August 26, 2012
Rotterdam-based artist Florentijn Hofman, him of the huge rubber duckies and city square hugging plush toys, received a letter the other day:
Hello! I’m Zozi, your fan in Japan. When the Rubber Ducks appeared at Onomichi, I was so amazed at them. I like the Rubber Duck that you’ve designed, so I made this movie.
It is a nice video. Please watch it past the first minute and a half, to see the videographer bend reality.
(Illustration: screenshot of the video. Video: Youtube / zozi009.)
Tags: ducks, Florentijn Hofman, japan
August 25, 2012
Two students of the Eindhoven University of Technology have discovered that the least safe code for your bank card (PIN) is 2580.
They did this by estimating which hand movements are easiest to observe, then calculating the amount of fits for each series of movements. The PIN 2580 on a grid that consists of the rows 123, 456, 789 and x0x requires a continuous downward motion of the hand, and is the only code possible for that series of movements. A bad actor should be able to guess that PIN 100% of the time.
Eindhoven Dichtbij reports that 292 codes can be guessed in three goes after observing hand movements. This also produces a 100% success rate, assuming the bad actors get three attempts before access is blocked. Codes that are relatively safe require lots of back and forth movements. The code 1959 belongs to the same set of hand movements as 105 other PINs.
I wonder if making fake movements would help against PIN thieves?
The students, Anne Eggels and Aukje Boef, also considered other ways of hacking PINs:
Aukje Boef has a telling name by the way, as her last name means ‘crook’ in Dutch.
Update: found an article from last year that claims 2580 is the third most used PIN.
*) This is an old trick that I was aware of. To this day paranoid me wipes all keys with his fingers after entering a code.
(Photo by Flickr user Redspotted, some rights reserved. Link: Bright.)
Tags: ATMs, banking, code breaking, cryptography, Eindhoven University of Technology, security
August 24, 2012
We reported several times about Laura Dekker, the sailor girl who was allowed to circumnavigate the globe for a year, and more recently we told you about two teenage brothers, Enrique and Hugo who are being denied an education because of their special needs as dyslexics and decided to sail off to get one the same way Dekker did.
The national ombudsman finally got wind of the situation and wants to find out why these kids can’t or don’t attend classes, as there are thousands of them. The brothers set sail today although Child Protection Services recently took their parents to court, but the court is delaying their verdict until December. I bet they are doing this because they know the parents aren’t at fault, and with general elections coming up on September 12, a lot could change in the meantime.
Child Protection Services can’t prosecute the parents for not trying to put their children in a school, as all schools within a large radius have refused the brothers. I don’t understand why the government doesn’t force a school to take them or at least try and resolve this situation. This imbroglio is far from over, and it is quite embarrassing.
Since Dekker got special schooling from the World School once she set sail, the same should apply to these kids or else someone will call out ‘discrimination’. Of course, the problem is that children of school-going age are being kept out of school by the educational system. What’s more, the parents aren’t legally allowed to home school their children, but I really do hope they are, I know I would.
(Link: www.eenvandaag.nl, Photo of a sailboat by the US Navy)
Tags: education, Laura Dekker, ombudsman, sailing
August 23, 2012
Cleaning women in Dutch private households have the worst working conditions of all of Europe, according to Marieke Koning of the International Trade Confederation in Brussels. However, I wonder if she means Europe or the European Union. In the Netherlands, it is normal to do cleaning work illegally and without insurance, as well as without any collective labour agreement or job protection. In short, the Dutch gladly exploit foreign women when it comes to having a clean home despite their good employment behaviour in other sectors.
While France, Spain, Germany and Belgium have cleaned up their act considerably, the Netherlands is a ‘shameful example,’ says Koning who believes that cleaning women have rights just like anybody else. The majority of cleaning ladies are migrant workers from outside Europe, a large part of which are illegally in the country.
Back in 2007 we told you about Hristina Tasheva, a Bulgarian woman who spent years cleaning people’s houses in Amsterdam illegally and became a photographer.
(Link: www.volkskrant.nl, Photo of Broom on wet floor by Shyb, some rights reserved)
Tags: cleaning ladies
August 22, 2012
Singer Bouke Scholten from Emmen, by no means an Elvis impersonator, was hand picked to sing at Elvis Presley’s memorial marking the 35th anniversary of the singer’s death last Thursday, August 16.
Although the Dutch media focused on having a Dutchman sing at the memorial, a rare privilege, his performance was overshadowed by ex-wife Priscilla and daughter Lisa Marie making a surprise appearance together for the first time at a memorial since they started holding them in 1980.
The unknown Scholten had two songs to convince some 800 fans from around the world, and he succeeded in his own way, with his second number, Suspicious Minds.
(Link: www.waarmaarraar.nl, www.cbc.ca, Photo of Elvis album cover by Jeremy Chan, some rights reserved)
Tags: Bouke Scholten, Elvis Presley, Emmen
August 21, 2012
While preparing an exhibition on Italian Renaissance master Raphael, the Teylers Museum in Haarlem got a lovely surprise: instead of owning nine drawings of the artist, they actually own twelve. The three new drawings are: Portrait of a young man (1515-17), Flying Putto (1518) and Joshua speaks to the Israeli tribal leaders in Sichem (1516-18), drawings that used to be attributed to Raphael’s pupils. The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam each own one of Raphael’s drawings, bringing the total number of drawings by Raphael in the Netherlands up to 14.
However, Head Curator Michiel Plomp together with a Viennese colleague seem to have come to this positive conclusion at a very convenient moment. Part of the exhibition will be to explain how the experts arrived at their conclusion and asking visitors what they think.
The three discoveries will be on show at the first-ever solo exhibition in the Netherlands devoted to this from 28 September 2012 until 6 January 2013.
(Link: www.elsevier.nl, Photo of Teylers Museum by Tom Clearwood, some rights reserved)
August 20, 2012
The legend of the Bokkenrijders (‘Goat riders’) from Limburg knows many forms. Crossroads Magazine poured one of them in an essay in 2008, contrasting the popular form quoted below with the opinion that the Goat Riders were a precursor to the enlightenment.
In the 18th century, while most of Europe was shaking off centuries of superstition and beginning to prepare for the age of reason, the lands which now form the Dutch and Belgian regions of Limburg were terrorised by hordes of flying devil worshippers.
These mysterious robber bands met in caves or at isolated roadside chapels. Riding through the nightly sky on the backs of big black goats, they plundered farms and churches. The Goat Rider owned the night throughout most of the 18th century, until they were finally brought to justice by brave and god-fearing officers of the law. This is a story that practically everyone in Limburg knows to this very day.
And:
If one thing is clear about the Goat Rider, it is the fact that a great number of people must have met violent, degrading deaths while being completely innocent of any crime. Indeed it is quite likely that the Goat Rider’s bands as such never even existed outside of the human imagination.
Via Metafilter. I cannot believe I’ve never blogged about the goat riders before.
Tags: Bokkenrijders, Goatriders, Limburg
The jackdaw (kauw in Dutch) is the most common city bird in the Netherlands, AD reports.
A census held by Sovon shows that of the 375,000 birds counted, 49,000 are jackdaws. Other popular city birds are the blackbird, the wood pigeon, the sparrow and the swift.
The jackdaw population has increased by 15% since 2006, but is only slowly on the rise. In the same timeframe, the Canada Goose has seen an increase of 372%, the stork of 201% and the gadwall of 146%. These are, however, relatively rare birds.
Birds that are rapidly disappearing from cities include the starling (obviously nobody counted birds in front of my favourite seafood store in Amsterdam neighbourhood De Pijp for this one), the robin and the great cormorant, my favourite. Because cormorants need to dive deep for fish, they allow their feathers to get wet. When they sit on lamp posts and in trees, spreading their wings to dry, they look like angels watching over the living.
In Europe, jackdaws are the smallest of the ‘true crows’. You can tell them apart from crows because jackdaws have a shiny, silverish head. They can be domesticated, and indeed we kept one when I was a kid, although keeping them is no longer legal these days. Ours was called Jacky, obviously!
(Photo by Kalle Gustafsson, some rights reserved)
Tags: birds, blackbirds, cormorants, gadwalls, geese, jackdaws, pigeons, robins, sparrows, starlings, storks, swifts
August 19, 2012
Everybody in the Netherlands still receives the paper phone guide once every year, whether they want to or not, even though in these days of Google and the Internet it is nothing but a vehicle for advertisements.
To help stop this form of harassment, a guy called Alexander Klöpping has registered a URL called sterftelefoongidssterf.nl (diephonebookdie) which redirects to the phone book cancellation form. In other words, if you want the phone book to be eliminated (‘die’) from your life, follow that link. (Actually don’t follow it, De Telefoongids are known to ignore your cancellation request anyway.)
Last Monday Klöpping received a threatening e-mail by the publishers of the phone book, a subsidiary of European Directories, that tells him he is engaged in trademark violation and that he must cease and desist.
Klöpping replied that he will take the URL offline as soon as the dead tree merchant stops shoving the equivalent of “months of advertising leaflets”, and “half a percent of all paper used in the Netherlands” through everybody’s mailboxes, including those of people that have indicated they want to receive no advertisements through the legally binding “ja-nee” and “nee-nee” stickers (yes-no and no-no).
Of course, the lawyers from European Directories would have a case if they were to argue that they don’t actually do anything with the addresses through their cancellation form, and if they could prove that Klöpping knew this. But then they’d have to argue that they are breaking the law on more than just one count and I just don’t expect them to do that.
Update 20-8: As a result of Klöpping’s action, parliament has called for making the phone book opt-in.
(Link: Webwereld)
Tags: phone book
August 18, 2012
A new phenomenon is emerging in the Dutch electoral landscape, the preprinted election billboard.
Traditionally municipalities provide blank billboards for campaigners to glue their posters to, but amongst others The Hague, Soest, Capelle aan den IJssel, Oosterhout and parts of Amsterdam have chosen to go with preprinted boards this year for the September parliamentary elections.
According to Trouw, spokespersons for the various municipalities quote as reasons “moving with the times”, the desire to have “neater” looking billboards, and the desire to stop parties pasting posters on top of other parties’ posters.
I saw the one shown here near my house (click the photo for a larger version), and I must say, it does feel a bit like curtailing political speech. By printing the posters at the same size and in a neat grid, the individual posters become practically invisible.
I can fully understand the Socialist Party’s protests against this type of billboard. Theirs is the party of no political power whatsoever on the national level, but a very broad base. Campaign posters have traditionally been their medium, where other parties sometimes simply could not be bothered.
See also:
Tags: campaigning, politics, posters, Socialist Party
