September 23, 2012

KAW Architects put women’s shelter out in the open

Filed under: Architecture,General by Branko Collin @ 12:22 pm

De Veilige Veste (‘the Safe Fortress’) in Leeuwarden is an old police station repurposed as a shelter for young women who have become the victims of ‘lover boys’ (young pimps), abuse, human trafficking and the likes.

KAW Architects write: “these girls used to be hidden from view, but modern media hound them. That is why shelter organisation Fier Fryslân came up with the idea of ‘visible but safe’.”

The building will house up to 48 women aged 15 to 23, and still have room for 1600 square metres of office space. Visitors will have to pass four security measures to get in. Fier Fryslân figures these measures will hardly be necessary, as the perpetrators typically don’t want to come out in the open anyway.

If you don’t understand what they say in this video by Omrop Fryslan, don’t worry, neither do we. It is presented in Frisian, although the interviews are in Dutch.

(Link: Inhabitat. Image: KAW Architects)

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September 20, 2012

Rotterdam to open ’embassy’ in Amsterdam

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 12:20 pm

Back in 2009 the region of Twente planned to open an ’embassy’ in Amsterdam. No idea if they actually did, but it sounded cool.

Now the city of Rotterdam, the Netherlands’ second largest city, is scheduled to open an ’embassy’ (delegate, house of Rotterdam) in the capital.

According to one of the initiators Kristian Koreman, the ’embassy’ must ensure more “intercultural exchanges” between Rotterdam and Amsterdam (aka 010 and 020, phone exchanges and pet names for the cities) “We will open next Wednesday in Pakhuis de Zwijger (shown above) and be open periodically.”

Of course, Rotterdam will also get an Amsterdam ’embassy’ , which will open its doors on 21 November in Rotterdam.

(Link: www.at5, Photo of Pakhuis de Zwijger, hub for many “new media” events and initiatives in Amsterdam, by bMA, may be used under condition that the source is mentioned.)

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September 19, 2012

Weed grower electrocuted in neighbour’s crawlspace

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 12:58 pm

Two weeks ago a man from De Meern near Utrecht was found dead in the crawlspace of his neighbour’s house.

According to the Utrecht police, the 46-year-old had electrocuted himself trying to steal his neighbour’s electricity. He had dug a tunnel underneath the foundation of both houses. The police had to cut out the neighbour’s floor to retrieve the corpse, which they believe had been lying there for no more than a day.

Parool adds that the man was a marijuana grower, which would explain why he had been looking for ways to lower his electricity bills, as weed growers use high powered lamps.

Earlier this year a 23-year-old weed grower from Oss in Noord Brabant was also electrocuted while working in his marijuana nursery.

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September 15, 2012

Saturday shorts: phone book dies, Dobben croquette disappears, other free market failures

Filed under: Food & Drink,General,Health by Branko Collin @ 12:51 pm

De Telefoongids to fire hundreds of employees

The phone book company that is trying to silence Alexander Klöpping is planning to fire 30% of its 800 employees, Z24 reports.

According to European Directories, the ‘restructuring’ is necessary for a print-to-online transition. The company has also declared that it plans to continue distribution of its paper phone book, despite opposition of Dutch parliament, amongst others.

Klöpping had registered the domain sterftelefoongidssterf.nl (‘die, phone book, die’), which he redirected to the presumed cancellation page of the phone book.

Famous croquette to disappear from supermarket shelves because of anti-monopoly rules

Snack producer Royaan can no longer use its famous brand Van Dobben in supermarkets if it wants to continue its merger with Ad van Geloven (of amongst other the Mora brand).

The Dutch anti-monopoly agency NMa has determined that Royaan must license the brand for supermarket use to another manufacturer during a period of six years according to NOS. After that the brand must be discontinued. The brand may still be used in snack bars; according to NMa there are still enough players in that market to keep it healthy. The intended merger of the snack giants was announced in November 2011.

Krokets or croquettes are a Dutch snack that consists of ragout deep-fried in a breadcrumb jacket.

Experiment with dental free market must be stopped

A recent, nationwide experiment in which dentists could determine their own rates must be stopped the court in The Hague said last Wednesday.

According to Z24, dentists’ rates had risen 6% since the start of the experiment. When Dutch parliament indicated in July it wanted to have the experiment stopped, the association for dentists sued the caretaker minister for public health, but lost. The experiment started in January of this year and was to run for three years.

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September 14, 2012

Cute blonde princesses on children’s charity stamps

Filed under: General,Photography by Orangemaster @ 9:49 am

A new series of charity stamps (‘kinderpostzegels’), which are sold door to door by school children raising money for poor kids in poor countries , will feature the ‘Triple AAA’, aka Princesses Amalia, Alexia and Ariane, the daughters of Prince Willem Alexander and Princess Máxima. The Triple AAA joke was said by the Prince himself once, we can’t take credit for that.

Starting 26 September, one of the 200,000 school children who sell these stamps will ring my neighbour’s door bell and sell him pics of the young blonde Dutch royals. In November, the stamps will be available for purchase at the post office.

(Link and photo: binnenland.nieuws.nl)

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September 8, 2012

Cops with debts may be fired

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 2:45 pm

Being in debt is a valid reason to be fired as a police officer, a court has ruled.

The Centrale Raad van Beroep, an appeals court for civil servants, came to this conclusion in the case of a police man with ‘many debts’, as NOS Nieuws puts it. He had been reprimanded in 2005, and when that did not work he was fired in 2009.

The court argued that officers with access to all kinds of databases open themselves up to blackmail, which makes them a greater security risk. Police officers are therefore expected to live up to higher standards.

In the Netherlands jobs are protected. You can only fire an employee through the courts, unless there is a strong reason for immediate dismissal.

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September 5, 2012

Mayor of Maastricht does 180 on weed pass

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 9:04 pm

This April we announced the coming of the weed pass for NL residents only, supposed to deter cross border drug buying in the southern provinces of Limburg, Brabant and Zeeland. The weed pass will be introduced in the rest of the country as of January 2013, and Amsterdam is already gearing up for some sort of a fight.

The mayor of Maastricht, Onno Hoes, was a big fan of introducing the pass until this week. He now believes that coffeeshops shouldn’t be members only clubs, saying people are now avoiding coffeeshops.

You don’t say! Creating a database of weed smokers is not only awkward for the smokers, but it is a hassle and a half for coffeeshop owners. I know this for a fact, as I tried to buy a joint recently in the South to see how that went. Oh, and you don’t get a pass, what’s that all about, man.

First of all, besides meeting friendly all-female staff, they did need to see some ID and not any kind of letter stating where I actually lived. Second, besides telling me which parties I should vote for in the upcoming election with regard to the weed pass, they showed me their membership administration: a bunch of recipe cards in a box, nothing digital. They said if the cops come in, they need to be able to show their membership. I guess if it’s on a computer, you can’t produce it as quickly as with a rolodex, but that all sounds very shifty to me.

Someone else also said that forcing the south to follow the law, while other provinces don’t have to abide by that same law just yet isn’t really fair, either.

This story is far from over as it’s a matter of time before smart people from Amsterdam will figure out a way to buy weed for tourists and make a killing from it.

(Link: www.nu.nl)

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September 3, 2012

Red heads break world record in Breda

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 1:03 pm

The biggest gathering of red heads in the world took place in Breda yesterday, netting the city on Noord-Brabant a fresh mention in the Guinness Book of Records.

Some 5,000 gingers from over 60 countries descended upon the city for its annual Red Head Day. To break the old record of most natural red heads gathered in a single enclosed space, Breda had to collect more than 892 of them. In the end 1,255 red haired people did the job. The old record was established in 2010.

Brabant’s cities seem to like these record attempts. In 2007 Tilburg set the world fire breathing record, and later that same Breda set the record for cola fountains.

RTL Nieuws has a couple of photos of the event.

(Link: De Stentor. Photo of last years visitors by Eddy Van 3000, some rights reserved)

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September 2, 2012

Dutch Rail abused privacy ‘anonymous’ transport card users, and more

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 2:27 pm

Dutch Rail is on a roll. Last Tuesday Webwereld reported that the state-owned monopolist has been sending spam to the users of the ‘anonymous’ version of the OV-chipkaart, the troubled Dutch transport card.

According to the tech news site, users of the anonymous card, with which you can pay for travel across modes and providers, had to give Dutch Rail their e-mail address in order to be able to travel with the company—presumably so that Dutch rail could differentiate between first and second class. Dutch Rail would then, however, abuse those addresses by inundating them with spam.

Earlier Dutch Rail was fined 125,000 euro by the Dutch privacy authority CBP for storing sensitive data about student travellers for too long.

It has not been a good week for Dutch Rail. Yesterday De Volkskrant reported that the company has been evading taxes by buying trains using a subsidiary in Ireland. The subsidiary would then leases those trains to the Dutch parent company. Train companies pay 9% in taxes in Ireland, but 25% in the Netherlands.

Par for the course for big business, you say? That may be true, but Dutch Rail is owned by the government. Basically, this is the example the Dutch state is setting to all tax payers. To make matters worse, Dutch Rail has a monopoly on all the juicy routes in the country. Other transport companies are allowed to run trains in the country, but only in areas that are not as profitable.

Suffice it to say that politicians were not happy, with for example PvdA (Labour) leader Diederik Samson calling Dutch Rails’ tactics ‘wrong’ and an example of ‘a lack of morals’. It is unclear to me whether politicians are upset because of Dutch Rails’ behaviour, or because their baby got caught red-handed.

(Photo by Flickr user UggBoy hearts UggGirl, some rights reserved)

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August 29, 2012

Passing off Thai coins for euro coins

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 4:02 pm

Canadian quarters in washers and dryers at the laundromat in the US and in Canada, old 20 French frank coins, if I remember correctly, for the parking meters, which probably works in the US as well: every country has their slugs (see definition No. 3).

Since the introduction of the euro, it has been easy to pass off certain lesser coins for euro, at the least the one and two euro coins. Pictured here is a 1 bolívar fuerte from Venezuela that was passed off to me as a 1 euro coin.

According to Amsterdam newspaper Het Parool, people who have been to Thailand are freely using Thai 10 bath coins, which are worth about 24 euro cents. Although there’s a king and a temple on the 10 bath, the similar colour scheme confuse folks who don’t check these things, especially in a bar or taxi. Well, that’s how I landed the fuerte.

“We estimate that lately at least 10,000 of these coins are circulating in the Netherlands, says Sander van Golberdinge, Deputy Director for Detailhandel Nederland — the umbrella organisation for all retail trade in the Netherlands.”

(Link: www.dutchamsterdam.nl)

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