October 11, 2018

Google Home Minis understand some Dutch, but not enough

Filed under: General,Technology by Orangemaster @ 1:12 pm

According to someone who works for Bright.nl, yesterday all of a sudden their Google Home Minis, a type of wireless speaker and voice command device with an integrated AI-based virtual assistant started to understand his commands in Dutch. Before then, his entire family had to ask for everything in their best American English.

After choosing Dutch as a default language, all devices stopped working except the Hue lamps, a line of colour changing LED lamps with wireless control, and the Honeywell thermostat. Sending images from the front door to the television with the Dutch command ‘Hey Google, show me the front door on TV40’ produced a YouTube video about front doors on the telly.

A day later, Hue dropped out, with an error that the lighting was no longer available. Bright hopes that Dutch language support will be working properly on 24 October when Google Home speakers will officially be available in Dutch shops. I’d hate to be working in a shop that is going to get a wave of complaints with no fix in site or be told to use it in English or German. And I wonder if it will understand those of us who speak Dutch with accents.

For the advanced class, here’s the discussion about Dutch accents within the country, such as is it Leiden, Leide or Leye? It depends where you’re from, but that’s still not good enough.

(Link: bright.nl, Photo: consumentenbond.nl)

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October 10, 2018

Dutch first: wrestling and punk music with sign language

Filed under: Dutch first,Sports by Orangemaster @ 5:08 pm

On 13 October Hilversum venue De Vorstin will host some live wrestling from Dutch outfit Dropkicks ’n Moshpits along with some live punk music from Green Lizard, with both the match and the music entirely presented in sign language.

Ruth Krooshof, who will be signing the event, says she usually has cramps in her fingers at the end of the evening, but what she is doing is making a night full of entertainment accessible to the deaf and hard of hearing.

It is also a first for her and for the country. She will also translate what people are screaming at the wrestlers, which, if anybody knows about live wrestling, is a large part of the fun. Krooshof also believes that since wrestling is so visual, it is a great sport to watch for people who rely on sign language.

Here’s what Green Lizard looks and sounds like:

(Link: gooieneemlander.nl, Photo: dropkicksnmoshpits.nl)

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October 9, 2018

Sending Dutch troops to Norway without winter clothes

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 12:16 pm

It’s actually front page news that the Dutch military does not have to buy their own artic winter clothes for military exercises in Norway this month. A few days ago, the news was that the Dutch Ministry of Defense did not order winter clothes on time for them, with no explanation as to why they messed up, which probably means someone plain forgot or worse.

The military were asked to buy their own special winter clothes to the tune of 1000 euro per person, which was fronted by Defense. Defense claims it had to ‘possibly’ break its own rules on calls for tender to get the winter clothes on time to the more than 1000 military off to Norway later this month to carry out exercises. However, due to the time crunch, some military already bought their own gear.

What the hell was Defense thinking? Or were they thinking at all? Even Dutch Parliament was “very critical” of the idea of sending military who were given 1,000 euro to buy their own winter clothing. It may be 14 degrees in Oslo today, which is in the South of Norway, but it will be close to -20 soon enough in the North, and forgetting to equip your military is unsafe, dangerous and embarrassingly stupid.

The Dutch military have also had complaints about the quality of combat uniforms and even female military personnel have been forced to travel during work hours just to buy military approved bras.

(Link: nu.nl)

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October 8, 2018

Student sushi chef gets his own pop-up restaurant

Filed under: Food & Drink by Orangemaster @ 3:09 pm

Back in May we told you about Kitsanin Thanyakulsajja, a student who ran a sushi restaurant from his dorm room and all the praise he got. Of course, he was doing it for the money, but he also wanted to improve himself as a chef.

Kit is now working in a posh hotel downtown Amsterdam in his own private, pop-up restaurant. He now also has a Bachelor’s degree, the main reason he came to the Netherlands. Since the media has announced that he is working in a ‘real’ restaurant, he is booked solid for all of October, with November and December reservations opening up soon. The cost of an intimate 15-course meal is 125 euro per person. He was also booked pretty solid when he was running Ephemeral, the name of his sushi joint in his dorm room. There, he slept a few hours a night, so he is relieved that era is over.

Kit now has a choice to make between starting his own restaurant, going back to Tokyo or Bangkok, or getting a Master’s degree here in Amsterdam. If he opts for Asia where the level of learning about sushi is the highest in the world, chances are he won’t come back to Amsterdam. To be continued!

(Link: parool.nl, photo: munchies.vice.com)

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October 7, 2018

KLM house number 99, a nod to coffee

Filed under: Aviation,Food & Drink by Orangemaster @ 1:57 pm

Back when flying was less democratic, KLM would give
house-shaped bottles filled with Bols genever to folks flying on intercontinental flights in business class, which over time became collector’s items.

This year to celebrate KLM’s 99th anniversary on October 7, a new house, number 99, was unveiled: the first shop of coffee merchant Douwe Egberts, in Joure, Friesland. These houses are so popular that people are already selling them on Dutch online auction sites.

KLM currently serves Douwe Egberts on their flights, in their lounges and in their offices, which would explain their choice. And all of us are wondering what house number 100 will be. OK, not all of us, but KLM and all those collectors for sure.

(Link: nhnieuws.nl, image: klom.com)

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October 4, 2018

Children discover error in 2019 Dutch tax plan

Filed under: Food & Drink,General,Weird by Orangemaster @ 2:01 pm

During an economics lesson, secondary school children in Tilburg, Noord-Brabant discovered a calculation error in the Dutch tax office’s plan for 2019.

While learning about the plan, which apparently can be found online and lets people know what’s coming tax-wise, a girl noticed a mistake. After discussing it and checking with the rest of the class, they sent an e-mail to the Dutch government, telling them about it, but didn’t immediately get a response. The next day, the error had not been corrected.

The economics class did some recalculations the next day and to them it still was wrong, as well as still being wrong online. They sent another message, and at some point, a cake was delivered to the school during their class. The cake had a QR code on it, which made them all laugh, with a personal message from Secretary of State Menno Snel thanking them for having found the mistake.

(Link: waarmaarraar.nl)

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October 3, 2018

The Right Side Won was What Fun’s one hit in the 1980s

Filed under: Music by Branko Collin @ 8:51 pm

This catchy reggae tune ponders how history is written by the winners, which is ironic considering that this would be Haarlem-based What Fun’s only hit, condemning them to relative obscurity.

The song was released in 1983 and reached the number 3 spot of the Dutch Top 40 in the spring of 1984. The single was also released in other countries, but did not do much there. The band did not seem to have much time for promotion since the members all had day jobs.

Singer Martin Richardson told social-democratic newspaper Het Vrije Volk (‘The Free People’) in January 1984: “At least South Africa understood what the song is about because they banned the record. In the Netherlands, 90 percent of the listeners do not get that the lyrics are based on the Falklands war between England and Argentina and the pumped up atmosphere surrounding the conflict. In other words, there are two parties, a pacifist and a war mongering one, and everybody gets to decide for themselves which is which, and history is written by the winner. That is what we mean by ‘the right side won’.”

What Fun tried to break the charts with another highly topical song, this time about the micro computer revolution, Let’s Get Digital, but without much success. The record sleeve for that song was created using a computer program that itself was included on the single. Computers of the day could translate the assorted beeps included at the end of the song into working program code.

(Video: YouTube / What Fun!; illustration: crop of a still from the video)

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October 1, 2018

Dutch woman asks exes to pay for birth control

Filed under: General,Health by Orangemaster @ 4:16 pm

In the Netherlands and surely elsewhere there are phone apps you can use to ask people to pay for their share of things, like dinner or something else that needs to be split up. One twentysomething Dutch woman decided to send her exes a payment request for her birth control pills, with the idea that it remains very odd for women to bear the entire burden for it including paying for it, while men don’t have to do anything.

Until age 21, the Dutch basic insurance covers the pill, but after age 21, you have to pay for it yourself. The price also depends on which pill someone takes. Microgynon 30 is one of the most used pill and costs less than 30 euro a year. An IUD costs between 70 and 150 euro, and the price for having it inserted is between the 250 and 500 euro. If I remember correctly, until recently it was way cheaper to have it inserted.

If a Dutch woman takes the pill for 30 years, that’s still 900 euro she has to pay on her own. That’s not a ridiculous amount, but again why do women have to pay for it themselves? It’s just as much men’s responsibility to make sure that pregnancy does not occur when that’s the plan, and still men have no side effects whatsoever.

The trend in the Netherlands (at least from what I can see as of late) is that women don’t want to be solely responsible for contraception and unwanted pregnancies.

The woman doesn’t send her ex partners a huge bill, but asks for a 1,50 euro contribution. She got reasonable responses and payments from three ex partners. Then again, splitting the cost of condoms is surely also a reasonable request.

Maybe the Dutch are onto something.

(Link: vice.com, Photo by Flickr user Spec-ta-cles, some rights reserved)

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September 30, 2018

‘The Vegetarian butcher is not a butcher’

Filed under: Animals,Food & Drink by Orangemaster @ 4:00 pm
anti-meatjpg

Much in the same vein as ‘soy milk’ is not legally milk in some countries, the Dutch trade show for the meat products sector to be held on 5 and 6 November has decided that popular brand The Vegetarian Butcher (in the Netherlands known as De Vegetarische Slager) is not a butcher.

Funny enough, the company received an invitation to sign up to compete in The Best Butcher of the Netherlands, and didn’t hesitate a second. Once signed up, their shop and restaurant De Vleesch Lobby (‘The Meat Lobby’, in Dutch) in The Hague was out in front with some 3500 votes for the province of South Holland. But we can’t have meat substitutes win, right? In a way, it’s stupid for them to have received an invitation in the first place (nobody bothered to check what they produced), however, it would have made quite a statement if they had won.

At some point, the organisers realised that De Vleesch Lobby didn’t serve meat and decided they cannot be considered butchers. Owner Jaap Korteweg was disappointed to be chucked out of the competition, but one thing is certain: the meat sector can’t ignore the rising popularity of meat substitutes.

(Link: frontpage.fok.nl)

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September 27, 2018

Ban on mobile phone use for cyclists in 2019

Filed under: Bicycles by Orangemaster @ 2:44 pm

Anyone who lives here and who has visited this country and its bigger cities knows how dangerous cyclists fiddling with their mobile phones can be, and I for one welcome a ban on this hazardous activity that makes them a danger to others.

As of July 2019 the Dutch government will impose a ban on using a mobile phone, tablet or media player while cycling. But that’s not all: it will also affect tram drivers and drivers of vehicles used by the disabled.

Since there are more cyclists on bike paths and cycling speeds have increased due to the arrival of electric bikes, the lack of keeping your eyes on the road has also increased. There’s no word yet as to how much a fine will be, but the fine for motorists using mobile phones while driving is 230 euro, to give you an idea.

In the Netherlands bikes outnumber people, with nearly 23 million bikes for some 17 million people. The use of mobile phones is a growing hazard, with a smartphone involved in one in five bike accidents involving young people, according to the Dutch Road Safety organisation.

What about using your phone for navigation? Then it needs to be in a holder, not in your hands. Will there be enough police or other authorities to fine folks? That’s always the question.

(Links: nu.nl, phys.org)

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