Last year I added openly licensed images of the week number to my Week Notes postings. I want to more frequently use openly licensed and re-usable cultural artefacts. Because ultimately, only if you use it will it stay available, so there’s an obligation to re-use common cultural artefacts. All images I use here on my blog, and also all images I use in presentations are Creative Commons licensed or Public Domain images (except for screenshots). My own photos are Creative Commons licensed (though not fully open, as they preclude commercial re-use), as are my postings here.
For 2020 I came up with a new rationale for the expected 53 weekly images, using an idea that Elmine suggested to me.
In 2020 I will choose re-usable images based on historical events of the week in question. So every Week Notes of 2020 will end with a ‘This week in … ‘ segment with an openly licensed image.
Here’s to 2020!
(Left hand side image by Andy Maguire, license CC BY. Right hand side image by John Johnston, license CC BY SA)
The first week of 2020 was one of vacationing. We left Tuesday morning for Switzerland visiting dear friends for New Year’s Eve, and spending a few relaxed days. Three former roommates live there, and we all go back 30 years. We returned home on Saturday. I did some invoicing and prepared a laptop for our new colleague who starts coming Monday. We removed the Christmas tree from the living room, and it’s now in the garden waiting to be picked up by the planter who will replant the tree for the coming year. From Monday a full regular week will start.
And I came up with a new scheme to show openly licensed images underneath my Week Notes postings:
This week in … 1942*
On January 1st 1942 26 allied nations signed the ‘declaration of united nations‘ promising to stay fully involved in beating the Axis powers. Those 26 countries were the United States of America, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, China, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Costa Rica, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, India, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Poland, Union of South Africa, and Yugoslavia.
The countries who had signed this declaration by war’s end were the ones invited to the 1946 conference that established the United Nations as an institute.
The current most generally important manifesto by the United Nations in my perception is the set of Sustainable Development Goals, 17 goals with underlying targets, efforts and indicators. Last year I came across an example where someone worded their job description in terms of the SDG’s, which I thought eye opening in terms of making the abstract more tangible in your everyday efforts. Everything you do should be in support of at least one of the SDG’s, or at the very least not actively detrimental to any of the SDG’s.
The image above is of the signing of the 1942 declaration. The image is in the public domain. (I will need to learn to keep the explanations shorter though )
(* I show an openly licensed image with each Week Notes posting, to showcase more open cultural material. See here why, and how I choose the images for 2020.)
A busy week, this first full working week of the year.
In this week I
had to reacquiant myself with all the ongoing work. Our few days away to Switzerland clearly had me letting go effectively, as I couldn’t really remember much of what I was working on upon my return
discussed the design of sessions on ethical aspects of geodata usage with colleague Frank
sat down with our new colleague Emily to discuss two projects I will be working on with her: the EU research into high value data sets, and mapping out the national and international legal framework of access to information, transparency and open data in the Netherlands
worked with colleague Sara to regain an overview of our work for a province (using our new self-hosted cloud to document things), and set next actions for the coming week(s), followed up later with scheduling a range of meetings and sessions
restarted the work with another province, on implementing an open data publishing platform and establishing a role and process for its maintenance
started tracking our household expenses in more detail to have better overview of how our liquidity evolves over time.
discussed stakeholdermapping around circular economy with a province, and how that might create useful data, and be used in visualisations for additional insights (network analysis)
joined a national working group of provinces to talk about our experiences in the utility and nonsense of research into open data user needs
had our first team meeting at a client’s for the year. Discussing transitioning into a new 3 year budget cycle, and how that does and does not affect ongoing work
had conference call with our research team and European Commission on the first steps of our EU high value data sets research, which is part of the changed PSI Directive (the EU’s open government data regulation), which will enter into national law by mid 2021.
Worked on the energy poverty provincial subsidy experiment. It’s nearing launch, although afterwards we will keep adding automation in the background. Aim is to reduce the time needed to pay out a subsidy from 17 weeks to 3 working days, which is essential for the intended recipients. This week as part of that I had to dive down the rabbithole of what rules determine data exchange between different government entities, especially if the originally planned regulatory framework for it never got fully implemented.
Next week looks less intensive, which is good, as it allows me to dive deeper into some aspects of the flurry of things this week started out with.
This week in…2010*
Destruction in Port-au-Prince, after the January 12th Haïti earthquake. Image by RIBI Image Library, license CC BY
On January 12th 2010 a major earthquake struck Haïti. It was devastating. It was also the first time that the Open Street Map‘s disaster response team, HOT (Humanitarian OSM Team) became very visible and provided tremendous value to disaster relief efforts on the ground in Port-au-Prince. Volunteers from around the world within days mapped the disaster area to high detail, using aerial photos from before and after the earthquake. This meant high quality maps were available to aid teams and locals. See the striking difference between the two images on this page from 2010. HOT would go on to do similar work in the wake of other disasters, such as in Nepal. It is still an extremely striking example of what communities can do if you allow the re-use of things like aerial photography and satellite images. It is why e.g. the EU’s Copernicus/Sentinel sattelite network is so valuable, as it publishes all that data for all to use. Open Street Map continues to be a tremendous example of re-using open government geographic data alongside crowdsourced data.
This week in…1985*
I couldn’t let this one pass by. On January 10th 1985 Sinclair launched its C5 electric bicycle. It was a major marketing bust then, even though electric bicycles now are the dominant category in bike sales in the Netherlands. In the summer of 2013, almost 30 years on, I spotted a C5 ‘in the wild’, shown in the image below. Fittingly it was on the streets of Cambridge, where Sinclair was based.
image by Ton Zijlstra, CC BY NC SA
(* I show an openly licensed image with each Week Notes posting, to showcase more open cultural material. See here why, and how I choose the images for 2020.)
I much like Laura Kalbag’s “I don’t track you” declaration on her blog. She links to that post in the footer of her webpages.
As Laura Kalbag says it’s “as much a fact as a mission statement“. I would definitely like to be able to say the same, because it’s important as a signal, as a statement that the web does not need to be what the silos as advert delivery and manipulation vehicles make it to be. But for this blog it isn’t fully a fact.
I do not track anything anyone does on my site. But others in some instances do. This is the case where I embed material from elsewhere. Although often what I embed is still my own content, such as photos and slides, they are served from the likes of YouTube (Google), Flickr, and Slideshare (LinkedIn). The primary reason for using such services is storage space. Presentations, videos and photo collections tend to be large files, filling up the allocated space in my hosting package quickly. And of course there are occasions where I do want to show content by others (photos and videos). Especially in the case of images, showing other people’s content here is very deliberate, based on an obligation to re-use.
This means that I am an enabler of the tracking that such services do when you visit my blog. To be certain, you have a personal responsibility here too: your browser is your castle, and that Castle Doctrine of browsers means that you should already actively block tracking in your browser. However, I also have a responsibility to not expose visitors to tracking where that can be avoided.
So how to avoid tracking? What alternatives are out there? Here’s a list with the services from which this site over the years has embedded material.
YouTube (Google): I did not know this until I looked for it today, prompted by Laura Kalbag’s blogpost, but Google provides a setting with embedded YT videos that disables tracking and serves the video from a different domain (youtube-nocookies.com). This is what I will do from now on, and I will go through my older postings to change the embed code in the same way.
Flickr: I use Flickr a lot, it’s both my off-site online photo backup, as well as an easy way to post images here, without taking up hosting space. My tracking detection tool (Ghostery) does not find any trackers of embedded images, provided I strip out some of the scripting that comes with an embed by default. This stripping of superfluous stuff I routinely do, and is in my muscle memory.
Slideshare: this I think needs replacing. A Slideshare embed always comes with a Google Analytics tracker and a 3rd party beacon it seems. There is no way I can strip any of that out. It’s a good idea to do without Slideshare anyway, so need to search for an alternative. I might go for my own cloud space, or start making my slides differently, e.g. in HTML5, or find some other tool that I can attach to a private cloud space, and allows easy sharing with others.[UPDATE Oct/Nov 2020: I deleted my Slideshare account and am bringing those presentations to a hosting package and domain I control]
Scribd: this one definitely needs to go too. Embedding a Scribd document adds Google Analytics and a Facebook tracker, and curiously still a Google+ tracker too, though that service no longer exists. Again, need to search for an alternative. Same as with Slideshare. [UPDATE Oct/Nov 2020: I deleted my company’s Scribd account, and am in the process of bringing those documents to a self-hosted environment]
Vimeo: this video embedding service does not add trackers as far as I can tell from my Ghostery tracking monitoring plugin.
23Video: this platform has pivoted to corporate marketing videos and webinars, and no longer supports casual embeds like in the past. I will need to go through my archive though to clean up the postings where I used 23Video.
Qik. This was a live streaming video service I used around 2008. The domain is no longer active, and any embeds no longer work. Will need to clean up some old postings.
So, from this list, Slideshare and Scribd stand out as the ones adding tracking features to this site, and will need to go first. So I’ll focus there on finding replacements. Flickr and Vimeo are ok for now, and Youtube for as long as they respect their own privacy settings. Flickr and Vimeo of course don’t have your data as their business model, whereas YT does, and it shows. Once I’ve removed the tracking functionality from embedded content, what remains is that any call to an outside source results in your IP being logged in that outside server’s logs, and by extension your user agent etc. This is unavoidable as it comes with connecting to any web server. The only way I can avoid such logging is by ensuring I no longer use anything from any outside source, and hosting it myself. For my own content that is possible, as for images I re-use from e.g. Flickr (by serving the image itself from a server I own, and otherwise just linking to the source and creator. As I did with the image below), but hardest for re-using other people’s videos.
Tracks of footprints in the snow, image by Roland Tanglao, license CC BY
It didn’t look like it at the start, but it turned out to be an intensive week nonetheless.
This week I
Discussed work division and budget of our European research project for the new open data regulation
Planned strategic interviews for that project on meteo and earth observation data
Worked with our new colleague on this project, starting stakeholder mapping for various sectors in all EU MS
Worked on our energy poverty micro subsidies project, which is now ready for launch
Had a long conversation with the team behind ClimateView
Worked out notes of our goal setting session a few weeks ago
Had an all hands meeting with our company, including group dinner
Switched our company to using our own cloud, running NextCloud on our own server (in a Frankfurt data center)
Discussed data ethics around data collection concerning SME innovation subsidies and their impact
Went to the zoo with E and Y
This week in … 1836*
Henri Fantin-Latour was born 14 January 1836, and a French painter and lithographer best known for his flower paintings and group portraits of Parisian artists and writers. He died 25 August 1904. One criticism on his work was that his group portraits were on large canvasses giving it a significance larger than its subject. I quite like this setting out of the mundane as the momentous. Our most momentous life events are mundane to most others. The most momentous is just a collection of the mundane as it happens, and usually only momentous in hindsight.
His work is in the public domain (although a surprising number of online photos of his paintings have a copyright claim attached, which is nonsense. Straightforward photos of public domain artefacts are themselves in the public domain, as there is no new creative work involved in making such a reproduction.)
Coin de table, by Henri Fantin-Latour, portrait of the Parnassus poetry group (1872). Musée d’Orsay, Paris – Public Domain
La leçon de dessin dans l’atelier (1879) by Henri Fantin-Latour, Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels – Public Domain
(* I show an openly licensed image with each Week Notes posting, to showcase more open cultural material. See here why, and how I choose the images for 2020.)
An eventful week, in which I
Remotely joined the celebration of the life of Catherine Miller
Spent 2 afternoons diving deeper into CKAN, as the platform for open data publication for a client, together with the intended users
Worked on, and led a session on measurement and indicators for circular economy, with the circular economy team of a client
Did the first strategic interviews of the European High Value Data research
Had a conference call with the EC on the research progress
Attended the book launch and opening of the exhibition in honor of Arjen Kamphuis
Worked with Y in the garden
Visited friends in our old hometown Enschede
This week in …… 1643*The bay of Tongatapu with the two ships of Abel Tasman’s journey
Abel Tasman landed on Tonga on 21 January 1643. Although Tonga was visited by various European colonial powers, it never lost its self-determination and always kept its own government.
Above an illustration from his journey. Oddly enough its reference by the Dutch Royal Library in Europeana claims full copyright, which is incorrect. The image is in the public domain.
(* I show an openly licensed image with each Week Notes posting, to showcase more open cultural material. See here why, and how I choose the images for 2020.)
This final week of January rounds of a month that felt hectic and too chaotic, which I found highly uncomfortable. So today I took some time to review all the stuff on my plate to have a February that feels like I’m more on top of things.
This week I
helped Elmine create a canvas to develop the work she’s been doing for my company on information hygiene into a proposition for others
did half a dozen in depth interviews about meteorological data and earth observation data in Europe as part of our research for the new EU open data legislation
Facilitated a workshop on the ethics of data collection and usage around the Amsterdam Arena
Worked on circular economy, procurement, and office location related digital transformation projects for a province
Had a MT meeting with my company
Had a general assembly of Open Nederland, the driving force behind the Dutch Creative Commons chapter, of which I am the treasurer
Had an emergency visit to the dentist which luckily turned out easy to resolve
Met up with Y’s grandparents and cousins for dinner in Haarlem
Did the Q4 VAT bookkeeping and returns
Took half a day to get a better overview of ongoing work and aims for the coming months
This week in …… 1654*
The play Lucifer by Joost van den Vondel saw its premiere. It was prohibited 3 days later, right after its second performance. Only two centuries later did the play get performed on stage again. Below a poster announcing a 1910 edition of the play, made by Richard Nicolaüs Roland Holst. (public domain)
(* I show an openly licensed image with each Week Notes posting, to showcase more open cultural material. See here why, and how I choose the images for 2020.)
A pretty regular week in which I
Switched my calendar to our Nextcloud
Wrote a project proposal for a follow-up with an existing client
Attended a session with 60 or so entrepreneurs that are also Dutch Mensa members
Had a full day looking at the data governance aspects of a office space monitor, which data a government body should require during procurement concerning circular economy, and mapped out data streams around current catering services of a client, also concerning circular economy
Planned next steps for a client’s data publishing platform and publishing process
Had a team meeting and client meeting on our progress in the European research for the high value data sets that will be part of the upcoming European open data legislation
Had my monthly catch-up with the director of the Open State Foundation (where I’m a volunteer board member)
Discussed how to be transparant concerning the use of algorithms for the half a dozen ‘significant’ or novel ones a client uses/
Had to confront the ‘artistic expression‘ of Y and her friend
This week in …… 1883*
Lewis Waterman invented the three fissure feed for fountain pens this week in 1883. And went on to create the Waterman fountain pen company.
A Waterman fountain pen, image by M Dreibelbis, license CC BY
(* I show an openly licensed image with each Week Notes posting, to showcase more open cultural material. See here why, and how I choose the images for 2020.)
A busy week with very light blogging as a result. This week I
Having returned from a week in the snow, I used Monday to get back into things, did some admin and had a conversation with colleague Emily about the EU study we’re doing on High Value Datasets. Just before I left I submitted a first report and we prepared for the upcoming discussion of it with the client.
Caught up with colleague Sara about the work we’re doing for a province, and made plans for the coming few weeks
Had a client meeting for the EU study, in which I participated remotely and presented our current findings on meteorological data, and earth observation and evironmental data.
Discussed the same study and the Dutch position on it with the Dutch Ministry for the Interior’s responsible civil servant.
Was interviewed by our intern Shivani on the way The Green Land operates, and the experience, skills and knowledge I bring to the mix.
Checked and improved our household’s preparedness w.r.t. a potential further spread of Covid-19. Ensured I have enough of my prescription meds, and we have enough food and household material for a month. It’s less a precaution against the virus, although self-quarantine is now easily done if needs be, and more resilience against sudden runs on certain items, or apothecaries being overwhelmed by other things than my regular meds. The Italian outbreak saw immediate empty shelves in supermarkets, and the 10 current cases in the Netherlands have already led to hand soap being in short supply in shops around the country.
Installed a new microwave in the kitchen with E. It broke down a day before we left for the French Alpes last week, and E ordered one upon our return.
Had a management team meeting/breakfast with my business partners
Had our monthly all hands meeting with the company, followed by a group dinner.
Met up for a few beers with two members of my old fraternity. We all live in the same town, but we’ve never gotten around to catching up until now. A next date is set in 8 weeks or so.
Y last Sunday couldn’t believe you could see space from the ground, as we were walking home in the dark. Especially not that a bright start was actually a planet. But planet’s are in space! And space is far away, you can’t see that from here! As a consequence we drove to Eise Eisinga’s Planetarium, the oldest still working mechanical one in the world, and discussed planets, the sun and the moon. Added bonus is that this 18th century planetarium is in Friesland, giving us opportunity to acquire some local treats, not available elsewhere in the country.
This week in …… 1879*
Dutch architect Jan Frederik Staal was born. He designed several iconic buildings in Amsterdam. One of which is the 12-story house, the second highrise of its kind in the Netherlands and the first in Amsterdam, with spacious 6-room apartments. It was placed at the head of the 1920s built ‘Rivers’ neighbourhood designed by Berlage, in Amsterdam. The building came with fast elevators, a trash chute, and window hinges placed so that windows when opened could be cleaned from the inside. (see the open windows top left in the image below)
Photo by JPMM, license CC BY NC ND
In the 3d map image below you can see how the building is positioned in the neighbourhood.
(* I show an openly licensed image with each Week Notes posting, to showcase more open cultural material. See here why, and how I choose the images for 2020.)
A pretty regular work week in an increasingly irregular context.
This week I
Had work sessions on launching the open data platform for a province, ironing out details on synchronisation with internal infrastructure
Worked 2 days (Tue, Wed) from home at a slower than regular pace, because I was tired
Spent a day discussing public and civic tech with like minded ngo’s, companies, and government entities (more about that later)
Initiated our company’s switch to working remote only, because of Covid19
This week in ….141 BCE*
Emperor Wu of the Han dynasty assumed the throne. He ruled for 54 years, the longest period for the next 1800 years.
Han Wudi’s burial mound, a 2100 year old landmark. Image in the Public Domain.
(* I show an openly licensed image with (almost) each Week Notes posting, to showcase more open cultural material. See here why, and how I choose the images for 2020.)
This second week of lock-down worked out better than the previous one I felt. Mostly because I started working earlier, 6am each day, allowing me to start with a few hours of focused time. And also because I cut down on the number and length of conference calls, as last week while everyone was finding their bearings it felt like the only thing I did was conference calls. For the coming week we’ll need to work on balancing our respective working times, as well as carving out a bit of personal time.
This week I
Spent most of three days preparing and doing two online focus groups for our study for the implementation of the revised EU PSI Directive, which will have list of mandatory datasets to publish for all EU Member States. I’m leading the effort to create that list for the themes of Earth Observation / Environmental data, and Meteorological data.
Had a discussion about the IACS data for the EU’s common agricultural policy, also w.r.t. the PSI Directive
Planned next steps for the implementation of an open data platform for a province, looking at potential data sets for various policy areas
Had a breakfast meeting with my partners at The Green Land, discussing /assessing the coming months
Landed a new project that extends our company’s horizon to nearly October
Worked on monitoring / indicators and the consequences for data gathering and data driven decision making
Had an informal all hands hang-out to close the working week with the company. Also with Y had video calls with my sisters, and we did a virtual coffee round with all of E’s family over coffee, where all arranged for cake on their end.
This week in…..1199*King Richard I Lionheart was wounded in France this week in 1199, leading to his death on April 6th.
Miniature of Richard I. Public domain. Original with the British Library.
(* I show an openly licensed image with (almost) each Week Notes posting, to showcase more open cultural material. See here why, and how I choose the images for 2020.)
Three weeks into lockdown, we now know we’ll be so until the end of April (but my assumption is until June 1st, as gatherings are already banned until then, and then an off and on of measures until a vaccin). The doubling rate of positively tested cases has gone from 3 days to 8 days since the introduction of measures, even as testing numbers have grown (though still are limited). Hospitalisation numbers, and specifically ICU admissions are seeing lower growth, a sign that the curve might be flattening as intended so ICUs won’t be overwhelmed (the number of ICU beds has been doubled in the country to build up a buffer for the expected peak later this month, and neighbouring German hospitals are also taking in patients). These are all encouraging signs, yet three weeks into lockdown with some four at least to go, I think mental health is currently a key thing to watch. The second half of last week I felt deflated, having done what first could be done to ensure my family and my company are as ok as currently possible, but not being able to take a break mentally or carve out some personal time. Around me I hear stories that echo that.
This week I
Worked from 6am every morning to have a block of focused time
Did some reporting and desk research for the EU high value data list project
Had a morning of conference calls with the EC about the same
Did the weekly catch-up with a province, for which we are implementing an open data publishing platform
Did the March invoicing
Discussed and planned next steps for bringing a client’s Digital Transformation team on one page concerning monitoring, measurement and indicators in a data driven decision making context
Had a session on reorienting our work on circular economy for a client, now that the experiments we initiated have stalled. We were gathering data about left-over food in the client’s office restaurant, but of course it is closed now. Decided to dive deeper into the ordering process of office lunches instead.
Took Wednesday afternoon off, to help me find a way to take a break, and promising myself to take Monday off as well. That permission to myself cleared things up considerably already. Like how planning a trip apparently has the same happinness benefit as planning it and actually going.
Finally took the first step of the Linqurator project I thought up and made a planning for last December. A first database structure is now in place. Will next load it up with my Delicious export to have something to work and test with.
Created a small plugin for E’s site, to provide some specific functionality around her RSS-feed, that won’t be overwritten by a WordPress update or a theme change.
Enjoyed the first true spring day in the garden, with E and Y, and taking an early morning walk, to the neighbourhood bakery/coffee-place. They are open for things to go.
Ordered three pancakes to go at the neighbourhood pancake restaurant Y likes to go to. They’re now closed other than for take-away. Of course it makes no real sense to order out for pancakes at 12E each if you can bake them yourselves very easily too. But it does make sense to try and keep the local restaurants you appreciate afloat in these times.
Had an all-hands online hang-out and drinks to celebrate the first full year of our colleague S as part of our team.
Started to read some non-fiction works. Finally!
This week in…..1800*
This week in 1800 Ludwig van Beethoven led the premiere of his First Symphony in Vienna.
An orchestra playing Beethoven’s 9th in the open air. Image by Francesco Cirigliano, license CC BY.
(* I show an openly licensed image with (almost) each Week Notes posting, to showcase more open cultural material. See here why, and how I choose the images for 2020.)
This was the first week of our half-staycation. This month I (as well as E) am working on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and spending the rest of the week together.
Worked a day and a half on th EU high value data study, updating two chapters of a previous report with new information received
Worked on digital transformation for a province
Continued reworking previous blogposts, presentations and documents into notes. Now at over 200 notes. This week open data insights mostly.
The rest of the week we camped out in E’s brother’s garden, to celebrate the birthday of our niece I. We had plenty of space to meet the family while maintaining distance.
Following up on Robert’s gentle nudge to return to adding images to these week notes:
This week in …. 1867*
On August 9th 1867 Evelina Haverfield was born in Scotland. She was a militant suffragette, fighting for the womens right to vote from 1908. During World War I she worked as a nurse in Serbia, and later returned there a.o. to start an orphanage. There is a Serbian postage stamp, celebrating her as a World War I heroine.
Evelina Haverfield and Emmeline Pankhurst in court in 1909 for their work as suffragettes (public domain)
(* I show an openly licensed image with (almost) each Week Notes posting, to showcase more open cultural material. See here why, and how I choose the images for 2020.)
It’s almost unbelievable that 2/3 of the year have already passed. It seems as if we’ve just returned from our week in the snow late February, a few days before the pandemic hit the Netherlands which then led to the lockdown on the Ides of March. And now, the summer months have passed already! Not that I’ve been doing nothing in between, on the contrary, I’ve worked a lot and hard. But there is a certain element of waiting, not for the way it was, more for a new normal or rather a new steadiness. There is a possibility that new normal will kick in next week, when school opens after the summer, and we are likely to have steady week rhythm that doesn’t change every other week. That element of waiting till now makes it feel more like the 183rd of March 2020, than the 30th of August 2020.
This week was a good week, one of relief. First, I finished my work for the European High Value Data study which I started in January. I’m satisfied with the outcome, and in the end the enormous struggle I had in May for the intermediate report made these last steps easier, as since that bottle neck in the work I basically breathe the narrative and results I came up with at that difficult stage. Next week we’ll do a presentation of the work, and there will be some edits afterwards, but that should be it. Although one never knows, as it is an EU project and they can bring unexpected surprises right until the end. Now we will have to wait and see in the coming months what from our output will end up in the new European open data law which enters into force next year.
Second, we came to the end of an intensive time at the NGO that I chair. In June the director announced she would be leaving by September, and that same day a senior project lead announced she had accepted a new job per mid August. With the outgoing director our board worked hard to find suitable replacements, and we have found two new senior project leads, and last Wednesday I signed the contract for a new director, who will start next week. This is good news, which we celebrated with an all hands meeting (half online, half in situ), where we could say goodbye properly to Wilma who is leaving to become deputy head of the national broadcaster’s editorial board, and welcome Serv, a former diplomat, elections observer, author and previously director at a similar NGO.
Things I worked on this week:
Wrote out the revised potential policy options for the EU high value study
Incorporated feedback into the final revisions of other chapters for the EU study
Reworked the macro-economic assessment of the thematic areas I lead for the EU study, and took another dive into the micro-economic costs and benefits to build up macro-economic arguments.
Negotiated the contract for the new director of the NGO I chair. Signed the contract during an all-hands meet-up. Phoned the candidates that didn’t make the cut to inform them about that.
Restarted our work on an open data publising platform for a province, now their team is back from summer holidays.
Worked on non-tech digital transformation aspects for another province.
Had a brief meeting with my company’s MT to sync after the others were away on vacation, and to agree on the contract we’ll offer one of our team whose contract is up for renewal at the end of September (we let her know before her own holiday already we’d like to renew her contract to prevent undue worries)
Friday E, Y and me drove to Leeuwarden in Friesland to take in an exhibit at the Fries museum, go out for lunch, and then drive on to a campground in Drenthe for the yearly family weekend. Although it is a socially distanced edition of the family meet-up it is good to see each other again, even if from further away than in previous years.
Today we celebrated E’s birthday (Which makes it two years since our last birthday unconference. It’s hard to imagine an event like that in our home now).
I did not blog this week at all I notice, due to the time I worked on the EU study and the NGO. This ate away the early morning time I usually use for writing.
This week in … 1913*
This week in 1913 the Peace Palace was opened in The Hague by Queen Wilhelmina. It houses the Permanent Court of Arbitration, and the International Court of Justice (which is the principal judicial body of the United Nations, and he only principal UN organ not located in New York City). It was opened in the midst of WWI, which was possible because the Netherlands remained a neutral country in WWI.
Peace Palace, image by Roman Boed, license CC-BY
(* I show an openly licensed image with (almost) each Week Notes posting, to showcase more open cultural material. See here why, and how I choose the images for 2020.)
It was a very busy week, with dawn to dusk videocalls on several days. I declared videoconferencing moratorium for next week (although I have a handful scheduled), in order to get some things qctually done. This week I
Got asked to do an extended interview/briefing on the ‘Impact through Connection‘ project I did a few years ago, in order to create a low threshold document for library staff to emulate our work.
Worked on the data publishing platform for a province
Discussed how to use data better for governance audits, as well as for politician’s briefings for a client
Prepared documentation for the Open Nederland general assembly
Finished my series of 6 blogpostings about using Obsidian (here’s part 1, with links to the other 5)
Did a number of interviews on sustainable infrastructure development (roads, waterways etc) for a client
Discussed with the Dutch service provider Good.cloud to move my company’s NextCloud to them
Indulged myself ordering some books from Shakespeare and Company in Paris, just because
Unpacked my newly received CZUR Shine Ultra, a scanner/camera that ook some time getting delivered from China due to the pandemic.
Enjoyed the lovely fall weather this weekend
Made a list of the non-fiction books on my Nova2, Kindle and windowsill’s ‘to read’ stacks. There wasn’t really a need to order more from Paris, I must admit. I can read my way through multiple additional pandemic waves to be honest. Having the list will however help me actually start on some of those books.
This week in … 1492*
A meteorite fell to earth in the Alsace. It was observed and chronicled at the time. A 127kg piece is still on display in the town of Ensisheim.
(this image I found through Google search. As it’s a straightforward reproduction of public domain material, it is considered public domain as well.
(* I show an openly licensed image with some Week Notes posting, to showcase more open cultural material. See here why, and how I choose the images for 2020.)
Another week I didn’t feel quite on top of things or hitting my stride. I was outside too little and behind my desk for way too much. I also really need some time just to do some random things for myself. I plan to take some more days before Christmas off, but that is still a few weeks away so I’ll try and create some space for myself in the coming days as well.
This week I
Finished a proposal for a citizen science project, that if accepted would mean an cool new project for the first half of 2021
Discussed a guest lecture with the prof on Monday, made the outline Thursday, prepped slides and gave it on Friday. Spent more time than necessary to create the guest lecture. It did mean however I now have a current version again of a general open data introduction.
Watched a friend being installed a Mayor of a small municipality. Because of the pandemic everything was mostly remote, and only his husband was allowed within 1.5m, so he was the one hanging the mayoral chain of office on him. That was way more moving to watch than I expected.
Prepared for and attended a thorough discussion session on open data, algorithm and ethics for a province.
Had the weekly client calls for the projects I’m involved in
Had several interviews and sessions to process notes on sustainable infrastructure with a client
Had our monthly all hands meeting of my company
Had the annual General Assembly of the Open Nederland association, in which I was reconfirmed for another 2 years as treasurer
Visited family for a socially distanced visit
(Where meetings are mentioned: these all took place remotely)
This week in … 1975*
Juan Carlos became King of Spain, after General Franco’s death, who had been dictator of Spain from 1939. Against expectations he set Spain on an immediate course to democracy, which culminated in becoming an EU member in 1985. As a child I remember the television scenes of the attempted military coup in February 1981 trying to return Spain to military dictatorship. As a 10 year old I found the gesticulating Tejero with his to me comical looking military hat rather ridiculous, though I suspect for the members of parliament he held hostage it must have felt quite different.
Photographer Manuel Pérez Barriopedro next to his winning World Press Photo 1982 image of the 1981 coup attempt with Tejero in the Spanish parliament. Image by Marcel Antonisse / Anefo Dutch National Archive, license CC BY SA
(* I show an openly licensed image with some Week Notes posting, to showcase more open cultural material. See here why, and how I choose the images for 2020.)
This week started on the wrong foot, as Y fell ill and had a very bad night from Sunday on Monday. As a result I didn’t sleep from the many interruptions to tend to her either. The week did get gradually better after Tuesday, taking better care of myself, and by the weekend I felt much better than last week. Clearing out my schedule, and keeping only the necessary things helped a lot. Leads me to think I should try and be more ‘minimalist’ by default. Meanwhile Germany has announced a strict lock-down again, until mid January. Given the strong rise in cases here in the Netherlands, I am working on the assumption that we’ll have something similar here too as of mid next week, and that Y’s school will stay shut for at least a week into the new year. So I stocked up on the basics again, the third time this year, ensuring we don’t need to go to the shops much for a few weeks.
This week I
Had our monthly ‘finance and project acquisition’ stand-up, in which I showed the team our financial situation. We’ve done very well this year. Also discussed new projects to land, which is looking good too.
The treadmill arrived, which I’ve installed underneath a standing desk in our attic space
Had the weekly confcalls with clients
Worked on a client’s assessment report about digital transformation for sustainable infrastructure
Presented the first general results of that assessment report to the client. Will work on the details and deliver the final report early January
Discussed a citizen science project proposal I submitted earlier with the prospective client. We’ve agreed some changes, I’ll adapt the proposal next week. But other than that it’s accepted, and we’ll start late January.
Discussed a potential role with a novel client, based on my earlier European work this year. Got asked to write a proposal next week, with a prospective start late January as well. If this happens, then in combination with the project above and existing work, it seems I’ll be fully booked for the next year.
Did a range of things around the house. Y wanted more Christmas lighting in the garden, so we did that. Replaced the external light next to the front door. Fixed a wooden shelf to the wall in the hallway, for photo frames and things Y makes at school. Seems to me that doing things like that in and around the house mostly consists of drilling ever more holes into your home…
Spent very little time on writing Notions, against my plans but in alignment with my energy level this week. Next week I will work only the first half and then take time off until the new year, so I will likely spend more time writing Notions in the second half of the week.
This week in … 1901*
Marconi received the first transatlantic radio signal (the three dots of the letter S in Morse code) at Signal Hill, in St. John’s, Newfoundland Canada. It was sent from Poldhu, Cornwall UK.
Signal Hill on Newfoundland, image by Paul, license CC-BY
(* I show an openly licensed image with some Week Notes posting, to showcase more open cultural material. See here why, and how I choose the images for 2020.)