Personal computers are extremely complex machines. The intricacies of billions of individual circuit components working together and essentially upholding the foundation of the modern world are fascinating in itself, and it has been this way for the past few decades now. What’s newer though is the specialisation of labour that goes on within your computer.
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Sanction all you want, North Korea is an 'open' economy!
It’s not up to debate that 2017 has been a year full of tension and uncertainty in terms of international relations, especially considering how the foreign policy statements of the United States are being revealed to us through Twitter: North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un just stated that the “Nuclear Button is on his desk
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Growing up, I always thought that the United States was the most obese country in the world. Whenever someone discussed obesity, not only would the US be mentioned, but it would always spark a comical figure of a very fat guy in a t-shirt with an American flag print. Well, maybe a bit too hypocritical
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...yet not too utopic either!
Basic income right now is such a hot topic that it’s pretty much the bitcoins of policymaking. The idea is extremely simple, and that makes it extremely appealing: Governments give money to their citizens simply for being their citizens, and just enough of it that they don’t starve. As simple as that. With all the
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For the past year or so I’ve been drinking more and more coffee, yet it’s not because I’m crunching books for exams, but because I started enjoying the taste a lot more. Right now I’m using a moka pot, and the only ‘waste’ product you get at the end is the grounds themselves that you
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For what is demanded, there is supply...
One of the first things they teach you in an introductory statistics class is that you shouldn’t take the average of ordinal data. It doesn’t make sense, because unlike 4 °C and 5 °C, the difference between four stars and five stars is neither quantifiable, nor the same for all people. For me, Twelve Angry
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How far should we go so as to protect consumers?
It’s hard not to see the wall of cigarettes at the service counters in supermarkets in the Netherlands. When I first came to Amsterdam, I was pretty surprised at the ‘Duty Free’-styled labelling on the cigarettes: Plain black text on a white box. I hadn’t paid so much attention to these labels in the past,
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Last summer, right after the 15 July coup attempt in Turkey, I deleted my Facebook account. The idea of deleting my account was something I had in mind for a while, long before that summer. Yet the problem was that I had a huge amount of friends and contacts on the platform; so initially, I
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[Major Major’s father’s] specialty was alfalfa, and he made a good thing out of not growing any. The government paid him well for every bushel of alfalfa he did not grow. The more alfalfa he did not grow, the more money the government gave him, and he spent every penny he didn’t earn on new
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We all heard about that magical fiat currency called bitcoin that exists without a central bank or a physical presence. Its digital existence is not particularly confusing as almost all of our banking has become electronic, especially in the Netherlands where having cash on hand is something that’s almost a rare occurrence. However, not having
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Two weeks or so ago, there was a referendum in Turkey. A referendum so significant in its items, that it could literally turn the country into a one-man dictatorship. I did not vote in it because it was too expensive to travel to the consulate in Rotterdam and get registered as a voter. I simply did
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I really enjoy eating sugary breakfast cereals every now and then, but I’m more of a fan of muesli if I’m having something filling in the morning. However, one cereal that I do like quite a bit is the Honey Pops Loops. In the Netherlands, it’s Kellogg’s that’s producing that type of ‘O’-shaped cereal; whereas
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About two and a half years ago, a video called ‘Humans Need Not Apply’ was released by YouTuber and podcaster CGP Grey. In his mini-documentary, Grey talks about the increasing usefulness of robots in the society and how they are becoming more integral and necessary in the whole economic and social structure of our society.
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