January 15, 2019

Coaster counts as contract, worth 11,000 euro

Filed under: General,Sports by Orangemaster @ 2:47 pm

A court in Rotterdam has ruled that a signature on a beer coaster is worth 11,000 euro in a case involving a dispute between a top football player and his club.

The man brought the case to court, claiming he was supposed to be paid for his performance, but the club decided to contest this because the signature on the coaster was from someone who was not authorised to make such a deal. A graphologist was hired to established whether or not the signature was authentic, and it was.

Since the signature checked out, the court felt there was no reason to doubt the intention of the club which must pay the player 11,000 euro in back pay.

Read the court’s verdict from december 2018 in Dutch.

(Link: telegraaf.nl, Photo of Football by Bramus, some rights reserved)

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January 14, 2019

Dutchman makes bicycle from recycled plastic

Filed under: Bicycles,Sustainability by Orangemaster @ 12:50 pm

Inspired by a two-year stay in Mexico City where designer Thomas Hoogewerf saw plastic strewn about town and lots of car traffic, he decided to design a bicycle, addressing both problems at once and called it the ‘Better to transport’ project.

Most of the prototype is make from plastic, although the chain is made from steel. Hoogewerf explains that the bicycle is still not perfect, and has had help from Precious Plastic, a worldwide network of people who build recycling machines. He has also received help from people in India and the United States to help improve the frame and the front fork.

The idea is to point out, at the very least, the problem of mobility and used plastic in a city of millions.

It’s easy to have a discussion about cities being more bike friendly when you come from the Netherlands or Denmark, but the added value of making a bicycle out of rubbish as it were makes a statement and can be applied elsewhere in the world where there are similar problems.

One good thing about having a bicycle made from plastic is that if something breaks, you can replace it easily enough. And plastic doesn’t rust – great for big cities with a lot of rain. As well, the plastic is free and ripe for the picking.

(Link and photo: vice.com)

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January 11, 2019

KPN axes Dutch Internet provider XS4ALL

Filed under: History,IT by Orangemaster @ 3:09 pm

It’s the end of an era: Owned by KPN, Dutch Internet pioneer XS4LL (a play on words of the pronunciation of ‘access for all’ by Dutch folks (the ‘x’ sounds like ‘ex’ and not ‘ax’ in Dutch, so ‘excess’ for all the non-Dutch) was founded back in 1993 and has very loyal clients. I write this knowing a lot of their clients, including my co-blogger Branko, and a lot of friends who either work or have worked there.

By loyal clients, I also mean they will not stay on with KPN after XS4ALL ceases to exist, but have also launched a petition to keep XS4ALL, which is not something you see everyday for a profit-making company. Chances are, it won’t change anything, but it will give you an idea of how much people care about the company.

And why is that? Well, XS4ALL was Internet-savvy before having Internet was a thing in the Netherlands. Apparently, it’s the third oldest Internet service provider (ISP) in the country, after NLnet and SURFnet. According to Wikipedia, XS4ALL was the second company to offer Internet access to private individuals, which was not a given when the Internet started to be a telecommunications staple. One of its founder is Rop Gonggrijp, a well-known hacktivist in international circles.

In the mid 2000s, XS4ALL was big, and one of the main reasons was because they gave really good service. You were talking to people who were all Internet fans, not just working stiffs with stupid answers. They helped win the battle against spam back when you would get 100 to 200 spam mails a day and fought a lot of other battles as well, winning quite a few.

XS4ALL was bought by KPN (the big Dutch provider) in December 1998, but stayed in its bubble to a certain extent until this year. KPN is now trying to convince its XS4ALL clients that ‘only the name will change’ and there’s nobody buying that, to the point were many loyal clients will change providers out of principle.

If you feel strongly enough about it, you can also sign the petition (in Dutch).

(Link: tweakers.net, Photo of XS4ALL head office by Pachango, some rights reserved)

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January 9, 2019

Dutch ‘Rambo’ tulips at the Golden Globe Awards

Filed under: Film,Nature by Orangemaster @ 2:59 pm

The Dutch flower bulb company Borst from the wee town of Obdam, North Holland are now world famous for having provided the bouquets of tulips for the Golden Globe Awards, with a whopping 10,000 individual tulips having been ordered.

When the company received the order for the tulips from the United States, which doesn’t happen very often, they were kept in the dark about what they were for. Soon after the event aired, they got a message about what they were for and saw their product all over the news.

The fun part is, the Golden Globe opted for a type of tulip called ‘Rambo’, like the movie. “It’s a tulip that is heavy and gives big flowers,” explains Menno Boots from Borst.

(Link and photo: nhnieuws.nl)

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January 8, 2019

Don’t let horses lick your car

Filed under: Animals,Automobiles by Orangemaster @ 11:46 am

Some of you might be rolling their eyes, others like me are surprised: apparently horses like to lick car paint, damaging cars, and one Dutch nature association in Nijmegen, Gelderland is warming people about it with the pictogram above.

I have zero scientific knowledge of why horses like car paint and metallic paint in particular, so I’m going with a Google search for plausible answers:

– They like shiny things
– They really need salt
– Lack of nutrients from the plants in their pasture (I vote for this one)
– Boredom
– They like the taste of metal

In any case, it’s bad for them and bad for your car! And it’s like chips (crisps) for humans: once they taste it, they want more.

The idea is to park your car far away from the horses. Having to explain horse damage to your insurance company is probably difficult as well.

(Link and pictogram: naturetoday.com)

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January 7, 2019

‘Roundabout with pizza cutter needs pineapples’

Filed under: Art,Automobiles,Food & Drink,Weird by Orangemaster @ 1:37 pm

Dutch journalist Lex Boon has just published a book called ‘Ananas’ (‘Pineapple’) about his love of pineapples. In his hometown of Beverwijk, North Holland, there’s a roundabout with a pizza cutter as art.

Boon figured the roundabout could conveniently use a new name and a new look: “My dream is to rename this pizza roundabout’ the ‘Pizza Hawaï Rotonde’ (‘Hawaiian Pizza Roundabout’) as a tribute to the pineapple.”

Putting pineapple on a pizza was a Canadian ‘invention’, thanks to Greek-born Canadian, Sam Panopoulos from Ontario, Canada. Follow the Wikipedia link and read the recent story about Canadian Prime Minister and the President of Iceland ‘debating’ the issue of whether pineapple belongs on pizza.

Boon also interviewed Panopoulos for his book, surely before the summer of 2017 when the latter passed away. The pizza cutter is not an officially commissioned art work, it’s advertisement for a local pizza parlour. Boon would love to see that thing full with piece of pineapple at some point.

I’m off for lunch.

(Link: nhnieuws.nl, Photo of Pizza pie without pineapple by Adam Kuban, some rights reserved)

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January 5, 2019

Sexing up Amsterdam real estate with French names

Filed under: Architecture,Weird by Orangemaster @ 12:59 pm

Amsterdam real estate is in the hands of a selected few, including Prince Bernhard who owns a staggering 349 buildings in Amsterdam.

In the neighbourhood of ‘Bos en Lommer’ (aka Bolo, where 24HQ is located), a bunch of tall flat buildings are coming and will be sold to whomever can afford them: either rich Dutch folks or rich foreigners, the latter being bashed for buying houses that Dutch people in Amsterdam cannot afford, as if that was a new thing. And if rich Dutch people buy them, there’s much less bashing somehow.

And selling nice houses in a good neighbourhood needs a sexy name, n’est-ce pas? The brochure that is doing the rounds and making people laugh out loud swaps out ‘Bos en Lommer’ for a poor French translation, ’Bois & Lombre’ (‘Bois’ like ‘Bos’ means either woods, wood or forest and ‘Lombre’, meaning ‘shadow’ should be spelled ‘l’ombre’. And ‘Bos’ in Amsterdam usually refers to a park with lots of trees because we don’t have forests, a prime example of a sexed up term.

There’s a beautiful Dutch word that describes when someone uses English to make a Dutch word sounds sexier: ‘aandikengels’ (roughly, ‘thickening English’, thickening as in pouring it on thick).

We’re calling it, as a new Dutch word is born: ‘aandikfrans’ (‘thickening French’), which has no Google hits as I write this.

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January 4, 2019

Criminal tries trump card to stay out of jail

Filed under: Weird by Orangemaster @ 10:31 am

Police in Rotterdam arrested a man for threatening his ex and possessing weapons and possibly guns while entering her home. This information was not completely correct, but the man did violate his parole and had to go to prison.

Once arrested, the man showed the cops a ‘get out of jail free’ card that comes with the world-famous Monopoly game and the cops had a good belly laugh.

“We gave the man credit for his originality and laughed really hard together, but unfortunately we’re putting him in jail.” And in jail the man will stay for 84 days.

(Link: waarmaarraar.nl)

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January 2, 2019

Dutch record malpractice claim sees patient die

Filed under: History by Orangemaster @ 12:39 pm

Happy New Year! Now let’s get to it.

Irish woman Adrienne Cullen had been campaigning for transparency in hospital care after she was left with terminal cervical cancer due to a grave medical error at a Dutch hospital, the mostly costly in Dutch medical history, to the tune of €545,000.

Sadly, Cullen passed away right before the new year, aged 58.

She had undergone tests in the Netherlands in 2011, but only two years later did doctors notice she had cancer. By 2015 her cancer had spread, and it was terminal. UMCU teaching hospital in Utrecht offered her €500,000 as long as she signed a gagging order to shut her up. Not taking this lying down, Cullen starting campaigning for more transparency about medical errors, and I bet told them to stuff it.

As well as giving lecture in her final days, Cullen was given an honorary doctorate by the University of Cork in Ireland. Her book ‘Deny, Dismiss, Dehumanize: What Happened When I went to Hospital’ will be published soon. Her entire story didn’t go unnoticed by the Dutch-language media either.

(Link: dutchnews.nl)

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December 29, 2018

British postage stamp depicts the wrong war

Filed under: History by Orangemaster @ 12:15 pm

The Royal Mail of Britain has presented a collection of stamps online that are due to be issued next year, marking the 75th anniversary of D-Day, depicting the Normandy landings of the Allied troops. Problem is, the stamps actually show Americans troops in what is now modern-day Indonesia (Dutch New Guinea), 13,679 kilometres away from Normandy.

People on social media were quick to point out that the image appears on the American National WWII Museum website and is attributed to the US Coast Guard, showing troops carrying stretchers from a landing craft at Sarmi, Dutch New Guinea on 17 May 1944. As well, the D-Day landings took place on 6 June that year, when British, US and Canadian forces landed on the beaches of northern France.

Not only was the wrong image called ’embarrassing’ online, but it’s probably one of the last times that anyone old enough to have been involved in the war will see these stamps, making it extra embarrassing, according to Paul Woodadge, 49, a D-Day historian. As well, a Twitter account for World War Two tours of Jersey tweeted the Royal Mail to point out that the featured ship, LCI-30, did not participate in the Normandy landings.

In the meantime, Royal Mail has apologised and will correct their error. Here’s a case where if social media or the Internet wasn’t around, the mistake would have been even greater, as people would only have noticed the mistake after the stamps were printed.

(Link and photo: bbc.com)

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