September 19, 2016

Cotton candy ring is weird and unique

Filed under: Design,Food & Drink by Orangemaster @ 7:58 pm

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Back in 2011 designer Martine Poot from Vlaardingen of Studio Martijntje Cornelia started producing rings made from real cotton candy, which have been shaped by the environment.

“Changing to the wearer’s daily lives, the accessory reacts to sunlight or water, enabling it to uniquely change its form and color. Hand-made, each ring is unique and the transparent base emphasizes the pop of colour.” The rings are made from candy floss (aka cotton candy) and resin.

Poot also sells a cotton candy side table that “will adapt to your interior”.

(Links: www.designboom.com, Martijntje Cornelia)

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September 17, 2016

Dutch museum gets five masterpieces back from Ukraine

Filed under: Art by Orangemaster @ 8:11 pm

Hoornmuseum

On 7 October, Ukraine is giving back five masterpieces stolen from the Westfries Museum in Hoorn, North Holland 11 years ago. Twenty-four Dutch Golden Age masterpieces and 70 pieces of silverware were stolen from the museum on January 9, 2005, which back then had an estimated total value of 10 million euro.

In Ukraine earlier this year four Dutch Golden Age masterpieces were recovered in dubious circumstances while a fifth painting was handed back to Ukrainian authorities by an Ukrainian art buyer, also under dubious circumstances. The five paintings were ‘A Peasant Wedding’ by Hendrick Boogaert, ‘Kitchen Scene’ by Floris van Schooten, ‘Return of Jephta’ and ‘Lady World’ by Jacob Waben, and ‘Nieuwstraat in Hoorn’ by Isaak Ouwater.

To celebrate the return of the paintings, the museum will let people in for free as of 8 October for a week. The bad news is, ‘A Peasant Wedding’ and ‘Kitchen Scene’ are in very bad condition and will need crowdfunding to pay for their costly restoration estimated at 100,000 euro.

(Links: au.news.yahoo.com, wfm.nl, Photo of Westfries Museum, Hoorn by Fnorp, some rights reserved)

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September 16, 2016

In Rotterdam parking spots turn into parks for a day

Filed under: Automobiles,Sustainability by Orangemaster @ 2:13 pm

Today Rotterdam is celebrating Park(ing) Day, which sounds like a lot of pun fun. The city of Rotterdam is letting people take over a parking spot for free and camp out on it, as if it were a park. And to sweeten the deal, the rules of a park apply to the parking spot.

Park(ing)Day is part of Happy Streets, yet another let’s-use-English-rather-than-Dutch named event (where ‘happy’ often sounds like ‘hippie’ when some Dutch people pronounce it) lasting the entire weekend in order to promote ‘sustainable mobility and a better use of public spaces’.

The city will also feature yet another let’s-give-it-an-English-name-to sound-cool event called Walk’in Rotterdam, where people can take a stroll along various uncommon parts of the city with a knowledgeable guide who I bet will tell their stories in the country’s main language.

And Sunday is another why-use-Dutch-go-for-English event called Open Streets when streets will be car-free and feature other merriment.

Yes, this is a picture of Amsterdam.

(Link: www.ad.nl)

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September 14, 2016

Rare crab lands on Ameland beach

Filed under: Animals by Orangemaster @ 11:35 pm

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On 31 August, two people spotted an angular crab on the eastern part of the island of Ameland. The discoveries were independent from each other, but it was probably the same crab. One of them put the crab back into the sea.

The same type of angular crab had been spotted in 2003 in the North Sea elsewhere, but never on a beach. The crab has finally decided to check out dry land.

Angular crabs live in the Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea in places with a clay sea floor. Apparently, due to global warming affecting the North Sea, the crab can be found in the Netherlands.

(Link: www.ecomare.nl)

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September 12, 2016

Worthless shop trades worthless items for valueless money

Filed under: Art by Orangemaster @ 9:47 pm

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From 13 September through 17 September from 11:00 to 17:00, Amsterdam artist Pavèl van Houten will have a shop open that is actually an art project on the Mercatorplein in Amsterdam West selling worthless junk. You’ll be able to browse through and purchase stuff like bottle caps and plastic bits for ‘flutten’, fake money that derives its name from ‘flut’ meaning ‘trash’. The shop will be housed in a wooden structure not far from 24oranges HQ, so we’ll pay it a visit and report back to you.

The more useless the item, the more ‘flutten’ you’ll get for it. The fun stuff collected by the shop will be exhibited by Van Houten in the Waardeloos Museum, which will open at the public library on the Mercatorplein and two shops nearby. The shop of useless junk has already done the rounds in Breda, Leeuwarden and Vlieland. Items such as coloured plastic, expired public transport tickets, crooked nails, flattened beer caps and broken water balloons are very popular.

Challenge accepted: we’ll going to try and top that.

(Link: www.parool.nl)

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September 11, 2016

The eel riots of 1886 ended with 26 people and 1 eel dead

Filed under: Animals,History by Branko Collin @ 8:30 pm

In the wake of the 1886 Eel Riots in Amsterdam, Dutch newspapers filled their columns with reports about the event, but it was French magazine l’Illustration that came out with these drawings by M. de Haenen 10 days later.

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Fait sur place, these illustrations tell the story of the Palingoproer (eel riots), the bloodiest case of Dutch police brutality in the 19th century.

On Sunday 25 July 1886 a great mass of people gathered on the Lindengracht in Amsterdam to watch a cruel spectacle. Fish sellers had tied a rope between numbers 184 and 119 across what was then still a canal and a live eel had been tied to that rope. Men in small boats had to try and pull the eel from the rope—the winner would get the princely sum of 6 guilders, almost a week’s wages. This sport was called palingtrekken (eel pulling) and by that time already outlawed.

Four officers from nearby police station Noordermarkt decided to put a halt to the spectacle. They entered one of the houses to which the rope was tied and used a pocket knife to cut down the rope. Apparently the rope hit one of the spectators who started thwacking the police with his umbrella as soon as they left the building. Fast forward a couple of hours and a full blown riot was going on with police using their sabres and rioters throwing pavers.

Nightfall came and a drizzle helped to cool tempers. The next day, however, rioters stormed the police station which led to the army getting out their guns. As soon as the smoke had cleared (smokeless powder had only been invented two years earlier and was being introduced slowly to European armies), 26 rioters lay dead and observers (reporters, essayists, historians) started to explain what it was that just had happened.

Right-wing rags Algemeen Handelsblad and NRC, and the mayor of Amsterdam, tried to blame the socialists for being the instigators, but the public prosecutor thought that conclusion was preposterous—royalist inhabitants of the nearby Willemsstraat had even thrown red and black flags into the canal that the socialists had quickly brought to the scene of the riots.

Two thousands rioters were given prison sentences, police officers were treated to cigars and in 1913 the eel that involuntarily started it all showed up at an auction where it was sold for 1,75 guilders and was never seen again.

(Images: VKTV.nl / M. de Haenen)

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September 8, 2016

Dutch soap gets kids to wash their hands

Filed under: Health by Orangemaster @ 9:32 pm

Knetterzeep

Tessa Tippersma from Velp, Gelderland sells a soap aimed at children called ‘Knetterzeep’, roughly ‘Crackling Soap’, which tingles it is used. It’s not a foam, but also not a liquid, and comes in a squeeze bottle with an apple-pear smell.

The original idea came from two students from Arnhem who developed the winning soap for a contest that Tippersma has attended. At some point the students needed to focus on their studies, so Tippersma decided to take over their idea and turn the soap into a business.

Knettersoap is sold in some 250 places and there’s interest from Belgium, Germany and even China. The soap doesn’t need water unlike another soap aimed at children, the SquidSoap, which leaves a print on children’s hand that they have to wash off to prove their hands are clean.

In a Consumer Union video, the kids were a big fan of Knetterzeep because it makes it fun to wash their hands. “The Knetterzeep was a hit, the kids loved it, but it doesn’t really clean your hands”, while showing hands with lots of dirt on them. Tippersma’s idea was to get kids to watch their hands after going to the bathroom, which of course would not be full of dirt, but I agree, soap should clean your hands. The competitor, SquidSoap has a fun stamp on it when you press on the pump to get the soap, but then children only wash the inside of their hands to remove it and not the outside like their should.

(Link: www.deondernemer.nl, Screenshot of the Knetterzeep video for the Chinese market)

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September 6, 2016

Granny swats the daylights out of Pokémons

Filed under: Animals,Gaming by Orangemaster @ 9:48 pm

Pokémon

A health insurance company active in the east of the country has recently made a video (see below) that is really only made to watch an elderly lady treat Pokémons to the business end of a flyswatter.

Then there’s other Dutch business that have carved out a piece of the action using Pokémons. A Dutch sex toy shop asks on Twitter ‘What Pokémon is this?’, showing a dratini that’s more of the vibrating kind. Then there’s someone who claims Dutch Rail has a train running late because of a Snorlax on the rails. And then there’s more serious stuff like the World Wide Fund using a meme of a rhinoceros saying in English ‘Don’t catch ’em’.

The video is for fans and haters alike, so check it out.

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September 5, 2016

Italian twins will make you want to learn Dutch

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 3:10 pm

Identical twins Ermano and Roberto who live in Sulmona, Italy and have never set foot in the Netherlands were interviewed by linguist Marc van Oostendorp of website Onzetaal.nl. They have recognisable Italian accents when they speak Dutch, but their syntax (word order) sounds pretty good, and they even correct themselves as they speak. They are motivated as well, which is more than I can say for many people here who can’t be arsed to learn Dutch.

These Ermano and Roberto are the antidote to that apathy. They are fans of Dutch television presenter Hans van der Togt, associated with the show ‘Raad van Fortuin’, (Dutch version of ‘Wheel of Fortune’,) and when asked what city they would like to visit if they could, they choose Maastricht first because they also watch television show ‘Flikken’ (‘Cops’), which is filmed there. Oh, and they watch satellite television because that’s the only way to get RTL4, their favourite station.

For all of you who can’t be arsed, the brothers’ enthusiasm is contagious, as is the charming way they finish each other’s sentences. And you’ll want to see them one day make that bucket list trip to the Netherlands, but since they have demanding jobs as cleaners, it won’t be easy, although it would be very cool.

Watch this Dutch video with English subtitles and some Italian countryside:

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September 4, 2016

Febo and other companies violate patrons’ privacy

Filed under: Technology by Orangemaster @ 9:24 pm
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Since January 2014 the Dutch Data Protection Authority has observed that snack chain Febo, through its use of the Bluetrace data tracking system, was violating its patrons’ privacy by collecting information without their permission, according to the Personal Data Protection Act. And after several warnings, nothing has changed, but the agency is pissed off enough to fine Bluetrace if they don’t clean up their act within the next six months.

According to Bluetrace’s website, they claim to “respect the privacy of persons”, since “after 24 hours, all anonimized data is being erased from our systems”. However, that “anonimizing” they carry out is apparently very easy to undo, so basically nothing at all has been done to protect people’s privacy for quite some time.

Febo also has to make sure that they don’t collect personal data of people who live nearby, make sure they tell people explicitly that their data is being collected, and tell them how long their data will be stored, etc., which they don’t. Dutch law states that “the processing of any personal data requires the data subject’s unambiguous consent,” like a sign at Febo that warns people. Bluetrace has said that they place signs, but that’s not the case in the 30 or so Dutch municipalities where their system is operational.

Turning off your phone was a retarded Dutch government answer, because even when your phone is off, it could still be giving out information through radio signals and possibly with malware, if Edward Snowden has taught the world anything.

Febo is just an example, as many other companies and towns who use Bluetrace are also violating the law, and I’d dare say, even flaunting it, since 2014. Why the authorities are only getting serious now remains a mystery.

(Link: motherboard.vice.com)

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