June 28, 2012

White capri leggings, in bad taste?

Filed under: Fashion,Online by Orangemaster @ 2:33 pm

A while back on telly and surely on the radio, the unflattering description of a bland, thirtysomething Caucasian Dutch woman included a cockatoo haircut and white capri leggings. This type of woman is often slightly overweight, middle class, and has a husband that wears old jeans and a jean jacket, drinks cheap beer and loves football.

A Dutch guy decided that he had had enough of looking at this fashion don’t and started the Facebook page Stop De Witte Driekwart Legging Nu (‘Stop white capri leggings now’) that’s getting national coverage probably because it’s summer and the white leggings have come out in full force.

White capri leggings are usually worn when it’s warm, but not warm enough to go without leggings. Unlike coloured leggings (I gladly wear long black ones), white ones make white legs look fatter and why would anyone want that? Some people call them ‘hospital legs’, as they have a nurse-like quality to them, but not in a good way. Others comment, get over yourselves, live and let live, and that there’s always overalls.

Fashion tip: wear actual capri pants (ideally not white ones), nylons or even knee high socks and skip the capri leggings. Don’t do the knee high socks thing like this either.

(Photo of White leggings by Malingering, some rights reserved)

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June 27, 2012

Turkish special Zone 5300

Filed under: Comics by Branko Collin @ 7:19 pm

Illustration: MK Perker

The celebration of 400 years of diplomatic relations between Turkey and The Netherlands might tempt a magazine’s editors, looking for fresh angles, to dedicate an issue to the topic… Zone 5300 did, and struck gold.

The thing about European comics is that the genre seems to have just a few torchbearers, Belgium being the Mount Olympus and The Netherlands, France, Spain and maybe Italy the foothills. Discovering that there is another country on the continent with a rich comic traditions (and a narrative of adversity to boot—censorship being a day-to-day reality in Turkey)? This is just the thing I am reading Zone 5300 for, baby!

Illustration: Bahadır Baruter

Issue 98 has comics by MK Perker, Bahadır Baruter, Memo Tembelçizer, Betül Yilmaz (who writes and draws for Bayan Yanı, a magazine filled only by female cartoonists), Kenan Yarar and Ersin Karabalut. The issue also contains a six page history of Turkish comics and an interview with Dutch illustrator Gijs Kast about his drawn portraits of the streets of Istanbul.

I especially liked Ersin Karabulut’s comic Under the Skin about a skin disease that manifests itself as a life form that can speak. It does this by forming letters on the skin of its carrier. Although Karabulut does not shy away entirely from the farcical possibilities his idea offers, the comic really is an exploration of how the carriers respond to their new predicament, specifically how they change under the pressures of their environment… or do they? I really don’t want to give away too much, but this comic alone packs a lot of punch in only six pages. I would not mind reading more from Karabulut to see if he can keep up this level of story telling.

Illustration: Gijs Kast

Illustration: Ersin Karabulut. The disease says: "Why don't you ever make filled eggplant?"

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June 26, 2012

Eames inspired garden chair Mal 1956

Filed under: Design by Branko Collin @ 12:38 pm

A new, Eindhoven-based label called Mal has introduced this Eames inspired chair called Mal 1956, intended to be used outdoors.

The specifications note that the chair is fitted with “a subtle drainage system to prevent stagnant water from collecting in the seat” and that it “can be cleaned using water along with common household cleaning products”.

A set of chair and stool will cost you 900 euro.

(Link: Bright. Photo: Mal.)

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June 25, 2012

Another Dutch professor caught in scientific fraud case

Filed under: Science by Branko Collin @ 2:51 pm

Professor Dirk Smeesters of the Erasmus University resigned after a study uncovered ‘irregularities’ in two of his papers.

Smeesters read Consumer Behaviour at the Rotterdam School of Management. The university accepted his resignation on June 21. The papers were withdrawn from scientific publications by the university, which stated in a press release today:

Two articles were found to have irregularities with findings that, in a statistical sense, are highly unlikely. The raw data forming the basis of these articles was not available for inspection by third parties, and the professor indicated that he had selected data so that the sought-after effects were statistically significant.

Last year professor Diederik Stapel from the University of Tilburg was suspended for making up pro-vegetarian research.

(Photo of the Erasmus University auditorium released into the public domain by Wikifrits.)

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June 24, 2012

Rooftop velodrome for Sanya, China

Filed under: Architecture,Bicycles by Branko Collin @ 11:31 am

In the southernmost part of China lies the city of Sanya. Local housing corporation Vanke asked NL Architects from Amsterdam to design a bicycle club as part of a resort. This is their proposal.

The pavilion houses a bicycle rental, a cafe and a rooftop velodrome.

(Link: The Pop-Up City. Photo: NL Architects.)

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June 23, 2012

Lottery forced to pay after judge finds advertisement misleading

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 12:11 pm

You know those lottery ads where in big print it says you’ve won and then somewhere in the small print it says you haven’t won at all, except perhaps for the right to hand over your cash?

Well, one Dutch judge thought enough was enough and has found for six plaintiffs who thought they had won 2,500 euro each.

In a letter that the winners received in October 2010 from Postcode Loterij, the impression was given that the recipients were guaranteed winners if the two unique codes they received with the letter matched the codes printed in a table (see illustration). Once they had sent in their coupons, only one plaintiff received a minor prize and the other five received a lottery ticket—clearly not what they had expected.

The small print said that participants only had a chance of winning the prize, but judge Pauline van der Kolk-Nunes quickly disposed of the T&C: “[The letter] will raise an expectation with the average consumer that they have won a prize […] and that the table shows which prize they have won. The codes and the table are unlikely to have any other meaning. [The small print] contradicts the core of the agreement, which is: you will receive a gift.”

Karma can be cruel.

Postcode Loterij is planning to appeal the decision.

See also: The battle to outlaw poker rages on

(Illustration: iusmentis.com / Postcode Loterij. The text reads: “Do you have one of these codes on your lucky coin? And do you have a valid gift code? Then you will receive one of these gifts, guaranteed. Which gift is yours?”)

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June 22, 2012

Kite Power demo by former astronaut Wubbo Ockels

Filed under: Science,Sustainability by Orangemaster @ 11:34 am

Back in 2008 a concert raised money to develop the laddermill, a sustainable invention by former astronaut Wubbo Ockels (shown here), and today Ockel’s Kite Power research group from the Delft University of Technology will be showcasing a wind energy system using kites at the Maasvlakte 2 shore in South Holland.

The Kite Power Team explains that Kite Power is a type of wind energy where a radiographically controlled kite generates electricity. A single cable attached to the kite is pulled and released from the base station every two minutes, spinning a drum that in turn powers a generator. Pulling the kite takes energy, but less than it is generated. The kite can fly up to 900 metres and be used to generate electricity fully automatically, which is its major asset.

(Link: home.tudelft.nl, Photo of Wubbo Ockels courtesy of Emmanuelle)

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June 21, 2012

Ban on drinking standing up at terraces to be lifted

Filed under: Food & Drink by Orangemaster @ 11:57 am

A few years ago, the city of Amsterdam made it illegal to drink alcohol at a terrace standing up. If you were off to a sunny Friday afternoon happy hour at a packed terrace you had to have a place to sit down to have the right to drink anything. Pouring out onto the street because happy hour turned into a party pisses off the neighbours who like their peace and quiet at night.

Back in 2009, action group Ai! Amsterdam (a play on words of iamsterdam which serves up tourist and expat information) claimed that thousands of people showed up at the Noordermarkt to create a ‘big standing terrace’ to protest what they believed was a patronising city rule.

Not only will this ban be lifted, but cafés may also soon be able to stay open 24 hours. Although Amsterdam is a world city in stature, its rules resemble more those of a big village usually making exceptions for the particularly touristy centre, and often hindering its residents. The rules change very often, for good or bad, and café owners seem to have a hard time keeping up. It’s a tough balance to play the world city card and please the residents in such a crowded city.

(Link: nos.nl)

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June 20, 2012

Dutchman plans reality show on Mars

Filed under: Shows,Weird by Orangemaster @ 2:20 pm

After Dutch reality show Big Brother went galactic, the Dutch have been producing and copying other countries’ reality shows like there’s no tomorrow. However, this next idea is way out there — literally.

The man behind the Mars One idea is Bas Lansdorp who claims that in 2023 we’ll finally put people on Mars. Not only that, but he’s thinking, why not have a reality show on the red planet as well, while we’re there. What scares me as I write this is that he has devised a way to get there, costing about 5 billion euro, but no way whatsoever of getting back. It’s a one-way journey. Getting back is currently too complicated to work out, which sounds like every movie I’ve seen featuring Mars, and they end badly.

Only four people can go at once, a trip that lasts seven months. “We’ve had hundreds of people who are willing to go and settle Mars, even families with children.”

And why would this actually work? There has been plans galore to settle Mars. You have to read his reasons for yourself, it scares me too. Why would anyone want to leave this planet and go somewhere where you couldn’t see your friends or travel as you would on Earth? It sounds like a prison to me.

When I watch any space movie, I actually get freaked out by people dying of asphyxiation or being thrown out a space lock. Of course the idea of going to Mars is cool, but is it worth dying for, I wonder.

And then there’s this old Dutch beer commercial that echoes a Mars landing as well.

(Links: www.bbc.co.uk, www.ed.nl)

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June 19, 2012

Lego computer built for Alan Turing’s 100th anniversary

Filed under: Design,History,IT by Orangemaster @ 12:50 pm

Jeroen van den Bos and Davy Landman from the Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI), a world-renowned scientific research institute specialised in mathematics and computer science, built a LEGO Turing Machine for the CWI’s exposition “Turings Erfenis” (‘Turing’s Legacy’) in honor of Alan Turing’s 100th birthday this year. The institute is known for creating the popular programming language Python, which is used by Google, while cwi.nl was one of the first national domain names ever issued in the world. The CWI played a pioneering role in connecting the Netherlands to the World Wide Web.

Enjoy the short documentary below and in true nerd fashion, you can read all about the making of this documentary by Andre Theelen right here.

“Alan Turing was an English mathematician who was highly influential in the development of computer science, providing a formalisation of the concepts of “algorithm” and “computation” with the Turing machine, which played a significant role in the creation of the modern computer,” say Wikipedia.

LEGO Turing Machine from ecalpemos on Vimeo.

(Photo of Alan Mathison Turing by Garrettc, some rights reserved)

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