September 3, 2009

Amsterdam bullies critical group into dropping name and logo

Filed under: Architecture,General by Branko Collin @ 10:08 am

A group of Amsterdam citizens critical of the way the city is run has decided to change its name and logo under heavy pressure of the city government, Volkskrant reported last week (Dutch).

The group called Ai! Amsterdam (meaning Ouch! Amsterdam, a play on the official city marketing slogan of the city, I Amsterdam) has publicly criticized the city’s ban on drinking-while-standing, the gradual closing down of the Red Light district, and other less illuminated measures. The city has threatened with costly legal procedures if the group do not give up their name and logo, procedures which the group estimate would cost them tens of thousands of euro.

Ai! Amsterdam points out to De Pers (Dutch) that the city centre’s candidacy for becoming a UNESCO world heritage site (not just the canals, the entire city centre!) threatens the liveliness and openness of the city even further, creating a real risk of Amsterdam becoming just as staid as Bruges, Belgium, which is also a world heritage site. I think the group are underexaggerating things. At least Bruges started out boring. Amsterdam on the other hand has something to lose.

Ironically, the official I Amsterdam manifesto proclaims: “It’s time for Amsterdam to speak out for itself and make its relevance known in a proud, supportive and positive manner.”

(Illustration: the old Ai! Amsterdam logo, source: Ai!)

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September 2, 2009

Past the 1000th posting

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 1:24 pm

Here is a little tidbit you might like to know: a couple of days ago Orangemaster posted the thousandth 24 Oranges posting: Trading in your old bras for new ones.

We almost let this milestone pass unnoticed, mainly because we originally failed to notice it ourselves. This because Orangemaster is fighting both a nasty cold and a web radio server, and because I am currently hired (“kept off the streets,” as we say in Dutch) by a company that demands lots of my attention.

If you only hopped on board recently, here are some of my favourite postings of 2008 and 2007, but do not hesitate to add your own favourites to the comments, as mine is but one voice.

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September 1, 2009

Student makes wind turbines quieter

Filed under: Design,Dutch first,Science by Orangemaster @ 12:51 pm
windturbines

Stefan Oerlemans, a student from the University of Twente, discovered a way to reduce the ‘noise source distribution’ of modern wind turbines. For those of you who may not know, people living near these wind turbines have to deal with the loud ‘swishing’ sound they make. Yes, there are downsides to green energy.

Oerlemans figured out that the sound level could be reduced by half by fitting jagged edges, or teeth on the blades of the turbines. Now all I need is some black, red, yellow and orange to paint some flames and make them look cool as well.

(Link: depers.nl)

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August 31, 2009

Robots made from sturdy stackable storage boxes

Filed under: Design by Branko Collin @ 8:39 am

Guus Oosterbaan, a Dutch designer living in Denmark, is looking for somebody to take these boxes into production for him.

The boxes can be used to store all kinds of things, and when stacked can be combined into huge toy robots. On his blog, Oosterbaan says that his “kids find it very amusing to build robots that are much taller than them and then knock them over while shouting superhero stuff.”

(Link: Bright.nl. Photos: Guus Oosterbaan.)

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August 30, 2009

Alphabet created from Google Earth images of the Netherlands

Filed under: Online,Photography by Branko Collin @ 11:09 am

Over at the Google Earth forums, a user called Thomas de Bruin has assembled a complete alphabet made of shapes spotted in the Dutch landscape by the Google aerial cameras.

He has created capitals, small letters, and all kinds of miscellaneous characters, such as the ten digits and the euro character. You will also find a KMZ file there, so that (if you have a copy of Google Earth installed) you can look up what part of the Netherlands you are looking at.

(Link: Google Earth Blog.)

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August 29, 2009

Motorcycle riders and their bikes get older

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 1:40 pm

Statistics Netherlands reported last Tuesday that the average age of motorcycle riders has gone up from 39 to 45 in the last ten years.

In 2000 the group that dominated motorcycle ownership were the thirty-somethings, now it is the 40-49 group that owns the most ‘bikes’. Total ownership of motorcycles has risen by 50% in the noughties, as has the share of vintage motorcycles. Interestingly, the older the rider, the bigger the chance they are driving a vintage motorcycle.

We don’t have any great wide opens here to cross, but people sure love to ride their bikes on the willow-lined roads atop river dikes.

(Via Sargasso. Photo by Jim Crossley, some rights reserved.)

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Lauragate: solo sailing school girl to be tested for two months, says judge

Filed under: Sports by Branko Collin @ 1:28 am

The verdict is in. Laura Dekker, the girl that wants to set a world record by becoming the youngest person to circumnavigate the globe in a sail boat all by herself, will be put under supervision for two months while a psychologist will try and determine whether this 13-year old is fit for that feat.

Dekker’s parents will retain custody, but will have to ask permission from supervisor Bureau Jeugdzorg (the executive branch, so to speak, of the child protection industry) for major decisions pertaining her, a Utrecht court ruled today. The judge stated emphatically that Dick Dekker was not a bad father for supporting his daughter’s ambitions, reports Volkskrant (Dutch). Amsterdam psychologist S. Moonen will now try and find out whether Laura is mentally fit for such a huge undertaking, and whether it is possible for her to be schooled from a distance.

Laura was not present during the reading of the verdict. She tried to avoid the media, and instead gave an exclusive TV interview to Jeugdjournaal (children’s news show of NOS, Dutch). In it she said she was not afraid of the psychological examination, because she would not have gone if she wasn’t ready. She also denied reports that claimed she would be alone for two years in a row, explaining she would go to shore regularly, and she would be surrounded by other sailors taking the same routes because of storm seasons and so on. (Not that fellow ‘yachties’ always stick to the unspoken code of writing poems about flowers and being nice to puppies.)

(Photo by Wikimedia user Jonathunder, some rights reserved)

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August 28, 2009

VAT on cleaning to be lowered

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 9:44 am

Next year, the sales tax on cleaning will be lowered, Treasury Minister Kees de Jager announced to parliament yesterday, according to Z24 (Dutch).

Nearly all services have a 19% VAT (Value Added Tax), but cleaning personnel will now join the ranks of hairdressers, painters and bicycle repair people at 6%. The measure is taken in the hope that more people will hire legal cleaning personnel (i.e. cleaning personnel that pay taxes over their income). In 2004, the government started a program that heavily subsidized legal cleaning personnel, so that their services came within the reach of ordinary households. The program (Dutch) was cancelled last year, because it did not have much of an effect.

(Photo of Banksy’s Cleaner by Dan Brady, some rights reserved)

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August 27, 2009

Trading in your old bras for new ones

Filed under: Fashion,General by Orangemaster @ 12:10 pm
bra

If you can trade in your old car or your old computer for a new one, why not your old bras? Thanks to Dutch lingerie brand Triumph, you can get 5 euro back to put towards the purchase of a new bra.

“It’s a tasteless stunt,” says Kledingbank Limburg (‘clothing bank’ for the poor in the southern part of the country), reminding us that underwear is the only thing you throw out and buy new. Underwear OK, but bras?

The more open-minded clothing bank in Haarlem thinks it’s a good idea because a new bra is very expensive and the used ones are sought after.

If you google around, you’ll see that tons of people do it and that it’s pretty common. Or they get creative and stuff them with plants.

(Link: fashionunited.nl, via bright.nl, photo: ecollo.com)

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August 26, 2009

Dutch tap water will be chlorinated

Filed under: Dutch first,Food & Drink,General,Nature,Science by Orangemaster @ 11:38 am
glass of water

I once had a Dutch roommate back in Québec in the 1990s who asked me why our tap water looked so afwul. I explained that it’s slightly cloudy because it’s full of chlorine, but tastes fine. Many people pour water into a jug fitted with a carbon filter and keep it in the fridge. Problem solved.

“Isn’t there chlorine in the water in the Netherlands?” “Oh, no” she said, “we have very clean water”. For years I thought the Dutch were water geniuses and that Quebeckers were water dummies.

It turns out Dutch water has a dirty little secret: it’s chock full of the bacteria that causes legionnaire’s disease. Professor Annelies van Bronswijk, Professor of Health Technology at Eindhoven University of Technology estimates that 800 people die of legionnaires’ disease every year, more than the dozens quoted in official statistics. “Since severe pneumonia is what most people with legionnaires’ disease die from, you can put two and two together and get a proper estimate of the problem.”

These days, Western countries chlorinate with monochloramine, a compound of chlorine, which doesn’t leave a taste.

(Link: rnw.nl, photo: ipeg.eu)

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