June 30, 2008

Last call before the smoking ban

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 9:12 am
Cigarette ban

This past weekend in and around Amsterdam and probably throuhgout the rest of the country a number of smoking parties were held where people could smoke just about anything including marijuana and haschsch where normally etiquette dictates that that is more of a coffeeshop thing. A DJ friend over at Ghetto Restaurant on the Warmoestraat played music about smoking and cigarettes, and cigar aficionados had get togethers all over town, if I can believe all the flyers I saw. We all know that the French, Irish, Canadians and Americans all run out outdoors in packs to smoke one, even two cigarettes in a row and then get back to their food and drinks left with the friends who don’t smoke. The Dutch also know that tomorrow, 1 July, Big Brother won’t necessarily be coming by to check and see if everyone has radically changed their habits.

Predictions are fun when they are not taken seriously, so here are some predictions for the upcoming month as regards the smoking ban.

1) The first major fine from a respectable establishment will make the news.
2) Some places will pay the fines and let people smoke in protest, at least for a while.
3) All kinds of private clubs with membership will cash in, as the ban on them will not apply.
4) Any kind of weirdo initiative will make the news, especially anything related to coffeeshops.
5) More establishments than expected will either close or change hands.
6) There will be clashes between smokers who persist and non-smokers who feel they have won the war.

Let’s wait till the smoke clears.

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June 28, 2008

There is such a thing as illegal downloading, says judge

Filed under: Film,Music,Online by Branko Collin @ 4:14 pm

In a case that at its surface did not seem to have much to do with the legality of downloading music and films, a three-headed court in The Hague has declared that downloading from an illegal source is itself illegal (Dutch). The court baffled observers (Dutch) by failing to specify why it would be illegal, other than referring to a three step European Union test that downloading apparently fails.

The Netherlands has an exemption to copyright that says that copies made for private use are not infringing, regardless of whether the author was paid or not. Originally this law applied at a time when ordinary people could not easily make exact copies, and when negotiating a contract with every author about every copy would have been too much of a burden on all concerned. With the advent of the personal computer and the internet as perfect copying and communication tools this law has come under fire, even though studies show that for instance the average musician suffers no ill consequences from downloading.

In order to pay authors for supposed losses they suffer from private copying, the law allows for authors’ organisations to collect levies from users, for instance by having users pay extra for blank media. These levies are then distributed to the authors. This law suit centered on levies: a rights organization was sued by makers of blank media over the way it calculated the height of levies. One of the questions put to the court was: is downloading a form of private copying? If it is not, then rights organisations have no legal right to raise levies for it. That though for some strange reason was not a conclusion the court was willing to draw. If a law becomes so out of touch with the times that even the professionals don’t know how to apply it anymore, what chances do mere mortals stand?

(The three step test is in Directive 2001/29/EC, paragraph 5: “The [private copying] exceptions and limitations […] shall only be applied in certain special cases which do not conflict with a normal exploitation of the work or other subject-matter and do not unreasonably prejudice the legitimate interests of the rightholder.”)

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June 27, 2008

Three-year-old already in tax system

Filed under: General,Weird by Orangemaster @ 8:42 am
Blue envelope

The Dutch tax office has a motto, which in English translates to “We can’t make it more pleasant, but we can make it easier”. And everytime they screw up – which has been a lot in 2008 so far – the media make fun of this ‘the road to tax hell is paved with good intentions’ slogan. Major computer problems have been their biggest worries, never mind that some staff are, well, incompetent.

The tax folks have sent a tax return to a three-year-old child, saying that they should provide them with their bank account number in order to get tax money back from 2004. The child was born in 2005, so you do the math.

This kind of mistake happens often. As a business, I recently waited for two separate returns of value added tax (small amounts, mind you) that I was owed. I got three letters telling me they all of a sudden could not find my bank details – which is rubbish, I assure you – and to fill in these three forms, all identical. The first return had two letters and the second one had one. I received the first return twice – they haven’t figured that out yet – and the second one once.

Here’s one (in Dutch) from March of a 6-year-old who was asked to cough up EUR 29,000.

(Link: waarmaarraar.nl)

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June 26, 2008

Run on vegetable oil now diesel prices are rising

Filed under: Automobiles,Food & Drink by Branko Collin @ 1:56 pm

Daily AD reports (Dutch) that supermarkets are experiencing a run on vegetable oil, which car owners use instead of diesel as fuel. Super de Boer for instance noted an increase in sales between 50 and 100% in the past months. A spokes person explains that people are also hoarding vegetable oil simply because the prices are rising. Customers try and buy as much as 15 bottles in one go.

Z24 points out (Dutch) that the price of vegetable oil is rising too, so that the difference with that of diesel has decreased: vegetable oil is currently around 1.30 euro per liter, diesel around 1.46. Oil sold as fuel is taxed differently, which explains part of the price difference.

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June 25, 2008

Beer confiscation in Urk is too efficient

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 8:06 am
Beer crate

The youth of the fishing village of Urk, Flevoland, more often than not portrayed as bored and up to no good, do enjoy their beer. Basically, if we believe the hype, Urk is a religious and conservative village where the youth have nothing to do. Online media gladly portrays them as ‘white trash’. The fact that they speak an old dialect of Dutch makes them the butt of jokes as well, sadly enough.

Since the kids are bored and turn to drinking, the mayor has decided to monitor this ‘alcohol abuse’ more closely, which apparently has been extremely successful, although I cannot vouch that this picture of just one type of beer reflects reality or an indirect marketing scheme. The Urk police station has been taken over by full crates of beer and claim that they will destroy these crates.

Is it just me or is that not very environmentally friendly? Do they plan to burn the plastic crates and throw away bottles? Why can’t they sell the beer at a country fair? I have so many questions.

(Link and photo: rtl.nl)

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June 24, 2008

Chapel in Utrecht converted into design flat

Filed under: Architecture,Design by Orangemaster @ 9:51 am
Zecc Architecten

“Another great conversion by ZECC Architecten, this time an apartment in a converted chapel located in Utrecht, The Netherlands. It’s on the second floor (added?), and because there were no windows at floor level, the firm designed one to be cut into the front on the street side to bring in more light – it vaguely resembles a Mondriaan painting. Together with the original stained-glass windows and the white painted interior, the whole effect is simply amazing. The bedroom and bathroom were left dark. The original organ remains as a reference to the history of the building – it’s a nice conversation piece, that’s for sure…”

(Link and photo materialicio.us, tip: Laurent )

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June 23, 2008

Rare oak wedding anniversary celebrated in Amsterdam

Filed under: Dutch first by Orangemaster @ 7:23 am
Pieter Ably and Henriette Jeanne Ably-Tritsch

Today, the very first oak wedding anniversary in the history of the Netherlands is being celebrated. It was exactly 80 years ago that Dutchman Pieter Ably and French woman Henriette Jeanne Ably-Tritsch from Amstelveen said ‘I do’ to each other. They are now both 102 years old and living together in an elderly home in Amstelveen. The Mayor of Amstelveen Jan van Zanen will visit them today to congratulate them. The longest standing anniversaries that Statistics Netherlands has registered are couples that have been married 70 years known as a platinum anniversary, hence the assumption that this is the first ever oak anniversary.

(Link and photo: ad.nl )

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June 21, 2008

Bicycles from the turn of the 20th century

Filed under: Bicycles,Design,Gadgets,General,History by Branko Collin @ 8:55 pm

I came across a 1908 illustrated magazine yesterday at a second hand store. It opened with an article about the festivities surrounding the 25th anniversary of the Dutch automobile association ANWB (Dutch), then just a bicycle riders’ union. Part of these festivities was an exposition of both old bicycles and the very newest ones. Displayed here is the folding bike (second photo) of captain Van Wagtendonk, with his newly invented folding bike stand. Or, as the magazine writes it:

A steel rod which under ordinary circumstances is attached next to the frame, but which is lowered when the bicycle is parked. This way the bicycle can be parked freely, resting on this rod as a third leg. In order to prevent the wobbling or even keeling over of the front wheel, the lowering of the rod also causes a small metal brace to be released which locks the front wheel into place and protects the bicycle from falling over.

I’ve been scanning the magazine while typing this, and will upload it to the Internet Archive either today or tomorrow. Expect ads for oriental breast enlargement pills and Swan fountain pens. Has anything actually changed in the last hundred years?

Update: scans of the magazine Het Geïllustreerde Leven can be found at www.archive.org/details/het_leven_3_30.

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How to replace a football pitch

Filed under: Sports by Branko Collin @ 4:02 pm

Algemeen Dagblad has a detailed infographic (Dutch) that explains exactly how the football pitch at the St. Jakob Park stadium was replaced just in time for the match Portugal – Germany of last Thursday.

According to the graphic, on Wednesday, June 11 heavy rainfall combined with the match Switzerland – Turkey damaged the pitch that was there to the point that it could no longer be used. Two days later, new grass was ordered. Monday June 16, 25 trucks and 1 bus left the lot of Hendriks Graszoden in Heythuisen Limburg. 23 of the trucks carried the rolls of grass, 2 contained equipment. The bus was for the 11 workers.

After the original grass was removed (revealing the artificial pitch that FC Basel normally plays on), three layers were added: a thin plastic film, followed by a mixture of sand and clay (3.5 cm), followed by the grass (2 cm). A mix of two types of grass was used, one that had to provide cohesion and a second that’s good to play on.

Tuesday morning 4 a.m. the pitch was finished, and on Wednesday afternoon Portugal held its first practice session there. Before the match there were some doubts about the quality of the pitch, as it was coloured unevenly and the seams of the rolls of grass could clearly be seen. The match was played without a hitch though—except of course for Portugal, who lost—and afterwards UEFA declared it was entirely satisfied with the results of the operation which had cost them 200,000 euro. According to the International Herald Tribune, this was the first time a pitch was replaced during an international tournament.

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June 20, 2008

Teenager shoots off water rockets in Delft

Filed under: Science by Orangemaster @ 11:27 am

Today at 4 pm, 13-year-old Boyan Slat from Delft will shoot off 102 water rockets at the sports pitch of his school, the Grotius College in Delft in an attempt to break some records. Slat built the launch system all by himself. Since 2005, he has been experimenting with rockets, using natural raw marerials like baking powder and vinegar. He calls his system the Bazooooka Mk6. The address of this spectacular show with music and special effects is Juniusstraat 8 in Delft and is free.

If someone scores some pictures, let us now!

The smart kid also has his own website: wetenschapvoordummies (Science for dummies). Here it says 101 water rockets.

Somehow, I expect him to attend the Delft University of Technology later on.

(Link and photo: ad.nl)

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