Schoemann

08/11/202607/11/2026

AI-fluencer

The monitoring software for webpages called “Known Agents” allows to monitor the visits of AI chatbots and data crawlers of your webpage. This provides interesting information, since the ordinary rankings on Google are no longer the most informative data on the reach of webpages. AI is deviating webpage traffic via your AI choice rather than the advertisement-influenced Google or other internet search engines did previously. Advertisement changes dramatically. Ways to influence AI provided answers, to questions you did not even pose yourself, will be the new currency in ever more globalizing markets. Maybe the AI-fluencer of today and in future have still a few pre-selected humans in control. But even this process can be taken over by an advanced “Agentrification” of web entries created by AI itself. As a machine I would most likely prioritize Bots from my own peers rather than the potentially unpredictable human minds, often riddled with mental instability. The jury is still out on the question who will be the AI-fluencer of tomorrow and in a more distant future. Even if the days of Her Majesty’s secret agent 007 have passed some time ago, the AI-fluencers seem to work, somehow hidden from the public, somewhere in the background.

Autum impression 2026-11 swans in background

06/11/202604/11/2026

Polarized Elections

In an electoral system which has been built on single step majority voting, there is a tendency to end up with rather polarized elections. The USA has majority voting in both houses and a polarized, dyadic, either Democrat (blue) or Republican (red) candidate’s choice. As there are no other major political, there is definitely a majority and a minority, but other political ideas do not gain any visibility or significant influence in this electoral system. The amount of non-voters is a critical mass which can be difficult to interest in such simplified dual choices. Moving from a kind of black or white, blue or red voting system to a more colorful spectrum of votes and coalition building has the advantage to allow a broader choice candidates and less back and forth polarization. More polarized elections, where parties try to win more votes on the more extreme ends of the political spectrum bear the risk to split societies more and more. In the long run electoral systems should be build to bring societies together rather than to deepen splits. Moving beyond binary choices has certain advantages.

05/11/202604/11/2026

Swing or Flip

With the voting in mid-term elections of the US Congress and Senate being counted, we notice a shift in the language of the commentators. Whereas in previous elections of the Houses it was common to use the term “swing states” for a federal state that changed its majority from Democrats (blue) to Republicans (red), the 2026-11-3 elections referred to “flipped states”. What’s the significance of this? The metaphor of a “swing” assumes a kind of alternation of back and forth movements, which can be associated with a state changing political colors from election to the other. The metaphor of the “flip” might be associated more with the “flip side” of a piece of paper or a record. You might prefer the titles on one side more than the others. In the 2026-11-3 elections Democrats managed to turn long-standing Republic states (Kansas, Ohio) to vote for Democrats. They managed to captured dissatisfied or betrayed former Republican voters and thereby flipped states that have long traditions to vote Republican. Actually, these flipped states were turned into swing states which they have not been for many decades as the swing had been blocked on the Republican’s side.

04/11/202602/11/2026

Weapons and trade

The 21st century demonstrates again the direct power of weapons and the indirect power of trade. In 2026-10 we experience the use of both as a force in international politics. Big as well as smaller powers push for the weaponization of trade as part of the overall arsenal of weapons. Rare earths, microchips, oil again, all serve to coerce nations into more lenient behavior. Welcome to the era of behavioral strategies in international politics. The revival of game theories and multiple applications in those markets or policy domains seems inevitable. Only the rational part of the behavioral strategies has changed to include higher stakes into the loss function of loosing a (repeated) game. States gamble not only in specific policy domains, but they raise the stakes even to their own survival. Populations of such states become hostage to the ruling elite and have hardly any exit possibilities from disaster. As nutrition and public infrastructures have become targets and weaponized as well. Modern warfare has entered an even more harmful phase on the global level. (blog entry inspired by Victor d. Cha, China’s weaponization of trade, 2026).

power display of DragonBall characters 2026-11

03/11/202602/11/2026

swop Credit default swops

Credit default swops (CDS) are popular again in the financial markets. Taking insurance against the risk of AI-giants, unused data centers or chipmakers defaulting on their massive debts has been on top of the agenda in the Financial Times on 2026-10-21. The last time a similar run on CDS happened was related to the bank, then much bigger financial crisis about 20 years ago. Remember those days “Too big to fail” and the huge bill put on governments and tax payers subsequently. The drop on Wall street on Thursday 29th and Friday 30-10-2026 send shivers through the financial markets. There seems to be the opinion that we have witnessed the peak of the AI-hype towards the end of October 2026. In the New York Times (2026-10) there was already an article which advocated that if the AI technology is not viable as a private enterprise, it should be nationalized to guard against abuses and make sure the military applications could continue to be exploited at full potential as other superpowers might equally do so.
We all heard or read the warnings about the riskiness of such investments even when hedged through CDSs, it is about time to return to investments that do not primarily build on other people’s intellectual property.

02/11/202631/10/2026

Frightened by youth

The month of October 2026 has been marked by youth taking to the streets across Europe. The beginning in Paris was first a peaceful showing of discontent with the resources allocated to education and schools in particular. Buildings have been badly prepared for the heat waves of the hottest summer on record and sanitary facilities are a continuous of dissatisfaction. Teachers and supporting staff are in short supply and a sick teacher has often not been replaced adequately. Pupils have been required to accept those deficiencies silently for too long. The competition for university admission is the next barrier, largely perceived to lack transparency and to reinforce inequalities. Labor market entry even after successful completion of a higher degree remains quite difficult for large numbers of youth, which adds to dissatisfaction. Whereas the engaged students demonstrated in a peaceful way, protests were hijacked by hooligans who smashed windows and looted, mainly shops of luxury brands. The damages could have been avoided if a serious dialogue had taken place rather than disrespect of youth. In democracies youth has a right to go to the streets and they use it. Authoritarian states have no inhibition to shoot their youth in rebellion. Talk to young people seriously, seriously.

Brussels before youth demonstration 2026-10-31

01/11/202630/10/2026

Practice Web analytics

For all people, especially webmasters, it is useful to understand and deal with web analytic reports of webpages. From time to time I do my own little research to check what is going on and how changes I implemented can be evaluated. During the month of October 2026 I have changed from a 30 entry long scroll landing page on https://schoemann.org to only a 10 entries before a kind of stop or follow-up click is needed to pursue reading. How has this changed the visits on the webpage? Well, (1) the number of visitors in 2026-10 (56.000) and page views (84.000) remained remained relatively stable, but after an initial rise in time spent on the webpage (report on Frankfurt book fair 2026) a significant drop in average duration on the page has occurred. As the retention rate on the webpage remained stable, my conclusion based on this real-world experiment is that the scroll limit set on purpose to 10 images and blog entries before more active engagement is necessary has the expected effect. Scroll limits shorten time spent on the same page and, most likely would also work in the “not-so-social” social media realm.

web analytics 2026-10 of www.schoemann.org

31/10/202630/10/2026

From A/H to P/E

The fashion world follows a rather strict bi-seasonal sequence every year. The French abbreviations of automne/hiver and printemps/été translate to fall/winter (F/W) and spring/summer (S/S) seasons in American English. This cycle has been repeated for a remarkable 125 years until 2026. Thanks to the Vitra Design Museum and the V & A Dundee the occasion has been celebrated with an exhibition and catalogue on the history and art of fashion show. The outstanding catalogue is organized in alphabetical order as the A-Z of fashion. The 4 curators Eisenbrand, Krawczyk, Hassard, Panova present a volume with a focus on keywords explaining major terms of the fashion world like “haute couture” as well as direct entries to specific designers and brands. The well curated choice of fabulous and iconic images from catwalks across time, locations and continents illustrate a world built on visual codes and communication. The “Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture” (1945) defined which fashion houses could use the label in France, a definition copied across countries. It works as a way to control access as well as a certain definition of quality. The scope of the exhibition catalogue includes also Anti-fashion under A, backstage photography (B), to the not so simple Walk under W.
With some additional social science framing and thanks to the curators, we have moved an important step towards a sociology of the visual, which comprises the world of fashion.

catwalk fashion shows catalog 2026 in library — Catwalk – fashion shows catalog 2026 in library

30/10/202630/10/2026

Forecasting error

In the October 17th edition of The New Scientist we learn about the long time series of events related to of El Niño and El Niña. These series of linked events make forecasting of what is to be expected in 2026-2027 less error bound. Monthly or bimonthly forecasts across the globe can actually predict droughts and floods quite well except the precise geolocations in a country or region. As a consequence crops will suffer and countries with little provision of stocks or purchasing power shall suffer the most. We have about 6 months left to prepare for such events as a global community. Rather than continue to pile on additional risks for the planet we have to address the root problems of CO₂ emissions urgently, all of us.

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Polarized Elections

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