Author: Joop Beris

  • What are your feelings about eating meat?

    What are your feelings about eating meat?

    For the writing prompt of today (for which I am way too late), WordPress asks: “What are your feelings about eating meat?” I discussed some of this in a post about becoming a vegetarian before but it’s worth exploring this topic a bit further because it’s still controversial for many people. Let’s dive in!

  • Black Friday

    Black Friday

    Black Friday is the term mostly used in the United States for the Friday following Thanksgiving. It’s the day that marks the beginning of the holiday shopping season. It’s known for retailers offering massive discounts and in a way it is a perfect summary of our empty, consumption oriented society.

  • Are we happier?

    Are we happier?

    A friend triggered me with a question the other day. He was wondering: are we happier today in our modern society than people in the past? That’s a very complex question with many facets to consider. Who are we comparing? How are we going to make that comparison? To what period in history are we…

  • A structure of sorts

    A structure of sorts

    A few weeks ago, I announced my intention to take this blog into a slightly different direction. To find that direction, I went back through my old posts to come up with one or more general themes or topics. A grand narrative, so to speak. I collected all of my used tags and arranged them…

  • Nobody knows what they are doing

    Nobody knows what they are doing

    For the writing prompt of today (for which I am too late), WordPress asks: “Share a lesson you wish you had learned earlier in life.” There are many, many examples I could give here. I’ve even done an entire posts about the lessons I’ve learned. But in thinking to come up with a new lesson…

  • Dutch government allowed to use public cloud

    Dutch government allowed to use public cloud

    The public cloud is everywhere. Companies like Amazon, Google, Microsoft and dozens of others are eager to sign up new users and expand their services to existing customers. Many organisations moved their entire IT operations to Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure and more will follow. The Dutch government abstained, until very recently. Just last…