Jean-Luc Verhelst

Welcome to my blog! You will find daily thoughts and discoveries that I believe are worth sharing (Note that you can click on headers of a post to access referenced link) (function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i['GoogleAnalyticsObject']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){ (i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o), m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m) })(window,document,'script','//www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js','ga'); ga('create', 'UA-60417412-1', 'auto'); ga('send', 'pageview');

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[jeanlucverhelst]

"To be of use”

[jeanlucverhelst]

If you want to change the world, it starts by understanding it.

In this documentary, Hans Rosling gives an excellent compilation on his most interesting statistics. More than insightful data on demographics and energy, Hans explains how humans strives for a better life and what empower them.

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Current innovations working on saving energy

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Article en français expliquant le potentiel sur LeVif.

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Time for a bomb, of love.

This morning we woke up with painful news. My sorrow goes to the lost souls and their relatives. Let’s not hide this from our children, they can understand. It is up to us to enlighten them on what is good and what is bad. Two things that will inevitably mix more and more in our decentralized world.

I admire how citizens remain calm in face of the attacks, but should we? Too often, we focus on our differences. Too often, we let things happen, passively. In our countries and in others. That makes me sad, and has to change.

Let us remain fearless of others and avoid becoming self-protective. We have to understand that multiculturality in the street is only the reflection of an already interconnected world. Today, bombs can be made in a kitchen and tomorrow guns will be printed at home. I can’t imagine what would happen if bio-weapons become 'available'. We are in this, all together. Only by understanding, accepting and respecting each other we can overcome this.

Let us answer these attacks with a bomb of love and uphold the common values that built Europe decades ago. We, individuals, are Europe and it is our unity (or that lack of it) that will define our destiny.

[jeanlucverhelst]

Coinbase Launches Debit Card Payments for Bitcoin in USA

Coinbase has launched debit card payments in the US. The debit and credit card payments were already available to Coinbase’s European customers.

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Koppen XL: "Ik ben Alice, een zorgrobot"

Om aan de toenemende vraag naar gezelschap en zorg voor onze ouderen en dementerenden te kunnen voldoen, is ook de wetenschap op zoek naar antwoorden. De inzet van robots is zo’n fascinerend voorbeeld waar we in de toekomst naartoe kunnen gaan. Alice ziet eruit als een klein meisje en wordt getest bij enkele Nederlandse bejaarden.

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Les biotech vont-elle permettre un monde encore inimaginable aujourd’hui ?

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It doesn’t feel like a revolutionary moment. A member of a small team from the Swiss bank UBS, holed up on the 42nd floor of London’s Canary Wharf, taps a screen and a bond is sold by a company called ABC to an investor called XYZ. It is the type of

Exactly what I predicted less than one year ago. The Financial sector will be the first one to be disrupted. Payments and Back-office operations will be replaced and those not able to follow might go out of business.

I really like the idea of private Blockchains.

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Europe’s Other Crisis: A Digital Recession

The continent’s glaring tech gap is growing.

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(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSL-iIskEFU)

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Again, together is the only way forward if we want stay/become significant on a global scale and, as such, being less subject to external events.

I noticed the idea of the step-by-step approach. Less is more?

[mikaelpetitjean]

Guess what? Rates will increase …and even Greece will recover. I am short govy bonds since March and long GIIPS since December (plus additional index positions on France and small European stocks). Traditional ETFs are extraordinary investment tools. Never invest in the stock market if time matters. Your investment horizon should be 10 years AT LEAST and please avoid company specific investments, unless you’re Buffett (and were both skilled and lucky in your early years).

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Re-posted especially for the 2nd part on ETFs. Unfortunately, I do not yet master enough to comment with conviction on what the central banks will do in this regard.

[jeanlucverhelst]

Great documentary although Fibonacci’s sequence is overrated and there is no mention of the golden number.

[jeanlucverhelst]

Varoufakis reveals cloak and dagger 'Plan B' for Greece, awaits treason charges

Former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis claims he was authorised by Alexis Tsipras to look into a parallel payment system

Summary of events as presented by Varoufakis:

The expert broke into the software systems of the tax office - then under the control of the EU-IMF 'Troika' - in order to obtain the reserve accounts and file numbers of every taxpayer. "We decided to hack into my ministry’s own software programme," "It totally distorts my purpose for wanting parallel liquidity. I have always been completely against dismantling the euro because we never know what dark forces that might unleash in Europe," he said.

The goal of the computer hacking was to enable the finance ministry to make digital transfers at "the touch of a button". The payments would be 'IOUs' based on an experiment by California after the Lehman banking crisis.A parallel banking system of this kind would allow the government to create euro liquidity and circumvent what Syriza called "financial strangulation" by the ECB.

"This was very well developed. Very soon we could have extended it, using apps on smartphones, and it could become a functioning parallel system. Of course this would be euro denominated but at the drop of a hat it could be converted to a new drachma,” he said.

Comments: One can indeed create this parallel payment system and call it euros. But, the ECB would immediately distantiate itself from it resulting in a devaluation of the newborn currency. As a reminder: the role of a central bank is to remain the sole supplier of a currency and ensure the currency’s stability/credibility. Question: How would transfers between the Greek and the rest of the world operate in such an event ? What will define the newborn currency’s devaluation/exchange-rate ? Will the market be free to decide ? What could be the underlying mathematics ?

[jeanlucverhelst]

Class of 2015, Do it.

More: https://www.ted.com/playlists/158/graduation_now_what