On 15 November Saint Nicholas arrived in the Netherlands with his Black Peters having traveled here on his steam boat all the way from his palace in Spain. The day after, he participated in parades all over the country. I went and took pictures of his parade in Amsterdam. The past two years there has … Read More

The past few years I’ve started to take my amateur photography more serious, even though you cannot always tell from the quality of my output. As a result I also spend more time behind my computer editing photos. It is still completely true that it is better to get a photo right in the camera … Read More

Ducky Zero DK2108 Abstract: buy it if you want to try it, or not, it’s all good. I wanted to own a real keyboard. The currents of modernity sweep into curious directions. For instance there is a strong tendency among manufacturers to make things that break easily. This forces consumers into buying the same thing—or … Read More

I should probably make this a series of notes-to-self whenever I try a new category of photography. Anyway, I went to the Amsterdam marathon last October, which is held conveniently close to my house (or inconveniently—I had to cancel a photo walk because I was in the middle of an artificial island bordered by blocked … Read More

I have finally figured out what it is that makes Frogger so difficult. It offers you a ‘weapon’ that is one of the most difficult to control of all, namely choice. There are few games I know of, retro or modern, that have so perfected the sense of “I’ve got this.” You think, “I can … Read More

A disease going by the name of ISDS is threatening the citizens of Europe. Its symptoms are a very strong pain in the wallet, a pain of the sort you’ve probably never felt before. ISDS is a court of law in which companies (and only companies) can sue countries for large sums of money, even … Read More

(TL/DR? Skip to results.) Yesterday I wrote that even though social networks currently combine targeted advertising and private user data collection, doing them both is not a requirement for running a profitable social network. The networks can just focus on the former, that is focus on the harvesting and selling of user data, and dispose … Read More

The latest Facebook-killer in a long line of Facebook-killers has arrived and its name is Ello. Ello is—like Facebook—a social network, and the reason why it probably won’t kill Facebook is that it’s got pretty much the same value proposition. If it poses a threat, all Facebook has to do is become a little more … Read More

Tonight the stores close at 2200 hrs, it is now 2112 hrs, I am working through a stack of old books to determine their copyright status, and I still have a dozen or so to go. Suddenly, I am stopped. Quick, I need a word to describe the phenomenon that certain parties want ever longer … Read More

I’ve changed the look of this blog, but don’t be surprised if you don’t see any difference. Most of the changes are ‘under the hood’ so to speak and only produce a different visual in certain browsing environments. In the old theme (the part of the blog that determines the look) all dimensions were fixed. … Read More