June 26, 2011

Following your competitor’s Twitter followers is now legal

Filed under: Technology by Branko Collin @ 3:52 pm

Two weeks ago the court in Amsterdam held that trying to get your competitor’s Twitter followers to follow you is indeed perfectly legal.

Mediavacature.nl (which means ‘mediajob.nl’) had asked the court to stop mediavacatures.nl from abusing their trademark. The court ruled that trying to hijack your competitor’s followers is not illegal per se (PDF, Dutch):

4.10 Twitter

The defendants admit that the Twitter account @mediavacatures is being used to follow customers of the plaintiff on Twitter. Twitter is all about following and being followed. Furthermore all data on Twitter are public. Following the followers of a competitor can therefore not be seen as an illegal act per se. What is more, profiting of somebody else’s product, effort, knowledge or insight is not illegal by itself, even if this harms the other party. This only becomes illegal if a Twitter user (intentionally or otherwise) causes confusion with the general public.

Unsurprisingly the court ended up finding for the plaintiff, but the defendant did not have to turn over their Twitter account, domain name and brand, as they were no longer allowed to keep using them anyway. The defendants call themselves MV Jobs Media now.

At Arnoud Engelfriet’s blog somebody claiming to work for Media Vacature (plaintiff) pointed out that the Twitter claim was just a small part of their set of claims.

(Illustration: Twitter logo. Link: De Pers.)

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June 25, 2011

Masturbating motorist almost frightens cyclist to death

Filed under: Bicycles,General by Branko Collin @ 1:44 pm

A fourteen year old girl on a bicycle got so scared by a man in a car next to her masturbating that she took off and almost got hit by a passing bus last Wednesday, the Den Bosch police report.

The man was in his early twenties, drove a black Seat Leon, and was of a skinny build. He wore a white vest with a broad, horizontal stripe. He had short, blond, curly hair and a pair of the most remarkably bright blue eyes. And those are all the details about him we got.

The incident took place last Wednesday around 10 p.m. at the intersection of the Zevenhontseweg and the Eekbrouwersweg in Den Bosch. Two girls were waiting to cross the intersection when a car pulled up next to them up. The occupant was watching the girls while he was pleasuring himself.

It’s not clear if the police have looked at video imagery of the bus’ on-board security cameras, but they sure would like to lay their hands on the perpetrator.

(Photo of the alleged intersection by Google Streetview.)

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June 24, 2011

University of Groningen gaining popularity with Brits

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 2:21 pm

While the slow Dutch students run off to Flanders to finish their studies, the British students in question don’t necessary plan to study up north in Groningen, but their application numbers have gone from 38 to about 100. Big whoop? Not if you can study at a good university for 2,000 euro instead of the 10,000 (9,000 pounds) they will soon have to pay in England. According to the BBC, tuition fees in England will go up from 6,000 to 9,000 pounds as of 2012.

Back in 2010 Maastricht University was busy cashing in on Brits who failed their A-level exams (British entry exams for higher education) by offering degrees in English in eight subjects, with the cost of tuition about half that charged by British universities. The idea behind Maastricht University’s move was to tap into the huge mismatch between demand and supply in the UK in general, amounting to some 150,000-200,000 students missing out on a place.

(Link: rtvnoord.nl)

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June 23, 2011

First ever coins with QR codes issued are Dutch

Filed under: Dutch first,General,Technology by Orangemaster @ 2:10 pm

The Netherlands is the first country in the world to issue coins that are legal tender with QR codes on them. The Royal Mint decided to celebrate the 100th year annivesary of the mint building with this unique coin. One side features a 3D portrait of Queen Beatrix and on the other, when scanned, goes to a special page created for the occasion, activated yesterday by the Queen.

Like many other people, we are wowed by the Dutch design coolness of the whole thing, but not really wowed by their web page. We do understand how cool it could be in the future to have QR codes used for educational purposes about coins and what is pictured on them.

The coin was designed by mint designer, Juan José Sánchez Castaño.

(Links and photo: dutchcowgirls.nl, dvice.com, q5g)

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June 22, 2011

Oldest supermarket employee dies at 100

Filed under: General,Health,Weird by Orangemaster @ 4:41 pm

elderly_man

On Monday, 20 June, Jan Leugs, who worked at the local supermarket in Ten Boer, Groningen, died at age 100. Even at his age he worked two mornings a week and could still drive a car, which is why this made the news. They say he was a very cheerful man, but got suddenly ill and passed away. RIP.

(Link: telegraaf.nl. Photo of elderly man by Frank Mayne, some rights reserved.)

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June 21, 2011

‘Amsterdam second largest anglophone city’

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 10:47 am

According to business facilitator Iamsterdam, the high level of English proficiency in the Netherlands is only surpassed by that of Norway’s. All the Norwegians I have ever met speak English, even foreign national Norwegians.

The Netherlands ranks second in a proficiency index carried out, reflecting the fact that almost the entire Dutch population speaks English, especially in the greater Amsterdam area, a fact attributed to all the foreigners living there.

Some 80% of the workforce speaks English, making Amsterdam the largest anglophone city in continental Europe. Some 90% percent of the workforce speaks two or more languages.

To all the blind policy makers that keep saying you need Dutch to get a job in the Netherlands: it’s not true: thousands of expats, foreign nationals and immigrants live and work for years without learning proper Dutch and do just fine, whether you like that or not.

(Link: iamsterdam, Photo taken from Dunglish, a site with Dutch-English mistakes)

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June 20, 2011

Gay-friendliness of companies measured by COC

Filed under: Dutch first by Branko Collin @ 1:34 pm

Last week the Dutch association for gays and lesbians, COC, launched its sfeermeter (mood metre), an online poll for determining the gay friendliness of Dutch businesses.

Preliminary results suggest 47% of all companies are ‘top’, with only 2% ranking as ‘derailed’. COC hopes to publish its results at the same time as the Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce comes out with its own ranking.
Dutch companies are currently not to be found on the international list, though Philips would like to be one of its leaders, De Pers suggests.

The paper thinks schools may score low on the metre. Teachers union AOB Roze reported the other day that teachers are getting back into the closet, afraid of nasty reactions by students, parents and even employers.

According to COC chairperson Vera Bergkamp, corny workplace jokes (“oops, guess I shouldn’t bend over to pick up this paperclip so close to you”) are what is mainly keeping gays in the office closet.

(Link: depers.nl)

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June 19, 2011

Man gets driving ban in Germany for having a confusing address

Filed under: Automobiles by Branko Collin @ 3:42 pm
permit1.jpg

During a routine check in Germany a man from Nijmegen had his driver’s license revoked and received a driving ban as he still had an outstanding ticket for going 40 kilometres over the speed limit in 2009.

Ronnie Gashi argued that he never received the ticket. The police ignored this popular excuse, but the Dutchman managed to have his driver’s license returned on the spot when he pointed out that the police officer was writing down his address incorrectly, and that this could conceivably also be what had happened the last time. The Nijmegen neighbourhoods of Dukenburg and nearby Lindenholt are numbered instead of named—rare for the Netherlands, and apparently also for Germany.

The Gelderlander reports that the police contacted a public prosecutor who advised clemency.

For some reason, the driving ban was upheld, the paper does not tell why. Gashi is still fighting the month long suspension. I am also not sure why “Lankforst 5336” instead of “Lankforst 53-36” would confuse the mail, in fact that is how I wrote my address when I lived there.

(Link: gelderlander, Photo of back of Dutch driving licence)

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June 18, 2011

Two hundred euro note bridge to become pedestrian crossing in Spijkenisse

Filed under: Architecture,Art,Design by Branko Collin @ 2:22 pm

As we wrote a couple of days ago, Robin Stam is making real bridges of the fictional ones you can find on the euro banknotes. His playground is a new neighbourhood in Spijkenisse near Rotterdam (bordering the Oude Maas river) called ‘t Land (the Land), which is still very much under development.

Robin gladly answered a few of our questions:

The first two bridges are almost finished, and the rest will be built in sync with the realisation of the neighbourhood.

The properties are sold in shifts, so unfortunately it will take a while for the project to be completed. The first two bridges will be ready at the end of September. The drawings and calculations for the other bridges are almost done. The way things are looking now the 200 euro bridge will be built at the start of next year. This will become a small pedestrian bridge, built exactly like on the banknote, meaning that the scale will be completely out of proportion.

Mark van Wijk, Joeri Horstink and I are working on a number of projects under the label Rotganzen. Currently a project of ours that is getting a lot play in the blogosphere is Party, about stylized broken party tents.

Completely off topic: an exhibit of big party tents in Dutch would be called an ‘evenementententententoonstelling’. I’d like to see other Germanic languages come up with compound words like that. I bet you cannot! I bet you are too scared!

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June 16, 2011

Get blue on June 25, Global Smurf Day

Filed under: Comics,General,Weird by Orangemaster @ 5:08 pm

On Saturday, June 25, Global Smurf Day and birthday of Peyo (Pierre Culliford) (1928-1992), the Belgian creator of the Smurfs comics, 12 countries, including the Netherlands, are going to see people paint their bodies visibly blue to try and beat the world record “Largest Gathering of People Dressed as Smurfs within a 24-hour period in Multiple Venues”. For smurf fans living in the Netherlands, you are to get your painted, disguised self down to Scheveningen, South Holland at beach pavilion 53. You can’t miss it, there’ll be a big smurf sand sculpture and people looking like smurfs. The current world record dates back from 2009 in Wales, with a mere 2510 people posing as smurfs.

To my adult friends who own smurfs — you know who you are — I dare you to free up June 25 and get to Scheveningen dressed like smurfs and send in pics.

Find out more at globalsmurfsday.com

(Links: waarmaarraar, independent)

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