Alef Arendsen

I’m in Israel and the strangest thing is happening to me this weekend. Tonight at 2am Israeli summer time is going in effect. Then tomorrow early afternoon I’m flying to Zurich where the clock is still set to winter time. Then in Sunday early morning at 2am, the clock moves forward to 3am, so summer time will be in effect there as well then.

This essentially means I have to change my clock three times this weekend. Also, I have to remember not to forget that, ‘coz I have flights tomorrow, and on Monday as well. Easy to screw up I guess

Long live DST!!

I got this from somebody today. Very nice!

Source: Daily Mail

thanks Eberhard for sharing!

As I posted earlier today, I am in Israel this week. I just returned to my hotel room about an hour ago when a text message arrived of a friend of mine that informed me of a break in in my apartment. Apparently a couple of burglars had broken in through a window. This was all the text message said, so I started calling up some of my neighbors.

One of them was already informed and walked into my house to look at the damage. There was only a small hole in the window pane, through which the burglars apparently wanted to open the entire window. Now this window is made up of two parts that rotate inwards. There’s a latch that has a little lock in it, which I keep locked whenever I’m gone. Without the latch unlocked, you can’t open the window, so they would’ve had to forcefully take out all of the glass before entering, which probably is way too much hassle. So they didn’t enter, and also, didn’t take anything. My laptop, display, iPod Touch and digital camera were all just lying there out in the open, so I guess I’ve been lucky. By the way, it would’ve been the fifth laptop in under three years

While on the phone with one of my neighbors, the police arrived. I spoke to them, telling them my parents would be able to drop down at the police department tomorrow to file a report (on behalf of my). The neighbors are luckily there to arrange the replacement of the window pane, so all in all, it wasn’t too much hassle for me.

I always told myself I don’t want to turn my house into some kind of a fortress with dozens of locks and I keep my electronics (Cinema display, laptop, et cetera) on my desk, which is very close to where the guys tried to break in. I do lock ‘em to my desk however, using Kensington locks. But I guess I have to be a little bit more careful in the future…

This whole thing does make me think: should I continue to keep posting where I am … I mentioned this earlier on as well when I blogged about Dopplr… I’m not sure if burglars read stuff like this blog and Dopplr however…

Last Friday, Eckart Wintzen died in his house in France. Eckart was one Holland’s top entrepreneur, and can safely be mention along the likes of Paul Fenter van Vlissingen (although I doubt he would have liked them himself) and Hans Breukhoven.

Eckart stated BSO, literally translated as Bureau for Systems Development. It was one of Holland’s biggest system integrators, which he sold to Philips in the nineties. Wintzen instigated a special management policy in the firm. Whenever a department (or office, whatever you call it) grow to more than 50 employees, the department had to split. Each department had its own P/L and balance sheet and there was fierce competition between various departments (although there was a certain degree of geographical separation between all of them, meaning they couldn’t simply go after accounts in other parts of the country). The was no corporate head office to speak of, meaning all departments took care of their own administration and only certain guidelines with respect to marketing, logos, letter heads and reporting were centrally defined.

This management style is referred to cell philosophy with each department representing one cell. Wintzen wrote a book about his time at BSO (highly recommended by the way) called Eckart’s Notes.

Eckart Wintzen died last Friday, at the age of 68.

Eckart early departure is covered in a lot of blog entries all over the world.

I just arrived in Israel. I barely made my flight. I didn’t expect security measure to be that tight. Obviously I had expected a little bit more security, but not that much. On top of that, I forgot my Privium car, which allows me to pass through the fast lane with customs. Fortunately that it wasn’t really crowded, so that wasn’t a big deal.

Anyway, I’m spending the week in Herzeliya, giving a public training course with a partner of ours. I’m looking forward to it!

(although this is in English, it’s probably only relevant for Dutchies)
I live in Utrecht these and whenever I’m in Holland, I usually work from home (that’s only about 25% of my time, so that’s not much). Before I moved to Utrecht, I’ve lived in Amsterdam and Ermelo. My studies (before Ermelo) were in Utrecht also, so essentially, after 8 or 9 years, I’ve moved back to Utrecht.

During those times, I’ve had a few jobs (well, mostly in the context of my own ventures), so you can’t exactly call them jobs I guess. Anyway, some of those were out the door, meaning I had to commute. A large part of commuting is done by car in Holland. If you would know the situation on the roads in Holland (the road are 100% jammed from 7 in the morning until 10.30 and from 3.30pm until 7pm), I guess you’d be surprised. I commuted as well, first between Utrecht and Amsterdam, then between Ermelo and Amsterdam, then between Amsterdam and Utrecht and after a while between Utrecht and Amsterdam again.

As commuting happens by car, most people listen to the radio. This is why morning radio shows are very popular in Holland. These days I do not listen to the radio a lot anymore, but every time, I’m in my car between noon and 2pm, I’m reminded of the days I spent in traffic jams on the Dutch highways (never, never again!!!). That’s the slot Rob Stenders in filling in.

Rob Stenders is one of the three or four big DJs in the Netherlands and he just published the autobiographical Stenders Leesvermaak. I read it yesterday in one go and it’s simply hilarious.

Ranging from him marrying his sidekick Fred Siebelink (yes, he’s male as well, it was a stunt to promote the putting out of a law that allows gay marriage in Holland) to his sidekick imitating Chriet Titulaer. Some of the lesser periods are also covered such as the times he was fired or quit his job after day because he didn’t agree with the musical direction of a radio station.

To me, it also finally cleared up the move Stenders made to Yorin FM. He transfered from government funded 3FM to commercial radio station Yorin FM, so it seemed entirely for the money. Reasons were a bit different a turns out however…

A good read for people that’d like to know more about Stenders and the radio scene as a whole. Oh, and they’re going to make a movie about it too…

p.s. I figured I could read this book when I’m in Israel next week, but I finished it already. Well, then I have to drop by at the Schiphol bookshop again I guess, to get some of the Airport Top 10 books…

i signed up with MyC4 this weekend. It’s a micro financing website, run by a group of Danish people. I got a recommendation for this site from Nils de Witte, currently associated to the BID Network, an organization that deals with business’ in developing countries.

MyC4 is aiming to help eradicate poverty by 2015, in other words, supports the United Nations 2015 Millennium Development Goals and Global Compact. It’s doing so, by offering market place for micro credits, specifically in Africa. People having a business in for example Uganda can apply for a loan (say €1500). The loan will be given by a group of people that all invest somewhere between €10 and €500. The interest rate is determined by using a bidding process (as an investor you have to determine the interest rate you want). Payback is monthly, usually over a period of 12 to 24 months. So far, MyC4.com has a rate of on time payments of approximately 95% and none of the loans have defaulted yet.

I’ve just put €1000,= in various opportunities, none of which have been provisioned yet. This will happen though in the next few weeks I hope.

Previously I looked at KIVA, another marketplace for micro credits. The problem with KIVA is (last time I looked at it) that you do not receive interest from your loan. (as a European you can invest your money, but won’t get anything in return for it. Due to fiscal limitations, having interest flow back to Europe is impossible or so)

I’m a strong believe in the concept of micro financing if it’s beneficial for both sides. Philantropy is nice and all, but only goes so far. Making it economically viable will attract a much bigger group of people that will invest, increasing the chances of us achieving the Millennium Goals.

Go and have a look at MyC4.com. You do not have to start with thousands of €, a simple €50,= or €100,= will do. I’ll keep you up-to-date via this blog on my experiences.

An interesting blog on the subject seems to be P2P-Banking.com.

Phew… My last.fm profile looks a little better now. I recently started using last.fm again. Instead of Christina Aguilera, Kelly Clarkson and other crap, it now shows Pulp, DJ Shadow and other slightly more interesting music

People in China can’t see this anymore. Youtube as of today is inaccessible for Chinese people. (from Fox News and the India Times).