Notes

Looking at the current political difficulties in the Netherlands has taught me something about the way modern society works. It is no longer a society in which a person can be defined by just their job. No, times have changed. Times have changed in such a way that by the increasingly complexity of society people have started to vote more and more on little things that will personally benefit them.

I feel that the current political system can no longer fully support modern society because of the shift in common and mixed personal interest.
Therefor change is immanent. The flaws in the system are starting to show.

When the first results of the elections on June 9th were published, it immediately showed larger political differences between certain parts of the country. The Dutch government has always been based on coalitions, but this time it was different. Where the CDA had won the previous elections, this time it was both VVD and PvdA. People fled to both sides of the system, left and right, presumably because of the way the current economic and social systems work.

This led me to ask myself; ” Can countries still be based around locations or should we led go of the location based government and let people form their own communities that take special care of the inhabitants needs?”

I think it would be a great way to solve some of the differences that people have about the way they want to live. If you do not agree with the majority of your community, then you could just leave. This could really lead to innovation on ways to run countries, but might also prove to be a facilitator for dictatorships.

We have all had biology class in high school. We have all heard about the story of evolution as told by Darwin. Mankind has come a point in which it no longer evolves based on natural selection. Any person can have babies with any other person. Healthcare is for everyone and will not judge your physical incapabilities.

This change in human evolution might have severe consequences for our offspring.

A couple of thousands of years ago, someone invented education. We all know how education works even though much has changed since then. But there is something that hasn’t changed in all these years. The reason why we educate ourselves and our children. We educate ourselves to improve our chances of survival. By increasing the general knowledge of our population we, as human beings, have been able to increase our living standards and chances of survival to a point at which we decide what happens instead of faith deciding for us.

But more opportunities lie ahead. If we want to further improve the way we live, we will have to gather more about the way we live.

Our minds can only process a certain amount of information each day. Even with improved techniques such as speed reading and memory training, we could never out smart the computer. It is essential in the next phase of human evolution that we harness the processing power of these machines and use them to our personal benefit. By letting these machines collect data about our day to day life, they can analyze and predict events that will happen in our personal life’s.

Instead of relying on subjective personals information such as; “no I did not eat fries yesterday or no that does not hurt”. We should use the advantages of objective personal information to improve our living standards. By using the computers ability to recognize patterns and present information without judgment mankind will prepare itself for the next century. 2010 is almost over, 2011 is just around the corner.

Check out http://www.projectiets.nl in the coming months.

The last couple of months have been very hectic and strange in some ways. Never ever have I made something that thousands of people are using, or develop, let alone deploy, an educational concept I made with several co-students.
The best project to date has to be Project Iets, which is a dream come true. Ever since I was a little boy I wanted to be an inventor. I wanted to design and develop all kinds of things that could benefit human kind, even if it was something as unrealistic as predicting the future. And I feel like that dream has finally come true, all thanks to my very own educational concept that gave me the freedom to do whatever the hell I wanted.

Today’s realisation has made me aware of the fact that when you are pursuing your dream, its very important to keep in mind the goal you set out with, because you might have already crossed the line of what you thought was possible. Given the fact that it only took me just under two years to accomplish one of my dreams, I think a lot more will happen in the many years to come.

I have also decided to start writing in English, because of the fact that I’m looking for an internship somewhere in Silicon Valley. Specifically for a startup that is building an innovative concept in the mobile industries, be it mobile apps or something completely different.

Mijn ouders zijn, als het gaat om media gebruik, redelijk normaal. Ze kijken iedere avond TV totdat ze naar bed gaan, hebben een email adres waarmee ze de belangrijke dingen doen, mijn moeder vind het leuk om af en toe tweets te lezen op mijn twitter account en mijn vader heeft onlangs een iPhone gekocht omdat hij ook een mobiele telefoon nodig had. Ook al zijn ze alleen nog maar consumenten van nieuwe media, ze zijn naar mijn gevoel wel aardig bij de tijd.

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Een deur waar “Trekken” op staat, terwijl hij al open is, een pak vanillevla waarop staat “Hier openen” terwijl ik het alleen maar in mijn winkelmandje wil leggen en deurbel waar een bordje bij hangt dat zegt: “Gelieve te bellen” terwijl ik alleen maar langs loop.

Volgens mij had ik wel betere dingen te doen dan deze zwaar nutteloze informatie te lezen. Of moeten we uitkijken dat we de wereld niet op zo’n manier ontwerpen, dat het klinisch word zonder rare, grappige en onverwachte invloeden?

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Steeds vaker valt het me op hoe belangrijk het gebruik van (visuele) metaforen is in het ontwerpen en ontwikkelen van diensten en producten.
Voorwerpen als boeken worden klakkeloos omgezet in een mooie grafische gelijkenis die qua interactie heel veel lijkt op de ervaring die je zou hebben met het fysieke object. Daarbij doel ik voornamelijk op recente voorbeelden zoals de iBooks applicatie voor op de iPad, of de iPod applicatie voor de iPhone.

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Het heeft me heel lang geduurd, maar ik begrijp eindelijk waarom er  zoveel weerstand is tegen de opmars van multimedia en andere vormen van techniek in het onderwijs. Punt is namelijk; Het werkt gewoon voor geen ene meter! Negen van de tien producten die ik ben tegen gekomen op de IPON waren namelijk waardeloos, achterhaalt en vaak niet leuk.

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