Describing Roger Federer is hard, but this (Swiss) article does it in a beautiful way. If you are into tennis, data or both, it’s a must-read/see.
∞ SRF
∞ 20 Jahre 20 Titel – Roger Federer by the numbers
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Songs changed to major/minor
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Sometimes a small taste can lead to addiction. That’s what happened when I saw this post by Jay Dalrymple. It features Nirvana’s Smells like Teen Spirit, but in a major scale.
So, off to Youtube we go, and there’s a whole channel of them! Some favourites below.
Enjoy your own trip down this rabbit hole, and share your favourites with me on Twitter or leave a comment!
2017 (in pictures)
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It seems like a good time to share the best of 2017. Here it is, in 30 pictures that I was grateful to take or be in.
Contrasts
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If you had to place a bet at the end of 2016…
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It’s December 31st 2016, and you are a betting man (or woman). The subject matter is Roger Federer. You have three picks to predict his performance up to and including Wimbledon 2017:
1) Super 2017
Roger will win 52 matches and lose only 5, winning:
– Australian Open
– Indian Wells
– Miami
– Halle
– Wimbledon
– Shanghai
– Basel
2) Declining with age
Roger’s body will finally catch up with him. His mental performance also deteriorates.
– He will fail to win a single match on clay
– He will lose to players ranked 116 and 302, on fast hardcourt and grass, while having match points in both matches.
3) Both
Which would you pick?
About Pride
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Last Saturday Interface (the company I work for) gave me the chance to join the Canal Parade in Amsterdam. For those who don’t know, this is one of the biggest parties in the Netherlands, period. It attracted 560.000 visitors! I got to be part of the Amsterdam Schoon (Amsterdam Clean) project. From our small boat, we handed out fishing nets and trash bags to the visitors in their stationary boats. And of course, we got to enjoy the music and see all the hilarious outfits ‘out there’. It was an awesome day and I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.
So why didn’t I just post the pictures on Facebook and be done with it? The day made me think once again about broader issues. Feminism, gamergate, the fact that I really don’t know which other letters I should include when I write LGBT… I read many smart opinion pieces. Tofik Dibi (semi-paywall) is unhappy about the current state of affairs when it comes to empowerment of sexual and ethnical minorities. In the comments of that article many people state it is their yearly celebration, while others state there is a long way to go. It’s clear that Euro Pride is not representative of all sexual minorities. I personally think that’s fine. King’s Day is not representative for all Dutch people either. It only becomes a problem when people feel they are never represented.
My own position is complicated. As a heterosexual white male from Western Europe, I have no idea what it’s like to be part of a minority. I’d like to think I am a modern, tolerant human being, but it is hard for me to say whether I am. After all, I do enjoy Cards Against Humanity immensely, and it’s hard to call the game ‘politically correct’.
When I returned to work on Monday, it occurred to me that we are between similar rocks and hard places when it comes to gender equality and sustainability. When you try to communicate the improvements needed and the urgency involved, there is a group that will tell you how enlightened we are and how far we’ve come, and we can’t expect perfection. When you celebrate the achievements made, another group will tell you that there is so much that needs to be done, and we shouldn’t rest.
I think the answer is adopting an ambiguous view. We should be proud of what we have achieved, and keep working hard to improve at the same time. As humans, we need a pat on the back after a performance. Getting to the top rarely involves the pole vault – often it involves an ordinairy set of stairs. So let’s split our missions into smaller pieces, celebrate small victories, and attack the next challenge with renewed energy and the confidence of knowing what we have already achieved.
PS: Of course you can see the pictures on Facebook.
TED: How not to be ignorant about the world
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I loved this TED Talk about the state of the world. It starts with a quiz. Let me know how you did!
∞ Travelblog Updates
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Jacqueline and I are traveling through Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Panama for a few weeks. You can catch our updates at our Tumblr!
∞ Seth Godin – An alternative to believing in yourself
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Seth Godin:
Telling someone, “believe in yourself,” is often worthless, though, because it’s easier said than done. Perhaps the alternative is: “Do work you can believe in.”
∞ Quartz – Thomas Piketty explains the meaning of economic models, and why we can’t rely on them
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A nice explanation of the usefulness, or lack thereof, of economic models. I love the quote Quartz features from Peter Hansen:
Models are always wrong. It seems kind of strange to hear that initially, but there is a sense in which models are simplifications; they are abstractions. And they are wrong.
Before you argue with Hansen’s statement, remember he is a Nobel-prize-winning economist himself.
