March 23, 2007

Pick of the day

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 11:53 am
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Dutch bank ABN Amro is currently having all its ATMs cleaned following the results of a nation-wide survey on nose-picking. The survey showed that ATMs and bankcard devices in shops are covered in bacteria coming from people’s noses.

The hygiene survey was conducted by Dutch health magazine GezondNU. Some 90% of the population admits picking their nose. Half of them do it once of several times a day. Men pick their noses much more than women do. Favourite nose-picking places include on the couch and in the car. More than 50% of people deposit their ‘findings’ in a handkerchief. Almost 10% eat them. One third of men roll them into a ball and then flick it away.

(Link)

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March 22, 2007

Another day, another flying car

Filed under: Automobiles,Gadgets by Branko Collin @ 11:55 am

Flying cars are a thing that overenthusiastic inventors have been promising the world for almost as long as the automobile itself exists. The last of these inventors are the Dutch company PAL-V. They’ve got a hunch that thanks to relaxed regulations and improved technology, their motor-cycle-with-roof cum gyrocopter might just succeed this time around. I especially love their use case. If business were this brisk, you probably would not need a flying car.

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March 21, 2007

Olympic rowers offering job aboard boat

Filed under: General,Sports by Branko Collin @ 7:20 pm

Golly! This here digital revolution hasn’t passed by the Netherlands’ finest athletes. The Holland 8 (the Olympic rowing team) are looking for a new coxswain, and are using Monsterboard to help them in their search. (Via :)= Esc.)

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They swear they won’t swear

Filed under: Music by Orangemaster @ 11:46 am
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The town of Rijssen-Holten in the Province of Overijssel will pay a visit to the Elsrock metal festival on Saturday, 25 August to make sure that the bands don’t use blasphemous language. Mayor Bort Koelewijn has recently announced that the town will sue the organisors of the festvial if the lyrics contain any references deemed unacceptable from their orthodox Protestant point of view.

The organisors of Elsrock has assured the town that the bands will not use any blasphemous language. Yet, the reisdents of the town are still not convinced. The SGP (Dutch Political Reformed Party) is also not convinced and would like to ban the festival altogether.

(Link, Via Taalpost)

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March 20, 2007

Dutch radio DJ to spin at North Pole

Filed under: Dutch first,Music by Orangemaster @ 2:33 pm
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3FM DJ Michiel Veenstra is planning to broadcast from atop the North Pole for five days starting April 23. For the occasion, 3FM has been rebaptized Noordpool FM. The idea is to raise awareness for the greenhouse effect and figure out how The Netherlands can help find a solution to the climate problem. The last broadcast on April 27 will be at the actual pole, the northernmost point of the earth. This is the first time anyone has attempted to do a live radio broadcast from this location.

(Link)

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Computers learn to talk to each other

Filed under: IT by Branko Collin @ 8:25 am

When a PC talks to a printer, the PC has to know in advance how to address the printer and what the printer is saying.

On March 21, PhD student Jurriaan van Diggelen will defend a thesis that suggests a system where ‘agents’ (autonomous computer programs that act on behalf of a user) learn to communicate with other agents on their own. Such self-learning software could for instance be used to search the Internet for cheap holiday packages, collecting the necessary information from the servers of travel agents, airlines, hotels and so on, even though the program would initially not know how to talk to these servers.

The thesis is called Achieving Semantic Interoperability in Multi-Agent Systems (PDF). Via Web Wereld.

Van Diggelen tested his theories with a sophisticated RSS agregator. He identifies a translation problem: different systems know about the same concepts, but give them different names. The agent has to learn the names that apply to the same concept. A second problem is one of specialisation: “So you don’t know about ‘football’, but do you know about ‘sports’?”. The aggregator could reply “Yes,” and provide a more generic answer than it was looking for, but still one that could be presented to the user.

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March 19, 2007

Follow the fossil route in Amsterdam

Filed under: General,History by Orangemaster @ 9:03 am
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It seems that the city of Amsterdam is full of fossils. No, no, no, not old people, real fossils. Many of the stones used on doorsteps, bridges and streets contain fossils that are 350 million years old. Species such as brachiopods and crinoid starfish appear as odd white rings on a black stone background. A new book entitled De Amsterdamse Fossielenroute (‘The Amsterdam Fossil Route’) promises a tour of Amsterdam that doesn’t involve Rembrandt, although the new bridge at the Rembrandt House is apparently full of them.

(Tip: Laurent, via Het Parool)

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March 18, 2007

Apollo 11 flag no longer stands on the moon

Filed under: General,History by Branko Collin @ 11:36 am

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When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were the first humans to land on the moon, they planted a US flag there; the photo Armstrong took of Aldrin with the flag is so well-known that it has become an icon. In its extensive report on this flag, NASA writes: “it is uncertain if the flag remained standing or was blown over by the engine blast when the ascent module took off”. Last week however, according to news paper BN/De Stem, a visiting Buzz Aldrin told an audience of students from the Delft University of Technology that the flag was no longer standing; when leaving for earth, the astronauts accidentally knocked it over.

Realising how sensitive the US public would be about such a thing, the astronauts decided not to tell upon return.

(Source: BN/De Stem)

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March 17, 2007

Get a free printer thanks to poor usability

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 2:02 pm
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This week, smart surfers were able to trick the website of Wehkamp.nl into sending them a free printer after cancelling their order for a PC. When ordering a PC, Wehkamp.nl would throw in a free printer. The trick consisted in taking out the order for the PC from the shopping cart and still getting the free printer home delivered. To make sure the order was actually delivered, all one had to do was buy something cheap. The smarties score themselves a printer worth 70 euro.

Of course, Wehkamp.nl has removed the special offer from their site.

(Link)

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March 16, 2007

Stolen bike found seven years later

Filed under: Bicycles by Orangemaster @ 4:22 pm
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On Monday 12 March, the police in Dordrecht found a bicycle that had been reported stolen seven years ago. The current 17-year-old owner was brought to the police station and claimed she didn’t know the bicycle was stolen. She thought it belonged to her mother. The bicycle was spotted near a school without its original bike lock (these locks are usually part of Dutch bikes). The police’s computer system had the bicycle down as having been stolen in 2000.

In Amsterdam, some 80,000 bikes are stolen every year.

(Link)

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