Pillar III — The Table, The Knowledge, The Joy

Nourishment

Food, health, and the skills to take care of yourself. Where Limbic Literacy protects against what harms you, Nourishment feeds what you need. The generative counterweight — knowledge, skill, and joy.

Knowledge

Prevention over treatment. Complementary medicine — not alternative, but alongside the regular system. Heritage that is at risk of disappearing.

Skill

Knowing what saffron is. Recognising seasonal vegetables. Culinary and medicinal heritage that vanishes once the last generation carrying it is gone.

Joy

System critique without joy turns bitter. Joy without system critique turns naive. Nourishment needs both.

Blog

Cultural heritage20 August 2026

Rural America, Farmers and Forgotten Food Wisdom

In American farmland, something is disappearing that contains centuries of nutritional knowledge.

Source: Food history of America

Limbic Literacycategories.limbic-literacy19 August 2026

Trivium: The Three Arts of Thinking

Grammar teaches what you can say. Logic teaches what is true. Rhetoric teaches how to persuade others.

Source: Classical Trivium handbooks; observation of effective communication

Keystonecategories.keystone18 August 2026

The Difference Between Knowing and Daring

Michael Burry knew in 2006 that houses would collapse. But first he had to wait years for the market to agree.

Source: Lewis, Michael, The Big Short (W.W. Norton, 2010)

Viridian Artcategories.viridian-art17 August 2026

The Uffizi and the Question of What You Preserve

What does 443 years of museum history say about what we call artwork?

Source: Uffizi Gallery history, Florence; museum studies

Statecraftcategories.statecraft16 August 2026

Why the EU Court Said E-Bikes Are Not Motor Vehicles, and What It Means for Law

The EU Court had to choose: is an e-bike transportation or is it a vehicle? The answer says much about how law works in modern times.

Source: EU Court jurisprudence on e-bikes; European mobility regulations; rulings 2023-2024

DIPcategories.dip15 August 2026

Six Startups That Started With Nothing

Von Braun, Jobs, Bezos, Musk. They didn't start with inheritance. They started with observation and daring.

Source: Business history and biographies

iRecordcategories.irecord14 August 2026

ChatGPT automates repetitive tasks: who pays the price?

Efficiency is not neutral.

Source: McKinsey Global Survey on AI adoption (2024); David Graeber, 'Bullshit Jobs' (Simon & Schuster, 2018)

Joy13 August 2026

The Waiter and the Secret of Good Food

Sometimes a waiter teaches you more about nutrition than years of study.

Source: Personal experience

Limbic Literacycategories.limbic-literacy12 August 2026

Leaders and Complexity: How to Organize the Undoable

Complexity is not something you can explain. It is something you must feel and learn to live with.

Source: Dave Snowden, Cynefin Framework; observation of leadership under pressure

Keystonecategories.keystone11 August 2026

The Moment You Realize the System Wasn't Designed for You

An interview with the tax authority teaches you more about your work than a decade of advice.

Source: Personal case studies; Dutch Tax Authority (Belastingdienst) procedures documentation

Viridian Artcategories.viridian-art10 August 2026

Ogilvy and the Craft of Branding

Why David Ogilvy did not underestimate product names, and what this says about design.

Source: David Ogilvy, Ogilvy on Advertising (1983)

Statecraftcategories.statecraft9 August 2026

How Nigeria Controls Its Economy Through Banks, and Why It Fails

Nigeria tried to fight inflation by controlling the banking sector from above. It created no stability. It created corruption, informal markets, and paralyzed economies.

Source: Nigerian Central Bank policy 2023-2024; analyses of informal economies; Financial Times Nigeria coverage

DIPcategories.dip8 August 2026

Winner Take All as Summer Reading for Serious Entrepreneurs

Anita Elberse's book on profit concentration. Not depressing, but essential for anyone who understands the economy doesn't work on soapboxes.

Source: Anita Elberse, Blockbusters (Henry Holt, 2013)

iRecordcategories.irecord7 August 2026

Sora: if video can be false, what is truth then?

Artificially generated video and the end of visual proof.

Source: OpenAI Sora technical documentation; MIT Media Lab on deepfakes; 'Reality Bites' (LaTurbo Avedon, 2023)

System critique6 August 2026

The Elimination Diet as Identity Project

We've created a culture where diet is identity, which obscures the real issues.

Source: Social observation

Limbic Literacycategories.limbic-literacy5 August 2026

The Chain: Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology

Four disciplines, but really four ways to read the same reality.

Source: Observation of educational programs; research on disciplinary hierarchies

Keystonecategories.keystone4 August 2026

Becoming a Millionaire Before 35 Has Nothing to Do With Luck

Everything you decide between 18 and 35 determines whether you have to work for money at 40.

Source: Bogle, John C., The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing (Wiley, 2007); Allen, David & Mark Sisson, various interviews (2023-2024)

Viridian Artcategories.viridian-art3 August 2026

Ulysses at Its Hundredth Birthday

What does it say about great art that Ulysses after a century is still found unreadable?

Source: James Joyce, Ulysses (1922); literary studies

Statecraftcategories.statecraft2 August 2026

Why the Russian Railroad Boss Knows More Than Europe

America built highways. Russia built railroads. Europe talks about connectivity while its transport fractures. The lesson is not in asphalt, but in strategy.

Source: Russian transport infrastructure analyses; American Interstate system; European transport policy 2000-2025

DIPcategories.dip1 August 2026

Neurodiversity as Asset, Not Diagnosis

The ADHD brain, the autistic brain, the dyslexic brain: these are not flaws. These are different ways of thinking that are genius for certain tasks.

Source: Jonathan Mooney, The Short Bus (Holt, 2007) and neuroscience research

iRecordcategories.irecord31 July 2026

The first smart contract: the moment tech wrote itself

Toronto, web3 hackathon, and code as law.

Source: Ethereum documentation; Nick Szabo's smart contracts research; 'Mastering Ethereum' (Andreas M. Antonopoulos, 2018)

Health30 July 2026

The Sixties, When Nobody Was Obese

What changed between then and now was not genetics, but what we eat and how we live.

Source: Historical nutritional data, demographic studies

Limbic Literacycategories.limbic-literacy29 July 2026

The Cooling of Funding for Digital Health Is Healthy

Money does not solve problems. Money accelerates problems. For health, sometimes slowness is the medicine.

Source: Research on failed health tech startups; observation of digitalization in healthcare

Keystonecategories.keystone28 July 2026

When BlackRock Says It, It's Past the Hype Phase

Larry Fink doesn't speak about the future. He speaks about where BlackRock puts money. Listen.

Source: BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, 2024 Shareholder Letter and statements

Viridian Artcategories.viridian-art27 July 2026

The Sculpture Everyone Photographs

What happens when an artwork becomes so famous that no one actually sees it anymore?

Source: Famous sculptures, photography culture; art history research

Statecraftcategories.statecraft26 July 2026

What Barbara Baarsma Tries to Tell Us About Rights

Economist Barbara Baarsma proposes: put labor rights in a trading system. More tradeable, flexible contracts, less permanent work. The problem is: rights are only rights if they are not tradeable.

Source: Barbara Baarsma, columns and essays 2020-2024; Dutch labor market debates

DIPcategories.dip25 July 2026

Entering Venture Capital as an Outsider

Venture capital feels to outsiders like a closed world. But it's just a market. And markets respond to value, not pedigree.

Source: Observations from venture capital ecosystem

iRecordcategories.irecord24 July 2026

Erasing internet history isn't enough; tracking follows you always

Deleting cookies solves nothing.

Source: Electronic Frontier Foundation; Wolfie Christl, 'The Digital Prism' (Cracked Labs, 2017)

Joy23 July 2026

Nutrition Is Passion

Eating is not only physiology. It's how we tell each other that life is worth living.

Source: Personal observation

Limbic Literacycategories.limbic-literacy22 July 2026

Betrayal, Secrets, and the Burden of Hiding

Secrets are not private. Secrets are lies. And lies cost more energy than truth.

Source: Harriet Lerner, Why Won't You Apologize?; research on psychological burden of secrets

Keystonecategories.keystone21 July 2026

Why Estonia Is the Phenomenon No Other Country Dares Copy

Estonia wrote the tax code for the digital age. No one else is brave enough.

Source: Estonian Ministry of Finance, Corporate Tax Policy (2024); Various Florian case studies

Viridian Artcategories.viridian-art20 July 2026

Chappelle and the Return

What does it mean when an artist disappears for twelve years and then returns? Not stronger, not wiser. Simply: different.

Source: Dave Chappelle specials Netflix 2013-2024; interviews

Statecraftcategories.statecraft19 July 2026

Asylum Numbers: What They Say and What We Lie With Them

The Netherlands talks about asylum seekers as a number. That number says much about our fear, but almost nothing about reality. How we use numbers to avoid thinking.

Source: Central Bureau for Statistics (CBS); UNHCR Global Trends; IND asylum reporting 2023-2024

DIPcategories.dip18 July 2026

The Laundromat as Unexpectedly Good Investment

Setting up a washing machine and collecting money sounds unsexy. But it might be the smartest thing a beginning entrepreneur can do.

Source: Observations from startup and business ecology

iRecordcategories.irecord17 July 2026

OpenAI GPT Builders: creating millionaires from technology that isn't theirs

How you earn millions with someone else's technology.

Source: OpenAI GPT Store launch documentation; Y Combinator startup analysis 2024

Knowledge16 July 2026

When Medicine Was Just Marketing

The history of pharmaceuticals teaches us to be cautious about what companies promise.

Source: Medical history, pharmaceutical archives

Limbic Literacycategories.limbic-literacy15 July 2026

Ten Traits of Leaders I Recognize in Practice

Leadership is not a title. It is a pattern of choices. I recognize these ten traits every time.

Source: Observation of leaders in public sector and business; Aiki-method (Jacob Huibers)

Keystonecategories.keystone14 July 2026

The Rent Plague: How Million-Person Cities Squeeze the Middle Class

In Lagos, 60% of income goes to rent. Amsterdam is following. This isn't economy. It's extraction.

Source: Numbeo Housing Index, Global Rent Reports (2024)

Viridian Artcategories.viridian-art13 July 2026

Menswear Illustrations as Document

Why fashion drawings from the early 20th century say more about craft than contemporary photography.

Source: Fashion photography archives; German and French fashion magazines 1900-1930

Statecraftcategories.statecraft12 July 2026

How Energy Transition Harms the Poor: The British Lesson

Britain wanted cheap green. Instead it got expensive green, and poor households pay the bill. That is not an accident. That is the lack of thinking about invisible groups.

Source: UK Office of National Statistics; Energy Policy Institute reports; BBC reporting on fuel poverty 2022-2024

DIPcategories.dip11 July 2026

What Consumers See and Don't: Baymard's UX Research

Baymard Institute spent decades examining online shopping behavior. What did they find? Most design choices were made incompetently by people who never observed.

Source: Baymard Institute, UX Research (2015-2024)

iRecordcategories.irecord10 July 2026

Google: 15 products with 500k users, yet we feel no choice

Scale as strategy; dominance as consequence.

Source: Alphabet SEC filings Q4 2024; Brad Stone, 'The Everything Store' (Little, Brown, 2013)

System critique9 July 2026

The Food Bank Is a Symptom, Not a Solution

Food banks hide the real problem: structural inability to feed yourself.

Source: Social observation, poverty studies

Limbic Literacycategories.limbic-literacy8 July 2026

Ghana and Thailand in 1962: How Two Countries Developed Differently

Equal starting positions, radically different outcomes. The question is not which countries did better. The question is why.

Source: Daron Acemoglu & James A. Robinson, Why Nations Fail; historical analysis of post-colonial nations

Keystonecategories.keystone7 July 2026

House Prices Aren't Normal. You've Just Normalized.

A million-euro house in Amsterdam isn't expensive. It's a signal that something fundamental is broken in the system.

Source: Shiller, Robert J., Irrational Exuberance (Princeton University Press, 2015)

Viridian Artcategories.viridian-art6 July 2026

The Courtyard of Budapest

What happens when you fold an entire Hungarian city in miniature into a courtyard, and why is this the pinnacle of Art Nouveau?

Source: Ödön Lechner and Hungarian Art Nouveau; documentation Budapest city museum

Statecraftcategories.statecraft5 July 2026

Money That Recognizes Fear: Why the Rich Withdraw

Large family offices are shifting their investments from public to private assets. That is not a financial signal. It is a society signal: even they no longer trust public order.

Source: McKinsey Family Office Survey 2023; Credit Suisse Wealth Report; Private equity trends 2020-2024

DIPcategories.dip4 July 2026

The Seven Billion Dollar Question: Thiel on Concentration of Power and Value

Seven billion dollars. PayPal, Facebook, SpaceX. How does value concentrate into a few big bets? And what does that mean for an inclusive economy?

Source: Peter Thiel, Portfolio analysis and interviews

iRecordcategories.irecord3 July 2026

OpenAI speaks about the past to ignore the present

Why tech companies suddenly feel compassionate about history.

Source: OpenAI policy announcements; Robert Hartley, 'A History of Slavery and Anti-Slavery' (Oxford, 2007)

Health2 July 2026

Health Is Not an Expense

Viewing your health as a cost is a fundamental accounting error. It is something that yields returns.

Source: Business economics, nutritional philosophy

Limbic Literacycategories.limbic-literacy1 July 2026

Adversity Builds Character, But What Kind?

It is not adversity that builds character. It is what you make of it, and whether someone helps you bear it.

Source: Research on resilience and trauma; interviews with people from crisis zones

Keystonecategories.keystone30 June 2026

Crypto Isn't Ready Yet. But the Future Is.

The coin will fail. The technology beneath it will change everything.

Source: CoinMarketCap, Bitcoin whitepaper analyses (2024); Ethereum Foundation publications

Viridian Artcategories.viridian-art29 June 2026

Lalique and the Moonstone

Why René Lalique wove his glasswork into jewelry, and what it means when an artist reaches for stone instead of pigment.

Source: Lalique biography and catalogue, Musée Lalique Wingen-sur-Moder

Statecraftcategories.statecraft28 June 2026

The Price of Alliance and the Problem of Silence

Biden backed Israel unconditionally in Gaza and thereby lost his voice in the conflict. That is not moral, it is tactically stupid. Alliances only work with leverage.

Source: Biden administration statements 2023-2024; Palestinian Authority; Washington Post, NY Times coverage

DIPcategories.dip27 June 2026

Slack's Many Lives: How Real Companies Grow Through Reinvention

Slack wasn't always a chat app. It started as something completely different. How a company can transform while remaining true to its core.

Source: Stewart Butterfield interviews and Slack company history

iRecordcategories.irecord26 June 2026

The shadow version of social media: what happens when you're suspended

A platform exists twice: for you, and without you.

Source: Shoshana Zuboff, 'The Age of Surveillance Capitalism' (PublicAffairs, 2019)

Health25 June 2026

Supplements Are Not Food

Good nutrition comes first. Supplements fill gaps. They never replace the actual work.

Source: Jaap Huibers, nutritional science literature

Limbic Literacycategories.limbic-literacy24 June 2026

The Truth About Santa

Lying to your child about magical things says something about how you regard truth.

Source: Research on the effects of parental lies on childhood trust; observation of family rituals

Keystonecategories.keystone23 June 2026

The Nineties Weren't Better. They Were Whole.

Nostalgia for the 90s isn't longing for worse products. It's longing for completeness.

Source: Turkle, Sherry, Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other (Basic Books, 2011)

Viridian Artcategories.viridian-art22 June 2026

How to Be an Artist

David Bowie on what it means to be creative, and why storytelling is not the same as truth.

Source: David Bowie, BBC interview 2003

Statecraftcategories.statecraft21 June 2026

Clean Energy and Expensive Energy: Two Policy Mistakes

Europe imagined that wind and sun would be cheap. It became expensive. Then we tried to make it more expensive on purpose by making gas unnecessarily dear. That became chaotic.

Source: EU energy policy 2015-2023; ETS (Emissions Trading System); German Energiewende; IEA reports

DIPcategories.dip20 June 2026

26 at 40: Biological Age and the Energy of Entrepreneurship

It's not about how many years you've lived. It's about how you've lived those years. This determines whether you still have the energy to build something entirely new.

Source: Peter Attia, Longevity (The Penguin Press, 2023)

iRecordcategories.irecord19 June 2026

Apple, Meta, Microsoft: not companies but energy pumps

Why Big Tech suddenly cares about nuclear power.

Source: Bloomberg Green; IEA Global Energy Review; Neuralink technical papers

Skill18 June 2026

Movement Is Not a Hobby

A routine built on compound movements and mobility solves more than any supplement ever will.

Source: Practical training experience, kinesiology

Limbic Literacycategories.limbic-literacy17 June 2026

Pre-University versus Secondary School: The Conversation Parents Won't Have

The school track does not determine what your child becomes. But the choice says much about what you hope it becomes.

Source: Observation of educational trajectories in education systems; research on school transitions

Keystonecategories.keystone16 June 2026

The Difference Between Income and Wealth

Your income can vanish. An asset keeps giving without you doing anything for it.

Source: Kiyosaki, Robert T., Rich Dad Poor Dad (Warner Business Books, 1997)

Viridian Artcategories.viridian-art15 June 2026

Art That Irritates

The question great art faces is not whether it is beautiful. The question is whether it disturbs your equilibrium.

Source: Susan Sontag, 'Against Interpretation'; James Elkins, 'What Painting Is'

Statecraftcategories.statecraft14 June 2026

Day 200: When a War Becomes Normal

By day 200 of a war, death tolls have become incomprehensible and nobody counts anymore. The world reorders itself around a conflict that has become permanent.

Source: War reporting 2022-2023; Zelensky speeches; Western media coverage Ukraine

DIPcategories.dip13 June 2026

DNA Difference: European versus American Startup Mentality

Two continents, two visions of how you build a company. The differences go much deeper than money alone.

Source: Observations from Silicon Valley and European tech hubs

iRecordcategories.irecord12 June 2026

AI without data doesn't exist, and that's the actual problem

Billions of images and the question of where they come from.

Source: MIT Media Lab; Cathy O'Neil, 'Weapons of Math Destruction' (Crown, 2016)

Knowledge11 June 2026

What You Don't Measure, You Can't Guide

Blood tests reveal what's actually happening in your body. Without that data, you're navigating in darkness.

Source: Medical practice, research literature

Limbic Literacycategories.limbic-literacy10 June 2026

Ten Habits of Happy People

Happiness is not a state but a practice. The habits that calibrate it are simpler than we think.

Source: Various studies in positive psychology and observation of long-lived people

Keystonecategories.keystone9 June 2026

Why I Had to Protect My Savings Account From Myself

Wealth building doesn't start with picking the right ETFs. It starts with forcing yourself not to spend what you've saved.

Source: Bogle, John C., The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing (Wiley, 2007)

Viridian Artcategories.viridian-art8 June 2026

The Beauty of Lace Against Skin

Why fine lace against your skin is more than craft. It is the boundary between function and desire.

Source: Lingerie historians, museums (Victoria & Albert Museum)

Statecraftcategories.statecraft7 June 2026

What Trump Does With Power, and What Power Does With Us

Eric Weinstein posed a sharp question: what happens when someone gets power without institutional restraints? And how does a democracy recognize the moments when the system itself becomes negotiable?

Source: Eric Weinstein, The Portal (podcast); Donald Trump, presidency 2017-2021, 2025-present

DIPcategories.dip6 June 2026

What No One Sees: Thiel on Undervalued Startup Categories

Peter Thiel teaches us where the real innovation opportunities lie: not in the visible playing field, but in the gaps everyone overlooks.

Source: Peter Thiel, Zero to One (Crown Business, 2014)

iRecordcategories.irecord5 June 2026

Tech stocks and the desire for the future

What our investment choices reveal about what we want to believe.

Source: Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letter (2024); various financial analyses

Health4 June 2026

Health as Priority

Health is not something you maintain casually. It is an active choice that must compete with everything else seeking your attention.

Source: Personal observation

Health3 June 2026

Prevention as a forgotten discipline

Why we spend billions on repair and virtually nothing on prevention.

Source: Jaap Huibers, persoonlijk archief; T. Colin Campbell, The China Study (BenBella, 2005); Michael Marmot, The Health Gap (Bloomsbury, 2015)

Knowledge31 May 2026

Why good design is invisible

The best designs do not stand out. They work.

Source: Dieter Rams, Less but Better (Gestalten, 2014); Kenya Hara, Designing Design (Lars Müller, 2007)

System critique27 May 2026

Never again, not me, not now

On the failure of collective memory and why 'never again' is a promise nobody keeps.

Source: Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny (Tim Duggan, 2017); Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (Harcourt, 1951)

Knowledge24 May 2026

The return of the city-state

How cities are outpacing the nation-state and why that has consequences for how we organize our food.

Source: Benjamin Barber, If Mayors Ruled the World (Yale University Press, 2013); Parag Khanna, Connectography (Random House, 2016)

iRecordcategories.product21 May 2026

What's coming up in Q3

Pilot municipalities live, DigiD integration, link with 42 youth care regions. Freemium is expanding.

Knowledge20 May 2026

The illusion of control in complex systems

Why more measurement does not lead to more grip but to more blindness.

Source: Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile (Random House, 2012); Donella Meadows, Thinking in Systems (Chelsea Green, 2008)

iRecordcategories.campagne19 May 2026

3 months, 1 mission

Dozens of conversations, demo sessions, a pilot program that is starting. iRecord is here. The question is: who is participating?

Cultural heritage17 May 2026

How the Veneto builds for centuries, not for quarters

On a building tradition that treats sustainability not as a label but as a starting point.

Source: Andrea Palladio, I Quattro Libri dell'Architettura (1570); Witold Rybczynski, The Perfect House (Scribner, 2002)

iRecordcategories.product14 May 2026

iRecord in addition to your existing systems

Not a replacement for your client tracking system. A coordination layer that runs alongside it. REST API, standard web architecture.

System critique13 May 2026

The myth of technological neutrality

Technology is never neutral. The question is always: for whom was it designed?

Source: Langdon Winner, Do Artifacts Have Politics? (Daedalus, 1980); Safiya Umoja Noble, Algorithms of Oppression (NYU Press, 2018)

iRecordcategories.product12 May 2026

What will it cost if you don't do it?

Freemium costs nothing. The professional tier €10-25 per user per month. Less than one missed coordination.

Knowledge10 May 2026

Connection without Capture

Privacy as a design principle, not an afterthought.

Source: Bruce Schneier, Data and Goliath (W.W. Norton, 2015); European Commission, General Data Protection Regulation (2016/679)

Statecraftcategories.analysis6 May 2026

The Sum Has a Name: the CPB confirms the pattern, not the architecture that produces it

A response to the May 2026 CPB report on tax burden in the Netherlands. The system is progressive on paper and regressive in practice. The CPB names the pattern with full propriety, but cannot, from its institutional position, name the architecture that produces it.

System critique6 May 2026

Limbic literacy

Why digital resilience is not an individual responsibility.

Source: Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism (PublicAffairs, 2019); Tristan Harris, The Social Dilemma (Netflix, 2020)

iRecordcategories.campagne5 May 2026

Wanted: 5 municipalities for a pilot

Full access, personal guidance, direct influence on the roadmap. No costs during the pilot.

Cultural heritage3 May 2026

Adaptive reuse

Why the best buildings already exist.

Source: Stewart Brand, How Buildings Learn (Penguin, 1994); Rem Koolhaas, Preservation Is Overtaking Us (GSAPP Books, 2014)

iRecordcategories.vir30 April 2026

12 months until VIR stops

The region that is now starting a pilot will have a working solution in 12 months. The region that awaits has a problem.

Joy29 April 2026

The Italian piazza as social design

Why the best public spaces are not designed for efficiency but for encounter.

Source: Jan Gehl, Life Between Buildings (Island Press, 2011); Christopher Alexander, A Pattern Language (Oxford University Press, 1977)

Cultural heritage28 April 2026

The Discriminating Eye: on what is lost when a culture stops telling things apart

A pamphlet on recovering the older, finer sense of the word "discrimination" — to distinguish, to tell things apart. On heritage brands across their life cycle, the inversion of quiet luxury, the object as tool rather than self-expression, and what is lost when a culture can no longer choose what to value.

Keystonecategories.analysis27 April 2026

The Dutch Grid Cap is Permanent. The Sector Knows. The Government Won't Say.

The Dutch State Secretary frames the Utrecht grid freeze as a "temporary pause". The sector knows better: a new substation takes seven to twelve years. What this means for property owners, housing construction, social services, and anyone still underwriting the Netherlands thesis.

Cultural heritage27 April 2026

The Tigelliera on the Table

The Tigellino chain in Bologna serves tigelle pre-filled, from the kitchen. In Modena the press sits on the table and guests fill their own. The same bread, an inverted social logic — and a lesson in how to preserve tradition without lapsing into folklore.

Limbic Literacycategories.opinion26 April 2026

The comedian already knew: what Merijn Scholten sees in NRC is exactly what this house is building

An NRC interview with Dutch comedian Merijn Scholten about his new show Lemming offers — without any neuroscience or jargon — one of the sharpest public articulations of what we call Limbic Literacy.

Health26 April 2026

Multipolar food security

What geopolitics has to do with your plate.

Source: Raj Patel, Stuffed and Starved (Melville House, 2012); Timothy Snyder, Black Earth (Tim Duggan, 2015)

iRecordcategories.campagne23 April 2026

The responses so far

Two months of posts. The problem is universally recognizable, the resistance lies with purchasing and IT governance, not with professionals.

System critique22 April 2026

The empty runway

Why Europe can no longer tell its own story.

Source: Douglas Murray, The Strange Death of Europe (Bloomsbury, 2017); Potgieter, Jan, Jannetje en hun jongste kind (1841)

Cultural heritage19 April 2026

The Bauhaus legacy and the return to craft

How the most influential design school of the twentieth century forgot its own principles.

Source: Frank Whitford, Bauhaus (Thames & Hudson, 1984); Richard Sennett, The Craftsman (Yale University Press, 2008)

Statecraftcategories.analysis18 April 2026

The Architecture of Silence: Why the Dutch Tax Authority's data vault is not an incident

The Dutch Tax Authority's data vault is not an incident but a structural pattern. This paper analyses why concealment is rational organisational behaviour, why punitive responses are counterproductive, and what transparency architecture could address the problem at its root.

iRecordcategories.coordinatie16 April 2026

From waiting 3 weeks to immediate insight

A case manager searches for the right contact person for three weeks. With a professional guide she could have tuned in on day one.

Knowledge15 April 2026

Design in Production

Why design does not stop at the drawing table and what that means for how we build organizations.

Source: Victor Papanek, Design for the Real World (Thames & Hudson, 1971); Donald Norman, The Design of Everyday Things (Basic Books, 2013)

iRecordcategories.privacy14 April 2026

Show the citizen who has viewed their data

The execution chart is a visual timeline that shows in plain language who viewed what data.

System critique12 April 2026

The art market and the disappearance of the eye

When price becomes the only measure, the ability to see vanishes.

Source: Jerry Saltz, Art Is Life (Riverhead, 2022); Don Thompson, The $12 Million Stuffed Shark (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008)

iRecordcategories.product9 April 2026

No budget? No problem.

75% of the municipalities cannot achieve a balanced budget. iRecord's freemium tier costs nothing and requires no IT decision.

System critique8 April 2026

Change is not the problem

The problem is that we treat change as a problem.

Source: Ronald Heifetz, Leadership Without Easy Answers (Harvard University Press, 1994); Edgar Schein, Organizational Culture and Leadership (Jossey-Bass, 2010)

System critique5 April 2026

Navigating versus planning

Why organizations get stuck in their own methodology and what the alternative is.

Source: Henry Mintzberg, The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning (Free Press, 1994); Karl Weick, Sensemaking in Organizations (Sage, 1995)

Joy1 April 2026

Wabi-sabi and the imperfect

A Japanese aesthetic that the West urgently needs.

Source: Leonard Koren, Wabi-Sabi: For Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers (Imperfect Publishing, 1994); Soetsu Yanagi, The Beauty of Everyday Things (Penguin, 2019)

Statecraftcategories.analysis31 March 2026

When the State Starts to Feel: Rousseau, Weber, and the Failure of Youth Care

Youth care is not failing because there is too little empathy. It is failing because the state is not fulfilling its own function. Rousseau will not save Lex without Weber.

iRecordcategories.analysis31 March 2026

Four types of market failure in one broadcast: why youth care is not self-correcting

The Zembla documentary reveals all four classic characteristics of market failure in youth care. They reinforce each other because the information system that should make them visible does not exist.

iRecordcategories.product31 March 2026

What if you could always see who is involved?

A professional guide shows who is in the picture for each client. Free. No implementation. No IT decision required.

iRecordSystem critique30 March 2026

Zembla exposé reveals the price of coordination failure: hundreds of children stranded in a system without oversight

On March 26, Zembla aired "Children Nobody Wants" — at least 400 young people in solo placements in three years, and no system to coordinate.

Source: Zembla, "Kinderen die niemand wil" (Children Nobody Wants), 26 March 2026

System critique29 March 2026

395,000 Unemployed — So What?

NU.nl reports 395,000 unemployed. But the real number tells a different story.

Source: CBS StatLine, Labour participation; key figures, Q4 2025; Budget Memorandum 2015; NU.nl, 27 March 2026

Joy29 March 2026

Metamorphoses at the Rijksmuseum

Why we need the old masters to understand our own transformations.

Source: Ovid, Metamorphosen (8 n.Chr.); Rijksmuseum, tentoonstelling Metamorphoses (2024-2025)

iRecordcategories.campagne26 March 2026

What I heard from the field this month

The coordination problem is recognizable everywhere. The VIR phase-out makes professionals worried. No one mentions it by name.

Knowledge25 March 2026

Saffron and the disappearance of ingredient literacy

Knowing what saffron is goes beyond following a recipe. It is a form of literacy that is vanishing.

Source: Pat Willard, Secrets of Saffron (Beacon Press, 2001); Harold McGee, On Food and Cooking (Scribner, 2004)

iRecordcategories.vir24 March 2026

What VIR did, and what's missing when it's gone

Signaling, matching, reporting — three core functions that will disappear without a successor. Technically it is solvable.

Cultural heritage22 March 2026

Fermentation as cultural heritage

From kimchi to sauerkraut: how the world's oldest preservation method risks disappearing.

Source: Sandor Ellix Katz, The Art of Fermentation (Chelsea Green, 2012); Michael Pollan, Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation (Penguin, 2013)

iRecordcategories.mdo19 March 2026

The MDO: 12 professionals, 0 system

60,000 to 80,000 multidisciplinary meetings per year, without a national system for planning or follow-up.

Skill18 March 2026

Reading the market

Why buying local is not a lifestyle choice but a trainable skill.

Source: Elizabeth David, French Provincial Cooking (Michael Joseph, 1960); Marcella Hazan, Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking (Knopf, 1992)

iRecordcategories.privacy17 March 2026

6 years of GDPR, 84 municipalities not yet compliant

Most systems were designed before GDPR. Logging is technical, not readable. Compliance is not a checklist.

Health15 March 2026

Broth as medicine

On the forgotten foundation of the kitchen and why your grandmother's recipe is medicinal heritage.

Source: Sally Fallon, Nourishing Traditions (NewTrends, 2001); Marco Canora, Brodo: A Bone Broth Cookbook (Pam Krauss, 2015)

iRecordcategories.coordinatie12 March 2026

92% of neighborhood teams lack an overview

The coordination problem hits families with multiple problems the hardest. The solution is not to register anymore.

iRecordcategories.coordinatie10 March 2026

Do you know who is involved with your client?

92% of neighborhood teams have insufficient capacity to map the professional network around a client.

Knowledge5 March 2026

Trend scan 2026: seven domains, one message

The Dutch Interior Ministry mapped the major trends facing the Netherlands. The connections between them tell a more important story than the trends themselves.

Source: Based on: Ministry of the Interior / BZK/VRO — "Trendscan: met welke trends moet BZK/VRO rekening houden de komende jaren?", version 2.x, January 2026.

System critique5 March 2026

Wishful thinking about America

Europe is in acute danger, but we act as if it will be fine. On a historical pattern of denial.

Source: Based on: Joris Luyendijk — "We zijn in acuut gevaar, maar blijven wensdenken over de VS", NRC Opinie, 13 February 2026. https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2026/02/13/we-zijn-in-acuut-gevaar-maar-blijven-wensdenken-over-de-vs-a4919693

System critique5 March 2026

43,000 civil servants and nobody ordered them

The Dutch central government grew by 38 percent in six years. Nobody voted for it. Everyone benefited. And now everyone wants to cut back.

Source: Based on: Simon van Teutem — "Wie heeft ervoor gekozen om de overheid met 38 procent te laten groeien in zes jaar? Niemand", De Correspondent, 13 February 2026. https://decorrespondent.nl/16735/wie-heeft-ervoor-gekozen-om-de-overheid-met-38-procent-te-laten-groeien-in-zes-jaar-niemand

System critique5 March 2026

The illusion of control

Why local councils struggle with affiliated organisations — and why ownership is the only real answer.

Source: Based on: Tom Plat, Marsha de Vries & Herman Uffen — "De illusie van grip: waarom verbonden partijen een wicked problem blijven", BMC, 19 December 2025. https://www.bmc.nl/actueel/de-illusie-van-grip-waarom-verbonden-partijen-een-wicked-problem-blijven---en-hoe-we-de-regie-kunnen-terugpakken

iRecordcategories.campagne5 March 2026

Why I build iRecord

Professionals handle complex cases without knowing who is involved with the same client from other organizations.

iRecordcategories.vir3 March 2026

300 municipalities, no plan

The VIR is being phased out. 267 to 300 municipalities will lose their only national signaling mechanism — without an alternative.

System critique27 February 2026

Can Gucci Make Luxury Out of Artificial Intelligence?

On Demna's debut, the emptiness of our time, and the displaced who seek belonging in price tags.

Source: Rachel Tashjian, "Can Gucci make luxury AI?", CNN Style, 27 February 2026.

System critique24 February 2026

Unheard of, but heard everywhere

About the angry citizen, political simplification and the loss of stratification in society.

iRecordcategories.compliance20 February 2026

Modified WAMS strengthens iRecord's position as compliance infrastructure

The caretaker cabinet has significantly amended the WAMS bill. Explicit consent carries more weight, not less.

Source: Dutch Government, WAMS bill

Knowledge15 February 2026

Connection without Capture, also in the kitchen

Viridian's design principle, applied to food.

Health9 February 2026

Prevention is cheaper than treatment

About my father, complementary medicine and the revenue model of the health industry.

iRecordcategories.product8 February 2026

iRecord launches Coordination Hub demo

The iRecord demo is available for approved users. Discover the professional directory, citizen portal and legal-basis registration.

Joy2 February 2026

The carbonara at Luciano in Rome

About the dish that changed my idea of ​​cooking.

Skill26 January 2026

Recognizing seasonal vegetables at the market

Being able to read a market is a skill. In any city in the world.

System critique19 January 2026

The majority is always wrong

About groupthink, conformism and the courage to think differently.

Knowledge12 January 2026

The Johari window and other mirrors

About self-knowledge instruments, Big Five and the question of whether you can measure yourself.

Joy5 January 2026

37 cities, a suitcase and a city guide

The city as a teacher. About Monocle guides and traveling as a method.

Knowledge22 December 2025

Design as a way of thinking

Design is not aesthetics. It is a method of thinking about how the world works.

Skill15 December 2025

Drawing broth as a basic skill

The recipe that is not a recipe. Why stock is the foundation of cooking.

System critique8 December 2025

The paradox of the Dutch international position

Small country, big footprint. Almost twenty years later: is that paradox still there?

Cultural heritage1 December 2025

Slow Food and the Ark of Taste

About forgotten vegetables, endangered cheeses and why culinary heritage matters.

Knowledge24 November 2025

Food Rules — three lessons from Michael Pollan

Seven words that make an entire diet book redundant.

Knowledge17 November 2025

Five books that shaped my thinking

No ranking but five short stories about books and the moments when I read them.

System critique10 November 2025

The advisor no longer exists (and that's good)

How the profession of strategist has changed. From expert to co-creator.

Cultural heritage3 November 2025

What does a city say about its residents?

About visions of the future, Monocle guides and the question of whether you can design a city.

Knowledge27 October 2025

The return of the slow thought

Why start writing again. What has changed since 2011.

System critique20 October 2025

Why the government doesn't learn

If many policies don't work, why does the government remain so attached to them?

Skill13 October 2025

Wine, tasting and the art of mindful tasting

Finding words for what you taste. An exercise in language and attention.

Skill6 October 2025

The aglio e olio method

A simple dish as a metaphor for craftsmanship. Why the simplest things are the hardest.

Cultural heritage29 September 2025

Liberation Day and the luxury of discomfort

About freedom, polarization and the courage to differ in opinion.

How it works

1

Knowledge

The relationship between food and health, between season and ingredient. Based on the life’s work of Jaap Huibers — sixty books, a practice, a radio column.

2

Skill

Cooking without a recipe card. Making broth. Reading a market, in any city in the world. A basic competence that was self-evident for generations.

3

Joy

The carbonara at Luciano’s. The herb garden at a market in Oaxaca. The dîner pensant at a long table. Joy is also prevention.

4

Connection

Where House of Viridian is not a framework but a table, not an analysis but a meal, not a system but an invitation. Pull up a chair.