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Trying to get back home to Düsseldorf on last Monday evening we made sure to be in Utrecht well before the scheduled departure time of our international high-speed train. We had reserved seats and ticket upgrades to first class so all was set for a comfy journey home to our cat. Now all we needed was the train. And that's where everything went pear shaped...

At our arrival at Utrecht station I noticed on the big board the ICE train from Frankfurt to Amsterdam had come in over 1 hour late. Since this is the train that goes back the same way through Utrecht I feared a delay. But none was reported. Our train was still scheduled for 18:59 as planned. So we grabbed a warming drink and went down to the platform at ten to seven accompanied by a cheery annoucer telling us our train was arriving immently as scheduled.

At 18:57 the information board on the platform suddenly turned and now told us there was a 30 min delay. Suddenly the cold felt a lot colder knowing we would be in it for at least another 30 minutes.

Municipal election night in the Netherlands and I was twittering back and forth about votingcomputers with another CTO while zipping along on a German ICE highspeed train. Felt very modern. Below a short conversation with someone who shares my love for Pieter Bruegel paintings.

rtolido: Voting day in the Netherlands. Back to red pencil thanks to the privacy mob. Computers are scary and unsafe blabla. [link2tweet]

rtolido: In India, even in the most rural areas without electricity, voting machines are already used for 6 years. 'Innovative' NL sticks to pencil. [link2tweet]

ArjenKamphuis: @rtolido In the Netherlands the proces of voting can be understood and monitored by *any* citizen #votingcomputers #ruleoflaw [link2tweet]

Imagine that all the modern communication tools of today are not be available to you. No mail, no chat, no Twitter, Facebook or phone. Now imagine that you are a company with 50 employees who need to be in daily contact. How do you solve it? With them all working at the same location. Simple puzzle, right?

Now let us turn the question around: all these modern tools are available to you, so why are you going to the office every day? And as a bonus question: are you aware that a hundred years ago we were driving around with a horse and carriage?

Our computers remind us daily of old-fashioned working methods: we neatly arrange our files and folders in our digital filing cabinet every evening before we go home. To share information with colleagues we make a copy of the folder and forward it on. And if we make changes, there are suddenly two versions of the document. Colleagues can also modify the file, and then there are three.