Yin and Yang, that's exactly who we are...

... it's just not clear who's who. By 'we' I mean my wife and I.

This morning I realised that my wife and I, as parents, are pretty much all the time in a perfect equilibrium. Perfectly balanced. For some reason, there's always the balance between mission command parenthood and mission control when it comes to our two kids.

As I've written before, I'm blessed with two amazingly awesome sons, at the time of this writing age 11 and 9 and a one-in-a-trillion wife, who is at the time of this writing still as young at heart as ever.

So this morning as pretty much all of the time we deal with one of the kids, one of us took the role of the strict and firm parent and automagically the other became the parent showing the patience and understanding. The result, a son that clearly knew what was expected of him, and was perfectly aware of the fact that he could rely on the support troops, the cavalry if you wish, when push came to shove.

Yup, my wife and I, Yin and Yang. Sometimes she's one and I'm the other, most of the times it's the other way around. And every now and again, we're confused and are both Yin. Or Yang for that matter.

The really nice thing about all of this, is that whenever I'm in doubt whether I handled some situation with either of the boys the right way, I know that there's a mom that will balance things out.


It's nice to be Yin, or Yang, when you know that there's a Yang, or Yin.

Iwan

It's a new year... 2017, let's make it a happy new year

Hi everybody,

My first post in 2017 in this blog will be about what 2017 might have in store for my world.



But first, check out this link: Article for Backfield Group. It's an article, in Dutch, I wrote last year about the changing role of the project manager. There's also a blog post about this topic, which you can read here.





Now on to the good stuff, being 2017.

There's some awesome stuff coming up for me. The coolest thing happening this year, if all goes well, is that my boys will get their PADI OpenWater certificate this summer. Last year they finished their PADI Master Seal course.




Also planned for 2017 is finishing my Coursera Scala Course, which doesn't mean that I'll be a Scala developer, but it will mean that I actually understand what all that fuzz about functional programming and BigData and Map-Reduce and stuff is about.

Also pretty awesome is that at least in the first 6 months of this year, I will continue with assisting during the Science classes at the Columbusschool in Almere, the Netherlands. Teaching gifted children on how to think about science, how to apply it and how to become the next generations of big brains.



Writing the above mentioned article really inspired me and so maybe I'll be actually starting writing my first book and (self-)publish it. Time will be the bottleneck here, also because I'm really pumped about a startup a friend of mine asked me to work on together with her in the second half of this year.

So besides writing that book, a startup seems to be in my stars. What it's all about is still sort of a secret, and there's plenty of work to be done still, but we're really serious about it and our current commitments prevent us from already starting with it. Hmmmm, a delayed startup? Nope, the thinking is already there, it's just that doing that is postponed.


Of course, 2016 had enough in store for me to blog about, which I'll do in the coming period. So keep an eye out for this blog and you'll be able to catch up on my life in 2016.

Iwan
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Check out my video's on YouTube, follow me on Twitter and read my IT Architecture & Strategy blog as well.

Hello...? Hello...? HELLO! Are you still there?

Hi,

It's been a while, like over 3 years, since I last posted on this blog. I thought it was time again to spend some time here instead of over at my IT Architecture and Strategy blog.

So don't expect too much this time around. Just some scene setting for you to put my posts back into context again.

This blog will be about me and my life in the Netherlands... and outside of the Netherlands, seen from a Dutch point of view. And rest assured, it doesn't mean that it will be about how somebody stoned like a donkey, wearing wooden shoes to the brothel is looking at whatever he sees.

So, me. Yeah well. Still got a wife, same one as before, and two kids, also the same. Although they're all a bit older than 3 years ago. And I live in the Netherlands, still. So no Walking like an Egyptian. I've been traveling around the globe for business as well as pleasure. And was connected to two startups in the past couple of years. One being Only Once BV and the other being dopay.

Still love to visit the movies and to play games on one of my Xboxes. Also still enjoying some TV series and reading a lot for somebody with slightly over 24 hours in a day. Oh yeah, I started assisting with science lessons in two groups with gifted children to make their days in school just a bit more interesting than usual.

And that my dear reader is about all for this time and I hope that I will be able to publish a new post in the really near future.


Iwan
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Check out my video's on YouTube, follow me on Twitter and read my IT Architecture & Strategy blog as well.

The dust has settled, please let's not get religious

About a month ago, Microsoft unveiled their new console, the Xbox One which is due to be released in November. Yes, I'm already saving up some money to get me One. This was months after Sony had unveiled its PS4, although they never really unveiled their new console until this month's E3. For me the Nintendo has never been an option as they're always too much focused on, well games for kids. And yes, I know, I'm the conscious parent and think the Xbox 360 is superior over the PS3 because of Microsoft's view on how to safeguard the kids from playing those games that I as a parent deem not suitable for my kids. It's kind of counter intuitive that I don't have a Wii in my home. I was actually planning to buy one, but Nintendo only had the white console at the time and my wife just agreed to get brand new AV components in our house, lest they were black. Sorry Nintendo. And when they released the black Wii and after I had come up with a good excuse to get one, Microsoft announced the Kinect, and out the door went my excuse to get the Wii. I'm still considering myself luck for that. The Kinect beats the Wii.
I do have a PS3, but only because the 360 doesn't have a Blu-Ray player.

So, back to the new line up. PS4 versus the Xbox One (X1 for short in this post).

It's interesting to see that the X1 will have a Blu-Ray drive, ditching the DVD drive and the necessity of putting games on multiple discs. Something Sony had already done with the P3. Does this mean that Microsoft is going to cannibalize it's own Xbox Video service by allowing consumers to buy movies on BD and play them on the X1? Probably, but this is, I think, a strategic move to get the X1 to be the entertainment hub in our living room. It'll most certainly push the PS3 I own out of the livingroom, probably move it to our entertainment room, it's on the top floor of our home with a beamer (1080i, 720p) and a pretty decent 7.1 sound system hooked up to it. I got the PS3 back in the day solely for the BluRay drive in it. The kids play every now and again Little Big Planet on it. But hardly to be honest.
From what I've seen so far, Sony is still banking on the game playing crowd. Although music and movie streaming is still there and seams to be more prominently than on the PS3, they seem to be focusing on the games. To be honest, I think the PS4 looks better than the X1, from the outside. From the inside I don't care too much. For me it's all about the games, up to a point of course. The Wii has never been up to par with the rest of the previous next-gen consoles. The thing is that with great power comes great, well opportunities. And where I have seen the 360 and the PS3 shine is not only in enhanced graphics, but more importantly in great AI.This seems to be the area where the new next gen consoles will venture. They'll have to. And from that perspective the X1's cloud capabilities seem to be the ones that will make a difference.

Back to the new consoles. Just a little side step. Since I have no clue as to create an inset, here's the text I wanted to put there. The X1 is about €100 more expensive at release time over the PS4. But it does mean that you'll have the Kinect with it and online multi-player. Both you'll have to buy with the PS4 in addition to the console. So I guess from a price perspective, it's not that different. Although I wouldn't mind getting the X1 without the Kinect. I have 4 360's in my home and one with an RRoD, but that doesn't count. The 360's are for playing games (living room and my entertainment room) and one for the bedroom where it is used as a Media Center Extender. Like I stated earlier, my entertainment eco system is based around Microsoft products.
In case you were counting, yes, I have one spare Xbox. It's just there being a spare 360. I bought it because I was living elsewhere and wanted a 360 there as well. With a Kinect, so now I have two Kinects as well. One is spare and I don't use it. And this is exactly my point, I don't need a Kinect with every Xbox I have. More over because it's not really usable beyond games in the Netherlands. Yup Halo Waypoint supports the voice commands, but it only understands the English voice commands, so it's virtually unusable by my two kids (age 6 and 8) as their English is not good enough to control the 360 by voice.
So dropping the X1's price by €100 and not getting the Kinect would be a perfect option.

Based on what I've seen so far from both the PS4 and the X1, I think the X1 is more for me. I really like the additional capabilities of the X1 in terms of being my living room media hub. But I'm fully aware that these are most likely never going to find their way to the Netherlands. If Microsoft would strike a deal with Ziggo and UPC, Holland's two main cable companies, this would be a really cool step forward in their service. Having an X1 instead of the UPC Horizon set-top box would be a game changer. But I am fully aware that Holland is a very small market compared to Germany, UK, France when talking about Europe. Still I hope Microsoft is reading this blog and taking it to heart.
Then there's Sony with the new PS4 and what it can do. When it boils down to games, they've already shown some pretty sweet stuff. Killzone looks darn dandy on the new console and games like Destiny are not exclusive titles either. My question would be what games will be available when I want to buy the new console... and what about my friends, will they stay with their 360 and move to the X1, or move from PS3 to X1 or from 360 to PS4?

And one really, really important aspect is about how I can control my kids concerning their gaming habits. I'm very impressed by Microsoft in this regard and would like to see more. I devoted my previous blog post to this aspect. Sony is still not handling this very well. On the PS3 there's nothing existing like that, or at least nothing comparable to what Microsoft is offering.

This is the end of this post, but definitely not the end of this topic, not for me.