February 28, 2012

Bam! First roller derby bout in the Netherlands

Filed under: Dutch first,Sports by Branko Collin @ 10:43 am

Last Saturday the entire 24 Oranges team (yes, all two of us!) were at the first official roller derby match (’bout’ in derby jargon) of the Netherlands, held in Amsterdam between the Amsterdam Derby Dames and the Roller Girls of the Apocalypse (Kaiserslautern, Germany).

Roller derby is a full contact sport on wheels in which designated scorers need to pass a pack of blockers for points. We covered the basics before in an article about the first unofficial match (‘scrimmage’) last year.

Oohs and aahs ensued in the packed and beautiful Apollohal (on regular days a basketball venue) whenever Amsterdam’s Abs of Steel stepped on the floor, as even those among the visitors who had never been to a bout saw how she tossed unwilling opponents aside like rag dolls. You can see her earn that Most Valuable Player award in this video by Paul Siegman:

Despite heavy resistance from the German women, the Amsterdam Derby Dames kept adding to an early lead and in the end won the match 105 – 69. Our very own Orangemaster could not compete because of a broken leg she got in a practice match in Antwerp, but this did give Nasty Moves (her derby name) a chance to keep people entertained with music and informed on Twitter of the score.

Currently there are 12 roller derby leagues in the country. The women-run sport was re-started and re-imagined around 2001 in Texas, USA, and has made great strides ever since in that country, and is slowly and steadily growing in popularity in the rest of the world.

As always I will be adding a photo impression to our Flickr account later on (see the sidebar).

Update: the photos have been uploaded to Flickr.

(Video: Youtube / Paul Siegman)

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February 26, 2012

Bicycle thief caught because he could not reach the pedals

Filed under: Bicycles,General by Branko Collin @ 1:48 pm

Last Friday a man in Nijmegen drew the attention of the local constabulary because he failed to reach the pedals of the bicycle he was riding on the Hazenkampseweg.

A quick check of the frame number by the police officers who had been driving in an unmarked car that the bike had been stolen on January 13 from the Dukenberg shopping centre. The 21-year-old man was apprehended on suspicion of theft and handling stolen goods.

The bicycle will be returned to its owner.

(Link: politie.nl)

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February 25, 2012

The American ambassador’s jewels have been found

Filed under: Weird by Branko Collin @ 12:25 pm

So this news was already covered two weeks ago by DutchNews.nl, but I thought it so remarkable that I felt it’d warrant another mention.

Six years ago Dawn Arnall, wife to then-US ambassador, sub-prime crisis architect and billionaire Roland Arnall, forgot her 9,000,000 US dollar jewellery in the lobby of an unnamed hotel in The Hague.

She reported the jewellery as stolen, though the press doesn’t say to whom.

Hotel staff found a satchel containing the jewellery, which was apparently so big and garish that they mistook it for costume jewellery.

Presumably neither the insurer (who paid out) nor the police bothered to check with the hotel, and the treasure went unclaimed for six months. It was then handed over to a cleaning lady who left it in her linen closet for five years, until her curiosity got the better of her.

The cleaning lady brought the jewellery for appraisement to a jeweler who, the police of The Hague joke, is probably still on artificial respiration.

She then brought the jewellery to the police, who sent it back to the US, whatever that is supposed to mean.

The jewellery consisted of a necklace containing a 4 million euro pink 5-carat diamond, and various other jewels worth 3 million euro. The finder is hoping for a reward, although it is not certain that anybody is obliged to pay one.

Since there are holes in this story big enough to park an entire zoo in, if our readers have any additional information I would sure like to hear about it.

(Photo of unrelated costume jewellery by GlitzUK, some rights reserved)

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February 20, 2012

Red Cross first aid app downloaded 322,000 times, applied 1,500 times

Filed under: Health,Technology by Branko Collin @ 10:50 am

The Dutch Red Cross reports that its smart phone first aid app EHBO Op Zak (‘first aid in the pocket’) has been downloaded 322,000 times.

A survey among 6,400 users also indicated that the app has been used to help give first aid 1,500 times.

The app is free and is available for the IOS, Android and Mango platforms. It contains instructions on what to do for 54 types of emergencies. The app was launched in the Summer of 2011 in the Netherlands, and a similar app was launched in December 2011 in the UK.

For those without a smart phone there is a PDF with 7 scenarios.

(iPhone screenshot: iTunes / rodekruis.nl)

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February 19, 2012

US presidential candidate’s Minute of Lies

Filed under: Weird by Branko Collin @ 12:14 pm

Said conservative US presidential candidate Rick Santorum during a campaign stop:

Well in the Netherlands people wear a different bracelet if you are elderly. And the bracelet is ‘do not euthanise me’. Because they have voluntary euthanasia in the Netherlands. But half the people that are euthanised every year, and it’s ten percent of all deaths, half of those people are euthanised involuntarily at the hospitals, because they are older and sick.

And so elderly people in the Netherlands don’t go to the hospital. They go to another country. Because they are afraid, because of budget purposes, that they will not come out of that hospital to [inaudible].

Look at what has happened just in our tolerance of abortion. Fifty years ago, people who did abortions, sixty years ago, people who did abortions were, you know, in the shadows, or people who were considered really bad doctors. Now abortion is something that is just accepted. Well, of course people do abortions, it’s legal, it’s fine, there are no moral and ethical problems. This is the erosion, and it happens in the medical profession, and it can happen very fast, and I think Obamacare will lead us down that road.

None of this is true, of course, and even though it is the weekend the Dutch press is already having a field day with this. NRC writes: “Santorum thinks he knows the Netherlands“. Powned dubs Santorum’s “a surreal view“, OK, so maybe not a field day. Everybody knows that you just let a madman spout his gibberish, I guess.

Should this mentally unhinged person ever become president of the USA though, he will control the world’s largest arsenal of chemical and nuclear weapons. Besides that minor worry, just enjoy this bit of mainstream crazy, because it does not get much sillier than this.

(Video: Youtube / RightWingWatch.org. Photo by Gage Skidmore, some rights reserved.)

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February 18, 2012

Dutch banks won’t employ anti-skimming hook

Filed under: Technology by Branko Collin @ 5:56 pm

Banks like ING, ABN Amro and Rabobank refuse to fit their ATMs with special anti-skimming devices that have proven successful on ticket vending machines, Webwereld reported last Wednesday.

This despite the fact that, according to the same publication, skimming is still very much a problem in the Netherlands. In January the police caught a Romanian gang of skimmers that stole from the bank accounts of thousands of people.

Dutch Rail and Amsterdam’s public transport company GVB claim that since they introduced the so-called anti-skimming hook, their ticket vending machines have no longer been misused by skimmers.

The hook lets you insert your bank or credit card. If skimmers manage to remove the hook, the entire machine shuts down.

ING and Rabobank claim that they employ their own anti-skimming technology, ABN Amro says that it isn’t easy to fit existing machines with the hooks. Bank cards both chips and magnetic strips on them, the latter being susceptible to misuse. Banks have started a campaign to encourage consumers to use the chip rather than the magnetic strip. The latter cannot fully be replaced, as magnetic strips are still required in countries like the USA which have yet to adopt the chip-based technology.

(Photo of an anti-skimming hook discovered during a police raid, by Politie Haaglanden)

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February 13, 2012

Gliding along Amsterdam’s frozen canals

Filed under: Film by Branko Collin @ 6:34 pm

Somebody called Typevideos posted this beautiful little film of the citizens of Amsterdam enjoying the frozen canals on their skates on YouTube:

See also: Dutch Winter (video).

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Light tables keep dementia patients lively

Filed under: Design,Technology by Branko Collin @ 1:06 pm

Loek Canton graduated with honours as a design engineer in Delft last Friday with the design of a table that produces light. In cooperation with psychology students from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, he studied the effects of his table on dementia sufferers.

According to the Delft University of Technology, “fifteen elderly people took part. [Loek Canton] observed the effects of the light tables on the residents by interviewing participants and care staff. ‘The initial results provide a positive indication that the light tables have the desired effect on the activity and mood of participants’, says Canton. ‘When using the tables, residents sleep less, are more active and communicate more. The light tables were well received by participants, as they interacted with the objects.’”

(Link: De Pers. Video: Youtube / Loek Canton.)

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February 12, 2012

‘Street comber’ Krista Peeters makes one piece of art out of garbage per day

Filed under: Art by Branko Collin @ 10:33 am

Krista Peeters calls herself the straatjutter, the ‘street comber’, and every day she makes one small art piece of stuff she finds on the street.

She keeps track of where her finds come from. The piece shown here is called ‘Why, thank you, they’re lovely! Let me get a vase…’, and was created from garbage found on 10 February 2012 on the Dapperstraat in Amsterdam: fake grass, a plastic thingamajig, 3 buttons, a lamp holder, a thumbtack, a plastic cap, half a bike light, something technical, and a bent safety pin.

According to Bright the artist is currently looking for a place where she can exhibit a year’s worth of works by March.

See also: “On the beaches of Texel only left shoes are ever found” (about the Netherlands’ beach combing culture).

(Photo of Friday’s art work by Krista Peeters)

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February 11, 2012

83-year-old woman gets 3D-printed titanium jaw implant

Filed under: Health,Technology by Branko Collin @ 12:35 pm

BBC News writes:

A lower jaw created by a 3D printer has been fitted to an 83-year-old woman’s face in what doctors say is the first operation of its kind.

The transplant was carried out in June in the Netherlands, but is only now being publicised. The implant was made out of titanium powder – heated and fused together by a laser, one layer at a time.

The operation was performed in a hospital in Sittard-Geleen in Limburg. The jaw was made by a company called Layerwise from Leuven, Belgium, which published this video of the process:

According to De Pers, the woman got to go home after just 4 days in the hospital. She will receive matching teeth ‘soon’.

(Video: Youtube / Layerwise)

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