Rob Hoeijmakers blog

@rob.hoeijmakers.net.ap.brid.gy

Living and Building in the Digital Now. A personal publication about technology, identity, and the shape of the European digital future. Essays, notes, and observations by […] 🌉 bridged from ⁂ https://hoeijmakers.net/, follow @ap.brid.gy to interact

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Longform Stories

The App Store Is Not the Argument

Criticising the EU's digital identity wallet for requiring an Apple or Google account mistakes the delivery mechanism for the dependency. The real question is elsewhere.

4h ago·5 min read·973 words

The same problem, thirty years later

From early websites to AI assistants, the core challenge has never changed: how do you make what an organisation knows available to the people who need it?

1d ago·3 min read·562 words

The Poisoned Library

When an AI agent trusts a tool server the way an app trusts a package, the supply chain attack surface moves with it. This is not a new problem wearing new clothes.

3d ago·5 min read·944 words

The Layer AI Is Moving Into Now

AI started in the operational layer. It is now working its way into coordination, prioritisation, and strategy. That shift raises a question most organisations have not yet asked.

5d ago·4 min read·788 words

A font is not a file

For thirty years I thought of fonts as objects. A missing font on a working day, and a workaround from my wife, changed that mental model completely.

6d ago·3 min read·595 words

Back in the Search Arena, This Time With Vectors

Three years after writing about site search, I rebuilt mine from scratch: Algolia for full-text speed, a vector database for semantic retrieval, and a RAG pipeline that made both layers useful.

May 26·4 min read·723 words

The Axis That Made the Chips

The Netherlands built its first computer in Amsterdam in 1952, moved the thinking to Eindhoven, and produced ASML. That line is history. It is also a blueprint.

May 26·4 min read·672 words

Passkeys: Better Lock, Borrowed Door

Passkeys fix the weakest part of authentication. But they hand your credentials to Apple, Google, or Microsoft and the session cookie problem remains untouched.

May 25·4 min read·672 words

The Session Unlocks the Door. For Anyone.

After the password, the session takes over. It doesn't know who's holding it.

May 24·4 min read·706 words

Stripping the medium

McLuhan said the medium is the message. I've spent the last year proving him right by trying to escape it, converting everything I consume into plain text, for myself and for machines.

May 21·5 min read·834 words

Unpack on Arrival

Rendering means two things on the web. Which one happens first determines whether your content exists for AI crawlers, search bots, and readers alike.

May 16·6 min read·1004 words

RSS is not dead. It just changed audience.

RSS was built for human readers who wanted control. It turns out that description fits AI crawlers perfectly. The format found a second life it never asked for.

May 15·3 min read·572 words

The Detective and the Swarm

A traffic spike with no statistics counterpart, 400 requests in a minute, 25 countries. The clues were all there. So was the twist: I built the bait myself.

May 9·1 min read·33 words

Markdown, the WD-40 of Digital Information

Markdown has barely changed in twenty years while everything around it was rebuilt. That's not luck. It's what happens when a format finds the exact sweet spot between content and meaning.

May 9·1 min read·37 words

The shift from x86 to ARM is about power, not just performance

Switching from an Intel iMac to Apple Silicon felt like a hardware upgrade. It turned out to be an architecture story, and that story is now reshaping the cloud.

May 8·1 min read·41 words

I Thought I Was Optimising for Speed

Building a caching layer for my blog turned into something else: a window into who actually reads it, and what reading even means now.

May 5·1 min read·31 words

Thirty Years of Caching, Sorted in an Afternoon

HTTP caching never quite made sense, until AI tools made it legible enough to actually implement. And the reason it finally mattered: the audience had quietly changed.

May 3·1 min read·35 words

My Visitors Are Not All Human. That Is Fine.

I built a traffic dashboard for my own site. What I found wasn't alarming, it was interesting. A publisher's notes on bots, borrowed identities, and editorial agency.

Apr 29·5 min read·969 words

When the Platform Becomes the Policy

The EU is taking Meta to court over WhatsApp AI access. The Dutch government is quietly switching messengers. Both point to the same structural shift.

Apr 26·1 min read·31 words

GPT Image 2 Changed My Mind on AI Visuals

I had quietly written ChatGPT off for image generation. Then GPT Image 2 showed me a technical diagram of a washing machine, and I had to revise that judgment.

Apr 25·1 min read·38 words

Dressing up an AI Model in a Harness

An engineer friend calls the infrastructure around an AI model a harness. The word is technically accurate and instinctively wrong. What that tension reveals.

Apr 24·1 min read·32 words

Built in, not bolted on

Most organisations are adding AI to software that was never designed for it. The real gains come when AI is part of the architecture, not an add-on to it.

Apr 24·1 min read·34 words

The Workspace You Already Have

Knowledge workers have built informal AI workspaces from Claude, Gemini, and Google Drive. The gap isn't the tools. It's governance, sharing, and where the data lives.

Apr 24·1 min read·31 words

When Git Grows Up

Git-based knowledge management has always been too complex for content teams. Agents change that, and the implications for governance-heavy organisations are worth watching.

Apr 24·1 min read·27 words

Delegating Past Your Own Ceiling

Cloudflare is powerful enough to extend anything Ghost can't do. The problem is complexity. Claude Code changed that by operating the layer I previously couldn't reach.

Apr 19·1 min read·31 words

Guests That Should Behave

Bots are modern guests. Most are welcome. But when they arrive in disguise with a real browser and spike your analytics, hospitality has limits. A Cloudflare story.

Apr 19·1 min read·31 words

Bildung and the Function Problem

Wilhelm von Humboldt's idea of education as self-formation looks increasingly useful when AI handles the tasks that used to define professional identity.

Apr 17·1 min read·27 words

Claude Code Routines and the Access Problem

Claude Code's new Routines feature ran my Google Calendar briefing immediately, no setup. The reason: authentication was already there.

Apr 17·1 min read·26 words

The Claude plan I actually use

Pro subscription, a prepaid credit buffer, and Sonnet for most things. For a non-coder working with AI daily, this turns out cheaper than the Max plans.

Apr 16·1 min read·32 words

The EU Age Verification App Was Designed to Be Distrusted

The EU Age Verification App is technically sound and communicated all wrong. It buried the upside, led with fear, and launched a framework as a product.

Apr 15·1 min read·36 words

The article I couldn't write

I tried to write about digital sovereignty. The piece kept splitting into three. That splitting, I think, is the actual story.

Apr 14·1 min read·26 words

The AI Continuity Problem

AI is load-bearing in my company. That creates a new kind of business risk: what happens when access breaks, gets priced out, or gets cut off?

Apr 8·1 min read·30 words

The Neural Engine Does Not Run Your LLM

My earlier post on AI hardware implied the Neural Engine handles on-device AI. It doesn't, not for LLMs. Here is what it actually does, and why the distinction matters.

Apr 7·1 min read·37 words

Running Gemma 4 on Your iPhone

Google's Gemma 4 runs offline on your iPhone. A follow-up to my local LLM experiment, now with a sharper app, a better model, and a clearer sense of what this category is becoming.

Apr 7·1 min read·39 words

My First Mac App

I described a workflow problem to Claude. It wrote me a compiled Swift app using Xcode. That sentence still feels odd to type.

Apr 4·1 min read·27 words

ChatGPT Thinks With You. Claude Builds With You.

I switched from ChatGPT to Claude. The difference isn't the model. It's the shift from cognitive support to digital crafting, and what that makes possible.

Mar 27·1 min read·33 words

Leuven's quiet superpower: imec

Imec in Leuven just received the world's most advanced chip machine. The story of how a small Flemish city became a global semiconductor choke point starts in 1984.

Mar 27·1 min read·32 words

Back to the file

Thirty years of web technology, and the most reliable setup is still a text file on a server. We just needed AI to get back there.

Mar 22·1 min read·30 words

EU Inc.: between words and reality in Europe’s new company proposal

EU Inc. sounds simple: 48 hours, €100, fully online. In reality, it marks a deeper shift in how Europe deals with its fragmented systems.

Mar 19·1 min read·35 words

Mapping AI Exposure Across the Dutch Labour Market

From US model to Dutch labour market in an afternoon, using AI and public data. A small project that says something larger about data work.

Mar 17·1 min read·33 words

When AI Moves Into Your Working Environment

The real change in AI may not be the models, but where they run. When AI enters the working environment, the workflow itself begins to shift.

Mar 13·1 min read·33 words

A Wider Frame: Apple’s Camera Features in Practice

Curious about Continuity Camera, Center Stage and Desk View, I spent an afternoon experimenting. A small trick with QuickTime makes testing it surprisingly easy.

Mar 13·1 min read·32 words

A lighter computer for a different era

A new iMac, a one-hour migration, fewer ports, more cloud and AI. Replacing a desktop computer now reveals how much the role of the machine itself has changed.

Mar 13·1 min read·35 words

The Delegation Problem of the Internet

Modern life runs on delegation. Yet most digital systems assume one account, one person, one operator. Passwords and identity checks quietly block automation.

Mar 12·3 min read·543 words

A Personal Retention Strategy for ChatGPT

From digital scarcity to data abundance, and why I now choose deliberate reset over permanent retention in ChatGPT.

Feb 26·1 min read·24 words

Apple’s Pages, Numbers and Keynote: Strong Tools, Weak Culture

Apple’s Pages, Numbers and Keynote are polished and free, yet rarely dominant. The issue may not be features, but culture.

Feb 20·1 min read·29 words

Vision, Judgement, Creativity: Reclaiming Agency in the Age of AI

From analysis paralysis to agency: why vision, judgement and creativity matter most in an AI-shaped world.

Feb 20·5 min read·822 words

From text to diagrams: working with Mermaid

Mermaid turns structured text into diagrams, and back again. A practical look at text-first diagramming, and why it works well with language models.

Jan 29·1 min read·30 words

PersonaPlex marks a shift from dictation to conversation

Dictation turns speech into text. Conversation works in time. PersonaPlex marks the moment voice AI starts to operate in real-time dialogue.

Jan 23·1 min read·29 words

What coding with AI feels like now

There is a lot of noise about AI replacing programmers. I wanted something else: a sense of what is feasible, what is throwaway, and where judgement still matters.

Jan 18·1 min read·35 words

ChatGPT Memory Has Quietly Changed (Plus & Pro)

If you use ChatGPT Plus or Pro: memory now goes beyond saved preferences. Past conversations can be retrieved when relevant. Business accounts are different.

Jan 16·1 min read·32 words

Just eight European quantum computers?

When the EU says it is building eight quantum computers, the number sounds precise. It isn’t. This piece explores why that question is harder than it looks.

Jan 15·1 min read·32 words

Why WhatsApp Channels Trigger the Digital Services Act

WhatsApp did not become social media overnight. But Channels added public reach at EU scale. That single design shift is enough to activate the logic of the Digital Services Act.

Jan 11·1 min read·38 words

ChatGPT Personal vs Business

If you use ChatGPT both privately and at work, you may have noticed this: one conversation seems to carry on over time, the other keeps resetting. Same system, different behaviour. That difference is …

Jan 10·1 min read·41 words

WhatsApp in 2026: From Phone Numbers to Names

WhatsApp is introducing usernames. A small change that reshapes identity, privacy, and how people and businesses can be reached without sharing phone numbers.

Jan 7·1 min read·31 words

Exploring ISO 42001 and AI governance

As I dive deeper into EU AI regulation, ISO 42001 keeps surfacing. This piece explores what it is, how certification works, and why it matters for vendors.

Jan 5·1 min read·33 words

The limits of “unlimited” mobile data

Unlimited data rarely means the same thing twice. At home, abroad, or on eSIMs, the limits shift. This piece maps where they actually are.

Jan 5·1 min read·30 words

Everyday life runs on daily data

Mobile data, roaming and fibre form one system. We only start to notice it when circumstances change.

Jan 4·1 min read·23 words

Typography, in motion

In modern cars, text is no longer read but registered. Letters function like icons, designed for saccades, speed, and cognitive restraint.

Jan 3·1 min read·24 words

Colour, systems, and the moment it clicked

A Japanese colour book, a digital-first brand, and a late encounter with Pantone led me to finally understand why print colour always felt confusing.

Jan 2·1 min read·31 words

AI literacy: from definition to practice

AI literacy rarely shows up as a skill gap. It appears when organisations need to justify decisions, manage risk, and remain accountable.

Dec 30·1 min read·28 words

Kobo and Kindle solve different problems

For a long time, I treated Kobo and Kindle as roughly the same thing: e-readers with different ecosystems. Only when I started using them side by side did it become clear that they are built around ve…

Dec 30·1 min read·95 words

Word of the year: model

The word model comes from modulus, Latin for ‘measure’. It refers to simplified representations we use to make sense of reality, from maps to AI systems.

Dec 29·1 min read·31 words

Direct Debit: US versus EU

A viral US video warns against debit cards. The real difference, however, lies in how direct debit works in America versus Europe, and why that matters.

Dec 28·1 min read·31 words

Blogging year in Review 2025

A short reflection on writing, learning, and making deliberate choices in a year where the digital ground kept shifting.

Dec 27·1 min read·24 words

The Hot Potato of Compliance

From GDPR to the EU AI Act, a recurring pattern emerges: European regulation lands in procurement, spreading responsibility, caution, and friction.

Dec 18·1 min read·26 words

Why AI Image Editing Is Often Rebuilding

AI can make true pixel edits, but many image “fixes” work by reconstruction. Typography and colourisation expose where rebuilding replaces editing.

Dec 12·1 min read·28 words

Understanding the layers behind digital payments

A continuation of my exploration of digital payments, looking at how different layers relate and how the Mollie–GoCardless story helps illuminate the broader picture.

Dec 11·1 min read·30 words

Apple Pay, Apple Wallet, Apple Card: How Apple Reshaped How Money Flows

While writing about how money flows, a simple confusion between Apple Pay and Apple Wallet exposes the hidden layers of modern payments and power.

Dec 7·1 min read·36 words

How Money Moves

A new payment feature raised a bigger question: how does money actually move today? From wallets and card networks to regulation, this is a map of a system most of us never see.

Dec 7·1 min read·36 words

Europe Fines X: The Moment the DSA Became Real

I’ve been learning the DSA as it unfolded. With Europe’s first fine against X, the law steps out of abstraction and into the real world.

Dec 7·1 min read·34 words

Structuring Knowledge with Obsidian

Discovering how Obsidian, Markdown and a light taxonomy can reveal the hidden structure of five years of writing and open a path toward knowledge engineering.

Dec 5·1 min read·29 words

Qivalis, a New Euro Stablecoin

A new euro stablecoin from Europe’s major banks shifts stablecoins from the margins into the financial system and strengthens the euro’s digital foundations.

Dec 4·1 min read·28 words

When the Future Starts Knocking Quietly

What feels like a tech abstraction today may end up rewriting our notions of trust, identity and privacy sooner than we expect. The quantum future has begun.

Dec 4·1 min read·33 words

Making Content Ready for Intelligence

Unstructured content already holds the knowledge organisations rely on. The shift is learning how to reveal its structure so intelligent systems can use it.

Dec 2·1 min read·29 words

Voice Mode Without the Screen

Voice mode with Gemini and ChatGPT. On iOS the lock screen, Dynamic Island, and Live Activities decide whether your assistant stays visible.

Nov 29·1 min read·27 words

Cybernetics: The Idea Behind Cyber

Before it meant computers, cyber meant steering. This piece follows that idea from its origins to the way it now shapes states, platforms, and our digital lives.

Nov 29·1 min read·32 words

Group Chats in ChatGPT: Solving a Problem That Isn’t There

ChatGPT’s strength has been a focused space to think, explore, and learn. By pushing into group messaging, it risks disturbing that clarity. When an assistant becomes a social venue, not only does the…

Nov 23·1 min read·58 words

The Workspace Advantage: Google’s Quiet Lead in the AI Shift

The real AI race is not model vs model, but who owns the environment where work lives. Gemini 3 gives Google a quiet but strategic advantage.

Nov 23·1 min read·36 words

Introducing the EU’s Digital Omnibus Proposal

The Digital Omnibus Proposal signals a shift in Europe’s approach to data and AI governance. Early awareness matters for those building digital tools.

Nov 20·1 min read·29 words

Excel and the future cockpit of business logic

Excel has always been more than a spreadsheet. For decades it has been the place where business logic quietly lives. Not in software systems designed for control, but in the free space where analysts,…

Nov 19·1 min read·93 words

Finding My Place in Europe’s AI Future

Policy is loud, practice is quiet. Europe’s future will be shaped by those who build working systems. Here is where I choose to look.

Nov 19·1 min read·31 words

Review of The Reckoning, in the light of the AI boom

The AI boom’s profits rest on old instincts: to stretch time, hide cost, and believe the ledger before the reality beneath it.

Nov 18·1 min read·33 words

What llms.txt can do for your website

When bots become interpreters of your brand, context matters. llms.txt helps guide what AI systems understand and repeat about your website.

Nov 17·1 min read·28 words

Where deeptech really happens

From AI to nuclear ships. A look at the heavy, slow innovation shaping Europe’s future and why it matters more than the tech we usually talk about.

Nov 17·1 min read·31 words

From Silicon to Intelligence: Understanding the Hardware Behind AI

A short video about NPUs and TPUs led to a deeper look at the physical side of AI. From the Neural Engine in your iPhone to the massive processors powering data-centre models.

Nov 12·1 min read·41 words

Flying Blind: Measuring Traffic When Your Readers Are Machines

As readers move into ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google’s AI Overviews, we lose sight of them. Can Cloudflare and Plausible help us measure what’s missing?

Nov 12·1 min read·33 words

When Rules Learn to Think: Discovering Google Workspace Flows

A small ‘Flows’ button in Gmail opened a new chapter in how we automate our work. What began as simple rules now behaves like intelligent agents. Powered by Gemini, Google’s expanding AI layer for Wor…

Nov 12·1 min read·46 words

Compute: A New Measure of the World

Compute once meant calculation. Now it shapes work, art, and power. An invisible current running through the modern world’s every action.

Nov 12·1 min read·28 words

Signing the Future: How a Digital Incorporation Made eIDAS Real

A first-hand look at how eIDAS and digital signatures replace paper rituals with cryptographic trust.

Nov 12·1 min read·25 words

Reskilling the Mind: Europe’s Next Transition

No one truly knows what lies ahead. We can sense that work is changing, that the ground beneath knowledge and skill is moving, but the direction is still uncertain. This article is an exploration, a w…

Nov 7·1 min read·58 words

Excel, the Hidden Operating System of Business Reasoning

Excel has long been the silent operating system of business reasoning. AI may be about to extend that logic into natural language.

Nov 6·1 min read·30 words

The Real Cost of Leaving Microsoft 365

The ICC left Microsoft 365 for OpenDesk, trading convenience for control. A lesson in digital self-awareness and the true cost of sovereignty.

Nov 5·1 min read·29 words

The Paradox of Sovereignty: Europe’s Search for Freedom in a Connected World

The EU talks about digital sovereignty as independence, yet its strength still depends on shared systems, U.S. clouds, and global code.

Oct 30·1 min read·33 words

Elections and AI

Two reports on AI and politics sparked debate in the Netherlands. Beyond the headlines lies a deeper unease: how do we live with technologies that not only reflect language but act within it?

Oct 27·1 min read·36 words

From Free to Paid: Choosing the Right AI Model (with a European Lens)

Building on Ethan Mollick’s excellent ‘Opinionated Guide to Using AI Right Now’, this article explores how to choose between the leading AI systems. And what a European perspective adds when moving fr…

Oct 20·1 min read·49 words

Rediscovering Google Cloud Search

Google Cloud Search offers a quiet form of productivity: not by summarising, but by helping you find exactly what you’ve created across your own Google Workspace. A reminder that clarity comes before …

Oct 17·1 min read·37 words

The Silent Upgrade: What Really Changed When Our Bank Replaced Our Cards

Our bank quietly replaced our cards. Everything worked, yet behind that smooth process lies a major shift in how payments and digital identity work.

Oct 12·1 min read·36 words

When Research Turns Into Action: Understanding Deep Research vs. Agent Mode in ChatGPT

Both modes inside ChatGPT seem to “think”, yet one begins to “do”. Exploring the quiet shift from analysis to operation in everyday AI tools.

Oct 9·1 min read·37 words

When Bots Become Readers: Publishing in the Age of AI Crawlers

Listening to Matthew Prince on Azim Azhar’s podcast made me reflect on who actually reads my blog. People (like you), machines, or both.

Oct 9·1 min read·34 words

When AI Makes the Calendar Click

A hotel booking, a single prompt, and a small glimpse of how AI quietly starts to understand our everyday tools.

Oct 5·1 min read·26 words

The Hidden History Behind an Email Signature in Apple Mail

After thirty years of wrangling with e-mail quirks, this is the simple method that finally made Apple Mail behave and it still makes me smile.

Oct 5·1 min read·35 words

Tracing and Telling: From GPX Tracks to KML Stories

GPX shows where you went. KML explains what it means. With Komoot and AI, maps become not just navigation tools but narratives.

Oct 1·1 min read·31 words

From Hype to Workflows: Where AI’s Real Shift is Happening

We expected AI to change everything overnight. Instead, progress is hidden in pilots and processes. The sinkhole is forming beneath us.

Sep 30·1 min read·31 words

AI’s Impact on Work, People, and Labour Law

AI drives growth and efficiency, but also reshapes rights, rules, and daily work. A look at the double effect of AI on organisations and labour law.

Sep 17·1 min read·34 words

Decentralised Identity: Prove What You Must, Reveal No More Than You Need

To access content or services, we often give away more than we should. Decentralised identity lets us prove facts without exposing our digital selves.

Sep 16·1 min read·36 words

Oracle’s Surprise Role in the AI Economy

Oracle’s return to AI relevance shows how capital is flowing upstream. From apps to infrastructure. Training fits their strengths, inference remains a question.

Sep 16·1 min read·30 words

From Sand to Software: A Whistle-Stop Tour of the AI Value Chain

AI may look like pure software, but it rests on a fragile chain of quartz, optics, fabs, and GPUs. This post traces the journey, stop by stop.

Sep 16·1 min read·39 words

Why I Keep Mixing Up Hortensia, Hibiscus and Rhododendron

A mix-up of flower names becomes a window into how human memory works and how it contrasts with AI models.

Sep 5·1 min read·29 words

Investing in Atoms: Alain le Loux on Building the Deeptech Future

Deeptech demands patience, guts, and hands-on conviction. This article profiles Alain le Loux and the rare venture model behind Europe’s hardware hopes.

Sep 5·1 min read·33 words

Streams and Archives: Two Ways of Living with Our Digital Data

Personal data lives in two worlds: flowing streams of fresh information and enduring archives of credentials. Both shape our digital future.

Aug 28·1 min read·32 words

From Ideas to Precision: Why I Use Mermaid with LLMs

Image generation is messy for structure. With Mermaid + LLMs, diagrams become clear, tweakable, and practical. A real tool for strategy and logic.

Aug 24·1 min read·33 words

An interview on the structural gaps holding Europe back in deeptech

Deeptech isn’t SaaS. It’s often slow, risky, physical and still underfunded in Europe. What’s behind the gap with the US? A rare cross-Atlantic perspective.

Aug 20·1 min read·35 words

Chrome, Gemini Nano, and the Browser as AI Platform

The AI race is moving into the browser. Experiments with local models helped me recognise Chrome’s Gemini Nano for what it is.

Aug 18·1 min read·31 words

AI Fine-Tuning for Non-Engineers

Compact AI models make fine-tuning possible for non-engineers. I tried it myself and learned how AI becomes portable, local and real.

Aug 17·1 min read·25 words

Wero: Europe’s new payment brand

Wero is Europe’s bid for payment sovereignty: pay across borders with just an email or phone number, without relying on US networks.

Aug 14·1 min read·27 words

From Shopping Cart to Server Rack: How Lidl Builds a European Cloud

From groceries to gigabytes: how Lidl’s parent turned its retail IT backbone into STACKIT, a sovereign cloud based in Germany and Austria.

Aug 13·1 min read·34 words

Running GPT-OSS Locally: What OpenAI Just Made Possible (And What It Didn't)

OpenAI released GPT‑OSS under an open licence. Here's what that really means, how I ran it on a Mac mini, and where you might start experimenting too.

Aug 6·1 min read·39 words