Consequences of EU for national governments

Here in The Netherlands, our political landscape is made up of four hierarchical layers: city councils, provincial government, national government and the EU. For the last 20, or so, years we've been going through a process where the influence and importance of the provincial government is slowly diminishing, to the point where they are only responsible for public transport. Likewise, a parallel trend was, and still is, to decentralize the national government, by handing out more and more tasks and responsibilities to the local level.
On top of all this, the main thing our national government is responsible for is making sure that European legislation finds it's place in our national law. And because of the fact that so much of the carrying out of legislation has been decentralized to the cities and municipalities, our national government has been degraded to a translation agency for EU legislation.

So there are two trends at play here:

1. Decentralizing the national government.


2. Becoming obsolete as a legislator.

Extrapolating these two trends, the only conclusion is that the national government will itself become as unimportant as the Dutch provincial government is. The EU will determine the legislation and the local government will carry it out. This trend to unimportance also explains why so many national politicians in the EU are showing nationalists tendencies. It's simple job protection for them.

Zaaf

Location:Rijksweg,Muiden,Netherlands

Happy birthday iPad

Since a year the iPad is on the market. It's been available here for slightly over eight months. And still I get lots of questions about it from people who show interest, but who do not know what to do with it. And every time I have to explain that, yes, it's just a big iPhone, without the phone, and no, it is something very different.
Apple got mocked for calling it magical, but that seems the correct term for it. The big screen size, combined with the responsiveness of the touch interface, combined with the fact that the screen shows the app in full, without any UI element of the OS, allows you to be immersed into your app. This effect is so much stronger on the iPad than on the iPhone that it seems magical.
I've been trying to figure out where that difference comes from. And to me, it stems from the bigger screen, combined with the fact that I use it with one app at the time. This gives such focus to what I'm doing with it, that I feel immersed in the app. Whether it's reading e-mail, e-books, tweets, or the Economist, or when it's 'just' a simple game like Doodle Jump or Sudoku, the iPad morphs into that app. And it's this morphing quality that makes it special and that somehow lacks on the iPhone. The specs of the iPad help here, especially the battery life. But it's the absence of any sign of anything other than the current app that makes this possible. And that is thanks to the operating system. iOS gets out of your way and lets you get on with your things.

The iPad 2 seems to have everything that makes it even more immersive: more ram, faster processor, thinner and lighter. Combined with a unobtrusive OS, it is a must buy for any doubter.

Zaaf

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Impala,Huizen,The Netherlands

And it's so like leica

So last week, I finally decided I needed a photo camera. I've never ever in my life owned a photo camera before, so this is a bigger decision than you'd might think. Yes, I've had mobile phones with camera's, three up 'till now, and I've even used them to make pictures, but never a real photo camera. So, what changed my mind? In short, it was a link from daringfireball.net to this page, a wonderful love story of a guy with a Leica M9, written by Thorsten Overgaard. It's described there as a mix between a DSLR and a point and shoot camera, with the goodies of both.

Leica's are hard to find around here. And it turns out that the M9 is horribly expensive. It can cost up to €6000, but in his love letter he mentioned a cheaper alternative, the Leica D-lux. So after reading the whole article, I took the plunge and decided I needed a Leica D-lux 5 for €699. However, because it would become my first camera, I needed to hold it in my hands before buying it. As it turned out, this was a good call.

Upon arriving in the photo store, the seller told me that, yes they have a Leica D-lux 5, but did I know that for €220 less I could be the owner of exactly the same camera but with a Panasonic label instead of the iconic red Leica label? He had both in stock, and demonstrated them both to me. Upon a few external design differences, they were practically the same.

So now I'm the proud owner of a Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX5


And it's so like leica...

Zaaf