April 28, 2017

Cold but animated King’s Day 2017

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 8:46 am

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King’s Day 2017 was colder than the previous Christmas, Weeronline.nl reports.

The temperature in De Bilt (where temperature for the country is measured) was 10.9 degrees, whereas at Christmas the temperature reached 11.8 degrees. Since 1949, when Queen’s Day was moved to April, this has happened only once before, namely last year.

People on social media are jokingly blaming King Willem-Alexander for the cold weather, as he moved the national holiday from 30 April to 27 April. Weeronline believes that the move of a mere 3 days does indeed make a difference. The average temperature on the 27th is one degree colder and on average also more rain falls.

In Amsterdam it hailed and rained a few times, but most of the time it was sunny with clouds. The 24 Oranges team braved the cold by dressing warm and, like last year, by hopping from bar to bar to drink warm beverages during our annual walk along the flea market of the Apollolaan and Stadionweg in Amsterdam.

We saw a lot of kids playing a decent violin and girl duos doing dance routines. As well, we heard more German-speaking sellers and noticed some serious Austrian traditional clothing sales.

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April 25, 2017

‘Bungee jumping compromises immune system’

Filed under: Science by Orangemaster @ 10:08 pm

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To conduct a study on the effects that a bungee jump might have, 20 volunteers who had never done bungee jumping before took the plunge at 60 m up at the Onze Lieve Vrouwe Gasthuis hospital in Amsterdam.

“The study site was located at the hospital grounds, where a crane was placed. Bungee jumps took place from an altitude of 60 m, under supervision and guidance from an experienced commercial bungee jump crew. On the morning of the study day, an intravenous access catheter was placed in the cubital vein [upper arm].“

Half of the volunteers had been previously treated with a three-day course of propranolol (a beta blocker), while the control group was not. Subsequent blood analyses showed that many of the volunteers who jumped showed obvious signs of stress before jumping, and so further studies might be needed to determine whether the immune system effects were caused by mental strain or by the physical stresses of the jump, or both.

(Link: improbable.com, Photo of Bungee by Mishimoto, some rights reserved)

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April 4, 2017

British film about Amsterdam films in Leiden

Filed under: Art,Film by Orangemaster @ 10:26 pm

Many people thought British actor Emma Watson would be in the Netherlands to film ‘The Miniaturist’, based on a book by Jessie Burton. The story is set in Amsterdam in 1686-1687, inspired by Petronella Oortman’s doll’s house on display at the Rijksmuseum. The more precise setting of the story is on the ‘Golden Bend’, what used to be the richest part of Amsterdam, depicted here around 1672 in a painting by Gerrit Adriaensz Berckheyde. Read up on the painting, it has quite a story to tell.

The funny thing is the few days of filming that took place in the Netherlands were done in Leiden, 45 kilometres down the road, and not in Amsterdam, which for anyone living in the capital is a bit odd. As far as the rest of the movie goes, it was mostly filmed in a studio in the United Kingdom.

According to the city of Leiden, Emma Watson was also in Leiden for the film, but production company Topkapi Films says that’s not the case, although the Dutch media still went with spreading rumours.

(Link: nieuws.nl, Photo: Rijksmuseum website)

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March 1, 2017

Dutch tattoo artist designs championship football

Filed under: Art,Sports by Orangemaster @ 11:07 am

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World-famous Dutch tattoo artist Hanky Panky (Henk Schiffmacher), who by the way is celebrating his 65th birthday and 40 years of tattooing at pop temple Paradiso in Amsterdam later this month, will be drawing the design on the Dutch championship (aka ‘Eredivisie’) football.

The football he will design is for the 2017-2018 Dutch championship season, done specially for the 60th anniversary of the Eredivisie and should represent Dutch culture.

According to Wikipedia, Hanky Panky is an expert in the field of body art, having curated exhibitions, written books, and presented TV shows on the subject. And he’s given tattoos to the likes of Anthony Kiedis from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Kurt Cobain (RIP) of Nirvana frontman and Lemmy (RIP) of Motörhead.

(Link: footballstories, Photo of Football by Bramus, some rights reserved)

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February 14, 2017

Bookshop owner wins in court over Hitler’s memoirs

Filed under: History,Literature by Orangemaster @ 8:27 pm

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Michiel van Eyck, owner of the Totalitarian Art Gallery in Amsterdam has won his case against the Dutch Jewish Federation about selling a signed copy of Adolf Hitler’s memoirs, ‘Mein Kampf’.

According to the Supreme Court, Van Eyck was selling the book as a historical item and not to spread hate. While the sale of Mein Kampf is banned in the Netherlands under anti-discrimination laws, it can easily be found online and in libraries, making the ban absurd and outdated.

(Photo by Adam Jones, some rights reserved)

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January 24, 2017

Amstelveen hospital wants to deliver Amsterdam’s babies

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 9:58 pm

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While 20% of pregnant women from Amsterdam were being refused access to three main hospitals in 2016 because there was not enough personnel and beds, a hospital in the neighbouring city of Amstelveen wants to declare maternity space in their hospital as ‘territory of Amsterdam’ to help them out. In 2015 only 7% of Amsterdam’s women were refused at hospitals, but that was before one major hospital shut down their maternity ward. As well, note that this is happening in a country with one of the highest percentage of home births in the world, about 30%, so imagine if more women decided to give birth in a hospital.

Besides wanting to help out women from Amsterdam with additional maternity ward space, the personnel of Amstelveen understands how much people from Amsterdam want to be able to have ‘born in Amsterdam’ on their children’s birth certificate and passports. To give you an idea, when you meet someone Dutch and ask them if they are from Amsterdam, you rarely get a nod or a ‘yeah’, you often get a ‘I was born and raised in Amsterdam!’.

In a similar vein, in 2011 the mayor of the island of Terschelling wanted to have part of a hospital in Leeuwarden declared ‘territory of Terschelling’ in order to claim more island babies, but that didn’t pan out.

(Links: nhnieuws.nl-1, nhnieuws.nl-2, parool.nl, Image: Flag of Amsterdam, public domain)

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January 8, 2017

‘No more bike wheels stuck in tram rails’

Filed under: Bicycles,Sustainability by Orangemaster @ 8:30 pm

A Dutch friend once told me about when he was a student in Amsterdam and went on a date, which involved the girl hitching a ride on the back of his bicycle (on the rack) and instead of having a typically fun and possibly romantic moment of her having to hold on to him, the front wheel of his bike got stuck in a tram rail and they both fell.

SafeRails solves the well-known problem of getting your bike wheels stuck in tram rails. Invented by two engineering students, Ward Kuiters and Roderick Buijs, SafeRails is a profile made from recycled plastic that can be inserted into existing tram rails. The idea is that bike wheels cannot get stuck in the rails and the tram can ride right over the profile as if they weren’t even there.

SafeRails is sustainable, durable and makes cycling safer. The guys’ goal is to start with The Hague, the political centre of the country, but first they need to win The Hague Innovators Challenge 2017 and are currently in second place. You can vote, too.

In Dutch with English subtitles:

(Link: www.bright.nl, Photo of the Kinkerstraat by Wikimedia user Ilonamay, some rights reserved)

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January 4, 2017

A new year, a bigger bike rack for cargo bikes

Filed under: Bicycles by Orangemaster @ 5:08 pm

Not too far from 24oranges HQ, the city of Amsterdam is trying out a new bike rack that fits cargo bikes and bikes too wide to fit into normal bike racks, usually with crates in the front.

People with bigger bikes usually park them willy-nilly, taking up more space, which is a bit inconvenient. As well, instead of jamming your bike front wheel first where it may bend because the bikes are stacked too close to each other, the front fork of the bike rests on the rack, as the slots are wider, and hopefully morons won’t lock their bike to yours catching your brake cable in the process.

For anyone living in Amsterdam, you can even e-mail your opinion about the rack to help the city decided whether it should install more.

(Link: parool.nl)

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December 22, 2016

World premiere: donating to the homeless electronically

Filed under: Dutch first,Technology by Orangemaster @ 1:59 pm
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As of this holiday season people in Amsterdam will be able to give money to homeless people using their bank card and its contactless payment function. It’s an experiment that is making headlines, thought up by Amsterdam advertising agency N=5 and developed together with the ABN Amro bank.

The homeless will be wearing a special jacket with a bank card reader, allowing people to donate one euro that will be used to provide either food, a shower or a place to sleep to the homeless person in question. The accounts will be managed by the cooperating homeless shelters. The idea is to avoid seeing the money spent on alcohol and the likes, something that stops many people from giving. Once someone has donated, they will get a thank you from the homeless person on their bank account statement.

According to newspaper Het Parool, over the past years the homeless population in the Netherlands has more than doubled from 2009 to 2016, from 13,000 to 31,000 people.

(Link: www.parool.nl)

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December 17, 2016

Dutchman spies on guy who stole his phone

Filed under: Technology by Orangemaster @ 2:03 pm

The sound at the beginning of the film is of a tram in Amsterdam, although this short graduation film by Anthony van der Meer entitled ‘Fine My Phone’ had support from the institution he graduated from, the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam.

Every week in the Netherlands 300 police reports are written up for smartphone theft, explains Van der Meer. After having his phone stolen in Amsterdam, he used Find My iPhone and caught ‘a few metres’ of how far his phone went before it was turned off. He wasn’t bothered so much by having his phone stolen, but more that a stranger had access to all his photos, videos, contacts and so on. A thief just has to switch SIM cards and reset the phone for Find My iPhone to be totally useless.

To make this short film, Van der Meer installed spyware on a new phone and purposely let someone steal it. He then remotely recorded audio, photos, and videos from the phone and made a 20 minute film about the guy who stole it.

It’s in Dutch with English subtitles, and a good part of it can be understood visually thanks to many computer screenshots, including one to show us that Arabic appeared on his phone and a few other cool things you should see for yourselves.

(Link: boingboing.net)

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