Intermania February 2019 by Intermania

Big Brother is Watching You Big data is everywhere these days. This may sound really cliché, but it is true. And it can cause some unusual events. Maybe you have heard the story, but one time the American department store Target figured out a teenage girl was pregnant before she even knew it herself. This all had to do with big data. Due to the things she bought, the algorithm of Target figured out that the girl was probably pregnant. The girl’s father found out his daughter was pregnant because of the sudden online advertisements for Target’s baby related products. This example shows that big data is more involved in our lives than we thought. The Intermania committee has created an edition about big data in which we highlight different perspectives of big data in our society. Maybe you have an AH bonus card? Peter Ruijten talks about the algorithms behind it in his column on page 11. On page 22-23 you will find the story of Noël about the growing obsession of companies to know everything about their customers. It is really interesting to see the value of your social media profiles. The Intermania also did some

research themselves. Evie and Michelle tried to uncover the interesting fact of Intermate with their very own data set. You can find the fun facts of Intermate on page 41-43. Before we let you continue, we would like to introduce you to our new chair. Michelle van Ardenne is really excited to start next edition as the successor of Hugo. Thank you Hugo for your hard work over the last year. For now, enjoy your Intermania!

Table of contents Going on an Adventure Meike en Timo explain their daily schedule

In ’t Audt reveals 27 Famous Actor Nicolas Cage is Responsible for Thousands of Deaths

Keizerlijk brouwsel - BorrelCie

Column Hub

Lustrum Congres: Een terugblik The Lustrum Congres is looking back on a succesfull day full of innovation

Puzzel 33

The Quest for Cases - Study Tour

Field trip to Uganda ’s Solar Market 34 Aleid shares her adventures as a PhD candidate

AEGEE Eindhoven at GLOW

Sneak Review

Column Peter Ruijten

Building the Future with CASA

Career Corner

Fun Facts of Intermate

12 Inside Intermate Town Recap on the Werewolves of Intermate Column Emma

17 44 Tender Thesis Stew HTI student Benedetta compares her graduation project with the most difficult Christmas dinner ever made

Theme: BIG DATA According to Arjan

Programmers of Intermate 24 Three Intermate programmers steal the spotlight in this edition of Humans of Intermate Personalized Big Data

Big data and sustainability

Swampthing - KookCie

IViva la Vida el España

*Dutch Articles

Hack your way through the hospital 20 Selling data

Blockchain 26 A history of (Big?) Data 30 Isabel takes you back in time to the beginning of big data

Intermania

Table of contents

“I was surprised to see that the Pavilion was still standing” - Peter Cozijn p.39

48.

24.

14. Colophon Intermania is the magazine of study association Intermate, home to the bachelor’s and master’s programs of the department Innovation Sciences at Eindhoven University of Technology. The Intermania is released four times a year, with a total of 400 prints. If indicated, members of Intermate automatically receive the Intermania at home.

Study Association Intermate Address: Den Dolech 2, IPO 0.74 Postbus 513, 5600MB Eindhoven (040) 247 44 30 Phone: Website: www.intermate.nl E-mail: board@intermate.nl Advertisements: external@intermate.nl

February 2019

12.

Content for the Intermania may be submitted in consultation with the editors. The editorial staff shall not be liable for any consequences arising from its content and reserves the right to, without notice, amend or not publish any submitted content. Articles may only be redistributed with permission of the editorial staff.

Intermania Chief Editor: Editorial Staff: E-mail: Printer: Online version:

Michelle van Ardenne Anke van Rietschoten, Benedetta Malagoni, Cécile Geertman, Colin de Bruin, Evie Tossaint, Frank Vendrig, Ileen Smits, Isabel Blijenburg, Manon van Hastenberg, Nienke Buikstra, Marit Loonen intermania@ieis.tue.nl Drukkerij Snep issuu.com/intermania

Board

Going on an Adventure It might have come to your attention that Meike and Timo are a lot less present in the board room than the other board members. If they are not at Intermate, where are they? What are they doing all day? Text & Images: Meike Heldoorn and Timo van Helvoort

Timo While Meike is mainly bound to our university, I try to leave Eindhoven as often as possible to grab some coffee with one of Intermate’s partners. As the Commissioner of External Affairs, I am responsible for making new deals and for maintaining a good relationship with the companies that already sponsor

trip to Taiwan. After talking about the deal and the upcoming activities we are going to organize together, it was time to head back to Eindhoven. Another 10 minutes by bus, 50 minutes by train and 10 minutes by bike later I was back at Intermate, ready to change my suit into a more casual outfit and to run to my next meeting at the university campus.

“I try to leave Eindhoven as often as possible... ” Intermate. To give you an idea of what this is like, I will talk you through a meeting I had a while ago in Utrecht. I had to be at the company Conclusion in Utrecht at 10:00, which meant taking the train at 8:47, as they are sadly not located next to the Central Station of Utrecht. This is not extremely early; however, it was the morning after the AC-party which makes getting up before 8:00 always a little bit of a struggle. Sadly, there was nothing I could do to change this. I usually fix my hair while being on the train as this leaves me more time in the morning to sleep. So, with my hair wax, my contact lenses and my hangover I sprinted to the train at 8:57 - ten minutes later than planned - on my way to Utrecht. I arrived a little past 10:00 at Conclusion, where I luckily got myself some well-deserved coffee and some chit-chat about my contact-person’s 4

To give you some first-hand insight in where Intermate’s business partners are located around the Netherlands, I made a little map of all the places I go to when I’m escaping the board room, the crate couch and complaining members.

Intermania

Board

Meike My day mainly consists of a lot of meetings. However, this does not mean that I am doing the same thing all day and every day. The thing that I really like about my function is that it varies a lot throughout the year. During the day, I have several different meetings. They vary from one-to-one meetings to meetings

“I try to respresent all the students...” with a big group of people. As a Commissioner of Education, I try to represent all the students of the school of Innovation Sciences (IS). In my meetings, I get to express the opinion of all the students of IS. Every Thursday morning, you can find me in the Paviljoen building where I have a meeting with the Departmental Board. Me and Stef (Commissioner of Education of Industria) are the student members of this Departmental Board. An example of what we discuss in these meeting is the Numerus Fixus that might be implemented for our studies. Two times a quartile, I attend the so-called “Krokettenlunch”. This is the meeting where I can complain about all the basic courses and give feedback about other aspects of the Bachelor College. Next to this, I meet with the Student Advisory Organ in which I can give my opinion about university-wide topics. Also, once every one to two months, I meet with the Educational Committee, in which we discuss the courses of IS. I get the input for those meetings through my Education Councils with which I stay in contact through the entire February 2019

“...it is a lot of fun to watch the political plays around the university...” quartile. As one of my focus points is a short link between the students and the teachers, I also try to keep i n touch with the teachers of our department. If something comes up with particular courses, I try to address this to the teachers immediately. As you can image, at first, I found it very scary to share my opinion in a large group. Now, I have the feeling that I can express my opinion better and better. It is nice to have the feeling that you can actually move things and that your opinion is seen as valuable. Most of all, it is a lot of fun to watch the political plays that happen around the university. 5

BorrelCie

Keizerlijk Brouwsel Nieuwe Intermania, nieuwe borrellegende. Deze keer is het aan Bert en Bas om te je mee te nemen in het voortreffelijk verhaal achter het spraakmakende bier: Cuvée van de Keizer - Blauw. Tekst: Bas van Rhenen en Bert van Gestel, borrelfanaten. Beeld: Angela Kiemeneij Fotografie.

24 Februari, 1999. Eén van die dagen die je moet onthouden. Een product kwam ter wereld waar menig persoon zich aan heeft moeten overgeven en van is gaan houden. Op deze mooie dag werd de eerste fles Gouden Carolus Cuvée van de Keizer – Blauw geproduceerd ter ere van de geboortedag van de enige echte Keizer Karel de Grote, die vroeger van Mechelse bieren scheen te houden. De wereld stond op zijn kop. Dit uitzonderlijke bier, wat door de jaren heen een verfijnde complexiteit en intense aroma’s heeft ontwikkeld, is bijna niet meer weg te denken uit het borrelassortiment van de doorgewinterde Intermate borrelaar. Het verrassende zachte en fruitige karakter combineert een verwarmende volheid in de mond wat wordt gevolgd door een

verfrissende afdronk. De geroosterde mout en de aanvulling van toetsen van karamel en pruimen volmaken dit keizerlijke brouwsel zodat het nog jarenlang gekoesterd kan worden en niet snel zal worden vergeten. Maar vergis je niet. Dit bier is ook een flinke zatmaker. Met zijn 11% pure alcohol is dit niet een biertje om zomaar weg te tikken. Dit bier moet op speciale momenten worden gedronken met vrienden die dit godsgeschenk ook kunnen koesteren, zodat iedereen deze smaakexplosie leert liefhebben. Dit vriendschapsgevoel wordt extra gestimuleerd door de grote fles waarin dit bier wordt geserveerd, namelijk een charmante 75cl fles, of voor de grote vriendengroep/bierliefhebber in een magnum fles van 1,5 liter. Dus ik heb het nu tegen jou, jij bourgondische Intermania lezer. Waar wacht je nog op, jij fervente bierliefhebber. Loop naar die bar en laat je verwennen zoals je nog niet eerder hebt ervaren. Bestel die spotgoedkope fles en deel deze met je homies, BFF’s, je possy en je moeder, want iedereen moet deze liefde in een fles ervaren. Drink het nu, morgen, volgende week én over 10 jaar en laat je constant verrassen door de evolutie die een bepaald product kan doormaken. Wil je het nou echt speciaal maken? Leg dan ook nog een flesje voor een aantal jaar in je kelder om deze vervolgens open te trekken op een speciale dag. Het moment dat je afstudeert, gaat trouwen of je eerste kind geboren wordt, gaat ongetwijfeld geweldig aanvoelen. Maar maak dit moment nou net effe wat specialer met zo een mooi flesje die 5 jaar in je kelder heeft gelegen. Enjoy! Intermania

Intermate Congres

Intermate Lustrum Congres: Een Terugblik Naast veel ludieke en culturele activiteiten, de lustrumweek bracht ons de eerste editie van het Intermate Congres. Een evenement door en voor Intermate leden, kortere lijntjes tussen het bedrijfsleven en onze unieke vaardigheden. Tekst: Stefan Cornelissen. Beeld: Congres Commissie en BvOF

“Wat kan je eigenlijk later gaan doen met jouw studie?”; een veel gestelde vraag door vrienden en familieleden van PT en SI studenten. De meeste van ons komen meestal na een minuutje denken op een antwoord als consultancy of een erkenning dat het een best goede vraag is eigenlijk. De lunchlezingen, symposia en (buitenlandse) excursies bieden enig soelaas hiervoor, maar ruim een jaar geleden kwam de LustrumCie op het idee om een congres te organiseren: hét carrière evenement van de lustrumweek. Een jaar geleden begon dan ook onze taak als CongresCie om het congres op poten te gaan zetten.

“...dat het een best goede vraag is eigenlijk.” De LustrumCie gaf ons de vrijheid om de dag naar eigen wens in te vullen. Hier hadden we als commissie al vrij snel een duidelijk beeld over: een carrièremarkt met enkele presentaties en workshops door de dag heen. Commissierollen werden verdeeld en we konden aan de slag. Bij het contacteren van bedrijven liepen we al snel tegen twee problemen aan. Allereerst vroegen zij zich precies hetzelfde af als onze vrienden en familieleden, want wat houdt onze studie nou eigenlijk? Gewapend met faculteitsfolders, de universiteitswebsite en een zelfgemaakte brochure konden we deze vraag aardig beantwoorden. Helaas kregen we vaak te February 2019

horen dat onze studie niet technisch genoeg was, of wilden bedrijven de zekerheid hebben van een bepaalde opkomst, die we hen niet konden garanderen. Ten tweede kwamen we erachter dat bedrijven het vreselijk lastig vinden om iets verder dan drie maanden te plannen. Daarom konden we helaas pas na de zomervakantie de meeste contracten tekenen. Overigens, dit probleem ervaarden we ook bij nota bene onze eigen universiteit. We wilden heel graag de Senaatszaal in het Auditorium reserveren, echter kon dit nog niet voor de zomervakantie. De universiteit had namelijk een nieuw rooster ingevoerd voor het nieuwe academisch jaar en de vraag was ook nog of er eventueel een diploma-uitreiking zou plaatsvinden die dag. Hierdoor moesten we tot na de zomervakantie wachten op uitsluitsel. 7

Intermate Congres Fastforward naar november van dat jaar: het zevende lustrum der studievereniging Intermate begint met op de dinsdag ons congres. De belangrijke last-minute vergaderingen in de dagen ervoor werden verstoord door hét spel van de lustrumweek, namelijk het weerwolven. Met welgeteld twee weerwolven in de commissie, waarvan er één plotseling werd gedood tijdens een vergadering, kon je zelfs je eigen commissieleden niet meer vertrouwen. Gelukkig waren beide weerwolven gedood voor de dinsdag begon, dus konden we met

De dag eindigde met een netwerkborrel bij Intermate, waarna iedereen zich naar de Spijker begaf voor het lustrumfeest. Na het congres hebben we met een kritische blik teruggekeken naar de afgelopen maanden. Met name het geringe aantal bedrijven was voor ons een heikel punt, iets wat we ook van bezoekers mee hadden gekregen. Het blijft immers lastig om bedrijven te vinden die precies met onze studies van doen hebben. Gelukkig willen de meeste congresbedrijven het contact met de vereniging warm houden voor eventuele toekomstige events.

een gerust hart de dag tegemoet gaan. Deze liep op rolletjes: bedrijven waren op tijd, de presentaties en workshops waren goed gevuld en er was een gemoedelijke sfeer in de Senaatszaal. Aan het begin van de dag maakten we ons ietwat zorgen over de opkomst op de carrièremarkt, echter bleef de doorloop redelijk constant en had ieder bedrijf altijd wel aanspraak. Bij de workshops werden onder andere beleidsvoorstellen gemaakt voor ministeries en moesten KPI’s (key performance indicator) voor data-analyse worden opgesteld voor verschillende websites.

Maar terug naar de allereerst gestelde vraag: wat kunnen we later nou eigenlijk gaan doen met onze studies? We hoopten dat het congres bij zou dragen aan een antwoord op deze vraag. Verschillende bezoekers zeiden dat ze eindelijk eens bedrijven gesproken hadden die hen niet afserveerden op het feit dat ze niet technisch genoeg waren, of dat ze eindelijk eens een bedrijf konden noemen waar ze later zouden willen gaan werken. Een iemand heeft zelfs een bachelor eindproject aan de carrièremarkt overgehouden. Al met al, een tof resultaat!

Intermania

The Quest for Cases

Study Tour

Before people can join the Study Tour, they will have to do a case of 100 hours. These cases will be provided by the Study Tour. But what goes into securing these cases from companies? Text: Rob Janssen, Public Relations of the Study Tour Committee

After organizing all the old documents from the previous committee and adjusting the company list, the scripts and formal templates, we got started. The committee started calling at the start of the summer holiday and is still doing so now (at the time of writing, so the Christmas break). Doing this task takes quite some time. At first, you must get in touch with the right person. Then you will tell your whole story of who we are, what we do, why we called and how we could benefit them. After that they will usually discuss it internally and say they will call you back, which they never do. Therefore, you call them again and 95 percent of the time they will say they talked about it and do not want to do anything. On the other hand, you can find someone who is enthusiastic about you and wants to help you in all possible ways, such as Desiree and Fransisca. These two heroes have brought us into contact with companies through their networks. These contacts were usually just as enthusiastic and willing to find a case for us within their

February 2019

â&#x20AC;&#x153;These two heroes have brought us into contact with companies through their networks.â&#x20AC;? companies. But these occasions are very rare. Now for the statistics. Up till the Christmas holiday we have called roughly 150 companies. Out of these companies we have now gotten 5 companies who have already offered us cases, which brought us to 7 cases in total. We also have 4 companies left who are somewhat interested in us, with whom we are still negotiating. Even after calling for about 7 months, it is not over. There is still a need for some cases and of course, once we are done in the Netherlands, we will have to get in contact with companies in Taiwan. Maybe more on that in another edition.

Intermania Undercover

AEGEE Eindhoven @ Glow For our ‘Intermania Duikt Onder’ rubric, the Editorial Staff tries to find an interesting place on campus to discover. This time, Michelle spent the evening with AEGEE Eindhoven and she will share her adventures here. Text & Images: Michelle van Ardenne, Editorial Staff

If I have to be honest, I had no idea what to expect. I met with AEGEE at the train station to walk GLOW with them. This was part of AEGEE’s GLOW exchange, a big event organized by members from AEGEE Eindhoven for AEGEE communities from around the world. They were not hard to find, because the moment I saw the group, I knew that I was in the right place. Everybody was laughing and talking like they were friends for more than 5 years. Later I found out that they were only there for like 10 minutes. We were with 30 people, which came from all around Europe. Still, most of the people were Dutch, but there were also students from Mexico, Germany, and Estonia. When we were complete, we started at the Student Hotel. We walked from show to show with two members of AEGEE Eindhoven being our guides. They both had a lightbulb, which showed us the way. Those were really helpful, because nobody was paying attention to the route due to all the talking. Despite the fact that I was not a member of AEGEE, everybody involved me in their conversations. They were all very enthusiastic about the previous activities and did not mind telling me about 10

it. One of the hot topics was AEGEE’s intro exchange to Aachen, Germany. I heard stories about ice skating and ‘kegelen’ (German way of bowling). But in the end, the most fun

“We learn a lot from exploring our boundaries.” thing about the trip was getting to know new people and new cultures. One student said: “We learn a lot from exploring our boundaries. More than you learn at the university.” And that is what AEGEE is all about. We do not need to limit ourselves to our own country. We can learn much more when we share our experiences and knowledge with each other. I enjoyed the walk very much. GLOW was nice to look at as always and my favorite show was the Philips building, but walking GLOW with such a diverse group of people made it extra special. It was a real eye opener. Intermania

Column Peter

The Power of the Bonus Card While I am waiting in line at the supermarket, I remember reading that the people who buy the most in Albert Heijn are their employees, in particular the cashiers. I first thought they would have a special discount, but the reality is that they scan their bonus cards when the customer forgets theirs, thus adding the customers’ groceries to their account. If the algorithm that is designed to tailor advertisements to customers does not take this into account, those employees will receive many discounts on products they never buy. Data is collected everywhere and about everything, which allows us to detect patterns of human behavior that were not detectable before. As Kenneth Cukier puts it, “the 19th century was powered by steam, the 20th by oil, and the 21st will be fueled by data”. This will make our lives easier, because algorithms will be able to analyze mountains of data and detect things that are undetectable to the human eye. It will also make our lives cheaper because services can be delivered to hundreds of thousands of people at once, without the need for human interventions. There is, however, also a flipside to this. Big data allows us to understand better what is happening and which patterns occur, but it will not help us understand why those patterns are occurring. An example is the work by Andrew Ng, a computer science professor at Stanford University. He noticed that many of his students in an online course went back to a specific lecture at a certain point in the course. He looked into it and realized that that lecture was a math refresher, showing that students were lacking the mathematical skills to finish an assignment. An algorithm could very well detect that many students show this odd behavior, but the insights of the professor were needed to understand why. This example shows that, without an understanding of human behavior, big data alone cannot and will not make our lives easier and cheaper. I am pulled away from my thoughts because it is my turn to pay my groceries. I use my own Bonus Card so that the cashier will not be bothered with advertisements that are meant for me. February 2019

“Big data allows us to understand better what is happening and which patterns occur...” –Peter

Lustrum

Inside Intermate Town A lot of things have happened in Intermate Town since the extermination of all Werewolves of Intermate during the 7th lustrum celebration. Let’s take a look into the current affairs. Text: Bert van Gestel, Image: Manon van Hastenberg

The events that happened on November 23rd, which is now recognized as a national holiday for the brave efforts of Boris the Hunter, have forever been engraved into everybody’s mind. After collectively hunting down 9 (!) werewolves, the brave Boris was nearly chewed to death, but he stood up from the resistance and using his final breath, he managed to snipe the final mythical beast Bas Gremmen with a pointy pen. His actions earned him a statue of a large, yellow Intermate Pen, which stands for the victory of all innocent citizens of Intermate Town and their pursuit of happiness. It also serves as a commemorative artifact which carries the memories of all poor residents that have been killed by vicious werewolves. Some of the memories it symbolizes are the birth and tragic death of a Love Trio that couldn’t evade the werewolves even with their medical knowledge and sluttiness; a Grandma who solely communicated in FULL CAPS; a French member of the Bourgeoise who was incorrectly believed to be a traitor;

“...the brave efforts of Boris the Hunter, have forever been engraved into everybody’s mind.” and Timo who was attacked by werewolves very quickly. During the national holiday, the knowledge that all these people have helped to eliminate all werewolves provides all survivors with a proud and happy feeling. In the meantime, Hacker Jelle decided to pursue ethical hacking and use his IT talents in a way that was beneficial for the entire town. He now sometimes hacks the treasury of Industria to give all residents of Intermate Town some well-deserved money. Yay! The BasBart bar was shut down due to unpopularity, which is completely reasonable, knowing that werewolf Bas Gremmen ran it.

Intermania

Lustrum That also explains why Oracle Gijs sometimes found some long dark hairs in his beers. Witch Michelle decided to open a new bar called Beerchelle, using her witch kettle to brew awesome beers. Grandpa Kari brought some of her patented cacti to celebrate the opening of Beerchelle, and luckily no balloons were popped during this day. After a few years, when the residents of Intermate Town had finished rebuilding their streets and regained their normal lives, the inhabitants unanimously voted for Mayor Rob to be crowned King of Intermate. On the coronation day, Melissa, Bart, Stefan, Savannah and Mayra carried him to his new, personal throne. King Rob proudly glanced at his people, saluting them with a sense of pride and accomplishment. He had waited 34890 long hours for this rewarding moment. But when he looked out of the window, he noticed something peculiar: dark clouds of a vibrant and dangerous storm were coming his way… But Intermate Town had not seen dark clouds since the extermination of the final werewolf. Then, the realization struck him at the same time the thunder struck the statue and burned it right down to the ground: Something is off. Something is coming. Could it be…? After the thrilling apotheosis of the previous game, many members of Intermate have asked for a second edition of everyone’s favorite party game. From a secret and anonymous source, we’ve heard that a new edition of Werewolves of Intermate might be organized in the very near future. So, stay tuned and hail King Rob!

How do you hear when you don’t see? Piano in the Dark is a unique concert experience by our very own David Hordijk. He will play his own piano compositions accompanied by intriguing stories, completely in the dark. You don’t want to miss this!

February 2019

en Theme

Personalized Big Data What are your New Year’s resolutions? Are you going to be more productive? Will you be healthier? Wealthier? Let Evie help you to stay on (self-)track of your goals by showing you three self tracking apps. Text and Images: Evie Tossaint, Editorial Staff

A trend of the last few years is personalized big data; inspecting different aspects of your life through apps that can give overviews and new insights. There are many types of trackers and many different things to track. But the most commonly used self-trackers are apps related to health. There are several reasons why people would commit to using tracking apps. The foremost reason is to gain knowledge about oneself. But physical thriving and improving one’s self-esteem are also motivations. I have always found these apps interesting to gain some insight in myself. I wanted to find out how helpful it could be to track my activities with different apps for a few days. Would I become more efficient? Would I be more conscious about my health and money? I will review the three apps that I have tried on three different criteria; ease of use, insights, and aesthetics. Let’s check them out!

BIG DATA

Mijn Eetmeter First off is an app for all the fitboys and fitgirls out there. Or just the students who want to get more conscious about being healthy. The Voedingscentrum app provides insight in both your calorie intake and the amount of calories you burn with your activities. Also, it calculates your BMI and it shows you if you eat enough from each of the basic food groups. So, there is much to discover in this app. Even though it is not a very pretty tracker, it is very functional and there are a lot of useful functions. 14

Done (IOS) The second app I want to discuss, is a simple habit tracker app. In this app you can keep up with your daily tasks and check them off once you have done them. You can also give these activities a pretty color and see a summary of productivity for each separate habit. Although at first I thought that this app would be the most useful of the three and would motivate me to do important things, it proved otherwise. What I noticed for myself, is that I actually need a habit tracker to keep up with my ‘Get things done’ app. This seems quite inefficient and defeats the purpose of the app. Also, I did not find the monthly summary helpful at all. Spending Tracker The last tracker app that I want to discuss is one that could be helpful for almost every student: a spending tracker. Here you can track your income and expenses in different categories that you can add yourself. You can see an overview of the total income and expenses. But what I like most about this app is the option to see the graphical overviews. You can see in which category you spend the most, as well as a graph of the total income and expenses over a longer period. This app is my personal favorite of the three I have tested. It is relatively easy to use, and it gives very clear overviews of your expenses in different graphs. I can easily see in which category I spend too much money. Intermania

Theme Final verdict Overall, I have discovered that there are many tracker apps that can keep up with anything you want. They can give insightful overviews and get you motivated to be a more healthy, wealthy or productive student. But the most important thing is that these apps work for you and that they help you in achieving your goal.

Mijn Eetmeter

Done

Spending tracker

Ease of use

Insightful

Aesthetics

Screenshots

February 2019

en Theme

Big Data and Sustainability Technology has in many ways been responsible for the climate change that threatens the earth. However, technology may also lead to solutions to solve this problem. How will big data be able to contribute to sustainable development? Cécile explores. Text: Cécile Geertman, Editorial Staff

BIG DATA

Nowadays, the private sector is increasingly adopting the concept of big data. The collection and understanding of data helps organizations to optimize their decision making, including decisions related to sustainability. The application of big data is attractive for companies, since it could lead to insights about possible cost savings. Also, companies can find out whether they can improve upon their environmental impact. This can be done by taking a closer look at what happens outside the business, like the transport of raw materials or the processing of waste. By becoming a more sustainable business, the overall image of the business improves, which may eventually lead to more profit. However, organizations also face some barriers that may withhold them from using big data in any kind of way. The lack

of financial resources, shortcomings when looking at skills and training, data loss, and security and disclosure problems are some examples of these barriers. From all of

“By becoming a more sustainable business, the overall image of the business improves” these, the security and disclosure problems are mentioned most often, in relation to the recurring privacy debate. Luckily, the United Nations have made it one of their priorities to guide organizations in order to obtain the most safe and optimal use of big data. Supporting these organizations is of importance, because big data can have the most efficient effects when stakeholders combine their knowledge. For example, by analyzing social media and the content of local news stations, accurate information about a local forest fire can be given. This enables the authorities to undertake action faster and more efficient than before, leading to minimized damage to the environment. So, to conclude, big data mainly contributes to sustainable development by clarifying points of improvement related to environmental impact. This information may be used to predict and hopefully prevent unwanted future changes. Intermania

A Firstyear's Transformation In the Netherlands, people always say vroeger was alles beter when they are talking about the past. It means that in the early days everything was better, and this expression is true. I mean, in the past we had the idea that we would study very hard, get high grades, always make notes during the lectures, do our homework and attend every lecture. Nowadays, these things are a little bit different, since hardly anyone can say that he or she is doing this. I think most of you will recognize these resolutions from long time ago, namely from the time you had your first days on the university. For me, this was just a few months ago. In September, I started my study with the other sjaarsen. We came in as children that were amazed about the older students that were walking around us, nervous for the assignments, courses and test weeks that would follow. And of course, we still had a lot of the ambitions that I mentioned before. Four weeks later, we had turned into completely different persons; the ambitions we used to have changed and our view on student life turned into something else. The only thing I can say is that the most common heard sentence was: “I think I will skip my … lecture today”. Now, four months later, I can conclude that most of us transformed from children with diligent ambitions to real students with a healthy form of aversion to studying. Maybe about the studying part we can say vroeger was alles beter, but in social life there have been some changes as well. When you were that child of before university, sitting beside someone you didn’t know was not okay, smiling at someone you didn’t know was a bit weird too, and talking with someone of your school you knew vaguely was not done. Nowadays, me and my fellow students just sit next to strange people, are friendly to other students we don’t know and if we know someone a bit, we just begin a conversation with that person. Our ideas of how we would study have changed, but that doesn’t matter. We’ve become nice, social and open persons and I think we can be proud of being a student. So, I think the past wasn’t better. We can say that now everything turned out for the better. February 2019

Column Emma

“The most common heard sentence was: “I think I will skip my lecture today”.

–Emma

According to Arjan

Big Data Gathering in Healthcare? Big Data enthusiasts focus on the possibilities, rather than its costs. The healthcare sector has seen a dramatic increase in data collection, which has come at the expense of traditional care. Is this time-consuming endeavour worth it? Text: Arjan Derks, Sustainable Innovation student

Healthcare is one of the biggest sectors that uses data at a large scale. Data is required for diagnostics, prevention, and medication of diseases, as well as used to find proper cures for each patient. Since this adds up to many variables and even more data entries, it is not hard to see why this falls under the category ‘Big Data’.

but it could allow medical scientists and other hospital staff to make more accurate predictions and diagnoses. However, the nurses are at the front of this data collection. Their work may well be the difference in accuracy that is needed to make the services they provide even better in the long term. Since the biggest time sink in healthcare

“Healthcare workers are fed up with these administrative tasks, and rightly so.”

BIG DATA

Although many expect meaningful innovations from healthcare data, it is typically not collected efficiently. A lot needs to be done by hand and the time invested in doing so has faced quite some public scrutiny. Nurses have complained that they need to register every single aspect of their work for each patient, creating a mile-long administrative paper trail, from the time they arrived up to the moment they leave. Healthcare workers are fed up with these administrative tasks, and rightly so. If they need to spend 50% of their time on filing papers, it takes away precious time from elderly care. These objections to the collection of healthcare data typically do not consider their purpose. Much of the data gathered is relevant to, for example, the usage of medication and the exact care given. This way, it does not have direct practical utility for the nurses themselves, 18

data collection is the paper trail, the use of IT could possibly alleviate these problems and mitigate frustrations. It would save a lot of time, since data can be gathered real-time without having to write things down and hand them in. Besides, the storage is already done in a good database (I hope). This makes the analysis of the data also a lot more efficient. But how could we, as Innovation Sciences faculty, make this process more human friendly and/or publicly applicable? For example, the P&T and HTI programs comprise research on smart robotics, which concerns how such robots interact with real people, as well as their usability. Analogously, at Industrial Engineering, they make predictive maintenance algorithms for many machines, based on the inputs the machine gives. In healthcare, this principle has not been applied yet, so ‘predictive’ is often the diagnosis of an illness in an Intermania

According to Arjan

as early as possible stage. Prevention is better than cure, and since predictions can lead to interactions which in turn lead to prevention, why wouldn’t we try to raise the standards of healthcare predictions to a higher level of accuracy? We also know from statistical research the combinations of actions that people undertake and the diseases they would be more likely to contract.

“...the logging should be made as simple as writing it on a post-it.” In a similar vein, much of the tracking of healthcare is done by looking at the applied care to a certain patient and waiting until the treatment gets an outcome. This has to be done for virtually all patients in a hospital, elderly home or care-place, which by classical means lead to a lot of paper. However, this is unnecessary, again with the help of IT. A suggestion would be to use a system akin to bar-codes or QR-codes, indicating a timestamp and treatment and logging it automatically February 2019

to a system. With most smartphones of today, QR-scanning is possible and though it would take some time to develop the app and test it properly, the scaling definitely is possible to go further. For processing simplicities and irregularities, the logging should be made as simple as writing it on a post-it. There is only one minor flaw at this beautiful plan: would nurses accept this innovation? People are generally sceptical of the ideas of ‘consultants’ if these ideas do not match their own view on the problem. And they might become averse when we try to ‘push’ it through via managers in the facilities. Besides, the solution does not really ‘take away’ their problem, but merely repackages it into a new way that they must learn to work with. Besides, not all the analyses is useful for them, as efficiency is gained with experience and effectiveness is improved when given more initiative and less strict regulations to bring the full extent of the experience to bear, rather than imposing analysis-based stricter regulations. Nevertheless, let us just wonder about the possibilities of the technology that we can help make happen, for the fun of it. 19

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Hack Your Way Through the Hospital We have some really smart people here at Intermate who can handle some big data. Bas, Bert, Damla and Chiel won the Brightlands Hackathon last December. Damla tells you their winning story. Text & Images: Damla Kızıltunç-Bus, member of Intermate

However, this does not solve everything yet. Our solution involved giving every waiting patient a digital bracelet when they come in. This bracelet is connected to the system and notifies the patient whenever it’s their turn by vibrating. With this bracelet, you are able to leave the waiting room to go for a cup of coffee, or to use any of the other facilities in the hospital. Ten minutes before your turn, the system will send a notification to the bracelet which triggers a vibration, telling you it’s time to go back. So, by combining the bracelet and the screen, we think patient experience will be improved because you receive clear information about why your waiting time increased. And you don’t have to sit in the sad waiting room all the time, because you can just walk around with the bracelet.

BIG DATA

This is the story of how we won the Brightlands Hackathon with a very simple idea. Have you ever been to the waiting area of the emergency room in a hospital? You wait and wait without knowing when it is your turn, getting frustrated, and you know that you can’t even leave the room to grab something to eat because you never know when the nurse is going to call your name. This is the same experience almost everybody had when we checked the Google reviews of the hospital in question. We knew that we could not make the process much faster, but we wanted to improve the experience of patients waiting for their doctor. Emergency waiting cues work with a categorization called triage which gives priority to more severely injured people over less urgent cases. While this is logical, the entire system of categorization already exists but is never communicated to the patients. We thought if people know how much longer they need to wait, this will take away a bit of their frustration. By using historical patient data, we created a dynamic queue to show on a screen with average waiting times per category. This shows how many people of each category are currently waiting. If you know your own category, you can see how many people have priority above you. This generates a better understanding about when it’s your turn. So, if you have a broken arm, you will see that, on average, you need to wait 19 minutes. The more data the hospital collects, the better these average predictions will get. 20

Intermania

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Your Online Profile's Value In this edition, Noël is in New York and he discusses the growing obsession of companies to know what their customers want, and of recently, where their customers are. Text: Noël Coenraad, Intermania foreign correspondent

Have you noticed that advertisements on social media have become increasingly specific to your life? They are just what you were looking for or thinking of. If you have noticed, then that means that your data profile is very detailed and it is in the hands of advertisers. If you have not noticed, then consider yourself lucky for now. In New York especially, people cannot go longer than two minutes without their phone; the average American adult spends two hours and 51 minutes on their smartphone every day. The very fact that advertisers and companies have such unfettered access to our digital lives is unsettling because in no other part of our lives do we allow this type of behavior.

“The average American adult spends 2 hours and 51 minutes on their smartphone every day.”

BIG DATA

One might ask, why is it a bad thing that I am made aware of deals on products and services which I enjoy? In essence, nothing! It is convenient. The problem is that we have lost control over our digital identity and are giving up privacy in areas where most of us are not aware of. To illustrate, if you have a Google account and an Android phone; then go to Google Maps, click on settings, and then click on timeline. A map will show you everywhere 22

“The problem is that we have lost control over our digital identity.” you have been since owning your phone and it is accurate to the minute. And if you are an Apple user, you are no safer; under location services, you can find all the locations where you have been for the last six months. Why do companies go through the trouble of building these highly accurate digital profiles? The answer to that is straightforward; it makes them money. Currently, big data miners collect as much data as they can. These can be the large known culprits such as Google and Facebook, but any app that requires some form of personal information is mining for data. These datasets are then sold to advertisers which are then sold to consumer-oriented companies. Consumeroriented companies sell much more products and services when the ads are targeting consumers correctly. Not to forget that the digital advertising market is hot at the moment growing to $88 billion in 2017. This means that each stakeholder in the big data chain stands to make money. What is that online profile worth? Google values each user at $182 and Facebook values each user at $158. But the Intermania

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“If you are not paying for the product, then you are the product.” price can widely vary, for example, your LinkedIn profile is only worth $69, while your Alibaba account is worth $621. This means that markets are willing to pay more for your online shopping habits than for your skills and achievements. What very often is forgotten is that our data belongs to us and we know it is worth something. This begs the question: why aren’t we getting paid for our internet presence? Well, there is this old saying: if you are not paying for the product, then you are the product. This saying certainly applies to the situation we find ourselves in; all these apps are free. This means that a grey area is established where it is tolerated to give up some personal information in return of the apps services. However, it is unclear to know how much personal information free apps are allowed to ask from their users and the industry remains largely unregulated. Although, governments are slowly starting to implement legislation demanding that companies ask for permission such as the EU General Data

February 2019

Protection Regulation (GDPR). But that is just mildly effective, since only users can control the amount of personal information that is available on the internet. What can you do? Some have reacted by isolating themselves from any online service and modern technology - which is highly impractical on a social and economic level, as well as ineffective. Since your friends and people around you use these services, you will be indirectly monitored. Recently, it came out that Facebook was able to make ‘shadow profiles’ which are profiles of people who are not Facebook, but through indirect means were able to gather small amounts of information. The best option is to open that settings tab on all your devices and check that only the apps that you want to give access to your personal information have permission. Finally, take back your data and turn off voice recognition because otherwise, companies have permission to listen to your conversions.

Humans of Intermate

Programmers of Intermate This time in “Humans of Intermate”, Evie decided to find out how ‘Big-Data-minded’ our Intermate members are. She ended up with three guys who consider themselves programmers. All of them (former) members of the Cie++, these are the persons who take/took care of Intermates ICT as well. Here, they will share their experiences. Text: Evie Tossaint, Editorial Staff

BIG DATA

Joris van Rijn

The Psychology & Technology or Sustainable Innovation life after university? Plenty of opportunities! We, the Innovation Sciences, know best how important the human aspect in technology is. Technology is always just the means to an end. It is this mindset that Bas Schleijpen and I used to start Dutch Coding Company. We are a web & app project studio, specialized in cloud applications made for people. A typical project consists of one or more extensive UX (User Experience) sprints, followed by UI (User Interface) sprints. Traditional software development tends to overlook the importance of detailed planning during this stage of a project. Only when we feel confident enough that the wireframes & designs will not change that much anymore, we’ll progress to the development stages (while we feel that UX/UI is very important, most time is still spent on development itself). The last important aspect of developing for people: implementation. The implementation deserves attention, since failure to create acceptance for the system makes the software in itself useless. Bas and I started DCC during our studies (both PT) on the TU/e. In some courses we learned something which almost instantly proved to be of use in “the field”. For most courses, we learned this later on (especially the psychology courses). Especially now it is clear to me that the Human Technology Interaction “branch” is rapidly expanding! The pull of the market turns out to be huge, which allowed us to grow to 25 people in 2018. Even if you don’t have a clue what you want to do after uni: you already made a good choice studying Innovation Sciences.

Intermania

Humans of Intermate

Thomas Schraven Since I was in primary school I have been fascinated by computers and what makes them tick. I was very proud of my ‘computer programs’ which were basically just interactive PowerPoint slideshows. Only when I got to middle school I was introduced to ‘real’ programming in the form of Visual Basic Script. In the past 10 years that expanded from VBS to VB.NET, to C#, C, C++, PHP and JavaScript. However, I don’t think programming is about programming languages or even the tools you use. I think programming is about puzzling and solving problems. I like analysing problems and systematically developing a strategy to solve them (those of you that have been in a Computer Science lecture are probably familiar with the phrase ‘divide and conquer’). Basically, I just get really excited from analysing stuff and working with structures and systems. Current projects I’m involved in are developing an app to help with research at HTI (with Dutch Coding Company), making sure the ICT infrastructure of Intermate doesn’t burn to the ground, and I recently made my keyboard blink in a different pattern depending on whether my laptop screen is locked or not.

Tom Kafoe Solving puzzles is inherently fun. It challenges us to think outside the box and it is rewarding if we get the solution correct. Some puzzles have multiple methods of solving, like for example, the Rubik’s Cube. The Rubik’s Cube is a complex puzzle which has spawned world championships where players compete to solve the puzzle in the fastest way, or in the weirdest way. The art of programming has the same characteristics as these intricate puzzles. Your algorithmic solution needs to be the fastest and the best solution you can think of. It thus challenges you, as a programmer, to again, think outside the box. The great thing about the puzzles you encounter when programming, is that they are ever changing. You are free to choose which puzzles you would like to solve. Modern society almost completely relies on software, making the range of different puzzles endless. Programming is a field where the journey to the product is the fun part, like how solving the Rubik’s Cube is the fun part of the puzzle. The fact that the result actually solves modern society’s biggest problems, is also nice I guess...

February 2019

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Blockchain Explained Besides the Bitcoin, blockchain is one of the newest buzzwords that keeps getting everybody’s attention. But do you know what it is, or how it actually works? Evie will explain. Text, Evie Tossaint, Editorial Staff

How can you make a valid transaction or contract without a third person - such as a bank or a government - involved? People can lie about who they are or about the product they are selling. Normally, this third person can check these things and make sure that the seller is telling the truth. A solution should be a system where all these facts can be stored and where every user can check them. It would be impossible to edit the records because all other users would be watching.

“The network is not easily taken down by a single user.”

BIG DATA

Blockchain is the software that empowers this solution. Blockchain stores information across a network of computers. So that all information is distributed and decentralized, and nobody can alter this information without alerting others. All information can be tracked across the blockchain and is validated by other users in the network. Because the network is decentralized and distributed it is not easily taken down or corrupted by a single user. The users of the system store pieces of information that are submitted by other users in an encrypted form. These pieces of information form blocks that build up in a chronological chain. Because the pieces of information are encrypted, they cannot

be corrupted by anyone else. To give an example, take a house of students that share all costs. They keep a ‘WieBetaaltWat’ to give an overview of the costs and to equally share them. But how do you know that one roommate does not cheat? A solution would be that each roommate individually tracks all expenses of all roommates. They can check their expenses against each other and they can see if anybody has cheated or whether everything is correct.

“Everything could be tracked in the blockchain.” In the future, blockchain could enable us to have many things entirely run by algorithms. Everything that you share and do together with others could be tracked in the blockchain. Intermania

In 't Audt reveals

Nicolas Cage Responsible for Thousands of Deaths

Ever wondered what drowning people have to do with Nicolas Cage? Evelien and Bas, members of fraternity In ‘t Audt, used the knowledge they gained so far during their studies to unmask this very distressing mystery. Text & Images: Evelien Schumacher and Bas van Rhenen, In ‘t Audt members

All over the world Enormous amounts of data are collected each day. Even though this has been done by governmental organizations for hundreds of years, the internet has recently enabled its users - both scientists and nonspecialists alike - to analyze and compare these datasets with only a couple of clicks of the mouse. Consequently, unexpected data patterns have emerged. The most threatening among these might be the worrying correlation between the number of films Nicolas Cage appeared in per year and the number of people who drowned by falling into a pool in that same year, as can be seen in the graph on these pages.

“...unexpected data patterns have emerged. ”

These kinds of correlations are very rare and we couldn’t help but wonder if there was more evidence for Nicolas Cage murdering a serious amount of people during the last couple of years. Therefore, we decided to browse every inch of the dark web to get to the bottom of this and we found the next facts to support our theory. They might even provide us with more proof that Nicolas Cage has been involved in these deaths. February 2019

We have found the following evidence: • In 86% of the movies where Nicolas Cage was part of the cast, a pool was included in the movie. Nicolas Cage starred in the movie • ‘Snake Eyes’. This can be seen as the eyes of death. • When Nicolas Cage was a child, he played in the movie ‘Kiss of Death’. Here we can see he got the feeling for murder already very early in his life. • The film ‘Seeking Justice’ reflects the way Nicolas cage feels about his murders. This is because he was bullied in his childhood by kids that held him underwater for a long time in the swimming pool. Nicolas cage appeared in the film • ‘Drive Angry’. When leaving out the ‘r’ in ‘Drive’, it states ‘Dive Angry’. This relates to the murders he committed in bigger swimming pools where he encouraged people to dive in the children swimming pools. In the recent movie ‘Mom and Dad’, • Cage appears as a dad who kills his own children. As these children are too young to be able to swim, he might as well have thrown them in a pool to drown. • Nicolas Cage has won many awards for the movie ‘Leaving Las Vegas’, in which he plays a writer who wants to drink himself to death, thus literally 27

In 't Audt reveals

•

drowning in alcohol. His success with this movie might have inspired him to share his secret to success with others. Cage’s Motion Pictures Star is located on Hollywood Boulevard 7021. When we use Google Street View to view this location, a restaurant appears with a big sign near the bar reading “How Thirsty?” Indeed, how thirsty, Nic? Thirsty enough to drink, say, an entire swimming pool?

“Nicolas Cage is responsible for the drowning of thousands of people.”

•

Nicolas is known for his pale blue eyes, which is the very same color as the color of the water in swimming pools. Coincidence? We don’t think so.

Concluding from these facts, there is only one appropriate verdict: Nicolas Cage is responsible for the drowning of thousands of people. Or... not? Of course, this article did not provide any serious or usable evidence of Nicolas Cage being a murderer. Although the correlation really exists and both data sets are based on true facts. But besides a strong correlation, it is also a coincidental correlation. When finding such a correlation, it can be pretty easy to immediately look for an influencing and influenced factor in the correlation and find many more supporting arguments for this causation. With these big amounts of data at our disposal, it is very important to be aware of the fact that correlation does not imply causation and of the dangers of confirmation bias. When finding an exciting correlation, make sure to use your common sense and test your correlation thoroughly*, then there’s less risk of wrongly accusing actors of murder (and other mistakes). Happy analyzing!

BIG DATA

*How? Ask Chris Snijders!

Intermania

Homo Dataeus Satisfaction is not in our blood. It would have been dangerous to our species in the far past. Even though all the current human breakthrough moments lead to high living standards, the joke is on us. According to historian Yuval Noah Harari, primitive hunter-gatherers were probably happier than we are now. We are enjoying levels of comfort and stability that were unthinkable hundreds of years ago, but we are not as satisfied with them as we expected. So, what has all this human awesomeness been good for? For what have we been working so hard in the last thousands of years? The answer is: superior surviving through societies. Compared to other species, humans are uniquely capable of experiencing and fostering the feeling of belonging to a group bigger than 200 individuals. Complex corporation took humanity to the top. And instead of being easily satisfied, the majority of us is triggered by curiosity and a need for purpose in a socially related structure. That’s the reason why people are asking questions: from astrology to neurology, and everything in between. People have also been working their asses off attempting to answer them, rather than praising beds and supermarkets. Big Data is one of the fields in which reasonable answers are being found for a wide scope of questions, bringing humanity closer to the desired world of knowledge. Knowledge is power. Power is control. And it is good old curiosity that feeds the constant urge for knowledge. With the current share of knowledge and skills that are available to humanity, slowly changing brains are capable of speed-boosting evolution, adapting to new environments and expectations. Although this is probably not going to lower expectations nor increase satisfaction. I think Steve Jobs would be very proud. People are staying hungry and they are staying foolish. And will keep being so until we personally rationalize humanity to the next level. A super control freak won't be any fun for the majority of a relatively ignorant and irrational population. Evolution only cares for survival. So, it’s up to the individuals to prioritize and balance between the greater good and the smaller satisfaction. February 2019

Column: Hub

“Complex corporation took humanity to the top.” –Hub

©BvOF

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A History of (Big?) Data Nowadays, Big Data is one of the main topics of the day. Yet, not that long ago this term did not even exist. Isabel looked into the history of Big Data to find the tools our ancestors used. Text & Images: Isabel Blijenburg, Editorial Staff

BIG DATA

There is quite a rich history about using data for analyzing purposes that goes back as far as 18000 BC. The earliest tools are used to count inventory and track trading activity. Somewhat later, around 2400 BC, the abacus is invented and the first libraries are built, with The Library of Alexandria in Egypt becoming the world’s largest data storage center of the time. As cool as that sounds, I doubt whether you could already consider these examples as THE Big Data that we refer to nowadays.

In 1663 the demographer John Graunt started using data in a new, more advanced way, namely by recording and analyzing information about the mortality rate in London. This turned out to be the world’s first recorded statistical analysis, which turned Graunt into the pioneer of statistics. Still, the time-consuming task of having to summarize the data manually remained until 1889. This is when the inventor Herman Hollerith developed an electromechanical punched card tabulator that works with cards with holes in it. Specific information could be recorded by the machine by detecting whether a hole is absent or present at a specific location. A certain location can identify one’s marital status for example, where a present hole indicates “married” and an absent hole “single”. This information could furthermore be counted or the cards could be sorted automatically according to these holes. This invention obviously made way for the possibility to collect considerably larger datasets compared to the sets before.

Intermania

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Due to the possibility of producing and processing tons of data, the US Government made plans to build the world’s first data center in 1965. Millions of tax returns and fingerprints would be stored here by transferring these records onto magnetic computer tape. However, the project was dropped due to the fear of ‘Big Brother’: the feeling of losing privacy took over. Although the project was discontinued, this event can be considered as the beginning of the electronic data storage era.

Hollerith’s card punch machine, which was used to accurately punch holes in the cards

February 2019

Another important machine-related invention took place in 1943 in Britain: the first electronic computer was born, named Colossus. These computers were built to decipher encrypted radio messages. Since this was the time of World War II, the British used this machine to decipher Nazi codes. The machine did so by searching for any patterns that would show regularly in intercepted Nazi messages. The machine could scan at a rate of five thousand characters per second; a task that normally requires weeks for humans became a task that took only a few hours. The same kind of machines were used during the Cold War by the National Security Agency (NSA) in the United States to decrypt obtained messages as well. These machines were again more advanced than the ones from 1943, since they could now independently collect and process information.

One of the first actual collection of huge datasets collected in 1937 was performed using a punch cardreading system as well. This time, it was developed by IBM. They managed to get these presses to print, cut and stack five to 10 million punch cards every day. This helped the government of the United States to keep track of millions of Americans, which made it a very extensive data project for this era.

en Theme As more data was being collected the problem of limited storage space was getting more and more serious. Finding solutions to this problem was therefore of importance. In 1970, the Relational Database model by IBM mathematician Edgar F. Codd came forward as a solution where retrieving and storing data was made easier and more efficient. This is done by finding relations between the columns of two datasets whereupon they are combined into one set. Another solution of the 70s was the large-scale implementation of Material Requirements Planning (MRP) in businesses. This softwarebased information system analyzes all the company’s activities by taking customer demands into account and it manages all the company’s resources using logic and data processing. Using this system could highly improve production efficiency for businesses.

BIG DATA

When computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989, he could not have foreseen the excessive growth of new data. Berners-Lee wanted to provide the possibility of sharing information by connecting web pages named hypertext, but was unaware of the impact on the world by this invention. In the 90s, more and more people went online and upload their own data or view that uploaded by others. Besides, the most popular search engine in the world, Google, was released as well as the first use of the terms Big Data and Internet of Things in an academic paper and in a business presentation respectively.

Now that we are here, in the 21st century, social networks have grown rapidly and large amounts of data are created at a daily basis. Businesses and governments have begun to form Big Data projects and the rate at which it is growing was not even imaginable by businessmen and engineers some years ago. So, what is THE Big Data? I think it depends on what era you are focusing on. One thing is for sure: Big Data is big and “Big” will only get bigger.

Intermania

In het Midden

Puzzel

Puzzel: Colin de Bruin & Nienke Buikstra, Redactie

Horizontaal 1. Dutje gedaan 4. Grieks bergachting gebied 9. Later! 11. Past na schuif of as 12. Past voor man en bier 14. Omroep, tevens Koreaanse boyband 15. Sterk 16. Insulinespuit 18. Geologisch tijdperk 21. Kunsttaal 22. Kun je in genomen worden 24. Snelle oplossing 25. Past voor bijl en stok 27. Niet zoet 28. Bijvoorbeeld 29. Maffe muurklever 30. Landengte 31. Energieaanbieder Verticaal 1. Woestijn in AziĂŤ 2. Dat kun je staan 3. Caribisch Indianenvolk 4. Dit sausje bevat flink wat teentjes 5. Stukje code 6. Ten oosten van BY 7. Pannenkoekje 8. Gladde vis 10. www.kĂ¸benhavn._ 13. _ en Saffira, Bijbelse figuren 15. Weg 17. Ik 18. Sentimenteel 19. Opeenvolging 20. Product van sojamelk 23. Inkijkje 24. Financieel Opleidings Instituut 25. Biljartstok 26. Geloofsovertuiging 29. Amerikaanse autoproducent

February 2019

PhD'er

Field Trip to Uganda’s Solar Market How does one end up doing a PhD and what does it entail? Aleid, who during her studies had never considered actually doing a PhD, explains what she is doing, how this came to be and her opinion on the value of SI and IS. Text & Images: Aleid Groenewoudt, PhD candidate Technology, Innovation and Society group

How I ended up doing a PhD When I received an e-mail “vacancy: teaching assistant/junior researcher”, I knew this would be something for me – and so did my study buddies, and my sister Gemma, who instantly imagined me with glasses like an old professor. I had never really considered a PhD directly after my MSc Innovation Sciences. Four years seemed too long to commit, but this one-year position sounded much better. Within several months I realized that four PhD years mean freedom, getting to know new people and places, and the opportunity to dive into a topic that you are genuinely interested in. Next to this, I had started working with Floor Alkemade and Henny Romijn, and I really enjoyed this. Fortunately, financing could be arranged and soon my one-year contract was changed into a fouryear one.

Quality issues in emerging solar markets My research interest is in the development of markets for off-grid solar technologies in lowincome countries. Solar systems offer off-grid energy access, opportunities for increasing productivity, alleviating poverty and improving health, as well as environmental benefits. Or actually, they can offer these benefits, but only if the solar systems work well. As part of my research, I stayed in Uganda for two months at the beginning of this year. Uganda has a booming solar market. Everywhere on the streets, you find shops selling solar products. And here is the interesting part (for me): There are large numbers of low-quality solar home systems and solar lanterns and even fake solar products. I came across

“Four PhD years mean freedom, getting to know new people and places, and the opportunity to dive into a topic that you are genuinely interested in.” Source: The Observer, 8-3-2018. One of the batteries being filled with non-functional slabs of glass. 34

Intermania

PhD'er

Same panel on both pictures: on the front the label states “made in Germany”. On the other side: “made in China”.

low-quality solar panels, fast degrading solar batteries, fake ‘solar batteries’ filled with slabs of glass (they look exactly like any other battery from the outside), and proclaimed “Chinese” solar lanterns that “died within days”, according to my interviewee. This trend does not limit itself to Uganda; there are signs of similar problems in Kenya, Ghana, India, Pakistan, and so on.

“Low-quality products break down soon, causing e-waste, loss of money and trust in the technology...” This is harmful, as low-quality products break down soon (and fake ones do not work at all), causing e-waste, loss of money and trust in the technology, and increased reluctance to buy new products. If this happens on a large scale, it may even hamper technology acceptance and hinder a transition to “renewable” energies in countries like Uganda. I met some people who had spent a substantial share of their income but were left with nothing but a broken solar system after a couple of months. So far, little is known about these lowquality products in the market, but it raises many questions. How large is this share of February 2019

low-quality products? Why do such lowquality products exist, and especially why do they remain to exist if better quality products are available and countries set technical standards to assure quality? And could we do something to change these “undesired” outcomes, like waste and people losing money and trust? Your study matters Not only do I find this interesting and highly relevant, the situation in the Ugandan solar market also illustrates why our BSc and MSc are important. It shows that a nice technology alone is not enough for a sustainable impact. In theory, solar energy provides all sorts of benefits, yet in practice, it is far more complex. And if you ever considered doing a PhD after your MSc: yes, it is great fun, but only if you are genuinely interested in a topic and you enjoy working with your supervisors. If you never considered it: you will probably get much richer than me.

How to charge your phone on a field trip... 35

Sneak Review

Anna and the Apocalypse To help our first-year students discover the Eindhoven student life, we sent Nathan and a friend to a Sneak Preview of a new movie. Let’s hear what they thought about ‘Anna and the Apocalypse’. Text: Nathan de Pater

Every Thursday night, Pathé organizes a movie night where you don’t know what movie you are going to see. So, when I was asked to write a review for the Intermania I had no idea what to expect. After the first twenty minutes of the movie, all we had seen were some character introductions and a couple of High School Musical-like songs. At this point, about ten people had already left the theater because they didn’t want to sit through ninety minutes of musical. About ten minutes later, the first zombies started showing up in the background of another song. This twist was super enjoyable for me and there were some chuckles heard throughout the theater about just how absurd it was.

“...The first zombies started showing up in the background of a song.” Ella Hunt does a pretty good job playing the lead role of Anna, but her character is very bland and doesn’t really stand out. All the other characters are also extremely forgettable and I don’t even remember any of their names. The story of the movie is completely ridiculous, because it mostly revolves around 36

Anna and her group of friends trying to find and help her dad who is held up by a strict principal, while slashing up zombies in classical gory fashion. The principal is very keen on order and structure and he is the main protagonist of the movie. However, his motivation is very unclear and he doesn’t really add much to the story in general. For me the fun of this movie came almost entirely from the absurdity of the twist and I think if I knew even the title of the movie before I went in to the theater I would have enjoyed the movie a lot less. It is a pretty niche movie, but if you like gore and horror movies this might be a movie for you. Intermania

Student Team

Building the Future With CASA In this rubric, we give one of the many student teams that our university has, the chance to introduce themselves. This time, it is up to Thanh from Team CASA to tell you what his team aims to do. Text & Images: Thanh Nguyen

Last December already made 2019 a success. I got an email which said that we got the permits to build a house. I was both happy and surprised that a municipality would let a group of students build something that people are actually going to live in. Even crazier is that Woonbedrij f has agreed to buy our house! Let me introduce you to Team CASA: We are an international, interdisciplinary team with 28 members and we are represented by 10 nationalities and 7 different faculties of the university. Our goal is to accelerate the energy transition in the built environment. In other words, we try to tackle problems in the current built environment, which is very conservative and sticks to the traditional ways of building houses. An example is that the builders absolutely love concrete and think that it can be made circular. However, the only way to move concrete is to demolish it and use it by crushing it into gravel and make roads out of it. Another example; constructing a house currently takes a long time, which is a huge inconvenience to the neighborhood. But most of all, there simply is not enough manpower in the construction world.

February 2019

Where will the house be built? We are going to build in the new Brandevoort in Helmond. This is a district which now consists of farms and grass, but the vision behind this district is that it will become Brainport Smart District, the smartest region in the Netherlands. As the district is in Helmond, you can tell that the organization has a lot of ambition. We have the honor to be the first project that will be realized there. In the future, our house called CASA 1.0 will have 1500 other smart houses surrounding it.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;We got the permits to build a house!â&#x20AC;? What makes our building special? We look to use materials that can easily be re-used in the future. This means that there is no concrete used for example. We also do not use glue, so that in the future all the materials are easily deconstructed which makes it possible to re-use the materials. A steel construction will carry the building so that our wooden facades do not have to. This means that future renovations will be easier and cheaper to do. If you do not like the look of your house anymore, just remove the facade and add another to your taste! The way of building is also much more time efficient than currently is the case: as we prefabricate every part of the house, the construction of the house on site will take a few days, instead of a few months. We 37

Student Team are aiming to assemble a complete house in 24 hours. This will also mean that the demolishing will be much tidier and that the house can be rebuilt very quickly. But wait, there is more! The house is also very energy efficient as it will generate its own energy. Our EnergyroofÂŽ generates electricity and warmth from the sun, and the energy will be converted to heat that will be transferred to our Seasonal Thermal Energy Storage, STES in short, which would be placed under the ground. This is a huge water tank with 104 cubic meters of water, which can reach a temperature of 80 degrees in the summer. The heat will be used in the rest of the year to make sure it is never cold at home. This means that we do not need any gas to heat our house, about which I am sure that certain people in the far north of the Netherlands will appreciate this. The STES also functions as the foundation of the house, and as it is made from aluminum and steel, there is no concrete used! There are a lot more features to the house, but to explain them all, we would probabliy need more pages.

What is planned for 2019? Currently, we are making the production drawings, and in the spring, we will build the house. In the first half year, CASA 1.0 will be a demonstration building where we can give tours to people who are interested. After that, the first inhabitants will move in. The house will have plenty of sensors that measure energy consumption and other things. With consent from the tenants, we will use the data to see how the house really performs and improve upon the design for the future CASAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s. Not only will we be able to extract data of the inhabitants, but students and researchers from the TU/e will be able to do research in a real house environment as well. All in all, 2019 will be an exciting year for us. If you are interested in future updates, feel free to check out our website; www.teamcasa.nl and follow us on social media. There will be an event, open to everyone, when we build our house in the spring. More information will be broadcast nearing the event.

Intermania

Career Corner

Our First ITEM Guest Lecture! Last February, the External Affairs Organ started with many ambitious ideas about career and education. Now, less than a year later, the first ITEM guest lecture is a fact. If you ask Mieke, it was a success! Text: Mieke Ronckers, External Affairs Organ

Big Data The theme of this Intermania is Big Data and let it happen to be that the guest lecture by Peter Cozijn was also about Big Data. Peter, an alumnus of Innovation Sciences, is the cofounder of Gibbs Analytics Consulting. During the guest lecture, he explained what

“The transition from their study to a suitable job was only a small step” he and his company exactly do: they help organizations to extract knowledge out of the (big) data the client generates. After analyzing different models, they try to give advice for an automatized system to improve the processes of the client. One of Peters examples was Marktplaats, an advertising site, that wanted to know which users were ‘serious car-buyers’ and which users were ‘hobby car-searchers’. Out of all the data Marktplaats could generate, Peter and his team developed a model to determine if users would be potential car-buyers based on different user-attributes.

Career After University Peter studied Innovation Sciences (also known as TeMa), and later Technology & Policy. Students were interested in how he uses this background in his current job. He explained that, during his study, he already had a little business with a friend where they developed websites for all kinds of clients. In this business, some big data questions had already arisen.

“I was surprised to see that the Pavilion was – Peter Cozijn still standing” February 2019

Career Corner After their graduation, Peter and his friend decided to wrap up this first business and start a real one which would include both their education and Big Data. The transition from their study to a suitable job was only a small step. In Gibbs AC, Peters main job is to guide the implementation of an analytics solution. He tries to make sure that an idea, that is shown to be good during the ‘proof of concept’ phase, will be extended into a suitable and complete business application that is used by the client. During the proof of concept phase, a method or idea is realized on a small scale to demonstrate the feasibility or the practical potential of the theory. After this phase, the next big step is to use the idea on a larger scale as a real solution for the client. Career in Education The guest lecture by Peter Cozijn was the first guest lecture organized by the EAO through ITEM. Therefore, we wanted to know: was it really a success? We asked Peter, Karin Smolders, and students what they thought about the guest lecture. Peter really liked to come back to the TU/e and was “surprised to see that the Pavilion was still standing”. The guest lecture was fun to give and a nice challenge to involve the students in his story. He had to get used to the different approach of P&T compared to Innovation Sciences as he studied it, but in the end, he liked informing students about his job. Karin Smolders, who was the responsible teacher for the course OGO Quantitative research, was also enthusiastic about the guest lecture. “After some fine-tuning about the content, the topic suited the course content well. In the course, we perform small40

scale studies employing quantitative research methods, and the lecture nicely showed how those quantitative methods can be extended and used in large-scale projects in ‘real-life’, even with existing datasets. The lecture

“The guest lecture was fun to give and a nice challenge to involve the students in his story.” extended the focus of our regular lectures and provided an example for students on how they can use their obtained knowledge and skills in practice after they will be graduated.” Students that attended the lecture also liked the format. They really liked the combination of the course content with the business applications. “It gave a good overview of how the professional world uses the techniques we are learning in the course” and “It was nice to place the course content in context and show what can be done with data, also regarding privacy and ethical issues.” The students also appreciated the fact that they get a good example of what we can do with their study in the future. “I liked the fact that we got an example of HTI work in real life.” The first ITEM activity organized by the External Affairs Organ was a success for all parties. Let’s hope there will be plenty more and maybe you will come across one of our activities in your course this quartile. Intermania

Fun Facts of Intermate

Theme

For this edition, Evie and Michelle try to find the ins and outs of Intermate with the data they collected with a survey. With help of Stata, they found some interesting correlations which will turn your world upside down. Text: Evie Tossaint & Michelle van Ardenne, Editorial Staff

Within Intermate there are some speculations that keep everybody busy. For instance, “The programs SI is better than P&T” or “Men drink more alcohol than women”. Of course, not all of them are true. Some are total bullshit, but maybe there are some interesting facts that will change your perspective. With the Intermania we wanted to clarify some of these mysteries. Therefore, we made a survey to gain all the information we needed to answers those questions. And YES, we did find some interesting correlations within Intermate. In this article we highlight the ones that surprised us the most.

We started our analyses with the variable course credits. It seemed to be a good starting point, because there must be a secret for graduating from your bachelor easily. Lucky for you, we found the answer. People who can drink more than 10 glasses of alcohol in one night, have in general, more course credits. According to us, there is only one explanation for this: Amount of study point by alcohol

February 2019

Unfortunately, alcohol is the only thing that influences your study points. Even Facebook does not help us to get smarter. The only good thing about that is that people can stop using “Facebook is a distraction” as an excuse.

We already know that alcohol wipes out brain cells, but we did not know that alcohol apparently only kills the bad cells. It is a surprise to see that alcohol itself is so picky, while the people influenced by alcohol are usually not so picky themselves anymore. Now, it is also clear why a study association supports students to drink a large amount of alcohol. It is all part of the learning process. The board must be mad that we found out about their secret.

en Theme Something that did not come as a surprise, was the correlation between ICT and the number of friends on Facebook. Students who follow the ICT track seem to have more friends on Facebook than students who choose another technical track. When you spend that much time on a laptop, your social life becomes digital. Lucky for them, they can find each other on social media.

Another discovery was that Limburgers have more friends on Facebook than other people. In the beginning, we were very surprised. But when we started to think it through, it actually it seems very obvious. Limburgers do not have the same social environments as normal people do. They live their life isolated from everybody else. The only way they communicate with the neighborhood is through Facebook. Smart Limburgers started to flee their home and settled here in Eindhoven. Due to their humor, as they call it themselves, they managed to get friends here as well. Therefore, they have more Facebook friends than other Dutch people. Seems logical right?

BIG DATA

Amount of friends by place you grew up

Intermania

There are also some differences between the men and women of Intermate. For example, men are called an alcoholic more often than women. When you look at the bar during an Intermate drink, you can see why. Most of the people sitting there are male. But that does not mean that there are no female alcoholics. Instead, we all know at least one woman who drinks more than the average male. You can fill in the name yourself. But why donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t we call her an alcoholic? Well, maybe we feel sorry for her, and do not want to confront her with it. Or maybe she just blames someone else. In the end, it seems like women can hide their drinking behavior better than men.

Theme

In the end, we investigated the big question. Which program is better, P&T or SI? We thought that the best indicator would be the course credits. Unfortunately, we did not find any difference between course credits. Second, we used sustainability as an indicator. You would say that SI students score much higher. However, this is not the case. PT and SI students are equally sustainable. The fact that SI students do not exceed in the thing they have to do best, suggests that the study is not as good as it â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;pretendsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; to be. To make it a fair game, we also looked at the social factors. This also does not result in a difference. It seems like both studies are worthless after all. After today, we can say that both studies are equally good, if you like it or not.

Hopefully, we clarified some of the speculations. These are however our personal interpretations and you should probably take them with a grain of salt...

February 2019

Graduation Project

Tender Thesis Stew Cooking and studying are almost the same thing. At least according to Benedetta, who compares her graduation project with preparing Christmas dinner for her family. Has she found a suitable recipe? Text & Image: Benedetta Malagoni, HTI student

If we compare studying to cooking, working on your graduation project is like cooking Christmas dinner all by yourself for your whole family for the first time. It’s an enormous task, much larger than anything else you have done before. After years of casual home cooking, accompanied by sporadic fancy and elaborate cooking, and even some haute cuisine now and then, you have collected most of the knowledge and perfected most of the skills you need to complete it. As a student going through general and more advanced courses, you’ve encountered small and big challenges along the way as well.

happily surprised to hear from my mentor a year later that the project was still going on and that there were chances for me to get involved. The project is called “Jouw Licht Op 040”and it is a collaboration between a number of parties. Four different parties to be precise: (1) the government, in the form of the Eindhoven municipality; (2) the industry, represented by a collaboration between construction company Heijmans and lighting expert Signify; (3) the academia, as LightHouse is involved, alongside Utrecht University; and (4) the residents and endusers of the areas reached by the project.

“...decide on a single menu with your lactose intolerant brother, vegan uncle, pregnant cousin and that one aunt that can’t stand the smell of mashed potatoes.” For my Christmas dinner, the basic ingredients were my interest for the urban environment and how people live in it, knowledge about lighting and its behavioral effects and a desire of working on an innovative project involving the community. Luckily for me, I accidentally stumbled upon a recipe that needed all of those ingredients. For the Environmental Psychology course, one of the assignments was to do field observations as part of a larger study carried out by a LightHouse, a TU/e-based research team that specializes in smart lighting and smart city solutions. I was intrigued, and 44

All the interested parties are supposed to work together in order to come up with the best solution for the neighborhood. If we go back to the cooking metaphor, it would be like having to decide on a single menu with your lactose intolerant brother, vegan uncle, pregnant cousin and that one aunt that “can’t stand the smell of mashed potatoes”. As a consequence, it took me a while to find my way and role in this complicated scheme. “Jouw Licht Op 040”, or JLo-040 for friends, is an extensive project spread out over five different areas in the city, each with very unique and different issues. The area I am

Graduation Project working on is a residential neighborhood in Woensel, where they decided to install a “Social Urban Lighting” solution to tackle the needs of the community. Social Urban Lighting sounds elaborate with a chance of disappointment if it turns out to be pretentious and lacking content. Just like a duck liver and gin pate: sounds cool, but might be terrible. Urban lighting has widely evolved in the past years. Increasingly, cities and municipalities choose for lighting solutions that go “beyond illumination”: urban lighting solutions that not only provide visibility and a sense of safety at night but fulfill other functions too. More complex needs of urban residents are addressed by public illumination solutions: sharing relevant information or conveying specific emotions, reinforcing the identity of a neighborhood for instance, or highlighting the spirit of a city center during a festivity. Urban lighting has been applied to decrease aggressive behavior here in Eindhoven or used to “reflect the energy and pulse” of the city of Montreal, Canada. A similar thing happens with the “Jouw Licht Op 040” project, which aims to develop lighting solutions together with, and that thus support the needs of residents. Lighting applications designed to influence social connections are what we call social lighting applications. They represent an interesting and current topic of research in the field of environmental psychology and urban planning theory. The value and availability of meaningful social contacts form a resource often referred to as social capital. Therefore, we might say that the ultimate aim of social lighting applications is to foster such resources: reinforcement and broadening of one’s social connections as a consequence of facilitated social interactions. This theoretical framework is what I’ve been slow-cooking in the past months. What aspects of social life in the urban environment can be influenced by public lighting? February 2019

How are social lighting projects tackled in real life and what challenges do they face? And what’s the best part of cooking? Enjoying your meal, of course. 45

KookCie

Surviving with Swampthing One of the most famous KookCie dishes is Swampthing. The last time the KookCie cooked Swampthing, it was such a big hit everybody wanted to know how to make it. Timo is willing to share the recipe. Text & Image: Timo van Helvoort, KookCie member

If you have ever attended one of Intermate’s constitution drinks, then you’ll probably be familiar with the meal that gets served to the new board and the order: Swampthing. A mix of nature’s most precious delicacies combined with spices, love and KookCie skills. One might wonder why this hideouslooking dish keeps getting made every single year. The all-defying reason for this lies in its strength to keep your excessive alcohol consumption at bay. Swampthing’s greatest quality namely is to soak up all the amazing alcoholic juices you might indulge yourself in during a night of “going from the map”. To enlighten you, the lovely reader of this Intermania edition, we decided to make a little guide on how to make the ultimate preparation for an evening filled with liquor and bad decisions.

Ingredients: •

Potato mash powder

•

Frozen spinach

•

Mushrooms

•

Bacon strips (small)

•

Minced meat

•

Boursin

•

Salt & Pepper

•

No water!

One starts with looking for a pan big enough to fit all the ingredients. This is another nice quality of Swampthing: it’s a one pan dish. You then begin with baking the minced meat and the bacon strips, as the KookCie does not approve of raw meat. If this is about done, you throw in the mushrooms and the spinach. When the spinach is thawed, you add the lovely Boursin. You now have a pan full of beauty and mostly, moist. Luckily, you are now ready to add the final ingredient: the mashed potato powder. This will absorb all the liquid and will make this the perfect combination of a lot of fat and a lot of salt. Your Swampthing is now ready to be served! 46

Intermania

Studying Abroad

iViva la Vida en España!

Studying abroad might seem like a big deal, but what if you can spend it with a friend on the warm Spanish coast? Laura and Romana have been together in Barcelona for the past few months, so let’s hear how this has been. Text & Images: Laura Nijenhuis & Romana Polwijk, Erasmus students

iHola amigos! We were given the opportunity to tell you about the amazing city of Barcelona, and how it is to study here. First of all, the prejudice of the mañana or mañana mentality is true; everything here is slower and more relaxed. This seems annoying at first (hello standing in line for hours to get some signatures and having to return ten times), but once you get used to it, it makes you realize that in the Netherlands we might be a little too strict regarding time. In general, people

in Spain enjoy life more: after class we go and grab a beer with our international friends or hang around at the beach until the sun sets. Another fact is that they love Catalunya, as shown by the yellow ribbons even teachers wear and the many demonstrations we’ve seen on the square. As for the level of education, that depends on the faculty, but in general the level here is lower and the teachers are less strict. Of course, Erasmus life is full of parties, also

“After class we go and grab a beer with our international friends or hang around at the beach until the sun sets.”

February 2019

Abroad

in Barcelona. If you want to, you can get on special guest lists and party every night. There are so many clubs that it is almost impossible to visit all of them. If you’re attached to the Carnaval music in the Santé, don’t go to Barcelona as the favorite music genre here is reggaeton. Cheap cervezas are hard to find though; entrance fees and drink prices are shocking. Next to partying, it is also normal to make a lot of cultural trips to other cities or countries. During our stay we’ve visited Zaragoza, Valencia, Sevilla, Marrakesh, went hiking and kayaking, rode camels through the desert and ate lots and lots of tapas. Marrakesh was an interesting experience. In the beginning, the city itself was a big culture shock. However, when leaving the busy center and heading towards the mountains (yes, with snow) and the desert one day later, we’ve found out that the locals are really nice and hospitable. In Zaragoza, the Fiesta del Pilar felt a bit like Carnaval in Eindhoven. People were dressed up and walking in a parade through the city. Sevilla was a beautiful city, with amazing architecture, and brought us 22 degrees in mid-December (getting jealous already?!) while at the same time having ice skating rinks and Christmas decorations up on the streets. 48

Of course, we also had to pay a visit to Camp Nou and although we didn’t get to see Messi, we’ve seen a lot of goals for Barça! Next to that, Barcelona is a diverse city: you have the mountain Montjuïc, the beach near Barceloneta, the small shops and restaurants for the city life, and Parc Ciutadella to relax.

“It can be quite annoying to have some tourists walk in the way.” Living in such a big and international city also brings some disadvantages. We have already been witnesses to a robbery of someone’s bag in the cafe where we study regularly. Unfortunately, the prejudice of robberies is true. Not only during the night, but also during daylight people are often pickpocketed. Next to that, when you are in a hurry to go the gym (yes, fitgirls here, trying to compensate for those tapas) or to uni, it can be quite annoying to have some tourists walk in the way or football supporters fighting in the metro. Intermania