functionaliteit.\n","title":"Fragmentatie","type":"posts"},{"content":"Een vlucht naar Kabul valt te krijgen voor onder de $1000 (via).\n","date":"July 3, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-320/","section":"Posts","summary":"Een vlucht naar Kabul valt te krijgen voor onder de $1000 (via).\n","title":"Valt mee…","type":"posts"},{"content":"vi /etc/apt/sources.list :%s/sarge/testing/ :x apt-get update; apt-get dist-upgrade Na de release heb ik nog even gewacht maar nu draai ik toch echt weer testing. Na een paar weken is sarge voor mij al achterhaald maar dat is niet erg. Voor een desktop is testing meer dan stabiel genoeg.\nNu wachten op alle gave nieuwe dingen. Gnome 2.10, Xorg, Python 2.4 en nog veel meer.\n","date":"July 1, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-319/","section":"Posts","summary":"vi /etc/apt/sources.list :%s/sarge/testing/ :x apt-get update; apt-get dist-upgrade Na de release heb ik nog even gewacht maar nu draai ik toch echt weer testing. Na een paar weken is sarge voor mij al achterhaald maar dat is niet erg. Voor een desktop is testing meer dan stabiel genoeg.\n","title":"Vooruitgang","type":"posts"},{"content":"Vanavond met Xing Yi had de sifu een grote steen meegenomen. Wekenlang hebben we geoefend in het slaan met de muis van je hand op paarden, blokken hout en wat niet al. Meestal met heel veel pijn en rode handen als gevolg.\nVanavond moest het de harding van onze handen en het goede toepassen van de kracht worden gebruikt om van een stuk kalksteen kleiner en kleiner te laten worden.\nErg cool. Het is me gelukt om de steen te breken. Maar met het kleiner worden van de steen, wordt het ook moeilijker en ik kon al snel niet meer verder en na een tijdje niemand meer. Kleine blokjes wit steen en gruis lagen verpsreid over de vloer van de gymzaal.\n","date":"July 1, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-318/","section":"Posts","summary":"Vanavond met Xing Yi had de sifu een grote steen meegenomen. Wekenlang hebben we geoefend in het slaan met de muis van je hand op paarden, blokken hout en wat niet al. Meestal met heel veel pijn en rode handen als gevolg.\n","title":"Steen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Google satellietbeelden van Delft! Niet gedetailleerder te krijgen en ook nog geen kaarten maar het gaat de goede kant op.\nNelson post een foto van de landingsbaan op Gibraltar waar net als bij een spoorwegovergang de auto\u0026rsquo;s wachten om te mogen oversteken.\n","date":"June 30, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-317/","section":"Posts","summary":"Google satellietbeelden van Delft! Niet gedetailleerder te krijgen en ook nog geen kaarten maar het gaat de goede kant op.\n","title":"Vanuit de ruimte","type":"posts"},{"content":"Zo ik heb mijn laatste verslag van het jaar af. Ik heb hem hier maar online gezet: “Metadata in RSS or RSS as Metadata”. Er zit bij het inleveren geen review bij dus als iemand hier hem leest en op- aanmerkingen heeft dan zijn ze welkom (zet ik er stiekem een nieuwe versie neer).\nHou er wel rekening mee dat dit voor school is.\nIk had een onderwerp gekozen dat me erg interesseert en dat is maar goed ook anders had ik de afgelopen paar dagen niet overleefd. Ik moet ook nog een presentatie hierover geven maar dat wordt een eitje.\nIk heb de PDF meteen ook maar voorzien van auteursrechtelijk metadata. Hij is beschikbaar onder de volgende Creative Commons Naamsvermelding-NietCommercieel-GelijkDelen licentie.\nDie licentie valt als XMP Metadata ook in de PDF die ik heb gemaakt te verwerken. Daar heb ik een TeΧ macro voor gebruikt maar ik kan niet zo gauw zien of dat nou gelukt is. Iemand anders (i.e. iemand met Windows) wel?\n","date":"June 28, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-316/","section":"Posts","summary":"Zo ik heb mijn laatste verslag van het jaar af. Ik heb hem hier maar online gezet: “Metadata in RSS or RSS as Metadata”. Er zit bij het inleveren geen review bij dus als iemand hier hem leest en op- aanmerkingen heeft dan zijn ze welkom (zet ik er stiekem een nieuwe versie neer).\n","title":"Laatste Verslag","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik las via Breuls een ontzettend slecht verhaal op Macwereld. Puur ongenuanceerd Linux-bashen doorspekt met halve waarheden en erger.\nIk heb een reactie geplaatst maar dit soort types is meestal redelijk licht geraakt. Voor het geval hij verwijderd wordt zet ik hem ook even hier beneden neer.\nIk dacht een leuk en interessant opiniestuk te gaan lezen, maar valt dat even tegen. Je mening is de jouwe daar kan ik weinig aan af doen maar de leugens, generalisaties en drogredeneringen daar stoor ik me een beetje aan.\nProbeer de volgende keer als je iets schrijft je een beetje in te lezen in de stof. Met al die zelfgenoegzaamheid hier en in de reacties laten jullie je toch echt kennen.\nIk ga even inhoudelijk in op de hoofdlijnen (anders blijf ik bezig).\nEen van de belangrijkste onderdelen van de idealistische Open Source wereld is dat degene die maakt, bepaalt. Als je het niet goed vindt, als het je niet aanstaat dan moet of JIJ het beter maken of je je mond houden. Daarvoor hoef je niet per se te kunnen programmeren, testen en usability studies worden ook erg gewaardeerd maar bijdragen is essentieel.\nHet is te makkelijk om langs de kantlijn te staan en vuil te spuien.\nUitvaren tegen alles wat open is klinkt misschien stoer maar hoe beter Open Standaarden worden ondersteund des te eerder Apple zich ook uit de klauwen van Microsoft kan wrikken.\nDe functionaliteiten die je noemt bestaan voor het grootste gedeelt al lang.Hoe goed ze geïntegreerd zijn hangt puur van je distributie af. Die beroemde vrijheid zorgt er voor dat er voor elke doelgroep eentje is. Gebruikers-distro\u0026rsquo;s als Ubuntu en Linspire doen de meeste dingen goed.\nSpotlight bestond bijvoorbeeld al een tijdje op Linux in de vorm van Beagle.\nIk geef toe dat er neigingen richting Windows zijn (en ook richting OS X) maar er zijn ook hele sterke bewegingen binnen de verschillende Desktops die de eigen identiteit bewaken.\nDaarnaast zijn er ook systemen die compleet andere paradigma\u0026rsquo;s nastreven en temminste innovatief te noemen zijn. De goede punten daarvan zullen als de tijd daarvoor is overgenomen worden in de mainstream.\nHet is er allemaal wel, maar als je met je Mac-bril even oppervlakkig rondkijkt zul je het inderdaad niet zien.\nIk heb me hierboven nog redelijk lopen inhouden ook (ik heb het bijvoorbeeld niet eens gehad over de dieptrieste taalbeheersing van de auteur).\n","date":"June 27, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-315/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik las via Breuls een ontzettend slecht verhaal op Macwereld. Puur ongenuanceerd Linux-bashen doorspekt met halve waarheden en erger.\n","title":"Mac-bril","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ramsey Nasr\u0026rsquo;s derde stadsgedicht (via de Leeskamer): Huis van Melk en Honing\nOh ja. Ik heb meteen maar een Wikipedia pagina aangemaakt.\n","date":"June 26, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-314/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ramsey Nasr’s derde stadsgedicht (via de Leeskamer): Huis van Melk en Honing\n","title":"Stadsdichter","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik heb er al zoveel goede dingen over gehoord dat ik gisteren ook maar begonnen ben met mijn bookmarks bijhouden in Delicious.\nHet is erg makkelijk en leuk. Met een paar knoppen in je bookmark-balk voeg je een pagina die openstaat toe. Ik denk zelfs dat ik mijn normale bookmarks toe ga voegen (je kunt ze ook weer exporteren).\nCollaboratief, online en getagged bookmarks (en eigenlijk alles) bijhouden is de toekomst. Jon Udell denkt dat er ergens in Delicious een recommendation engine schuilt. Ik ben benieuwd wat hij maakt.\nNu kun je dus volgen wat ik schrijf, wat ik schiet en wat ik lees.\n","date":"June 26, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-313/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik heb er al zoveel goede dingen over gehoord dat ik gisteren ook maar begonnen ben met mijn bookmarks bijhouden in Delicious.\n","title":"Delicious","type":"posts"},{"content":"Via LVB weer Lessig virtuoos bezig gehoord. Een podcast van zijn toespraak en gesprek met Cory Doctorow op de O\u0026rsquo;Reilly ETech conferentie te beluisteren waarin hij glashelder zijn standpunt —het juiste standpunt toelicht.\nWat er volgens hem moet gebeuren:\nNoem ‘piraterij’, piraterij en maak geen smoezen voor echt illegaal gebruik.\nMaak trouwens ook geen smoezen voor de holle rhetoriek van stichting Brein en consorten waarmee ze onze rechten willen afnemen.\nLeer anderen waar het over gaat. Luister deze podcast en vertel het door. Zorg dat mensen het snappen.\nStel vast wat vrijheid betekent en dat het belangrijk is. Verdedig je bondgenoten en val je tegenstanders meedogenloos aan. Dit is een oorlog die gevoerd wordt .\nSoftwarepatenten komen ook ter sprake luister of lees het stuk bij Luc. En de macht van telco\u0026rsquo;s die op een vergelijkbare manier als Hollywood hun monopolieposities aan het verdedigen zijn.\n","date":"June 26, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-312/","section":"Posts","summary":"Via LVB weer Lessig virtuoos bezig gehoord. Een podcast van zijn toespraak en gesprek met Cory Doctorow op de O’Reilly ETech conferentie te beluisteren waarin hij glashelder zijn standpunt —het juiste standpunt toelicht.\n","title":"Lessig","type":"posts"},{"content":"Een Flash-filmpje over het Getting Things Done principe met in de hoofdrollen Emma Goldman en Mikhail Bakunin. Tijdsmanagment dus niet alleen bruikbaar voor corporate drones maar ook voor anarchisten (via).\n","date":"June 25, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-311/","section":"Posts","summary":"Een Flash-filmpje over het Getting Things Done principe met in de hoofdrollen Emma Goldman en Mikhail Bakunin. Tijdsmanagment dus niet alleen bruikbaar voor corporate drones maar ook voor anarchisten (via).\n","title":"Getting Things Done","type":"posts"},{"content":"In Den Haag Vandaag een item over het plan van de Hoofdcommissarissen om rond de steden digitale slotgrachten aan te brengen. Dit plan klinkt alsof het uit de Middeleeuwen komt, en dat doet het ook. Privacy en burgerrechten hebben bij de politie absoluut de laagste prioriteit.\nDe voorspelbare tegenstanders van dit plan, minister Pechtold en Femke Halsema houden vage verhalen over privacy en burgerrechten. Ze weten niet hard en tastbaar te maken waarom privacy en burgerrechten belangrijk zijn. Dat is jammer want, de voorstanders twijfelen geen seconde om in te spelen op de meest primitieve angstgevoelens om hun gelijk te halen.\nIk ben geen Bruce Schneier, maar hier gelden weer dezelfde argumenten over schijnveiligheid, vervolging van onschuldige mensen, oncontroleerbaarheid van de opslag en verspreiding van de gegevens.\nDe tegenstanders moeten die argumenten op een vergelijkbare manier inzetten anders maken ze geen schijn van kans.\n","date":"June 25, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-310/","section":"Posts","summary":"In Den Haag Vandaag een item over het plan van de Hoofdcommissarissen om rond de steden digitale slotgrachten aan te brengen. Dit plan klinkt alsof het uit de Middeleeuwen komt, en dat doet het ook. Privacy en burgerrechten hebben bij de politie absoluut de laagste prioriteit.\n","title":"Slotgracht","type":"posts"},{"content":"In deze tijd van gekte en “God bestaat niet” moeten zinnige mensen elkaar steunen. D'66 rechtvaardigt met één bericht op Nu.nl mijn hele stemgeschiedenis op die partij.\nHet maakt me niet eens uit of ze die meerderheid krijgen. Wat mij betreft hebben ze al gewonnen.\nOpgepikt door Marbel en Reinier.\n","date":"June 25, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-309/","section":"Posts","summary":"In deze tijd van gekte en “God bestaat niet” moeten zinnige mensen elkaar steunen. D'66 rechtvaardigt met één bericht op Nu.nl mijn hele stemgeschiedenis op die partij.\n","title":"Forza!","type":"posts"},{"content":"Het Oosten is helemaal hét wat betreft reizen. Vorig jaar op vakantie geweest naar Polen, Tjeschië, Slowakije en Hongarije. Dit jaar even de plannen in de ijskast voor mijn Spanje-reis maar ik denk dat ik daarna wel weer die kant op ga.\nDroomreis 1: Baltische staten zijn helemaal leuk en nog niet zo druk als bijvoorbeeld Praag. Als ik niet naar Spanje zou gaan, zou ik erover denken om Litouwen, Letland en Estland te zien en dan meteen nog even door te trekken naar St. Petersburg.\nDroomreis 2: Het duurt dus nog wel even voor ik daar aan toekom dus als ik tegen die tijd de Baltische staten te druk vindt heb ik deze achter de hand: Tblisi en Baku de pijpleiding achterna.\nVoor droomreis 3 zou ik wel verder Centraal Azië in willen maar hoe meer ik erover lees, hoe minder goed een idee me dat lijkt (behalve als je sommige mensen bent).\nIk denk dat Georgië en Azerbeidzjan wel goed te doen moeten zijn (via Kars (foto\u0026rsquo;s!)). Armenië lijkt me ook erg boeiend maar wel wat lastig.\nEen andere optie waar ik steeds meer mensen heen hoor gaan is Albanië. Erg goed stuk in de New Yorker over de burgemeester van Tirana.\nMisschien niet voor de hand liggend, maar zou erg goed passen aan het einde van een voormalig Joegoslavië vakantie. Erg verleidelijk, zeker als ik over de sublieme espresso daar hoor.\nZoveel wereld, zo weinig tijd.\n","date":"June 24, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-308/","section":"Posts","summary":"Het Oosten is helemaal hét wat betreft reizen. Vorig jaar op vakantie geweest naar Polen, Tjeschië, Slowakije en Hongarije. Dit jaar even de plannen in de ijskast voor mijn Spanje-reis maar ik denk dat ik daarna wel weer die kant op ga.\n","title":"Orientalisme","type":"posts"},{"content":"Gisteren met Robbert Jan en Inge naar de **2nd World Poetry Slampionship geweest op Poetry International.\nOntzettend leuk. Fijne opzet in de Schouwburg, met stoere video- en audio-begeleiding. De Woorddansers deden erg hun best maar het publiek werd een beetje moe door het gebrek aan pauze.\nDe dichters waren allemaal top. Razendsnel met meer dan een paar gedichten die me bij zullen blijven.\n","date":"June 24, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-307/","section":"Posts","summary":"Gisteren met Robbert Jan en Inge naar de **2nd World Poetry Slampionship geweest op Poetry International.\n","title":"Slam it!","type":"posts"},{"content":"Groot nieuws her en der over de gemeente Orlando die stopt met zijn gratis Wifi aan te bieden. Bericht op: Slashdot, Webwereld en Wireless Nederland en Local6.\nIn Orlando stoppen ze met het argument dat te weinig mensen het gebruiken voor het geld dat het kost. Het genoemde bedrag van $1800 lijkt mij op een gemeentebegroting een schijntje.\nEen pilot-project in een relatief klein deel van de stad dus niet zo gek dat niet zoveel mensen het gebruiken. Het probleem met WiFi is dat het pas handig wordt als het overal is en als het overal gratis (of goedkoop) is. Niemand gaat tientallen euri per uur betalen voor een hotspot. Die dingen kosten echt niet zoveel.\nDit was een stap in de goede richting, het nu terugtrekken is treurig en kortzichtig.\nWaarom wel?\nAls je er van uit kan gaan dat je overal mobiel VoIP kan bellen, kun je je GSM abonnement opzeggen. Kun je onderweg naar je werk het journaal kijken en chatten met vrienden.\nAls je hier dan ook nog locatie-gebaseerde diensten mee mogelijk maakt, dan wordt het echt compleet een gekkenhuis. Dan zet je de bouwstenen op hun plek om de hele samenleving te transformeren. Dingen die tien jaar geleden science-fiction waren worden dan mogelijk. Kenniseconomie, iemand?\nVia Weblogsky kwam ik van de week een filmpje tegen van Andrew Rasiej. Rasiej is erg cool, en in het filmpje zegt hij een heleboel verstandige dingen (“I thrive on democracy”).\nHij vergelijkt WiFi voor iedereen met andere nutsvoorzieningen in termen van algemeen belang en vooruit kijken naar een aanstaande grote behoefte. Daarom zou een gemeente het voortouw kunnen (en moeten) nemen.\nNog even Rasiej citeren:\n“We could get Wi-Fi [wireless fidelity] for all New Yorkers for the price of a movie ticket,” he said at a news conference.\n","date":"June 23, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-306/","section":"Posts","summary":"Groot nieuws her en der over de gemeente Orlando die stopt met zijn gratis Wifi aan te bieden. Bericht op: Slashdot, Webwereld en Wireless Nederland en Local6.\n","title":"Gemeentelijke WiFi","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik kreeg pas een aardig mailtje van Flickr dat ze met de verhuizing naar het serverpark van Yahoo! minder massages nodig gaan hebben. Dit vindt Jeroen interessant genoeg om te bloggen.\nZe lichten een en ander ook nog een toe op hun eigen forum. Aan die discussie doen de werknemers van Flickr ook gewoon mee op een hele relaxte manier (“Brains will win over corporate brawn!”).\nDe manier waarop Flickr met hun gebruikers en klanten omgaat is compleet anders dan hoe andere bedrijven het doen en ontzettend veel beter.\nVergelijkbaar is het verzoek van Google aan iemand om geen gebruik meer te maken van hun dienst.\nVriendelijk en helder geschreven, zonder legale opsmuk.\nOp deze manier ga je met mensen om. Dit is geen trend, dit wordt de norm.\n","date":"June 22, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-305/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik kreeg pas een aardig mailtje van Flickr dat ze met de verhuizing naar het serverpark van Yahoo! minder massages nodig gaan hebben. Dit vindt Jeroen interessant genoeg om te bloggen.\n","title":"Menselijk gezicht","type":"posts"},{"content":"Net een aardig stuk in Buitenhof gezien met ene Ben Verwaayen van BT ([Real stream](http://cgi.omroep.nl/cgi-bin/streams?/tv/vpro/buitenhof/bb.20050619.rm?start=38:51\n)).\nDe vragen die beantwoord zouden moeten worden, werden dat niet echt maar er kwam wel een hele harde diagnose van wat Europa op dit moment mankeert.\nHet gebrek aan elan. Het niet weten hoe te reageren op de grote veranderingen die aan het gebeuren zijn. Het kop in het zand steken en geen duidelijke keuzes durven te maken.\nDe moeite van het kijken waard.\n","date":"June 22, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-304/","section":"Posts","summary":"Net een aardig stuk in Buitenhof gezien met ene Ben Verwaayen van BT ([Real stream](http://cgi.omroep.nl/cgi-bin/streams?/tv/vpro/buitenhof/bb.20050619.rm?start=38:51\n)).\n","title":"Stagnant Europa","type":"posts"},{"content":"Bij ons op Topdesk werkt een redelijk aantal Britse expats. Zij praten Engels met onze Engelse (potentiele) klanten.\nNu verwacht ik niet dat Britten al Nederlands kunnen als ze hierheen komen maar ik verwacht wel dat ze dat gaan leren. Na een half jaar kunnen sommige van deze gasten nog steeds nauwelijks Nederlands.\nDat is natuurlijk lui en dom van ze maar waarom zou je de moeite ook doen om Nederlands te leren als iedereen hier graag Engels met je wil praten.\nDe meeste van mijn collega\u0026rsquo;s zijn vrij hoog opgeleid en wordt er dus niet zomaar Engels met ze gepraat. Nee, er wordt gekoketteerd met de kennis van de Engelse taal en mensen doen hun best om het cockney-accent van onze expats na te apen.\nZo gemakkelijk als er toegegeven en aangepast wordt aan het Engels als taal, zoveel weerstand is er om talen van andere significante groepen in Nederland te leren. Turks en Berbers/Arabisch worden al lange tijd door veel mensen in Nederland gesproken. Het praktisch nut is duidelijk maar voorstellen om deze talen op scholen in te voeren werden zelfs in het pre-Fortuyn-tijdperk weggehoond.\nNee, enige concessie wat dan ook aan die mensen is compleet ondenkbaar. Je hoort vaak over niet-Westerse migranten (en dus nooit over bovengenoemde expats): ‘laten ze onze taal maar leren’ of ‘laten zíj zich maar aanpassen’\nWaarom zouden immigranten een taal leren waarvan de eigen bevolking hem te onbelangrijk vindt om (goed) te spreken? Dat Engels waar ik het over had, is duidelijk veel handiger voor iedereen. Laten ze dat onderwijzen tijdens die inburgeringscursussen.\nIn een land als Amerika doen ze er een stuk minder moeilijk over. Spaans is daar met 30 miljoen sprekers met gemak de tweede taal. Op school leren de meeste het nu omdat het gewoon handig is. Ze laten zich niet tegenhouden door vooroordelen en andere onderbuikgevoelens opgewekt door opportunistische politici.\n","date":"June 22, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-303/","section":"Posts","summary":"Bij ons op Topdesk werkt een redelijk aantal Britse expats. Zij praten Engels met onze Engelse (potentiele) klanten.\n","title":"Dubbele Taal","type":"posts"},{"content":"Dankzij de goede zorgen van Nelson heb ik in een klein uurtje een script geschreven dat Flickr afstroopt op foto\u0026rsquo;s. Het maakt me eigenlijk niet uit wat voor foto\u0026rsquo;s het zijn of wat erop staat. Ik heb er gewoon heel veel nodig.\nDe mensen van Flickr zijn erg goed en met weinig als ik de berichten mag geloven. Het schijnt dat Flickr is begonnen met een team van 8 mensen.\nIn ieder geval ze hebben alle functionaliteit van de site blootgesteld via een webservices API. Ze doen nog veel meer dingen ontzettend goed. Daarover later misschien meer.\nIk pak steeds een willkeurig woord uit\n/usr/share/dict/american-english\n. Dat woord stop ik in de flickr.photos.search methode van de API met behulp van FlickrClient.py.\nAlle foto\u0026rsquo;s die ik terugkrijg haal ik op en schrijf ik weg op mijn harde schijf.\nAls ik dit een nachtje laat draaien zou ik een flink corpus moeten hebben. Het idee is dat ik die foto\u0026rsquo;s als aanzetje gebruik om in ImageSeek te pluggen. Een content-based Flickr zoekmachine!\n","date":"June 21, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-302/","section":"Posts","summary":"Dankzij de goede zorgen van Nelson heb ik in een klein uurtje een script geschreven dat Flickr afstroopt op foto’s. Het maakt me eigenlijk niet uit wat voor foto’s het zijn of wat erop staat. Ik heb er gewoon heel veel nodig.\n","title":"Flickrcrawl","type":"posts"},{"content":"De Hebben!-factor is net weer een tandje omhoog voor de PSP. Bij Russell Beatie een link naar een FPS op de PSP met filmpjes.\n“four person deathmatch via WiFi” zegt eigenlijk al genoeg.\nEven zoeken maar 1 september blijft de datum. Net lang genoeg wachten tot dat ding een beetje volwassen is, er genoeg spelletjes zijn en hij goed genoeg gehackt is om er zelf willekeurige shit op te kunnen zetten.\n€249 is niet absurd voor dit apparaat. Mijn plan blijft om mijn GSM in te ruilen voor een PSP en voortaan te bellen via VoIP. Daarnaast zijn een paar memory-kaarten van Gigabytes handig om genoeg muziek, films en televisie mee te kunnen nemen.\n","date":"June 21, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-301/","section":"Posts","summary":"De Hebben!-factor is net weer een tandje omhoog voor de PSP. Bij Russell Beatie een link naar een FPS op de PSP met filmpjes.\n","title":"Hebben!","type":"posts"},{"content":"Vandaag twee uitslagen van tentamens binnen uit deze laatste periode. Voor Spaans een 9 en voor Usability Engineering een goede 8. Toch weer genoeg reden om blij te zijn. Zeker ook omdat dit vakken van twee kwartalen waren. Die duren het langst.\nMijn puntentotaal voor dit jaar is vrij aardig 51 à 60 maar kan zeker nog verbeterd worden. Ik kan de komende tien dagen als ik hard doorwerk en een paar dingen inlever nog 9 harde ECTS bijboeken.\n","date":"June 20, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-300/","section":"Posts","summary":"Vandaag twee uitslagen van tentamens binnen uit deze laatste periode. Voor Spaans een 9 en voor Usability Engineering een goede 8. Toch weer genoeg reden om blij te zijn. Zeker ook omdat dit vakken van twee kwartalen waren. Die duren het langst.\n","title":"Double Whammy","type":"posts"},{"content":"Vanochtend dus veel te laat opgestaan maar wel op tijd om een stampvolle tram 1 naar het Spui te nemen. De skaters op het Spui ontweken en een kaartje gekocht voor de recital van Ibrahim Yazıcı, Fazıl Say, Sertab Erener en het Residentie Orkest.\nVoor de pauze kregen we wat klassieke muziek van Turkse componisten (Ulvi Cemal Erkin \u0026amp; Fazıl Say). Ik wist niet dat Turkije dit soort muziek had (op TRT zie je het nooit), maar ik ben ook helemaal niet thuis in de moderne ‘klassieke’ muziek.\nRedelijk boeiend. De bewegingen van dirigent Yazıcı waren apart te noemen en Say kan zeker wel piano spelen. Maar daar kwam natuurlijk (bijna?) niemand voor. We kwamen allemaal voor Sertab!\nNa de pauze kwam ze op voor oordverdovend applaus. Iedereen blij, Sertab en Say deden een Turks lied en Summertime van Gershwin. Sertab kan fantastisch zingen en vooral in die tweede liet ze dat goed merken.\nHierna zong ze nog één nummer (Memleketim (=mijn geboortegrond) geloof ik) met het orkest samen. Dit is waar ze echt schittert. Ze heeft een dijk van een stem en kan goed tegen het orkest op zingen. Ik had hier graag nog veel meer van gehoord maar dat mocht niet.\nAls toegift kregen we in een bizar soort ironische West en Oost menging een variatie op de Turkse Mars van Mozart door het orkest waar Sertab leuk op mee-nanana\u0026rsquo;de.\n","date":"June 19, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-299/","section":"Posts","summary":"Vanochtend dus veel te laat opgestaan maar wel op tijd om een stampvolle tram 1 naar het Spui te nemen. De skaters op het Spui ontweken en een kaartje gekocht voor de recital van Ibrahim Yazıcı, Fazıl Say, Sertab Erener en het Residentie Orkest.\n","title":"Sertab vervolg","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik zag gisteren deze poster hangen. Te gaaf!\nVeel te laat natuurlijk, maar ik ga vanmiddag toch even mijn best doen om erheen te kunnen.\n","date":"June 19, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-298/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik zag gisteren deze poster hangen. Te gaaf!\n","title":"Sertab","type":"posts"},{"content":"Batman Begins schijnt heel goed te zijn. Ik moet nog.\nMaar ik wil zeker ook deze comic graphic novel van Frank Miller lezen.\nHet verhaal van Batman die tegen Superman vecht is erg gaaf.\n","date":"June 18, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-297/","section":"Posts","summary":"Batman Begins schijnt heel goed te zijn. Ik moet nog.\n","title":"Duistere Ridder","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik stond vanochtend absurd vroeg (09.00) voor Armin\u0026rsquo;s deur. Ik kan me niet herinneren ooit op zaterdag zo vroeg opgestaan en gedouchet te zijn. Te bizar.\nIn de auto naar Haarlem gescheurd. Daar in sportzaal “Conrad” Xing Yi niveau 2 examen gedaan. Het ging ontzettend veel slechter dan geoefend. Erg sneu. Uiteindelijk wel geslaagd met een magere voldoende.\nIn ieder geval is het spits er nu af en kunnen we beginnen aan het trainen van de 12 diervormen. Dat is nog moeilijker, nog leuker en gaat nog langer duren om onder de knie te krijgen.\n","date":"June 18, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-296/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik stond vanochtend absurd vroeg (09.00) voor Armin’s deur. Ik kan me niet herinneren ooit op zaterdag zo vroeg opgestaan en gedouchet te zijn. Te bizar.\n","title":"Examen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Iedereen wist wel dat het met die thuiskopie-heffingen niet helemaal pluis was. Nu een bericht op Nu dat dat ook echt klopt.\nHet hele idee is natuurlijk compleet debiel en je pakt er mensen mee die CDs gebruiken voor legale doeleinden (backups bijvoorbeeld).\nDaarnaast ben ik ook wel de bezitter van wat auteursrechtelijk beschermd materiaal. Wat programmacode, de teksten op dit blog en mijn foto\u0026rsquo;s op Flickr. Het is niet ondenkbaar dat er mensen daar thuiskopieën van maken op datadragers. Ik denk dat ik dan ook maar een brief ga schrijven aan Stichting de Thuiskopie om mijn deel van die vetpot op te eisen.\nIk ben het laatste boek van Lessig aan het lezen en daarin staat een goed citaat wat hierop (en op nog veel meer) van toepassing zou moeten zijn. Uit een vonnis van Justice Douglas waarin hij een (belachelijke) eis verwerpt: “Common sense revolts at the idea.”\n","date":"June 14, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-295/","section":"Posts","summary":"Iedereen wist wel dat het met die thuiskopie-heffingen niet helemaal pluis was. Nu een bericht op Nu dat dat ook echt klopt.\n","title":"Thuiskopieën","type":"posts"},{"content":"Mijn collega\u0026rsquo;s gaan vandaag weer boeken bestellen en ze wilden weten of ik er ook een paar wilde. Natuurlijk wil ik boeken. Ik wil altijd boeken, maar ik moet er toch echt meer gaan uitlezen dan dat ik er koop.\nAmazon.co.uk erop nageslagen en het werden niet:\nPatrick Seale - Abu Nidal: A Gun For Hire Brockett \u0026amp; Hildy - History of the Theatre Ian Kershaw - Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris Ian Kershaw - Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis Tristan Egolf - Lord of the Barnyard: Killing the Fatted Calf and Arming the Aware in the Corn Belt William Gibson - Pattern Recognition William Gibson \u0026amp; Bruce Sterling - The Difference Engine Robert Fisk - Pity the Nation: The Abduction of Lebanon Sarah Kane - Complete Plays Ian McEwan - Saturday Michel Faber - The Crimson Petal and the White E.H. Gombrich - The Story of Art Jonathan Safran Foer - Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close Nee, hoe graag ik ook had gewild die lijst hierboven was mijn failliet geworden. Die heb ik op mijn wishlist gezet (hint!).\nIn een staaltje van buitengewone zelfdiscipline koop ik er maar drie deze keer:\nBill Carter - Fools Rush In Martin Esslin - The Field of Drama Mark Z. Danielewski - House of Leaves ","date":"June 13, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-294/","section":"Posts","summary":"Mijn collega’s gaan vandaag weer boeken bestellen en ze wilden weten of ik er ook een paar wilde. Natuurlijk wil ik boeken. Ik wil altijd boeken, maar ik moet er toch echt meer gaan uitlezen dan dat ik er koop.\n","title":"Nog meer boeken","type":"posts"},{"content":"Voor de Breinen, de Disneys en de politici die het niet snappen, een artikel waar het allemaal in staat: “The People Own Ideas!” een verslag van Lawrence Lessig van het World Social Forum in Porto Alegre.\nLessig legt het uit, de beweging van vrijheid en participatie.\nDe opkomst van vrije software tegen de druk van gesloten bedrijfssoftware in. Vrijheid om te verspreiden, gebruiken en veranderen.\nDe nieuwe trend van vrije cultuur die de bedrijven met alle macht proberen in te perken. Verplicht te lezen voor iedereen die het zat is om te horen dat P2P-software alleen gebruikt wordt door ‘dieven’.\n","date":"June 13, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-293/","section":"Posts","summary":"Voor de Breinen, de Disneys en de politici die het niet snappen, een artikel waar het allemaal in staat: “The People Own Ideas!” een verslag van Lawrence Lessig van het World Social Forum in Porto Alegre.\n","title":"Canto Livre","type":"posts"},{"content":"Niet zoveel om over te schrijven of toch weer wel. Loom weekend achter de rug.\nGisteren naar Amsterdam geweest om een kado te kopen. Nog wat kleren gekocht waaronder dit jasje.\nKado gegeven op hele leuke barbecue.\nVandaag brakjes wakker geworden en naar Rotterdam getogen voor de Red Bull Air Race. Erg veel zie je niet behalve erg veel mensen. Dit is meer een toeschouwersport voor achter de televisie.\nMisschien kwam het door mijn bezoek aan Amsterdam gisteren maar mijn allergie tegen Rotterdammers begon zich te laten voelen. Toen zijn we maar gevlucht in een Japanse exclave tot alle mensen weg waren.\nVandaag en morgen leren en werken aan een paar laatste vakken. Dinsdag tentamen Spaans en volgende week deadline opdrachten AI.\n","date":"June 12, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-292/","section":"Posts","summary":"Niet zoveel om over te schrijven of toch weer wel. Loom weekend achter de rug.\n","title":"Weekend","type":"posts"},{"content":"Leuk als het tempo weer oppikt. Dat je dingen die al heel lang lopen af kunt gaan maken.\nVandaag een tentamen ingekopt. Ik ga in de komende paar weken nog een paar langlopende vakken afronden. Ben nu bezig met wat practica af te maken.\nBen blij als het allemaal af is, dan kan ik me concentreren op afstuderen.\nIk ben toegelaten tot de SU bij AEGEE/Oviedo. Dat is echt supercool. Ik ben al een beetje foto\u0026rsquo;s aan het bekijken van de omgeving.\nEerst naar What The Hack (het gaat door!). 4-14 augustus rondkijken bij Oviedo en daarna nog wat meer Spanje meepakken dan ben ik eind augustus terug. Het wordt een hele coole zomer.\n18 juni Xing Yi examen voor het 2e niveau. Verder nog mijn rijbewijs halen en kijken of ik van de zomer leuk werk heb.\n","date":"June 8, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-291/","section":"Posts","summary":"Leuk als het tempo weer oppikt. Dat je dingen die al heel lang lopen af kunt gaan maken.\n","title":"Tempo","type":"posts"},{"content":"De voetbalclub is tof maar de naam is gekaapt. Als je web en scripting interessant vindt zou je John Udell altijd moeten lezen. Hier toch een linkje, want deze is nog meer dan altijd.\nOp mijn werk zijn we bezig met Ajax dingen en daar maken we best leuk spul mee. Dat wordt vrijwel allemaal met de hand geschreven, om verschillende redenen waarvan één er noodzaak is.\nDie noodzaak is foetsie.\nHier een blogpost van Udell (en kijk vooral de screencast!). Wat je ziet is een rijke cross-platform Ajax GUI met een complete GUI-builder in de browser. En daarnaast een client-side geschreven webservices stack met widget bindings en hele goede debugbaarheid.\nDit is redelijk verbluffend. Citaat van Udell: “You have some serious rocket science going on here.”\n","date":"June 7, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-290/","section":"Posts","summary":"De voetbalclub is tof maar de naam is gekaapt. Als je web en scripting interessant vindt zou je John Udell altijd moeten lezen. Hier toch een linkje, want deze is nog meer dan altijd.\n","title":"Ajax IDE","type":"posts"},{"content":"Het wordt gefluisterd op Planet. Debian Sarge staat op het punt om vrijgegeven te worden.\n","date":"June 6, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-289/","section":"Posts","summary":"Het wordt gefluisterd op Planet. Debian Sarge staat op het punt om vrijgegeven te worden.\n","title":"Eindelijk!","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik kom net het blog van Jim Kunstler tegen met erg eloquent cultuurpessimisme uit Amerika over Amerika.\nHet heeft de treffende naam: Clusterfuck Nation.\n","date":"June 6, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-288/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik kom net het blog van Jim Kunstler tegen met erg eloquent cultuurpessimisme uit Amerika over Amerika.\n","title":"Aftakeling","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik vond het een groot gemis dat er op de Nederlandse Wikipedia geen pagina was over Xing Yi.\nDaarom heb ik er net maar eentje geschreven. Volgens mij wel een aardige eerste opzet.\nLastig wel om de engelse woorden splitting, drilling, smashing, pounding en crossing te vertalen. Ze komen allemaal neer op hetzelfde: knoepert hard slaan.\n","date":"June 6, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-287/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik vond het een groot gemis dat er op de Nederlandse Wikipedia geen pagina was over Xing Yi.\n","title":"Wiki","type":"posts"},{"content":"In Radio Online van een tijdje geleden een uitgebreid item de kloof tussen de oude media en de nieuwe media. Deze tijd is er eentje van kloven.\nNatuurlijk groot onbegrip, territoriaal gedrag en een beetje onbenul bij de Radio Online-crew. In een sterk staaltje rhetoriek weet van Jole webloggers te reduceren tot mensen die nieuwsstukjes pikken.\nHiermee gaat hij voorbij aan de partij mensen die op hun weblogs goede proza en mooie foto\u0026rsquo;s produceren. Aan die mensen die hun passie voor weblogs \u0026amp; marketing, markup en andere dingen delen. Aan bedrijven die eindelijk aan boord van de Clue Train springen en weblogs gebruiken om effectief te communiceren met hun organisatie en hun klanten.\nAan hoe míjn weblog míj helpt dingetjes te delen met mijn vrienden en kennissen en mijn Google-waarde te vergroten.\nZe laten ook Henk Blanken praten een journalist die het wél begrepen heeft.\nHenk Blanken valt uit tegen de Bie en van Jole. Hij beschuldigt hen en de andere oude journalisten van buitengewoon dédain. Een makkelijke uitweg voor een groep mensen die niet mee kan komen met de digitale revolutie, de “Digital Immigrants”.\nBij dit onderwerp een goed stuk op Frankwatching over de Digital Natives: **“Jongeren worden niet warm of koud van massamedia”.\nBlanken schrijft op zijn weblog over dit onderwerp. In een stuk noemt hij als eisen voor een journalist objectiviteit en onafhankelijkheid. Ik weet niet of journalisten alleen omdat ze schrijven voor oude media nou zo onafhankelijk en objectief zijn. Ik denk het niet echt. En dan staat er niet eens iets over expertise. Journalisten weten wel hoe ze een leuk stukje moeten schrijven. Zou kennis van het onderwerp niet handig zijn?\nOm met Joi Ito te spreken: \u0026ldquo;Sex is ook niet automatisch beter als je ervoor betaalt.\u0026rdquo;\nEr was pas een miniem relletje over de berichtgeving van de HOSC waar ik vorige week was. Ik heb de journaliste waar het over gaat gezien en ik twijfelde er ook aan of ze nou iets zinnigs ging schrijven. Niet dus.\nIk denk dat ik met een laptop de conferentie prima had kunnen live-bloggen en (vooral inhoudelijk) een beter resultaat aan zou kunnen bieden dan de meeste journalisten. Dus als iemand mijn Powerbook wil sponsoren, ga ik aan de slag.\nWat is de moraal van dit verhaal?\nMedia zoals wij ze kennen bestaan binnenkort niet meer. Weblogs en fora maken het nu kranten moeilijk. Het wordt pas echt leuk als audio en video online gemeengoed en makkelijk te gebruiken zijn.\nJournalisten die het internet omarmen hebben een betere overlevingskans. Alle lezers van een krantenartikel weten meer over een onderwerp dan de schrijver van datzelfde artikel ooit kan weten. Informatie uit heel veel bronnen kunnen consumeren en op waarde schatten wordt belangrijker dan ooit —ook voor journalisten.\nEn als al het andere faalt, automatiseren we de boel gewoon tot EPIC bestaat.\n","date":"June 6, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-286/","section":"Posts","summary":"In Radio Online van een tijdje geleden een uitgebreid item de kloof tussen de oude media en de nieuwe media. Deze tijd is er eentje van kloven.\n","title":"Dinosaurblogs","type":"posts"},{"content":"Leuke theater dingen van de zomer. Deze Ivanov in het Amsterdamse Bos bijvoorbeeld.\nOf A Clockwork Orange van d\u0026rsquo;Electrique op de NDSM-werf tijdens Over het IJ.\nEn natuurlijk de Parade (pas op! hippe nieuwe site!), maar wat nog meer?\n","date":"June 4, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-285/","section":"Posts","summary":"Leuke theater dingen van de zomer. Deze Ivanov in het Amsterdamse Bos bijvoorbeeld.\n","title":"Zomertheater","type":"posts"},{"content":"Er is een nieuwe Epic uit. Kijken! (via)\nHet toekomstbeeld wat geschetst wordt lijkt me niet eens zo\u0026rsquo;n slechte zaak (en redelijk onafwendbaar). Ik wil gepersonaliseerd nieuws en locatie-gebaseerde media al jaren hebben.\n","date":"June 4, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-284/","section":"Posts","summary":"Er is een nieuwe Epic uit. Kijken! (via)\n","title":"Episch","type":"posts"},{"content":"Onder andere naar aanleiding van “Nederland tegen ‘triviale’ softwarepatenten” (Nu.nl).\nVrijdag had ik het met mijn collega\u0026rsquo;s over het softwarepatenten debat dat ik heb gezien tijdens HOSC. Ik kwam er vandaan met een beetje een onbevredigd gevoel.\nVolgens mijn collega\u0026rsquo;s zijn softwarepatenten een slecht plan omdat je het ‘resultaat patenteert’. Dit is een heel inhoudelijk en heel ingewikkeld bezwaar wat ik nog niet eens helemaal snap.\nDat is in de discussie een beetje het probleem. Er zijn hele sterke inhoudelijke bezwaren maar als je die niet uit kunt leggen aan normale mensen heb je er niks aan.\nIk kreeg de beschuldiging voor mijn kiezen dat ik ‘borrel-argumenten’ zou willen hebben. Dat is niet zo. Ik wil argumenten die het ook op een borrel goed zouden doen. Mensen moeten het kunnen snappen.\nIk kwam alternatief met drie tegenargumenten die gaan over uitsluiting. Uitsluiting is Slecht™.\nUitsluiting van kleine spelers door grote spelers\nIk heb weleens goede ideeën over software en softwaretoepassingen. Soms wel met een frequentie van een paar per uur. Bijna alles is patenteerbaar en dus ook mijn ideeën.\nIk kan die ideeën niet patenteren omdat ik het geld er niet voor heb. Een groot bedrijf kan precies diezelfde ideeën wel patenteren (en doet dat dan ook).\nDat is al compleet belachelijk. Het wordt nog erger.\nOmdat er zoveel onzinnige patenten zijn, weet niemand welk patent het wel overleeft in de rechtbank en welke niet. Om je patent te kunnen verdedigen of handhaven heb je legers advocaten nodig. Ik kan die niet betalen, grote bedrijven wel.\nOverheden zouden de zwakkeren moeten beschermen. Dat gebeurt hier helemaal niet. Zie ook: klassejustitie.\nUitsluiting van de toekomst door het verleden\nDe grote bedrijven van nu en andere rechthebbenden zijn het huidige verleden. Ze hebben voortbouwend op hun eigen verleden ooit wat verzonnen wat toen vernieuwend was.\nDie verzinsels hebben ze gepatenteerd en op alle mogelijke manieren afgeschermd. Op deze manier hebben ze hun positie veilig gesteld en hoeven ze geen nieuwe dingen meer te verzinnen. Grote bedrijven innoveren niet of nauwelijks.\nDit maakt het voor nieuwkomers moeilijk om voet aan de grond te krijgen. Ze worden aangeklaagd of gekocht of op een andere manier onschadelijk gemaakt. Het verleden houdt zo de toekomst in een wurggreep.\nUitsluiting van de Derde Wereld door het Rijke Westen\nDe Derde Wereld kan het patentenspel niet meespelen. Ze doen weinig onderzoek en hebben weinig geld. Daardoor kunnen ze geen kennispositie opbouwen.\nDat ontbreken van die kennispositie gaat ze opbreken zodra ze wel op die markt beginnen te opereren. Wil je kennis gebruiken dan moet je er grof voor betalen aan landen die al rijk waren. Dat konden ze al niet of nauwelijks en dat zullen ze dan ook niet op kunnen brengen.\nIn een vrije wereld moet een arm land die kenniskloof in niet al te lange tijd kunnen dichten. Dat komt het Westen natuurlijk niet zo goed uit. Voilà: digitaal kolonialisme voor de 21e eeuw.\n","date":"June 4, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-283/","section":"Posts","summary":"Onder andere naar aanleiding van “Nederland tegen ‘triviale’ softwarepatenten” (Nu.nl).\n","title":"Softwarepatenten","type":"posts"},{"content":"Een van de dommere voorstellen in de grondwetgekte is door het parlement afgewezen.\nGroenLinks had bedacht dat een parlementaire enquête een goede manier zou zijn om te kijken waar het nou mis ging.\nEen geweldig idee: de kloof tussen burger en politiek onderzoeken. Je laat een commissie van politieke ijzervreters maanden bezig zijn en uiteindelijk heb je een pak papier dat dikker is dan die grondwet waar het allemaal om begonnen is. Ja, dat gaat de kloof dichten hoor!\nJe moet wel heel wereldvreemd zijn en ver af staan van Echte Mensen als je denkt dat dit gaat helpen.\nDeze tijd heeft nieuwe vormen van overleg en besluitvorming nodig. De politiek en haar instrumenten moeten opnieuw uitgevonden worden om effectief te functioneren en te schalen in de huidige verbonden informatiesamenleving.\nIets waar ik trouwens met veel plezier aan wil werken.\nElk kamerlid een echt blog zou een goed begin kunnen zijn.\n","date":"June 2, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-282/","section":"Posts","summary":"Een van de dommere voorstellen in de grondwetgekte is door het parlement afgewezen.\n","title":"GroenDom","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ochtend Key Notes\nErik Josefsson begon met een presentatie over het dreigende gevaar van de Softwarepatenten Richtlijn en over de bizarre omtrekkende formuleringen met woorden als “techniek” en “software als zodanig” om de tekst nog onduidelijker te maken.\nJosefsson is geen geweldig spreker maar het is duidelijk dat hij veel weet van deze belangrijke dingen.\nBedrijven kunnen zich registreren op Economic Majority.\nDirk-Willem van Gulik heeft een goed verhaal in hoog tempo over de organisatie van de Apache Software Foundation. Een van de belangrijkste dingen die ze doen is het ontwikkelen van software in een legaal neutrale ‘zwarte doos’ die compleet afgeschermd wordt door de stichting.\nDat zorgt ervoor dat iedereen die zich aan de regels houdt kan bijdragen aan de software en het kan gebruiken zonder extra problemen.\nSoftwarepatenten\nDit debat kwam niet echt van de grond. De partijen stonden te ver uit elkaar en de discussie werd op een hele serie halfslachtige punten gevoerd.\nArnoud Engelfriet, de man van Philips, gaf een presentatie met het bekende standpunt en liet op zijn laatste slide aan angstbom vallen door te zeggen dat als softwarepatenten in hun huidige vorm er niet doorheen komen innovatie zal verdwijnen.\nEen van de amendenten die de richtlijn binnenkort misschien af gaan zwakken zorgt ervoor dat alle toepassingen waar het gaat om het verwerken van data automatisch niet patenteerbaar zijn.\nIk snap wel dit Philips daar problemen mee heeft. De meeste dingen die ze doen gaan namelijk om het verwerken van gegevens. Of het nu een MRI-scanner is of een mp3-encoder.\nDe fundamentele vraag of patenten überhaupt nodig zijn kwam al helemaal niet aan de orde.\nWat zou Lessig hiervan vinden?\nOrganizational Aspects of OSS Communities\nRedelijk algemene en bekende verhalen over hoe OSS-gemeenschappen in elkaar zitten.\nArthur Buijs had een interessant verhaal over hoe Sun samenwerkt met de andere OOo ontwikkelaars. In de praktijk doen ze dat niet of nauwelijks, communiceren ze slecht en houden ze liever alles nog steeds intern. Volgens hem is het geen kwade wil maar zijn het de pogingen van een log oud bedrijf om zich aan te passen aan een nieuwe status quo.\nXimian, dat ook aan de OOo-code werkt, schijnt veel vriendelijker te zijn.\nAfsluitende Key Notes\nJames Baty van Sun vindt het heel cool dat er meer mobiele telefoons zijn dan PCs en dat veel van die mobiele telefoons Java draaien.\nDit wordt volgens hem een van de drijvende krachten achter het online krijgen van die miljarden mensen die nog geen internet hebben. Iets waar Sun erg mee bezig is.\nHij had ook een erg positief verhaal over Sun\u0026rsquo;s Open Source pogingen. De JCP is in handen van Sun maar de meerderheid van de dingen daar wordt niet door Sun zelf behandeld. Hij werd bijgevallen door Dirk-Willem van Gulik die zei dat iedereen de Java-specificatie mag implementeren, wat Apache nu ook aan het doen is in het Harmony project. Als zoiets af is, is misschien eindelijk het schisma tussen Java en de Open Source wereld voorbij. Helaas voor Java is Mono al een stuk verder met een Open Source implementatie.\nJim Wales gaf een erg gaaf praatje over Wikipedia.\nHij sprak tegen dat Wikipedia een emergent phenomeen is van mensen die weinig weten en elkaar nauwelijks kennen. Dat is helemaal niet waar. Het meeste werk wordt gedaan door een kleine toegewijde groep mensen die elkaar goed kennen.\nJimbo is de koning die toeziet dat alles gesmeerd blijft lopen maar het liefst zo weinig mogelijk ingrijpt. Er zijn af en toe nieuwe features en regels nodig om de boel te laten blijven lopen.\n","date":"June 1, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-281/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ochtend Key Notes\n","title":"Holland Open Dag 2","type":"posts"},{"content":"Als je dit filmpje (via) ziet, vraag je je toch af wat de politie te verbergen heeft. Genoeg, blijkbaar.\nBurgerrechten zeggen deze gasten niet zoveel. Druk van de politie uit was een belangrijke reden om de identificatieplicht in te voeren. Ik denk niet omdat het nodig was, maar meer uit gemakzucht.\nToen in België de politie verdacht was werden ze continu gevolgd door burgerwachten. Misschien moeten we dat hier ook maar doen.\nWie houden ze toch voor de gek? Binnenkort streamen veel mensen continu video naar hun eigen archieven via (beveiligde) draadloze verbindingen. Probeer dan nog maar bandjes te wissen.\n","date":"May 31, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-280/","section":"Posts","summary":"Als je dit filmpje (via) ziet, vraag je je toch af wat de politie te verbergen heeft. Genoeg, blijkbaar.\n","title":"Een echte vent","type":"posts"},{"content":"(Nu even een braindump. Ik werk deze tekst wel verder uit van de week als ik tijd heb.)\n(Een paar foto\u0026rsquo;s op Flickr, maar ik heb het nog niet helemaal onder de knie om in volle auditoria goede foto\u0026rsquo;s te maken.)\nBoeiende eerste dag van deze conferentie. Er zijn in ieder geval veel mensen aanwezig met een duidelijke passie voor Open Source (iets wat altijd goed is).\nOchtend Key Notes:\nScott Handy, is de Linux-baas van IBM met een helder verhaal over de onvermijdelijkheid van IBM\u0026rsquo;s Linux strategie. Aan de ene kant om IBM\u0026rsquo;s diensten goed neer te zetten aan de andere kant in de platform-oorlog met Microsoft.\nMadan Mohan Rao, trendwatcher uit India die over de hele wereld de opkomst van emerging markets in de IT in de gaten houdt, komt volgende week langs op de TU voor het zelfde verhaal maar dan over Afrika.\nVeel Aziatische landen hebben grote diasporas (Chinese, Indiase, zelfs Turkse).\nMobiel wordt belangrijker.\nMicro-Multinationals, multinationale bedrijven van een handjevol werknemers.\nStefaan van Hooydonk, interessant verhaal over Digital Natives vs. Digital Immigrants en meer leuke dingen over leren door middel van computerspelletjes\nJesús Villasante, Spaans medewerker van de Europese Commissie, sterke mening, erg zelf-overtuigd, wil in ieder geval de Lissabon-agenda wat betreft kenniseconomie halen misschien met behulp van Open Source\nTrack Business Models:\nInteressante verhalen, maar weinig nieuws gehoord en ook weinig direct toepasbaars\nTrack Open Government:\nPeter Waters, interessant verhaal van een gespecialiseerde multi-zoekmachine voor wetgeving voor alle wetten van Nederland\nJohn Oldenhuizing, meerdere interessante voorbeelden over hoe mensen dichter bij de informatie van de overheid te krijgen.\n-Geef mensen de informatie die ze zoeken.\n-Laat mensen informatie op een begrijpelijke manier zien.\n-Verspreid informatie naar plaatsen waar mensen al zijn.\nKimberly Simon, verhaal over verschil tussen OSS en proprietaire manieren van ontwikkeling\nDebate on Innovation:\nRonde tafel discussie met de key note speakers over innovatie onder andere naar aanleiding van opmerkingen uit de zaal\nHet was een redelijke issue waarom alle belangrijke IT-bedrijven in Amerika zitten terwijl heel veel IT/OSS-ontwikkeling in Europa gebeurt.\nDit zou kunnen liggen aan het feit dat er tussen Amerika en Europa grote culturele verschillen zijn. Ander idee was dat de meeste ontwikkeling in Europa gebeurt in het MKB en dat het MKB een stuk minder zichtbaar (maar misschien wel groter) is dan de grote spelers.\nZo\u0026rsquo;n open debat structuur zou voor de tracks ook erg leuk zijn geweest. Het is een stuk dynamischer en interactiever dan X keer 20 minuten kijken hoe iemand door zijn (soms slechte) slides heen draait.\nDe meeste mensen op de conferentie weten wel genoeg om in een goed geleid debat genoeg te kunnen melden, denk ik.\nMorgen een mooi rijtje key notes, dus nu gaan slapen.\n","date":"May 31, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-279/","section":"Posts","summary":"(Nu even een braindump. Ik werk deze tekst wel verder uit van de week als ik tijd heb.)\n","title":"Holland Open Dag 1","type":"posts"},{"content":"Zijn Christopher Nolan en Christian Bale genoeg om de Batman-franchise uit het slop te trekken?\nIk denk het wel.\nEr staan in ieder geval veel goede argumenten in deze trailer van 10 minuten (via).\nHij komt hier uit op 16 juni.\nEn oh ja, je kunt zowel ninjutsu als zwaardvechten in het echt ook beoefenen. Ik heb allebei gedaan en ik kan het ontzettend aanraden.\n","date":"May 29, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-278/","section":"Posts","summary":"Zijn Christopher Nolan en Christian Bale genoeg om de Batman-franchise uit het slop te trekken?\n","title":"Batman Begins","type":"posts"},{"content":"Xtech is net voorbij, lees wat ervaringen over Amsterdam op Hixie\u0026rsquo;s Natural Log. Zijn presentatie is niet alleen op inhoud, maar ook op vorm erg cool.\nIk had zelf ook een HTML-achtige presentatie gemaakt met S5. Dat van hem is nog gaver.\nMorgen begint Holland Open waar ik me net (grandioos laat) voor heb ingeschreven. Daarover later meer, ik heb wat deadlines die gehaald moeten worden.\n","date":"May 29, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-277/","section":"Posts","summary":"Xtech is net voorbij, lees wat ervaringen over Amsterdam op Hixie’s Natural Log. Zijn presentatie is niet alleen op inhoud, maar ook op vorm erg cool.\n","title":"Confereren","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik kom er nu een beetje aan toe om de videos van SxSW (South by South-West) te bekijken.\nDe meesten video\u0026rsquo;s zijn erg kort en niet heel inhoudelijk. Dat is in ieder geval beter dan lang en saai. Hier een greep met de wat interessantere (video\u0026rsquo;s te vinden op de site):\nBram Cohen Erg de moeite waard en Cohen vertelt veel dingen die waar zijn maar zeker nog niet geaccepteerd. Bijvoorbeeld: ‘[…] waarschijnlijk worden er binnenkort geen blockbusters meer gemaakt. Ik weet niet of mensen dat als een groot verlies voor de cultuur beschouwen.’\nCurt Cloninger and Ze Frank\nTom Atlee\nOver democratie, collaboratieve deliberatie en open source media. Co-Intelligence Echo Chamber Project\nAlex Steffen and Bruce Sterling Over 3D printen\nWeb Design 2010 Over de noodzaak van nieuwe manieren van webdesign voor de verschillende invoer en uitvoer manieren die eraan komen.\n","date":"May 29, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-276/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik kom er nu een beetje aan toe om de videos van SxSW (South by South-West) te bekijken.\n","title":"SxSW","type":"posts"},{"content":"Innovatie rond het bureaublad is nog steeds springlevend. De gijzeling door de metafoor van het rommelige bureaublad is eindelijk ten einde.\nIk heb zelf al een rommelig bureau. Ik zou het leuk vinden als mijn werkplek op mijn computer niet dezelfde problemen zou hebben.\nHet SymphonyOS heeft erg goede ideeën (via) hoe een interface eruit moet zien: Mezzo.\nEr worden in de richting van Mezzo en OS X ook op de Linux desktops (Gnome, KDE) problemen gesignaleerd en aangepakt. Er zijn nog veel dingen mis, maar heel veel dingen worden ook beter.\nHoef ik misschien toch geen Mac te kopen…\n","date":"May 29, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-275/","section":"Posts","summary":"Innovatie rond het bureaublad is nog steeds springlevend. De gijzeling door de metafoor van het rommelige bureaublad is eindelijk ten einde.\n","title":"Bureaublad","type":"posts"},{"content":"De interviews van Šimek zijn meestal net zo goed als de geïnterviewden. Net op de radio een interview met Eddy Terstall dat (dus) erg goed was.\nTerstall is nu bezig met zijn twee laatste films (“Sextet” en “Vox Populi”). Daar ben ik erg benieuwd naar, maar meer nog ben ik benieuwd wat hij daarna gaat betekenen in de politiek.\nHij komt integer over en hij heeft lef; beide eigenschappen zijn ongehoord in de politiek.\n","date":"May 29, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-274/","section":"Posts","summary":"De interviews van Šimek zijn meestal net zo goed als de geïnterviewden. Net op de radio een interview met Eddy Terstall dat (dus) erg goed was.\n","title":"Voetbal \u0026 Tieten","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik heb vanochtend mijn theorie-examen gehaald met 6 fouten, het maximaal haalbare.\nIk ben erg blij, nu de praktijk nog.\n","date":"May 27, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-273/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik heb vanochtend mijn theorie-examen gehaald met 6 fouten, het maximaal haalbare.\n","title":"Kantje","type":"posts"},{"content":"Er was sprake van dat het evenement **What The Hack niet door zou kunnen gaan. Ik dacht dat dat berustte op een simpel misverstand en dat het snel opgehelderd zou zijn.\nDe briefwisseling is op de site na te lezen (netjes in Nederlands en Engels) en is kafkaësk te noemen.\nNa enige communicatie over het evenement heeft de gemeente opeens vlak voor het begin van het festival besloten om de benodigde vergunning niet toe te kennen. Ze zijn ook niet van zins om constructief te communiceren over de kwestie. De laatste brief is er dan ook eentje van de advocaat van de organisatie.\nIk ga er van uit dat dit opgelost wordt en dat het evenement gewoon doorgaat. Even informeren bij enige hackers die ik ken, maar ik ben wel van plan om te gaan.\n","date":"May 25, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-272/","section":"Posts","summary":"Er was sprake van dat het evenement **What The Hack niet door zou kunnen gaan. Ik dacht dat dat berustte op een simpel misverstand en dat het snel opgehelderd zou zijn.\n","title":"Wat de hek?","type":"posts"},{"content":"Er staat hierboven dat ik voor de grondwet ga stemmen. Een van de redenen dat ik dat doe licht ik toe met mijn inzending op de Grote Sargasso Grondwet Prijsvraag.\nHopen op winst is misschien veel gevraagd, maar hopen om iemand te overtuigen mag toch wel?\nHeel veel goede redenen om voor te stemmen noemt Joschka Fischer in Buitenhof van afgelopen zondag. Bekijk het interview met hem maar als je nog twijfelt.\n","date":"May 24, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-271/","section":"Posts","summary":"Er staat hierboven dat ik voor de grondwet ga stemmen. Een van de redenen dat ik dat doe licht ik toe met mijn inzending op de Grote Sargasso Grondwet Prijsvraag.\n","title":"Voor","type":"posts"},{"content":"Deze screencast (via) laat goed zien wat de revolutionaire innovatieve ideeën zijn in het huidige programmeren.\nStoer spul, toepasbare concepten en een hele andere manier van nadenken over programmeren (‘Wat nou compileren?’).\n","date":"May 23, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-270/","section":"Posts","summary":"Deze screencast (via) laat goed zien wat de revolutionaire innovatieve ideeën zijn in het huidige programmeren.\n","title":"Voorbeeldig programmeren","type":"posts"},{"content":"Holland Open (berichtje) leek me al leuk, maar deze is echt verplicht: What The Hack temminste als hij doorgaat.\nHolland Open (30 \u0026amp; 31 mei) wordt een leuke tweedaagse conferentie in Amsterdam met belangrijke en bekende mensen uit de Open Source Wereld (Jim Wales).\nVeel leuke presentaties, enthousiaste mensen en borrelkansen.\nWhat the Hack (28 t/m 31 juli) is de zoveelste incarnatie van een van de belangrijkste (quattro-anniale) hacker-events van Nederland en omstreken. Dit jaar hoef je helemaal niet ver weg en kun je lekker 4 dagen kamperen in Liempde (bij Eindhoven) op het Lowlands van de hackers.\n","date":"May 23, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-269/","section":"Posts","summary":"Holland Open (berichtje) leek me al leuk, maar deze is echt verplicht: What The Hack temminste als hij doorgaat.\n","title":"What the **ck","type":"posts"},{"content":"Op verzoek even mijn aantekeningen over Rome uitgewerkt in een erg dicht verslag.\nHadden we op donderdag nou echt zo weinig gedaan? Ik kan het me van jullie (jullie weten wie jullie zijn) wel voorstellen, maar van mezelf niet zo. Ik hoor het wel.\n","date":"May 22, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-268/","section":"Posts","summary":"Op verzoek even mijn aantekeningen over Rome uitgewerkt in een erg dicht verslag.\n","title":"Verslagje","type":"posts"},{"content":"Erg leuk verslag van Frackers over de handelsdelegatie van Amsterdam naar Californië. Erg belangrijk om een goede relatie te hebben tussen dat blijste, vrijste, high-techste deel van Amerika en ons Amsterdam.\nLeuk om te lezen hoe Cohen helemaal los gaat in San Francisco (‘Deze steden klikken op alle fronten’). Met als allerleukste quote van Cohen:\n‘Er gebeurt iets vreselijks met me,’ fluistert burgemeester Cohen me in het oor; ‘ik vrees dat ik ook een weblog moet beginnen.’\n","date":"May 22, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-267/","section":"Posts","summary":"Erg leuk verslag van Frackers over de handelsdelegatie van Amsterdam naar Californië. Erg belangrijk om een goede relatie te hebben tussen dat blijste, vrijste, high-techste deel van Amerika en ons Amsterdam.\n","title":"I'msterdam","type":"posts"},{"content":"Mijn Palm Zire 71 heeft het begeven. Het scherm laat alleen nog maar een serie rare strepen over en weer zien en veel actie komt er ook niet meer uit.\nDit is echt kut.\nMorgen maar een Zire 31 kopen, want het is niet echt alsof ik kan leven zonder zo\u0026rsquo;n apparaat.\nUpdate: Na wat moeite de gegevens op de Zire 31 gekregen. Ik kan weer verder.\n","date":"May 21, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-266/","section":"Posts","summary":"Mijn Palm Zire 71 heeft het begeven. Het scherm laat alleen nog maar een serie rare strepen over en weer zien en veel actie komt er ook niet meer uit.\n","title":"Digi-Depri","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik heb gisteren na de lezing van Grunberg, nog even tot laat doorgezwoegd om alle foto\u0026rsquo;s online te krijgen. Flickr is leuk.\n","date":"May 21, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-265/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik heb gisteren na de lezing van Grunberg, nog even tot laat doorgezwoegd om alle foto’s online te krijgen. Flickr is leuk.\n","title":"Vakantiefoto's","type":"posts"},{"content":"In “Knowledge and Democracy in Cyberspace” van Jeroen van den Hoven kwam ik het jury theorem van Condorcet tegen.\nDit theorema zegt dat als er ergens een besluit over genomen moet worden, en de besluitnemers zijn zwak competent (i.e. de kans dat ze een goed besluit nemen is groter dan dat ze een slecht besluit nemen) dan is de kans dat ze het goede besluit nemen 100% bij een voldoende aantal besluitnemers.\nKort gezegd: Als mensen hun best doen en samenwerken hebben ze een grotere kans om het bij het rechte eind te hebben.\nVervolgens wordt aangedragen dat dit idee gebruikt zou kunnen worden voor een epistemic conception of democracy. Ik weet nog niet of ik het daar helemaal mee eens ben.\nErgens anders in het paper staat het citaat\n[…] truth has a better chance of emerging from group deliberation than from a single authority, […] no matter how expert, experienced and sophisticated that authority may be.\nIk kan iets over het hoofd zien, maar dit lijkt me aperte onzin.\nDit gepeins over deliberatie en groeps-authoriteit brengt me op een eigen stelling: ‘de stelling van Dan Brown’ (wiens boeken ik weiger te lezen).\nHoe meer mensen een boek goed vinden, hoe waarschijnlijker het is dat het slecht is.\nMet als corollarium:\nAls iedereen een boek goed vindt, dan is het het lezen niet waard.\n","date":"May 19, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-264/","section":"Posts","summary":"In “Knowledge and Democracy in Cyberspace” van Jeroen van den Hoven kwam ik het jury theorem van Condorcet tegen.\n","title":"Democraat","type":"posts"},{"content":"Net de nieuwe film gezien.\nIk ben blij. Er zaten leuke momenten in een aan alle kanten rammelende zooitje. Kitscherig ratjetoe van symboliek is één beschrijving die in me opkomt.\nMaar het is goed zo. En het is af. Niks meer aan doen.\n","date":"May 19, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-263/","section":"Posts","summary":"Net de nieuwe film gezien.\n","title":"Sith","type":"posts"},{"content":"Rome is tof!\nIk heb iets teveel baggage en veel te veel te doen, maar dat gaat allemaal wel goedkomen.\n","date":"May 14, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-262/","section":"Posts","summary":"Rome is tof!\n","title":"Rome","type":"posts"},{"content":"Vandaag de hele dag op TNO Soesterberg gezeten. Veel hele stoere dingen gezien. Niet zoveel foto\u0026rsquo;s, er staan er een paar op Flickr.\nNu inpakken, morgenochtend nog een presentatie en dan de trein naar Eindhoven en vliegen naar Roma Ciampino.\n","date":"May 10, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-261/","section":"Posts","summary":"Vandaag de hele dag op TNO Soesterberg gezeten. Veel hele stoere dingen gezien. Niet zoveel foto’s, er staan er een paar op Flickr.\n","title":"Laatste Dag","type":"posts"},{"content":"Er staan weleens leuke dingen in de Delta. Zoals bijvoorbeeld een voorstel om Max Pam uit te nodigen als gastschrijver aan de TU (netjes online te lezen). Doen! Hebben! Dap Hartmann heeft gelijk Pam is een geweldig columnist.\nWij hadden hier vroeger het NRC. Het NRC —de superieure krant— had aardige columnisten, maar ik was toch altijd een beetje jaloers op die andere kranten (Plasterk, Spaink, Bril). Max Pam was met zijn scherpe en ter zake doende stijl een verademing tussen de Ellians, Etties, van \u0026rsquo;t Hekken en andere zooi.\nOndertussen hebben wij geen NRC meer en schrijft Pam er niet meer voor.\nHij schrijft nu voor het Parool, maar ik denk niet dat ik mijn huisgenoot zo gek krijg dat we hier een Amsterdamse krant nemen.\n","date":"May 10, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-260/","section":"Posts","summary":"Er staan weleens leuke dingen in de Delta. Zoals bijvoorbeeld een voorstel om Max Pam uit te nodigen als gastschrijver aan de TU (netjes online te lezen). Doen! Hebben! Dap Hartmann heeft gelijk Pam is een geweldig columnist.\n","title":"Gastschrijver","type":"posts"},{"content":"Miguel bericht over het Real ID wetsvoorstel in Amerika vergelijkbaar met onze identificatieplicht.\nEr is daar (net zoals hier) verzet tegen, en het zal daar (net zoals hier) ook niet lukken om het tegen te houden. Dit wordt je natuurlijk door je strot gedouwd.\nIn Amerika verwachten ze dat het aantal keer dat de politie je zomaar stopt op straat toeneemt. Klopt, hebben we hier al gezien.\nZe verwachten ook dat er meer mensen onterecht zullen worden opgepakt hierdoor dan dat er mensen terecht zullen worden aangehouden. Klopt vast.\nZe verwachten dat een eventueel fascistische overheid de identificatiebewijzen zal gebruiken om tegenstanders of ongewensten makkelijk op te sporen. Klopt (nog) niet.\nZe verwachten ook dat het geen echte veiligheid op gaat leveren. Dat klopt ook. Is het nou veiliger sinds die identificatieplicht hier?\nBruce Schneier, een man met meer competentie en intelligentie in zijn pink dan alle politici van de VS en Nederland bij elkaar, is tegen. Lees:\nEen veiligheidsmaatregel werkt net zo goed als hij faalt\n**Weten wie iemand is, vertelt je niks over wat hij van plan is\nReal ID is een slecht plan\nZijn argumenten zijn sterk en steekhoudend maar inderdaad niet zo voor de hand liggend. Het zou daarom een goed plan als politici voor ze over dit onderwerp beslissen al Schneier\u0026rsquo;s boeken lezen.\nEn Epic is ook tegen, maar ze maken weinig kans. Deze wet zit ín een andere wet die aangenomen moet worden. Deze wet wordt dus ook aangenomen (vergelijk het met softwarepatenten in het Europese Parlement).\nUpdate: Je hebt niet veel aan een ID-plicht als de papieren die je gebruikt niet kloppen. Zoals Schneier zegt, hoe weet je wie iemand is, die zijn paspoort kwijt is?\nNova bericht gisteren dat Nederlandse gemeentes massaal dubieuze mogelijk valse inschrijvingen accepteren. Daar gaat je veiligheid.\n","date":"May 10, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-259/","section":"Posts","summary":"Miguel bericht over het Real ID wetsvoorstel in Amerika vergelijkbaar met onze identificatieplicht.\n","title":"ID Plicht","type":"posts"},{"content":"Curieus item op RadioOnline over een forse heffing op MP3-spelers en andere datadragende gadgets.\nHeel raar item. Bernd Tasselaar van de brancheorganisatie heeft op zich een goed punt maar hij hamert er steeds op dat hij een eerlijke oplossing wil. Dit is een leuk sprookje, want dé eerlijke oplossing bestaat niet —ik ben nú een boek aan het lezen over complexe beslisprocedures in netwerkomgevingen. Eerlijk, ja voor wie?\nMet heffingen op data belast je mensen die het goed doen onnodig. DRM is de oplossing ook niet want elke DRM is (makkelijk) te kraken en beperkt je ook in je rechten wat betreft bijvoorbeeld digitale duurzaamheid.\nMijn oplossing is: de boel lekker laten dooretteren tot de grote maatschappijen instorten en er zich vanzelf een nieuwe orde vormt op basis van micro-patronage en Creative Commons.\nDe vraag aller vragen werd in dit item niet gesteld. Als je die (best wel hoge) heffing betaalt, mag je dan daarna net zoveel kopieren als je wil? Je hebt immers al rechten afgedragen.\nIk betaal met liefde nog meer euro\u0026rsquo;s per Gigabyte als ik daarna in alle vrijheid alles met iedereen mag uitwisselen.\nWant dat is de ene ontbrekende killerapp voor de iPod. Firewirekabeltje, twee iPods op elkaar aansluiten en muziek kunnen uitwisselen. Dit zou de sociale dimensie van de iPod nog verder tot zijn recht laten komen (‘oh heb jij een leuk liedje?’). Boven het nu al populaire publiceren van playlists.\nMaar waarschijnlijk zouden iPod-parties dan ook door politie uit elkaar geslagen worden.\nOm Lessig er weer bij te halen:\nWe leven in een tijd van ongekende media-rijkdom. Dit heeft ontzettend veel meer ontastbare voordelen dan dat er ooit nadelen uit zijn te drukken in geld.\nGevestigde bedrijven uit het verleden zien door technologische veranderingen hun positie verzwakken en hun greep op de markt verslappen. Ze zullen er alles aan doen om deze ontwikkelingen tegen te gaan.\nHet is onze verantwoordelijkheid om de toekomst vrij te waren van de wurggreep van het verleden.\n","date":"May 7, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-258/","section":"Posts","summary":"Curieus item op RadioOnline over een forse heffing op MP3-spelers en andere datadragende gadgets.\n","title":"MP3 Heffing","type":"posts"},{"content":"Safari trekt de Acid2 test nu door een heldhaftige inspanning van Dave Hyatt (oud-Mozilla-hacker).\nLeukste vind ik nog dat hij de diffs erbij heeft geplakt. De C++ code die achter het renderen steekt kan ik een stuk beter lezen dan ik had gedacht. Dit kan zijn omdat ze bij Safari f\u0026rsquo;ing goede code produceren, of omdat ik beter ben geworden in het lezen van C++.\nIk denk allebei een beetje en vooral dat laatste vind ik leuk.\n","date":"May 6, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-257/","section":"Posts","summary":"Safari trekt de Acid2 test nu door een heldhaftige inspanning van Dave Hyatt (oud-Mozilla-hacker).\n","title":"Acid","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik heb mijn PowerShot nu binnen. Woensdag besteld, donderdagochtend bezorgd door de postbode. Verbluffend snel.\nErg leuk speeltje. Even een gekloot om die foto\u0026rsquo;s eraf te krijgen (moest mezelf toevoegen aan groep \u0026lsquo;camera\u0026rsquo;), maar dan draait het ook prima.\nKan ook filmpjes met geluid ermee schieten, en voice-memo\u0026rsquo;s aan foto\u0026rsquo;s toevoegen. Erg cool.\nZie ook hier links mijn Flickr flash photo-badge met regelmatig nieuwe foto\u0026rsquo;s.\n","date":"May 6, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-256/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik heb mijn PowerShot nu binnen. Woensdag besteld, donderdagochtend bezorgd door de postbode. Verbluffend snel.\n","title":"PowerShot","type":"posts"},{"content":"Gisteren een bevrijdingsdagloop gedaan. Erg leuk en gezellig en een minuut of zeven van mijn 10k tijd afgeschaafd.\nNetto: 56'53''\nIk was verkouden en had een week niet meer gelopen. Dus onder de 50 minuten moet goed haalbaar worden.\n","date":"May 6, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-255/","section":"Posts","summary":"Gisteren een bevrijdingsdagloop gedaan. Erg leuk en gezellig en een minuut of zeven van mijn 10k tijd afgeschaafd.\n","title":"Rennen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Toch wel groot nieuws in het leven van een Debian gebruiker. Sarge is bevroren. De planning voor release ligt op 30 mei.\nWe zouden dan dus gewoon op die Holland Open conferentie een Release Party kunnen houden. Idealer kan bijna niet.\n","date":"May 5, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-254/","section":"Posts","summary":"Toch wel groot nieuws in het leven van een Debian gebruiker. Sarge is bevroren. De planning voor release ligt op 30 mei.\n","title":"Vries","type":"posts"},{"content":"Etech en SXSW zijn misschien iets te ver gegrepen, maar hier in de buurt vinden binnenkort ook wat interessante conferenties plaats.\nEind mei in Amsterdam twee interessante, een over XML (XTech) en een andere over Open Source (Holland Open) die zowaar betaalbaar is.\nEven later nog een interessante in Denemarken: Reboot.\nGaan we?\n","date":"May 3, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-253/","section":"Posts","summary":"Etech en SXSW zijn misschien iets te ver gegrepen, maar hier in de buurt vinden binnenkort ook wat interessante conferenties plaats.\n","title":"Conferenties","type":"posts"},{"content":"Van wie-o-wie kan ik de Delftse Methode Italiaans lenen?\n","date":"May 1, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-252/","section":"Posts","summary":"Van wie-o-wie kan ik de Delftse Methode Italiaans lenen?\n","title":"Italiaans","type":"posts"},{"content":"Alom jubelend ontvangen is dit boek —“Joe Speedboot” van Tommy Wieringa— een van de leukere en betere boeken die ik de afgelopen tijd heb gelezen.\nWieringa schrijft geweldig, beeldend en gewaagd. Hier wat voorbeeldjes.\nHet klonk naar ernstige naaktheid en dingen waar wij naar verlangden.\nSpreeuwen bewegen zich weliswaar in fantastische draaikolken en zinderdende spiralen door de lucht maar in zulke enorme aantallen dat je aan grote steden moet denken waar de mensen elkaar haten en vertrappen maar vreemd genoeg niet zonder elkaar kunnen.\nDat zag je ook bij oude mensen die altijd echte rotzakken waren geweest maar aan het einde van hun leven soms zomaar moesten huilen.\nZijn gewelddaad brengt schoonheid maar wij zullen hem verjagen; het is geen tijd voor helden.\nIk was extatisch en wilde dat het nooit zou eindigen, en dat is meestal het moment dat de tent gaat sluiten.\nHet is een soort perpetuum mobile, een ononderbroken stroom energie die geen brandstof vraagt. Behalve een telefoontje soms, of een kus.\nOvermoed is net zo belangrijk als talent: ik ‘kan’ het niet maar ik ‘doe’ het toch.\nDit boek is verplicht.\n","date":"May 1, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-251/","section":"Posts","summary":"Alom jubelend ontvangen is dit boek —“Joe Speedboot” van Tommy Wieringa— een van de leukere en betere boeken die ik de afgelopen tijd heb gelezen.\n","title":"Joe Speedboot","type":"posts"},{"content":"Het blog van ioerror (Jacob Applebaum) is een van de bizardere, fascinerendere en visionairdere dingen die ik heb gezien.\nVerplichte kost in deze tijd.\nDit interview (en zijn blog) zijn een miniem fractioneel verslag van wat je meemaakt op reis door een verwoest Irak, Knoppix CDs uitdelend als voedsel voor de informatie-hongerige Irakiërs.\nUpdate: Het is echt bizar goed. Bijvoorbeeld dit stuk. Dit is alles wat Internet kan zijn, en zou moeten zijn.\nN.B. Jacob Applebaum is 22 jaar oud.\n","date":"May 1, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-250/","section":"Posts","summary":"Het blog van ioerror (Jacob Applebaum) is een van de bizardere, fascinerendere en visionairdere dingen die ik heb gezien.\n","title":"Iraqi Tourism","type":"posts"},{"content":"Volgens mij zijn de stormluiken dicht bij Microsoft.\nBrazilië is een verklaard voorstander van Open Source software. Net zoals de Nederlandse overheid.\nMünchen heeft een contract getekend om de stad uit te rusten met Debian GNU/Linux computers.\nDe overheid hoort te investeren in het publieke domein; niet de monopoliepositie van één bedrijf te versterken. Als alle overheden van de wereld investeren in Linux, moet je eens opletten hoe goed dat vrije platform wordt.\nHeel veel grote bedrijven gebruiken traditiegetrouw Oracle-databases. Het schijnt dat .NET hier lang niet zo goed mee overweg kan als Java. Dat maakt het voor dit soort toepassingen volkomen kansloos.\nHet Java ontwikkelplatform heeft 3/4 voortreffelijke IDEs om uit te kiezen: Eclipse, IntelliJ IDEA, NetBeans en JDeveloper.\nC# twee buitengewoon matige IDEs: Visual Studio.NET en MonoDevelop. De eerste van deze twee wordt bij de volgende versie (als die komt) waarschijnlijk iets werkbaarder.\n","date":"April 30, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-249/","section":"Posts","summary":"Volgens mij zijn de stormluiken dicht bij Microsoft.\n","title":"Grap.NET","type":"posts"},{"content":"Gisteren op Nova een item over Jack Spijkerman die naar Tien gaat. Één item, met daarin al redelijk interessant nieuws maar ook genoeg aparte mensen.\nJack Spijkerman is het slechtste wat cabaret te bieden heeft. Triester nog dan hij zijn die 3 miljoen kijkers die van zijn programma een succes maken.\nVera Keur: Deze aparatsjika van het omroepbestel was niet beschikbaar om commentaar te leveren. Wat ik op zich wel gek vind voor iemand die televisie maakt.\nJoop Atsma: Vanaf tijdsindex 7'50\u0026rsquo;\u0026rsquo; in de stream mag Atsma het CDA-standpunt wat dit betreft toelichten. In goede CDA-traditie (het CDA is een traditionele partij) heeft hij natuurlijk een ontzettend slap nietszeggend verhaal dat kant noch wal rakt.\nJeroen Pauw grijpt dat aan om hem terecht hard aan te pakken.\nJeroen Pauw wordt alleen maar beter als presentator. Ik vond het vooral erg cool om te zien hoe hij Atsma aanpakte. Nog net niet Jeremy Paxman-achtig, maar hij komt er wel.\n","date":"April 28, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-248/","section":"Posts","summary":"Gisteren op Nova een item over Jack Spijkerman die naar Tien gaat. Één item, met daarin al redelijk interessant nieuws maar ook genoeg aparte mensen.\n","title":"Tien Spijkers","type":"posts"},{"content":"Het is best leuk om een stuk oude code van jezelf te bekijken en je dan te beseffen dat je toen eigenlijk best wel goed bezig was.\nIk moest er nog een klein beetje aan schaven, en dan werkte het ook. Plaatje voor en plaatje na.\n","date":"April 27, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-247/","section":"Posts","summary":"Het is best leuk om een stuk oude code van jezelf te bekijken en je dan te beseffen dat je toen eigenlijk best wel goed bezig was.\n","title":"Practicumpje","type":"posts"},{"content":"Hij is uit, en hij is echt heel cool. De “Serenity” trailer (hier fullscreen).\nZoals iemand op Slashdot al zei:\nScrew Star Wars Episode 3 with a big rubber dick\n","date":"April 27, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-246/","section":"Posts","summary":"Hij is uit, en hij is echt heel cool. De “Serenity” trailer (hier fullscreen).\n","title":"Sereen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Via Miguel meer informatie over Libanon dan je een stok naar kunt zwaaien, en een artikel hoe je je eigen Thomas Friedman column schrijft.\nHet zou er echt in kunnen zitten. Vooral deze is erg kostelijk:\nConclude your column with a suggestion referring back to the opening contradiction, but with an ironic twist. Make sure the suggestion you proffer sounds plausible, but in fact has no chance of happening: a. \u0026ldquo;Driving into Bethlehem in the back of a pickup, I wonder: What if Yasir Arafat and Ariel Sharon sit down and play a game of poker? And what if the stakes are these: If Sharon wins, the Intifada is over. If Arafat wins, Palestine gains statehood. One game of no-limit Texas hold \u0026rsquo;em, and the Middle East crisis is resolved. Just like that. Yasir and Ariel, deal \u0026rsquo;em out.\u0026rdquo;\n","date":"April 26, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-245/","section":"Posts","summary":"Via Miguel meer informatie over Libanon dan je een stok naar kunt zwaaien, en een artikel hoe je je eigen Thomas Friedman column schrijft.\n","title":"Friedman","type":"posts"},{"content":" In België weten ze wat poëzie is. Tom Lanoye was stadsdichter van Antwerpen. Hij gaat weg en zijn gedicht wordt van de Boerentoren afgehaald.\nEr komt een mooie bundel “Stadsgedichten” van zijn gedichten (zie de Leeskamer: “Hoe een boek eruit moet zien”).\nZíj krijgen er een andere grootheid voor terug, Ramsey Nasr, een halve Nederlander. Bij zijn aantreden een extreem kleine rel over Israel. Hier zijn zijn tweede gedicht.\n","date":"April 25, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-244/","section":"Posts","summary":" ","title":"Stadsdichters","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik moet voor een vak morgen het volgende paper lezen, samenvatten en presenteren:\n“From Ontology-based Semiosis to Computational Intelligence”\nIk ben niet echt stuk van het paper, maar ik vind mijn presentatie wel aardig geslaagd.\n","date":"April 25, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-243/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik moet voor een vak morgen het volgende paper lezen, samenvatten en presenteren:\n","title":"Paper presentatie","type":"posts"},{"content":"Het Blackboard Course Information system wat we hier op de TU gebruiken werkt best aardig. Een langlopende irritatie is dat het inloggen niet automatisch kan en je elke keer een wachtwoord in moet voeren.\nDe inlogprocedure is ook nog eens ontzettend paranoïde en compleet tevergeefs nu ik goed naar kijk. Het volgende stuk code regelt het valideren van het inlogformulier:\nvar _useChallenge = false; function validate_form(form) { if (form.user_id.value == \u0026#34;\u0026#34; || form.password.value == \u0026#34;\u0026#34; ) { alert(\u0026#34;Please enter a username and password.\u0026#34; ); return false; } //short-cut if challenge/response is disabled. if (!_useChallenge ) { form.encoded_pw.value = base64encode(form.password.value ); form.password.value = \u0026#34;\u0026#34;; return true; } var passwd_enc = calcMD5(form.password.value); var final_to_encode = passwd_enc + form.one_time_token.value; form.encoded_pw.value = calcMD5(final_to_encode); form.password.value = \u0026#34;\u0026#34;; return true; } Het is ten eerste een redelijk raadsel waarom ze het op deze manier doen en niet gewoon een beveiligde (https) verbinding gebruiken. Maar het stuk code hierboven zou best wel veilig zijn als _useChallenge aan stond en ze die one_time_token gebruikten. Nu gaat het wachtwoord toch weer redelijk plat naar de server.\nMaar genoeg geneuzel, als je je gebruikersnaam en wachtwoord invult in het volgende Greasemonkey-script: blackboardLogin.user.js, vlieg je automatisch door de inlogpagina heen.\n","date":"April 23, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-242/","section":"Posts","summary":"Het Blackboard Course Information system wat we hier op de TU gebruiken werkt best aardig. Een langlopende irritatie is dat het inloggen niet automatisch kan en je elke keer een wachtwoord in moet voeren.\n","title":"Greasemonkey tegen Blackboard","type":"posts"},{"content":"Het is grappig hoeveel positiever mensen automatisch al reageren als je ze aanspreekt in hun oorspronkelijke taal. Zeker als ze het niet verwachten. Het zal wel komen omdat je op die manier een of andere reactie oproept uit hun onderbewuste.\nIk kwam er deze week achter dat een jongen waarmee ik trainde Spaans is. Wat zinnetjes op hem uitgeprobeerd. Hij blij, ik blij.\nTalen leren is erg leuk. Enige nadeel wat ik tot nu toe heb is dat ze (Frans, Portugees, Spaans en binnenkort Italiaans) elkaar in mijn hoofd beginnen te verdringen en door elkaar heen gaan lopen.\nNet met veel moeite weer een stukje in het Frans getikt.\nSpanjaarden zitten overal, daarom is Spaans ook handig (en makkelijk) om te leren. Maar wie nog veel meer overal zitten, dat zijn Chinezen. Ik ben benieuwd waar zij nou over zitten te smoezen. Ik hoop dat Mandarijn leren niet al te moeilijk is.\n","date":"April 23, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-241/","section":"Posts","summary":"Het is grappig hoeveel positiever mensen automatisch al reageren als je ze aanspreekt in hun oorspronkelijke taal. Zeker als ze het niet verwachten. Het zal wel komen omdat je op die manier een of andere reactie oproept uit hun onderbewuste.\n","title":"Moerstaal","type":"posts"},{"content":"Vandaag redelijk wat verkeer van Frankwatching. Welkom allemaal. Het blijkt dus dat Frank weer een stukje had over de weblogs bij Macaw. In het vorige stukje deed ik een beetje denigrerend over grotendeels met steekhoudende argumenten.\nEr is een reactie vanuit Macaw zelf met meer informatie over hun weblogs en dat klinkt inderdaad erg goed. En mijn inhoudelijke kritiek wordt voor een (klein) deel weerlegd.\nIk bedoel: ik heb al hun weblogs toegevoegd aan mijn RSS —ik lees wel meer Microsoft blogs— en de hoeveelheid nieuwe berichten sindsdien is echt miniem.\nDat scheelt mij weer tijd, maar is wel een beetje jammer.\nDit hele verhaal doet er trouwens niks aan af dat ik het gek vindt dat mensen die een passie voor techniek (zeggen te) hebben werken met/voor een bedrijf dat alle innovatie de kop in wil drukken.\n","date":"April 20, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-240/","section":"Posts","summary":"Vandaag redelijk wat verkeer van Frankwatching. Welkom allemaal. Het blijkt dus dat Frank weer een stukje had over de weblogs bij Macaw. In het vorige stukje deed ik een beetje denigrerend over grotendeels met steekhoudende argumenten.\n","title":"Macaw","type":"posts"},{"content":"Dit filmpje heeft wonderbaarlijk genoeg Slashdot overleefd en laat een knap staaltje User Interface zien.\nDe discussie gaat eigenlijk over de keuze tussen C# en Java, die terecht uitvalt voor Java om hele sterke technische argumenten, maar het filmpje is veel leuker.\n","date":"April 18, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-239/","section":"Posts","summary":"Dit filmpje heeft wonderbaarlijk genoeg Slashdot overleefd en laat een knap staaltje User Interface zien.\n","title":"Interface","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik kwam vandaag een andere leuke anekdote tegen van Benjamin Franklin en een hoedenmaker. Dit in een stukje over refactoring (wat net zoals schrijven, herschrijven en schrappen is). Vandaag veel colleges, dus veel tijd om te lezen.\nIk zal hem even quick \u0026rsquo;n dirty vertalen naar het Nederlands. Dit is tenslotte een Nederlandstalig weblog. En ik vind het jammer dat er niet al een vertaling is op Google. Ik gebruik Babelfish voor een beginnetje, aangezien Google geen Nederlands kan vertalen.\n1826\nEEN ANEKDOTE VAN DOKTOR FRANKLIN\ndoor Thomas Jefferson\nTOEN de Verklaring van Onafhankelijkheid ter overweging aan het Congres was overhandigd, zaten er twee of drie ongelukkige uitdrukkingen waar enkele leden aanstoot aan namen.\nHet woord “Schotse en andere buitenlandse hulptroepen” wekte de woede van een of twee heerschappen van dat land. Zware veroordelingen van het handelen van de Britse Koning, tijdens het overeenkomen van onze herhaalde intrekkingen van de wet die het toestond slaven te importeren, werden afgekeurd door enkele Zuidelijke heren, van wie de afwegingen nog niet waren gerijpt tot een complete weerzin tegen die praktijk. Hoewel de aanstootgevende passages onmiddelijk werden ingetrokken, zetten deze heren hun verwoestingen voort op andere onderdelen van de verklaring.\nIk zat naast Dr. Franklin, die zag dat ik niet geheel koud bleef onder deze verminkingen. “Ik heb er een regel van gemaakt,” zei hij, “om als het in mijn macht ligt te voorkomen de opsteller te worden van documenten die door een publiek orgaan herzien moeten worden. Ik leerde deze les door een gebeurtenis die ik u zal vertellen.\nToen ik nog werkte als freelance-drukker, had een van mijn companen, een leerling hoedenmaker zijn tijd uitgediend en stond op het punt om een eigen winkel te openen. Zijn eerste zorg was om een mooi uithangbord te hebben met een goed opschrift.\nHij stelde het als volgt op, ‘John Thompson, Hoedenmaker, maakt en verkoopt hoeden tegen contante betaling,’ met een afbeelding van een hoed eronder; maar hij dacht er goed aan te doen het voor te leggen aan zijn vrienden voor hun amendementen.\nDe eerste aan wie hij het liet zien zag een tautologie in het woord ‘Hoedenmaker’ omdat het gevolgd werd door de woorden ‘maakt hoeden,’ waaruit bleek dat hij een hoedenmaker was. Het werd geschrapt. De volgende merkte op dat het ‘maakt’ net zo goed kon worden weggelaten, omdat het zijn klanten weinig zou kunnen schelen wie de hoeden maakt. Als ze goed en mooi waren, zouden ze ze kopen door wie ze ook gemaakt waren. Hij schrapte het. Een derde zei dat hij de woorden ‘tegen contante betaling’ nutteloos vond aangezien het niet gebruikelijk was om op crediet te verkopen. Iedereen die kocht verwachtte te moeten betalen. Deze werden ook verwijderd en het opschrift luidde nu, ‘John Thompson, verkoopt hoeden.’\n‘Verkoopt hoeden,’ zei zijn volgende vriend! Niemand zal van je verwachten dat je ze weggeeft, dus waarom zou je dat woord gebruiken? Het werd geschrapt net zoals ‘hoeden’ omdat er al een hoed op het bord geschilderd stond. Zo werd het opschrift uiteindelijk gereduceerd tot ‘John Thompson’ met daaronder de afbeelding van een hoed.”\nHET EINDE\n","date":"April 18, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-238/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik kwam vandaag een andere leuke anekdote tegen van Benjamin Franklin en een hoedenmaker. Dit in een stukje over refactoring (wat net zoals schrijven, herschrijven en schrappen is). Vandaag veel colleges, dus veel tijd om te lezen.\n","title":"Hoede(n)maker","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik kwam pas in een verhaal een citaat tegen van Shakespeare. De bard was van alle markten thuis en niet bepaald preuts. Het begint al goed, eerste akte scène 1 van Othello:\nIAGO\nI am one, sir, that comes to tell you your daughter and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs.\nHet mag duidelijk zijn wat Shakespeare hier bedoelt, en deze mooie vergelijking wordt aan hem toegeschreven. Dat klopt niet. Het valt terug te leiden tot de fransman François Rabelais en zijn boekenserie over de twee reuzen Gargantua en Pantagruel.\nHet kan dus erger, boek 1 hoofdstuk 1.III:\n[…] These two did oftentimes do the two-backed beast together, joyfully rubbing and frotting their bacon ‘gainst one another, […]\n","date":"April 18, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-237/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik kwam pas in een verhaal een citaat tegen van Shakespeare. De bard was van alle markten thuis en niet bepaald preuts. Het begint al goed, eerste akte scène 1 van Othello:\n","title":"Beest met twee ruggen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Echt compleet bezopen foto\u0026rsquo;s (1 \u0026amp; 2) uit het Stalinistische pretpark Noord-Korea (via).\nLeuke vakantietip.\n","date":"April 18, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-236/","section":"Posts","summary":"Echt compleet bezopen foto’s (1 \u0026 2) uit het Stalinistische pretpark Noord-Korea (via).\n","title":"Grote Roerganger","type":"posts"},{"content":"Lees net tussendoor even Nu.nl (nog geen tijd gehad voor mijn RSS) en zie het bericht dat Adobe Macromedia overneemt.\nWauw!\nUpdate: Gekkenhuis op Internet. Dit bericht staat overal.\nCNET, Slashdot, O\u0026rsquo;Reilly, The Server Side, OS News, Webwereld, Frank-ly\nDit is echt een gigantische consolidatie in de grafische sector. Dit zijn gewoon de enige twee boeiende bedrijven.\nHet is nu wachten op betere integratie zorgen tussen de Adobe producten die iedereen gebruikt (Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign, Acrobat) en de enige twee boeiende Macromedia producten:\nFlash (Wat iedereen gebruikt omdat er geen alternatief is.)\nDreamweaver (Wat iedereen gebruikt omdat er niks beters is.)\nHoe het in de langere termijn uit gaat pakken met de innovatie en de ontwikkeling van grafische producten is nog een beetje de vraag. Adobe is best goed op dat gebied. Dat is ongeveer de reden dat ze de complete markt in handen hebben.\nZe zijn alleen iets te gesloten. Wat Open Source mensen graag zouden willen:\nVerdere openstelling van het PDF-formaat Verregaande adoptie van SVG Linux-versies van de vlaggeschip producten Die laatste is niet zo belangrijk omdat je met CrossOver Office e.d. die applicaties zonder al te veel problemen onder Linux kunt draaien.\n","date":"April 18, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-235/","section":"Posts","summary":"Lees net tussendoor even Nu.nl (nog geen tijd gehad voor mijn RSS) en zie het bericht dat Adobe Macromedia overneemt.\n","title":"Macrobe \u0026 Adomedia","type":"posts"},{"content":"Na al dat gedoe met die formulieren had ik vorige week toch alles ingeleverd. Één aanvraag Bachelor-examen en een aanvraag goedkeuring vakkenpakket Master.\nVandaag nog wat dingen verbeterd, misverstanden opgehelderd en handtekeningen opgehaald. (Zonder handtekeningen gebeurt er natuurlijk niks.)\nKrijg ik net te horen dat mijn aanvraag Bachelor goed bevonden is! Er mist nog één vak maar dat zit nog ergens in het systeem. Kan ik hem in oktober ophalen!\nMijn aanvraag Master gaat ook wel goed, mijn vakkenpakket is redelijk business ge-orienteerd. Maar ik weet niet of dat ook aansluit bij wat ik wil.\nEen vage formulering die ik had bedacht was:\n“Hele moeilijke dingen, heel makkelijk maken.”\nEn wat ik ook belangrijk vind is dingen doen die anders zijn en die belangrijk zijn. Business past daar voor mij niet direct onder.\n","date":"April 18, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-234/","section":"Posts","summary":"Na al dat gedoe met die formulieren had ik vorige week toch alles ingeleverd. Één aanvraag Bachelor-examen en een aanvraag goedkeuring vakkenpakket Master.\n","title":"Bachelor Again","type":"posts"},{"content":"Deze week begonnen en nog de hele volgende week het Iberische Filmfestival Festibérico in Filmhuis Lumen.\nMijn lijstje:\nSáb 16/4 19.30 IMDB 7.1 La Pelota Vasca, La Piel Contra La Piedra\nDom 17/4 15.30 A Fotografia Rasgada \u0026amp; Lisboetas\nDom 17/4 19.30 IMDB 7.4 El Perro Del Hortelano\nLun 18/4 19.30 IMDB 6.3 A Mi Madre Le Gustan Las Mujeres\nMar 19/4 19.30 IMDB 6.7 I\u0026rsquo;ll See You In My Dreams\nJue 21/4 19.30 IMDB 7.8 Vai E Vem\nVie 22/4 19.30 IMDB 5.7 A Selva\nSáb 23/4 17.15 IMDB 7.3 Hay Motivo\nSáb 23/4 19.30 IMDB 6.1 El Séptimo Día\nSáb 23/4 22.00 Festibérico Party\nDom 24/4 17.15 IMDB 6.7 Hola, ¿Estás Sola?\nDom 24/4 19.30 IMDB 7.7 Sé Quién Eres\n","date":"April 16, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-233/","section":"Posts","summary":"Deze week begonnen en nog de hele volgende week het Iberische Filmfestival Festibérico in Filmhuis Lumen.\n","title":"Festibérico","type":"posts"},{"content":"Weer een aflevering RadioOnline met zowaar een boeiend onderwerp “Interneteconomie, zegen of ramp?”. Gift/Trade-economies waar goede wil en informatie zorgen dat mensen makkelijker en goedkoper kunnen krijgen wat ze willen.\nEen interessant concept van een gift economy staat in het korte verhaal “Maneki Neko” uit A Good Old-fashioned Future van Bruce Sterling.\nEn weer een schrale behandeling (fragment) van het onderwerp. De hoogleraar had een redelijk goed verhaal en gaf voldoende tegengas tegen de doemscenario\u0026rsquo;s van de presentatoren. Hij vermeldde dat technologische ontwikkelingen onvermijdelijk veranderingen met zich meebrengen die natuurlijk niet leuk zijn voor mensen die geïnvesteerd hebben in overbodig spul.\nHij zei ook dat het negatieve effect van bookcrossen (en bijv. ook muziek downloaden) gepaard gaat met een positief effect omdat mensen meer dingen kunnen kopen. Dan mis ik toch weer de waarde die je creëert door dingen toegankelijk te maken en te distribueren. De waarde die niet in geld uit te drukken is.\nWat hij ook vergat te vermelden —en een redelijke schande voor een hoogleraar economie— is dat in een goed werkende economie er geen winst bestaat omdat alles optimaal ge-alloceerd wordt. Dingen zullen dus wel goedkoper worden, omdat de winst verdwijnt.\nHet vervolgitem “iPod verandert muziek luisteren” (fragment) is ook leuk. De onderzoeker (Toon van Veelen) concludeert dat iPod-gebruikers meer legale muziek gebruiken. Mensen met andere spelers schijnen meer muziek van P2P-netwerken te hebben.\nHij had er geen verklaring voor maar de presentatoren waren er snel bij om te verklaren dat iPod-gebruikers ‘netter’ waren.\nHet is natuurlijk fijn om jezelf moreel superier te voelen. Een meer voor de hand liggende verklaring lijkt me dat mensen die een dure iPod kunnen betalen ook wel genoeg geld zullen hebben om zorgeloos bergen muziek te kopen om op dat ding te zetten.\n","date":"April 16, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-232/","section":"Posts","summary":"Weer een aflevering RadioOnline met zowaar een boeiend onderwerp “Interneteconomie, zegen of ramp?”. Gift/Trade-economies waar goede wil en informatie zorgen dat mensen makkelijker en goedkoper kunnen krijgen wat ze willen.\n","title":"Gift-economie","type":"posts"},{"content":"Dat (Paycheck) is twee uur van mijn leven die ik kwijt ben. En het nare is dat ik na afloop ook niet even mijn geheugen kan laten wissen zoals de hoofdpersoon.\nOnbegrijpelijk hoe een boek van Dick zo\u0026rsquo;n slechte film op kan leveren. De onwaarschijnlijke gebeurtenissen, goedkope symboliek en het slechte acteerwerk, wat een prutfilm. Enig respect dat ik had voor John Woo is nu ook voorgoed weg.\n","date":"April 16, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-231/","section":"Posts","summary":"Dat (Paycheck) is twee uur van mijn leven die ik kwijt ben. En het nare is dat ik na afloop ook niet even mijn geheugen kan laten wissen zoals de hoofdpersoon.\n","title":"Dick-verfilming","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik las deze week door dit artikel heen en ik had geen flauw idee hoe ik het moest opvatten. Het leek een soort grap, lees:\nBut no matter how much money and dedication is poured into Linux, it will never put a dent in Windows\u0026rsquo; mind share or market share\nBoude uitspraak, niet? Je zou dan verwachten dat er een uitgebreid betoog met steekhoudende argumenten volgt. Dat komt er niet.\nDe lijn van het verhaal is dat Windows een stabiel platform biedt om op te bouwen terwijl Linux ‘alleen maar een OS’ is.\nMooi staaltje subjectivistische logica (=leugens) maar niets van waar. Alleen mensen die niets van Linux afweten zouden hier in trappen. En dat is dan ook precies hun doelgroep.\n","date":"April 16, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-230/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik las deze week door dit artikel heen en ik had geen flauw idee hoe ik het moest opvatten. Het leek een soort grap, lees:\n","title":"FUDderie","type":"posts"},{"content":"Gisteravond leidde onze rector onmagnificus Arnon Grunberg\u0026rsquo;s lezing De Soepsteen in. Ik heb zelden zoiets ontzettend saais gehoord (en ik ben niet de enige). Ik las daarvoor al een interview van Herbert Blankesteijn met Grunberg voor een TU-blaadje wat ook niet spoorde. Blankesteijn zwom in een intellectueel diepe wat duidelijk voorbij zijn bevattingsvermogen lag.\nGrunberg zelf was briljant in zijn lezing. Hij kwam regelmatig terug op het verhaal van Job —waar ik pas wat meer over heb geleerd— en maakte meer goede punten. Teveel en te complex om hier op te noemen maar in ieder geval: wij moeten lijden en dat volhouden anders is het spel over.\nZijn afsluitende Vermeerlezing dus zeker niet missen.\nIk vraag me toch af of onze vastgeroeste Techniker en imbeciele ballen iets van zo\u0026rsquo;n lezing meekrijgen. Grunberg heeft niet echt de dankbaarste taak, maar ik denk wel dat hij het goed gaat doen. Des te jammerder, dat ik niet mee kon doen met de workshops.\n","date":"April 14, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-229/","section":"Posts","summary":"Gisteravond leidde onze rector onmagnificus Arnon Grunberg’s lezing De Soepsteen in. Ik heb zelden zoiets ontzettend saais gehoord (en ik ben niet de enige). Ik las daarvoor al een interview van Herbert Blankesteijn met Grunberg voor een TU-blaadje wat ook niet spoorde. Blankesteijn zwom in een intellectueel diepe wat duidelijk voorbij zijn bevattingsvermogen lag.\n","title":"Gastschrijver Grunberg","type":"posts"},{"content":"Onze resultaten voor het vak Data Visualization zijn eindelijk af. Kijk maar er zitten best wat leuke plaatjes en filmpjes bij.\n","date":"April 11, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-228/","section":"Posts","summary":"Onze resultaten voor het vak Data Visualization zijn eindelijk af. Kijk maar er zitten best wat leuke plaatjes en filmpjes bij.\n","title":"Data Visualization","type":"posts"},{"content":"Flickr is al ontzettend gaaf. Ik heb er een pagina en die ga ik intensief gebruiken als ik mijn digicam heb.\nHoe ze Flickr zo gaaf maken is door slim Flash te gebruiken. Het staat overal geïnstalleerd en is daarom een goede cross-platform manier om rijke cliënt-applicaties te leveren.\nVeel van wat Flash kan, kan een dHTML-tovenaar tegenwoordig ook. Het kost wel veel meer moeite om het cross-browser te laten werken maar als dat niet hoeft is er nog veel meer mogelijk (XUL iemand?).\nSimon Willison bericht over zo\u0026rsquo;n ‘battle’ en een resultaat dat Lickr heet.\nHet is een Greasemonkey-script dat de flash op Flickr-pagina\u0026rsquo;s (de foto-annotaties met tekstvakjes) vervangt met javascript die precies hetzelfde doet. Ontzettend knap waarvoor respect!\n","date":"April 10, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-227/","section":"Posts","summary":"Flickr is al ontzettend gaaf. Ik heb er een pagina en die ga ik intensief gebruiken als ik mijn digicam heb.\n","title":"Lickr","type":"posts"},{"content":"Brechtje heeft weer een goede over het failliet van de Amerikaanse droom en de herwaardering van Europa.\nMaar waar China hier nou in past…? En of we daar blij mee moeten zijn?\n","date":"April 10, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-226/","section":"Posts","summary":"Brechtje heeft weer een goede over het failliet van de Amerikaanse droom en de herwaardering van Europa.\n","title":"China in het midden","type":"posts"},{"content":"Kottke heeft genoeg geld binnengehaald om full-time te kunnen blijven bloggen. Erg cool, micro-patronage kan dus wel.\nNu ik nog.\n","date":"April 10, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-225/","section":"Posts","summary":"Kottke heeft genoeg geld binnengehaald om full-time te kunnen blijven bloggen. Erg cool, micro-patronage kan dus wel.\n","title":"Full-timen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik heb hem een tijdje verwaarloosd, de Instapundit maar vandaag ga ik hem weer inhalen. 500 ongelezen berichten, hier samengevat.\nWaar vind je nu betere geopolitieke informatie, in de Nederlandse media of op Instapundit? (Dit is een grap.)\nMidden Oosten Het lijkt er toch op dat de Amerikanen niet helemaal verkeerd bezig zijn geweest in het Midden Oosten. Democratie die zich als een veenbrand verpsreidt?\nMeer goed nieuws van Chrenkoff (ook een goede): Good News from the Islamic World; the special pro-democracy edition. Demonstraties tegen de overheid voor meer democratie in Egypte, Kuweit, Libanon en Iran.\nNatuurlijk ook veel nieuws over Libanon (Blog: Help the people of Lebanon win their independence) waar Bush tot held lijkt verheven (George W. Bush, Arab Hero).\nMiguel is pas in Libanon geweest en heeft er nu weer nieuws over.\nIrak De vraag aan Iraaks blogger Husayn Uthman of het het waard was 2 jaar (2 years) na dato. En het tij keert zich tegen de opstandelingen in Irak (Iraq\u0026rsquo;s insurgents ‘seek exit strategy’, Iraqi Baathist Exit Strategy: Turn in Zarqawi \u0026amp; Iraqi resistance begins to crack after elections).\nHelaas niet op tijd om sommigen hun leed te besparen: Cuando Un Amigo Se Va\nKyrgizië Tot voor het pas op het nieuws was had waarschijnlijk niemand in Nederland het idee ook maar dat Kyrgizië bestond. Het is ook erg ver weg, erg ontoegankelijk, ingebed tussen dictatoriale landen. Kort gezegd, het is geen Georgië of Ukraïne en het kan de mensen hier in Europa niet zoveel boeien. Rusland wel: Russia Picking a Fight over Kyrgyzstan\nMij wel, ik zou graag binnenkort nog eens die kant op gaan reizen en dat wordt een stuk makkelijker als die landen vrij zijn.\nRevoluties en protesten verspreiden zich (Kyrgizstan - Another Link?, Dominos fall Harder From West To East). Het is in ieder geval hip. De revolutie is gebeurd, maar de uitkomst is onzeker (The Unexpectedly Short and Easy Revolution met veel foto\u0026rsquo;s (en meer foto\u0026rsquo;s, Hang Onto Those Tulips for a Moment over de dubieuze uitkomst).\nAmerikaanse Politiek Do Libertarians have more fun?\nLibertariërs: fiscaal conservatief en sociaal gezien liberaal. Gouden combinatie? Je hebt in ieder geval meer goede derde partijen, die steeds gematigder worden hoe verder je van Amerika bent: de Liberal Democrats in Engeland en ons D'66. D'66 zou bij mij veel kunnen winnen door ‘liberaal’ te jatten van voorgenoemde partijen die in hun landen erg goede ideeën hebben.\nDemocratie is erg hip maar vooral in landen die het nog niet (zo lang) hebben.\nBiotechnologie Kass is de voorzitter van the President\u0026rsquo;s Council on Bioethics en hij doet wat reli-conservatieve uitspraken waar intelligente mensen boos van worden (Debating Kass). Een lid van die raad licht het proces toe: On Leon Kass and Bioethics.\nDeze ontwikkelingen zijn niet tegen te houden. Lees Ramez Naam\u0026rsquo;s boek “More Than Human” er maar over (recensie). Zou jij ‘Nee!’ zeggen tegen tien jaar langer leven?\nOnderwijs Discussie over Wireless acces in the law school classroom, iets wat op de TU al realiteit is. Dit kun je niet verbieden, iedereen en alles wordt meer en meer verbonden. Het is soms wel irritant, als mensen voor me op hun laptop dubieuze filmpjes gaan kijken.\nChina Kort stukje over het spel dat speelt tussen Amerika en China. Vooral over energie natuurlijk en als het over olie gaat zijn Chinezen niet lief. China ondersteunt met geld, middelen, investeringen en VN-vetos verschillende dictatoriale regimes in Afrika en Azi\u0026amp;eum; bijv. in Zimbabwe door Mugabe een radio-jammer te verkopen maar ook in Darfur waar er oliebelangen spelen.\nIk las ook dat binnenkort de Europese wapenembargo\u0026rsquo;s tegen China opgeheven worden. Dan kunnen landen als Frankrijk hun wapens eindelijk weer daar slijten. Iedereen hier is verontwaardigd over de ‘genocide’ in Darfur (Waarvoor? Darfur!) maar er iets aan doen is te moeilijk.\nVan de andere kant: Chinese Bureaucrats Getting Blogged to Death\nZimbabwe Verkiezingen onlangs in Zimbabwe (For Zimbabwe \u0026amp;\nZimbabwe\u0026rsquo;s opposition hopeful), zijn niet echt heel erg goed afgelopen.\nGroot overzicht: Zimwabwe\u0026rsquo;s Elections Underway, en nog een Zimbabwe News Roundup. Natuurlijk verliest de oppositie van Mugabe, maar ze protesteren niet (Zimbabwe\u0026rsquo;s Opposition Rules Out Protests).\n","date":"April 10, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-224/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik heb hem een tijdje verwaarloosd, de Instapundit maar vandaag ga ik hem weer inhalen. 500 ongelezen berichten, hier samengevat.\n","title":"Sunday Instapundit Roundup","type":"posts"},{"content":"Nieuwslicht is een nieuw programma van de VARA over wetenschap. Wat toegankelijker en relaxter dan Noorderlicht, maar nog steeds met wel een redelijk niveau. Presentatie door Paul Witteman met een roulerende cast van wetenschappers die commentaar leveren.\nIn de laatste aflevering (BB Real) werd met iemand het wetenschappelijke nieuws van de afgelopen week doorgenomen.\nEen van de onderwerpen was een ontwikkeling op het gebied van de malariabestrijding. Volgens die man moest de milieubeweging zich schamen voor de 15 miljoen malaria-doden die ze op hun geweten hebben omdat ze DDT hebben laten verbieden. Paul Witteman wist niet hoe snel hij dit (voor de VARA) controversiele onderwerp van de tafel moest praten.\nDDT is misschien ook schadelijk, maar niet 15 miljoen doden schadelijk. The Skeptical Environmentalist staat vol met dit feit en vele anderen.\n","date":"April 10, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-223/","section":"Posts","summary":"Nieuwslicht is een nieuw programma van de VARA over wetenschap. Wat toegankelijker en relaxter dan Noorderlicht, maar nog steeds met wel een redelijk niveau. Presentatie door Paul Witteman met een roulerende cast van wetenschappers die commentaar leveren.\n","title":"Nieuw licht","type":"posts"},{"content":"Akelig stuk op Netkwesties over wat er gebeurt als je je burgerrechten overlevert aan incompetente ambtenaren.\nHet schokkendste vind ik nog de volgende gigantische kutsmoes (vrije vertaling van cop-out):\nHoe vaak dit soort missers voorkomen, kan de woordvoerder van de KLPD in Driebergen niet zeggen: \u0026ldquo;Van dat soort zaken is geen landelijke statistiek. Dat blijft binnen de politieregio\u0026rsquo;s en we hebben ook geen flauw idee\u0026rdquo;, luidt het antwoord.\n","date":"April 9, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-222/","section":"Posts","summary":"Akelig stuk op Netkwesties over wat er gebeurt als je je burgerrechten overlevert aan incompetente ambtenaren.\n","title":"Horror","type":"posts"},{"content":"Nog een RadioOnline van een tijdje terug, rustig laten bezinken en dan terugluisteren via het weblog van Francisco van Jole. Ik weet het; het is geen programma voor of door experts maar ik mag me toch ergeren als ze weer eens mijn favoriete onderwerp verhaspelen?\nIk zie nu ook dat ze op de site van het programma aangenaam zapbaar zijn. Nova doet dit ook en het is heel fijn om de saaie items over te kunnen slaan.\nRare behandeling (fragment), van de zaak AFP tegen Google (Abondance, NTVMSNBC, Slashdot). Ze halen het kranten.com-arrest van een tijdje terug erbij (NRC, Netkwesties, van Jole zelf op Tweakers) wat in zoverre relevant is dat het allebei zoekmachines betreft.\nIk heb beide dingen even snel door Google heen gehaald om te kijken hoe het nou ook alweer precies zat. Vooral het commentaar van van Jole zelf op Tweakers laat duidelijk zien hoe weinig inzicht hij heeft in de drijvende principes achter het internet (en let vooral op de drogreden in de laatste zin).\nNog even over Google: het enige wat Google doet is materiaal van andere mensen (meestal auteursrechtelijk beschermd) overnemen, doorzoekbaar maken en cachen. Als je nu niet wilt dat Google je gegevens pakt —en wie wil dat nou niet?— dan zet je ze of niet op het internet (waar iedereen erbij kan), of je zet een robots.txt bestand op je site.\nAFP moet niet zo kinderachtig doen. Ik denk dat de kans groter is dat over tien jaar Google nog bestaat dan dat AFP nog bestaat.\nHet item over Digital Rights Management (fragment) heeft gelukkig een vrij goede voorstander (Merijn Gelens). Vrij vertaald betekent DRM manieren waarop grote bedrijven hun klanten kunnen uitwringen voor elke mogelijke cent.\nDit proberen ze te doen door het heel moeilijk te maken om de media die je gekocht hebt af te spelen. Verder criminaliseren ze hun klanten en proberen ze de meeste dingen die je vroeger met boeken wel kon doen (bijvoorbeeld uitlenen) onmogelijk te maken. Dit is het klantje pesten waar ze het in het item over hebben.\nDe meeste mensen snappen het nog niet. Kottke wel en hij had er pas een goed stukje over.\nIn zijn presentatie licht Lessig de afkalving van fair use toe.\nDeze kopieerbeveiligingen werken in de meeste gevallen voor geen meter. DeCSS was briljant, maar ook heel knullig. Verkeerde DRM is ook de reden geweest dat Bram Cohen Bittorrent heeft geschreven.\n","date":"April 8, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-221/","section":"Posts","summary":"Nog een RadioOnline van een tijdje terug, rustig laten bezinken en dan terugluisteren via het weblog van Francisco van Jole. Ik weet het; het is geen programma voor of door experts maar ik mag me toch ergeren als ze weer eens mijn favoriete onderwerp verhaspelen?\n","title":"Radio Online, met AFP en DRM","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik heb net mijn aanvraag Bachelor examen ingevuld. Deze week het resultaat van mijn laatste vak binnen gekregen. De laatste van een hele rits vakken sinds ik besloot om serieus te gaan studeren.\nSerieus studeren was twee jaar geleden voor mij een hele nieuwe periode in mijn studie. Het was het einde van de vrijblijvendheid —lang genoeg gehad— en een flinke omslag. Het kwam erop neer dat ik elk tentamen wat ik deed, haalde. Simple.\nOmdat ik niet altijd even serieus heb gestudeerd, moest ik mijn aanvraag iets anders invullen. De eerste 10 vakken op de lijst heb ik niet echt gehaald, maar heb ik vrijstellingen voor door vakken uit het oudere programma.\nIk hoop dat de examen-commissie het snapt.\nNa de extreem korte adempauze van de Bachelor, ga ik stug doorrennen naar dat afstuderen. Heel ver weg is dat nu ook niet meer. Ik doe nu vierdejaars vakken en die gaan ook hard. Echt moeilijk zijn ze eigenlijk nog steeds niet, wel belachelijk veel werk.\nÉén gevolg van al je tentamens halen, is dat ze op een gegeven moment op zijn. De roosters die de TU zijn vorm en ritme geven, gelden dan niet meer voor me. Erg lekker, maar ook heel bizar.\nIk heb 6 jaar lang niks anders gedaan dan van tentamenperiode naar tentamenperiode leven. Dat hoeft nu niet meer. Afhankelijk van mijn vakken volgend jaar (of eerder het gebrek daaraan) ga ík laat augustus op vakantie.\n","date":"April 8, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-220/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik heb net mijn aanvraag Bachelor examen ingevuld. Deze week het resultaat van mijn laatste vak binnen gekregen. De laatste van een hele rits vakken sinds ik besloot om serieus te gaan studeren.\n","title":"Opschieten","type":"posts"},{"content":"Hiram heeft puur gelijk. En hij schrijft ook nog eens leuk. Wat wil je nog meer?\nOm Hiram aan te vullen. Dit is waar echte koffie uit komt:\n","date":"April 6, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-219/","section":"Posts","summary":"Hiram heeft puur gelijk. En hij schrijft ook nog eens leuk. Wat wil je nog meer?\n","title":"Voor koffieliefhebbers","type":"posts"},{"content":"Karin Spaink heeft een e-maillijst waar ze alle columns die ze schrijft heen stuurt. Het zijn er niet veel, maar dat maken ze ruim goed in kwaliteit.\nAls je je aanmeldt (wat ik je aanraad), krijg je toegang tot de archieven van de lijst waar een heleboel juweeltjes tussen zitten. Er zijn weinig columnisten die zoals zij keihard weten te zeggen waar het op staat zonder dom of onbeschoft te worden.\n“Schietstoel naar het paradijs?” is haar meest recente. Deze verschijnt gewoon in het Parool, als je ervoor wil betalen. Ze legt uit waarom de paus een loeder was en zijn gelovigen hypocriet zijn.\nMaar niet waarom er zoveel respect is voor deze fundamentalist en niet voor moslims die vliegtuigen in gebouwen vliegen. Oh ja, die moslims maken hun slachtoffers hier en de paus maakt ze in Afrika.\nDan is het ok.\n","date":"April 5, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-218/","section":"Posts","summary":"Karin Spaink heeft een e-maillijst waar ze alle columns die ze schrijft heen stuurt. Het zijn er niet veel, maar dat maken ze ruim goed in kwaliteit.\n","title":"Hypocrisie","type":"posts"},{"content":"Sun komt bij zijn positieven en heeft zinnige dingen te melden over Open Source.\nAlles wat Sun doet, zal straks open-source zijn. “We kunnen niet anders; het is ons levensbloed.”\nGoed dat zij nu ook snappen dat je met vage gesloten licenties de boel niet vooruit helpt.\nGoed ook dat ze de blik richten op Nederland en de rare dingen die hier gebeuren. Onze overheid (VVD \u0026amp; CDA) snapt weinig van ICT en wil alleen maar luisteren naar grote bedrijven. Sun is een ontzettend groot bedrijf. Listen up!\n","date":"April 4, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-217/","section":"Posts","summary":"Sun komt bij zijn positieven en heeft zinnige dingen te melden over Open Source.\n","title":"Positieven","type":"posts"},{"content":"Vandaag een partij GUI geschreven in Java/Swing. Jammer dat dat altijd zo\u0026rsquo;n ontzettende diarree aan code oplevert die veel minder doet dan je zou denken. Zonder Eclipse is er niet tegenop te vechten.\nHet schijnt dat Java/SWT minder erg is, maar ik hou mijn adem niet in. Vergeleken met Python of Haskell leveren de meeste programmeertalen overtollige code op.\nDe code die we geproduceerd hebben (een schamele 0.5 KLOC) wilde ik in een subversion repository kwijt, dus heb ik er maar eentje opgezet. Het opzetten van een repository en het draaien van svnserve is net zoals alles in subversion helder en makkelijk.\nToen ook maar voor mijn Eclipse 3.1M5 een nieuwe versie van subclipse geïnstalleerd. Tot mijn verassing werkt het Team Synchronize een beetje. Het doet wat het moet doen maar het geeft wel foutmeldingen.\nIk heb even gezocht naar aanwijzingen dat het Eclipse-team subversion zou adopteren als de standaard voor Eclipse. Ik kwam deze bug tegen die twijfelend maar hoopvol is.\nDe moeite die het Eclipse-team moeten doen om CVS fatsoenlijk te ondersteunen was al gigantisch (lees ik). Daarom zijn ze waarschijnlijk huiverig om een tweede versiebeheersysteem ‘erbij te nemen.’ Ze laten subclipse extern rijpen maar ze zullen er niet omheen kunnen. Subversion is niet zomaar nog een versiebeheerpakket, het is de vervanging van het kapotte CVS.\nIk heb pas trouwens een project uitgecheckt uit een darcs-repository. Hopeloos alternatief en weinig gebruikt, maar het werkt wel goed en er zit een solide idee achter.\n","date":"April 4, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-216/","section":"Posts","summary":"Vandaag een partij GUI geschreven in Java/Swing. Jammer dat dat altijd zo’n ontzettende diarree aan code oplevert die veel minder doet dan je zou denken. Zonder Eclipse is er niet tegenop te vechten.\n","title":"Subversief","type":"posts"},{"content":"TV-tips, en ik heb niet eens een tv.\nBuitenhof morgen ziet er nog saaier uit dan normaal. WW, vrouwen in de kerk en zuilen. Pffff.\nGelukkig zijn er andere leuke dingen op tv.\n****R.A.M. (Ned 3 19:20 - 20:25) gaat over de Winter Music Conference wat natuurlijk erg cool is, over Sarah Kane en over Tommy Wieringa (zijn boek “Joe Speedboot” ga ik snel kopen).\nIk weet niet of die Grunberg als presentator een beetje te pruimen is. Maar we krijgen hem binnenkort hier op de TU als gastschrijvert.\nEn:\nTegenlicht met de Riverside Conversations deel zoveel. Over Georgië en en passant waarschijnlijk ook Europa, Azië, Rusland en de rest van de wereld.\nVoorgaande aflevering van de Riverside Conversations waren in ieder geval genadeloos boeiend.\n","date":"April 3, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-215/","section":"Posts","summary":"TV-tips, en ik heb niet eens een tv.\n","title":"Zondag tv","type":"posts"},{"content":"1 april grap of niet, Guido heeft hier vrij goed mijn ideeë over goede witruimtestijl te pakken.\nMaar om dat nou hard in de taal in te bakken …\n","date":"April 1, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-214/","section":"Posts","summary":"1 april grap of niet, Guido heeft hier vrij goed mijn ideeë over goede witruimtestijl te pakken.\n","title":"Whitespace fascism","type":"posts"},{"content":"U vraagt wij draaien.\nDeze is voor Melle die een hippe sociale informatie manager wil maken en daar Python voor wil leren. Zoals Melle al zei, ‘Python is altijd al hip geweest.’ Juist!\nTip: KDE DCOP scripten met Python is zo ontzettend simpel.\nJoe Gasiorek —een van de ontwikkelaars van Beagle— had pas in zijn blog wat ideeë over het organiseren van informatie (1 \u0026amp; 2).\nHet doorzoeken van informatie is de eerste stap. Dit wordt nu door software als Beagle goed aangepakt. Het organiseren van informatie, je pc en je leven is de volgende stap.\nHij haalt hierbij een analogie van Don Norman erbij. Deze is er achter gekomen dat de meeste mensen hun informatie organiseren in stapeltjes van gelijkvormige en gelijksoortige objecten.\nZijn idee is om het resultaat van een Beagle zoekopdracht te kunnen opslaan op je desktop, als een virtueel stapeltje (of vFolder). Als je deze dan weer opent krijg je te zien wat er op dat moment allemaal in dat stapeltje hoort. Digitale objecten kunnen natuurlijk in meerdere stapeltjes tegelijkertijd zitten.\nLeuk plan en leuke vergelijking.\nNu moet ik Beagle nog zien te installeren. Dat gaat wel lukken, ik moet komende week een opdracht doen waarbij ik verschillende Desktop Search Tools met elkaar ga vergelijken en eentje daarvan wordt Beagle.\nIk zie nu dat Beagle geen GMail backend heeft. Absoluut essentieel en vast wel leuk om te bouwen (zodra ik de tijd heb). Eerst even die orkaan het hoofd bieden.\n","date":"April 1, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-213/","section":"Posts","summary":"U vraagt wij draaien.\n","title":"Steeds meer stapels","type":"posts"},{"content":"Nieuwe dingen bij Google\u0026rsquo;s GMail! GMail is nu op 1 april één jaar oud.\nDus niet alleen de mogelijkheid om rich text te versturen maar nu ook het nieuwe google ∞+1 storage plan. Beginnende met nu een extra Gigabyte.\nIk was al bang wat er zou gebeuren als ik aan die grens zou komen, geen zorgen dus.\nGrap? Dat dachten veel mensen ook toen GMail een jaar geleden uit kwam.\n","date":"April 1, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-212/","section":"Posts","summary":"Nieuwe dingen bij Google’s GMail! GMail is nu op 1 april één jaar oud.\n","title":"Gmail jarig!","type":"posts"},{"content":"Zo, weet ik nu dus toch waar ik die Gigabyte aan RAM voor in mijn PC heb zitten. Ik ben nu bezig om met OpenDX een redelijk grote dataset te visualiseren van een simulatie van de orkaan Isabelle.\nGroot is in dit geval 13 * 48 bestanden van 100 Mb elk. Ik heb nog nooit zoveel RAM en Swap tegelijkertijd gebruikt. Een Gigabyte erbij kan ik op deze manier ook nog goedpraten.\n(Mijn oude PC trok dit soort grapjes echt heel slecht.)\nHierboven dus een bovenaanzicht met aangegeven de hoeveelheid neerslag die Isabel produceert op de eerste zoveel tijdseenheden. De ruwe vorm van een orkaan is al redelijk goed zichtbaar.\n","date":"April 1, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-211/","section":"Posts","summary":"Zo, weet ik nu dus toch waar ik die Gigabyte aan RAM voor in mijn PC heb zitten. Ik ben nu bezig om met OpenDX een redelijk grote dataset te visualiseren van een simulatie van de orkaan Isabelle.\n","title":"Isabelle","type":"posts"},{"content":"Simon Willison is net terug van SxSW en PyCon*.\nHij bespreekt de conferenties en dan vooral PyCon die erg cool waren. Een van de presentaties ‘Python at Google’ hebben ze live overgeschreven met een redelijk gaaf tooltje: SubEthaEdit. Dat is alleen voor OS X maar er schijnt voor Eclipse ook zo\u0026rsquo;n soort plugin te bestaan (Reinier?).\nDie presentatie laat de ontwikkeling zien van Python naar de acceptatie die het nu heeft, dat was vroeger wel anders.\nDie acceptatie is weer wat verder. Volgens Simon en Bruce waren bedrijven op PyCon hard op zoek naar Python-programmeurs.\nIk ben wel een beetje jaloers, ja. ","date":"March 28, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-210/","section":"Posts","summary":"Simon Willison is net terug van SxSW en PyCon*.\n","title":"Python @ Google","type":"posts"},{"content":"Yahoo! 360° schijnt heel erg gaaf te zijn/worden (Mediafact.nl, InsideGoogle, jeremy.zawodny.com). Ik kom er niet in en ik kan ook geen bèta aanvragen.\nAls je meer weet, het hebt of me kunt uitnodigen mail me dan. Ik moet het vast hebben!\nKrijgt Yahoo! meer mojo dan Google?\n","date":"March 28, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-209/","section":"Posts","summary":"Yahoo! 360° schijnt heel erg gaaf te zijn/worden (Mediafact.nl, InsideGoogle, jeremy.zawodny.com). Ik kom er niet in en ik kan ook geen bèta aanvragen.\n","title":"Yahoo! 360°","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik kom er nu aan toe om RadioOnline van 15 maart te luisteren.\nDe onderwerpen:\nMedicijnen via internet?\nDe gebruikelijke oppervlakkige behandeling waaruit blijkt dat ze niet Spaink in het Parool hebben gelezen (‘Zelfmoord via internetdokter’, 22 maart 2005).\nMarie-Claire van den Berg test Photoleap\nGrote verwarring over een foto-verstuurapplicatie Photoleap (lang niet zo hip als Flickr) waarvan niemand precies weet hoe het werkt.\nIets met JPG-recodering en downsamplen naar 2 MegaPixels maar er staat niks concreets over op de website van Photoleap.\nDomeinregister kent geen privacy\nHet was een goed bewaard geheim bij ons digerati dat je als je mensen wilt bereiken die onbereikbaar lijken dat je dan de Whois doorspit. Ik sta er helaas ook erg compleet in.\nAls je niet in een telefoonboek wilt staan, dan kan dat. Het is van de zotte dat deze gegevens verplicht openbaar zijn maar als je een bureaucratische monopolist de macht geeft dan heb je weinig te kiezen.\nWikipedia, encyclopedie of desinformatie\nMensen die tegen Wikipedia zijn, snappen het niet (Wired heeft er wat aardige artikelen over 1 \u0026amp; 2). Het is nooit af, maar het probeert beter te zijn dan het meeste (en slaagt daar vaker in dan je zou denken). Het is voor mij een heel handig beginpunt met overzichtelijke informatie over een bepaald onderwerp.\nWat ik mis in het gesprek, is de basis van Wikipedia: Deelnemers schrijven op zo\u0026rsquo;n manier dat wat zij schrijven het proces overleeft.\nDe vertegenwoordiger van de Wikipedia (Oscar van Dillen) is beetje suf en verzandt in details. Hij gaat niet de fundamentele discussie over het proces aan die daardoor erg halfslachtig gevoerd wordt.\nHet is een interessante vraag of je door middel van democratie tot kennis kunt komen. Of relevante kennis eigenlijk gelijk staat aan consensus. Of hier sprake is van een proces van evolutionaire zelf-organisatie die kwade wil en domheid kan overstijgen.\nBovenstaande is wel een goede illustratie dat lokale takken van Wikipedia een marginaal bestaan leiden. Zeker als het gaat om algemene onderwerpen waar de engelse versie meestal veel beter is. Bij die engelse versie zit ook het kloppende hart van de organisatie.\nDe wetenschapsjournalist (Marcel Hulspas) doet een paar uitspraken waaruit duidelijk blijkt dat hij bij die groep mensen hoort die het niet snappen.\nVan Jole merkt op dat er veel feitelijke onjuistheden zitten (in onder andere zijn pagina). Mijn ervaring is dat normale journalisten meestal niet veel beter zijn. Ze maken ook fouten opzettelijk of door gebrek aan kennis en meestal niet te zuinig ook. Hun voordeel is natuurlijk dat ze zich meestal achter grote intransparante organisaties kunnen verschuilen (waar ze ook nog eens door betaald krijgen).\nLeuk overzicht van het proces is Jon Udell die de historie van een bepaalde pagina behandelt. Voor mensen die het wel willen snappen.\n","date":"March 28, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-208/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik kom er nu aan toe om RadioOnline van 15 maart te luisteren.\n","title":"Radio Online van een tijdje terug","type":"posts"},{"content":"Gisteren liep ik nog over het Binnenhof. Ik kijk nu Buitenhof terug. Rottenberg bekritiseert Bos en de Graaf en dat doet hij knetterhard. Jammer dat Rottenberg niet meer in de politiek zit, maar zijn analyses zijn kraakhelder, vlijmscherp en geweldig om te horen.\n1e Paasdag, het regent hier posts.\n","date":"March 28, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-207/","section":"Posts","summary":"Gisteren liep ik nog over het Binnenhof. Ik kijk nu Buitenhof terug. Rottenberg bekritiseert Bos en de Graaf en dat doet hij knetterhard. Jammer dat Rottenberg niet meer in de politiek zit, maar zijn analyses zijn kraakhelder, vlijmscherp en geweldig om te horen.\n","title":"Den Haag Nabeschouwd","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik kom via het blog van Asa twee hippe extensies voor Firefox tegen waar je binnenkort niet meer zonder kunt.\nNightcap is een extensie die dat irritante downloadvenster handig maakt. De beste oplossing die ik tot nu toe gezien heb. Resizable Textarea doet precies wat het zegt, en als je veel tijd op/rond blogs doorbrengt is het een godsgeschenk. ","date":"March 27, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-206/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik kom via het blog van Asa twee hippe extensies voor Firefox tegen waar je binnenkort niet meer zonder kunt.\n","title":"Ontzettend vers","type":"posts"},{"content":"Je kent ze wel, de wonderdokters.\nElke keer weer een ander briefje in de bus. Is het nou dezelfde man of niet?\nNu kwam ik deze site tegen waar de relaties tussen alle wonderdokters en hun 06-nummers helder in kaart gebracht zijn.\n","date":"March 27, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-205/","section":"Posts","summary":"Je kent ze wel, de wonderdokters.\n","title":"Wonderdokter","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik ben in een opwelling gisteravond begonnen om mijn eigen blog-software te schrijven. Niet echt omdat ik het nodig heb, maar om beter bekend te raken met een paar hele krachtige en ondergewaardeerde libraries (SQLObject \u0026amp; Twisted).\nSQLObject is erg gemakkelijk in het gebruik. Ik had niet echt zin om Foreign Key Constraints in PostgreSQL uit te gaan zoeken en dat hoeft dus ook niet.\nTwisted is een ander verhaal. Het is een super-stoer raamwerk met best veel documentatie die niet erg helder is. Dat was wel fijn geweest want de opzet is erg complex en vereist een hele andere manier van denken.\nUpdate: Hieronder volgt een heleboel nerd-praat over hoe en wat het werkt maar mijn indruk van Twisted komt overeen met mijn verwachtingen.\nTwisted is erg groot, er zijn delen die erg volwassen zijn en andere delen die nog ontzettend in ontwikkeling zijn.\nEr straalt van alles (behalve de documentatie) of dat het gemaakt is door mensen die weten wat ze doen. Het nette ontwerp, de volwassen admintools etc. dat zit allemaal heel goed in elkaar.\nEn ook al lijkt het moeilijk, als je de voorbeelden volgt zijn er ook veel dingen die ontzettend makkelijk worden gemaakt. Ik heb een voorbeeld overgenomen, een irc-bot van een paar(!) regels code, en dat uitgebreid zodat je er galgje mee kunt spelen.\nDaar komt de Python-filosofie wel om de hoek kijken: makkelijke dingen makkelijk en complexe dingen mogelijk maken.\nUitleg: In een normaal programma voer je gewoon dingen uit:\ndoeIets()\ndoeIetsWaarJeLangOpMoetWachten()\ndoeNogIets()\nEn als je dat lange wachten niet ziet zitten dan start je een Thread die dat parallel voor je doet zodat jij gewoon door kunt gaan met doeNogIets(). Zo gebeurt het overal, maar dat gaat bij Twisted niet op.\nTwisted heeft maar één Thread (want dat is efficienter), nog een Thread starten is niet de bedoeling, lang wachten ook niet. Bovenstaande code moet je dan omklussen tot:\ndef alsHetKlaarIs(resultaat):\ndoeIetsMet(resultaat)\ndoeIets()\nbelofte = ikGaDoorIkHoorHetWelAlsHetKlaarIs()\nbelofte.addCallback(alsHetKlaarIs)\ndoeNogIets()\nDe aanroep naar ikGaDoorIkHoorHetWelAlsHetKlaarIs() komt meteen terug en doet ons een belofte (een Deferred).\nAan die belofte vragen we om op de hoogte gehouden te worden. Dat doet hij door als het dan klaar is alsHetKlaarIs() aan te roepen.\nDit lijkt heel makkelijk, maar valt in de praktijk vies tegen. Je moet ten eerste compleet anders denken. Verder moet je de databasetoegang zo schrijven dat een SELECT Deferreds teruggeeft en je daar in de rest van je applicatie mee uit de voeten kunt.\nDe documentatie ‘Using Deferreds’ hielp me niet echt, maar deze draad uit de mailinglis wel.\nWat het niet makkelijker maakt is dat ze in Twisted ook een heldere scheiding van de verantwoordelijkheden hebben geïmplementeerd met adaptatie en aspecten. Dit is op het eerste gezicht niet superhelder maar belooft later wel veel ellende te besparen.\n","date":"March 27, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-204/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik ben in een opwelling gisteravond begonnen om mijn eigen blog-software te schrijven. Niet echt omdat ik het nodig heb, maar om beter bekend te raken met een paar hele krachtige en ondergewaardeerde libraries (SQLObject \u0026 Twisted).\n","title":"Twisted","type":"posts"},{"content":"Een beetje laat —ok— en de zon wilde ook niet helemaal meewerken maar ik heb vandaag in Den Haag mijn eerste paar terrasjes van dit jaar gepakt.\nIk wil nog erg graag een digicam kopen (nav Rome). Dus wij even bij de Mediamarkt in voor een hands-on-experience. Ik kreeg als tip om een Canon PowerShot A510 te kopen en dat is echt een hip ding! Ik heb hem vastgehouden en was meteen verkocht. Gekocht heb ik hem niet, maar erg lang kan dat niet meer duren.\n","date":"March 26, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-203/","section":"Posts","summary":"Een beetje laat —ok— en de zon wilde ook niet helemaal meewerken maar ik heb vandaag in Den Haag mijn eerste paar terrasjes van dit jaar gepakt.\n","title":"Den Haag","type":"posts"},{"content":"Vandaag op Slashdot —dus niet echt nieuw— maar daarom nog niet minder gaaf. Veel ontwikkeling van Gnome vindt plaats bij Novell maar deze Seth Nickell werkt bij Red Hat.\nZij zijn bezig om een Venstersysteem (Window Manager) te schrijven die compleet OpenGL versneld is. Afbeeldingen verkleinen, verplaatsen, transformeren en doorschijnend maken is dan heel makkelijk. En een applicatievenster is ook maar een soort afbeelding.\nDe filmpjes die hij heeft neergezet laten hele spannende effecten zien (Wobbly Windows bijv.) en hele coole real-time geschaalde vensters.\nGave effecten zijn één ding, maar bruikbaarheid is ook belangrijk. Wat ze daar aan gaan doen is bij resizen de inhoud van een venster en de randen synchroniseren. Resizen ziet er bij mij nu nog niet uit.\nBinnenkort (ooit) komt dit allemaal in Metacity en dus ook in mijn Gnome terecht.\nGnome™ waar hippe shit gebeurt!\n","date":"March 24, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-202/","section":"Posts","summary":"Vandaag op Slashdot —dus niet echt nieuw— maar daarom nog niet minder gaaf. Veel ontwikkeling van Gnome vindt plaats bij Novell maar deze Seth Nickell werkt bij Red Hat.\n","title":"Lumineus","type":"posts"},{"content":"Weer een geweldige herhaling in Lumen:\nvr za 17.00\nGOOD BYE, LENIN! - Wolfgang Becker - Duitsland 2003 MovieZone\nFantastisch, ontroerend en komisch verhaal van een liefhebbende zoon die bergen verzet en wonderen verricht om zijn moeder te doen geloven dat de DDR nog bestaat en de geschiedenis een heel ander verloop heeft.\nEn een klassieker:\nzo 17.15 - ma 19.45\nSOYLENT GREEN - Richard Fleischer - USA 1973 Science Fiction WEEK\nIn 2022 wordt de bevolking gevoed en in toom gehouden door een dictatoriale overheid. De speurtocht naar een moordenaar leidt tot een gruwelijke ontknoping.\n","date":"March 23, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-201/","section":"Posts","summary":"Weer een geweldige herhaling in Lumen:\n","title":"Mis het niet!","type":"posts"},{"content":"Dat werd ook hoog tijd\u0026hellip;. ik heb een nieuwe dump van mijn filmlijst gemaakt. De vorige was bijna een jaar geleden.\nVeel plezier ermee. Alles wat bij mij 4 asterisken (∗∗∗∗) of meer heeft is meer dan een beetje de moeite van het zien waard.\n","date":"March 23, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-200/","section":"Posts","summary":"Dat werd ook hoog tijd…. ik heb een nieuwe dump van mijn filmlijst gemaakt. De vorige was bijna een jaar geleden.\n","title":"Films","type":"posts"},{"content":"Op frankwatching een uitgebreid stuk over screencasting. Natuurlijk veel Jon Udell —koning van het medium— en de talloze offsprings.\nIk moet de meeste screencasts van Jon Udell nog zien maar goed zijn ze wel. Een paar in het oog springende:\nevolutie van artikelen in Wikipedia JotSpot een Wiki uitgebouwd tot applicatie-platform Marklogic XQuery boek-zoek-server En een niet eens zo onrealistisch voorbeeld van de ACLU wat er gebeurt als privacy niet meer bestaat.\n","date":"March 22, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-199/","section":"Posts","summary":"Op frankwatching een uitgebreid stuk over screencasting. Natuurlijk veel Jon Udell —koning van het medium— en de talloze offsprings.\n","title":"Screencasten","type":"posts"},{"content":"Klinkt als best een leuke conferentie dat ETECH. Zeker als er dit soort juweeltjes vandaan komen rollen.\nVoorbeeld hoe op een school leerlingen hun huiswerk intikken op een Wiki en ze dan met Rendezvous die wiki synchroniseren met dat van hun leraar. Die schrijft er dan dingen bij, of een cijfer ofzo.\nWiki\u0026rsquo;s zijn erg cool.\n","date":"March 20, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-198/","section":"Posts","summary":"Klinkt als best een leuke conferentie dat ETECH. Zeker als er dit soort juweeltjes vandaan komen rollen.\n","title":"Etech","type":"posts"},{"content":"Erg cool filmpje van een oprolbaar digitaal scherm. Nu nog zwart/wit en een redelijk lage refresh maar binnenkort vast beter.\n","date":"March 20, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-197/","section":"Posts","summary":"Erg cool filmpje van een oprolbaar digitaal scherm. Nu nog zwart/wit en een redelijk lage refresh maar binnenkort vast beter.\n","title":"Oprollen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Geen overweldigende tijd maar toch leuk gelopen gisteren. Wel een gedoe om bij de uitslagen te komen:\n682 Alper Cugun 10km Bus-Run M 5905 TOPdesk team 2\n1:02:56\n","date":"March 20, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-196/","section":"Posts","summary":"Geen overweldigende tijd maar toch leuk gelopen gisteren. Wel een gedoe om bij de uitslagen te komen:\n","title":"CPC","type":"posts"},{"content":"Paul Graham heeft weer een stuk geschreven en net zoals al het andere is dit ook weer erg de moeite waard. Hij legt uit hoe je volgens hem een bedrijf moet beginnen. Het is hem vrij aardig gelukt.\nEr staan boeiende anekdotes en goede informatie in. Één ervan is dat ze in het begin niet zo letten op papierwerk en premies afdragen enzo —je hebt wel betere dingen te doen— en op een gegeven moment iemand in dienst namen die het allemaal met terugwerkende kracht in orde maakte.\nHij merkt daarna haarfijn op:\n[5] A friend who started a company in Germany told me they do care about the paperwork there, and that there\u0026rsquo;s more of it. Which helps explain why there are not more startups in Germany.\nSpijker op zijn kop.\nEn volgens mij heeft hij het over mij als hij zegt:\nSo who should start a startup? Someone who is a good hacker, between about 23 and 38, and who wants to solve the money problem in one shot instead of getting paid gradually over a conventional working life.\n","date":"March 17, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-195/","section":"Posts","summary":"Paul Graham heeft weer een stuk geschreven en net zoals al het andere is dit ook weer erg de moeite waard. Hij legt uit hoe je volgens hem een bedrijf moet beginnen. Het is hem vrij aardig gelukt.\n","title":"Graham's nieuwste","type":"posts"},{"content":"Leve het orakel, Guido spreekt. Hij wil map, filter en reduce verwijderen uit de taal. En als je hem naleest heeft hij hartstikke gelijk.\nWat heb je liever:\nmap(transfunc, reduce(filterfunc, list)) of:\n[transfunc(el) for el in list if filterfunc(el)] Ik weet het wel.\nUpdate: Het eerste voorbeeld moet natuurlijk zijn\nmap(transfunc, filter(filterfunc, list)) Nuttige gebruiksmogelijkheden van reduce zijn sowieso ontzettend zeldzaam. Daarom alleen al mag die functie weg.\n","date":"March 17, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-194/","section":"Posts","summary":"Leve het orakel, Guido spreekt. Hij wil map, filter en reduce verwijderen uit de taal. En als je hem naleest heeft hij hartstikke gelijk.\n","title":"Onfunctioneel Python","type":"posts"},{"content":"Nog steeds druk. Wel schitterende kunst bij Brechtje.\n","date":"March 15, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-193/","section":"Posts","summary":"Nog steeds druk. Wel schitterende kunst bij Brechtje.\n","title":"Cena","type":"posts"},{"content":"Keuken schoon én deadlines.\n","date":"March 13, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-192/","section":"Posts","summary":"Keuken schoon én deadlines.\n","title":"Pffff…","type":"posts"},{"content":"Stel: je kijkt weleens op de site van de Duwo naar actuele instemmingen.\nEn stel: je ergert je ontzettend aan al die instemmingen voor onderhuur die niet makkelijk uit elkaar te houden zijn van echte instemmingen.\nEn stel: je bent een nerd.\nWat doe je dan?\nJe installeert Greasemonkey. Dit is een coole tool voor Firefox waarmee je aan specifieke pagina\u0026rsquo;s alles kunt aanpassen. Dit alles met een klein beetje Javascript, XPath en DOM.\nEn dan schrijf je duwoOnderhuur.user.js die alle tekst waar het woord \u0026lsquo;Onderhuur\u0026rsquo; of \u0026lsquo;Onderhuurder\u0026rsquo; ofzo in voorkomt een roze achtergrond geeft.\nDit soort scripts —er zijn nog een berg andere handige— moet eindigen op .user.js. Dan kan je ze openen en installeren met Tools -\u0026gt; Install User Script.\nDe mozilla XPath gids wil nog weleens handig zijn als je zelf een script wil schrijven.\nLet op: de simple manier van doorlopen met iterateNext() gaat fout omdat door wijzigingen in de boom de iteratorState invalid raakt. Dus het moet zoals het staat in mijn script of bij de berg voorbeelden.\nVolgend project: alle verstopte asf, mov en rm op pagina\u0026rsquo;s klikbaar maken. Plugins werken onder Linux niet zo goed.\n","date":"March 12, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-191/","section":"Posts","summary":"Stel: je kijkt weleens op de site van de Duwo naar actuele instemmingen.\n","title":"Vet aapje","type":"posts"},{"content":"Vlaams theater is anders en daarom alleen al eigenlijk is het de moeite waard maar in Nederland kom je het niet zo vaak tegen.\nDe Hamlet van het Paleis speelt woensdag over een week één keertje in Theater a/h Spui. Op de webkwestie-site die erbij hoort kun je al wat filmfragmenten zien.\nVolgens mij gaat het heel leuk worden. Op Moose zijn er in ieder geval al twee mini-recensies te lezen; eentje met zes geweien ( ) en eentje met vijf tomaten ( ). Dat belooft wat.\n","date":"March 11, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-190/","section":"Posts","summary":"Vlaams theater is anders en daarom alleen al eigenlijk is het de moeite waard maar in Nederland kom je het niet zo vaak tegen.\n","title":"Hamlet","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik kom net op dit artikel over Coroutines in C en het zit boordevol met lekkere low-level programmeer-juweeltjes. Dat alles om iets ontzettend handigs te implementeren: coroutines die ik het beste ken als Python-generators (niet te verwarren).\nVan een geniale onduidelijkheid is bijvoorbeeld Duff\u0026rsquo;s device hieronder:\nswitch (count % 8) { case 0: do { *to = *from++; case 7: *to = *from++; case 6: *to = *from++; case 5: *to = *from++; case 4: *to = *from++; case 3: *to = *from++; case 2: *to = *from++; case 1: *to = *from++; } while ((count -= 8) \u0026gt; 0); }\nDaarna wordt het alleen maar erger. Uiteindelijk volgen er een bijzonder vies stel macro\u0026rsquo;s die er met\nGOTO\n\u0026rsquo;s en statische variabelen voor zorgen dat je na\nreturn\ndoor kunt gaan in die functie waar je was gebleven.\nOoit iemand C ouderwets horen noemen?\n","date":"March 11, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-189/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik kom net op dit artikel over Coroutines in C en het zit boordevol met lekkere low-level programmeer-juweeltjes. Dat alles om iets ontzettend handigs te implementeren: coroutines die ik het beste ken als Python-generators (niet te verwarren).\n","title":"teach an old C new tricks","type":"posts"},{"content":"Het idee van een filmtrailer is toch altijd dat je zin krijgt om de film te gaan zien. Dat lukt deze nieuwste trailer van “The Revenge of the Sith” ontzettend goed.\nKottke zegt terecht: OMFG.\n","date":"March 11, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-188/","section":"Posts","summary":"Het idee van een filmtrailer is toch altijd dat je zin krijgt om de film te gaan zien. Dat lukt deze nieuwste trailer van “The Revenge of the Sith” ontzettend goed.\n","title":"SWIII","type":"posts"},{"content":"Deze Adidas_1 schoen zit zo ontzettend vol met nerd-gaafheid en loopvermogen. Zeg nou zelf: ‘a shoe with a built in microprocessor capable of performing 5 million calculations per second.’\nDie Flash-site is trouwens ook niet mis.\nEn dat voor maar $250. Ik heb net nieuwe schoenen gekocht anders zat ik wel te twijfelen. Met de huidige koersen, is $250 toch maar een eurotje of 100, toch…?\n","date":"March 10, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-187/","section":"Posts","summary":"Deze Adidas_1 schoen zit zo ontzettend vol met nerd-gaafheid en loopvermogen. Zeg nou zelf: ‘a shoe with a built in microprocessor capable of performing 5 million calculations per second.’\n","title":"The World's First Intelligent Shoe","type":"posts"},{"content":"Coert heeft een nieuwe site die best wel kèk is. Vooral die over Kazachstan is erg cool.\nWeet alleen niet wat ík nou met de omschrijving ‘Nog een filosofische nerd’ aan moet.\n","date":"March 10, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-186/","section":"Posts","summary":"Coert heeft een nieuwe site die best wel kèk is. Vooral die over Kazachstan is erg cool.\n","title":"Wauw(el)","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ultra-Giga-Mega-Tip: Komende maandag (14 maart) Heat in reprise op groot scherm in Lumen.\nDeze film is zo ontzettend waanzinnig goed. Meer kan ik er niet over zeggen. ¡Gaan \u0026amp; zien!\nDe kans dat je hem ooit nog een keer in de bios vindt is heel heel klein.\n","date":"March 10, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-185/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ultra-Giga-Mega-Tip: Komende maandag (14 maart) Heat in reprise op groot scherm in Lumen.\n","title":"Don't say I didn't…","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik heb gisteren voor het eerst in tijden een leuk college gehad. Het was interessant, moeilijk en het ging in een lekker hoog tempo waardoor het praktisch onmogelijk was om in slaap te vallen.\nHet was het tweede college van mijn vak Data Visualization over Medical Visualization. Het hele college zat tjokvol met plaatjes en filmpjes en gave gadgets en eigenlijk ontzettend moeilijke problemen.\nDeze gasten hebben hele dikke skillz die ze gebruiken om wat je maar wilt aan je lichaam goed te visualiseren. En het ziet er niet alleen leuk uit, maar artsen kunnen er levens mee redden. En ze mogen spelen met alle dure en gave apparaten in ziekenhuizen.\nErg belangrijk voor een goed college is o.a. dat degene die het college geeft (Charl Botha) enthousiast is, interessante stof te vertellen heeft, het Engels beheerst en belangrijkste van alles: jonger is dan 40.\nJonger dan 40 betekent al dat je meer overeenkomt met je studenten dan mannen van boven de 60. Dit zorgt er ook voor dat je ze niet doodverveelt met je ontzettend trage monotone behandeling van de stof. Wij zijn de MTV-generatie, wij hebben een harde beat en snelle overgangen nodig.\nWat hij ook goed deed, een regel van Tufte was:\nFinish early \u0026mdash; people will be thrilled. Something good is bound to happen!\n","date":"March 9, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-184/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik heb gisteren voor het eerst in tijden een leuk college gehad. Het was interessant, moeilijk en het ging in een lekker hoog tempo waardoor het praktisch onmogelijk was om in slaap te vallen.\n","title":"Datavis propz!","type":"posts"},{"content":"Nieuw bericht van Webwereld.\n‘deuk in het vertrouwen van de democratie in Europa’\nWelk vertrouwen?\n","date":"March 8, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-183/","section":"Posts","summary":"Nieuw bericht van Webwereld.\n","title":"Patentensoap","type":"posts"},{"content":"Het is inderdaad een complot. Op dit moment is er dus in Boijmans een tentoonstelling over Dalí en er komt binnenkort in de Kunsthal een tentoonstelling over Gaudí. Allebei in Rotterdam, hier vlak om de hoek.\nMijn Museumjaarkaart is nog geldig tot en met 15 april. Ik moet maar opschieten.\nHmm, Gaudí vanaf 23 april.\n","date":"March 8, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-182/","section":"Posts","summary":"Het is inderdaad een complot. Op dit moment is er dus in Boijmans een tentoonstelling over Dalí en er komt binnenkort in de Kunsthal een tentoonstelling over Gaudí. Allebei in Rotterdam, hier vlak om de hoek.\n","title":"Arte","type":"posts"},{"content":"Her en der te lezen: “Software patent directive accepted”.\nDit kan een ramp betekenen. Hoezo? Dat kun je lezen op de Nederlandse NoSoftwarePatents.com-site.\nVraag aan onze politicologen: Hoe noem je die staatsvorm waar de overheid de hoer van het bedrijfsleven is?\n","date":"March 7, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-181/","section":"Posts","summary":"Her en der te lezen: “Software patent directive accepted”.\n","title":"Stem tegen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik zat net in de trein naast twee jongens die ook op mijn faculteit studeren. Een van de twee had in zijn minor-ruimte vakken van de Universiteit Leiden Islamologie ingevuld.\nHet is namelijk een stuk ‘simpeler’ dan je gemiddelde bèta-vak en volgens hem ‘als je het leuk vind wat je leest, dan gaat het makkelijker’.\nIk vind die combinatie sowieso onzinnig. Het aantal raakvlakken is redelijk 0 te noemen. Wat moet je ermee op je cv?\nMaar ik moest vooral denken aan die professor in Leiden die tot voor kort dat vak doceerde als een soort intellectueel tijdverdrijf en nu opeens allemaal leerlingen krijgt die het echt lijken te geloven.\n","date":"March 7, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-180/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik zat net in de trein naast twee jongens die ook op mijn faculteit studeren. Een van de twee had in zijn minor-ruimte vakken van de Universiteit Leiden Islamologie ingevuld.\n","title":"Minor","type":"posts"},{"content":"Net op het station een man in een GSM horen snauwen:\n“Eens in de tien jaar sneeuwt het weer eens eindelijk en dan moet iedereen weer zo nodig over het weer gaan zeiken. Ja, jij ook.”\nZeiken niet nodig, morgen is de sneeuw weg. Nu blij?\n","date":"March 6, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-179/","section":"Posts","summary":"Net op het station een man in een GSM horen snauwen:\n","title":"Sneeuw","type":"posts"},{"content":"In de Standaard weer een erg fysiek gedicht van Nasr zoals ik ze van hem wel meer heb gelezen. Aan een Marokkaanse vrouw die in het Belgische Remmery is weg-bedreigd.\nIk ga het niet weer integraal op mijn site zetten, al is dat wel de makkelijkste manier.\nJe kunt via de Leeskamer doorklikken en je komt dan als Standaard-partner vrij binnen. Helaas geen permalinks, dus ga naar het archief van maart en klik op de link in het bericht van 5.3.05 om 16:47.\n","date":"March 5, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-178/","section":"Posts","summary":"In de Standaard weer een erg fysiek gedicht van Nasr zoals ik ze van hem wel meer heb gelezen. Aan een Marokkaanse vrouw die in het Belgische Remmery is weg-bedreigd.\n","title":"Kwik","type":"posts"},{"content":"Concurrentie is natuurlijk goed en Google moet hard aan de bak om de concurrentie voor te blijven. Ik wacht nu al een tijdje op het volgende gave ding. Google Maps is erg leuk maar ík heb er niks aan (doe mij maar map24).\nWat zoeken betreft heb je natuurlijk Microsoft die het probeert maar Yahoo! is serieuzer. Bij Yahoo kan je met REST vrij aardig zelf zoeken.\nGMail is de e-mail client om te hebben. Er zijn nu twee initiatieven om daar wat aan te gaan doen.\nHula wil een kalender- en e-mail-server zijn met o.a. een rijke AJAX web interface. Het gerucht gaat dat Google binnenkort ook iets gaat doen met kalenders.\nEn ik zag net de hele brute Laszlo/Flash gebaseerde Earthlink e-mailcliënt.\n","date":"March 5, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-177/","section":"Posts","summary":"Concurrentie is natuurlijk goed en Google moet hard aan de bak om de concurrentie voor te blijven. Ik wacht nu al een tijdje op het volgende gave ding. Google Maps is erg leuk maar ík heb er niks aan (doe mij maar map24).\n","title":"Under attack","type":"posts"},{"content":"Mijn brief aan minister veerman voor NoSoftwarePatents had ik verstuurd via een fax-gateway. Ik heb er vandaag zowaar een antwoord op gekregen.\nHet is dus erg de moeite waard om echt papier te gebruiken om dit soort mensen te benaderen. Naar e-mail luisteren ze —ik denk terecht— niet. Bij mijn volgende brieven voor de goede zaak ga ik echt schrijven.\nDat geeft meteen ook weer een cool gevoel. Ik weet niet wanneer ik voor het laatst heb gecommuniceerd over de post.\n","date":"March 3, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-176/","section":"Posts","summary":"Mijn brief aan minister veerman voor NoSoftwarePatents had ik verstuurd via een fax-gateway. Ik heb er vandaag zowaar een antwoord op gekregen.\n","title":"Antwoord","type":"posts"},{"content":"Gisteravond in Casa Luna eindelijk weer een keer een gast die de moeite waard is, Paul Cliteur. Daar heb ik lang niets van gezien of gehoord. Als je het hebt gemist, kun je het gewoon naluisteren.\nBeste citaat:\nDat is nu eenmaal het risico van het leven in een vrije samenleving, dat je ideeën bekritiseerd worden. Daar zijn we mee begonnen in de 17e eeuw en we denken dat dat goed is.\nCasa Luna lijkt misschien een suf programma en dat is het ook. Maar wel op een goede manier.\nMeestal ben ik om 0.00 als het Oog afgelopen is nog lang niet aan slapen toe. Dat is zo\u0026rsquo;n rustig programma wel fijn en als de gast interessant is, is het zelfs nog leuk om naar te luisteren.\nAlleen jammer van dat hoorspel in het laatste kwartier, dan zap ik toch echt weer terug naar 538.\n","date":"March 1, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-175/","section":"Posts","summary":"Gisteravond in Casa Luna eindelijk weer een keer een gast die de moeite waard is, Paul Cliteur. Daar heb ik lang niets van gezien of gehoord. Als je het hebt gemist, kun je het gewoon naluisteren.\n","title":"Vrije gedachte","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik wil Beagle al een tijdje uitproberen, maar echt heel veel zin om weer een kernel te compileren (en te patchen) had ik niet echt.\nNu is er een nieuwe versie uit die inotify niet echt meer nodig heeft.\nIk moet voor een onderzoeksopdracht voor Information Retrieval (in4080) wat Desktop Search-applicaties onder de loep nemen en Beagle leek me wel een leuke toevoeging.\n","date":"March 1, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-174/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik wil Beagle al een tijdje uitproberen, maar echt heel veel zin om weer een kernel te compileren (en te patchen) had ik niet echt.\n","title":"Beagle","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik krijg net weer een mailtje in mijn bus met een bericht van Nosoftwarepatents.com. Ik las al dat de tegenpartij er al het toegestane aan zou doen en niets zou laten om deze wet erdoorheen te krijgen. Dat klopt dus, daar gaan we weer…\nIn het bericht word ook hard uitgehaald naar de voorzitter van de EC, Barroso. Hoe weinig stijlvol dit soort persoonlijke aanvallen zijn, in dit geval zijn ze wel redelijk terecht.\nBarroso is een gefaald Minister-President van een land dat een politieke traditie heeft van nul komma nul. Tot voor kort heerste daar nog achtereenvolgens een dictatuur en een anarchie. Er is nu nog steeds geen vertrouwen in de regering en vallen kabinetten er dus met Italiaanse regelmaat.\nEen andere speler in deze is dus Ierland dat zich Europees gezien heeft gepositioneerd als hoer van Microsoft (ref1, ref2). Ierland is afhankelijk van Microsoft en stemt daar dus ook naar. In Nederland is iets vergelijkbaars aan de hand met Philips.\nDroom: Overheden zouden de morele superioriteit moeten hebben om boven dit soort gedoe te staan. Ik geef niet mijn vertrouwen aan mensen in Den Haag en Europa om te zien hoe hard ze kunnen likken. (Eerlijk gezegd, geef ik mijn vertrouwen helemaal niet aan dit soort mensen maar dat is een ander probleem.)\nEn wie is de felste tegenstander? Spanje. ¡Fuerza España!\nPrima. Laat de commissie het maar door blijven drukken. Als ze niet willen luisteren moeten ze het zelf weten. Dan kunnen we binnenkort óf zien hoe hard het parlement kan slaan óf zien hoe hol die Europese democratie eigenlijk is.\n","date":"February 28, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-173/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik krijg net weer een mailtje in mijn bus met een bericht van Nosoftwarepatents.com. Ik las al dat de tegenpartij er al het toegestane aan zou doen en niets zou laten om deze wet erdoorheen te krijgen. Dat klopt dus, daar gaan we weer…\n","title":"Patenten: aflevering zoveel","type":"posts"},{"content":"Tegen mijn verwachting in —euthanasie schijnt in Amerika een controversieel onderwerp te zijn— heeft Mar Adentro toch de Oscar voor beste buitenlandse film gewonnen.\nDe Acceptance Speeches kan ik zo gauw niet online vinden; wel de **Press Room. Dankzij mijn beetje Spaans kan ik er flarden van volgen, maar zodra Amenábar versnelt ben ik hem hartstikke kwijt.\n","date":"February 28, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-172/","section":"Posts","summary":"Tegen mijn verwachting in —euthanasie schijnt in Amerika een controversieel onderwerp te zijn— heeft Mar Adentro toch de Oscar voor beste buitenlandse film gewonnen.\n","title":"Toch een Oscar","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik ben echt een bizarre koning! Heb net mijn tweede cijfer binnen voor Artificial Intelligence \u0026amp; Techniques en het is een 9!\nTe raar voor woorden. Ik dacht echt dat ik allebei mijn vakken vrij matig had gemaakt en dat het erop of eronder zou worden. Heb ik ze allebei ontzettend vet gehaald (de ander was een 7.8).\nHet is bijna alsof iemand anders die tentamens voor me aan het maken is. Het zal toch niet…\n","date":"February 26, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-171/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik ben echt een bizarre koning! Heb net mijn tweede cijfer binnen voor Artificial Intelligence \u0026 Techniques en het is een 9!\n","title":"Cijfer","type":"posts"},{"content":"(via) Richard Linklater, toch al geen slechte regisseur komt met een Philip K. Dick-verfilming (trailer) die er ontzettend mooi uitziet. Als ze het verhaal ook nog een beetje heel weten te houden, zou het een topfilm kunnen worden.\n","date":"February 26, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-170/","section":"Posts","summary":"(via) Richard Linklater, toch al geen slechte regisseur komt met een Philip K. Dick-verfilming (trailer) die er ontzettend mooi uitziet. Als ze het verhaal ook nog een beetje heel weten te houden, zou het een topfilm kunnen worden.\n","title":"Dick","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik liep gisteren de vergulde pauw binnen. Silvia d\u0026rsquo;r ontkalkingsmiddel is op en als dat op blijft dan leeft ze niet zo heel lang meer. Dan gaat haar boiler verkalken en doorlekken etc. Geen prettig einde voor zo\u0026rsquo;n mooi espresso-apparaat.\nStond binnen de verkoop-meneer te kletsen met die vent van de a-tembo. Hij zal mij niet herkend hebben maar die gasten van de a-tembo zijn voor mij local celebrities. En daar bij a-tembo krijgen ze dus wel fatsoenlijke koffie en thee te drinken.\nWe kregen toen een demo van een nieuwerwetsige espressomachine. Zo\u0026rsquo;n volautomaat, niks voor mij. Met de volgende feature: er zit een lampje bij de koffietuit die een hoerig soort blauw licht op je glas schijnt. Heel gaaf!\nIk kreeg van de pauw weer een assortimentsgids mee. Meestal gooi ik die weg, maar het heeft misschien meer zin om dat ding te gebruiken als proefgids. Zeker nu ik weet dat de espresso die ze daar verkopen (veel) goedkoper kan zijn dan Illy.\n","date":"February 23, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-169/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik liep gisteren de vergulde pauw binnen. Silvia d’r ontkalkingsmiddel is op en als dat op blijft dan leeft ze niet zo heel lang meer. Dan gaat haar boiler verkalken en doorlekken etc. Geen prettig einde voor zo’n mooi espresso-apparaat.\n","title":"Pauw","type":"posts"},{"content":"Als dit doorgaat dan koop ik weer een tv. Afgelopen jaar RTL Boulevard moeten missen was al een hel. Als ze dan ook nog Beau van Erven Dorens gaan combineren met die smalende toon van Jort Kelder dan trek ik het echt niet meer.\nDan maar niet meer op superieure toon kunnen zeggen:\n“Ja, ik heb al een jaar geen tv.”\n","date":"February 22, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-168/","section":"Posts","summary":"Als dit doorgaat dan koop ik weer een tv. Afgelopen jaar RTL Boulevard moeten missen was al een hel. Als ze dan ook nog Beau van Erven Dorens gaan combineren met die smalende toon van Jort Kelder dan trek ik het echt niet meer.\n","title":"Geil","type":"posts"},{"content":"Zodirect om 15.00 heb ik mijn eerste rijles.\nMensen in Delft e.o. zijn gewaarschuwd.\n[16:10] Update: Het was echt heel cool!\n","date":"February 22, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-167/","section":"Posts","summary":"Zodirect om 15.00 heb ik mijn eerste rijles.\n","title":"Red jezelf!","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik scan nog steeds weleens de weblogs van SP-bobos.\nBijvoorbeeld dat van Anja Meulenbelt. Dat mens doet de hele dag weinig anders dan gezwets op haar blog posten. Ik las net weer een leuk voorbeeld:\n“Er was een vrouw, een oude communiste die zich daar gelukkig in het geheel niet voor schaamde.”\nDit is een gigantisch verschil met bijvoorbeeld Jan Marijnissen die heel af en toe stukjes schrijft. Stukjes die ter zake en helder zijn.\nIk heb pas van zijn hand het stuk “Ruim de segregatie op!” gelezen.\nMeestal moet ik van SP-stukken na een of twee paragrafen kotsen door de naïevitieit van het geschreven en de foute gekleurdheid. Dat viel hier wel mee.\nDe analyses die ze maken wat betreft de segregatie zijn kraakhelder en scherper dan die van welke andere partij dan ook. De conclusies die ze daaruit trekken zijn dan jammer genoeg weer helemaal verkeerd.\n","date":"February 22, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-166/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik scan nog steeds weleens de weblogs van SP-bobos.\n","title":"Klets","type":"posts"},{"content":"Navertellen van toneel (zeker dit stuk) geeft meestal niet de beste resultaten. Dat ga ik dan ook maar niet proberen maar ik moet iets kwijt over het toneelstuk dat ik vrijdag gezien heb. Ik had de alleen maar positieve minirecensies op Moose gezien. Het stuk “Gilgamesj“ speelt nog maar tot 26 maart dus ik moest snel zijn.\nIk ben er afgelopen vrijdagavond (wanneer we allebei OV-dekking hebben) heen geweest met Jojanneke en het was fantastisch!\nBeter toneel bestaat vast maar dat is dan zo zeldzaam dat je dit echt niet mag missen. Stukjes en beelden spoken nog steeds door mijn hoofd.\nEven voor mijn doelgroep: studenten normaal 12 € en op dinsdag 8 €. Gaan!\nFedja van Huêt en Stefaan Degand als hoofdpersonen zijn goed en hebben er veel lol in. Hun vriendschap als Gilgamesj en Enkidu zie je alleen in de eerste helft maar het is leuk om ze te zien vechten, ginnegappen en voozen.\nZe worden goed ondersteund door Bracha van Doesburgh (Sjamhat) en Anneke Blok (Ninsun) en Harry van Rijthoven en Theu Boermans zelf treffen ook erg goed.\nOp Moose staat wel een paar keer te lezen dat mensen het heel jammer vonden dat Enkidu in het tweede deel niet meer te zien is. Dat is ook wel jammer maar ik vond zelf het tweede deel een stuk sterker dan het eerste. In het eerste deel gebeurt heel veel maar dat heeft allemaal weinig ‘richting’ tot Enkidu ziek wordt. Vanaf dat moment begint het echt te lopen.\nHet tweede deel gaat alleen maar over Gilgamesj die op zoek is naar de onsterfelijkheid en de zin van zijn leven. Omdat hij dat in zijn eentje doet en ik denk ook omdat Fedja van Huêt Gilgamesj zijn reis, zijn noodzaak en zijn vertwijfeling zo sterk neerzet, werd ik veel meer door het verhaal meegenomen.\nHet verhaal en het acteurwerk zou je spectaculair goed kunnen noemen maar wat echt spectaculair is, zijn de special effects die je ziet. Allemaal echt dus, en overtuigend en bedriegelijk.\nVertellen wat er gebeurt zou spoilen zijn maar geloof me wat ze doen met decor, water, wind, vuur en licht is echt bizar.\n","date":"February 21, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-165/","section":"Posts","summary":"Navertellen van toneel (zeker dit stuk) geeft meestal niet de beste resultaten. Dat ga ik dan ook maar niet proberen maar ik moet iets kwijt over het toneelstuk dat ik vrijdag gezien heb. Ik had de alleen maar positieve minirecensies op Moose gezien. Het stuk “Gilgamesj“ speelt nog maar tot 26 maart dus ik moest snel zijn.\n","title":"De dood is blind","type":"posts"},{"content":"Er is nu op radio (en op tv) een ontzettend nare reclame met Peter R. de Vries. De Vries vertelt op zijn normale belerende toontje dat als je games en software verspreidt dat je dan fout bezig bent.\nAls superspeurder Peter R dit vertelt dan moet het natuurlijk wel waar zijn. En je moet elke keer als je Kazaa opstart over je schouder kijken want misschien staat hij wel achter je met zijn snor.\nDat gamesmakers veel inkomsten verliezen door illegaal downloaden snap ik. Maar softwareproducenten zouden juist blij moeten zijn dat jongeren hun software gebruiken. Er zijn weinig mensen van die leeftijd die legale licenties van Photoshop, Illustrator of 3D Studio kunnen betalen. Maar als ze vroeg beginnen met gebruiken dan gebruiken ze het later ook (legaal).\nEen bedrijf als Microsoft zal het niet interesseren hoeveel mensen thuis illegaal Office gebruiken. Meer gebruikers is beter voor hun marktpositie en bedrijven betalen hun licenties toch wel.\nBIG heeft op de site een serie regels staan waar weer eens duidelijk wordt dat je rechten als burger en consument in de ogen van bepaalde organisaties niks waard zijn.\nVrij triest hoe deze mensen zichzelf de morele superioriteit toe-eigenen. Kopiëren is niet hetzelfde als stelen, hoe hard ze je dat ook willen doen geloven. In het ene geval laat je geen identiek object achter, in het andere geval wel.\nZe zullen wel heel populair worden met het criminaliseren en terroriseren van gewone mensen.\nRegels:\nJe mag géén kopie voor jezelf maken\nVolgens BIG mag je van games en software geen kopieën voor jezelf maken. Dus als je CDs stuk, kwijt of gestolen zijn mag je het nog een keer kopen.\nVerspreiden van illegale games\u0026amp;software is illegaal\nDit lijkt me logisch, maar is het verpsreiden van legale games en software dan wel legaal?\nVerspreiden van cracks en serials is illegaal\nDit zal vast geregeld zijn onder een of andere vage DMCA-achtige wet. Het precieze hoe hiervan is me een beetje duister. Ik mag je dus niet vertellen dat je op een bepaalde plek in een bestand van een FA een 3C kunt maken en dat hij dan niet meer vraagt om te registreren.\nHoe is dit wel/geen inbreuk op de vrijheid van meningsuiting?\nEen gameconsole ombouwen is illegaal\nIk koop dus iets en ik mag er dan bepaalde dingen niet mee doen. Vergelijk het met een auto waar je van de fabrikant maar één merk GPS-routeplanner in mag gebruiken.\nBovenstaande is allemaal paniekvoetbal. Grote organisaties dachten dat ze gebakken zaten. Dat ze niks hoefden te doen behalve het uitmelken van de consument. Toen veranderde alles.\nDat ging niet eens zo snel maar je kop in het zand steken bleek niet de beste strategie om de veranderingen het hoofd te bieden. Of de huidige strategie, uithalen naar de consument, gaat werken daar twijfel ik ook aan.\n","date":"February 20, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-164/","section":"Posts","summary":"Er is nu op radio (en op tv) een ontzettend nare reclame met Peter R. de Vries. De Vries vertelt op zijn normale belerende toontje dat als je games en software verspreidt dat je dan fout bezig bent.\n","title":"Big","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik werd laatst weer gebeld door zo\u0026rsquo;n telemarketeer maar deze keer was ik voorbereid. Ik heb de vrouw die me belde afgesnauwd en gevraagd hoe ze aan mijn nummer kwam.\nVolgens de vrouw aan de lijn kwamen ze aan mijn nummer via mijn operator T-mobile. Deze zou mijn nummer doorverkocht hebben. Dit alles zonder mijn weten of toestemming.\nIk ga T-mobile nog bellen om te kijken of ik dit bevestigd kan krijgen maar ik ben wel redelijk pissig op ze.\n","date":"February 18, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-163/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik werd laatst weer gebeld door zo’n telemarketeer maar deze keer was ik voorbereid. Ik heb de vrouw die me belde afgesnauwd en gevraagd hoe ze aan mijn nummer kwam.\n","title":"Nummer","type":"posts"},{"content":"Deze Python hack (via) is wel heel erg lomp \u0026amp; cool. Wat je ermee kunt is willekeurige naampjes als infix-operator gebruiken, als volgt:\nlijst1 |union| lijst2\n","date":"February 16, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-162/","section":"Posts","summary":"Deze Python hack (via) is wel heel erg lomp \u0026 cool. Wat je ermee kunt is willekeurige naampjes als infix-operator gebruiken, als volgt:\n","title":"infix","type":"posts"},{"content":"Google Maps is erg cool maar alleen voor Amerika.\nBen ik de enige Europeaan die het nare knagende gevoel krijgt dat Google niet meer van me houdt?\nJa, Valentijnsdag en ik bedel om liefde bij een computerbedrijf.\n","date":"February 14, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-161/","section":"Posts","summary":"Google Maps is erg cool maar alleen voor Amerika.\n","title":"Google lovin'","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik ga met vijf vrienden een weekje naar Rome!\nGisteren en vandaag de tickets geboekt. Met Ryanair van Eindhoven naar Roma Ciampino voor 110€ heen en terug inclusief. Da\u0026rsquo;s geen geld dachten we.\nLaat de voorpret maar beginnen, kickoff date is 11 mei.\n","date":"February 13, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-160/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik ga met vijf vrienden een weekje naar Rome!\n","title":"Città Eterna","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ooit weleens iemand horen beweren dat het trimmen van je baard zo leuk is?\nNee?\nDaar is een hele simpele verklaring voor. Het is echt niet leuk. Ik heb uit frustratie alles er maar af geschoren.\nIk hoop dat al die mensen die commentaar hadden nu blij zijn. Ze hebben hun zin gekregen.\n","date":"February 13, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-159/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ooit weleens iemand horen beweren dat het trimmen van je baard zo leuk is?\n","title":"Baard","type":"posts"},{"content":"Even iets heel anders. Ik werd net een keer of vijf gebeld door een Private Number. De persoon die mij belde hing of meteen op of brabbelde iets in een taal die ik niet kon verstaan.\nNa vijf keer(!) bellen had hij eindelijk door dat ik niet degene was die hij zocht. Wauw, wat een slimmerik!\nIk heb de t-mobile helpdesk maar even gebeld met de vraag of ik zijn nummer kon krijgen om hem terug te bellen mocht hij het straks weer proberen.\nDat wilden ze niet geven. Blijkbaar zijn er regels voor geheime nummers op GSM\u0026rsquo;s. Als hij echt voor overlast zorgde kon ik wel een klacht indienen en dan zouden zij contact met hem opnemen.\nNu is mijn ervaring in het algemeen dat wanneer mensen mij bellen met een geheim nummer het eigenlijk nooit positief is. Het zijn of dit soort dwazen of het zijn telemarketeers die iets van me willen.\nNu zou ik het erg cool vinden als t-mobile voor mij dat soort gesprekken kon blokkeren en ze een bandje kon laten horen van ‘Sorry, de persoon die u gebeld heeft wenst geen anonieme gesprekken te ontvangen, probeert u het nog eens met open vizier.’\nMaar dat konden ze ook niet doen voor me. Ik krijg een beetje het idee dat ze niet zo heel veel kunnen.\nIk ga binnenkort toch een nieuwe smartphone kopen, dan kan ik er vast wel zoiets op programmeren. Denk er even over na, het is een killerapp die al veel te lang op zich laat wachten. Gesprekken filteren, doorsturen en wat niet ook op basis van nummer, tijd en locatie.\nMijn GSM moet bijvoorbeeld automatisch op trilstand gaan als ik in de TU-wijk ben (colleges).\n","date":"February 12, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-158/","section":"Posts","summary":"Even iets heel anders. Ik werd net een keer of vijf gebeld door een Private Number. De persoon die mij belde hing of meteen op of brabbelde iets in een taal die ik niet kon verstaan.\n","title":"Gebeld worden","type":"posts"},{"content":"Deze post is een beetje lang geworden, maar ik denk wel de moeite waard. Dus als je feedback hebt, reageer dan alsjeblieft.\nIk ben deze week begonnen aan het MKT-5 project. Dit is het ontwerp en de implementatie van een multimodale applicatie. Dat betekent zoveel als dat de applicatie spraak herkent en uitvoert en dus communiceert met een wat menselijkere dialoogvorm.\nDe groep heeft in mijn afwezigheid meteen maar besloten om het geheel te gaan schrijven in C# samen met de Microsoft Speech SDK. Niet direct mijn eerste keuze maar ik kan ermee leven. Geeft het me meteen de ‘kans’ om deze nieuwe taal te leren kennen. Erg veel van Java verschilt het niet dus in een dagje had ik het meeste wel onder de knie.\nMijn eerste indruk is dat C# frisser aanvoelt dan Java maar dat Microsoft elke kans aangrijpt om dingen te verdraaien en af te snijden. Microsoft-programmeurs hebben natuurlijk schijt aan alles wat netjes en comme il faut is. Terminologie is anders, bepaalde dingen werken net anders; en ook leuk zijn de naamgevingsconventies voor bijv. methoden. In C# beginnen ze met een hoofdletter, dus ToString() in plaats van toString().\nDe taal is beter dan Java maar niet zoveel beter dat een nieuwe taal gerechtvaardigd is. De rechtvaardiging van de taal is natuurlijk ook niet de (beloofde) verbetering, maar de platform-oorlog.\nOndertussen is het meeste van C# nagebouwd onder Linux in de vorm van Mono. Hierdoor mag Microsoft best de platform-oorlog winnen en zit je dan nog steeds niet vast aan Windows. Al je applicaties draaien dan ook nog prima onder Linux, OS X en noem maar op.\nMicrosoft doet alsof het ze niet kan schelen. Ze hebben van C# een ECMA-standaard gemaakt en ze beloven wat interoperabiliteit betreft lief samen te zullen spelen. Maar het zal ze niet in de koude kleren zitten.\nC# wordt onder Linux veel harder geadopteerd dan Java ooit. Mijn muziekspeler Muine is hier een goed voorbeeld van maar Beagle wordt bijvoorbeeld ook in C# geschreven. Het is hard op weg om de voorkeursprogrammeertaal van Gnome te worden. Dit komt niet alleen omdat het een lekker vlotte programmeertaal is. Belangrijker is dat het een complete open implementatie betreft zonder rare clausules.\nMono werkt prima. Ik gebruik het om de software die we op de TU schrijven hier onder Linux te draaien. Het enige probleem dat ik had was het ontbreken van generics ondersteuning in mcs maar daarover zodirect meer.\nDe CLR (Common Language Runtime) is omdat het bij bovenstaande hoort ook erg veelbelovend. Er is aardig wat beweging om het te gebruiken als doel-VM. De Python implementatie hierop —IronPython— schijnt gaaf te zijn en 1.7x keer sneller dan de standaard CPython implementatie.\nKortom: We kunnen er niet echt omheen C#.NET is sexy.\nIk was dus wat C# code aan het schrijven en ik dacht elite te zijn door generics te gaan gebruiken. Ik dacht altijd dat Java5 ze had ingevoerd als reactie op C#. Mijn mcs gaf een minder dan behulpzame foutmelding op mijn:\nprivate ArrayList travels;\nNa wat uitzoeken kwam ik erachter dat ze bij Ximian hard aan het werk zijn aan gmcs, een C#-compiler met ondersteuning voor generics. De C#-versie die we op de TU gebruiken kan het ook niet omdat Microsoft ook nog niet zo ver is.\nEen beetje een verassing dat Microsoft dus echt alles heeft gekopieerd van Java, ook JSR\u0026rsquo;s die al jarenlang lagen te rijpen in de Java Community Proces. De JSR voor generics is uit 2001.\nEn een verassing dat Java voor loopt op C#. Je gaat toch harder lopen van zo\u0026rsquo;n hete adem.\nWat wel erg jammer is —als je Eclipse gewend bent— is de tool die je van Microsoft krijgt om C# in te schrijven. Visual Studio.NET kan niet tippen aan Eclipse. De ondersteuning die Eclipse standaard biedt voor Java moet je er (naar het schijnt) stukje bij beetje bijkopen voor Visual Studio.\nIk ben hele geavanceerde features gewend zoals, auto-complete, source code refactoring, code-wizards/templates/generatie en ga maar door. Om niet te noemen wat je met Eclipse kunt als je een handjevol van de gratis plugins installeert. Ik ga de C#-plugin uitproberen.\nJe zou denken dat een bedrijf zo groot als Microsoft met iets beters op de proppen zou kunnen komen. IBM heeft bakken vol met geld gestoken in de ontwikeling van Eclipse. Je zou zeggen dat Microsoft ook niet bepaald arm is.\nIk weet nu meer maar ik heb nog steeds vragen. Ik vraag me bijvoorbeeld af wat voor VM de CLR is. Daar heb ik maar een specificatie van de IL voor gedownload.\nEn een andere vraag waar ik mee zit is het Microsoft voorstel voor de server, zeg maar ASP.NET.\nJavaServer (niet speciaal J2EE) is ontzettend volwassen, krachtig en veelgebruikt overal waar een PHP-speelgoedoplossing het niet meer trekt. Denk maar aan de erg goede Java multi threading ondersteuning en de bergen frameworks en tools die er zijn. Ik zag dus laatst een filmpje waarin iemand in 11 minuten een applicatie kluste.\nIk weet niet precies wat Microsoft op dit gebied te bieden heeft maar als ik een beetje kijk naar wat ik zie bij C# en dat extrapoleer zal het waarschijnlijk een enkelzijdige oplossing zijn die erg schraal is.\nUpdate: De meeste Java-mensen die ik vertel dat er nog geen generics zitten in C#, zijn daar verbaasd over. Dat is heel raar. Sun had een persbericht moeten uitbrengen waarin iets staat als: ‘wij hebben lekker iets (generics) wat zij (C#) niet hebben.’\nHet is misschien een simpele boodschap maar simpele soundbytes worden onthouden en If you\u0026rsquo;re explaining you\u0026rsquo;re losing.\n","date":"February 12, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-157/","section":"Posts","summary":"Deze post is een beetje lang geworden, maar ik denk wel de moeite waard. Dus als je feedback hebt, reageer dan alsjeblieft.\n","title":"C-hekje","type":"posts"},{"content":"Pamela Hemelrijk heeft op de gestopte roker weer een ouderwets goede column neergezen. Hij staat onder de nogal saaie titel ‘Tel uit je winst’ waaruit hier een parallel (van Homerische proporties):\nDat is raar, want verlangens ventileren en eisen stellen aan anderen kan iedereen. Ik zou bijvoorbeeld – ik noem maar wat – van mening kunnen zijn dat elke man recht heeft op minstens twee blow jobs in de week, omdat hij anders seksueel gefrustreerd raakt, en een verhoogde kans loopt te eindigen als verkrachter. Ik zou dit zelfs wetenschappelijk kunnen onderbouwen met statistieken van de Rutgers Stichting.\nMaar ik weet wel zeker dat mijn vriendinnen dan zouden vragen: alles goed en wel Pam, maar wie moeten al die blow jobs gaan verrichten, in jouw optiek? ‘De vrouwen met de sterkste magen natuurlijk’, zou ik dan – in de geest van Wouter Bos - kunnen antwoorden. ‘Ik zal de organisatie van deze megaklus wel op me nemen, en de taken zo eerlijk mogelijk onder jullie verdelen. Dat is a hell of a job, waaraan ik mijn handen meer dan vol heb. Maar ik ben ertoe bereid. Iemand moet zich per slot met hart en ziel inzetten voor een betere wereld.’\nGek, ik denk dat ik daar niet mee weg zou komen. Ik denk dat mijn vriendinnen zouden zeggen: Pam, als de seksuele nood van gefrustreerde mannen je zo hoog zit, pijp ze dan zelf. Goeiedag.\nDe column is het lezen waard maar heel serieus moet je hem niet nemen, dat mag. Wat je wel zou moeten is erover na denken.\nEbruutje —vroeger ook te vinden op de gezonde roker— schrijft niet meer online en dat vind ik best wel jammer.\n","date":"February 10, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-156/","section":"Posts","summary":"Pamela Hemelrijk heeft op de gestopte roker weer een ouderwets goede column neergezen. Hij staat onder de nogal saaie titel ‘Tel uit je winst’ waaruit hier een parallel (van Homerische proporties):\n","title":"Pamela","type":"posts"},{"content":"Weer een gave post van Nat. Jezus wat is die gast gaaf, ik vraag me af hoe hij met zichzelf kan leven.\nWe hoorden dus de laatste tijd wat meer over Glitz \u0026amp; Cairo enzo en dat je er hele gave dingen mee gaat kunnen. Dit is er dus een voorbeeld van. Het werkt dus ook gewoon.\nDit is één van de belangrijkste redenen dat ik Linux draai (dus niet omdat ik masochistisch ingesteld ben). Omdat het gewoon een spannend platform is om op te werken, op te ontwikkelen en de ontwikkelingen op te volgen.\nEr gebeurt veel, veel waarvan gave shit is.\n(Ik kwam door die screenshot ook op het idee om Muine te gaan gebruiken en ik moet zeggen dat het me best bevalt.)\n","date":"February 9, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-155/","section":"Posts","summary":"Weer een gave post van Nat. Jezus wat is die gast gaaf, ik vraag me af hoe hij met zichzelf kan leven.\n","title":"GL","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik ben nu weer eindelijk terug van een blessure die me de afgelopen drie weken tegenhield hard te lopen. Drie weken vliegt voorbij maar is\nlang\nvoor iemand die het gewend was om drie keer per week hard te lopen.\nNiet te vroeg juichen. Morgenochtend weet ik pas zeker of het weer kan maar het lijkt erop. Dan ben ik ook net op tijd om me nog in te kunnen schrijven voor de City-Pier-City.\n","date":"February 9, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-154/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik ben nu weer eindelijk terug van een blessure die me de afgelopen drie weken tegenhield hard te lopen. Drie weken vliegt voorbij maar is\n","title":"Terug","type":"posts"},{"content":"Aardig stukje van Groenteman over Ischa Meijer en hoe de VPRO faalt.\nIk heb Ischa Meijer natuurlijk helemaal niet meegemaakt of wat dan ook. Tien jaar geleden was ik 13. Het enige wat ik me kan herinneren is een donker programma met twee mannen die aan een tafel zaten, en veel rook volgens mij.\nHaar idee nachtelijke herhalingen is leuk maar zó vorige eeuw…\nZullen we niet liever de omroep petitioneren om al die interviews als stream online vrij te geven?\n","date":"February 9, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-153/","section":"Posts","summary":"Aardig stukje van Groenteman over Ischa Meijer en hoe de VPRO faalt.\n","title":"IM","type":"posts"},{"content":"Volgende week begint een nieuw kwartaal van colleges in alle hevigheid. Ik heb vandaag dus maar gedaan wat de komende zeven weken niet gaat lukken: niks.\nNiet helemaal niks natuurlijk. Ik heb vier films gekeken (‘Los Amantes del Círculo Polar’, ‘Cidade de Deus’, ‘Finding Neverland’ \u0026amp; ‘Goodfellas’) en de eerste aflevering van **Wie is de Mol?.\nNu nog kijken of ik Lolita uitgelezen krijg, dat boek begon erg aardig maar het wordt alleen maar saaier.\n","date":"February 5, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-152/","section":"Posts","summary":"Volgende week begint een nieuw kwartaal van colleges in alle hevigheid. Ik heb vandaag dus maar gedaan wat de komende zeven weken niet gaat lukken: niks.\n","title":"Stilte voor de storm","type":"posts"},{"content":"Een van de eerste releases van Sunbird is uit. Ik geloof een 0.2 versie. Ik heb hem maar gepakt omdat ik hem temminste even wilde zien. Ik was erg blij verrast dat ik het zipje gewoon kon uitvoeren zonder installatie of ontbrekende bibliotheken.\nMijn eerste indruk is, het ziet er goed uit, het voelt wat sloom aan en er moet nog ontzettend veel gebeuren.\nWe hebben het echt over meer dan zes maanden voor je hier je gegevens aan toe wil vertrouwen. En nog wel langer voor je het aan bedrijven kunt slijten (Groupwork dingen en robuuste PDA-synchronisatie).\nHet ziet er zo uit (ik heb er een kleine impressie van volgende week in gejast): Dit is werkbaar. Dat was de oude Phoenix ook maar het heeft best wel even geduurd voor het écht goed was. In de tussentijd heb je op Linux in ieder geval echte reden om Sunbird te gaan gebruiken. Ik ben erg tevreden met het uitstekende Evolution (binnenkort ook op Windows).\nOndertussen even een wedje leggen over hoe vaak dit produkt van naam gaat veranderen voor de 1.0 versie?\n","date":"February 5, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-151/","section":"Posts","summary":"Een van de eerste releases van Sunbird is uit. Ik geloof een 0.2 versie. Ik heb hem maar gepakt omdat ik hem temminste even wilde zien. Ik was erg blij verrast dat ik het zipje gewoon kon uitvoeren zonder installatie of ontbrekende bibliotheken.\n","title":"Zonnevogel","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ze is mooi, leuk en ze kan de beste feestmuziek van de wereld zingen: Ivete Sangalo. Met die feestmuziek maakt ze Brazilianen gek, en als je Brazilianen een beetje kent weet je dat dat niet zomaar gek is, maar compleet fokking gestoord.\nIk heb net de eerste helft van een concert-registratie van haar bekeken en dat swingt als een idioot. Ivete zingt alle bekende nummers. Ze kleed zich tig keer om. En het publiek flipt als één hele grote idiote massa.\nIn Brazilië is ze wereldgroot en ze is overgewaaid naar Portugal (waar ik aangestoken ben) maar daarbuiten heb ik haar nog niet gezien.\nHet lijkt me het leukste wat er bestaat om naar een concert van haar te gaan maar ik weet niet of ze behalve Portugal ook de rest van Europa tourt. Op haar agenda stond na deze week (carnaval) niets gepland. Vast logisch daar dat ze niet verder kijken dan het carnaval.\n","date":"February 3, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-150/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ze is mooi, leuk en ze kan de beste feestmuziek van de wereld zingen: Ivete Sangalo. Met die feestmuziek maakt ze Brazilianen gek, en als je Brazilianen een beetje kent weet je dat dat niet zomaar gek is, maar compleet fokking gestoord.\n","title":"Ivete","type":"posts"},{"content":"De richtlijn software patenten is door JURI verworpen (FFII, Groklaw, Webwereld) en is dus voorlopig weer van de baan. Het gevecht gewonnen, de oorlog gaat door (infopagina).\n","date":"February 3, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-149/","section":"Posts","summary":"De richtlijn software patenten is door JURI verworpen (FFII, Groklaw, Webwereld) en is dus voorlopig weer van de baan. Het gevecht gewonnen, de oorlog gaat door (infopagina).\n","title":"Overwinning","type":"posts"},{"content":"Bericht dat gisteren massaal werd overgenomen, tot in het Oog ‘Hitmen manipuleren het net’ was natuurlijk een simpele hoax.\n**Update 14:19: ** of niet natuurlijk, veiligheidslekken zijn zo oud als het \u0026rsquo;net zelf.\n","date":"February 3, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-148/","section":"Posts","summary":"Bericht dat gisteren massaal werd overgenomen, tot in het Oog ‘Hitmen manipuleren het net’ was natuurlijk een simpele hoax.\n","title":"Hoax","type":"posts"},{"content":"Dat was wel even spannend. Ik heb gisteren mijn eerste niveau Xing Yi examen gehaald.\nDe wereld is nu een gevaarlijker plek… of veiliger natuurlijk. Dat hangt ervan af of je voor me of tegen me bent.\nAls ik nu ook weer eens kon beginnen met hardlopen, dan ben ik ook weer helemaal terug met sporten.\n","date":"February 2, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-147/","section":"Posts","summary":"Dat was wel even spannend. Ik heb gisteren mijn eerste niveau Xing Yi examen gehaald.\n","title":"Meer succes!","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik heb de evil streak doorbroken. Mijn tentamen voor het vierdejaars vak 3D Computer Graphics \u0026amp; Virtual Reality gehaald met een 7.83!\nSuper! Nu nog even kijken ik dat andere vak ook heb gehaald (zal wel) en dan ben ik echt helemaal back in the game.\n","date":"February 2, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-146/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik heb de evil streak doorbroken. Mijn tentamen voor het vierdejaars vak 3D Computer Graphics \u0026 Virtual Reality gehaald met een 7.83!\n","title":"Boom!","type":"posts"},{"content":"Nu bijna drie jaar geleden maar nog steeds de prangendste, helderste en belangrijkste toespraak, presentatie en boodschap (flash met geluid) op het gebied van auteursrechten van Lawrence Lessig op OSCON.\nLessig is toen gestopt met deze presentaties te geven. Waarom weet ik eigenlijk niet. De situatie is er in de tussentijd in ieder geval niet beter op geworden.\n\u0026ldquo;If you\u0026rsquo;re explaining, you\u0026rsquo;re losing.\u0026rdquo; \u0026ndash;JC Watts\nIk was zelf een beetje in slaap gesust. Ik dacht dat ik wist hoe belangrijk het gevecht voor de vrijheid was. Ik had me nog niet echt beseft hoeveel van onze rechten al stilzwijgend zijn afgenomen. En ze gaan er gewoon mee door hoor, tot er niks meer over is en je overal voor moet betalen.\nWat er gebeurt is dat de termijn hoe lang dingen auteursrechtelijk beschermd zijn telkens wordt verlengd. Tegelijkertijd wordt ook het bereik van welke dingen en handelingen onder die bescherming vallen en de maatregelen die zijn toegestaan om het te bestrijden uitgebreid.\n\u0026ldquo;Extending copyright is a theft of our common culture.\u0026rdquo;\nIk zal hieronder wat belangrijke punten uit de presentatie samenvatten maar Lessig is een goede spreker. Kijk die presentatie. Ik zeg het, Miguel zegt het. Kijk hem.\n\u0026ldquo;If you can\u0026rsquo;t fight for your freedom, you don\u0026rsquo;t deserve it.\u0026rdquo;\nHet refrein komt steeds weer terug door de hele presentatie. Dit is waar het om draait en dit is waar het faalt.\nCreativiteit en innovatie bouwen altijd door op ontwikkelingen uit het verleden. Het verleden heeft altijd geprobeerd die creativiteit te beheersen. Vrije samenlevingen geven de macht over aan de toekomst door die van het verleden in te perken. Onze samenleving is steeds minder en minder een vrije samenleving. Een ander erg sterk punt is het volgende:\nNiemand can Disney Inc. aandoen wat Walt Disney de gebroeders Grimm heeft aangedaan.\nHet probleem is dat wat vroeger ongereguleerd was. Het uitlenen, lezen en wat dan ook van media nu allemaal onder de copyright-wetgeving valt.\nDat is dus allemaal opgeslokt omdat je toevallig met een computer ook kunt kopiëren. Tegelijkertijd hiermee is ook veel van het recht op gerechtvaardigd gebruik (fair use) weg en het recht om te kijken hoe dingen werken en dat aan te passen (reverse engineering).\nNooit op een eerder punt in de geschiedenis zijn meer auteursrechtelijk beschermde werken in het bezit geweest van een kleiner aantal corporate entiteiten (ik wou mensen schrijven, maar dat gaat niet echt op).\nVervolgens citeert Lessig Bill Gates. Bill Gates is toegegeven een goed zakenman. Hij heeft goed door dat (vet van mij):\n\u0026ldquo;The solution\u0026hellip; is patenting as much as we can\u0026hellip; A future startup with no patents of its own will be forced to pay whatever price the giants choose to impose. That price might be high: Established companies have an interest in excluding future competitors.\u0026rdquo;\nLessig\u0026rsquo;s herhaalde vraag aan ons:\nWhat have you done?\nillustreert hoe ver wij in de verdediging zijn gedrukt. Ons hebben laten drukken eigenlijk, door onverschilligheid, onwetendheid en onmacht.\nEn dat is dus de vraag: wat heb jij gedaan? Ik weet het van mezelf wel, te weinig. Ik heb laatst een fax geschreven aan het ministerie van Landbouw, laat dat een begin zijn.\nEerdere nummers hierover: 46, 134, 143\n","date":"January 31, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-145/","section":"Posts","summary":"Nu bijna drie jaar geleden maar nog steeds de prangendste, helderste en belangrijkste toespraak, presentatie en boodschap (flash met geluid) op het gebied van auteursrechten van Lawrence Lessig op OSCON.\n","title":"Wat heb jij eraan gedaan?","type":"posts"},{"content":"Op Groenteblog een stukje over de laatste uitzending van het Lagerhuis en het afscheid van Marcel van Dam. Het kan best zijn dat Marcel van Dam een goed en dapper debater was, erg sympathiek kwam hij niet op me over.\nDie afscheidsuitzending schijnt best wel goed te zijn geweest en Groenteman zegt dat het misschien bij Uitzendinggemist komt te staan. Een goede dienst die met de dag beter wordt.\nNu staat op de site van het Lagerhuis de volgende jammere tekst:\nMarcel van Dam was voor het laatst te bewonderen op televisie. De VARA zond zaterdagnacht van 01.30 tot 03.30 \u0026lsquo;De nacht van Marcel van Dam\u0026rsquo; uit. Helaas is dit programma niet via internet terug te zien. Het is nog niet duidelijk of het herhaald wordt..\nIk heb even een mailtje gestuurd om te kijken of die stream erop gezet kan worden. Dat bekrompen gedoe rond die uitzendrechten moet een keertje ophouden in deze tijd van Bittorrents en Donkey-netwerken.\n","date":"January 31, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-144/","section":"Posts","summary":"Op Groenteblog een stukje over de laatste uitzending van het Lagerhuis en het afscheid van Marcel van Dam. Het kan best zijn dat Marcel van Dam een goed en dapper debater was, erg sympathiek kwam hij niet op me over.\n","title":"Marcel van Dam","type":"posts"},{"content":"Tentamens voorbij dus het wordt tijd dat ik weer een keer bij mijn ouders langs ga. Ik laat jullie achter met een samenvatting van het nieuws.\nXimian: Een verantwoord alternatief (foto 1, 2 \u0026amp; 3) voor de Bill Gates porno die pas op internet te vinden was. Maak me gek, Miguel! (Of: ¡Hace me loco, Miguel!)\nPatenten: De behandeling van softwarepatenten is uitgesteld maar het lijkt er niet op alsof het kabinet dat wil gebruiken om er iets aan te doen. Het is ondertussen een klucht zonder einde.\nSun: Sun doet dingen met vage omtrekkende bewegingen. Iemand wordt geciteerd over het open source maken of anderzins vrijgeven van Java.\nEither approach will reignite momentum behind that platform.\nWe weten dat die impuls hard nodig is maar ik weet niet meer of het zo makkelijk is als even Java open maken. Als ze het niet doen, gaat het in ieder geval niet gebeuren. Dat is waar.\nDan nog is er om al die Open Source mensen aan te sturen en om de evolutie van een programmeertaal te leiden zichtbare visie en leiderschap nodig (zoals Guido voor Python doet). Sun was daar al niet zo goed in en het vertrek van belangrijke mensen (o.a. Joshua Bloch) zal dat vast niet makkelijker maken.\nNovell: Het is ook nooit goed. Novell\u0026rsquo;s aggressieve Linux beleid maakt sommige CIO\u0026rsquo;s bang.\nBelangrijk hierin is het beginnen van het omzetten van Evolution voor Windows. Dit gecombineerd met Suse Openexchange Server zou een goede concurrent zijn voor Outlook/Exchange maar het zou ook Novell\u0026rsquo;s eigen GroupWise kannibaliseren.\nIk heb een (brak) filmpje gezien van wat je ondertussen met Evolution kunt en het kalender-delen is alleen al erg gaaf. Als ik nu nog mijn Zire fatsoenlijk zou kunnen synchroniseren…\nMicrosoft: Microsoft is hard bezig met het implementeren van XQuery in hun volgende generatie ontwikkeltools (\u0026ldquo;Whidbey\u0026rdquo;) en database (\u0026ldquo;Yukon\u0026rdquo;). Ik ben bang dat die goede ondersteuning voor XML heel handig gaat zijn.\nXML wordt volwassen en het is een hele fijne manier van omgaan met gegevens en het waarborgen van interoperabiliteit.\n","date":"January 29, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-143/","section":"Posts","summary":"Tentamens voorbij dus het wordt tijd dat ik weer een keer bij mijn ouders langs ga. Ik laat jullie achter met een samenvatting van het nieuws.\n","title":"Industry Roundup","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ontwikkeling in Python gebied ligt nooit stil. Er wordt flink ge-koningd door de gebruikelijke koningen.\nGuido zit de laatste tijd te spelen met ideeën om optionele typering van Python-functies toe te staan. Dit zou ook betere interface afspraken mogelijk moeten maken.\nLaatste concept dat ik zag was om Python\u0026rsquo;s “Duck Typing” te vervangen door “Monkey Typing”. Naar het idee Monkey see, monkey do (via).\nKans is dat de taal waar ik van hou hierdoor onherkenbaar verandert. Dat is hopelijk een Goede Ontwikkeling. Stilstand is achteruitgang, zeker in de IT.\nIn ander nieuws heb ik eindelijk een leuk practicum voor de TU dat ik mag programmeren in een taal van mijn keuze (Lisp en Python worden aangeraden). Eindelijk!\nVia de discussie kwam ik ook nog langs het Ghetto-minipatroon. Te mooi om te missen.\n","date":"January 29, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-142/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ontwikkeling in Python gebied ligt nooit stil. Er wordt flink ge-koningd door de gebruikelijke koningen.\n","title":"Python verbeteringen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Commentaar in een blog dat Bruce Eckel over Java ‘toegegeven’ zou hebben dat:\nThis language, which was once hailed (admittedly, by the PR flaks at Sun itself) as being \u0026ldquo;much easier than C++\u0026rdquo; really isn\u0026rsquo;t anymore.\nEn dat dat allemaal nare dingen betekent. Dit is gewoon uit een willekeurige blogpost gehaald en dus redelijk uit zijn verband getrokken. Wel leuk om Bruce\u0026rsquo;s blog te herontdekken. Deze was bij mij van de radar gevallen. Erg leuk ook een flash-filmpje dat hij linkt.\n","date":"January 27, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-141/","section":"Posts","summary":"Commentaar in een blog dat Bruce Eckel over Java ‘toegegeven’ zou hebben dat:\n","title":"Bruce","type":"posts"},{"content":"De laatste paar dagen her en der verhalen over de herdenking van 60 jaar Auschwitz. Verschrikkelijk natuurlijk.\nIk ben er geweest (zou je ook moeten doen).\nMaar alsjeblieft niet die flauwekul van ‘nooit meer’ etc. blabla\nAan al die blabla heb je niks. Het is al weer gebeurd en het gaat weer gebeuren, en weer en weer en …\n","date":"January 26, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-140/","section":"Posts","summary":"De laatste paar dagen her en der verhalen over de herdenking van 60 jaar Auschwitz. Verschrikkelijk natuurlijk.\n","title":"Herdenken en herhalen","type":"posts"},{"content":"booya!\nVak ingekopt, morgen nog één vak dat ik ook ga halen!\n","date":"January 26, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-139/","section":"Posts","summary":"booya!\n","title":"Oh ja, nog even dit","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik zat er gisteren over na te denken om een laptop te kopen. Dan kan ik temminste ook op locatie (TU, ouders) werken, lezen, schrijven.\nHet blijft voorlopig een vaag plan. Als ik nou naar het buitenland zou gaan, dan zou het opeens een stuk concreter worden. Veel reizen, rare locaties, dan moet je wel een laptop hebben.\nMijn eisenlijstje:\ngoedkoper dan € 1000 studentenbudget enzo\nlichter dan 3 kg Met een laptop gaat het om mobiliteit. Ik heb studieboeken die zwaarder zijn dan 3 kilo en dat is echt niet leuk.\nlanger dan 3 uur actief Veel werken op locatie, muziek luisteren en films kijken. Het kan zijn dat er niet altijd een stopcontact in de buurt is.\nWiFi \u0026amp; Bluetooth ingebouwd Ik wil overal kunnen internetten. En wat invoer en uitvoer betreft kies ik er toch voor om geen optische drive etc. te nemen. Dus het is of draadloos of via memory-sticks.\nDat WiFi tot en met de meest recente standaard (ik weet niet bij welke letter ze nu weer zijn, 802.11n ofzo).\nVeel garantie Laptops willen het nog weleens begeven.\nmeer dan 30 GB Om toch een beetje leuk muziek en films mee te kunnen nemen, te kunnen dual booten en de laptop zou dan denk ik de masters van al mijn documenten bevatten (backup op de desktop)\nGeen Mobile 3D grafische kaart! Ik ga er geen spelletjes mee spelen, dus dan heb je er niks aan.\nGeen achterlijk snelle processor Hier wordt hij toch alleen maar te warm van en daar gaat je zaad van dood. Verder slurpt dit batterij-kracht waar je toch al meer van wil hebben.\nGeen optische drive Bijna nooit nodig. De paar keer dat ik de DVD-speler op mijn PC heb gebruikt zijn meestal voor het installeren van het OS.\nDe plek voor de optische drive zou idealiter worden gebruikt door een tweede batterij.\nTablet-vormfactor zou leuk zijn maar lijkt me onrealistisch gegeven het budget Wat het moet kunnen:\nUbuntu/Gnome draaien\nMail: Evolution\nWeb: Firefox\nOpenOffice.org\nEclipse moet er redelijk op draaien\nDat betekent toch wel 512 MB RAM.\nFilms moeten soepel afspelen (DivX 5 ongeveer)\nTV-out, VGA ofzo\nIk heb gisteren een beetje rond lopen klikken (tentamentijd h\u0026amp;egrav;) en ik kwam op de volgende twee uit: Acer TravelMate 4501 LCi en Dell Inspiron 510m.\nSony TR-serie zijn súper maar veel te duur. Net zoals deze IBM Thinkpad T41p (£ 3227).\n","date":"January 26, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-138/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik zat er gisteren over na te denken om een laptop te kopen. Dan kan ik temminste ook op locatie (TU, ouders) werken, lezen, schrijven.\n","title":"Laptop","type":"posts"},{"content":"Meer Ximian: een uitleg hoe Java code gebruik te laten maken van Gtk# en te draaien op Mono.\nHet draait dan in IKVM wat een Java VM tussenlaag is die zelf weer op Mono draait. Je krijgt dus een JIT-vertaling van Java-bytecode naar CIL (Commmon Intermediate Language) en daarna weer een JIT-vertaling van CIL naar native x86-code. Twee keer JIT\u0026rsquo;ten lijkt misschien overbodig maar het gave is dat het mogelijk is. Net zoals in het artikel staat hoe allebei die JIT-slagen uit de weg geruimd kunnen worden.\nIk vind het geweldig hoe die gasten C# effectief compleet hebben nagemaakt. Met allemaal gave features en interoperabiliteit dat allemaal gewoon werkt. Op deze manier hebben we én Microsoft én Sun allebei niet nodig.\nIk heb gehoord dat het nog niet heel erg snel is maar ze zijn er nog steeds hard mee bezig. En slim als ze zijn houden ze zich aan Knuth.\n","date":"January 26, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-137/","section":"Posts","summary":"Meer Ximian: een uitleg hoe Java code gebruik te laten maken van Gtk# en te draaien op Mono.\n","title":"Doorbouwen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Via Miguel wat filmpjes van Nat waarin hij Beagle en Mono demo\u0026rsquo;t.\nWat me opvalt is dat Beagle er erg gelikt uitziet en vooral het live query gebeuren (zoals hier te zien) is meer dan een beetje cool.\nKort: je zoek resultaten worden dus ‘live’ bijgewerkt op veranderingen in je systeem.\nDe beweging om goede Open Source Software ook op Windows draaiend te krijgen is op volle stoom. Binnenkort Beagle en Evolution dus ook op een pc bij jou in de buurt.\nOnder de Beagle demo-filmpjes staan nog wat demo\u0026rsquo;s van Mono (en Glade). Ik ben erg blij om te zien hoeveel makkelijker het ontwikkelen is met Mono \u0026amp; GTK#.\nDe tijd van vieze C-applicaties is eindelijk voorbij.\n","date":"January 24, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-136/","section":"Posts","summary":"Via Miguel wat filmpjes van Nat waarin hij Beagle en Mono demo’t.\n","title":"Geweldige apen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Naar aanleiding van dat stukje over uitstellen en concentratie ben ik begonnen met opschrijven wanneer ik aan mijn studieboek zit en wanneer ik langer dan twee minuten weg ben.\nMeestal studeer ik een dag, loop ik regelmatig weg om andere dingen te doen en heb ik uiteindelijk geen flauw idee hoeveel ik heb gestudeerd. Op weinig productieve dagen blijf ik een beetje achter met een leeg gevoel. Dat is nu wel anders.\nNu zie ik precies hoeveel tijd ik vandaag schoon heb besteed aan studeren: 2:36. Dit vind zelfs ik bizar weinig.\nNu moet ik er wel bij zeggen dat dit een ontzettend saai vak is met een even saai en slecht leesbaar boek. Ik kom er met studeren daardoor niet echt in, ik krijg geen flow te pakken.\nIk wil dit vak dus wel graag halen. Dan hoef ik het nooit meer te zien. Het nare is dat ik de kans van halen van dit vak alleen maar kan vergroten door er nu meer tijd aan te besteden.\nDit is niet leuk, ik wil mijn beloning niet uitstellen.\n","date":"January 23, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-135/","section":"Posts","summary":"Naar aanleiding van dat stukje over uitstellen en concentratie ben ik begonnen met opschrijven wanneer ik aan mijn studieboek zit en wanneer ik langer dan twee minuten weg ben.\n","title":"Confrontatie","type":"posts"},{"content":"Via wildkamperen weer de oproep om iets te schrijven tegen softwarepatenten.\nIk ben misschien een beetje laat, maar misschien heeft het zin. Het volgende heb ik opgestuurd:\nL.S.,\nBinnenkort zal er in Europees verband weer geprobeerd worden om wetgeving inzake software-patenten in te voeren. Deze wetgeving is buitengewoon schadelijk voor de software-industrie en dient enkel de belangen van een handjevol grote spelers met de middelen om gebruik te maken van deze wetgeving.\nHet patenteerbaar maken van veel dingen die we in de IT als vanzelfsprekend beschouwen is een buitengewoon slechte ontwikkeling. Opportunistisch patenteren van essentiële concepten zal de vrijheid bij het ontwikkelen van software niet ten goede komen.\nHet meest simpele programma of project zou dan inbreuk maken op een hele reeks patenten.\nDe dreiging die uitgaat van deze patenten kan het hele economische klimaat van software-ontwikkeling veranderen in één waar er meer consolidatie en minder innovatie plaatsvindt. De innovatie die op het moment toch voor een groot deel moet komen uit de hoek van de kleine spelers.\nDe kleine spelers zullen zwaar beperkt worden door de patent-inbreuken die ze noodzakelijkerwijs moeten maken bij elke ontwikkeling. Waarschijnlijk is dan dat ze hun werk alleen maar kunnen doen met een steun in de rug van een flinke patenten-portefeuille (van een grote speler).\nDeze macht willen we ze niet geven en deze vrijheid willen we ons niet laten afnemen. Het enige resultaat is dat een paar grote spelers nog meer macht krijgen.\nEr worden op het vlak van onafhankelijke software ontwikkeling nu net wat overwinningen behaald. Rechtszaken tegen misbruikers van hun marktpositie worden gewonnen. Open Source Software begint volwassen te worden en biedt op technisch vlak nu serieuze alternatieven.\nDeze overwinningen zijn behaald door het enthousiasme en door de overtuiging van een klein leger vrijwilligers. Mensen met alleen maar het simpele idee dat keuzevrijheid belangrijk is en dat goede software vrij kan zijn.\nZij hebben zich hier jarenlang voor ingespannen tegen alle verwachtingen in, tegen de leugens van hun tegenstanders in, tegen dreigingen van rechtszaken in.\nDeze wetgeving zou betekenen dat dit allemaal in één keer van tafel wordt geveegd. Dit is iets wat ik niet wil, en wat wij -voorstanders van keuzevrijheid- niet willen.\nMet vriendelijke groet,\nAlper Çugun\nStudent Media en Kennistechnologie en IT-professional\nStuur ook iets op, het hoeft niet zo lang te zijn.\nUpdate: Ik ben niet te laat. Het is weer uitgesteld.\n(Grappig, je kunt gewoon een title-attribuut toekennen aan een b-element.)\n","date":"January 22, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-134/","section":"Posts","summary":"Via wildkamperen weer de oproep om iets te schrijven tegen softwarepatenten.\n","title":"Patenten, nee!","type":"posts"},{"content":"Dit artikel over uitstellen van werk is al her en der geblogd maar ik ben er net pas aan toe gekomen om het te lezen.\nDat lezen zelf natuurlijk ook een voorbeeld van uitstellen omdat het nu tentamenperiode is.\n","date":"January 22, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-133/","section":"Posts","summary":"Dit artikel over uitstellen van werk is al her en der geblogd maar ik ben er net pas aan toe gekomen om het te lezen.\n","title":"Procrastinatie","type":"posts"},{"content":"Nu te zien op de Ticketverkoop IFFR:\nHet spijt ons\u0026hellip;\n\u0026hellip;maar het is op het moment zo druk op de website dat we even geen nieuwe bezoekers kunnen toelaten.\nAls u dit browservenster open houdt, zullen we het automatisch opnieuw proberen over 30 seconden.\nElk jaar hetzelfde liedje. Het is inderdaad niet zo makkelijk om een website te maken die honderden requests per seconde aan moet kunnen. Het is wel mogelijk hoor maar er zijn geavanceerde technieken voor nodig die ver buiten het bereik van de meeste PHP-websitebouwers liggen.\nDe oplossing hier gekozen om het aantal simultane bezoekers te beperken werkt wel. Alleen is het niet zo leuk voor die mensen die buiten de boot vallen. In het engels is hier een mooi woord voor: **cop-out.\n","date":"January 22, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-132/","section":"Posts","summary":"Nu te zien op de Ticketverkoop IFFR:\n","title":"Kaartjes kopen","type":"posts"},{"content":"(Ik moet studeren maar dat boek over AI is echt te saai en slecht geschreven voor woorden.)\nMartijnv had tijdens het hardlopen een idee om DTD\u0026rsquo;s en XML beter te benutten. Natuurlijk weinig op af te dingen.\nHet hele XML is een rijke ecologie die met tooltjes vrij makkelijk aan elkaar te knopen is. Grote kracht, maar moeilijk in één keer te behapstukken.\nZoals waar wij nu mee bezig zijn om XML\u0026rsquo;s te transformeren met behulp van XSL\u0026rsquo;s kan je formaliseren van DTD -\u0026gt; DTD. Aangezien een valide XML een instantie is van een DTD is een XSLT op de DTD ook op de XML toe te passen. Simpel tot zover.\nWaar ik de laatste tijd wat over hoor en wat ook de kant is die Martijnv op wil is het gebruik van XML in extreem-flexibele, domein-specifieke programmeertalen.\nExtreem flexibel omdat de invoer een DTD-gebaseerde XML is en je dat met een XSL kun transformeren in een gevolg. Dit gevolg weer een DTD-gebaseerde XML waar je iets mee kunt. Dus misschien gebruiken om een pagina te tekenen, of een recept wat je in een agent kunt invoeren.\nHet domein-specifieke zorgt ervoor dat de taal waarin je je probleem oplost heel eenvoudig is en alleen elementen bevat die wat te maken hebben met de problemen waar je mee bezig bent.\nComplex is misschien beter dan ingewikkeld maar simpel is ook beter dan complex. Je kunt hier erg gave dingen mee doen maar fatsoenlijke ondersteuning door tools ontbreekt (nu) nog. De leercurve van dingen als XSL is vrij hoog en de belofte was nu juist om de dingen makkelijker te maken.\nDaar komt nu misschien verandering in met de introductie van JSF. JSF gebruikt veel XML om de structuur en inhoud van een webapplicatie te specificeren. Dus navigatie van scherm naar scherm, en het tekenen van widgets. De belofte is dat je zo\u0026rsquo;n JSF-applicatie niet alleen direct op het web kan deployen maar dat je dezelfde object-boom ook kan publiceren als bijv. Swing-applicatie.\nBij JSF wordt ook goede ondersteuning door tools beloofd.\nEen andere kant op is waar onder andere JetBrains (van IntelliJ IDEA) mee bezig schijnt te zijn. MPS (Meta Programming Systems) en DSL (Domain Specific Languages). Hun idee is om het heel makkelijk te maken om voor elk probleem een daarop toegespitste taal te creëren en met die taal het probleem snel op te lossen.\nMicrosoft zit hier natuurlijk ook bovenop. Visual Studio 2005 ‘Whidbey’ gaat er ondersteuning voor bieden.\nDSLs schijnen origineel bedacht te zijn in de FP (Functional Programming) gemeenschap (als Combinators) en het schijnt te maken te hebben met onder andere Monads (en hun opvolgers Arrows). Ik heb Monaden nooit echt gesnapt maar ook nooit echt de tijd geïnvesteerd die daarvoor nodig is.\nUpdate: Wat het gebruik van XML betreft, is dit artikel (Extensible Programming for the 21st Century) uit de ACM-queue een goed overzicht van de mogelijkheden.\nEen een idee om een programmeertaal te maken die directere interactie met XML toestaat: Cω.\n","date":"January 19, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-131/","section":"Posts","summary":"(Ik moet studeren maar dat boek over AI is echt te saai en slecht geschreven voor woorden.)\n","title":"Domein Specifieke Talen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik was dus een van de honderd jury-leden om de verschillende longlists terug te brengen. Best wel wat moeite maar natuurlijk ook een hele eer. Van veel blogs op de lijst had ik nog nooit gehoord (van veel ook weer wel natuurlijk).\nOndanks (of dankzij) tentamens heb ik ze allemaal aangeklikt en heb ik zo goed mogelijk een keuze proberen te maken.\nVeel wil ik niet kwijt over wat ik aangeklikt heb behalve twee dingen.\nEen blog zonder ATOM/RSS-syndicatie durf ik eigenlijk geen blog te noemen. Tijdens de bloggies kwam ik een paar leuke blogs tegen zonder. Het afknappen wat dat opleverde was meestal genoeg om zo\u0026rsquo;n blog —hoe leuk ook— niet te nomineren.\nDe categorie web-log.nl blonk echt uit van de armoede. Moeilijk om te kiezen tussen x keer niks. Ik heb maar wat willkeurigs gedaan om er vanaf te zijn.\n","date":"January 19, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-130/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik was dus een van de honderd jury-leden om de verschillende longlists terug te brengen. Best wel wat moeite maar natuurlijk ook een hele eer. Van veel blogs op de lijst had ik nog nooit gehoord (van veel ook weer wel natuurlijk).\n","title":"Bloggies","type":"posts"},{"content":"De komende twee weken ga ik goed bezig zijn met studeren, veel stressen en weinig anders doen. Behalve vijf keer per week blijven sporten en sloten espresso drinken. Maar dat is standaard.\nIk heb volgende week twee 4e-jaars vakjes en het zou wel een goede stap richting mijn afstuderen zijn als ik die allebei wist te halen.\n","date":"January 19, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-129/","section":"Posts","summary":"De komende twee weken ga ik goed bezig zijn met studeren, veel stressen en weinig anders doen. Behalve vijf keer per week blijven sporten en sloten espresso drinken. Maar dat is standaard.\n","title":"Studie-stress","type":"posts"},{"content":"Via Chrenkoff een stukje over Bjorn Lomborg\u0026rsquo;s Copenhagen Consensus. Ik zit nog steeds door zijn Skeptical Environmentalist heen te ploegen. Meer ranzigheid van mijn kant dan saaiheid van het boek. Om de strekking te snappen hoef je niet het hele boek uit gelezen te hebben.\nDe meeste dingen die wij doen voor het milieu zijn weinig effectief en worden gestuurd door misleiding, misverstanden of een gebrek aan overzicht en verkeerde prioriteiten.\nDe grootste milieuvervuiling op dit moment komt uit de derde wereld. Die mensen daar zijn arm en zolang hun kinderen nog omkomen van de honger gaat het milieu ze echt geen fuck kunnen schelen.\nDie mensen moeten geholpen worden met vrije handel, stabiele overheid en al het andere wat je nodig hebt om normaal te kunnen leven.\nIn het artikel hierboven wordt uitgelegd dat je voor een fractie van de kosten van Kyoto ontzettend veel meer mensen kunt helpen met simpele dingen als voedselsupplementen en muskietennetten.\n","date":"January 18, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-128/","section":"Posts","summary":"Via Chrenkoff een stukje over Bjorn Lomborg’s Copenhagen Consensus. Ik zit nog steeds door zijn Skeptical Environmentalist heen te ploegen. Meer ranzigheid van mijn kant dan saaiheid van het boek. Om de strekking te snappen hoef je niet het hele boek uit gelezen te hebben.\n","title":"Zinnig geluid","type":"posts"},{"content":"Vannacht om 00:00 heb ik me ingeschreven voor de Basiscursus Spaans (wm1108tu). Het secretariaat vertelde me dat je er echt bij moet zijn zodra de inschrijfperiode opent omdat het zo vol is. Dat klopt dus ook. Maar even afwachten om te zien of ik word geplaatst.\nOm middernacht precies werd het Tentamen Aanmeld Systeem (ook voor vakken te gebruiken) héél stroperig, onwerkbaar eigenlijk. Dit door al die mensen die zich tegelijkertijd probeerden aan te melden, lang moesten wachten op hun pagina en dus nog maar een keer op refresh drukten en ga zo maar door.\nIk weet zeker dat er geen geavanceerde async-server achter steekt maar ik vermoed dat ze zelfs zijn ‘vergeten’ om een ThreadPool te gebruiken en gewoon voor elk nieuwe Request een\nnew Thread() aanmaken (zoals je ziet in naïeve voorbeelden).\nHet lesmateriaal van dit vak bevat naast het gewone dictaat ook wat Cassettes en [een] diskette. Dit zijn allebei ‘legacy’ media die ik niet kan lezen. Mijn stereo heeft geen cassette-deck en mijn pc heeft ook geen floppy-drive.\nAls ze dit serieus menen dan moet ik op zoek naar lezers. Misschien wel aardig voor de rest van de mensen om die cassettes dan meteen te rippen en ergens online te zetten.\n","date":"January 18, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-127/","section":"Posts","summary":"Vannacht om 00:00 heb ik me ingeschreven voor de Basiscursus Spaans (wm1108tu). Het secretariaat vertelde me dat je er echt bij moet zijn zodra de inschrijfperiode opent omdat het zo vol is. Dat klopt dus ook. Maar even afwachten om te zien of ik word geplaatst.\n","title":"Spaans","type":"posts"},{"content":"Een foto-reportage van de Amerikaanse soldaten in Afghanistan. Mooie foto\u0026rsquo;s en een positief verhaal.\n","date":"January 18, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-126/","section":"Posts","summary":"Een foto-reportage van de Amerikaanse soldaten in Afghanistan. Mooie foto’s en een positief verhaal.\n","title":"Zo kwaad nog niet","type":"posts"},{"content":"Mijn broertje heeft me de foto\u0026rsquo;s uit Istanbul opgestuurd. De stad ziet er op foto eigenlijk nog mooier uit dan toen ik erin stond. Raar effect.\nIk heb er wat uit gekozen en ze online gezet.\n","date":"January 17, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-125/","section":"Posts","summary":"Mijn broertje heeft me de foto’s uit Istanbul opgestuurd. De stad ziet er op foto eigenlijk nog mooier uit dan toen ik erin stond. Raar effect.\n","title":"Istanbul","type":"posts"},{"content":"Holy, shit! Ik heb net 41 minuten aan één stuk door gelopen. En het deed niet eens zoveel pijn. Hebben al die bloed, zweet en tranen toch zin gehad.\nIk ben nog nooit zo fit geweest en ik heb het idee dat ik wel op de goede weg zit met mijn voorbereiding voor de City-Pier-City.\n","date":"January 17, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-124/","section":"Posts","summary":"Holy, shit! Ik heb net 41 minuten aan één stuk door gelopen. En het deed niet eens zoveel pijn. Hebben al die bloed, zweet en tranen toch zin gehad.\n","title":"Lopen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Goed voorbeeld dat niet wapens mensen dood maken maar mensen mensen dood maken: ‘Man overleden na mishandeling Rotterdam’.\nHet zou me niks verbazen als de hoeveelheid uitgaansgeweld in Nederland naar verhouding hoger ligt dan in Amerika. Als je bijvoorbeeld weleens in Friesland bent uitgeweest, weet je waar ik het over heb.\nGisteravond ook een paar kleine aanvaringen gehad met nare paupers. Mag geen naam hebben in vergelijking met het bovenstaande.\nWat doe je ertegen? Dit en dan hopen dat je het nooit nodig hebt en dat als je het nodig hebt je je tegenstanders compleet in puin slaat.\nUpdate: En hoe erg Xing Yi ook een aggressieve vechtsport is, het Warrior Creed blijft overeind en staat nu links op deze pagina.\nDe vraag is nu: hoeveel voller kan ik de voorpagina maken?\n","date":"January 15, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-123/","section":"Posts","summary":"Goed voorbeeld dat niet wapens mensen dood maken maar mensen mensen dood maken: ‘Man overleden na mishandeling Rotterdam’.\n","title":"Geweld","type":"posts"},{"content":"Chrenkoff leest nu ook GULAG. Ik had hem al gelezen zie: mijn blog.\nHij fileert het nieuws over “HARRY THE NAZI” met een favoriet stokpaardje. De dubbele moraal wat betreft twee van de massa-moordendste ideologieën van de vorige eeuw. Harry wordt voor het dragen van een hakenkruis gekruisigd terwijl ik gisteravond op een feestje nog iemand met een hamer en sikkel op zijn t-shirt zag.\nDat schijnt cool te zijn. Net zoals afbeeldingen van Che Guevara of de letters CCCP op een rode achtergrond. De mensen die dat soort kleren dragen zijn onbenullen; de rode poep van de samenleving.\nHet venijn zit wat dieper dan wat kledingstukken. Het Nazisme wordt verworpen als compleet verwerpelijk terwijl het Stalinisme gezien wordt als een wat misleide implementatie van een idee dat eigenlijk in principe goed zou zijn. Er zijn nog steeds mensen die dat vinden.\nNa het lezen van GULAG zat ik ook een beetje te wachten op een soort Schindler\u0026rsquo;s List van de Siberische kampen. Weinig kans natuurlijk dat je die in dit klimaat in Rusland kunt maken.\nIMDB geeft bij zoeken op gulag twee weinig boeiende films.\n","date":"January 15, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-122/","section":"Posts","summary":"Chrenkoff leest nu ook GULAG. Ik had hem al gelezen zie: mijn blog.\n","title":"Dubbele moraal","type":"posts"},{"content":"In de kritieken op Abu Ghraib en Guantanamo wordt misschien een beetje vergeten dat wij de Good Guys zijn. En dat de vijanden niet echt lieverdjes zijn (denk onze Hofstad-groep maar dan veel erger).\nVoor de mensen die het niet eens zijn met de behandeling op Guantanamo een aardig stuk van Rummy (via).\n","date":"January 15, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-121/","section":"Posts","summary":"In de kritieken op Abu Ghraib en Guantanamo wordt misschien een beetje vergeten dat wij de Good Guys zijn. En dat de vijanden niet echt lieverdjes zijn (denk onze Hofstad-groep maar dan veel erger).\n","title":"Naar","type":"posts"},{"content":"Hele vette stress vandaag voor ons om Multimedia af te krijgen. Ik moest de CD-hoesjes maken en ik dacht dat ik het daarmee rustig had. Dat viel een beetje tegen.\nBegonnen met een paar CD Cover Creator-programma\u0026rsquo;s, maar die zijn allemaal kut. Toen maar de correcte afmetingen in Photoshop ingevuld en daarmee aan de slag gegaan. Een beetje schuiven en er stond wat aardigs.\nToen het probleem. Ik heb geen kleuren-printer, floppy drive (had het toch niet op gepast) of cd-brander. Ja, ik weet het: ik ben een pauper.\nIk heb de boel maar gestalled op mijn DDS, het op de DSB op een CD\u0026rsquo;tje gefikt en bij de kopiesjop uitgedraaid.\nVoor de presentatie zat de helft van de groep nog in de file voor Leiden. De presentatie zelf ging erg goed. Vooral omdat het werd ge-beamed op een scherm met touchscreen. Dat werkt echt super-stoer!\nNa de presentatie ben ik maar gaan chillen. Had die avond afgesproken om met RobbertJan en zijn vrouw naar Alex d\u0026rsquo;Electrique te gaan.\nDat was echt heel leuk. Mijn eerste (niet mijn laatste) Alex. (Lantaren/Venster is ook leuk trouwens.)\n","date":"January 14, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-120/","section":"Posts","summary":"Hele vette stress vandaag voor ons om Multimedia af te krijgen. Ik moest de CD-hoesjes maken en ik dacht dat ik het daarmee rustig had. Dat viel een beetje tegen.\n","title":"Stress","type":"posts"},{"content":"Een stuk van Max Pam (via) wat nóg beter is dan wat hij normaal schrijft.\nOngelooflijk, snel lezen dus (het is kort).\n","date":"January 12, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-119/","section":"Posts","summary":"Een stuk van Max Pam (via) wat nóg beter is dan wat hij normaal schrijft.\n","title":"Pam","type":"posts"},{"content":"Net even boodschappen gedaan. Handig aan Delft is dat je dan in tien minuten het dorp bent rondgelopen.\nDe buit:\nDe Boekelier: Dankjewel-kaartje voor mijn broertje. Ik heb van hem zijn vulpen gekregen die hij toch nooit gebruikte.\nDe Omslag: 21 gedichten \u0026amp; geen lied van Ramsey Nasr, dus must-have. En De Hondenkoning van Walter besteld. Hij heeft niet als Kluun zo\u0026rsquo;n ontzettend promo-machine op zijn website maar ik was toch nieuwsgierig naar dit boek.\nPrins: een mapje waar ik mijn papier-rotzooi in kan doen en kan meenemen. Als je papier los in je tas bewaart dan verfrommelt het na een tijdje. Dit mapje kan ik in iedere willekeurige tas doen en ik kan het ook los meenemen.\nA-tembo: prijslijst\nIk ben van plan een tv-kaart te kopen.\nNo.13: Ik heb wat broeken gepast maar ze hadden weinig in mijn maat en nog minder wat lekker zit. Aantal kledingstukken uit deze winkel die mij ooit hebben gepast: 0. Ik was vooral aan het kijken naar Matiníque en ze raadden me aan om het te proberen bij een Matiníque-winkel (bijv. Lijnbaan in Rotterdam of Leidsestraat in Amsterdam).\nHema: Twee gloeilampen, een koekenpan, een afwasborstel en een spaghetti-scheplepel. ","date":"January 12, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-118/","section":"Posts","summary":"Net even boodschappen gedaan. Handig aan Delft is dat je dan in tien minuten het dorp bent rondgelopen.\n","title":"Boodschappen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Wat iedereen fluisterde is uitgekomen. Apple komt met een mini.\nHij is misschien een beetje duur voor de hardware die erin zit, maar je koopt er vooral een fantastisch OS X en gebruikerservaring mee.\nIk ben aan het twijfelen. Hier op mijn bureau zou ie prima passen, maar het is wel veel geld voor iets wat je eigenlijk niet nodig hebt (ik heb pas een nieuwe pc gekocht).\nUpdate: Gizmodo loopt terecht te flippen op de MacWorld. (Is de MacWorld niet altijd flippen?)\nMacWorld Keynote Notes, Mac mini First Pic, iPod Shuffle First Pic, Apple Mac mini Page Live, iPod Shuffle Page Online, More iPod Shuffle Porn, Mac Mini Ports, First Hands On Pics, Every Last Picture, iPod Shuffle: First Review\nNu nog zien of dit een verschuiving in de markt tot gevolg heeft.\nUpdate 2: Wat wel afknappen is, is dat we hier in Nederland weer hard verneukt worden als het gaat om elektronica.\n$499 zou iets van €380 moeten zijn (en dan wordt het pas echt verleidelijk). De huidige prijs van €499 komt overeen met ongeveer $654.\nDit gaat echt helemaal nergens over.\n","date":"January 11, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-117/","section":"Posts","summary":"Wat iedereen fluisterde is uitgekomen. Apple komt met een mini.\n","title":"Hebben!!!","type":"posts"},{"content":"Python is da bomb!\nEr komen nog steeds (meer) nieuwe features bij. De nieuwste ervan zijn decorators. Redelijk vaag concept met veel flexibel nut.\nHet ziet er zo uit:\n@foo def bar() wat vertaalt in:\ndef bar() bar = foo(bar) Wat heb je hieraan? Heel veel dingen, die niet allemaal direct duidelijk zijn.\nJe kunt er bijvoorbeeld een helderder soort aspect georienteerd programmeren mee uitvoeren zoals hier beschreven.\n","date":"January 9, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-116/","section":"Posts","summary":"Python is da bomb!\n","title":"AspectPy","type":"posts"},{"content":"In de computerwereld geldt JoelOnSoftware als redelijk gezaghebbend materiaal. Zijn laatste stukje is advies voor Informatica-studenten.\nHij dumpt een erg geil stuk C code waar ik het toch wel een beetje warm van kreeg.\nwhile (*s++ = *t++); Rara, wat doet het?\n","date":"January 9, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-115/","section":"Posts","summary":"In de computerwereld geldt JoelOnSoftware als redelijk gezaghebbend materiaal. Zijn laatste stukje is advies voor Informatica-studenten.\n","title":"Joel","type":"posts"},{"content":"Marijnissen mag de voorman zijn van een partij met een rare en achterhaalde ideologie. Hij is wel politiek begaafd, slim en scherp.\nTwee interviews met hem: Trouw \u0026amp; Parool\n","date":"January 9, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-114/","section":"Posts","summary":"Marijnissen mag de voorman zijn van een partij met een rare en achterhaalde ideologie. Hij is wel politiek begaafd, slim en scherp.\n","title":"ont-hypen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Hoe hard ik ook poep op het communisme ik vind die vlag toch best wel leuk.\nAl was het maar om domme bobo\u0026rsquo;s als Bill Gates te stangen.\nHoe was het ook alweer? You will be first against the wall.\n","date":"January 9, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-113/","section":"Posts","summary":"Hoe hard ik ook poep op het communisme ik vind die vlag toch best wel leuk.\n","title":"Creative Commons","type":"posts"},{"content":"Een ander leuk blog met altijd hele harde maar —ik denk— ook wel terechte kritek op de VN is Diplomad.\nHier een stukje waar ze Nederlandse diplomaten citeren die opmerken dat de Australiërs en de Amerikanen bergen werk verzetten. De rest is nog druk aan het vergaderen.\nIk ben 4 dagen weg en ben nog steeds bezig met bijlezen. Dat gaat nog leuk worden als ik echt op vakantie ga. Dat rijden van die informatiegolf is best leuk, maar als je er vanaf valt dan duurt het best even voor je weer goed zit.\nMisschien toch een laptop ofzo kopen.\n","date":"January 9, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-112/","section":"Posts","summary":"Een ander leuk blog met altijd hele harde maar —ik denk— ook wel terechte kritek op de VN is Diplomad.\n","title":"Tsunami hulp","type":"posts"},{"content":"Aardig stuk van Chrenkoff over domme reacties van domme mensen op de Tsunami.\nBijna ongeloofwaardig wat sommige mensen kunnen zeggen.\nChrenkoff is (samen met Instapundit) een van mijn favorietere ‘rechtse’ bloggers.\nHij heeft bijvoorbeeld het meest onwaarschijnlijke goede nieuws. Onwaarschijnlijk omdat je er zo weinig over hoort. Slecht nieuws scoort beter en is politiek opportuner.\nGoed Nieuws Irak, Goed Nieuws Afghanistan, Goed Nieuws Islamitische Wereld.\n","date":"January 9, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-111/","section":"Posts","summary":"Aardig stuk van Chrenkoff over domme reacties van domme mensen op de Tsunami.\n","title":"Lekker dom","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik moet Bored of the Rings nog lezen maar dit is al erg leuk (via).\nVan die Howard Zinn figuur had ik nog nooit gehoord. Maar het rabiaat linske gebral is wel erg herkenbaar.\n","date":"January 8, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-110/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik moet Bored of the Rings nog lezen maar dit is al erg leuk (via).\n","title":"War on Sauron","type":"posts"},{"content":"Net even hardgelopen als voorbereiding op de Kopjesloop morgen. Bleh, vroeg opstaan.\nIk heb mijn brakke paspoort maar meegenomen in mijn broekzak. Ik heb geen zin om uren in de cel te gaan zitten omdat een of andere wout zijn taak te serieus neemt.\nIk heb daar gewoon de tijd niet voor.\nEigenlijk vind ik het ook niet meer dan normaal dat als je op straat rondloopt je niet verbergt wie je bent. En dat als de politie erom vraagt dat je het ook nog kunt bewijzen. Open samenleving, open vizieren.\nJe gewoon een beetje normaal gedragen en de verantwoordelijkheid nemen voor wat je doet.\nIk weet alleen niet hoe lang mijn —al brakke— paspoort dit hardlopen uit gaat houden. Volgende week maar een nieuw paspoort én een identiteitsbewijs aanvragen.\n","date":"January 8, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-109/","section":"Posts","summary":"Net even hardgelopen als voorbereiding op de Kopjesloop morgen. Bleh, vroeg opstaan.\n","title":"Pas","type":"posts"},{"content":"Voor Alper\u0026rsquo;s Grote Istanbulreis was er een beetje stress over onze reisdocumenten.\nNa het boeken kwamen we erachter dat onze Turkse paspoorten nog geldig waren tot en met de dag van ons vertrek. Kansloos dus om daarmee aan te komen zetten.\nGeen stress; gewoon overstappen op Nederlandse paspoorten. Niet helemaal…\nMijn Nederlandse paspoort is al sinds afgelopen zomer in sub-optimale toestand. Het gelamineerde plastic deel waar mijn foto op staat is op een breuklijn een centimeter of 3 ingescheurd.\nDit is een bekend probleem en kan volgens de overheid gebeuren bij ‘onzorgvuldig gebruik’. Waarbij onzorgvuldig gebruik van mijn kant bestaat uit het bijna altijd bij je hebben van dat ding en vaak ook in je voorbroekzak (dit nog voor de identificatieplicht, kun je nagaan!).\nHet is dus te moeilijk om een paspoort te maken dat je altijd bij je kunt hebben. Dus je moet eigenlijk wel ook zo\u0026rsquo;n id-kaart kopen.\nAls je er niet op let, zie je het niet. Alleen is het jammer dat het letten op paspoorten het beroep is van douanebeambtes. Kun je je meteen voorstellen wat voor een kutleven die mensen hebben.\nOp de terugweg van vakantie was me deze scheur al heel fijnzinnig (not!) uitgewezen door een Tschechische douanebeambte. Die trut vertelde me dat ik z.s.m. een nieuwe moest kopen. Dat heb ik natuurlijk genegeerd en ben er nog mee naar Berlijn geweest (niet gecontroleerd natuurlijk).\nVoor Istanbul was ik het eigenlijk al weer vergeten. Met dat gedoe met die Turkse paspoorten kwam ik er weer achter en dan zat ik toch een beetje met een knoop in mijn maag.\nBij het inchecken op schiphol viel het de steward meteen op. Mijn paspoort schijnt nog wel geldig te zijn, maar zodra die pagina compleet afbreekt niet meer. Dan zit ik dus in én in een vreemd land é en in de shit.\nAls ik hem voortaan zorgvuldig bewaar, dan is de kans dat die scheur groeit erg klein. En ik heb er de hele reis (4 controles) geen commentaar op gekregen van de beambten.\nNu had ik het idee om dit brakke paspoort te bewaren als identificatiemiddel en een nieuwe aan te vragen om mee te reizen. Blijkt dus dat er vrij specifieke voorwaarden verbonden zijn aan het mogen hebben van twee paspoorten tegelijkertijd. Dat is jammer en suf.\nMijn broertje is de dag nadat wij vertrokken naar het consulaat in Rotterdam geweest om onze Turkse paspoorten te laten verlengen, just in case. Na 3 uur in de bureaucratische molen was het gelukt maar had hij het ook flink gehad.\nWe hadden wel onze Turkse nufus cüzdanları1(#nufus) bij ons. Daarmee hebben we bij veel toeristische gebouwen kortingen gekregen tot een kwart van de toeristenprijs. Waar de Turkse nationaliteit al niet goed voor is.\nEn mijn moeder moest de hare bij vertrek uit Turkije bij haar Nederlandse paspoort laten zien. Waarom? Dat weet niemand.\nlett.: bevolkings-portemonnee, een soort registratie/identificatie. Mijn moeder heeft er een foto van 20 jaar oud op staan en dat pikken ze gewoon.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"January 7, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-108/","section":"Posts","summary":"Voor Alper’s Grote Istanbulreis was er een beetje stress over onze reisdocumenten.\n","title":"Identiteit","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik ben terug enzo.\n","date":"January 7, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-107/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik ben terug enzo.\n","title":"Terug","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik ben er en Istanbul is overweldigend, gigantisch en fantastisch.\nOok nog erg vertrouwd en relaxed, maar ik denk dat dat vooral scheelt dat ik dit land en de taal al redelijk ken.\nLater meer.\n","date":"January 3, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-106/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik ben er en Istanbul is overweldigend, gigantisch en fantastisch.\n","title":"Istanbul","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik ben er weg van.\nTot vrijdag, of eerder.\n","date":"January 2, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-105/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik ben er weg van.\n","title":"Doei","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik heb een deel van oudejaarsavond doorgebracht met het kijken naar mensen die groot op de muur geprojecteerd video-spelletjes aan het spelen waren.\nDat is op zich een boeiende ervaring (want nieuw) en ik vond het ook wel leuk om eindelijk een keer te zien wat de huidige generatie consoles kan. Dat is best aardig, had ik die hardware maar gehad toen ik 8 was.\nDe avond ervoor heb ik doorgebracht met een wat minder grote groep mensen die de hele tijd zo nodig allemaal ingewikkelde bord- en kaartspelletjes wilden spelen. Best wel leuk maar ook vermoeiend om allemaal nieuwe regels te leren.\nDe tijd dat mensen gewoon bij elkaar konden zijn en niets anders hoefden te doen dan te eten, drinken en praten lijkt een beetje voorbij.\nAlles moet zo nodig leuk zijn. Leuk hoor zo\u0026rsquo;n verplichting.\n","date":"January 2, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-104/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik heb een deel van oudejaarsavond doorgebracht met het kijken naar mensen die groot op de muur geprojecteerd video-spelletjes aan het spelen waren.\n","title":"Gezellig","type":"posts"},{"content":"Man, ik zit de laatste tijd me helemaal suf te kicken op Spaans(talig)e films. Kijken, zoeken en herkijken. Met als hoogtepunt vandaag Mar Adentro van Amenábar (komt hier eind deze maand uit).\nMar Adentro is echt een onwijs heftige film een keertje niet over iemand die terminaal is maar over iemand die een kutleven heeft en daarom niet verder wil. Dit is niet echt moeilijker aan te voelen maar het verlegt de morele vraag binnen het bereik van religieus conservatieven en ander vrijheids-vijandig gespuis.\nDe hele film is mooi gemaakt en wordt fantastisch geacteerd (vooral de rol van Ramón Sampedro).\nZijn lijden is moeilijk. Hij kan nog best veel; kijken, denken, schrijven maar die dingen die hij niet meer kan —de ontbrekende rest— breekt hem op. Hoe gelukkig hij tijdens de film ook lijkt, het is een schim van leven.\nMoeilijk ook voor zijn familie die 28 jaar lang hun leven opzij hebben gezet om voor hem te zorgen. Die zijn wens maar gedeeltelijk kunnen accepteren. Zij krijgen in feite te horen: ‘Bedankt, het was leuk geprobeerd maar toch niet de moeite waard.’\nIk vind filmhuis-films veel leuker dan grote blockbusters en in dat segment is het speelveld gelijk genoeg dat ook niet-Engelstalige films een kans krijgen. Om maar wat te noemen: ik vind Duitse en Japanses films best leuk; Franse en Afghaanse meestal wat minder. Maar ik word nergens gelukkiger van dan van Spaanstalige films.\nOf daar nou zoveel betere films gemaakt worden? (Ik denk het wel.)\nOf de omgeving en de mensen daar zoveel leuker zijn en veel intenser met elkaar omgaan? (Ik ben nog nooit in Spanje of Zuid-Amerika geweest.)\nOf omdat de taal zoveel lekker bekt? (Ik weet het niet.)\nIk heb pas dus de nieuwe Almodóvar en de nieuwe Amenábar gezien. En ik moet nog: Diarios de Motocicleta, 21 Grams, Y tu mamá también, Cidade de Deus, the Others, Hable con Ella (herkijken), nog een berg ouder spul van Almodóvar en daarna andere Spaanse klassieken.\n","date":"January 2, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-103/","section":"Posts","summary":"Man, ik zit de laatste tijd me helemaal suf te kicken op Spaans(talig)e films. Kijken, zoeken en herkijken. Met als hoogtepunt vandaag Mar Adentro van Amenábar (komt hier eind deze maand uit).\n","title":"Español","type":"posts"},{"content":"Saaie discussie op RadioOnline over woningbouwverenigingen die glasvezel willen aanbieden. Eerder al een stukje op Webwereld.\nBegrijpen deze mensen niet dat Internet net zo belangrijk wordt in een huis als gas, water en elektriciteit? Als het dat nu al niet is.\nAls ik moet kiezen tussen geen gas en geen internet dan is dat voor míj een moeilijke keuze.\nHet kan dus ook niet snel/goedkoop genoeg zijn. Hoe meer hoe beter.\nOok voor bejaarden waar er meer van komen en waar het gesprek voor een deel over gaat is glasvezel erg nuttig. Dit zijn mensen met veel tijd en daarom meestal mega-consumenten van televisie. Verder kunnen ze met hoge-kwaliteits beeldverbindingen makkelijk contact houden met familie en artsen.\n","date":"January 2, 2005","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-102/","section":"Posts","summary":"Saaie discussie op RadioOnline over woningbouwverenigingen die glasvezel willen aanbieden. Eerder al een stukje op Webwereld.\n","title":"Breed","type":"posts"},{"content":"Via de Leeskamer in de Standaard een kritisch stuk van Nasr over Nederland. Erg goed en erg scherp (Nasr dus).\nHet stuk is afgeschermd. De legale manier is om door te klikken via de leeskamer. Dan komt je via een partner-ingang de Standaard binnen en kun je het gratis lezen.\nDe minder legale manier is om het stuk tekst hieronder te selecteren. Ik vind het te goed en belangrijk om te laten liggen.\nNederland is nep\nRamsey Nasr is dichter, schrijver en acteur. Wonend in Antwerpen heeft hij als Nederlander de recente gebeurtenissen bij onze noorderburen vanop een afstand gadegeslagen. Wat is dat toch met Nederland, vraagt hij zich af: is het hysterisch, of lijkt dat maar zo? Beide, besluit hij.\nIK kwam thuis van twee maanden buitenland. Twee maanden zonder nieuws. Bij terugkomst in Antwerpen lag een grote stapel Nederlandse kranten op me te wachten. Ergens in het midden van de stapel begon het: Van Gogh vermoord, Bom ontploft, Brandstichting, Met dood bedreigd, Met dood bedreigd II enzovoort.\nZo. Dus dat was er in de tussentijd gebeurd.\nWelkom in Nederland. Terwijl het land in fase rood verkeert en politici onderduiken, merk ik dat men er eigenlijk al een beetje over uitgepraat is. Iedereen probeert de draad weer op te pikken. Ons land is voorgoed veranderd, luidt de samenvatting; en nu weer iets leuks.\nNederland is helemaal niet veranderd. Ik zag mijn vertrouwde land terug. Zo te horen was alles de laatste maanden volgens schema verlopen, inclusief volkshysterie. Van Gogh lag nog niet neer of hij werd al naar Oud-Hollands gebruik verheven tot symbool. Van Gogh de Vrije is bijgezet in het rijtje van Pim de Profeet, Hazes de Volksheld, Gümüs de Lieve Illegaal, Joos \u0026amp; Joes van het Zinloos Geweld. Nederland is gek op symbolen. Alles wat de werkelijkheid op afstand houdt of liever nog vervangt, wordt hier beleden als een hip geloof.\nWij zijn een volk van symbolen, idolen en acteurs. Nederland is nep, net als Mohammed B.\nIn de film The Truman Show komt de hoofdrolspeler erachter dat zijn hele leven van begin tot eind geregisseerd is geweest. Zijn familie, alle vrienden, de bakker en de slager: iedereen is acteur. Hij leeft in een film. Nederland is een variant daarop. Het is een film waarin zelfs de acteurs niet weten dat ze meespelen.\nOnze multiculturele tolerante samenleving was geen sprookje; we staan helemaal niet ineens midden in de realiteit. Holland is een B-film, met ongeloofwaardige personages, een voorspelbaar verhaal, slechte dialogen en flutacteurs. De stapel kranten die ik doornam leek al met al een onverfilmbaar script. Toch lijkt men er met frisse moed aan meegewerkt te hebben de afgelopen maanden.\nPleit ik mezelf vrij? Nee hoor, ik schrik alleen een beetje - van mezelf, van ons Nederlanders. Van wie wij zijn geworden. Holland the Movie draait al enige jaren met succes in onze weids uitgestrekte openluchtbioscoop, ver beneden de zeespiegel, lekker op ons eigen niveau.\nGraag of niet, dit is het land dat ons voor ogen stond: een Nederland waar alles kan en alles mag, waar niets nog waarde heeft, zodat niets echt is. Een land waar de koran op blote tieten wordt gekalligrafeerd, waar een kamerlid kleuters dwingt te kiezen tussen een hun aangeleerde god en de grondwet. Een land van het individu. Holland is het enige land ter wereld waar mensen in hun blote kont over straat mogen rollerskaten, en dat vinden we best belangrijk. Hier kan een Hollander voor de camera zijn diepgekoesterde wens in vervulling zien gaan, namelijk een strijkijzer aan de eigen piemel te hangen. Hier komen beroemdheden op tv, die apetrots hun stront aan presentatrice Patty Brard meegeven, tot nut van de kijker. In ons land bestaat échte vrijheid van meningsuiting. Wij tonen alles, zelfs onze uitwerpselen. Wij houden alle gordijnen open.\nJa, Nederland was top - tot de moslims kwamen. Hun hoofddoekjes lusten we rauw, omdat die achterlijke buitenlanders onze normen en waarden niet kennen.\nEn misschien zijn de buitenlanders inderdaad het probleem, moeten ze zich aanpassen. Maar waaraan nu precies? Aan onze vrijheid van meningsuiting? Die wordt hoofdzakelijk misbruikt om de uiterste grenzen te verkennen. Onze regels en wetten dan? Uit enquêtes blijkt in elk geval dat de gemiddelde Nederlander die wetten best wezenlijk vindt. Maar afgezien van zijn roep om strenger optreden, een hogere strafmaat en meer blauw, vindt deze gemiddelde ondervraagde ook dat hij zélf de wet gerust mag overtreden: een Nederlander weet heus wel wat hij doet. Ga to ch boeven vangen man.\nALLOCHTONEN moeten zich aan ons aanpassen. Maar wie zijn wij? Nederlanders blinken uit in tegenstrijdigheden en inconsequenties. Pimmetje was een mooi voorbeeld: een flamboyante nicht die trots vertelde over de spermasmaak van Marokkaanse jongens, maar tevens glashard verkondigde dat we terug moeten naar de goede oude jaren \u0026lsquo;50. Zonder Marokkanen. Zonder homo\u0026rsquo;s. Zonder Pim.\nVan Gogh kon er ook wat van. In zijn antisemitische mopjes wist hij zich alvast gesteund door de grote Voltaire, Vader der Vrijheid van Meningsuiting, en tevens virulent jodenhater. Maar frappanter is wat Van Gogh tegen Hirsi Ali zei in verband met de doodsbedreigingen: ,,Ik ben de dorpsgek, die doen ze niets.\u0026rsquo;\u0026rsquo; (NRC Handelsblad, 3 november) Iedere Nederlander bevindt zich in een permanente uitzonderingspositie. Zoals modelallochtoon Hirsi Ali het verwoordt: ,,Ik ga me absoluut niet aanpassen.\u0026rsquo;\u0026rsquo; (NRC Handelsblad, 29 november) Nee, laat dat maar aan anderen over.\nWat betekent aanpassen? Kennelijk dit: volhouden dat je heel bijzonder bent. Nederlanders verenigen zich in hun eigengereidheid. Hun persoonlijke vrijheid tegenover strenge regels voor de anderen. Normen en waarden liggen buiten onszelf. Wij leven van paradoxen, zoals men kan leven op een dieet van lintworm.\nNatuurlijk, het is fijn dat de Nederlander heeft geleerd mondig te zijn en de ander tegen te spreken. Maar het is minder fijn wanneer men dat unieke talent met zestien miljoen vermenigvuldigt. Wij vreten niet de ander maar onszelf op. Nederland lust zichzelf rauw.\nOok goedbedoelde inconsequenties moeten daarom worden uitgebannen. De ontkenning door links van de gigantische allochtonencriminaliteit in Rotterdam heeft er geheel begrijpelijk tot de zege van Pim geleid. Of neem de Ik haat haat -campagne, een recent en naïef voorbeeld van onze hang naar paradoxen. Het individu doet wat het collectief moet laten.\nHeel onze vrijheid van meningsuiting is gebaseerd op de paradox. In een open brief van Hans Teeuwen en Ronald Giphart aan minister van Justitie Donner werd gesteld dat satire altijd een creatieve bijdrage moet kunnen leveren aan het publieke debat. Dat is flauwekul. Satire roept misschien debatten óp, het levert geen bijdrage. Zie: geitenneuken. Het probleem was nu juist dat bij Van Gogh nooit duidelijk was of hij serieus was of wilde choqueren. En ik kan er misschien hard om lachen als Teeuwen in zijn laatste show de koningin op het podium ligt te vingeren, het is neem ik aan niet bedoeld als argument tegen - of wellicht vóór? - de monarchie. Van Goghs beste vriend, de schrijver Theodor Holman, kan zich afvragen wat een verwarde samenleving moet doen, zijn eigen antwoord voedt die verwarring juist: ,,Doen wat wij deden, denk ik: het debat blijven zoeken. Fijnzinnig, en als dat niet lukt, dan maar smakeloos! Smakeloos, maar met stijl.\u0026rsquo;\u0026rsquo; (NRC Handelsblad, 9 december) In dat geval bezat Mohammed B. ook stijl: hij liet keurig netjes een briefje achter.\nDat laatste was natuurlijk satire. Smakeloos - maar satire. Wie weet vormt het een bijdrage aan het debat. Niet geschoten is altijd mis.\nWat is ernst en wat is satire? Wat is hier nog echt en wat is gespeeld? De ziekte van ons land is dat we het verschil niet meer kunnen zien. Hoe geloofwaardig zijn we, met typetjes als Wilders en zijn 26 zetels? Moet ik dat geloven? Pim was over the top , Wilders is een parodie op Pim. En dat was aanvankelijk toch ook voor iedereen duidelijk? Wilders wás toch satire toen hij uit de VVD werd gezet en op zijn eenzame stoeltje sereen bleef uitkijken over de Kamer? Moet ik hem nu opeens serieus gaan nemen? Is dat Nederland, 16 miljoen eenmansfracties met een grote bek?\nIEDEREEN wil meespelen in Holland the Movie . Het zijn personages die alleen nog zeggen wat ze denken, wat ze voelen, maar zonder enige inleving. In B-films pik je dat misschien, in het echte leven verwacht je iets anders.\nToegegeven, Holland the Movie kent ook hoogtepunten. Wanneer Nederlanders eenmaal de geest krijgen en werkelijk samenspelen, leidt dat tot indrukwekkende scènes. Vooral de massascènes zijn onvergetelijk. De begrafenis van Hazes, de laatste groet aan Pim, de stille tochten, de lawaaitochten, de brandstichtingen, de spreekkoren, kortom: het Oranjegevoel. Deze scènes, ook wel waanzinscènes genoemd, zijn beangstigend realistisch. Op zulke momenten is Nederland één: in collectieve hysterie.\nDe hoogtepunten wisselen elkaar alleen te snel af om geloofwaardig te blijven. We schieten van de ene happening naar de andere, het ene symbool is nog niet geschapen of er staat weer iemand anders klaar om zaligverklaard te worden. De gaten daartussen worden opgevuld door monologen, van politicus, mafketel, extremist of gewoon botte lul. Ze schmieren er lustig op los. Ze staan in een slechte productie, ze weten het, maar de camera draait en het is zo heerlijk in het licht te staan. Spelvrijheid! Niemand is nog geïnteresseerd in het verhaal, iedereen speelt voor zichzelf, op ouderwets luide toon. Alsof het geen film is, maar een middeleeuws mirakelspel op het marktplein. Iedereen probeert er in Nederland het beste van te maken - voor zichzelf. Voor een doelgroep die niet bestaat.\nMinisters en kamerleden, imams en terroristen, burgers en regisseurs, het zijn allemaal waardeloze acteurs in een film die niemand nog wil zien.\nIk zou een land willen met betere dialogen, minder geweld, een fatsoenlijk verhaal. Geloofwaardig zijn we niet. Tekst en regie zijn we kwijt. We doen maar wat. Het buitenland heeft dat al door, nu wij nog.\nIn een land waar iedereen eerlijk zegt en doet wat hij vindt, heerst geen waarachtigheid meer. Waarachtigheid bestaat slechts bij een ingehouden gebruik van de vrijheid. Waarachtigheid is een vorm van minimaal liegen.\nDat is geen paradox. Dat is beschaving.\nRamsey Nasr\n31/12/2004\nRamsey Nasr\n©Copyright De Standaard\n","date":"December 31, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-101/","section":"Posts","summary":"Via de Leeskamer in de Standaard een kritisch stuk van Nasr over Nederland. Erg goed en erg scherp (Nasr dus).\n","title":"Nep","type":"posts"},{"content":"We schopt die DJ\u0026rsquo;s terug dat glazen huis in?\nEerst een bericht dat de hulporganisaties bezig zijn te inventariseren wat de nood is. Nu het bericht dat de hulp te lang duurt.\nGeven kan lekker makkelijk \u0026ldquo;Geef\u0026rdquo; naar 2020.\n","date":"December 30, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-100/","section":"Posts","summary":"We schopt die DJ’s terug dat glazen huis in?\n","title":"Request","type":"posts"},{"content":"Het is door! Iets anders dan ik gedacht had maar ik ga.\nZondagavond om 21.30 vertrekt ons vliegtuig. We blijven in een hotel midden in het goede deel van de stad, Sultanahmet. En vrijdagochtend om 7.00 vliegen we terug.\nIk had het liever iets langer gezien. Maar mijn vader zei deze keer is om de smaak te pakken te krijgen, je kunt er daarna nog vaak genoeg heen.\nNet bij Waltman de Lonely Planet Istanbul gekocht. Een beetje inlezen in de dingen. Maar leukste is dat ik eindelijk de dingen, plekken, wijken ga zien waar ik al zo lang over lees.\n","date":"December 30, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-99/","section":"Posts","summary":"Het is door! Iets anders dan ik gedacht had maar ik ga.\n","title":"Istanbul","type":"posts"},{"content":"Bizar. Ik zat vanavond in de trein tegenover een jongen die continu aan het bellen was en volgens mij door elkaar heen Amerikaans, Spaans, Nederlands en Ivriet aan het praten was.\nLeuk om weer ff in Amsterdam te zijn.\n","date":"December 29, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-98/","section":"Posts","summary":"Bizar. Ik zat vanavond in de trein tegenover een jongen die continu aan het bellen was en volgens mij door elkaar heen Amerikaans, Spaans, Nederlands en Ivriet aan het praten was.\n","title":"Taal","type":"posts"},{"content":"Niet verder vertellen (het is nog niet zeker). Maar misschien, heel misschien ga ik een weekje weg naar Istanbul.\n","date":"December 29, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-97/","section":"Posts","summary":"Niet verder vertellen (het is nog niet zeker). Maar misschien, heel misschien ga ik een weekje weg naar Istanbul.\n","title":"Weg","type":"posts"},{"content":"Nee, niet alleen mijn kerstperiode. De hele komende tijd is leeg. Dat is een rare overgang van een stapel-volle agenda, rennen van college naar werk naar kung fu en weer terug naar: helemaal niks.\nIk heb de komende vier weken geen TU dingen (wat project-werk maar dat mag geen naam hebben). De komende 2 weken geen kung fu. Wel werk maar ik bepaal grotendeels zelf wanneer ik kom.\nGrote paniek: een wagenwijd open en lege agenda.\nNiet zo erg. Dan kan ik mooi de dingen inhalen die het afgelopen half jaar zijn blijven liggen: rijles beginnen, bijlezen, films kijken, uitgaan.\nWie weet, misschien zit er zelfs wel een weekje Istanbul in.\nIk heb wel een goed voornemen en dat is om elke dag een uur of twee te besteden aan studeren voor de 2 tentamens die ik over 4 weken heb.\nNiets is zo kut als aan het einde van zo\u0026rsquo;n ‘vakantie’-periode erachter komen dat je geen fuck gedaan hebt en dat tentamen bij nader inzien toch niet gaat halen. (Terwijl je het makkelijk had gekund.)\n","date":"December 27, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-96/","section":"Posts","summary":"Nee, niet alleen mijn kerstperiode. De hele komende tijd is leeg. Dat is een rare overgang van een stapel-volle agenda, rennen van college naar werk naar kung fu en weer terug naar: helemaal niks.\n","title":"Leeg","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik haat het om te zeggen, maar deze demonstratie van de Microsoft Monad is toch wel erg geil.\n","date":"December 22, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-95/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik haat het om te zeggen, maar deze demonstratie van de Microsoft Monad is toch wel erg geil.\n","title":"MSH","type":"posts"},{"content":"Na de foto\u0026rsquo;s gisteren heb ik nu ook Photoblox flash slide-show galleriën van de foto\u0026rsquo;s geklust: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.\n(Op mijn persoonlijke pagina openen ze in een nieuw venster.)\nPhotoblox bouwt voort op Laszlo wat erg stoer spul is. Deze demo van wat je ermee kan is een klein bewijs daarvan.\n","date":"December 22, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-94/","section":"Posts","summary":"Na de foto’s gisteren heb ik nu ook Photoblox flash slide-show galleriën van de foto’s geklust: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.\n","title":"Gavere foto's","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik ga deze kerst wat bijzonders doen: helemaal niks.\nVolgens mij is dat best bijzonder. De meeste mensen die ik ken zijn er helemaal mee bezig. Familie, kerstdiners en ander gedoe.\nIk ga denk ik maar gewoon studeren, sporten, bijlezen en voor het eerste in lange tijd zwemmen. Zouden er zwembaden open zijn met kerst?\n","date":"December 22, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-93/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik ga deze kerst wat bijzonders doen: helemaal niks.\n","title":"Kerstgevoel","type":"posts"},{"content":"Gisterochtend een stukje hard gelopen. Dat ging erg slecht, duurde erg lang voor ik een beetje warm was.\nDiezelfde avond de laatste Xing Yi les van het jaar. Had de afgelopen week helemaal geen tijd vrij gemaakt om te oefenen dus de vorderingen waren gering. Wel de laatste twee zwaardvormen er soort van bij geleerd.\nToen al redelijk stuk. Maar niet stuk genoeg om niet tot half drie \u0026rsquo;s nachts foto\u0026rsquo;s te converteren en “De Asielzoeker” te lezen. Vanochtend om negen uur op om te werken. En natuurlijk op woensdag de wekelijkse training met super-atleten Arjennen en Jurgen.\nIk ga vanavond niet veel doen en morgen uitslapen. (Kijkt naar stapel ongeopende post.)\n","date":"December 22, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-92/","section":"Posts","summary":"Gisterochtend een stukje hard gelopen. Dat ging erg slecht, duurde erg lang voor ik een beetje warm was.\n","title":"Kapot","type":"posts"},{"content":"Beter laat dan nooit toch nog de foto\u0026rsquo;s van Portugal online gezet. Toen we pas ons cijfer kregen heb ik Melle weer geschopt en deze keer reageerde hij gewoon.\nDit is ongeveer een kwart van de foto\u0026rsquo;s. We hebben daar echt absurd veel foto\u0026rsquo;s zitten maken (1,4 GB). Veel van de rest was of lelijk (onscherp, verkeerd belicht) of dubbelop. Die vind je hier niet; zoveel ruimte heb ik niet.\n","date":"December 22, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-91/","section":"Posts","summary":"Beter laat dan nooit toch nog de foto’s van Portugal online gezet. Toen we pas ons cijfer kregen heb ik Melle weer geschopt en deze keer reageerde hij gewoon.\n","title":"Foto's","type":"posts"},{"content":"Op Nu een aardig bericht voor ons aanstormend IT\u0026rsquo;ers. Aardig natuurlijk alleen als ik dat na mijn afstuderen merk in een ontzettend dikke portemonnee.\nWorden we eindelijk beloond voor het feit dat we een echte studie hebben gekozen. Het zou eens tijd worden.\n","date":"December 21, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-90/","section":"Posts","summary":"Op Nu een aardig bericht voor ons aanstormend IT’ers. Aardig natuurlijk alleen als ik dat na mijn afstuderen merk in een ontzettend dikke portemonnee.\n","title":"Arbeidsmarkt","type":"posts"},{"content":"Tip voor Turken\nWe gaan de jonge bevolking niet als één van de voordelen van Turkse toetreding noemen. Het huidige immigratiedebat is zo ver vervuild dat bovenstaande argument (hoe waar dan ook) eerder tegen dan voor zal werken.\nEr zitten in Nederland heel weinig mensen te wachten op een grote stroom Turken die hier komt werken. Eigenlijk op wie dan ook die hier wil komen werken ook al zijn ze ontzettend hard nodig. Nederland kennis- en immigratieland —deze twee gaan hand in hand— is nog erg ver weg.\nWe moeten deze mensen behoeden voor hun eigen domheid en de fouten die ze daardoor dreigen te maken.\n","date":"December 17, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-89/","section":"Posts","summary":"Tip voor Turken\n","title":"Immigratie","type":"posts"},{"content":"Te gek gaaf en bruut!\nEerlijk duurt het langst en dan heb je ook wat.\nWij zitten dus sinds on project\u0026lsquo;je in Portugal ergens in mei te wachten op het resultaat.\nNa lang aandringen en wachten hebben we het vandaag eindelijk binnen.\nHet is een:\n9\nDaar kan je toch leuk mee thuiskomen.\n","date":"December 17, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-88/","section":"Posts","summary":"Te gek gaaf en bruut!\n","title":"Optimo","type":"posts"},{"content":"Flinke bash op The Motorcycle Diaries. Wat krijgen we hierna? Een romantische film over de jeugd van Stalin in Georgië?\nIk ga hem wel kijken, zodra ik er ondertiteling voor heb gevonden.\n","date":"December 16, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-87/","section":"Posts","summary":"Flinke bash op The Motorcycle Diaries. Wat krijgen we hierna? Een romantische film over de jeugd van Stalin in Georgië?\n","title":"Che","type":"posts"},{"content":"Boeiend blog, the Passion of the Present, over de situatie in Darfur, Sudan. De meeste mensen weten ervan wat ze zien op het nieuws: dat er Nare Dingen gebeuren. Heel veel meer informatie krijgen we niet.\nBinnenkort is er wel een radioactie op 3FM. Waarvoor? Darfur!\nAmerika kan er geen actie ondernemen. Ze hebben het geld niet en hoe zou de wereld reageren op de derde Amerikaanse interventie in een islamitisch land in even zoveel jaar? Ook al zegt het gelinkte artikel dat Amerika net zo goed wél kan ingrijpen. Ze hebben de reputatie van unilateralistische supermacht nu toch en ze houden die de komende tijd nog wel. Wat vertoon van militaire macht en ze kunnen de balans van macht verschuiven en laten zien dat ze goed en wijs zijn.\nEn Europa kijkt toe. Van wie waren al die koloniën in Afrika ook alweer? Tip: ze waren niet van Amerika.\nIn de VN schiet het ook niet echt maar dat is niks nieuws.\nDit conflict is (ook) onderdeel van een Groot Spel dat gespeeld wordt om de macht te krijgen en te houden over olie. China heeft er geen problemen mee om olie-overeenkomsten te sluiten met dubieuze landen zoals Sudan. Zorgen over moraal, mensenrechten of politieke represailles kennen ze niet.\nOp de een of andere manier moet je ook om dit soort dingen kunnen lachen: waar en wrang.\n","date":"December 16, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-85/","section":"Posts","summary":"Boeiend blog, the Passion of the Present, over de situatie in Darfur, Sudan. De meeste mensen weten ervan wat ze zien op het nieuws: dat er Nare Dingen gebeuren. Heel veel meer informatie krijgen we niet.\n","title":"Sudan","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik word toch wel blij als wat ik denk dat gaat gebeuren ook gebeurt.\nDe Linux markt groeit. Zo hard zelfs dat er op sommige plaatsen een gebrek is aan specialisten.\n“Linux is now mainstream.”\nHet ging volgens mij wel sneller dan iedereen dacht.\nIn die groeiende Linux markt is er een aardige vraag naar Linux-consultants. Mensen die (voor de verandering eens) bekwaam zijn en hun proprietary concurrenten kunnen onderbieden.\nDit is een tak van sport waar ik al een tijdje aan mee wil doen. Het meeste kan ik al wel, maar ik moet er wat real-life ervaring mee opdoen voor ik er harde cash voor kan vragen.\nDus kom maar op. Wie heeft er Linux (web, desktop etc.) klusjes? Nu is het nog gratis.\n","date":"December 15, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-84/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik word toch wel blij als wat ik denk dat gaat gebeuren ook gebeurt.\n","title":"Freelance Linux","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik zit de laatste tijd erg hard na te denken over wat ik nou wil met mijn studie, mijn toekomst, mijn carrière enzovoort.\nVeel twijfels en keuzen. Moeilijke dingen die laatste.\nVandaag wat dingen in gang gezet. Beginnen is bij mij meestal niet het halve werk maar kost me meestal wel de eerste 70% van mijn geplande tijd.\nAfstuderen in het buitenland een beetje onderzocht. Negen weken Portugal smaakt naar meer.\nIk wilde wat vragen stellen over het hoe en waarom van mijn vakkenpakket maar de relevante docenten hadden een snippermiddag. Of ze gaven college wat op hetzelfde neerkomt.\nIk heb nu wel een beetje een idee welke kant ik op wil en welke vakken ik wil doen. Er zijn dingen mogelijk (en dat geeft vertrouwen).\nHet begint me ook een beetje te dagen wat ik nou wil doen:\nIk wil hele moeilijke dingen heel makkelijk maken.\n","date":"December 14, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-83/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik zit de laatste tijd erg hard na te denken over wat ik nou wil met mijn studie, mijn toekomst, mijn carrière enzovoort.\n","title":"Visie","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik heb net even mijn XP-partitie opgestart om te kijken of mijn microfoon het wel doet. Onder Linux heb ik er wat problemen mee, vandaar.\nIk moest even iets opzoeken, dus ik dacht ik pak Internet Explorer er even bij. Ik had binnen no-time 5 popups en een HotPornDialer.exe die zich wou installeren.\nNu weet ik waarom ik al jaren Firefox gebruik.\n","date":"December 13, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-82/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik heb net even mijn XP-partitie opgestart om te kijken of mijn microfoon het wel doet. Onder Linux heb ik er wat problemen mee, vandaar.\n","title":"IE","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik ben een beetje aan het kijken naar Tomcat en Struts en dat geeft me weer vertrouwen in server-side Java. Vertrouwen dat het hele J2EE kapot heeft gemaakt.\nJ2EE is een ramp. Het is te ingewikkeld, te vaag en niemand snapt het echt. Dat maakt het voor normale mensen met normale mensen volkomen ongeschikt.\nIk ken iemand die dingen doet met MDA (stoer!) en die vond J2EE niet zo erg. Nou had hij er niet direct mee te maken en hij werkt in best wel heftige enterprise situaties. Laat ik dat maar even definieren als niet normaal.\nAls ik daarbij ook een beetje ervaring kan opdoen met JSF, Hibernate, Tapestry en OpenLaszlo dan zit ik best wel goed qua employability.\nDan ben ik klaar met Java en kan ik me richten op Python. Java en Python kunnen best goede vrienden worden: Jython Servlets. Maar Python op zich heeft Java niet nodig. Wat ik nog wil kunnen is: Zope, Zope3, Twisted en Nevow.\nGisteren een best wel productieve programmeersessie gehad met Python, PyOpenGL, Numeric en SciPy. Het resultaat is een 3D-oppervlak met best wel realistische golfbewegingen. Nu de belichting nog goed krijgen. Licht in OpenGL is hell.\nIk ben best wel een Python-expert maar de meeste libraries die we gebruikten waren voor ons allebei nieuw. Toch denk ik dat we in C++ of Java niet zóveel gedaan hadden gekregen.\n","date":"December 12, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-81/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik ben een beetje aan het kijken naar Tomcat en Struts en dat geeft me weer vertrouwen in server-side Java. Vertrouwen dat het hele J2EE kapot heeft gemaakt.\n","title":"Ontwikkelstrategie","type":"posts"},{"content":"Grappig toeval.\nIs mijn huisgenoot een weekendje wandelen in Duitsland. Komt hij er daar achter dat de vriendin van iemand met wie hij daar is wandelen op dezelfde school heeft gezeten als ik.\nKrijg ik dus nu net te horen nu hij weer thuis is.\n","date":"December 12, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-80/","section":"Posts","summary":"Grappig toeval.\n","title":"Kleine wereld","type":"posts"},{"content":"Turkije wel\nHet lijkt erop dat het ergste voorbij is. Wilders zakt weer in de peilingen. Tegenstanders kunnen geen steekhoudende argumenten meer aanvoeren. Turkije wordt ergens in de komende 30 jaar lid van de EU. Nu moet iemand dat ook publiekelijk durven toezeggen.\nTurkije niet\nIk vind Herman Phillipse geen sterke Buitenhof-columnist. Jammer dat ze daar niet zo\u0026rsquo;n stoplicht hebben als in de Metro dan konden we hem wegstemmen. Hij is geen βeta zoals Plasterk, dus hij beoefent geen echte stoere wetenschap. Misschien heeft hij daarom ook niet zoveel te melden.\nZijn laatste column is de zoveelste in een serie van goedkope aanvallen op Turkije. Hij brengt het goed maar ik heb het nog even herlezen en echte inhoud of argumentatie heb ik er niet in kunnen ontdekken.\nTurkije toch?\nHierna kwam het grote Turkije debat deel 23'452.\nUğur Pekdemir van TAN maakte eerst best wel een zwakke indruk maar kwam er later goed in. Hij moest samen met Joost Lagendijk ingaan tegen László Marácz.\nDie Marácz begon weer met dezelfde oude populistische argumenen en drogredeneringen die we gewend zijn. Volgens hem is de lidwording van de oost-Europese landen misschien niet helemaal terecht geweest maar is dat nu geen reden om Turkije ook maar toe te laten. Daar heeft hij best gelijk in, maar ik vraag me af of Marácz bij de vorige uitbreiding ook zo goed hoorbaar was.\nEn verder in de wereld\nCool dat Paul Witteman er ook achter is wat er echt belangrijk is. Hij vroeg aan Zalm hoe het ging met:\nHet opheffen van de landbouwsubsidies. (Toetreding van Turkije zou dit proces alleen maar bespoedigen.)\nHet openstellen van de markt voor de derde wereld. (Globalisering —mits eerlijk— is een Goed Ding™. Waar zijn al die anti-globalisten gebleven?)\nAntwoord: kut.\n","date":"December 12, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-79/","section":"Posts","summary":"Turkije wel\n","title":"Buitenhof-watch","type":"posts"},{"content":"Hier een nieuwsbericht uit de Amerikaanse mainstream media.\nSo you guys kill babies?\nHeel creepy. Niet alle Amerikanen zijn hersenloze koeien die dit geloven, maar genoeg om Bush te herkiezen.\nUpdate: Googlebomb van kracht ignorant asshole, heel terecht. Ook op: 1, 2, 3\n","date":"December 9, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-78/","section":"Posts","summary":"Hier een nieuwsbericht uit de Amerikaanse mainstream media.\n","title":"Nieuws","type":"posts"},{"content":"Op O\u0026rsquo;Reilly weer een positief bericht over Ubuntu.\nDat O\u0026rsquo;Reilly weblog is trouwens erg goed. Afwisselend, praktisch, gespecialiseerd genoeg en meestal aardig geschreven.\nUbuntu —je moet die verhalen met een korreltje zout nemen— schijnt dus best goed te zijn. ArminT gebruikt het ook en hij is er ook erg over te spreken.\nUbuntu is gebouwd op Debian. Het ontzettend populaire en ook ontzettend handige Knoppix is ook gebouwd op Debian.\nDie platform-eigenschap is een van de sterke features van Debian. Het is een grote, stabiele en heldere basis waarop je naar lieve lust verder kan bouwen.\nDat verder bouwen mag gegarandeerd. Debian garandeert namelijk niet alleen dat er goede software bestaat maar ook dat deze Debian-vrij is volgens het sociale contract. Dat betekent dat iedereen alles mag aanpassen.\nIn het handhaven van dat sociale contract lijken ze soms te miereneuken maar die extreme positie is hard nodig. Ubuntu en Knoppix bestaan bij gratie van Debian; net zoals de hele open source wereld bestaat bij gratie van hardliners die de harde noten bereid zijn te kraken. Zonder deze mensen waren we al lang verpletterd door Microsoft, Sun, SCO of de volgende de beste opportunist die snel rijk wil worden en consumenten wil naaien.\nDe eerste namen die me te binnen schieten bij deze helden zijn dan: Debian, *BSD, Linus, Stallman, de Raadt en vrienden.\n","date":"December 8, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-77/","section":"Posts","summary":"Op O’Reilly weer een positief bericht over Ubuntu.\n","title":"Debian vrij","type":"posts"},{"content":"Vandaag een moeilijke zwaardvorm erbij geleerd, de beng. Zitten wat truucjes in en een flinke zwiep die geluid maakt. Volgende keer gaan we pao doen, die erg makkelijk maar ook erg mooi schijnt te zijn.\nMorgen op werk heb ik beoordelingsgesprek. Een beetje spannend.\nIk ben wel erg blij met ons kerstcadeau: de Fatboy.\n","date":"December 8, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-76/","section":"Posts","summary":"Vandaag een moeilijke zwaardvorm erbij geleerd, de beng. Zitten wat truucjes in en een flinke zwiep die geluid maakt. Volgende keer gaan we pao doen, die erg makkelijk maar ook erg mooi schijnt te zijn.\n","title":"Dag","type":"posts"},{"content":"Bericht op Webwereld dat de kabelmaatschappijen KPN niet willen toelaten op hun netwerk.\nWe weten allemaal toch nog wel hoe graag de KPN nieuwe DSL-aanbieders op haar netwerk toeliet.\nZaken zijn zaken en hoe hypocrieter hoe beter.\n","date":"December 7, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-75/","section":"Posts","summary":"Bericht op Webwereld dat de kabelmaatschappijen KPN niet willen toelaten op hun netwerk.\n","title":"KPN","type":"posts"},{"content":"Item op NOVA over het terugstoppen van CO2 in de grond. Greenpeace doet zich er van af met een kulargument. —‘Er zijn betere oplossingen.’—. En laat dus weer zien dat ze niet geïnteresseerd zijn in echte, haalbare oplossingen.\nStel we lossen alle milieuproblemen op, dan vliegen alle Greenpeace medewerkers de laan uit.\nBlijf lezen en zijn we Brent Spar nu al vergeten? Milieu-advies vragen aan Greenpeace is als vragen aan Bush waar de massavernietigingswapens zijn.\n","date":"December 7, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-74/","section":"Posts","summary":"Item op NOVA over het terugstoppen van CO2 in de grond. Greenpeace doet zich er van af met een kulargument. —‘Er zijn betere oplossingen.’—. En laat dus weer zien dat ze niet geïnteresseerd zijn in echte, haalbare oplossingen.\n","title":"Milieu","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik heb net in Lumen samen met Jojanneke de film Connie and Carla gezien. Lekkere cliché-film over Amerikaanse musical- en showliedjes opgevoerd door twee vrouwen die doen alsof ze mannen zijn die travestieten zijn. Voorspelbaar maar erg leuk en grappig.\nOp Lumen kan je stemmen in de Cinema.nl filmtheater-enquete. Dus ga naar deze pagina en geef Lumen op alle fronten een tien!\n","date":"December 6, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-73/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik heb net in Lumen samen met Jojanneke de film Connie and Carla gezien. Lekkere cliché-film over Amerikaanse musical- en showliedjes opgevoerd door twee vrouwen die doen alsof ze mannen zijn die travestieten zijn. Voorspelbaar maar erg leuk en grappig.\n","title":"Lumen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Python is zoveel beter dan Java dat het gewoon niet leuk meer is. Ik dacht dat ik redelijk op de hoogte was van wat de taal allemaal kan maar ik ben een paar jaar geleden opgehouden de nieuwsgroep te volgen. De taal is nog steeds volop in ontwikkeling, blijkt nu. Ik had vandaag een Wauw!-moment. Dit is net als een WTF-moment maar dan op een positieve manier.\nVia kwam ik op dit artikel. Het is een goede gids Python-idioom voor de Java-programmeur. Eigenlijk is het ons manifest dat dingen niet moeilijk hoeven en wel makkelijk kunnen. Dat minder regels code beter zijn omdat code vaker gelezen wordt dan geschreven. Dat programmeren leuk kan zijn.\nHet Wauw komt door dit stuk code:\n# test property \u0026#34;\u0026#34;\u0026#34;Eenvoudige klasse met 1 attribuut: size. Toegang is eenvoudig en helder.\u0026#34;\u0026#34;\u0026#34; class OldTest(object): def __init__(self): self.size = 0 ot = OldTest() ot.size = 1 print ot.size \u0026#34;\u0026#34;\u0026#34;We willen achter de schermen toch een paar dingen afhandelen bij het opvragen van size We refactoren dus de klasse om een nieuw attribuut __size te gebruiken om size in op te slaan. Met de property methode wordt het attribuut size bewaard en wordt toegang tot dat attribuut doorgelust naar de juiste methoden. De oude toegang werkt nog steeds en deze is dus nog steeds eenvoudig, helder en niet te vergeten interface-compatibel met de vorige versie.\u0026#34;\u0026#34;\u0026#34; class Test(object): def getSize(self): print \u0026#34;Get size called\u0026#34; return self.__size def setSize(self, size): print \u0026#34;Set size called\u0026#34; self.__size = size size = property(getSize, setSize, None, \u0026#34;Size mutators\u0026#34;) t = Test() t.size = 2 print ot.size Het is een van de vele truucjes die Python door zijn dynamische aard toestaat. En die het programmeren leuk maken. Nog een voorbeeld is dit recept (via).\nHet is zo ontzettend jammer dat Python niet op veel meer plaatsen gebruikt wordt. Gebrek aan gedrevenheid, vertrouwen en competentie van programmeurs samen met een flinke berg folklore en vooroordelen over scripttalen lijken me daar de oorzaak van.\nZe zijn er wel.\n","date":"December 4, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-72/","section":"Posts","summary":"Python is zoveel beter dan Java dat het gewoon niet leuk meer is. Ik dacht dat ik redelijk op de hoogte was van wat de taal allemaal kan maar ik ben een paar jaar geleden opgehouden de nieuwsgroep te volgen. De taal is nog steeds volop in ontwikkeling, blijkt nu. Ik had vandaag een Wauw!-moment. Dit is net als een WTF-moment maar dan op een positieve manier.\n","title":"All hail the holy snake","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ze hebben voor Firefox ook geadverteerd in FAZ (niet de minste Duitse krant). Een beetje simpel van opzet maar het trekt zeker weten de aandacht.\nNiet alsof ik nu al teveel tijd heb maar ik zat erover na te denken om in mijn directe omgeving (studie+werk) een collecte te houden voor Firefox. Ofzo. Goed plan?\n","date":"December 4, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-71/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ze hebben voor Firefox ook geadverteerd in FAZ (niet de minste Duitse krant). Een beetje simpel van opzet maar het trekt zeker weten de aandacht.\n","title":"Vuur!","type":"posts"},{"content":"Dit artikel beschrijft de levensstijl die ik bijna —door gebrek aan geld— heb. Mijn binding met de oude media is bijna helemaal weg. Ik heb geen tv en nu toevallig wel een proefabonnement op de AD waar ik niet van onder de indruk ben. Van NOVA en Buitenhof kijk ik online alleen die stukjes die me boeien.\nHet AD is een soort net-niet Telegraaf. De Telegraaf kan ik nog waarderen in de sensatiezucht en pure commerciële hoererij.\nDe AD redt dat niet. Ik ben er ook niet zoveel tijd aan kwijt — maximaal tien minuten. Als ik langs de reclame ben (ongeveer de helft van de krant) hou ik nog een handjevol artikelen over die ik wil lezen.\n","date":"December 4, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-70/","section":"Posts","summary":"Dit artikel beschrijft de levensstijl die ik bijna —door gebrek aan geld— heb. Mijn binding met de oude media is bijna helemaal weg. Ik heb geen tv en nu toevallig wel een proefabonnement op de AD waar ik niet van onder de indruk ben. Van NOVA en Buitenhof kijk ik online alleen die stukjes die me boeien.\n","title":"Digital","type":"posts"},{"content":"Erg grappig en helemaal waar.\n","date":"December 2, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-69/","section":"Posts","summary":"Erg grappig en helemaal waar.\n","title":"Voor internet","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ons project ging vandaag een stuk beter dan verwacht. Het wordt ondertussen echt tastbaar en er is een redelijke kans dat we het op tijd af gaan krijgen. Hoera!\nIk vertelde tijdens de middag tegen Noureddine dat ik die ochtend was gaan oefenen met zwaard. Hij keek me aan alsof ie couscous zag branden en zei —zoals altijd— “Jij bent echt horror!”\n","date":"December 2, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-68/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ons project ging vandaag een stuk beter dan verwacht. Het wordt ondertussen echt tastbaar en er is een redelijke kans dat we het op tijd af gaan krijgen. Hoera!\n","title":"Zwaard","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik heb de laatste tijd een beetje een onbestemd nutteloos gevoel. Ik moet iets doen maar ik weet niet wat. Ik heb het druk met dingen die onbelangrijk lijken.\nDe studie zit in een onwijze vertraging met allemaal projecten die onduidelijk zijn en niet lopen. Fatsoenlijk werk of onderwijs kan er niet meer van af.\nDe studie moet maar zo snel mogelijk af. Het heeft (te) lang genoeg geduurd. Vakkenpakket samenstellen, laten goedkeuren en een afstudeerplek zoeken. Ik wil weg. Temminste weg uit Delft, liever verder.\nIk was vandaag te moe om dingen te doen. Ik hoorde op de radio dat Bernhard dood was en dacht ik ga kijken of ze de Bond al dicht hebben gegooid. Hij was nog eventjes open voor de verenigingsrouw toe zou slaan.\nGoede gesprekken gehad met die paar mensen met wie dat nog boeit. Ik ben niet de enige, dat scheelt.\nLijnberg logt weer, dus die heb ik links aan het lijstje toegevoegd. Ik heb zijn schrijven over Berlijn compleet verslonden; had het wel jammer gevonden als hij was gestopt.\nNu naar bed, morgen vroeg op. Zwaardvechten.\n","date":"December 2, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-67/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik heb de laatste tijd een beetje een onbestemd nutteloos gevoel. Ik moet iets doen maar ik weet niet wat. Ik heb het druk met dingen die onbelangrijk lijken.\n","title":"Nutteloos","type":"posts"},{"content":"Vroeger toen MTV nog coole dingen deed. Echt coole dingen.\nIk kom net op low tegen dat er een live-action Aeon Flux film wordt gemaakt.\nZo bizar, zo lang geleden. Ik kan me er nog stukjes van herinneren.\nIk weet nog dat MTV die Aeon Flux serie diep diep in de nacht uitzond. Misschien had dat een reden gezien de inhoud. Volgens de IMDB draaide het rond \u0026lsquo;95/\u0026lsquo;96, ik moet dus een jaar of 14 geweest zijn.\nIk ben er toen toevallig een keertje langs gezapped denk ik. Meteen hooked natuurlijk door de vormgeving, de tekenstijl en de onbegrijpelijk vage verhaallijn die je dwingt om te blijven kijken om er meer van te kunnen snappen.\nVolgens: With overtones of fetishism and sado-masochism, Aeon is sexy, cool and often ruthless.\nVolgens mij snapte ik er toen het fijne niet van maar dit soort dingen moet een rare invloed op me hebben gehad. Ik zal er wel flink verknipt door zijn geworden.\nIk koop niet snel DVDs enzo, maar ik zou er best wel wat voor over hebben om dit nog een keer te kunnen zien.\nAndere rare tekenfilms van vroeger waar ik nu aan moet denken: The Maxx \u0026amp; Thundercats.\n","date":"November 30, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-66/","section":"Posts","summary":"Vroeger toen MTV nog coole dingen deed. Echt coole dingen.\n","title":"That which does not kill us makes us stranger","type":"posts"},{"content":"Na een paar keer aandringen van ons dat we ons project toch echt een keer wilden afronden werd de hint daar in Lissabon geloof ik ook duidelijk. We kregen een lijstje van deliverables die we moesten inleveren en dan zou het af zijn.\nDe meeste van die dingen hadden we ooit al een keer ingeleverd. Als ze dit lijstje 2 maanden geleden hadden opgegeven was het toen ook af geweest. Een klein beetje stress nu: waar hadden we alles ook alweer gelaten?\nWijze les voor de toekomst: stop álles maar dan ook álles in SVN.\nNo problemo. Gisteren de hele dag gebuffeld en alles bij elkaar geraapt. Wat begeleidende documentatie getikt en het is AF.\nWij hebben er veel van geleerd. Ik hoop zij ook wat.\n","date":"November 29, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-65/","section":"Posts","summary":"Na een paar keer aandringen van ons dat we ons project toch echt een keer wilden afronden werd de hint daar in Lissabon geloof ik ook duidelijk. We kregen een lijstje van deliverables die we moesten inleveren en dan zou het af zijn.\n","title":"dejaVista","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik kan op uitzendinggemist best wel wat programma\u0026rsquo;s van de publieke omroep bekijken nadat ze zijn uitgezonden. Dat is best wel cool als je geen tv hebt.\nAlleen werkt het onder linux niet helemaal lekker. Als je op \u0026lsquo;bekijk\u0026rsquo; klikt dan opent zich een nieuw browservenster waar het fragment zich dan moet afspelen in een ‘embedded’ speler.\nOnder Linux werken die niet zo goed dus dan moet je het adres van het media-bestand naar je speler zien te krijgen. Nu hebben ze iets heel kinderachtigs gedaan bij de omroep, ze hebben de rechtermuisknop uitgezet. Dat adres moet ik dan met de hand overtikken.\nEn dan kan ik eindelijk Dit was het nieuws kijken.\n","date":"November 29, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-64/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik kan op uitzendinggemist best wel wat programma’s van de publieke omroep bekijken nadat ze zijn uitgezonden. Dat is best wel cool als je geen tv hebt.\n","title":"Irritant","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik kwam hem weer tegen en ik ben binnen Europa wel redelijk bereisd maar globaal gezien echt niet.\nHier kan je het zelf invullen. En als je dan in je reactie hier de code plakt dan kunnen we vergelijken.\n","date":"November 28, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-63/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik kwam hem weer tegen en ik ben binnen Europa wel redelijk bereisd maar globaal gezien echt niet.\n","title":"Weinig bereisd","type":"posts"},{"content":"Via Scobleizer een artikel over Visual FoxPro. Binnenkort komt versie 9.0 uit. Het™ leeft dus nog steeds en volgens het artikel is het nog steeds relevant.\nWij zijn het aan het afbouwen maar gebruiken het nog steeds. Je krijgt er misschien veel in gedaan maar tegen welke prijs? Het is een van de bastaardtalen (COBOL, Pascal, VB, PHP) zonder visie, lijn of esthetiek.\nDit ‘bread \u0026rsquo;n butter’ voor je standaard Microsoft-programmeurs, is een puur kryptonite voor echte Hackers. Een goed vakman vergroeit met zijn gereedschap. Vergroeien met FoxPro geeft een resultaat wat zelfs China Miéville eng zou vinden.\n","date":"November 28, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-62/","section":"Posts","summary":"Via Scobleizer een artikel over Visual FoxPro. Binnenkort komt versie 9.0 uit. Het™ leeft dus nog steeds en volgens het artikel is het nog steeds relevant.\n","title":"FoxPro 9.0","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik weet dat er in Delft bij ons best wel wat mensen bezig zijn met spelletjes maken. Lees ik (via) dat er een Nederlands bedrijf op zoek is naar programmeurs.\nIk ben zelf praktisch niet goed genoeg voor zoiets, wordt het waarschijnlijk nooit maar voor wie dat wel is, is het misschien wel leuk.\n","date":"November 28, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-61/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik weet dat er in Delft bij ons best wel wat mensen bezig zijn met spelletjes maken. Lees ik (via) dat er een Nederlands bedrijf op zoek is naar programmeurs.\n","title":"Spelletjes maken","type":"posts"},{"content":"Mijn politieke desillusie kan nog verder.\nDe VN is te besluiteloos om de meest eenvoudige beslissingen te nemen en eenmaal genomen om die beslissingen te implementeren. Het keer op keer falen en frustreren van resoluties tegen genocide (zo ook in bijv. Rwanda) is er een goed voorbeeld van.\nDe VN door corruptie in het olie-voor-voedsel programma Saddam Hussein aan miljarden heeft geholpen.\nDan heb ik er niet echt veel problemen meer mee om een stuk als dit te geloven.\nDat de VN ‘het beste is wat we (zouden) hebben’ is een kutsmoes. Als we niks beters neer kunnen zetten moeten we ons echt diep schamen.\nWel een goed onderwerp voor een sappige thriller.\n","date":"November 28, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-60/","section":"Posts","summary":"Mijn politieke desillusie kan nog verder.\n","title":"Vergeet de VN","type":"posts"},{"content":"Het hele verhaal hoe de kalkoen —turkey— aan zijn naam komt.\n","date":"November 28, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-59/","section":"Posts","summary":"Het hele verhaal hoe de kalkoen —turkey— aan zijn naam komt.\n","title":"Kalkoen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Gisteren de hele dag ziek geweest, ben nu aan het bijlezen. Verwacht een hoog linkdump gehalte.\nDacht ik dat het in Turkije erg was, in voormalig Joegoslavië kunnen ze er ook wat van.\n","date":"November 28, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-58/","section":"Posts","summary":"Gisteren de hele dag ziek geweest, ben nu aan het bijlezen. Verwacht een hoog linkdump gehalte.\n","title":"Veel nullen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Interessante en treffende toekomstvoorspelling over hoe Google alle informatie in- en uitvoer in ons leven gaat beheersen.\n","date":"November 28, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-57/","section":"Posts","summary":"Interessante en treffende toekomstvoorspelling over hoe Google alle informatie in- en uitvoer in ons leven gaat beheersen.\n","title":"EPIC","type":"posts"},{"content":"Tyfus kut kut kolere hoerekut!\nIk —de geweldige Alper— faal geen tentamens. Dat deed ik vroeger. Slechte gewoonte, heb ik van me afgeschud.\nHet laatste tentamen wat ik heb gefaald was een jaar geleden en dat was omdat ik tijdens het tentamen nog groggy was van de pijnstillers. Alle vier mijn verstandskiezen waren er net uit.\nIk heb vandaag, na lang lang wachten, mijn tentamen Multimedia Compressie terug. Met een vijf! Fuck!\nEn dan wacht ik nog op een ander vak.\nEr zijn een berg verzachtende omstandigheden. Ik had voor dit tentamen al bijna een half jaar geen tentamens meer gemaakt. Ik was er dus een beetje uit. In ieder geval ontwend genoeg om te vergeten oude tentamens te leren.\nDat was dom. De TU zou de TU niet zijn als je vakken kon halen zonder oude tentamens uit je hoofd te kennen. Zeker voor dit tentamen, de vragen die gesteld waren grensden aan het belachelijke.\nVolgende keer beter. Ik heb uit betrouwbare bron dat dit vak mét oefententamens doodsimpel is.\n","date":"November 25, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-56/","section":"Posts","summary":"Tyfus kut kut kolere hoerekut!\n","title":"Uitslag","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik zag net het Nova-item over Verdonk en de imam. In het stukje legde een joodse geestelijke (rabijn Evers) ontzettend welbespraakt uit dat Verdonk meer begrip had kunnen tonen. Dit terwijl er genoeg moslims zijn die in de rij staan om te zeggen dat de imam fout zat.\nGrappig.\n","date":"November 23, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-55/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik zag net het Nova-item over Verdonk en de imam. In het stukje legde een joodse geestelijke (rabijn Evers) ontzettend welbespraakt uit dat Verdonk meer begrip had kunnen tonen. Dit terwijl er genoeg moslims zijn die in de rij staan om te zeggen dat de imam fout zat.\n","title":"Verdonk","type":"posts"},{"content":"Kom ik er net achter dat Georgina Verbaan een blog heeft (via). En Veenstra heeft gelijk, ze schrijft echt heel leuk.\nEn eindelijk trackback die het doet! Erg cool en veel te weinig gebruikt.\n","date":"November 22, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-54/","section":"Posts","summary":"Kom ik er net achter dat Georgina Verbaan een blog heeft (via). En Veenstra heeft gelijk, ze schrijft echt heel leuk.\n","title":"Georgina","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik vind Kopspijkers al ontzettend lang te saai voor woorden. Behalve dat cabaret op het einde dat is meestal nog wel leuk.\nIn dit geval is het juist handig dat ik geen tv heb want ik kan online selectief het programma bekijken. Ik heb net een link gemaakt die de laatste aflevering van Kopspijkers inschakelt vanaf de 39e minuut.\n","date":"November 22, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-53/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik vind Kopspijkers al ontzettend lang te saai voor woorden. Behalve dat cabaret op het einde dat is meestal nog wel leuk.\n","title":"Spijkers","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik lig de afgelopen maanden keer op keer in een deuk als Marc van Gestel op zijn site weer een stukje ‘Lachen om het Circus’ plaatst. Ik weet niet hoe hij eraan komt, ik heb in ieder geval niet de tijd om alle Daily, Night en Tonight en Late Night Shows te bekijken.\nEn dit is dus trackback, voor wie het zich afvroeg. Maar het doet niet zoveel, hij zal dat ook wel uit gezet hebben.\n","date":"November 22, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-52/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik lig de afgelopen maanden keer op keer in een deuk als Marc van Gestel op zijn site weer een stukje ‘Lachen om het Circus’ plaatst. Ik weet niet hoe hij eraan komt, ik heb in ieder geval niet de tijd om alle Daily, Night en Tonight en Late Night Shows te bekijken.\n","title":"Circus","type":"posts"},{"content":"Een ander heftig filmpje hier van Franse soldaten die ongewapende mensen neerschieten in Ivoorkust.\n","date":"November 21, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-51/","section":"Posts","summary":"Een ander heftig filmpje hier van Franse soldaten die ongewapende mensen neerschieten in Ivoorkust.\n","title":"Ivoorkust","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ook al heeft dit met sport niet echt meer iets te maken. Super lomp gevecht op het basketbalveld met filmpje.\n","date":"November 21, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-50/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ook al heeft dit met sport niet echt meer iets te maken. Super lomp gevecht op het basketbalveld met filmpje.\n","title":"NBA","type":"posts"},{"content":"Jojanneke kwam met het geweldige idee om vandaag samen naar het IDFA te gaan. Ik had geen flauw idee dat het nu alweer was en had er eigenlijk ook niet zo bij stil gestaan dat kijken naar documentaires leuk kan zijn.\nHet was leuk, en het was heel fijn om even weg te zijn uit Delft. Festivals zijn altijd leuk.\nWat heb ik gezien?\n26000 gezichten Filmpje van een paar minuten waarin filmmakers de illegalen die nu worden uitgezet een gezicht proberen te geven. Dat vind ik op zich best goed, maar die zieligdoenerij die erbij schijnt te horen hoeft van mij niet zo. (En die Franse muziek op de achtergrond hoefde van mij al helemaal niet.)\nRusselltribunalen [imdb] Kort verslag van een tribunaal gehouden in Zweden naar aanleiding van de oorlog in Vietnam om de oorlog die de Verenigde Staten daar voeren te veroordelen.\nDe aanklagers hadden alle linkse intellectuelen verzameld die ze konden vinden. Verder ook een paar Vietnamesen die gewond waren geraakt en er dus zielig uit zagen.\nDe voorzitter van het tribunaal was Jean Paul Sartre en hij had er —als notoir communist— geen enkele moeite mee om de VS te veroordelen.\nIk weet bijna niks van die oorlog in Vietnam af maar als ik zie Sartre tegen Amerika is ben ik al automatisch voor. Communisten waren en blijven te dom om op te poepen. Elke oorlog tegen communisten is dus automatisch goed.\nShake Hands with the Devil [imdb] Intens en intiem verslag over de terugkeer van Reméo Dallaire naar het Rwanda waar hij tien jaar geleden als bevelhebber van de VN vredesmacht machteloos moest toekijken bij de slachtingen.\nIn de film en door Dallaire wordt niemand gespaard. Hoe kan het ook anders? Ik wist er al wel wat van af (chronologie) maar nooit genoeg natuurlijk. Ik heb wel wat bijgeleerd en ik ben wel geraakt door de onwil van bijvoorbeeld de VN.\nInternationaal gezien heeft iedereen natuurlijk boter op zijn hoofd maar sommigen tonnen meer dan anderen. Het had ontzettend makkelijk voorkomen kunnen worden als er ergens een keer een beslissing anders was genomen dan uit puur eigenbelang. Naast dat eigenbelang waren er geen strategische of economische belangen; en het ging om zwarte mensen in Afrika dus het kon niemand een fuck schelen.\nTen eerste kon dit alleen maar gebeuren door de geïnstitutionaliseerde apartheid die de Belgen in hun koloniale macht hebben ingevoerd. De Belgen stuurden rond \u0026lsquo;94 wel troepen maar veel te weinig. Dallaire merkt op dat zijn vader zich heeft ingezet om België te bevrijden van de Nazi bezetting. Hij stond er zelf om een de Tutsis te beschermen maar echte hulp kon er bij de Belgen niet vanaf.\nOnder Dallaire\u0026rsquo;s bevel worden er tien Belgen vermoord. Dat nemen ze hem nog steeds kwalijk. Tijdens zijn bezoek schuift een daar aanwezige Belg op een ontzettend smerige en laffe manier Dallair die schuld weer in de schoenen. In Rwanda weten ze ondertussen dat ze van Belgen niet anders moeten verwachten.\nIk wil niet zeggen dat alle Belgen een laag soort mensen zijn. Het is een land waar een derde van de mensen stemt op Dewinter, trek zelf je conclusie.\nDuidelijk is ook dat de massamoorden gebeurden met hulp en instemming van de Fransen. En dat de segregatie door de katholieke kerk in stand werd gehouden. Waarom nemen Nederlandse katholieken daar nou nooit een keertje openlijk afstand van?\nClinton heeft ook schuld. Hij was veel te slap bezig en waarschijnlijk bezig met andere dingen. Dat hij afgelopen jaar in interviews over zijn boek zei dat hij het niet wist dat mensen met machetes elkaar zo snel zouden kunnen afmaken; dat is een regelrechte leugen. Iedereen wist het toen. Maar niemand is in staat die schuld toe te geven.\nConclusie: Het enige wat telt is realpolitik.\nCell Stories Vier korte verhalen zogenaamd opgenomen met de camerafunctie van een GSM waarin mensen een leuk verhaal vertellen over hun GSM. Leuk, snel en grappig. En met die aparte vormfactor toch een beetje bijzonder.\n24 Hours on Craigslist [imdb] Ik had al een tijdje geleden op televisie een documentaire gezien over Craig de oprichter van een soort ViaVia in San Francisco, de Craigslist. Deze documentaire liet Craig een beetje vaag en richtte zich meer op de mensen achter de advertenties en hun verhalen.\nDit geeft een ontzettend leuk beeld in waar mensen mee bezig zijn, waar ze naar op zoek zijn en hoe internet ze helpt om hun doelen te bereiken. Een erg positief verhaal.\n","date":"November 21, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-49/","section":"Posts","summary":"Jojanneke kwam met het geweldige idee om vandaag samen naar het IDFA te gaan. Ik had geen flauw idee dat het nu alweer was en had er eigenlijk ook niet zo bij stil gestaan dat kijken naar documentaires leuk kan zijn.\n","title":"IDFA","type":"posts"},{"content":"Artikel op Newsforge waar Jem Matzan tijdens de lancering van Solaris 10 McNealy and Schwartz heeft kunnen interviewen.\nHet bevestigt grotendeels mijn vorige stukje over Solaris, maar het is wel wat positiever. Op twee punten. Want Solaris 10 is echt een goed besturingssysteem. En McNealy en Schwartz hebben misschien wel goede bedoelingen maar die komen verwrongen naar buiten door de marketing-deken die over Sun heen ligt.\nZe zullen er wel goed voor betaald worden.\nOf Solaris 10 nu wel of niet Linux uit de markt drijft? Ik denk het niet. Ik weet wel dat we tegen Microsoft niet veel zullen hebben aan onderlinge twisten. Voordeel is wel dat Microsoft wat servers betreft niks heeft dat in de verste verte kan tippen aan Linux, *BSD of Solaris.\nJammer is dus altijd wel dat wanneer bedrijfsbelangen in het spel komen, het ontwikkelen van software niet leuk meer is. Want dan moet er verkocht worden en moeten de dingen mooier worden afgespiegeld dan ze zijn en noem maar op.\nMooie voorbeelden van produkten waar het anders kan zijn Linux \u0026amp; Python. Goede kwaliteit op een leuke manier.\n","date":"November 19, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-48/","section":"Posts","summary":"Artikel op Newsforge waar Jem Matzan tijdens de lancering van Solaris 10 McNealy and Schwartz heeft kunnen interviewen.\n","title":"Meer Zon","type":"posts"},{"content":"Interview met video van Bill Gates in El Mundo.\nNatuurlijk naïeve, weinig kritische vragen. Bill Gates krijgt genoeg kans om te vertellen hoe goed Microsoft wel niet is (heel veel halve waarheden).\nEn wat voor een ontzettende weldoener hij wel niet is. Niet zo moeilijk natuurlijk, de ene helft van de wereld uitzuigen om met dat geld de andere helft van de wereld te ‘helpen’ (aan Microsoft produkten).\n","date":"November 19, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-47/","section":"Posts","summary":"Interview met video van Bill Gates in El Mundo.\n","title":"Tipo más rico","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik neem mijn vorige post terug. Microsoft is de bron van al het Kwaad™ en moet zo snel mogelijk dood gemaakt worden.\nLees maar, ze kunen niet leuk en eerlijk samenspelen met anderen:\nHet besturingssysteem Linux schendt volgens Microsoft-bestuursvoorzitter Steve Ballmer 228 patenten,\nNatuurlijk is het FUD en wordt het rap ontkracht door onze good guys.\nAls die softwarepatenten erdoorheen komen omdat onze corrupte overheid gekocht is door Microsoft wordt het een zwarte dag voor goede mensen.\nOns kabinet heeft te weinig ruggegraat en visie. Het moet komen van Polen.\nHier een stuk van Bruce Perens —leider van de vrije software wereld— over wat er mis is met patenten.\n","date":"November 19, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-46/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik neem mijn vorige post terug. Microsoft is de bron van al het Kwaad™ en moet zo snel mogelijk dood gemaakt worden.\n","title":"Patent","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik heb pas met wat hulp een nieuw CV in elkaar gedraaid. Het komende jaar moet ik er wschl mee aan de slag en dan is het wel fijn om een goed CV te hebben.\nLees het als je wil, en commentaar is welkom (daar is die link hieronder voor).\n","date":"November 19, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-45/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik heb pas met wat hulp een nieuw CV in elkaar gedraaid. Het komende jaar moet ik er wschl mee aan de slag en dan is het wel fijn om een goed CV te hebben.\n","title":"Résumé","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik start net de online variant van MSN Messenger en tot mijn verbazing is het gaaf en werkt het ook in Firefox.\nGoed! Slag voor Microsoft, Google nog steeds op voorsprong.\n","date":"November 18, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-44/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik start net de online variant van MSN Messenger en tot mijn verbazing is het gaaf en werkt het ook in Firefox.\n","title":"Web Messenger","type":"posts"},{"content":"Her en der tot zelfs in de Nederlandse media valt te lezen dat Sun de ‘aanval’ inzet op Linux (Parool, Nu).\nWeinig interessente verslaggeving. De industrie zegt dit: Newsforge, eweek en crn.\nHet komt erop neer dat de vrijgave van de nieuwe Solaris 10 —al jaren lang dé melkkoe van Sun— ervoor moet gaan zorgen dat Sun weer serieus meedoet in de Open Source wereld. Een wereld die tot nu toe vrijwel helemaal draait om Linux.\nVertaald: Linux is hip en Sun wil erbij horen.\nHet aanbod is: downloaden en gebruik van Solaris 10 is gratis, ondersteuning is te koop en je mag de bron zien maar die mag je niet verder verspreiden.\nEr is zeker geen sprake van een serieuze aanval of bedreiging voor Linux. Wat ze nu doen is deels symbolisch en voor de rest gewoon de prijs van hun systeem ver genoeg omlaag gooien om aantrekkelijk te blijven in een wereld waar kwaliteit gratis is.\nSolaris is gewoon te onbekend en niet vrij genoeg om echt een speler te kunnen worden in de Open Source wereld.\nOnbekend Linux heeft over de hele wereld veel meer bekendheid bij veel meer mensen dan Solaris. Dat komt vooral door het feit dat Linux echt Vrij is en altijd is geweest. De nieuwe Solaris zal onmogelijk veel moeite moeten doen om de harten van Linux gebruikers te veroveren. Linux gebruikers hebben hun systeem al, hebben hun distributie al en hebben vrij weinig reden om over te stappen.\nGesloten Veel motivatie voor mensen om bij te gaan dragen aan het Solaris systeem is er ook niet. Hun bijdragen zijn niet echt vrij en van de gemeenschap maar komen allemaal weer ten goede aan Sun.\nDat is een grote tegenstelling met Linux. Maak Linux beter en iedereen heeft er wat aan. Maak Solaris beter en Sun krijgt meer geld.\nJammer dat de licentie voor zover ik kan zien niet echt Open Source compatibel is. Dat lijkt me expres. Anders zou Linux zonder problemen de geavanceerde eigenschappen van Solaris kunnen overnemen.\nDie features worden er nu ook wel in gebouwd maar te duurt dan wel wat langer voor Linux op hetzelfde niveau zit.\nEigen Huis Wat Sun nu vooral doet is hun eigen huis in stand houden. Dus voorkomen dat mensen die nu Solaris klant zijn overstappen naar Linux omdat dat goedkoper is en dat de plek is waar alle gave nieuwe ontwikkeling gebeurt en waar de applicaties draaien.\nGroter worden zal dat huis van Sun sowieso niet. Technisch gezien hebben ze al heel lang niet zo heel veel te bieden. En die goede dingen die er uit Sun komen worden heel slecht verkocht door Sun. Het is een godswonder dat er nu zoveel mensen Java gebruiken en dat blijven ze ook wel doen. Maar als je nu goed naar ontwikkelplatforms kijkt maakt .NET/CLR (met Mono) een sterkere indruk.\nMicrosoft is —hoe jammer ook— meer gericht op de behoeften van ontwikkelaars, op de wensen van gebruikers en ze zijn veel beter in het evangelisme.\n","date":"November 16, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-43/","section":"Posts","summary":"Her en der tot zelfs in de Nederlandse media valt te lezen dat Sun de ‘aanval’ inzet op Linux (Parool, Nu).\n","title":"Zon onder","type":"posts"},{"content":"Het nieuwe gebouw is open, zie flash (via). Die kunstwerken die je ziet in de presentatie heb ik in Berlijn gezien! Nu het gebouw nog.\n","date":"November 15, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-42/","section":"Posts","summary":"Het nieuwe gebouw is open, zie flash (via). Die kunstwerken die je ziet in de presentatie heb ik in Berlijn gezien! Nu het gebouw nog.\n","title":"MoMA","type":"posts"},{"content":"Leuk weer die ideeën van Donner om de wetten op de godslastering aan te scherpen. Het is mooi dat hij op dat idee meteen wordt aangevallen door veel mensen o.a. Ellian, Teeuwen en D66.\nCDA\u0026rsquo;ers hebben een door God gegeven vrijbrief om de debielste dingen te doen en zeggen. Het is al erg dat die partij door heel veel mensen is gekozen. Erger is —zie Bush— de mogelijkheid dat ze worden herkozen.\nDat D66 wil dat hele artikel juist schrappen. Misschien zodat Nederland dan minder op Iran lijkt.\n","date":"November 15, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-41/","section":"Posts","summary":"Leuk weer die ideeën van Donner om de wetten op de godslastering aan te scherpen. Het is mooi dat hij op dat idee meteen wordt aangevallen door veel mensen o.a. Ellian, Teeuwen en D66.\n","title":"Kutgod","type":"posts"},{"content":"Dat fascisme in welke vorm dan ook eng is, kun je zien in dit erg mooi gemaakte filmpje ‘what barry says’ met een redelijk bekende maar toch heftige boodschap (via).\n‘what barry says’ is meant to appeal to a visually literate generation, hold the attention and give food for thought.\n","date":"November 15, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-40/","section":"Posts","summary":"Dat fascisme in welke vorm dan ook eng is, kun je zien in dit erg mooi gemaakte filmpje ‘what barry says’ met een redelijk bekende maar toch heftige boodschap (via).\n","title":"Land of the Brave","type":"posts"},{"content":"Net twee uur van mijn leven verspild met kijken naar King Arthur. Verreweg een van de slechtste films die ik de afgelopen tijd gezien heb.\nLijstje:\nVerkrachting van legende Slechte actie Slecht verhaal Grof onrealistisch ","date":"November 14, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-39/","section":"Posts","summary":"Net twee uur van mijn leven verspild met kijken naar King Arthur. Verreweg een van de slechtste films die ik de afgelopen tijd gezien heb.\n","title":"Arturius","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik kreeg (via) een fotogallerij door met veel foto\u0026rsquo;s uit India. Veel mooie foto\u0026rsquo;s met heel veel kleur, prachtige gebouwen en overwegend blije mensen.\nIk moet naar India (wist ik al).\n","date":"November 14, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-38/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik kreeg (via) een fotogallerij door met veel foto’s uit India. Veel mooie foto’s met heel veel kleur, prachtige gebouwen en overwegend blije mensen.\n","title":"India","type":"posts"},{"content":"[Ochtend] Ik heb de halve nacht van donderdag op vrijdag Neverwinter Nights zitten spelen. Leuk, mooi, spannend spel. Doet het goed bij de D\u0026amp;D fanboys. Op een gegeven moment loopt dat leuke spel vast. Na een kwartier vind ik het wel leuk geweest en ram het spel eruit. De ellende begint.\nBestandsboom corrupt (reiserfs). Paniek. Werkt nog wel een beetje. Geen data weg. Data backupen naar andere schijf. Kort slapen. Boom proberen te herstellen (\u0026ndash;rebuild-tree). Boom hersteld. Desktop terug.\nAlles lijkt ruwweg in orde. Er zijn een paar systeemdingen (package database) weg die ik met met veel moeite probeer te herstellen.\nIk ben zo lekker bezig met mijn pc dus ik mis een college en een afspraak. Ik sleur me weg van mijn scherm en fiets naar de TU twee loodzware boeken in mijn tas. Geef de boeken terug aan O. Nog een paar boeken lenen en hij krijgt ook een fles Schots.\nTe laat voor college, geen trek in lunch. Ik drink koffie. Ik fiets naar de enige winkel in de TU-wijk en koop een verjaardagskaart. Ik fiets door. Met verkleumde vingers schrijf ik hem en duw hem bij J. door de brievenbus. Ik hoop dat ze een leukere dag heeft dan ik.\n[Middag] Vrijdagmiddag MKT5 Project Kick-Off. Ik ben er bij. Ik ben er altijd bij; ik ben nu een brave student.\nWegens organisatorische dingen duurde het lang. We zaten met zijn allen in een lokaal de groepsvorming af te wachten. Weinig vrienden in de groep, veel kenissen. Moeilijk om dan een groepje te vormen. Rondkijken. Wie zijn er. Wie wil mij? Bij wie wil ik? Stress!\nNiet te snel bewegen. Geen deuren dichtdoen. Een beetje oogcontact maken met bekenden. Wat kletsen met D. Dan komt de opluchting (voor mij): de groepjes worden at random ingedeeld.\nWeer lang wachten maar nu geen stress meer. Ik loop naar J. toe en ga ultramega-ouwehoeren. J. en ik kennen elkaar al net zo lang als de studie. De groepen zijn bekend. Ik zit met J. in de groep en nog wat mensen die ik meer of minder ken.\n[Avond] Ik kom dus thuis en ga weer aan de slag mijn pc\u0026rsquo;tje weer beter te maken. Dat lijkt goed te gaan tot hij er helemaal de brui aan geeft (iets met initrd). De ellende bereikt een apotheose: verwarring, teleurstelling, vertwijfeling, huilen.\nIk speel met het idee om XP te installeren maar ik wil niet terug. Ik wil ons verlies niet moeten toegeven. Ik installeer Debian opnieuw en vrij pijnloos krijg ik mijn oude systeem weer terug.\nIk zou naar een feestje gaan maar dat schiet er in de ellende een beetje bij in.\n[Zweden] Dat was dus mijn vrijdag. De vrijdag waarop ik ook in Lund had kunnen zitten. Ik had het aanbod van R. in mijn zak: cheerleader en mental coach van de Delftse inzending voor het ‘EKP’. Geen rijbewijs dus heen en terug suffen in de auto. Mocht niet eens meedoen met programmeren dus veel tijd om de stad en de Zweedsen te bekijken. Twee dagen Zweden, ik dacht met mijn domme kop dat ik wat beters te doen had.\n","date":"November 14, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-37/","section":"Posts","summary":"[Ochtend] Ik heb de halve nacht van donderdag op vrijdag Neverwinter Nights zitten spelen. Leuk, mooi, spannend spel. Doet het goed bij de D\u0026D fanboys. Op een gegeven moment loopt dat leuke spel vast. Na een kwartier vind ik het wel leuk geweest en ram het spel eruit. De ellende begint.\n","title":"Geen Zweden","type":"posts"},{"content":"Draai ik net het Oog in met storende ontvangst. Val ik middenin een gesprek met Lanoye en van Rossem. Als ik iets nodig had na de mediastorm van de afgelopen week, was het dit.\n","date":"November 13, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-36/","section":"Posts","summary":"Draai ik net het Oog in met storende ontvangst. Val ik middenin een gesprek met Lanoye en van Rossem. Als ik iets nodig had na de mediastorm van de afgelopen week, was het dit.\n","title":"Oog","type":"posts"},{"content":"Er komt binnenkort een —wat lijkt— erg coole shakespeare-verfilming aan.\nKijk de trailer van The Merchant of Venice en wacht net als ik.\nIk heb hier nog Much Ado About Nothing en Richard III op band maar mijn video is stuk. Op mijn harde schijf ligt Hamlet nog, die dan maar kijken vanavond.\n","date":"November 13, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-35/","section":"Posts","summary":"Er komt binnenkort een —wat lijkt— erg coole shakespeare-verfilming aan.\n","title":"Koopman","type":"posts"},{"content":"Unbelievable. I have been to the Great Wall of China. I have seen the Pyramids of Egypt. I\u0026rsquo;ve even witnessed a grown man satisfy a camel. But never in all my years as a sportscaster have I witnessed something as improbable, as impossible, as what we\u0026rsquo;ve witnessed here.\nInstant klassieker! Dodgeball: a true underdog story. Ik heb me geen seconde verveeld en half kapot gelachen. Een film met alles.\n","date":"November 13, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-34/","section":"Posts","summary":"Unbelievable. I have been to the Great Wall of China. I have seen the Pyramids of Egypt. I’ve even witnessed a grown man satisfy a camel. But never in all my years as a sportscaster have I witnessed something as improbable, as impossible, as what we’ve witnessed here.\n","title":"Dodge!","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik moest vandaag onwillekeurig denken aan de werken van Richter die ik van de zomer in Berlijn heb gezien. Grote indrukwekkende zwart-wit afdrukken en echt bizar.\nKorte linkdump van “October 18, 1977” met heftige werken als Erhängte en Beerdigung\nTe doen: goed boek vinden over de RAF. Aha\n","date":"November 11, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-32/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik moest vandaag onwillekeurig denken aan de werken van Richter die ik van de zomer in Berlijn heb gezien. Grote indrukwekkende zwart-wit afdrukken en echt bizar.\n","title":"Richter","type":"posts"},{"content":"Wat er woensdag hier in de Laak gebeurde bracht alles wat er gebeurt wel heel dicht bij. Een meisje op mijn werk woont naast het gebied wat was afgezet en iedereen in Delft is weleens met tram 1 langs de Laak gereden.\nHoe bizar het ook is wat er gebeurd is, de schade is beperkt: een paar agenten gewond, drie granaten gevonden. De impact hiervan samen met de moord vorige week blijft groot.\nHou de huidige toestand in je achterhoofd en probeer je nu eens voor te stellen hoe een land zou reageren als er iets gebeurt van de orde van een 9/11. Onvoorstelbaar, niet?\n","date":"November 11, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-31/","section":"Posts","summary":"Wat er woensdag hier in de Laak gebeurde bracht alles wat er gebeurt wel heel dicht bij. Een meisje op mijn werk woont naast het gebied wat was afgezet en iedereen in Delft is weleens met tram 1 langs de Laak gereden.\n","title":"Laak","type":"posts"},{"content":"Net Van Helsing gezien. Een stuk leuker dan ik verwacht had. Spannend verhaal, veel actie, aardige special effects en (belangrijk) neemt zichzelf niet al te serieus.\nOok nog de meest verwijfde Dracula die ik heb gezien.\n","date":"November 11, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-30/","section":"Posts","summary":"Net Van Helsing gezien. Een stuk leuker dan ik verwacht had. Spannend verhaal, veel actie, aardige special effects en (belangrijk) neemt zichzelf niet al te serieus.\n","title":"On-dood","type":"posts"},{"content":"Stoere shit!\nWe zijn met Xing Yi nu bij een intermezzo in de training aangekomen. Normale vormen worden geloof ik eventjes opgeschort en volgende sessie beginnen we sabel-oefeningen. Zo\u0026rsquo;n ding wat hieronder staat.\nDe eerste les mogen we nog even aanvoelen met stokken maar daarna ‘moeten’ we zo\u0026rsquo;n ding kopen.\n","date":"November 11, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-29/","section":"Posts","summary":"Stoere shit!\n","title":"Weapon of Destruction","type":"posts"},{"content":"Dat tentamen mot1420 waar ik niet zo zeker van was of ik het gehaald had of niet, heb ik gehaald! Een mooie 7.\nIk kreeg er vandaag een aardig mailtje van de docent over. Dat zouden ze vaker moeten doen.\n","date":"November 8, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-28/","section":"Posts","summary":"Dat tentamen mot1420 waar ik niet zo zeker van was of ik het gehaald had of niet, heb ik gehaald! Een mooie 7.\n","title":"Score!","type":"posts"},{"content":"Door tentamens enzo ontzettend lang al niet bij mijn ouders langs geweest. Dat zou ik dit weekend dan maar doen. Ook nog even koffie drinken in de stad maar dat ging niet door.\nLeuke dag uitgekozen, werkzaamheden ergens aan het spoor tussen Den Haag en Leiden. Ik kwam er wel maar het duurde allebei de kanten op bijna twee keer zo lang (lekker veel leestijd).\nHeen: over Den Haag CS naar Leiden en dan de stoptrein tot RAI. Terug: vanaf Amstel naar Utrecht en Rotterdam. Ik was wel goed op tijd voor de iftar.\nOok nog langs geweest bij mijn opa en oma. Zelfde reden. Met mijn oma gaat het nu weer een stuk beter. Ze heeft een flinke operatie gehad maar kan nu wel weer rondlopen.\nDe kaart die ik mijn opa had gestuurd uit Slowakije is niet aangekomen. Ik stuur altijd kaarten naar ze als ik in het buitenland ben. Mijn opa vertelde dat toen hij nog bij de spoorwegen werkte hij en mijn oma ook nog naar Brussel en Berlijn zijn geweest.\nHij is nu 77 en was dus 54 toen ik geboren werd. Gek dat dat nu allemaal zo lang geleden is.\nMijn broertje heeft een webcam die hij niet kan gebruiken. Zijn USB-poort is stuk. Dus die gebruik ik nu. Driver compileren ging lekker vlot. Xawtv opstarten deed wel steeds mijn X bevriezen maar met gqcam en camE kom ik wel een heel eind. Plaatjes staan nu online. Ik hoop dat de beeldkwaliteit overdag beter is. Ik ga nog wel iets gaafs bouwen op mijn hoofdpagina voor het webcam-plaatje.\n","date":"November 7, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-27/","section":"Posts","summary":"Door tentamens enzo ontzettend lang al niet bij mijn ouders langs geweest. Dat zou ik dit weekend dan maar doen. Ook nog even koffie drinken in de stad maar dat ging niet door.\n","title":"Amsterdam","type":"posts"},{"content":"Gisteren na het werk Munchkin gespeeld. Erg leuk D\u0026amp;D-achtig kaartspel voor mensen die het echte spel teveel gedoe vinden en bang zijn om een ‘nerd’ te worden. We waren er wel lang mee bezig.\nHet was laat, dus even een shoarma gegeten en naar een nieuw feestconcept in Delft: Meatlovers. Een feest met leuke mensen, goede muziek en veel te dure drank. Een mix die ik in Delft nog niet heb gezien.\nDat feest liep natuurlijk veel te vroeg af dus daarna door naar de Triangle. Daar was ik nog nooit geweest en dat was echt leuk. En alles was er een stuk goedkoper (ook niet slecht).\n","date":"November 6, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-26/","section":"Posts","summary":"Gisteren na het werk Munchkin gespeeld. Erg leuk D\u0026D-achtig kaartspel voor mensen die het echte spel teveel gedoe vinden en bang zijn om een ‘nerd’ te worden. We waren er wel lang mee bezig.\n","title":"Feest","type":"posts"},{"content":"Wat zijn A.F.Th. en Holman toch goede schrijvers. En wat een schande dat ik van allebei nog niks heb gelezen.\nNog meer boeken kopen?\nBeginnen met:\nGrunberg A.F.Th. Holman Ebru Reve Mak Rosenboom Meer scoren van:\nNasr Lanoye Bouazza Büch Haasse Ik heb vandaag in de trein-chaos een flink stuk in Perdido Street Station gelezen. Erg leuk en (letterlijk) ontzettend anders.\n","date":"November 6, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-25/","section":"Posts","summary":"Wat zijn A.F.Th. en Holman toch goede schrijvers. En wat een schande dat ik van allebei nog niks heb gelezen.\n","title":"Schrijvers","type":"posts"},{"content":"Gisteravond laat nog geluisterd naar de nachtuitzending van Radio 1. Om twee uur naar bed toen net de eerste paar staten kwamen binnendruppelen. Vanmorgen opgestaan en meteen het bed uit om de uitslag te checken.\nHoe je toch een kater kunt krijgen zonder iets te drinken.\nDe verslaggeving die we hier hebben gekregen over de Amerikaanse verkiezingen was eenzijdig, eenzijdig en eenzijdig. De journalisten vielen over elkaar heen om Kerry te steunen en Republikeinen belachelijk te maken. Dat gebrek aan objectiviteit en uitleg zorgt er nu voor dat Amerika een verkiezingsuitslag heeft die niemand in Nederland begrijpt.\n","date":"November 4, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-24/","section":"Posts","summary":"Gisteravond laat nog geluisterd naar de nachtuitzending van Radio 1. Om twee uur naar bed toen net de eerste paar staten kwamen binnendruppelen. Vanmorgen opgestaan en meteen het bed uit om de uitslag te checken.\n","title":"Uitslag","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik hoorde vandaag in de hele media-hype rond de dood van Theo van Gogh dat zijn laatste twee projecten Medea en 06-05 misschien wel zijn beste zijn geweest.\nOver 06-05 zegt van Gogh in zijn videodagboek al dat hij er ontzettend blij mee is.\nHet stuk wat ik van Medea vandaag op tv heb gezien zag er heel stoer uit. Dat kan erg gaaf worden. Het is al zo\u0026rsquo;n goed verhaal.\nIk heb pas weer de toneelbewerking van Lanoye van dit stuk gelezen. Medea komt in januari op televisie. Hier alvast het einde van Lanoye:\nJason: Die propjes.\nMedea: Propjes?\nJason: Propjes was.\nMedea: Voor in uw oren?\nJason: Ja.\nMedea: Wat is het daarvan?\nJason: Dat ik jou niet mocht horen zingen.\nMedea: Oh, dát.\nJason: Waarom was dat?\nMedea: Om u te bechermen.\nJason: Beschermen?\nMedea: Tegen mij.\n","date":"November 3, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-23/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik hoorde vandaag in de hele media-hype rond de dood van Theo van Gogh dat zijn laatste twee projecten Medea en 06-05 misschien wel zijn beste zijn geweest.\n","title":"Euripides","type":"posts"},{"content":"Net terug uit het pittoreske Rijswijk bij nacht. De sifu is ziek en daarom is er vanavond geen Xing Yi stond er op de deur geplakt. Hadden ze wel even kunnen bellen…\nGeeft niet. Fietsen is ook sport, en nu heb ik meer tijd om me te verdiepen in DPCM, DCT en MPEG.\n","date":"November 2, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-22/","section":"Posts","summary":"Net terug uit het pittoreske Rijswijk bij nacht. De sifu is ziek en daarom is er vanavond geen Xing Yi stond er op de deur geplakt. Hadden ze wel even kunnen bellen…\n","title":"Rijswijk","type":"posts"},{"content":"Je hebt nu mensen die zich verslagen voelen en hard uit willen halen. Dat is best begrijpelijk. Op 9/11 had bijna elke Amerikaan iets van “we\u0026rsquo;re gonna tear the world a new asshole”.\nBegrijpelijk maar niet zo goed. Als je begint aan hard generaliserend terugslaan dan is het einde zoek.\nLaten we hopen dat iedereen waakzamer is over onze vrijheid van meningsuiting. Die vrijheid is in Nederland nog nooit absoluut geweest. Dat wordt misschien een keertje tijd.\nHet maakt niet uit of je voor of tegen van Gogh was. In allebei de gevallen is het erg om een van de weinige niet-hypocriete mensen in Nederland kwijt te raken.\nJuist voor zijn tegenstanders is het een verlies om zo\u0026rsquo;n formidabele vijand kwijt te raken, lijkt me.\n","date":"November 2, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-21/","section":"Posts","summary":"Je hebt nu mensen die zich verslagen voelen en hard uit willen halen. Dat is best begrijpelijk. Op 9/11 had bijna elke Amerikaan iets van “we’re gonna tear the world a new asshole”.\n","title":"Vijanden","type":"posts"},{"content":"Kutzooi! Theo van Gogh doodgeschoten (stream). Inderdaad, niet echt onverwacht maar was er de vorige keer niet afgesproken dat zoiets nooit meer mocht gebeuren?\nYeah right. Wedden dat binnenkort Hirsi Ali \u0026amp; Wilders onder een wit laken liggen.\nBalkendende: “Nederland is een land waar mensen voor hun mening uit kunnen komen. Daar moeten we met zijn allen voor staan.”\nBullshit. Nederland is rot en decadent.\nIk ga maar leren aan mijn tentamen. Hoe eerder ik afgestudeerd ben hoe eerder ik weg kan uit dit kutland.\n","date":"November 2, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-20/","section":"Posts","summary":"Kutzooi! Theo van Gogh doodgeschoten (stream). Inderdaad, niet echt onverwacht maar was er de vorige keer niet afgesproken dat zoiets nooit meer mocht gebeuren?\n","title":"Vermoord","type":"posts"},{"content":"Lief hè, die twee koninginnen die wakker proberen te blijven.\nWil ik hier de ShockWave animatie plakken die her en der te zien is, knipt CoreBlog hem er elke keer netjes voor me uit.\n","date":"October 31, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-19/","section":"Posts","summary":"Lief hè, die twee koninginnen die wakker proberen te blijven.\n","title":"Uur vroeger","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik heb net een tentamen “The Innovating Firm in a Societal Context” gehad. Dat is moeilijkdoenerij voor wat eigenlijk inleiding economie is.\nIk was er niet ontzettend goed op voorbereid. Mijn laatste tentamen wat ik heb gedaan is meer dan een half jaar geleden. Ik ging erheen met wat tegenzin.\nHet werd uitgedeeld (met veel gedoe) en het bleek dus grotendeels multiple-choice te zijn. Dat was zorgvuldig geheim gehouden — geen oefententamens. Daar hoeft het niet per se makkelijker van te worden maar ik heb er wel een goed gevoel over en bij een paar van de open vragen kon ik helemaal los.\nVolgende \u0026amp; laatste tentamen: woensdag (Multimedia Compression)\n","date":"October 29, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-18/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik heb net een tentamen “The Innovating Firm in a Societal Context” gehad. Dat is moeilijkdoenerij voor wat eigenlijk inleiding economie is.\n","title":"Tentamen","type":"posts"},{"content":"Dat geweldig leuke plan wat ze hadden in Den Haag om iedereen te verplichten zich te identificeren. Daar gaan ze werk van maken.\nDan wordt het toch tijd om een protest-shirt te kopen.\nIk heb het trouwens geprobeerd om mijn paspoort altijd bij me te hebben. Ik heb alleen een probleem met die harde plastic flap in het paspoort. Die is niet broekzak-proof.\nEr zit bij mij nu een scheur in het plastic. Daar kwam ik niet zelf achter maar een nors kijkende Tsjechische douane-beambte. Ze liet me wel de grens over maar het was niet van harte.\nDat moeilijke gedoe van overheden die zichzelf te serieus nemen…\n","date":"October 27, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-17/","section":"Posts","summary":"Dat geweldig leuke plan wat ze hadden in Den Haag om iedereen te verplichten zich te identificeren. Daar gaan ze werk van maken.\n","title":"Identificatie","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik schreef al wat over Gibson. Ik las pas in een interview met Neal Stephenson het antwoord op de vraag “In a fight between you and William Gibson, who would win?”.\nHet antwoord op die vraag vind ik zo briljant dat ik hem hieronder maar integraal heb opgenomen. Het is een mooi stuk schrijven waarin hij de stijl van Gibson nadoet.\nHet is niet zo gek dat Stephenson het ook nog over Sterling heeft. Gibson en Sterling (vind ik eigenlijk een betere schrijver) werken regelmatig samen.\nStephenson heeft wel eens samengewerkt maar nog niet met een van deze twee. Dat zou echt fantastisch zijn. Groot respect voor deze drie mannen, onze heilige drie-eenheid van de digitale toekomst.\nIk heb voor Sterling en Gibson RSS-bronnen kunnen vinden. Het is altijd leuker om blogs te lezen van Belangrijke Mensen™\nNeal:\nYou don\u0026rsquo;t have to settle for mere idle speculation. Let me tell you how it came out on the three occasions when we did fight.\nThe first time was a year or two after SNOW CRASH came out. I was doing a reading/signing at White Dwarf Books in Vancouver. Gibson stopped by to say hello and extended his hand as if to shake. But I remembered something Bruce Sterling had told me. For, at the time, Sterling and I had formed a pact to fight Gibson. Gibson had been regrown in a vat from scraps of DNA after Sterling had crashed an LNG\ntanker into Gibson\u0026rsquo;s Stealth pleasure barge in the Straits of Juan de Fuca. During the regeneration process, telescoping Carbonite stilettos had been incorporated into Gibson\u0026rsquo;s arms. Remembering this in the nick of time, I grabbed the signing table and flipped it up between us. Of course the Carbonite stilettos pierced it as if it were cork board, but this spoiled his aim long enough for me to whip my wakizashi out from between my shoulder blades and swing at his head. He deflected the blow with a force blast that sprained my wrist. The falling table knocked over a space heater and set fire to the store. Everyone else fled. Gibson and I dueled among blazing stacks of books for a while. Slowly I gained the upper hand, for, on defense, his Praying Mantis style was no match for my Flying Cloud technique. But I lost him behind a cloud of smoke. Then I had to get out of the place. The streets were crowded with his black-suited minions and I had to turn into a swarm of locusts and fly back to Seattle.\nThe second time was a few years later when Gibson came through Seattle on his IDORU tour. Between doing some drive-by signings at local bookstores, he came and devastated my quarter of the city. I had been in a trance for seven days and seven nights and was unaware of these\ngoings-on, but he came to me in a vision and taunted me, and left a message on my cellphone. That evening he was doing a reading at Kane Hall on the University of Washington campus. Swathed in black, I climbed to the top of the hall, mesmerized his snipers, sliced a hole in the roof using a plasma cutter, let myself into the catwalks above the stage, and then leapt down upon him from forty feet above. But I had forgotten that he had once studied in the same monastery as I, and knew all of my techniques. He rolled away at the last moment. I struck only the lectern, smashing it to kindling. Snatching up one jagged shard of oak I adopted the Mountain Tiger position just as you would expect. He pulled off his wireless mike and began to whirl it around his head. From there, the fight proceeded along predictable lines. As a stalemate developed we began to resort more and more to the use of pure energy, modulated by Red Lotus incantations of the third Sung group, which eventually to the collapse of the building\u0026rsquo;s roof and the loss of eight hundred lives. But as they were only peasants, we did not care.\nOur third fight occurred at the Peace Arch on the U.S./Canadian border between Seattle and Vancouver. Gibson wished to retire from that sort of lifestyle that required ceaseless training in the martial arts and sleeping outdoors under the rain. He only wished to sit in his garden brushing out novels on rice paper. But honor dictated that he must\nfight me for a third time first. Of course the Peace Arch did not remain standing for long. Before long my sword arm hung useless at my side. One of my psi blasts kicked up a large divot of earth and rubble, uncovering a silver metallic object, hitherto buried, that seemed to have been crafted by an industrial designer. It was a nitro-veridian device that had been buried there by Sterling. We were able to fly clear before it detonated. The blast caused a seismic rupture that split off a sizable part of Canada and created what we now know as Vancouver Island. This was the last fight between me and Gibson. For both of us, by studying certain ancient prophecies, had independently arrived at the same conclusion, namely that Sterling\u0026rsquo;s professed interest in industrial design was a mere cover for work in superweapons. Gibson and I formed a pact to fight Sterling. So far we have made little headway in seeking out his lair of brushed steel and white LEDs, because I had a dentist appointment and Gibson had to attend a writers\u0026rsquo; conference, but keep an eye on Slashdot for any further developments.\n","date":"October 27, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-16/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik schreef al wat over Gibson. Ik las pas in een interview met Neal Stephenson het antwoord op de vraag “In a fight between you and William Gibson, who would win?”.\n","title":"Trinité","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik heb van de week nog een boek van Gibson uitgelezen: Count Zero.\nIk kon Gibson\u0026rsquo;s schrijfstijl bij Neuromancer niet uitstaan. Dat is toegegeven zijn zwakste maar gek genoeg ook zijn meest invloedrijke boek.\nHoe meer ik van Gibson lees, hoe meer ik van hem wil lezen. Ik raakte echt verslaafd in Portugal toen ik Burning Chrome en Mona Lisa Overdrive las. Natuurlijk geen ingebonden papier maar als e-book op mijn Palm. Ik ben nu goed op weg om alles van hem gelezen te hebben.\nCount Zero is goud van oud. Het is dezelfde donker-futuristische wereld van corporate ninja\u0026rsquo;s en scheermes-meisjes. We zien er dezelfde iconen terug uit andere boeken: de gestoord rijke Tessier-Ashpool familie en de kroeg the Gentleman Loser waar vroeger alle gave jockeys rondhingen.\nEr zit niet echt een heel sterk verhaal in, maar het leest heel lekker weg. En Gibson weet —in dit boek meer dan in andere— het menselijke te bewaren in die rare toekomst.\n","date":"October 27, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-15/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik heb van de week nog een boek van Gibson uitgelezen: Count Zero.\n","title":"Zero Interrupts","type":"posts"},{"content":"Wat ik al vermoedde is waar. Het zou beter voor de wereld zijn als Google president van de VS zou zijn.\n","date":"October 26, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-14/","section":"Posts","summary":"Wat ik al vermoedde is waar. Het zou beter voor de wereld zijn als Google president van de VS zou zijn.\n","title":"Google Potus","type":"posts"},{"content":"Het is tentamenperiode. Die periode van het jaar dat iedereen zich thuis opsluit en doet alsof ie studeert.\nIk had er genoeg van dus ik heb vandaag flink hard gelopen en ik heb net Simon gezien.\n","date":"October 25, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-13/","section":"Posts","summary":"Het is tentamenperiode. Die periode van het jaar dat iedereen zich thuis opsluit en doet alsof ie studeert.\n","title":"Tentamens","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik heb een tijdje geleden de film “Ae fond kiss” van Ken Loach gezien in de sneak.\nDit is een hele integere film over een Pakistaans islamitische jongen die een relatie met een Iers katholiek meisje begint. Van zijn familie mag het niet want hij is al beloofd aan een meisje uit Pakistan en ‘westerse vrouwen zijn onbetrouwbaar’.\nHij wordt de hele film lang tussen deze twee polen heen en weer geslingerd. Je familie of de liefde.\nDe film is integer omdat Loach allebei de kanten een eerlijke kans wil geven.\nDe ouders van de jongen hebben het moeilijk gehad. Ze zijn gediscrimineerd. Hij zal toch altijd een buitenlander blijven, dus het heeft geen zin om met een blanke vrouw te trouwen. De liefde die hij voelt voor haar kan in een jaar over zijn en dan is ze weg. Hij mag zijn familie niet teleurstellen en te schande maken.\nEn aan de andere kant is er de liefde met haar die hij dan op moet geven. Hij moet weggaan bij de vrouw die hem gelukkig maakt (en hij haar).\nOndanks Loach zijn beste pogingen is het moeilijk om sympathie op te brengen voor de familie. Als Westerse kijker kun je denk ik geen echt begrip opbrengen voor een primitief concept als collectivistische familie-eer. Voor mensen die hun eigen kind voor een onmenselijke keuze zouden stellen en zonder blikken of blozen elke vorm van emotionele druk zouden uitoefenen.\nIk kon het in elk geval niet.\n","date":"October 24, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-12/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik heb een tijdje geleden de film “Ae fond kiss” van Ken Loach gezien in de sneak.\n","title":"Loach","type":"posts"},{"content":"Via verschillende blogs klein nieuws over Google. Ik heb net een filmpje bekeken van Jef Dean die een presentatie geeft over Google. Geen hele spannende nieuwe dingen maar wel leuk om te zien.\nHij vertelt algemene dingen en dingen over GFS en MapReduce. GFS kende ik al. MapReduce is een coole manier om functionele dingen zoals map en reduce te gebruiken om parallel data te verwerken.\nDaarnaast nog een stukje over GMail\u0026rsquo;s werking onder de kap. JavaScript is een hele vieze taal, maar je kunt er wel erg leuke dingen mee maken.\n","date":"October 24, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-11/","section":"Posts","summary":"Via verschillende blogs klein nieuws over Google. Ik heb net een filmpje bekeken van Jef Dean die een presentatie geeft over Google. Geen hele spannende nieuwe dingen maar wel leuk om te zien.\n","title":"Google Tidbits","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik was net klaar met hardlopen en wandelde naar huis. Ik had nog niet gemerkt hoe stil het hier in de buurt is rond half zeven.\n","date":"October 22, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-10/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik was net klaar met hardlopen en wandelde naar huis. Ik had nog niet gemerkt hoe stil het hier in de buurt is rond half zeven.\n","title":"Ramadan","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik heb overal pijn maar ik heb me in tijden niet zo lekker gevoeld.\nGisteren mijn derde les Xing Yi. Ik raak op die lessen nog niemand aan en ik word ook door niemand geraakt. Ik kom er wel altijd compleet beurs vandaan en ik heb meestal de rest van de week spierpijn.\nHet gaat wel lekker. Op mijn arm- en schouderspieren heeft het al een flink effect. Daarnaast krijg ik ook het idee dat ik op de vormen vooruitgang boek.\nDe sifu trekt ons sneller vooruit dan vroeger —zeggen ze. Gisteren heb ik mijn vierde element pao (vuur) geleerd. Volgende week krijg ik mijn vijfde element en gaan we ze doen met stappen.\nIk heb gisteren mijn schouders een beetje los geslagen. Vanochtend was ik slaperig en had ik haast. Ik heb toen bij het open duwen van de deur mijn schouder eruit gedraaid. Suf. Meer stabiliteitsoefeningen doen dan maar.\nOp mijn werk is het idee ontstaan om mee te gaan doen aan de City-Pier-City loop. In een wedstrijd laten zien wie de sportiefste is, hebben de gebruikelijke verdachten zich al ingeschreven. Ik vandaag ook, voor de 10k. Het is gezellig met het werk en leuk om weer ergens naartoe te lopen.\nVanavond direct maar gaan hardlopen. Dat ging niet zo lekker, wat pijn in mijn rechterknie. Ik heb het toen maar rustig aan gedaan. Ga vrijdag wel intervallen doen.\n","date":"October 20, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-8/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik heb overal pijn maar ik heb me in tijden niet zo lekker gevoeld.\n","title":"Beurs","type":"posts"},{"content":"Toch best wel een sympathieke vent die Arnie, ook al heeft ie twee weken geen sex gehad. Nu steunt hij een voorstel voor subsidie voor stamcel onderzoek.\nKunnen we geen dealtje sluiten met de Republikeinen? Dit jaar Kerry en over vier jaar Arnie. Ik kan ermee leven.\n","date":"October 19, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-7/","section":"Posts","summary":"Toch best wel een sympathieke vent die Arnie, ook al heeft ie twee weken geen sex gehad. Nu steunt hij een voorstel voor subsidie voor stamcel onderzoek.\n","title":"Schwarzenegger","type":"posts"},{"content":"Weer een lekker ongenuanceerd bericht op Nu.nl (\u0026lsquo;Desktop Search van Google onveilig\u0026rsquo;).\nHet is alleen wel jammer dat ik zelf niet kan uitproberen hoe onveilig Google Desktop Search wel niet is. En hoe ontzettend Google daarmee mijn privacy gaat schenden.\nEr is voor ons Linux-gebruikers ook zoiets op komst: Gnome Dashboard.\nEen ‘lek’ zoals beschreven in het artikel zou onder Linux niet eens kunnen omdat de ene gebruiker onder Linux niet klakkeloos met andermans bestanden mag klooien.\nWat betreft privacy: gebruik het dan niet. Het is niet alsof het onderhands op je PC geïnstalleerd wordt. Of dat een overheidsinstantie al je e-mail leest. Het is vrijwillig en alleen maar aardig van die jongens dat ze dit voor ons maken.\nIk was een early adopter van Google. Ik vertrouw Google, ik hou van Google en ik zou graag bij Google willen werken. Google komt op mij betrouwbaarder en vriendelijker over dan Microsoft of de overheid (en je weet zeker dat die laatste heel veel van je weet).\n","date":"October 18, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-6/","section":"Posts","summary":"Weer een lekker ongenuanceerd bericht op Nu.nl (‘Desktop Search van Google onveilig’).\n","title":"Google search","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik vond Ramsey Nasr altijd al een goede dichter. Nooit veel van hem gelezen, stukjes. Maar die naam blijft wel hangen.\nHij heeft dus een nieuwe dichtbundel uit ‘Onhandig bloesemend’. Die wil ik wel heel graag hebben maar het mag niet. Ik mag geen boeken meer kopen, ik heb er al teveel. Compromis: ik koop deze toch, maar pas als ik een ander boek uit heb gelezen.\nIk kreeg ook een stukje uit de Standaard binnen (via) waarin hij de hypocriete Normen\u0026amp;Waarden™ van Balkenende fileert.\n,,Dames en heren, durven we anno 2004 nog te geloven in een Europese droom?\u0026rsquo;\u0026rsquo; Nee, Jan Peter Balkenende. Niet met mensen als u aan het roer. U spreekt met twee tongen. Zo worden andere dromen vervuld.\nEven zoeken, blijkt dat ik hem ook heb gezien in De Enclave. Daar was ik toen best van onder de indruk, wist niet dat hij het was die daarin speelde.\n","date":"October 17, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-5/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik vond Ramsey Nasr altijd al een goede dichter. Nooit veel van hem gelezen, stukjes. Maar die naam blijft wel hangen.\n","title":"Palestina","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik heb pas Eurotrip en White Chicks gezien. Allebei wel aardig maar niet ontzettend grappig.\nIk heb een trailer gezien van Going the Distance en die lijkt me wel erg leuk. Misschien eindelijk een waardig vervolg op Road Trip.\n","date":"October 17, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-4/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik heb pas Eurotrip en White Chicks gezien. Allebei wel aardig maar niet ontzettend grappig.\n","title":"Tienerfilms","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik ben donderdag samen met Wouter naar Mamma Mia! geweest. Een raar idee, geboren op een borrel en toch doorgezet.\nLeuke bijkomstigheid was dus dat de NS op die dag besloten te staken. Als de treinen hadden gereden was het zo makkelijk geweest, te makkelijk dus.\nWe hebben toen van alles geprobeerd om die dag in Utrecht te komen. Natuurlijk lukte het allemaal niet en heeft mijn vader als laatste redmiddel ons erheen gereden. Ik moet toch maar vaart zetten acter dat rijbewijs.\nDe musical zelf was echt heel leuk. Ver boven verwachting, en ontzettend fout natuurlijk. De muziek, de extreme pakken en de lage grappen.\nHet acteerwerk was natuurlijk niet boeiend. En we zaten eigenlijk veel te ver weg om het goed te kunnen zien.\nNa afloop reden de treinen dus nog steeds niet, maar de bussen gelukkig wel. Die nacht hebben we doorgebracht bij Wouter\u0026rsquo;s ouders. De volgende dag toen om 06:15 opgestaan en de trein gepakt.\nOp tijd voor mijn college Brain Computer Interfaces. Dat was ontzettend interessant en dus het vroege opstaan wel waard.\n","date":"October 16, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-3/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik ben donderdag samen met Wouter naar Mamma Mia! geweest. Een raar idee, geboren op een borrel en toch doorgezet.\n","title":"Mamma Mia!","type":"posts"},{"content":"Ik heb nu eindelijk ook een echt blog, waar je op kunt reageren enzo.\nDus, kom op! Schrijf wat. Daar is het voor.\nHet wordt gehost op de Zope-server op studentrate en ik heb hem voorlopig even provisorisch aan de rest van mijn site gehangen.\n","date":"October 16, 2004","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-2/","section":"Posts","summary":"Ik heb nu eindelijk ook een echt blog, waar je op kunt reageren enzo.\n","title":"Blog","type":"posts"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/all/","section":"alper.nl","summary":"archives","title":"All","type":"page"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/authors/","section":"Authors","summary":"","title":"Authors","type":"authors"},{"content":"Disclaimer: Dit stuk is geschreven voor en gepubliceerd op Frankwatching.com. Bezoekers van Frankwatching welkom. Ik heb het hier ook staan voor mijn eigen archief.\nUpcoming.org de event-site van Yahoo! begin zijn nut te bewijzen. In de RSS-feed van events in Amsterdam zag ik het event Mediawijsheid: leven in de gemedialiseerde samenleving in Pakhuis de Zwijger langskomen. Het event en de bijbehorende wiki zagen er erg interessant uit, maar nog veel interessanter voor mij was de openingsspreker: Lawrence Lessig.\nThema van het event was het concept Mediawijsheid wat in een rapport van de Raad van Cultuur wordt gedefinieerd als:\nhet geheel van kennis, vaardigheden en mentaliteit waarmee burgers zich bewust, kritisch en actief kunnen bewegen in een complexe, veranderlijke en fundamenteel gemedialiseerde wereld\nVoor de meeste mensen die dit weblog bezoeken is mediawijsheid vanzelfsprekend. Wij navigeren moeiteloos over het internet, weten sites op waarde en betrouwbaarheid te schatten en kunnen in veel gevallen al nauwelijks meer functioneren zonder web, e-mail en chat.\nDe overheid signaleert dat dit niet voor iedereen opgaat en dat grote groepen mensen de boot missen. Een goede overheid moet dan ook proberen die overgang te begeleiden zonder zich er teveel mee te bemoeien.\nNa een motiverende video-boodschap van Minister Maria van der Hoeven (OCW) kon de dag beginnen met de keynote van Lawrence Lessig.\nLessig Lawrence Lessig is een Amerikaans rechtsgeleerde en een van de meest vooraanstaande denkers op het gebied van recht, internet en auteursrecht. Zijn boeken zijn erg helder geschreven en verplichte kost voor iedereen die geïnteresseerd is in de implementatie van digitaal recht. Hij signaleert excessen in de auteursrechtenwetgeving waar we in het digitale tijdperk mee opgezadeld zijn en probeert die aan te vechten voor de rechter en met initiatieven zoals de Creative Commons.\nLessig spreekt regelmatig openbaar om zijn ideeën voor het voetlicht te brengen en om steun te verzamelen. Deze presentaties zijn inhoudelijk al erg interessant maar Lessig heeft ook een aparte presentatie-stijl die erg gewaardeerd wordt. Zijn Free Culture presentatie is daar een goed voorbeeld van en een goede inleiding in zijn standpunt over auteursrechten.\nLessig heeft een tijdelijke aanstelling in Berlijn om tot rust te komen en te schrijven. Dat hij op dit continent verblijft maakt het voor partijen als Kennisland makkelijker om hem hierheen te halen. In zijn presentatie op Mediawijsheid kwamen zijn voorgaande ideeën netjes samen met een recent bericht over parallelle economieën.\nCultuur In zijn presentatie gaat het om de twee soorten cultuur waarmee we te maken hebben: de Read Only-cultuurDe cultuur die gekocht en geconsumeerd mag worden bij gratie van grote media-conglomeraten die ons een aanbod voorschotelen in ruil voor geld. Deze cultuur kan door middel van DRM perfect gereguleerd worden en dat worden ze ook. Mogelijkheden die er vroeger waren zoals uitlenen, doorverkopen etc. worden aan banden gelegd.\n","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/old-personal-723/","section":"Posts","summary":"Disclaimer: Dit stuk is geschreven voor en gepubliceerd op Frankwatching.com. Bezoekers van Frankwatching welkom. Ik heb het hier ook staan voor mijn eigen archief.\n","title":"Mediawijsheid","type":"posts"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/search/","section":"alper.nl","summary":"Search","title":"Search","type":"page"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Tags","type":"tags"}]