November 4, 2010

Homeless man finds out his father was a millionaire

Filed under: General,Weird by Orangemaster @ 1:15 pm

A former homeless man, Jerry Winkler, 28, recently found out who his real father was: millionaire Alfred Winkler from Bussum who died back in 1992. Apparently, his mother had an affair with the millionaire. Unfortunately, Winkler cannotprobably cannot lay claim to any inheritance, but the foundation his father set up will see what they can do to help him out money wise.

(Link: zibb)

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November 3, 2010

Comics are mostly forbidden in government publications

Filed under: Comics,Photography by Branko Collin @ 9:01 am

According to the 2009 Guidelines for Photography and Illustrations of the Dutch government (PDF, Dutch), the government should not use comics in its publications.

The government wants to communicate in a clear, accessible and unambiguous manner, by introducing a single style guide, and by using only a bare minimum of style elements. This suits the adult image the government wants to project. Within that style there is no room for a wild mixture of symbols, comics and shapes, i.e. frills.

and

In government publications comics and fantasy characters should not be used.

This style guide is the brain child of Studio Dumbar, the design studio that had already managed to make a name for itself by charging the tax payer 60,000 for telling the government to keep using the same logo. (Not necessarily something I disagree with, sometimes what you have already turns out to work the best.)

The same style guide seems to suggest (in examples rather than words) that you should leave in the watermarks of photo stock agencies.

(Link: Hans Aarsman. Image from the style guide: Rijksoverheid/Photoq.nl/gettyimages—see the top left corner.)

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November 2, 2010

HEMA cakes with Hitler greetings and anti-Islamic text

Filed under: Art,Food & Drink,Religion,Weird by Orangemaster @ 12:39 pm
Kdag2010-2

Two Dutch women artists decided to test the limits of what HEMA (major chain store) would accept to reproduce on a cake from a photo in the cities of Enschede and Deventer. They ordered seven cakes, of which three were rejected.

An authentic old picture of a Hitler greeting wasn’t a problem and neither were tompouces with ‘Islamic culture is backwards’ on them, a well-known phrase uttered by murdered politician Pim Fortuyn a few years back.

What didn’t make the cut was a man with an erection and a woman with her legs open and a heart hiding anything indecent. So erotic is out (the store claimed that was porn), but ‘fascist’ politics are in. Now you know too. Let’s be fair, both cities are far from the country’s capital and have different values and political views. That’s my polite way of saying people there are more shocked by sex and clearly vote more to the right as of late.

The General Terms and Conditions of HEMA say that the pictures, “cannot go against the law, must show good morals and cannot have any religious content”. Obviously the people who made these cakes at HEMA never read any of that or don’t understand what it meant.

(Links: welingelichtekringen, ad)

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November 1, 2010

“If you really want to take interesting photographs, you should not try to”

Filed under: Photography by Branko Collin @ 9:40 am

Hans Aarsman is a man who one day, in the middle of his career, sold all his cameras and stopped being a professional photographer.

How he got to that point and how photography managed to get him back, he explained last year at TEDx Amsterdam:

Aarsman recently started an English language photography blog that might interest you.

He is also the guy behind the Kleine Hans award.

(Video: Vimeo/TEDx)

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