February 28, 2010

iPhone app can help you quit smoking

Filed under: Gadgets,Health,Online by Orangemaster @ 1:27 pm

Who said trying to quit smoking couldn’t be fun? On 1 March, Lianne Sleebos of the Delft University of Technology will be launching My Stop Buddy, an app to help people stop smoking. For a mere 2,99 euro, you can choose an English or Dutch app that will support you for 21 days. Fill in a personal profile and you will get activity suggestions to help you not reach for a ‘cancer stick’, lots of jokes about health and information on how much money you saved by not smoking. You can also push buttons according to you mood and you’ll be told why you’re going for a smoke according to it. It sounds like a nagging grandmother so far, but hey, I haven’t seen it yet and I do hope it works. I am curious about the English version, translations and all.

And although 2,99 euro is much cheaper than a pack of cigarettes, the iPhone isn’t, but OK you can get one for free with a certain telecom provider here in the Netherlands.

(Links: idealize.nl, zorginnovatieplatform.nl, Photo by William Hook, some rights reserved)

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February 27, 2010

Paul Signac painting discovered in Volendam hotel

Filed under: Art,History by Branko Collin @ 1:48 pm

A painting by French neo-impressionist Paul Signac and estimated to be worth 100,000 euro has been discovered in Hotel Spaander in Volendam, spokes person Marcel Rutten confirmed to AD yesterday.

The painting was a payment for the painter’s stay at the hotel in 1894. Hotel Spaander has a collection of about 1,400 paintings. It billed itself as a painter’s hotel back in the day, still does, and apparently it was not uncommon that residing artists paid their bills with their art. The Signac’s value though was unknown to management, which estimates that this is the best paid bill in its history.

The Signac representing a view of the harbour used to hang off a rusty nail in the lobby. Artists who wish to stay at the hotel can still do so in exchange for paintings, as long as the subject is Volendam, according to RTL Nieuws.

Signac was a contemporary of Vincent van Gogh, with whom he corresponded.

The painting’s true value was discovered during the preparations of an exhibition of the hotel’s art for the Zuiderzeemuseum in Enkhuizen.

(Photo of the roof of Hotel Spaander by Flickr user FaceMePLS, some rights reserved)

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February 26, 2010

Zienzine, fanzine from Schiedam

Filed under: Art,Comics by Branko Collin @ 12:03 pm

Should you happen to find yourself in the slow train between The Hague and Rotterdam, you might come across this monthly fanzine made by Schiedam artist Ronald de Graaff and friends.

Zienzine is set up as a platform for contributing artists. It is distributed for free (in the train, and at the addresses of some of the makers), which is why each edition is limited to 250 copies. The editors are trying to put back issues on the web for those who don’t often find themselves in the slow train between The Hague and Rotterdam, but so far have only managed to make issue 0 of the five that have been published available for download.

The first issue contains stories about Volkswagen plagiarism, pinhole photography, and doodles and cartoons. There is also a recipe for vegetarian boerenkoolstampot. If you want to know how not to pronounce this word, see here (featured earlier).

I discovered Zienzine from the print edition of Zone 5300. Zone’s latest is filled with comics from Flanders, and may be had for a few more days. It appeared last December, but I could not review it then. TNT Post never delivered my issue, and I finally got to rectify that last week.

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February 25, 2010

Berbice Dutch from Guyana is now extinct

Filed under: General,History by Orangemaster @ 11:32 am
Berbice

Berbice Dutch, a Dutch creole spoken in part of Guyana, has been declared officially extinct, according to the next Dutch edition of National Geographic.

Berbice Dutch was spoken in plantations along the River Berbice, part of Guyana which was once a private colony founded by Dutch planter Abraham van Peere from Zeeland. It is a mixture of the Zeeland dialect of Dutch, the local Arawak Indian language and Ijo, spoken by slaves from Nigeria.

Here a video of this woman, one of the last speakers of the language, gets going at about 1:00 with explanation in English.

(Links: rnw.nl, caribbeanlanguages)

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February 24, 2010

New Van Gogh discovered

Filed under: Art,History by Branko Collin @ 3:41 pm

Museum De Fundatie in Zwolle has a painting in its collection that it claims was made by Van Gogh. The painting is called De molen ‘Le blute-fin.’ According to the museum, the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam has confirmed its authenticity.

Although it was known in the art world that this painting existed, people so far have refused to attribute it to Vincent van Gogh. According to NRC it has motifs that were atypical for the 19th century painter. It was originally discovered in 1975 by Dirk Hannema, the museum director who let himself be fooled by Han van Meegeren’s fake Vermeers, and that also would not have helped.

See also: ‘Hidden’ painting by Van Gogh discovered, about a different painting.

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February 23, 2010

Web service lets grannies embroider your handkerchief

Filed under: Online by Branko Collin @ 1:20 pm

Do you need an embroidered handkerchief, but you lack a grandmother with a taste for needle craft? Fear not, smartlapjes.nl employs needle-wielding grandmothers with lots of spare time who will embroider a phrase of your choice onto a handkerchief for only 10 euro.

The delivery time of any given ‘smartlapje’ is ‘when it is ready.’

According to Bright, the site is a part of the Liefde in de Stad (Love in the City) art project.

(Image: a screenshot of smartlapjes.nl)

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February 22, 2010

Touchy Remix touch screen in a table

Filed under: Design,Technology by Branko Collin @ 4:01 pm

A classy looking table with a built-in computer, projector (HD, i.e. 720 lines) and touch screen. According to commenters at Engadget who have used this device it has some spots where the touch screen doesn’t work well. Intactlab from Amsterdam is nevertheless not afraid to charge a 1,000 euro daily rental fee for the Remix.

You have to admit, it looks cool.

An iPhone dock is optional.

(Source photo: Intactlab)

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February 21, 2010

Man gets bike thrown at head from seventh floor

Filed under: Architecture,Aviation,Bicycles by Branko Collin @ 2:41 pm

A man from Nieuwegein near Utrecht had to be taken to the hospital last Monday after being hit in the head by a bicycle thrown from an apartment building, Telegraaf reports.

A fight on the seventh floor which the 18-year-old victim had nothing to do with resulted in a bicycle being thrown off the balcony. The victim was about to enter a car for a driving lesson when the bike partially hit him and the car.

The victim has filed charges for attempted manslaughter. The suspect turned himself in on Wednesday and was arrested, according to the Utrecht police.

(Photo by Mike Porcenaluk, some rights reserved)

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February 20, 2010

Floating wellness centre made of recycled materials

Filed under: Architecture,Sustainability by Branko Collin @ 3:13 pm

This artificial island was concocted by Studio Noach (what’s in a name?) and Anne Holtrop, and is based on recycled polystyrene.

The intended purpose of the island is to house a wellness centre in the IJ lake near Amsterdam.

For many tourists the image of Amsterdam as one of a city where you can celebrate your bachelor party but not your honeymoon will change when the city can offer a wellness arrangement without its equal in the world.

That sounds like a perverted marriage of the ideas of Robert-Jasper Grootveld (who came up with floating, polystyrene gardens long before Studio Noach, and was taken to his grave on one), and that of the current city government which wants to turns Amsterdam’s lively ecosystem of opinions and ideas into a sort of super-controlled Disneyland for rich tourists.

The walls and roofs will be covered in plants and flowers. […] [The island will be located] just 6 kilometres from the Grachtengordel (‘Belt of canals’), to be reached by shuttle over land or directly over the water.

(Source image: Studio Noach. Link: Ecofriend.)

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February 19, 2010

Please Rob Me points fingers online privacy

Filed under: General,Online by Orangemaster @ 11:22 am
window-cats

Not only have three Dutch guys (Barry Borsboom, Boy van Amstel and Frank Groeneveld) managed to make a point about privacy on the Internet, they have attracted the international blogosphere with their site Please Rob Me, “Listing all those empty homes out there”.

Please Rob Me basically shows you how much info you are giving out through social networks. You Twitter ‘Stuck in traffic’ or ‘I’m in Rome for a week’, you use Tripit to announce where you’re jet-setting off to next, Facebook to update your ‘friends’ on your whereabouts and Foursquare to tell people you are the ‘mayor’ of that noodle place downtown because you chow down there so often.

Boy van Amstel said on telly that he had no bone to pick with Foursquare, but did say it was the prime example of telling potential thieves when someone is not at home. Although other sites tell people where you are as I mentioned, Please Rob Me is aiming its guns at Foursquare with a Twitter account showing all the Foursquare tweets.

In a long blog posting, Foursquare tell us they are not happy campers and that they do respect privacy. It’s how people choose to give out information that is the problem. Two thirds of the Western world is not at home during the day and geo-location services like Foursquare will probably not lead to more robberies. However, on both Twitter and Facebook, you get to choose who follows you and therefore who reads your information. With Foursquare people tend (my Dutch friends do this) to push where they are to Twitter and Facebook, letting everybody read it.

But do we care? I don’t get why these guys felt the need to make this site or target Foursquare. Many Dutch houses don’t even have curtains (an old Dutch tradition!) and you can see the entire living room, flat screen TV and all. This site has the finger wagging ‘Dutch uncle’ (someone who always knows better) all over it.

So don’t overshare (most of us already do) and go easy on the drunken photos or photos of you drinking booze, it will damage your chances of getting a job (that’s me finger wagging now).

(Links: Please Rob Me, Foursquare, Photo of Living room window by Jimmy2000, some rights reserved.

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