February 19, 2020

Vintage Dutch tech site calls it a day

Filed under: History,Online,Technology by Orangemaster @ 5:50 pm

Webwereld, one of the oldest tech news sites of the Netherlands, is going to cease to exist. We enjoyed using them as a source for subjects such as high speed wireless internet (wimax), NL-alert (national alarm system), net neutrality and quite a few more.

The tech-savvy site had been around since 1995, and editorial staff were sent packing about a month ago. The site will go offline on 1 March, and its owner, IDG, will apparently continue on with business sites.

Way back in in the day, having a 24-hour online news service about IT was a big deal and quite new, at least in such a small country and language region as the Netherlands. One of the cool things they did was launch ‘lektober’ (‘leaktober’) in 2011, which featured company data leaks back when companies didn’t quite know how to deal with them (they still don’t, but OK).

Thanks for the good stories, Webwereld!

(Link: bright.nl)

Tags: , ,

February 12, 2020

Dutch artist tattoos 6673 people for international artwork

Filed under: Art by Orangemaster @ 12:38 pm

Artist Sander van Bussel of Tilburg Cowboys came up with the Human Rights Tattoo in 2012 after the death of friend and human rights activist Steven ‘Nyash’ Nyagah from Kenya.

Being the largest, most profound living work of art to date, Human Rights Tattoo aims to give the Declaration a universal voice on a human level and daily basis.

The Human Rights Tattoo features the Universal Declaration of Human Rights letter for letter on 6773 people worldwide. Every individual gets one letter, and there’s currently some 2500 letters to go. There’s also a website that functions as a place where all the tattooed folks can talk to each other and share information.

(Links: fonkonline.nl, info.humanrightstattoo.org, Photo of Dragon tattoo by Deanna Wardin, some rights reserved)

Tags: , ,

February 10, 2020

Dutch shortage of medical devices on the horizon

Filed under: Health by Orangemaster @ 11:52 am

After a very long period in 2018 without being able to buy birth control pills due to a situation that was nothing short of a clusterfuck, there’s a looming shortage of medical devices waiting to happen in a few months and it seems many people are going to watch it happen.

Due to newer and stricter European rules that will apply as of May 26, thousands of medical devices people depend on will not be re-approved on time, causing a severe shortage of things like breast implants, artificial hips, knee prostheses, and pacemakers, putting healthcare at risk.

“Manufacturers draw their own line and do not indicate where the problems are. As well, manufacturers blame the inspection authorities. In the end, the patient may become the victim.” explains Ad Melkert of the Dutch Hospitals Association. In the Netherlands Melkert is synonymous with ‘Melkert jobs’, make-work projects that were meant to provide certain social classes with ‘busy work’.

“The products need a lot of certifications and there are too few organizations that can deliver that,” explains Erik Vollebregt of Amsterdam law firm Axon, representing medical companies struggling with the regulations. “Smaller manufacturers in particular are the victims. Large manufacturers are given priority over the small ones. It leads to preferential treatment for manufacturers who are willing to pay more for timely approval.”

I think the victims will be people, but what do I know.

(Link: nltimes.nl)

Tags: , , ,

February 5, 2020

University of Maastricht pays 197.000 euro in ransomware

Filed under: Technology by Orangemaster @ 4:21 pm

Just before Christmas, the University of Maastricht fell victim to a cyberattack, as their IT system was held hostage and shut down for weeks. The university saw no other way out than to pay a whopping 197.000 euro to get control back of their computers.

According to a computer security company, hackers got into the system after someone on a laptop clicked on a link in a phishing email. In October and November 2019, the hackers were getting ready to hold six servers hostage that didn’t have the proper updated security updates. On 21 November, they controlled the entire system, and on 23 December, they deactivated the antivirus software and froze up the entire IT system.

The hackers were probably Grace-RAT (TA505), an Eastern European, Russian-speaking cybercriminals who have been around since 2014 and from the likes of it, business is going well: 197,000 euro is a whole lot of ‘dengi’ (‘money’).

(Link: bright.nl)

Tags: , , , ,

January 29, 2020

Dutchman fails test 10 times, needs it to graduate

Filed under: Online,Science,Weird by Orangemaster @ 3:44 pm

For the past couple of years 22-year-old university student at the Eindhoven University of Technology keeps failing the same two exams over and over, stopping him from graduating. The exams are calculus and ‘some kind of algebra’, whatever that means. Both exams are from his first year, and he’s now in his fourth year.

He’s not too worried, but his friends think it’s amusing. On Heeft Daan calculus al gehaald (‘Has Daan finally passed calculus?’) you can check his progress. His friends helped build the site.

In the Netherlands grades go from 0 to 10, and on Daan’s last attempt at passing the calculus test, he got a two. “I felt like shit,” he said. In a way, I want to Daan to pass because he’s very much the underdog, and in another, I’m glad he’s not studying to be a doctor or a dentist.

There’s another Dutch concept that’s good to know, it’s called the ‘zesjescultuur’ (‘sixes culture’, as in 6 out of 10, a passing grade) and for many people that’s enough.

Daan’s the poster boy for it now.

(Link: www.nhnieuws.nl)

Tags: , , ,

January 8, 2020

Dutch book about ‘Depressing Destinations’ out in January

Filed under: Architecture,History,Literature by Orangemaster @ 1:44 pm

Publishing his second book roughly entitled ‘Depressing Destinations’ (‘Treurtrips’), journalist and photographer Mark van Wonderen decided to show the Dutch what a good chunk of their country really looks like.

“The Netherlands is a beautiful country that is neatly divided up. Ever square metre has been carefully arranged and countless zoning plans have been drawn up. When a place risks falling into disrepair, municipalities and project jump at the chance to fix the situation.”

Van Wonderen will show you half-abandoned malls, tacky buildings and lots of concrete in the wrong place: the dark side of quaint Dutch design is ‘treurnis’ (sad, gloomy and slowly falling apart). And he thinks it’s beautiful. In 2018, he wrote ‘Chin. Ind. Spec. Rest., a disappearing Dutch phenomenon’ about the last 1097 Chinese Indonesian restaurants in the country, the first four runs of which have completely sold out.

We’ll be at the launch!

(Photo of cover by Mark van Wonderen)

Tags:

January 7, 2020

Father spots his kids damaging property with fireworks

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 3:04 pm

2548206259_8eebaff3da_m

After all the property damage, injuries, fires and even deaths related to people using fireworks in the Netherlands on New Year’s Eve, the issue of anybody using fireworks is finally being hotly debated at the national level.

One father in Enschede, Overijssel who I bet thought his children were good kids, found out through social media that his kids are destructive little shits. Football club Sparta Enschede put out a film of the destructive little shits trashing the club’s stands on social media and the father recognised his destructive little shits. He contacted the club to tell them that and agreed to pay the 10,000 euro worth of damages caused by his destructive little shits.

“Luckily there are still honest people who accept responsibility,” one of the club’s Board members said. Hopefully dad will set a good example for these destructive little shits and punish them accorgdingly. It has not been mentioned whether the destructive little shits are also members of the club. I can’t imagine they would be welcome any time soon even as spectators.

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

Tags: , , ,

December 25, 2019

Christmas break at 24oranges HQ

Filed under: Food & Drink,General,History by Orangemaster @ 1:21 pm

We’ve been busy this year to the point of having a tough time posting this fall, but we should be back on top of things for 2020. It is Christmas day as I write this, and the plan is to eat Italian food, drink, listen to Christmas music and play with the little houses above, courtesy of a supermarket chain that has been handing them out.

Although many people complained about the plastic, after work on December 24 I was handed an entire box of these houses (the special offer was over) and could not resist taking as many home as I could. I decided to make a traditional Dutch winter scene for you, complete with an ‘oliebollen’ stand, a food usually eaten on New Year’s Eve, and ‘koek en zopie’, cake and a hot beverage with alcohol usually enjoyed after ice skating. It’s not winter at all here in Amsterdam, it’s 9 degrees!

As always, co-blogger Branko is working on his list of favourite stories of 2019, which should be online before the year is out.

Thanks to everyone for reading us and sharing the weird and fun news of 24oranges, and Happy Holidays!

Tags: ,

December 24, 2019

Frisian villages have first ever Frisian supermarkets

Filed under: Dutch first,General by Orangemaster @ 10:47 am


As of 20 December, the villages of Eastermar and Damwoude both have the ‘Dutch’ premiere of opening the first ever Frisian-language supermarkets. The Alles onder één dak (Everything under one roof, in Dutch) in Eastermar and the Albert Heijn in Damwoude have their advertising and signs all in Frisian, thanks to the support of the Afûk foundation that helps promote Frisian language and culture.

Fokke Jagersma of Afûk explains that the products are all in Dutch with Frisian explanations, which is not as exciting as having it all in Frisian for locals and tourists alike. However, the staff speaks Frisian, a language spoken by about 400,000 people in a country of 17.5 million. And apparently, tourists want to see Frisian when they go to the province of Friesland, so who knows what the future may bring. As well, there’s talk of a visit from the Ministry of internal Affairs in February.

(Links: nos.nl, eastermar.nl, Photo by Rupert Ganzer, some rights reserved)

Tags: , ,

December 23, 2019

Longest Dutch street name sign disappears

Filed under: Weird by Orangemaster @ 11:43 am

In Early December, not too long ago in a land not too far away – Duiven, Gelderland in the East of the country which some of you might know for its big Swedish furniture store – was able to claim they had the longest street name in the country: Laan van de landinrichtingscommissie Duiven-Westervoort (roughly, ‘The Duiven-Westervoort land use committee lane’).

However, the 2.6 meter-long sign disappeared or was removed two weeks after it was unveiled. It is unclear why the sign is gone: theft, repairs, who knows. And nobody knows if the city of Duiven is planning to make a new one. My money is on ‘stolen’ simply because the sign is so unique. The street had technically been around since 2010, but only recently got its own sign. Easy come, easy go.

Talking about signs always reminds me that an entire Dutch neighbourhood has street names based on Lord of the Rings.

(Link and sign: nos.nl)

Tags: , , , ,