November 24, 2020

Dutch artist Streetart Frankey unveils huge car pick

Filed under: Art,Automobiles by Orangemaster @ 1:23 pm

You know those ‘paper picks’ you might have seen in real life at a dinner or in a movie featuring a dinner where after the bill was paid, an employee would put it on a paper pick?

This new outdoor piece by Streetart Frankey does the same, but with cars, a nod to when there were more cars than green space at the art installation’s location. The artwork can be admired on the corner of Hondsrugweg and Hettenheuvelweg in Amsterdam Zuidoost, the city’s only exclave. Amusingly enough, I saw it this morning from a bus, but was not quick enough to snap it.

The general area features many large businesses like the big Swedish furniture warehouse and the Johan Cruijff Arena. Soon the are will have a park, surrounded by 5,000 new homes, which are sorely needed in Amsterdam.

The cars are what the Dutch call ‘old timers’, which means cars that are at least 25 years old in this case DAF cars, a Dutch brand.

(Link and photo: parool.nl)

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November 20, 2020

Dutch tech journalist crashes secret European meeting

Filed under: Technology by Orangemaster @ 7:26 pm

Dutch tech journalist and author Daniël Verlaan, who recently hacked the lights on Rotterdam’s Erasmus Bridge, has now crashed an online secret meeting of the European Ministers of Defence.

Verlaan popped in and people started laughing. The President of the Council, Spain’s Josep Borrell Fontelles, said “Somebody has gone into the system! Who are you?” The President made a crack to the meeting participants about ‘having to invest in secrecy’, which is spot on. Verlaan said hello, identified himself as a Dutch journalist, said sorry, and quickly left.

Before he left, he was told “You know that you have been jumping into a secret conference?” (sic) […] It’s a criminal offence!” said Fontelles.

How did Verlaan do it? Dutch Minister of Defence Ank Bijleveld had posted a picture on Twitter where five digits out of the six digits of the meeting login code was visible, and the last one was found ‘in just a few tries’. Apparently, there wasn’t any additional security, either.

The meeting was then stopped because it was no longer confidential. Cue a good rant about online security.

(Link: rtlnieuws.nl)

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Dutch TV show scores work by Adriaan de Lelie

Filed under: Art by Orangemaster @ 12:42 pm

The Dutch version of British television show ‘Antiques Roadshow’ called ‘Tussen Kunst en Kitsch’ (‘Between Art and Kitsch’) – apparently unscripted as compared to its British counterpart – has uncovered a gem by eighteenth century Dutch painter Adriaan de Lelie valued at 100,000 euro (not the image shown here).

The painting in question depicts Dutch painter Charles Rochussen as a baby. De Lelie mostly painted portraits of contemporaries in Dutch cultural life and many interior scenes, which this painting supports. Expert Willem Jan Hoogsteder is convinced that this portrait is the work of De Lelie.

Although the TV show’s record dates back to 2011 for the most expensive painting (250,000 euro for a painting by Joost van Geel in 2011), the De Lelie painting valued at 100,000 euro shares fifth place with a work by Jan van Kessel de Jonge for the same amount.

In 2015 the show uncovered a Karel Appel sculpture.

(Link: nu.nl, Image in the public domain Photo of Portrait of Jan Nieuwenhuyzen, a Dutch Mennonite teacher and minister, who in 1784 founded the Maatschappij tot Nut van ‘t Algemeen)

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November 19, 2020

Dutch data award for major bird database

Filed under: Animals,Science,Technology by Orangemaster @ 10:51 am

Led by Antica Culina and Marcel Visser of the Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW), Studies of Populations of Individuals (SPI-Birds) is a network of researchers who collect, secure and use long-term breeding population data of 1.5 million individually recognisable birds, an amount that keeps increasing. SPI-Birds have recently been awarded the Dutch Data Incentive Prize for the Medical and Life Sciences and very recently published their first scientific paper in the Journal of Animal Ecology, which coincides with them receiving the award. They’ve got the wind under their wings.

“Behind the paper describing our initiative, there are around 120 people and 1.5 million individually marked birds from 80 populations and 19 species. And an army of people who have been collecting these data, in sunshine and rain, adding up to over 2000 seasons of fieldwork.” explains Culina.

Having access to this database means preventing lost data and increasing future data quality with a community-supported standard. “SPI-Birds is important, because it allows comparative studies among populations by making the data FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable). Converting the various data formats into a single standard data format, especially, really facilitates the use of the data.” says Visser.

The first SPI Bird paper aims to describe the network for new members and stakeholders, and its ‘lessons learned’ in order to inspire other communities. “We hope SPI-Birds will serve as an encouragement to other research communities to create their own standards,” Culina adds.

(Link: phys.org)

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November 16, 2020

World premiere: Bob Ross exhibition in The Netherlands

Filed under: Art,Dutch first by Orangemaster @ 3:31 pm

Last weekend Marketing and Communication Specialist Ellen van Slagmaat of Museum MORE and Mauritshuis Restorator Abbie Vandivere were both on Dutch radio show ‘Spijkers met Koppen’ to talk about the very first solo exhibition of American painter and television personality Bob Ross.

Bob Ross was famous for his television show ‘The Joy of Painting’ that showed millions of people in the United States and Canada how easy it was to paint, and did so with one of the most soothing voices on public television. Not only did he paint very quickly, but for each show, he made three or four of the same landscape paintings, Vandivere explained on the radio. Ross had 381 episodes of his show, so that’s a whole lot of paintings of ‘happy little clouds’ and ‘almighty mountains’.

Although parodied and admired for decades, he is now being taken more seriously and being appreciated much more, which is why Van Slagmaat worked hard to set up the exhibition, the world’s first ever solo exhibition of Ross’ works. The exhibition will open in the spring of 2021.

Here’s an episode of Bob Ross painting some Northern Lights:

(Link: hartvannederland, Photo of Bob Ross at his easel, some rights reserved)

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November 15, 2020

Scooter rider misbehaves in Rotterdam, gets jailed in Italy

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 3:41 pm

On 14 November a woman decided to drive over the sidewalk in Rotterdam with her scooter, ending up ramming an automatic teller. As luck would have it, she got caught by the police.

Then, she wasn’t able to produce a driver’s licence for the scooter or identify herself, as she didn’t have any ID on her. In the Netherlands everyone over 14 year of age is obliged to identify themselves if the police asks.

When the cops figured out who she was, they also found out that she was supposed to be doing three years of jail time in Italy for a drug-related crime.

The moral of the story: don’t try and get caught if you’re trying to avoid getting caught.

(Link: ad.nl, Photo by Facemepls, some rights reserved)

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November 14, 2020

Amsterdam featured in Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War

Filed under: Food & Drink,Gaming by Orangemaster @ 1:42 pm

For those who don’t game, Call of Duty is a first-person shooter video game franchise from American company Activision.

Everything I saw and heard in the trailer below featuring Amsterdam is very realistic: the Dutch radio talk in the background at the very beginning, dog sounds (with the right reverberation) and police sounds.

That is some spacious apartment they start shooting in though, but it does fit that part of town. And there are actual police chases (not shoot-outs!) on rooftops in Amsterdam, I know a witness to one personally.

Set in part in the Red Light District, there’s also some joking around about ‘bitterballen’ (Dutch ragout filled balls, usually served when having beers) all in Dutch, with a joke about ‘balls’, as you do.

Have a look at Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War – we don’t own any shares (my co-blogger is more of a cavalry-and-musket type):

(Link: ad.nl, image: YouTube screenshot)

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November 11, 2020

Dutch tech journalist hacks lights on Rotterdam bridge

Filed under: Technology by Orangemaster @ 6:00 am

On 9 November Dutch tech journalist and author Daniël Verlaan hacked the online lighting system of the Erasmus Bridge in Rotterdam. Although he went for the colour pink, most people said it looked more like purple, but that’s besides the point.

In a tweet he claims that the lighting system had been accessible to everyone for a year, and there wasn’t even a password protecting it. That fact is very interesting since his very first book just came out and is aptly called ‘Ik weet je wachtwoord‘ (‘I Know Your Password’). Verlaan got the tip from a white hat hacker who pointed the wide open bridge system out to him. Using the keyword ‘Rotterdam’, the open system showed up in one of the first results on search engine Shodan.io, made for smart devices. The system was accessible online using an IP, protected by an easy to circumvent login.

The city of Rotterdam has now taken the system offline. And the lights are only for special occasions.

(Link: rtlnieuws.nl, Photo of Erasmus Bridge by Joop van Houdt – Beeldbank.rws.nlSome rights reserved)

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November 10, 2020

Leiden University prints a micro-sized Star Trek starship

Filed under: Film,Science,Technology by Orangemaster @ 11:59 am

According to CNN and BoingBoing on Twitter, while developing methods to 3D print synthetic micro-swimmers, microscopic devices that can propel themselves by interacting with the chemicals in their surrounding environment, researchers at Leiden University printed a model of Star Trek’s USS Voyager that’s just 15 micrometers long. As a comparison, a human hair is around 75 micrometers in diameter.

By studying synthetic micro-swimmers, we would like to understand biological micro-swimmers,” Samia Ouhajji, one of the study’s authors, told CNN. This understanding could aid in developing new drug delivery vehicles; for example, microrobots that swim autonomously and deliver drugs at the desired location in the human body.

Why did they go for Star Trek and why one of the franchise’s later starships? Jonas Hoecht, one of the study’s co-authors, claims to be a big Star Trek fan and was told he could print anything he wanted. Of course, I still want to know why he opted for Voyager and not a version of the Enterprise, but it’s still extremely cool.

(Link boingboing.net, image ealclearscience.com)

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November 9, 2020

‘Replace sweets with sprouts’ on Dutch Halloween-like holiday

Filed under: Food & Drink,Weird by Orangemaster @ 11:31 am

It is not real news, but we still really like the story.

On November 11 Dutch children usually celebrate Sint-Maarten by going around town door to door at night, carrying hand-made lanterns and singing songs for sweets.

The city of Amsterdam would rather this not happen at all due to the health crisis and has made a suggestion that sounds more like an April Fool’s joke: replace the sweets with Brussels sprouts to promote healthy eating.

The idea is to stay home and celebrate with the healthy yet questionable-smelling miniature cabbages. The city is bold enough to suggest parents also use ‘tomatoes, carrot and radishes’ as well.

Maybe spend a evening doing something fun with your kids that doesn’t involve you checking your mobile phone, but that’s just me.

Good news is I won’t have to hide in my own house on 11 November. A Canadian like me considers 11 November as Remembrance Day, the day we commemorate the millions of fallen during the First World War, which the Dutch don’t celebrate.

I posted a picture of Dutch white asparagus because it’s really tasty.

(Link: www.at5.nl, Photo by Wikipedia user Janericloebe who released it into the public domain)

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