Why I like writing

Whether spoken out or written down, I love words to a great deal. Put in form like the 1843’s tale The Ugly Duckling, the video-game Heavy Rain or the movie Zodiac, words tell us so much. And stories entice me. I love reading about the Black Dahlia murder, the life of Vasily Zaytsev or the […]

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On the importance of strategic lawn mowing

If not for the essential difference that it is a lot smarter, strategic lawn would be a lot like normal lawn mowing. With strategic lawn moving, instead of mindlessly mowing the closest patch of grass available, you would pause for a moment to look over the about-to-be-cut lawn to analyse your battlefield. Think about the […]

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Financial vandalism: Human measure in the age of social media

Microsoft bought Nokia for $7.2 billion and Skype for $8.5 billion. Google spent on $3.2 billion on Nest and $12.5 billion on Motorola. Facebook splashed $1 billion on Instagram, $2 billion on Oculus and $19 billion on Whatsapp.  Brands like Starbucks, Red Bull and Oreo have well beyond 35 million followers on Facebook each, a […]

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The second weekend of March in the Netherlands

Yesterday was the warmest 8th March ever in the Netherlands, and today the temperature rose even further. Fluctuation happens every year, but thirteen of the fourteen warmest years on record have all occurred in the 21st century, and we’re only fourteen years in. If you want to show your ignorance, there’s no better way to […]

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The things we write today, will they still be read in 174 years?

Here’s a close-up of the newspaper I found in an antique shop in Leiden. It’s from the Tenth of January, 1840, and printed with movable type, so you can really feel the words pressed into the paper. A lot of manual labour was put into making this newspaper, without all the eases of publishing we […]

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The advent of visual

India’s population of more than 1.2 billion people speaks a few hundred different languages. 112 of those languages are spoken by more than 10,000 people, and 30 languages in India have over a million speakers. Then, just take in consideration that more than a quarter of the population is illiterate. So, if you’re an advertising […]

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The perfect lenght

Ideally, a novel is just one idea long. Which is also the perfect length for movies, dinners, albums, advertising campaigns and blogs. Anything. And the perfect chapter, scene, dish, song, advertisement or post, is one idea as well. On a smaller scale; the perfect sentence adds one idea to the paragraph. In its turn, the paragraph […]

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On Paul Walker & Roger Rodas: Some sense instead of sadness

As sad at the passing of Paul Walker and Roger Rodas is, I’d like to use this as an opportunity for sense. People who drive like idiots on public roads cause pain and  suffering. Both Paul Walker and Roger Rodas leave behind a wife and kids. I’m glad they didn’t take any innocent bystanders with […]

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