April 4, 2007
A woman from Meppel, Drenthe found a Neanderthal hand axe on the street in front of the supermarket and gave it to the Drents Museum in the town of Assen. Street builders probably found the ‘rock’ and unknowingly discarded it. The 80,000 to 55,000 year-old axe broke in two. The woman realised that it was a hand axe and took it home. Even if the axe is broken, the museum claims it is the nicest copy of the Northern Netherlands, which is now on display in the museum. Although Neanderthal hand axes are found only sporadically, finding such a copy in the street is highly unlikely.
(Link, and more here: Link)
Tags: archeology, Drenthe, Meppel, Neanderthals, supermarkets
April 3, 2007
For ‘Ladies Day’ on April 3 during the AutoRAI car show in Amsterdam, sports car manufacturer Burton Car Company from Zutphen has come up with a way to raise proceeds for both the Dutch Cancer Society and Viva la Donna). The Celebrator, an invention of the Burton brothers, is a mini-vibrator modelled after the electric toothbrush.
Tags: dental care, driving, sex, toys, vibrators, women
April 2, 2007
The new Agora Theatre is officially scheduled to open on May 25 in Lelystad, province of Flevoland and plans to feature performances and new media works. The building is the work of UN Studio, an Amsterdam design studio with theatre, museum and art buildings in its portfolio. Even without going to the show, the building itself is apparently worth a visit. It has a cafe open during the day and bright pink, curving staircase walls. The concert hall is red with unusual wall surfaces.
Follow the link for more details and pictures.
(Link: thecoolhunter)
Tags: Flevoland, Lelystad, theatres, UN Studio
April 1, 2007
Today is tax day in the Netherlands: time to get these return forms in and hope for a bit of cash from the government. Two years ago the state started demanding that business owners start filing their reports electronically, using a Windows and Mac only tool based on Adobe’s PDF. Last year they got smarter and developed their own tool, which works on Windows, Mac and GNU/Linux. The secret ingredient? Open Source libraries. Specifically: gSOAP, OpenSSL, wxWidgets, GTK+, ZLIB, Independent JPEG Group components, Autopackage, and NSIS.
Tags: belastingdienst, FOSS, PDF, taxes
March 31, 2007
According to the Beekse Bergen safari park in Noord-Brabant, Thursday, 29 March was the first time eggs have been successfully harvested from a southern white rhino, the one in question weighing 1,900 kilos. The eggs are to be frozen, fertilised and then inseminated into surrogate rhino mothers. These lucky mothers can look forward to an 18-month pregnancy followed by giving birth to a calf weighing about 66 kilos. White rhinos have two horns and are one of world’s largest land animals after elephants. They can grow to around 2730 kilos. Oh, and they are an endangered species.
(Link)
Tags: Beekse Bergen, endangered species, Noord-Brabant, rhinoceroses
March 29, 2007
Amsterdam is famous for its wonderful canals, the Van Gogh museum, the flower market, the … ah, who are we kidding, when you go to Amsterdam, you visit the Red Light District. If you have been to the Red Light District before, but shyness or prudishness, or even plain old out-of-pocketness have stopped you from availing yourself of the services of a prostitute, or from watching an erotic show, now’s your chance to look behind the famous red-lit windows. On Saturday March 31 from noon to 6 p.m., the Prostitutie Informatie Centrum will hold an open house (Dutch) at the Red Light District. You’ll be able to visit prostitutes’ rooms, a sex theatre, and even (children, cover your eyes) the Salvation Army.
Tags: Amsterdam, prostitution, Red Light District
F-16 pilots were given the order to fly a minimum of three kilometers above the town of Dokkum in order not to disrupt a jubileum performance of Bach’s St Matthew Passion in a local church. The local Cantarix choir had been practising for months and found out recently that the Air Force was scheduled to fly right over their church venue during their performance. The Royal Netherlands Air Force is currently stretching its wings for a mission in Afghanistan.
(Link)
Tags: air force, Bach, choirs, churches, classical music, Dokkum, F-16
The Geen Commentaar blog has built a front-end to Parlando, the government website that publishes the minutes of Dutch parliamentary sessions, including the texts of laws that are not yet in effect. The official Parlando service had several usability problems, including that it wasn’t possible to link to parliamentary documents directly, making hyperlinking far less effective, and making government far less transparent. The Dutch government has been aware of these problems since at least the end of 2005 and promised at the time to do something to improve the service, but had not even decided on a deadline by the start of this year.
Rumours have it (Dutch) that this slow progress is because the state has friends that it wants to share its big pie of work with, even at the cost of transparent government. I blogged about one of these friends before.
The new front-end can be found at www.geencommentaar.nl/parlando/.
Tags: blogging, Geen Commentaar, Parlando, parliament, transparency, WWW
March 28, 2007
With the slogan “will only words remain?”, these adverts warn against the extinction of rare animal species using images consisting of the names of the endangered species. The video adverts are particularly impressive, though I also like this particular one depicting a zebra crossing.
(Via Houtlust, here and here. Official IFAW campaign site)
Tags: advertising, endangered species
A fisherman in Arnhem convicted of smuggling drugs could deduct the cost of buying and shipping hashish to The Netherlands from his income on his tax return. Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf reported that the smuggler appealed to the Arnhem court after being slapped with a tax bill in the millions of euro. The court ruled that because he had only been convicted of drug running and not trading he could deduct the cost of buying and transporting the drugs on his tax form, which cut his tax bill in about half.
In 2005, judges in the city of Leeuwarden ruled that witches can write off the cost of schooling in witchcraft if it increases the likelihood of employment and personal income.
(Two clichés for the price of one: we’re all on drugs and women have no serious career plans)
(Link)
Tags: Arnhem, courts, drugs, fishing, Leeuwarden, smuggling, taxes, witchcraft, witches
Deep linking to parliamentary documents
Rumours have it (Dutch) that this slow progress is because the state has friends that it wants to share its big pie of work with, even at the cost of transparent government. I blogged about one of these friends before.
The new front-end can be found at www.geencommentaar.nl/parlando/.
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Tags: blogging, Geen Commentaar, Parlando, parliament, transparency, WWW