June 11, 2019

Enforcement cracks down on impromptu pétanque tournament

Filed under: Sports by Orangemaster @ 2:03 pm

Enforcers (non-cops) have had to crack down on an improvised pétanque (called ‘jeu de boules’ in Dutch, aka boules in English, so all French words) tournament on the Museumplein in Amsterdam South. Some 300 players were going at it, but they didn’t have a permit to do so and the fun was over.

The whole idea was to throw a few balls, but the enforcers were not convinced. The district authorities for this rather posh neighbourhood also said that the pétanque players needed to have a permit for any ‘event’ over 100 participants. ‘Safety cannot be guaranteed. The balls are heavy and there are children around. And there’s a basketball court as well.’

There are a lot of pétanque courts in Amsterdam – I say this without any statistics, but knowing they are scattered over the city, including one about 300 metres from my house. But yeah, 300 people is definitely too big a gathering legally speaking. And before anyone laughs at the heavy balls argument: I have vivid memories of losing a toenail from dropping one of those metal balls on my foot when I was six.

(Link: waarmaarraar.nl)

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June 8, 2019

Amsterdam to get a drugs museum

Filed under: Dutch first,General,Health by Orangemaster @ 8:46 pm

Poppi is slated to be the first-ever drugs museum of The Netherlands in Amsterdam.

According to the founders, the country does not have a public institution which offers low-threshold education on drug policy and addiction. Misconceptions about drugs are widespread, and the story of drugs is not black and white.

Poppi plans to engage visitors and inform them from different perspectives. They want people to form an opinion about drugs based on knowledge and facts, and not just on emotions as is often the case.

For anyone in Amsterdam this month, you can find out more Poppi and donate all while having drinks at www.denieuweanita.nl on June 16 where Poppi will be presenting its project.

Find out more about Poppi in this video:

(Link: poppi.amsterdam, Photo: DEA)

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June 5, 2019

Police app helps people help the police

Filed under: Dutch first,Technology by Orangemaster @ 7:18 pm

Dutch police and Public Prosecution Service have launch an app, allowing civilians victims of theft to help the police with their investigation. It is currently being tested for two months in four police regions: Rotterdam, East Netherlands, Northern Netherlands and East Brabant.

Although there are apps that people can use like Find My Phone after a theft or using WhatsApp for neighbourhood watch, this is the first time Dutch police are letting civilians help them solve crimes. Another good reason to open this door is that many civilians take action themselves if they fall victim to a crime, which can hinder investigations. Then again, many people feel that the police is not doing anything when they don’t get the results they want, so using this app can keep them busy in a productive way.

It is important to note that this app is in no way meant for people doing the police’s work. A spokesperson for the police, Oscar Dros, said “We genuinely see it as a form of cooperation.”

(Link: iamexpat.nl, Photo by Facemepls, some rights reserved)

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June 2, 2019

Guinness record for tall people in Utrecht

Filed under: General,Weird by Orangemaster @ 9:58 pm

A few days ago, some 850 tall people in Utrecht broke the world record for the most tall people in one place, a record previously set by Australia, with 136 tall people. The Guinness Book of Records still needs to approve the Dutch attempt – they had three observers going around measuring people’s height.

Tall is meant to be about 1,80 metres for women and 1,90 metres for men. Knowing that the Dutch are the tallest people in the world, I guess it was just a case of getting them a lot of them together in one place. People came from all over Europe and even the United States and Canada to participate.

The record attempt was organised by the Klub Lange Mensen (the Long People Club) who have 3,500 members, and who recently made sure the minimum height of entrances to building in the Netherlands was increased. The club also works with Dutch Railways to make sure tall peole can sit comfortably in their trains.

(Link: nos.nl, Photo of Dom Tower, Utrecht by Massimo Catarinella, some rights reserved)

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May 27, 2019

Dutch UFO spotters freak out over satellites

Filed under: General,Weird by Orangemaster @ 8:58 pm

IMG_5901

Dutch UFO reporting website www.ufomeldpunt.nl was swamped with more than 150 sightings, with fervent UFO spotters describing a “bizarre train of stars or lights moving across the skies at constant speed”.

Instead of anything alien, it was a string of some 60 satellites launched by businessman Elon Musk’s SpaceX hours earlier as part of its ‘Starlink’ constellation. A lot of Dutch folks staring at the sky had no clue this was going to happen, so you can imagine the commotion it caused.

One of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets blasted off from Cape Canaveral in Florida last Friday, and an hour later began releasing the satellites at an altitude of 450 kilometres. The satellites then had to separate and use their thrusters to take up their positions in a relatively low orbit of 550 kilometres. Starlink will become operational once 800 satellites have been activated, which will require a dozen more launches.

Dutch astronomer Marco Langbroek noted on his blog that he calculated where the satellites would be orbiting, and waited with his camera. The result is a spectacular one: a string of bright dots flying across the sky, prompting people to report UFOs.

Here is Langbroek video of the event:

(Link: phys.org)

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May 25, 2019

Counting insects as only the Dutch can

Filed under: Dutch first,Nature,Science by Orangemaster @ 5:38 pm

Thanks to amateurs and experts at waarneming.nl, the Netherlands is currently the only country in the world that is able to properly and automatically count insects, and plans to spend this summer doing so.

Using 100 camera traps that will be placed throughout the country specifically developed to automatically count and recognise insects, Software will be ‘trained’ using a photo database containing several million photos. The size and quality of this database is apparently unique in the world.

Counting and identifying insects gives researchers insight into the numbers of insects nationally as well as the effectiveness of measures being applied to restore biodiversity. According to recent publications in scientific research, there’s an alarming drop in numbers of insects in Western Europe and in Dutch nature reserves. Regular folks like myself often see adverts about the lack of bees, with garden centres selling seed mixtures for plants that attract bees and butterflies.

Using camera traps is a bid deal because they can count and cover more ground as it were. The Netherlands apparently leads the field automatic image recognition of insects and the technique, sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund, will now be delivered in time for the summer.

(Link: phys.org, Photo of Bee swarm by quisnovus, some rights reserved)

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May 24, 2019

Man with Night Watch tattoo sees real artwork

Filed under: Art by Orangemaster @ 3:25 pm

Stefan-Kasper

Fifty-one-year-old Dutchman Marko Bak from Nieuw-Lekkerland, South Holland, who has Rembrandt’s The Night Watch tattooed on his back, and his tattoo artist Richard van Meerkerk both finally saw the artwork at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam for the very first time.

Bak said that he wasn’t a museum kind of guy, and that the tattoo was done as a bit of a joke, but then grew into a real art project. When Bak met Van Meerkerk, he told him “If ever you have nothing to do you, you can tattoo The Night Wacht on my back.” And that’s what happened.

The tattoo is not an exact copy, as some of the faces were replaced by ones from Bak’s friends and family. I can imagine that it’s not every day that someone shows up with The Night Wacht (aka Militia Company of District II under the Command of Captain Frans Banninck Cocq) on their back, making this quirky news.

And here’s the Dutch item on video:

(Link: nos.nl, Photo: Stefan Kasper’s instagram)

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May 21, 2019

New, international wall murals in Amsterdam East

Filed under: Art by Orangemaster @ 2:12 pm

Artists Kaspar van Leek, 35, from Studio Giftig and Niels van Swaemen, 37, painted one of the 10 wall murals that can be found in Amsterdam East on the Platanenweg. Their mural, 10 metres by 15 metres, depicts a floating woman surrounded by doves [scroll down a bit]. “The dove is a symbol for freedom and also for Amsterdam,” says Van Leek, while floating here represents complete freedom.

Amsterdam Street Art (ASA) had a hand in organising most of it, a collective that has been around for 10 years, pleading for the acceptance of street art as an art form.

Flat residents were asked for their opinion, something ASA makes a point of, and the art was created at the same time as renovations happened, the ideal time for something new. The only things the residents did not want was sex and anything morbid. Dan Kitchener, an artist from English who painted the wall mural in the photo above, went for a geisha, which doesn’t really fit the theme, but they made an exception for Kitchener.

The neighbourhood has been spruced up and why not visit it if you can.

(Link and photo: ad.nl)

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May 20, 2019

Dutch students put in quarantine during exams

Filed under: Weird by Orangemaster @ 8:49 pm

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May 17, 2019

Airbnb rents out illegally placed containers, doesn’t check

Filed under: Weird by Orangemaster @ 11:23 am

Airbnb, the rent-out-your-place chain that local politician for housing Laurens Ivens keep saying he’ll teach them a lesson, but constantly fails to do so (in Dutch) (and then goes on Twitter and blames foreigners), always makes the news in a bad way. For starters, people who rent through airbnb are supposed to rent for no more than 30 days, but Ivens has done nothing to make that concrete, and so places end up being rented for a total of 60 days and that now includes sea containers because nobody checks but the tourists being duped.

In Amsterdam, two illegally placed sea containers on the side of the road were casually put up for rent in the Spaarndammerstraat and Pauwenpad, downtown Amsterdam. The containers had some beds on the floor and that’s it. The ridiculous offer was pointed out by Dutch Twitter account Pretpark Amsterdam (Pretpark means amusement park), a group that campaigns against the negative effects of tourism in the city.

“Employees of the municipality of Amsterdam dragged the ‘hotel’ away on Sunday morning. After complaints from local residents, it turned out that the city district had not issued a permit for placing a container.”

According to Statistic Netherlands, the city of Amsterdam has 863.202 residents as of 1st January 2019, and will surpass its highest amount of residents in its history soon enough, if that’s not already the case. Sadly, this means that all kinds of people will try and trick tourists out of money and that Ivens will continue to be shocked about it, sympathise, and proceed to do nothing but talk and blame foreigners like the novice bigots that his socialist party is aspiring to be.

(Link: .tellerreport.com, Photo: containers that students actually live in, in Amsterdam North)

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