About three decades ago, my post-retirement plan was to emigrate to Italy and to live on the beautiful island of Sicily. Today, my emigration is a no. A soft "no" that is slowly turning into a hard one. Recently, someone asked me to join him in living in Spain. I told him that Denmark is more likely. My principle in life is having only one (1) deficiency (eg,...
Recently, I received an Aeon / Psyche email including an article that caught my immediate interest: Why are humans so good at cooperating? That question about cooperation had once been on my mind too, but I chose to ignore it. Actually, its second article contains a glimpse of an answer to the question above: Why large language models are mysterious – even to their...
Intro LO: Perhaps, the most important - though (very) implicit - conclusion is that all animal sounds are a form of communication. Our concept of (human) language is (“just”) a “single protein variant”. Moreover, this article strongly suggests that the Neanderthal must have had language skills, similar to ours. That would also support the ancient mating between Homo...
I’m in a new phase of my rollercoaster of solitude and loneliness. I failed to see this coming, despite part 6 of this blog series from October 2024. My comforting feeing of solitude seems to have vanished into thin air. Feelings of (temporary) loneliness have replaced my solitude. I can hardly remember such feelings. I’m not sure if I ever experienced those...
Intro LO: The Axios Macro article below on demographics is a must-read. Actually, China is already facing this “youth scarcity” crisis and millions of young Chinese already refuse to contribute to the pensions for the elderly (eg, Bloomberg, 10 January 2025). The main solution appears simple but is actually complex: import of foreign labour to fill vacant domestic...
Sinds kort heb ik geen vaste telefoon meer. De besparing is best hoog: 4,25 euro per maand voor iets dat - noch door anderen, noch door mijzelf - werd gebruikt. Recente artikelen (o.a. NOS, NU, BnnVara) brachten me op dat idee. “Minder dan de helft van de Nederlandse huishoudens heeft nog een vast telefonieabonnement, concludeert de Autoriteit Consument & Markt....
Recent Comments