Week 243

It has become even easier to find your way to our office in the Coop. Just follow the green yellow line.
Navigational markings

And we are accruing more and more birds:
One cool bird out of the coop

The start of the week was busy with preparing and presenting at the RIVM, the Dutch institute for public health and the environment about their consumer portal Kies Beter. Kies beter is effectively a public resource for authoritative healthcare information. It will be interesting to see what role it will play in the coming process of opening up such data. It was a great opportunity to talk and work with the team and see how they see their role.

Also the movie I shot for Fast Moving Targets with my quick note from the Dutch Game Garden was published:

I met with Jaap Stronks of Johnny Wonder and with some friendly people from Dutch broadcasting company NCRV all about the open data revolution and how it can work for them.

Apps voor Nederland continues apace and the event is rapidly approaching right now.

I am in the process of liquidating my superfluous effects in the Netherlands as well as my office in the Volkskrantgebouw. It’s an odd coincidence that just with my leaving (and with the announcement of the re-development of the VKG as a hotel in a couple of years) a bunch of friends and esteemed colleagues are landing in the building. I would have loved to have shared the building with them for the past two years but for me it is onwards and upwards!

Scanner sold, emptiness acquired.

I had a chat with Casper Koomen who is very active with Pachube’s Dutch development efforts. Among other things with an event this Friday called “Breathe Amsterdam”. And I’m preparing an Ignite presentation for next week.

Also my long form review of Phone Story which had been published in the newspaper before has now been published on Bashers in Dutch: ‘Phone Story — Gamedesign als kritiek op onze gadgetlust’ The comments are predictable but I had wished for a bit more in depth response to the problem I see where platform builders as Apple become governments of the space they created. Which is problematic in this case because they tightly regulate expression within their platform that would be legitimate in any other public space.

Epic iPhone Illy coffee maker

The winter sun hitting the backyard of our North office, makes for some striking pictures:
Winter Sun

And then it was off to Berlin to make some more arrangements for the move over there come the new year.

We strolled from Neukölln to the South back to Kreuzberg’s Südstern and Bergmannkiez via the former airport of Tempelhof. That part of Neukölln is developing but before there is anything approaching a comfortable urban fabric, it will be another five years.

Tempelhof Airport itself is becoming a great example of how creating a hole in a vibrant urban area can make space for all kinds of impromptu and impermanent use. The urban gardening plots are just one example of that. The business on a Sunday even with winter approaching is massive with al kinds of wheeled and/or wind based activities taking place.
Reappropriation of the airfield - @edial's plot of land somewhere around here

There seem to be plans to build along the airfield, but that would be very bad obscuring the current urban views into the emptiness. If building is necessary, I would propose to put the buildings on stilts so we can still peer into the Loch.

I deleted my Klout account after reading the polemic by Charlie Stross:
Opt Out of Klout

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