March 5, 2016

Book exchange in Nijmegen made of dead trees

Filed under: General,Literature,Nature,Sustainability by Branko Collin @ 9:57 pm

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This charming little street library was spotted today by us in the Lindenholt neighbourhood of Nijmegen. It’s made of tree trunks with added plastic curtains shielding books from the elements. Patrons are supposed to swap books, which means take one out, put one of your their own back in. The tree was placed there in 2014. Two other book trees have been added to the neighbourhood since.

The idea of using real dead trees to house the proverbial ones is not new. A German project that aims to promote women in construction, Baufachfrau, has been adding similar kiosks to the streets of Berlin since 2006 as part of the international Bookcrossing project.

In our neck of the woods, Amsterdam, it’s actually a bit trendy for houses to feature ‘outdoor bookcases’ (‘buiten boekenkasten’), but then Google shows us it’s cool throughout the country.

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March 3, 2016

Serial letter writer sentenced to jail

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 5:35 pm

In 2013 a court told Mustafa Karasahin to limit his unrelenting letter writing to Dordrecht city hall to 10 letters a month, which he didn’t do. After fining and even detaining him twice, the message ironically didn’t get through and now he’s finally being thrown in jail for two years with eight months probation for writing harassing letters.

Karasahin got into it with the city for illegally renting out rooms and was marked as a slum lord, not winning him any sympathy once he finally went bankrupt. And since he’s broke, he won’t have to pay any compensation for damages. According to the court, his flow of letters between 2013 and 2015 cost the city a whopping 1.24 million euro, not counting another estimated 250,000 to 300,000 euro for 2016.

Enjoy your new small room, dude, and don’t write.

(Link: www.binnenlandsbestuur.nl)

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February 29, 2016

Amsterdam Central Station’s shared space is successful

Filed under: Bicycles,General by Orangemaster @ 1:06 pm

First the media complained about how dangerous it looked, with opinions ranging from ‘completely bonkers’ and ‘sign this petition’, which have now turned into ‘yeah, but don’t be in a rush’ (video) and ‘hey, it actually works for 39,000 commuters a day’.

After a major redesign of the space behind Amsterdam Central Station, where the many ferries take commuters across the IJ river to Amsterdam-Noord, cyclists and pedestrians need to navigate a sea of each other in a no-traffic-rules-figure-it-out-among-yourselves zone. The idea is that a shared space avoids using traffic lights, and if it had been a total disaster full of accidents, the city would have changed it, but now the shared space is deemed successful.

People coming off ferries on bikes and scooters are definitely to be avoided as a pedestrian, then again, if I’m in their way, it’s up to them to go around me. I’ve actually been there on roller skates at night and that went well. According to Het Parool newspaper, in three months, there has been one ‘incident’ where a cyclist hit a scooter and got back on their bike and buzzed off. They say that cyclists are a bit less aggressive and more polite to pedestrians there as well, and all the naysayers, including us, although we kept it down the pub, have been proven wrong.

Have a look at this time-lapse video and see for yourselves:

Timelapse van de shared space bij Centraal Station from Gemeente Amsterdam on Vimeo.

(Links: www.parool.nl, citinerary.net)

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February 26, 2016

Groningen University wins bullshit bingo slogan award

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 10:31 am

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Last November we told you about the Dunglish/bullshit bingo fest that made up Dutch university slogans, and we even had a favourite horse in the running.

“One sticks out above the rest in our view, it’s the RUG with ‘Born Leaders Reach For Infinity’ that has the flow of an acronym, but the appeal of an overflowing bin bag with rotten food begging to be taken out.”

We proudly picked a winner. I even did a search using the word ‘infinity’ to find our original posting.

The second place goes to the University of Amsterdam with ‘We are U’, ‘U’ here is the Dutch word for ‘you’ and a nod to the word university, which is oddly quite North American. Third place was taken up by Leiden University and their ‘Excel in Freedom’ albeit actually in their own language ‘Excelleren in vrijheid’, which is airy, like the clouds in the sky.

These awards are part of a debate about university financing because someone paid someone good money to come up with these ridiculous slogans while universities waste money badly mimicking businesses rather than act like proper universities.

(Link: platform-hnu.nl)

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February 18, 2016

Learn good Dutch grammar with rock music

Filed under: General,Literature,Music by Orangemaster @ 5:12 pm

Dutch spelling is often a headache for many people from foreigners to children because it officially changes a lot. A series aimed at children called ‘Snap je?’ (‘Get it?’) deals with the dreaded conjugation of verbs where after the root of the verb there’s a ‘d’ or ‘t’ added to it, something that is tough to get right.

Dutch verbs with a stem ending in ‘d’ add a ‘t’ for the second and third person singular, but it does not change the pronunciation because ‘d’ at the end of a word is pronounced like a ‘t’, while ‘dt’ is pronounced as ‘t’, according to a quick explanation from Hear Dutch Here. In other words we often can’t hear the difference between the ‘d’ and ‘t’ at the end of any word because ‘d’ is voiced and ‘t’ is voiceless and it gets worse when you have ‘dt’ together. Getting any of this wrong is commonly referred to as a ‘d-t mistake’ in Dutch. It also makes a difference in tense in some words, so it is a big deal to get it right.

For anyone who knows French, when we get stuck with how to write the ending of a verb in the right tense we use the verb ‘vendre’ (‘to sell’) as a default and then conjugate our chosen verb accordingly. The Dutch in this video suggest the exact same with the verb ‘lopen’ (‘to walk’). And then there’s the fact that the band from Nijmegen De Staat wrote the music behind these fun grammar lessons, so give it a whirl.

(Link: www.ed.nl)

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February 12, 2016

Toilet attendant ‘sacked’ but not an employee

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 3:49 pm
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A Dutch chain of cafeteria-type restaurants has been sold off, and one of the things the new owners have done is get rid of their ‘volunteer’ toilet attendants.

Dutch toilet attendants are more often than not female pensioners of modest background who ‘beg’ for change in exchange for keeping an establishment’s toilets clean, the toilet paper stocked, and so on. I say ‘beg’ because they usually don’t ask for money directly, as Dutch social etiquette dictates we should pay them the amount suggested usually indicated next to a collection dish. A lot of people have issues with this, as they find it exploitative and because going to the toilet shoud be free and part of the service.

These women are apparently not appreciated enough to be hired as employees although they work for companies like fast food chains and what not that are swimming in money. In the case of the cafeteria-type restaurants, they’ve decided to actually hire employees to clean toilets like in train stations and elsewhere, and also believe toilets should be used for free.

While it is sad that a toilet attendant is being ‘dismissed’, it’s still sadder that rich companies feel it is perfectly OK to exploit these vulnerable people, a non-job that’s traditionally female and as devalued as a non-job can be with begging, buying their own cleaning supplies (!) and ‘working’ long hours. The fact that a company would rather pay people to properly clean toilets means they are cleaning up their act, not taking away someone’s government-subsidised non-livelihood.

Letting someone perform work for small change is the definition of modern-day slavery and should be abolished.

(Link: www.telegraaf.nl)

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February 4, 2016

Rutte sends spelling mistake into space

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 12:04 pm

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who isn’t known for his command of English, has made sure everyone in the galaxy knows his written English isn’t out of this world either.

While visiting California, Rutte was invited by a satellite manufacturer to send a message into space with his signature on it. He wrote down “Peace and prosparity”, instead of ‘prosperity’. In his defense, in Dutch the ‘e’ and ‘a’ of English sounds the same to many Dutch people. But he’s the PM and someone in his entourage (does he have one?) could have said something.

Of course, this small mistake is a vast improvement on his predecessor Jan Peter Balkenende who apparently addressed George Bush as ‘your presidency’. Then again Bush apparently also thought JP was from Belgium because a lot of European countries look the same.

(Link: www.deondernemer.nl, Photo by Petra de Boevere, some rights reserved)

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January 24, 2016

Almost no more free plastic bags in shops

Filed under: General,Sustainability by Orangemaster @ 6:10 pm

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As of 1 January 2016, free plastic bags, the thin ones given out by shops and markets, are illegal. We get it: there’s plastic bags in our seas and forests and it has to stop. However, there are exceptions, as my local baker can still give me a thin plastic bag with my bread. The exceptions have to do with food that otherwise couldn’t be reasonably protected like bread, fresh fruit and vegetables or raw fish. Sealed plastic bags at airport tax-free shops and in the plane remain legally free as well.

For quite some time the Dutch have been used to carrying around plastic shopping bags or cloth ones for buying food, and no fuss is made about having to pay around 0.10 euro for a good one at supermarkets. In October 2015 shops in the UK had to stop dispensing free thin bags and now charge 5p (0.06 euro) for one, something that you’ll hear British people complain about a lot. Exceptions in the UK are pretty much the same as here. Recap: the UK pays 0.06 euro for the crappy thin ones, while for 0.10 we can get one that’s three-four times the size, way thicker and actually reusable.

Instead of getting rid of the next to useless thin bags in the UK and replace them with good ones, charging for something that wasn’t quality in the first place is a bit odd. If you read these stories though, you’d think paying 5p was equal to giving away your first born.

Time to start carrying the big ones around like we do and stop the plastic soup. Simples.

In 2014 an Amsterdam district decided to ban disposable plastic bags, and once again the world didn’t end.

(Link: www.rijksoverheid.nl, Photo by Kate ter Haar, some rights reserved)

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January 6, 2016

How to miss out on millions in the lottery

Filed under: General,Weird by Orangemaster @ 11:37 am

Lottery story No. 1: young man from Sittard, Limburg buys four tickets for the New Year’s Eve lottery draw and figures he’s won because the draw is done based on your exact postal code (numbers and letters).

However, he had a standing order with the bank for his tickets and it didn’t go through because he didn’t have enough money in his account. He wants to sue, but he’ll probably lose.

The jackpot was 43.9 million euro, half of which was divided among 15 winners and the other half divided among other people in the same postal code, save the letters.

Then there’s lottery story No. 2: a man from Amsterdam thought he had won 2.1 million euro, but his ex wife had something to say about it.

Married for 30 years, a couple separated, the man moved out of their home while going through the divorce, but sometime after he had moved out, the postal code of their home was the winning lottery number.

Although the couple was still married but separated and not living together, the man didn’t jointly pay for the ticket, his wife argued. He took her to court and lost.

They had played the lottery together for 30 years, but once he moved, he stopped paying his share. She proved that they had actually been living separately for four years and that he had moved in with his new, younger girlfriend.

The judge took the woman’s side purely because the man had not paid for the lottery ticket and that he had already moved out and moved on.

Moral of both stories: make sure you’ve actually paid for your lottery tickets.

(Links: www.waarmaarraar.nl, nos.nl)

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January 4, 2016

Duindorp wins bonfire battle, sets new world record

Filed under: General,Nature by Orangemaster @ 11:03 am

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On 31 December the battle of the Christmas bonfires in South Holland was heatedly contested between Duindorp in the North and Scheveningen in the South, both on the beach. Current world record holder Duindorp ignited its fiery rivalry against Scheveningen to win by 50 metres in height, with a fire that was 4,000 cubic metres.

Duindorp took the win with a stack measuring 33.80 metres in height as compared to Scheveningen’s stack of 33.30 metres, which made all the difference, setting a new world record, confirmed by the Guinness Book of World Records who I guess kept warm and took notes.

On January 3 in Amsterdam families and friends got together on the Museumplein with the Rijksmuseum as a backdrop to burn Christmas trees, a tradition that kicked off in 2009 and is now an annual event. Back then the pile of trees slowly being added to the bonfire caught fire and the fire brigade had to intervene. Nowadays there’s a fence around the bonfire and the police are there as well for crowd control.

(Link: www.nltimes.nl)

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