What we can learn from Norway’s prison system
De Econometrist
De Econometrist neemt een statistische kijk op de wereld.
All the music in the world
Won’t you stay with me. The words of this 2015 hit single were directed to a beloved one-night-stand. However, soon they involuntarily got a different meaning for writer Sam Smith, begging the money he earned with the song to stay with him. Without much success, as 25% of the songwriting royalties were given to Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne. The reason for this? Plagiarism. Stay with me sounded exactly like Petty’s 1989 hit I won’t back down. This wasn’t exactly the only time this has happened. Songs such as Dani California by the Red […]
Estimated reading time: 5 minuten
Counting cattle
In 1769, the Herzog August Library of Wolfenbüttel, Germany, appointed a new librarian. The main task of this librarian consisted of translating the many Greek and Latin manuscripts of the library. After a few years, the first batch was published, which included a Greek poem of forty-four lines that dazzled the mathematical community for over a century. This poem was about a arithmetical problem Archimedes proposes to Eratosthenes and asks the reader to find the size of the cattle in the herd of the god of the sun, Apollo. This is an interesting problem since […]
Estimated reading time: 3 minuten
Racisme: hoe groot is het probleem?
Het discriminatie probleem is sinds enkele weken weer volledig aangewakkerd. De hoofdoorzaak hiervan is toch wel de dood van George Floyd. Naar alle waarschijnlijkheid is hij tijdens een arrestatie door een politieagent gedood. Hiervan zijn gruwelijke beelden op het internet verschenen, waarin je de zwarte man herhaaldelijk ‘I can’t breath’ hoort zeggen. Deze beelden zijn viraal gegaan en hebben in veel landen tot rellen en protesten geleid. In Amerika is de ophef het grootst. Zelfs meerdere bekende Amerikanen, waaronder acteurs en topsporters sporen aan om in protest te gaan. De advocaat van George Floyd zegt […]
Estimated reading time: 3 minuten
7 tips voor de leukste podcast
Podcasts zijn tegenwoordig erg populair. Naar schatting luistert één op de vijf zeker eens per maand naar een podcast. Voordelen zijn dat je ze wanneer je maar wilt kunt luisteren en je niet naar een scherm hoeft te kijken. Daarnaast is er een enorme keuze aan genres: van sport en economie tot eten en politiek. Om de keuzestress wat te verlichten heb ik 7 leuke en interessante podcasts uitgekozen met elk een andere genre. Politiek: Haagse Zaken Haagse Zaken is de politieke podcast van NRC. Elke week praat politiek redacteur Lamyae Aharouay haar luisteraars bij […]
Estimated reading time: 3 minuten
Global warming: our biggest hoax or our greatest challenge?
For the past few months Covid-19 has been dominating the way we live. Every single aspect of our lives seems to be controlled by the virus; not only the news and the political agenda have been taken over by it, but the disease has even changed the way we meet and greet each other. Nonetheless, there was a time before the Coronavirus. Not so long ago, a lot of students skipped their schools on Fridays to demonstrate in order to bring awareness about global warming, following the example of the Swedish schoolgirl Greta Thunberg. In […]
The ‘Do-Nothing’ Democrats
In late 2019, U.S. President Donald J. Trump caused widespread uproar amongst the Democratic electorate. The turmoil came after the president called the Democrats ‘Do-Nothing’. Okay. Stop right here. I know what you’re thinking. First of all, this is not going to be the nth article talking about President Trump. In fact, this article will be solely dedicated to the topic of widespread public disagreement, that is: controversy. Many people associate controversy with something ‘bad’. Hence, when certain controversial topics become the topic of debate, a heated exchange of views is nothing out of the […]
The big tech ‘bubble’
Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft, also known as GAFAM, there is not a shred of doubt in my mind that you have used some service or product from one of these companies today. With a combined revenue of over 800 billion dollars in 2019, they almost make up the entire economy of the Netherlands (850 billion dollars in GDP). It is quite difficult to get your head around the incredible figures they can make in one year. Whether it is your mobile phone, buying something online or the software your computer or smartphone uses […]
Estimated reading time: 9 minuten
Dark humor to lighten the mood
‘If the coronavirus doesn’t kill me, being stuck in the house with my wife for three weeks will.’ Tasteless or funny? Since the lockdown, the number of jokes concerning the current pandemic has grown day by day. And while some may take offense from this dark type of humor, others just use them as a laugh to pass the time. They might be tasteless, but for most it’s just a distraction from the current situation. While sitting at home and being separated from the world, we use humor to connect with others. No matter in […]
Estimated reading time: 3 minuten
The Math behind Poker
Shady men wearing sunglasses, sitting around a table, playing for big pots of money. That is what we often associate with poker when thinking about the game of bluffing. A game where most people think that the essence is to read your opponents, while leaving them clueless about your cards. In reality, this psychological part of the game turns out to be just a small asset of the qualities a good poker player needs to have. Of course, being able to read your opponents is a huge advantage when playing poker, but the use of […]
Neuralink, our new future?
Elon Musk has always been known as a man of revolutionary ideas, but the following idea might be the most revolutionary of them all. Last week on the 7th of May, he joined the Joe Rogan podcast. Here he revealed new details about his company Neuralink. The idea of this company is to implant very thin electrode wires in the human brain. In this way, it can cure almost any disease which has something to do with the brain. Furthermore, these devices would even allow us to communicate with each other without speaking. The technique […]
Estimated reading time: 4 minuten
The coronavirus recession: the mother of all financial crises
The coronavirus crisis can be described as a generation conflict between the boomers and millennials. Sander Schimmelpenninck, a Dutch journalist, explains that it is logical that virologists may be the most important counselors nowadays, but the younger generations have to pay the bill for this economic downturn and don’t let anything hear from them. The millennials should realise that this crisis has big consequences. It may even have bigger consequences than the credit crisis in 2008, such as a double recession. In this article, I give an overview of the economic impact of the coronavirus. […]
Estimated reading time: 5 minuten
The Duisenberg Pranksters
Sometime in the future, when physical college lectures are once again allowed, one hundred students are attending a lecture of the Multivariate Calculus course. The students, after hearing multiple savvy jokes about their intellect and ability regarding calculus, decide to play a prank on the professor and his colleagues. They plan to boobytrap some of the one hundred doors on the 7-th floor of the Duisenberg building. However, knowing that the professors are quite brilliant, they need to allocate the boobytraps in a manner that is hard to figure out. Near the end of the […]
Estimated reading time: 3 minuten
De Redactie
De redactie van De Econometrist bestaat momenteel uit 14 leden die samen een hechte groep vormen. Regelmatig onderneemt de groep leuke activiteiten. Als je alle redacteurs wilt zien kijk dan op de redactie pagina.
