Porcelain eyes

 Hi!

Recently, Sidney SN released a Heute war einfach ein besonderer Tag mix. But he has something else on his heart —Porcelain Eyes.

I don’t want to say what it means: Porcelain Eyes. It is something I see in a certain reality—This goodness tells me more about these realities than words ever could.

When it comes to music, Sidney SN should have been primarily about liquid drum and bass. In break beats, yes. However, liquid drum and bass is a melodic music, and it has quite a something in common with progressive house. 

Sidney SN’s choice of music is also about values—the values found in music such as progressive house or house.

Porcelain Eyes has different sections. And this progressive session is exclusively made up of tracks that I love… ❤️ 

01. Don’t let me go by Melarmony 

02. Just can’t stop by Hessian, Cortney Storm 

03. What I do by Because of Art 

04. Retrospect by Parallel Voices 

05. Fear No More by Parallel Voices 

06. Folding lights by CVMRN 

07. Spend my Days by MXV, L. GU, Coulson 

08. Hearth Beat by Hessian, flyckt, Farves 

09. Coming back for more by Avenue One 

010. Never Enough by Tailor, Hessian, Moders 

011. Nina by Jako Diaz 

012. Ranger by Because of Art 

013. Sharks by 16B, feat. Nour 

German people must really like South Holland

 During the summer seasons, when I visit The Hague, I notice that I often see people from Germany. If I don’t see a Dutch license plate, I also often see German license plates in the car parks by the sea. 

I also notice people from Germany in places in Rotterdam. 

In my opinion, people from Germany like South Holland for similar reasons to why I like this part of the world. 

And because I was convinced that people from Germany are perhaps among the largest groups of visitors to The Hague, I looked up the statistics.

And I laughed…

The statistics confirm my assumption. The data from The Hague & Partners show that guests from Germany are the second-largest group of hotel guests after guests from the Netherlands.

Dutch Younger Generations Are Usually Wealthier Than Those Before Them

 I have another report about the Netherlands…

 Somewhere it is often said that today’s younger generation is the first one that will be worse off than their parents. And maybe in some European countries this is the truth. 

Dutch data, however, paint a somewhat different picture about Dutch situation. 

A new analysis by the Dutch national statistics office, CBS, compared different generations at the same ages.

First of all, Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek (CBS) is the Dutch national statistics office and one of the most important institutions for understanding how Dutch society is actually developing. CBS was established as early as 1899, and its task is to collect, analyse, and publish reliable and independent statistical data about Dutch society and the economy.

The CBS results are fairly clear: at the same age, younger generations generally have greater purchasing power and more wealth than the generations before them.

For example, at the age of 45, the generation born between 1970 and 1985 had purchasing power almost half again as high as that of the baby boomers at the same age. Overall average purchasing power among the population also increased from €26.3 thousand in 1977 to €45.3 thousand in 2024, measured in 2024 prices.

A similar development can be seen in wealth. The median wealth of the Dutch population in 2024 was almost five times higher than in 1993. Rising property prices played a particularly important role in this.

This does not mean that young people in the Netherlands have everything easier. Up to around the age of 25–30, the youngest generations often have less money and wealth, partly because they spend longer in education. And housing in particular has become very problematic: the generation born between 1970 and 1985 has the highest rate of home ownership among the post-war generations studied.

Nevertheless, the main conclusion is this: the Netherlands is not a country where every new generation automatically falls into a worse economic situation than the one before it. On the contrary, when comparing people at the same age, the long-term trend is generally the opposite.

And that is precisely one of the reasons why the Dutch model is so interesting. It is not only about how much money people have today, but whether a society can continue to improve its standard of living over the long term, across generations. 

In a way, I perhaps can now tell the truth that this may be connected with a “porcelain eyes” that I sometimes see looking at me, or that I see them exclusively in the Benelux countries, as well I saw this among someone’s from France. This itself say a lot to me about Western Europe. 

An Islanders fun

 I have already mentioned that I am a fan of the New York Islanders. My fandom has several rather bold and also another reasons behind it. I also watch Long Island in New York from afar. And although she is originally from LA, Chloë Grace Moretz, whom I have somehow come to like, is also an Islanders fan—Chloe Moretz is valuable in her own right to me, and if I had one wish involving Chloë Moretz, it would be to go to a game at UBS Arena. Islanders is also an only one hockey about I have an interest. 

The new NHL season will begin soon. I enjoy following the Islanders, so I am curious to see what this season will bring. The Islanders are more of a middle-of-the-tab team, and sometimes it can be a little nerve-racking during the season depending on how the team is doing at the time. It is also somewhat about being a die-hard fan, because the Isles are not regularly among the NHL leaders. They last won the Stanley Cup at the beginning of the 1980s, when they won four titles in a row from 1980 to 1983.

Last year, the Islanders had their best season in recent years. They finished the regular season with a record of 43–34–5 and 91 points, which was nine points more than the previous season. At one point during the season, the Islanders were also the best team in New York, and Islanders fans joked that the Isles had taken over New York. Towards the end of the season, however, the Isles were apparently also losing some of what they had earlier in the season, perhaps because of the pressure leading up to the playoffs.

Patrick Roy also ended up leaving his position as head coach, apparently partly because of this finish. I admit that I still have mixed feelings about it, because for most of the season the team was in good positions, unlike in previous seasons. The Islanders had already improved significantly after Patrick Roy took over in January 2024, reaching the playoffs that season.

In 2025/2026 most of the season, the Islanders had their best record in several years – 42–31–5, or 89 points in 78 games. Although they ultimately failed to make the playoffs, they spent a large part of the season in playoff positions and were still third in the Metropolitan Division shortly before the end. Even new head coach changed nothing in the end of this season. 

Cocktail movie (1988)

Maybe I am being skeptical, but the Isles could possibly be even worse during 2026/2027 season than they were last year.

In other words, the Isles perhaps may have greater potential as a team in the future, especially thanks to their young players and planned financial flexibility, but this season they could easily be just as good as last year — or even slightly worse. NHL says the Islanders enter the 2026–27 season after a 43–34–5 record and without making the playoffs.

 I have already written that, in my opinion, it is also justified that the Netherlands was chosen by people as Best Quality of Life 2026 in the Numbeo ranking. The reasons why this happened are certainly also connected to the Dutch system.

I almost do not even want to publish this—many people may not be aware of these Dutch advantages. However, I would publish it for those who see a problem with very liberal societies…

Dutch society demonstrates that a very liberal society can be resilient and also safe precisely on the basis of its liberal values.

This topic is terrible when it comes to a liberal societies such as the Dutch one. But when I look at the Netherlands, Dutch society, and the Dutch infrastructure in the event of a serious conflict, I see several major advantages from both a human and technological perspective.

  

 The Strength of a Liberal Society 

Photo is shared from another social medias. 

   The Netherlands represents an example of a very liberal society that is exceptionally proactive and also has the potential to be resilient in the event of conflicts of the most serious kind, including a war.

Dutch initiative is not limited to business and the economy. It is also reflected in the emphasis on individual rights, humanism, civil society, very high-quality and strong infrastructure, efficient public services, economic development, and the ability to solve problems in practical ways.

Dutch society has a strong tendency to actively organize, improve, and adapt things on its own. When a high level of quality does not meet expectations, there is an emphasis on institutions to ensure that what is required is provided.

These Dutch characteristics can also be significant in the event of a serious crisis or armed conflict.

The Netherlands also has very good material foundations for ensuring basic needs. It has exceptionally productive agriculture, diverse farming, and is one of the world’s most important food exporters.

The Netherlands is therefore creating a very strong foundation for food resilience.

In terms of electricity generation, the Netherlands has significant domestic electricity production capacity. It not only produces electricity for its own consumption, but is also a net exporter of electricity. The fact that it imports electricity from neighboring countries at certain times cannot be interpreted as an inability to meet its own consumption—it is rather a consequence of the advantages of the market.

A significant advantage is the decentralization of energy production in the Netherlands. In renewable electricity generation, the Netherlands is among the leaders. It has a very large number of solar installations, including on individual homes, as well as extensive wind power capacity. Energy is not produced primarily in a few large power plants, but rather across many geographically dispersed locations.

Such infrastructure can be advantageous from a resilience perspective. The loss of a single large generation facility does not necessarily mean the loss of a comparable amount of generation capacity, as it might in a system based primarily on a few large centralized sources, compared with a system relying on highly dispersed sources across the country, including widely distributed decentralized wind generation or a individual solar panels at homes. 

Decentralized electricity generation can also increase the flexibility of the system and make it easier to gradually restore it after disruption.

Public transport also operates to a very significant extent on this infrastructure. Transport such as railways is electrified, as are metros and, in many cases, urban and suburban public transport systems as a whole.

Electromobility fits into the same concept. The Netherlands is one of the strong supporters of electric mobility. If transport is increasingly powered by domestic electricity generated from wind, solar, and other sources, the need to import oil and distribute fuels through relatively centralized infrastructure is reduced.

Electric vehicles also represent a potentially significant distributed battery-storage capacity. This could help balance fluctuations between electricity generation and consumption, and potentially provide part of that energy back to the grid or local infrastructure.

When it comes to technology, it is also worth mentioning that thanks to ASML, the Netherlands has a practically monopolistic position in EUV lithography—precisely the technology that is critical for manufacturing the most advanced semiconductors.

The Netherlands does not need to be completely self-sufficient in the sense of being isolated from the outside world. Its strength lies rather in the combination of social initiative, economic performance, very high-quality and strong infrastructure, the ability to meet basic needs such as domestic food production, and high and extensively decentralized electricity generation.

In my opinion, it is precisely this combination within a very liberal Dutch society that creates a high degree of resilience and energy autonomy, including in the event of extensive disruption to the normal functioning of society.