September 12, 2019

Dutch are official test market for Disney+

Filed under: Dutch first,Film,Online,Technology by Orangemaster @ 1:04 pm

As of today, The Netherlands has become the exclusive test market for the new Disney streaming service, unadventurously called Disney+. The country will be able to enjoy the new service for free until November 11, after which ‘The House of Mouse’ will charge 6,99 euro a month for it. On November 12, it will also be made available in the United States and will have more productions added to it. Other countries in North America, Europe and the rest of the world will surely follow.

People in The Netherlands can also watch their Disney favourites on Android and iOS devices as well as PS4 and Xbox One. According to the screenshots we’ve seen on Twitter (see screenshot), Disney+ is offering Marvel films (Avengers’ Endgame will only be available in December), Star Wars (all the films including Solo and The Last Jedi – a big deal because the first films are not Disney productions), Pixar and National Geographic.

Although all in English, some of the productions also have Dutch audio. No other languages are available yet. By testing Disney+ first in the Netherlands, Disney wanted to weed out issues, which sounds more like beta testing. According to one Dutch journalist on Twitter, the search function does not work, and I agree after having seen the screenshot of random suggestions, based on two or three letters, not even in the right order.

Reactions are mixed, but quite positive, ranging from ‘Why do I have to pay for another streaming service?’ [you don’t, but North Americans pay for many services for the same shows we all get on Netflix], ‘If I buy this for my youngest son for his birthday, I’ll be spending more money on him than my other two kids and that’s a dilemma’ to ‘I don’t need a bunch of remakes’ and ‘it’s all Disney princesses anyway’.

Free is always nice, but the true test is who will stay on after it’s no longer free.

(Link: nu.nl)

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September 10, 2019

Transavia refuses service dogs, ruins girls’ vacation

Filed under: Animals by Orangemaster @ 5:21 pm

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A while back we told you about a gym that refused a man with his service dog, and now Dutch budget airline Transavia is feeling the wrath of social media for refusing two girls on board with service dogs.

The two friends were on their way to Pula, Croatia from Rotterdam with their two dogs and their foster mother, but the airline refused to board the two dogs the day before. One of the girls said that they had booked the tickets in April, and that they have it on paper – the most important condition for them to be able to go away – that Transavia was fine with having the dogs on board. The day before their departure, the airline said that the dogs would have to go in the hold, and that led to this story making the papers.

Transavia said rules have changed and that too many people ask to have their dogs on board, which they wanted to put a stop to. “Some people will be negatively affected by this”, a spokesperson said. To add insult to injury, to make up for their crappy last-minute decision, the airline decided to give them dinner coupons. Problem is, the two girls both have eating and anxiety disorders, which is why they have service dogs in the first place.

Enjoy your negative PR, Transavia.

(Link: telegraaf.nl)

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September 3, 2019

‘Wonder phone’ plays music for dementia sufferers

Filed under: Health,Music by Orangemaster @ 12:09 pm

Eighteen-year-old Dutchman Niek van Weeghel together with collaborators Herbert van Til and Peter Fidder have modified some 55 old fashioned dial telephone to play songs for the elderly suffering from dementia.

“It’s nice to see how the elderly react when they pick up the ‘wonder phone’, Van Weeghel explains. “First, they are quiet and then you see that they recognised the song. Then they sing their hearts out along to it.”

A person picks up the phone, dials a number (something, if we believe YouTube, kids don’t even understand because they’ve only seen mobile phone) and then hears a song they would recognise from their younger days.

The team is also collecting old phones to make more wonder phones, which now costs about 30 euro each to make. And since it hit the media, many homes have asked to get their hands on some.

There are about 280,000 people suffering from some type of dementia in the Netherlands. In 25 years this figure is expected to reach more than 500,000.

Maybe they can also make phones that play music from other cultures for specific people.

(Link: nos.nl, Photo: Photo by Macinate, some rights reserved)

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August 28, 2019

Dutch government pushes for tax relief for ‘accidental Americans’

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 12:03 pm

According to DutchNews, The Netherlands has called on EU member states to try and change American tax laws that affect thousands of Dutch people who have the American nationality, but have nothing to do with the United States otherwise.

State Secretary of Finance Menno Snel, who has been slammed in court for illegally stopping child support from Dutch residents and migrants with an ethnic background (in Dutch), mentioned that The Netherlands has raised the issue in a European context, while Prime Minister Mark Rutte also brought it up in a recent visit to the United States.

If more European countries came together to make this demand to the Americans, maybe something could change. If the United States can make money messing up the lives of Americans abroad, they don’t have much of an incentive to stop in this current political climate.

I know Dutch friends born in the United States who are struggling with this ruling, having little or nothing to do with the United States in their lives. And then there’s that one friend who gave up being American altogether and is now a full fledged Dutch citizen, free of nonsense from the American tax office.

(Link: dutchnews.nl)

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August 22, 2019

‘Dutch Rail discriminates against travellers when it comes to privacy’

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 5:22 pm

Michiel Jonker of Arnhem is a big defender of privacy. He is going to court to fight for his right to use an anonymised public transport chip card used for trams, subways, buses, and trolleys if you’re in Arnhem—a card that can also be used for trains.

One of the many issues is that only people who agree to give up their personal details as well as all their travel information can use a Dutch Rail discount on their card, giving them, in one instance, a 40% discount a year for an annual fee that I also pay, that keeps going up and that I don’t remember what it is.

Jonker uses an anonymised card, but it’s also not at all anonymous. “When you top up your card, the top-up doesn’t go onto your card, it goes to a sort of bank account owned by TransLink Systems [the company that makes the cards—Orangemaster]. The moment you top up your card, the company registers where and when you’ve done that.”

Jonker claims that the Dutch Data Protection Authority is too easily convinced by the arguments of Dutch Rail for registering information such as sex, email address and other personal details. Dutch Rail says that registering such information is necessary to combat fraud and ensure security, and yes, if a company can prove that such details are necessary to function then Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will back them up. However, if that cannot be proven, then Jonker has a point and Dutch Rail will have a problem.

Regardless, only travellers with one of the many non-anonymous types of cards can get travel discounts. Jonker explains that for decades, train staff checked paper tickets and that worked just fine.

Watch the video below in Dutch:

(Link: Omroep Gelderland; video: YouTube / Omroep Gelderland)

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August 15, 2019

From Ghetto to Parliament: Dutch documentary features Bobi Wine’s Uganda

Filed under: Dutch first,Film by Orangemaster @ 11:33 am

From Ghetto to Parliament, directed by Dutchman Thimaud de Driesen which premiered in March of this year, is a documentary film about Robert Kyagulanyi, also known as Bobi Wine, a successful reggae artist and Ugandan freedom fighter.

Wine worked his way up from the ghetto to become an elected representative of parliament, where his outspokenness makes him stand out and gets him into trouble, as in he is regularly arrested in an attempt to stop him from protesting. In a country where corruption, violence and intimidation are rife, the journey of Bobi Wine had been receiving international media coverage as he posts uplifting messages on social media aimed at his supporters.

As De Driesen says in this trailer, the story is not just about Bobi Wine, it’s the story of Uganda. Have a look at the trailer:

(Link: Movies That Matter; photo: Enca)

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August 10, 2019

Dutch Bunq client attacked over rainbow card

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 9:00 am

Bunq, a relatively new Dutch bank based in Amsterdam, recently had one of their clients attacked in India while trying to pay with the bank’s rainbow coloured bank card. Founder and CEO of Bunq Ali Niknam said he was shocked about this incident on social media.

The client ended up in the hospital. Comments on social media included making the card ‘less gay’, but then beating a person over a bank card, not even for money, is a violent crime. The gay rainbow flag doesn’t even use the same colours: it has six colours (missing one to make it a rainbow), while Bunq uses a few more different colours on its cards and 12 on its logo. Other companies including Apple have used and still use rainbow colours and that’s still not a reason to beat someone up, neither is being homophobic, if that was the case.

Nikham wrote a nice ‘message of love’ about the incident, something I cannot picture any other bank doing these days, so hats off to him (nope, 24oranges HQ is with another bank). Our Twitter timeline was full of folks from India denouncing this behaviour or explaining it away in shame, as it is criminal, violent behaviour. Over a piece of plastic.

(Link and photo: joop.bnnvara.nl)

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August 8, 2019

Old bombs found near railroad in Naarden-Bussum

Filed under: Food & Drink by Orangemaster @ 11:41 am

During construction along the railroad in Naarden-Bussum, North Holland workers dug up some bombs, which according to ProRail, are most probably from WWII. I can’t imagine from wat other war they could be from, since the Dutch weren’t really involved in WWI. I say this as someone who recommends reading The Art of Staying Neutral: The Netherlands in the First World War, 1914-1918. When the Dutch mention ‘the war’, they always mean WWII.

The bombs will be exploded somewhere safe, as it is done here when they find bombs, which is quite regularly. It’s not sure whether this will delay the works along the railway or not, which are already planned to go on for three weeks.

Here are some of our past stories related to finding bombs and grenades:

(Link: rtvutrecht.nl, Photo of a 1000-pounder in Bunnik by the Ministry of Defense, some rights reserved)

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August 7, 2019

Newly discovered mushroom in NL gets a Dutch name

Filed under: Dutch first,Nature by Orangemaster @ 12:43 pm

In the Drents-Friese Wold National Park in the province of Drenthe, mycologists have discovered a type of mushroom never seen before in the Netherlands, the Pycnoporellus fulgens. It’s currently being referred to by its Latin name because there’s no Dutch name for it yet, but it won’t stay without a name for very long.

Normally, this type of mushroom is found only in old spruce wood forests, something more akin to Scandinavia than here. It is also odd that the Pycnoporellus fulgens has not appeared in the neighbouring countries of Germany and Belgium. The Dutch Mycology Association is not only trying to figure this mystery out, but also wants to give the mushroom a name, and are leaning towards ‘oranje sparrenhoutzwam’, or ‘orange spruce wood mushroom’.

(Links: nu.nl, Photo: naturetoday.com)

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August 6, 2019

Biggest bicycle parking in the world in Utrecht

Filed under: Bicycles,Dutch first by Orangemaster @ 7:40 pm

Back in 2013 we told you that the world’s biggest bike garage was to be built in Utrecht. Although it was open for use in November 2018, we never talked about it again, so it’s time to do that.

Located under Utrecht Central Station, also the country’s biggest train station, there’s a huge bicycle garage that can fit 12,500 bikes, but does not already. In 2018, when 7,600 spots were opened, the garage was full in no time and people couldn’t park their bikes.

In the summer of 2020, if all goes well, the garage will add another 4,900 spots to the now existing 7,600 for a total of 12,500. There are now 22,000 public places to park your bike around the station, and another 11,000 will be added in nearby businesses and the former post office a few hundreds metres away with another 700.

The three storey bicycle garage was part of a wider redevelopment of the Central Station area, which is really impressive and so much nicer than the Hoog Catharijne shopping mall annex train station used to be.

(Links: designboom.com, ad.nl, Photo: designboom.com)

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