October 4, 2007
In good Dutch finger pointing tradition, Stichting Wakker Dier warns us about eating non-politically correct space cake with eggs from laying battery chickens. To point the space cake eating crowd in the right direction, they have come up with a sticker to place on “chicken friendly” space cake, made with deep litter eggs (from chickens that do get to run around somewhat).
The coffee shops, Dutch for those places that sell weed and hash, are quite happy to oblige them.
(Link: rtl.nl)
Tags: Animal Day, chickens, drugs, space cake
October 3, 2007
Joy4You, a new restaurant for the poor, is opening its doors on Wednesday, 10 October in Utrecht. The poor can have a free meal on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. Families as well as singles can eat there for free.
Everything is sponsored, as butchers, supermarkets and vegetable distributors provide them with food. People who want to eat at Joy4You must register with Stichting De Burcht-Armenzorg. Only after a meeting with this association can someone be eligible for a free meal.
But why an English dotcom name with negative connotations?
(Link: rtl.nl)
Tags: free food, poor, underpriviledged
October 2, 2007
This design for a tape dispenser by Derk Reilink (fourth year student Industrial Product Design at the Saxion Hogeschool in Enschede) won second place in this year’s HEMA Design Competition. First place was won by Annet Hennink, who came up with a disposable cake stand. I also like the pan lid with holes, making it easier to drain water after you’ve boiled your veggies.
HEMA, a large department chain store in the Netherlands and Belgium, organises a design competition each year. It then picks winning designs and puts these into production. The most famous of these was the winner of the first ever competition, the Lapin (French for rabbit), a tea kettle that looks just like a bunny rabbit.
Most of the products sold at HEMA are from the house brand. The chain seems to pride itself in its “staples”: in its advertising campaigns, it prominently advertises its underwear, clothes pegs, bicycle lights, pans and so on. Hence the theme of this year’s competition: the new HEMA staple.
Link (Dutch), link (French, PDF).
Edit: image replaced by one that contains the final design.
Tags: advertising, Dutch, Hema
October 1, 2007
Last week Minister of the Interior, Bijleveld announced (Dutch) that for now the Netherlands will return to paper voting. A committee headed by former minister Korthals-Altes had concluded that currently electronic voting systems are unsafe. Earlier, the Wij Vertrouwen Stemcomputers Niet group (We do not trust voting kiosks), headed by well-known hacker Rop Gongrijp, had demonstrated how easy it is to hack a voting kiosk without leaving a trace.
The Korthals-Altes committee concluded that electronic voting should leave a paper trail, so that votes can be re-counted if necessary, and that it should be transparent. The soonest moment at which electronic voting can be re-introduced would be after the 2009 elections for the European parliament.
Tags: voting, voting machines
September 29, 2007
How does that Dutch advert go, “but the answer is allllllways simple?” Two entrepreneurs from Roosendaal and Oudenbosch came up with a colour-coded first aid kit. The code list describes what stuff is used for what. Simple. For the photo of the real thing, follow the link.
The inventors Dick van ‘t Hoff and Ronald Cleijsen have asked for a patent on the idea. They have also found a manufacturer ready to go to the market with them. The ESE in Veldhoven (aka buyers) will be buying their first aid kits. I love a good business story.
(Link: Omroep Brabant)
Tags: first aid, innovation, invention
September 27, 2007
Robodock is an arts and technology festival that was held last weekend at the NDSM wharf in Amsterdam. MAKE magazine (an American magazine on DIY technology) has posted a short clip with impressions on the web. This year was the 10th Robodock festival, and its theme was Rhythm, Time and Transformation.
Photo: screen capture of the MAKE film displaying human powered carnival rides from Belgian group Time Circus.
Other items on display were a small train pulling a bar, a robot drummer, another train that brought its own track along (undoubtedly taking a cue from a Cocco Bill story), power tool drag races and more.
September 26, 2007
Totally fed up of seeing famous Dutch people (who nobody knows outside the country) ballroom dance, teenagers singing in English in the hopes of becoming American singers (they know what their chances are if they sing in Dutch) or cameras following backpackers in China trying to hitch a ride with no money? There’s something new coming up: Holland’s Next Dog Model. Look, the name is in English – again.
People are passé, dogs are the new people. The only creatures cuter are babies (debatable), and that would surely open a legal can of worms.
(Link: Spunk.nl)
Tags: dogs, reality TV, television
September 25, 2007
The designers at Huh have come up with lamps in boxes with cut-outs that look like lamps. Think Jack-o-Lantern gone meta. In one design the light coming from the box paints a table top lamp with a long and bendy three-armed stand, and in another it paints the ceiling lamp that it is. BoingBoing, who wrote about this, call it “a witty little play on the IKEA-style flatpack world of fixtures and furniture.”
Interior Matters sell the Not A Lamp online for EUR 55. They also sell other Huh products. Unfortunately their site is only in Dutch.
(Orangemaster’s tip: These lamps have been adorning a newly opened clothing shop called Das Wella Warenhaus on the Keizersgracht corner Berenstraat in Amsterdam.)
Sometimes, no news is good news. Actually, two days of Oktoberfest is just that: good news! Clear blue skies (see first picture), beautiful autumn sun, beer, dirndls (see beer-drinking woman) and lederhosen.
As a tourist in Munich at Oktoberfest – still going strong – I’d like to share the best tip I got: Go to the Wiesn (huuuuge fairground where Oktoberfest is held – it’s free, right downtown, easy access) BEFORE noon or earlier, especially with children. The lines to the rides are short and you can still walk around normally and get a seat in a beer tent (see other picture). No seat means no beer and no Oom-pa-pa music. And you need both!
(Photos: Orangemaster and Eric)
Tags: beer, Germany, Munich, Oktoberfest
September 24, 2007
Photos of defaced Catholic icons are on display at the Stedelijk Museum (Municipal Museum) in Amsterdam until November 11. They cover the time of the Protestant Reformation in Europe during the 16th century, when part of taking back the church by the people consisted of doing away with what the people considered false doctrines and malpractices, as Wikipedia calls it.
The exhibit by Gert Jan Kocken explores the choices people made in their haste of getting rid of false icons. For instance, in a painting called Gregorsmesse, which shows local dignitaries together with Jesus Christ, the faces of everyone except that of Jesus have been defaced, suggesting that either the new protestants were still a bit afraid to damage the portrait of their most important hero, or that the reformation was as much a protest against church hierarchy as it was against church malpractices.
The iconoclastic purges of the Reformation (the Beeldenstorm, attack on images) were an important step towards the revolution and ultimately independence of the Netherlands, because the Catholic Spanish ruler tried to stamp out such practices.
(Via Sudsandsoda (Dutch).)
Tags: Amsterdam, Catholic icons, Protestant Reformation, Stedelijk Museum
