June 11, 2014

Government still misleads masses with digital ID system

Filed under: IT,Weird by Orangemaster @ 11:39 am

For years, local governments have been mistakingly pointing tens of thousands of citizens if not more to an advertising agency called Digi-D in Waalwijk, Noord-Brabant instead of to the Dutch national government’s digital identification system called DigID (no hyphen, and ID in capitals), indispensable for filing taxes and other matters nowadays. In October 2012 10,000 people sent their details to Digi-D. It’s June 2014 and the wesbite the agency set up to tell people about this serious cock-up counted 40,805 mislead people on 6 June.

Digi-D the agency has been around since 2002, while DigID started up in 2005. The government’s game plan has been to strong arm the agency into changing its name, but the agency claims that it would cost them 110,000 euro to change their name, never mind lawyering up for something they didn’t mess up. To make it worse, the agency is being forced to store all this data to prove that it is a nuisance to them, but if ever the data leaked, the government would blame the agency for it!

(Link: www.omroepbrabant.nl)

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June 10, 2014

HEMA to hit London high street this week

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 10:20 am

If Amsterdam can embrace major British retailer Marks & Spencer, then it seems only fair that London gets its very own HEMA. HEMA already conquered Paris in 2009 and has been a staple in Belgium for years, although France has more stores than Belgium. HEMA also exists in Germany, Luxembourg and even Spain.

HEMA’s unique Dutch designs are surely their best selling point, not just their low, rounded off prices — none of that ‘£1,99’ business. And despite the odd controversies HEMA gets itself into here, like plagiarising wine labels and encouraging children to cheat at school, HEMA was considered by 81% of the population as an essential brand in 2008.

I like their tea towels, socks and travel make-up, and sometimes even their food.

(Link: www.independent.co.uk, Photo by Hans Vandenbogaerde, some rights reserved)

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June 6, 2014

Whale uncovered on 17th century Dutch painting

Filed under: Animals,Art by Orangemaster @ 10:56 am

Whale painting - after

A painting on display for some 140 years at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, United Kingdom by Dutch painter Hendrick van Anthonissen entitled ‘Gezicht op Scheveningen’ (‘View of Scheveningen sands’ in English) from 1641 has recently been restored, uncovering a stranded whale.

One of the men in the painting seemed to be hanging in mid-air when in fact he was sitting on the whale. Someone at some point in history thought it would be good to paint over the whale, but nobody knows why. Conservator Shan Kuang has apparently not been able to date the extra layer of paint, though she suspects it may be from the 18th century and done because an owner thought the whale was repulsive or that a dealer thought the picture would sell better without it.

Here is a video made by Cambridge University featuring Shan Kuang, the conservator who made the discovery.

(Links: www.theguardian.com, historiek.net, Photo: Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK)

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June 5, 2014

Major UK Mondrian exhibition opens in Liverpool

Filed under: Art by Orangemaster @ 10:11 am
Mondriaan_huis_Amersfoort_2.JPG

On June 6, The Tate Liverpool museum will be opening the exhibition Mondrian and his studios, a huge UK Mondrian exhibition, including a life-size reconstruction of his Paris studio, all commemorating the 70th anniversary of the Dutch painter’s death.

I first saw his paintings as a 14-year-old when I travelled to New York City on a school trip from Montréal. We had visited the Whitney Museum of American Art and I had bought a few postcards of his work. Back then, I knew he was from the Netherlands, but what I found odd was writing ‘Mondrian’ instead of ‘Mondriaan’, even if that is how the artist wrote his name to make it more international. And today, the most banal of products, including hair products, have the Mondrian touch, truly making him a household name.

Closer to home, the Mondriaanhuis (Mondrian house, pictured above) in Amersfoort is surely a much more solemn experience, but very authentic, as I remember. The Mondriaanhuis features works from the artist’s early figurative period as well as artwork from other contemporary artists. In other words, more of his drawings of flowers and less of the primary coloured squares. The folks who work there will talk your ears off about their local international artist, don’t you worry about that.

Check out the Facebook group with Mondriaan-related things.

(Links: www.bbc.com, www.mondriaanhuis.nl, Photo by Elly Waterman, some rights reserved)

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June 4, 2014

Women dressing up as men to ask for a pay raise

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 12:36 pm

“Are you a woman? Then you deserve € 300,000 more”, says Women INC in collaboration with Loonwijzer, a site that helps people calculate what they should be making. Loonwijzer claims that a woman could make on average € 300,000 more — I’m assuming in their lifetime.

The YouTube film below (in Dutch) starts off with the statement, ‘Where is my € 300,000?’. The gist of the video is, as one of the women says at the beginning, “enough is enough, I’m asking for a raise!”. The rest is quite self-explanatory and looks like a Smack the Pony sketch, and in fact, one of the women, Margôt Ros, is well-know from a comedy show called ‘Toren C’ (Tower C), which is a bit of a Dutch equivalent. Basically, if women want a raise, they need a beard and a fake penis to get one, which is funny, but also quite sad. Employers and politicians are the ones being lobbied to close the gap between the earnings of men and women, something nobody has ever solved in the Western world. Of course, the reason why women are paid less come down to much more than a costume change.

Just remember that the Netherlands ranks in bottom 10 performing countries for women in business and Some 60% of women cannot earn their own keep.

(Link: www.deondernemer.nl, Illustration: public domain version of the symbol of feminism, via Wikimedia Commons)

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June 3, 2014

Donald Duck is getting married! Or is he?

Filed under: Comics by Orangemaster @ 8:52 pm

Donald Duck magazine is such a national institution in the Netherlands that when editor Thomas Roep quit after 39 years, it made the national news. The on-again off-again relationship between Donald Duck and Daisy Duck (called ‘Katrien’, or ‘Catherine’ in Dutch) will soon be a thing of the past here in the Netherlands, although the story line was bought from Denmark. In fact, the Netherlands and Denmark are the world’s biggest producers of Donald Duck stories.

Will the wedding actually take place? Who will Donald’s nephews Huey, Dewey and Louie (in Dutch, Kwik, Kwek and Kwak) live with now? And what will Scrooge McDuck (in Dutch, Dagobert) cough up as a wedding present?

Way back when Disney was running Donald’s life in the 1950s, Daisy was portrayed as Donald’s long-term girlfriend, but after some nightmares Donald got cold feet and ran off to join the French Foreign Legion. Daisy then had other boyfriends, mostly sailors who eventually had to take off to war as well.

The Dutch press and surely the fans are worried that if the pair do tie the knot, the comic strip will come to an end. The Danes were inspired by the 1998 British-American film Sliding Doors, which features two separate story lines. Parodies of Dutch celebs will also be featured in the comic book, as they often do. And there are also spoilers that even I won’t read or tell you about.

(Links: www.nrc.nl, en.wikipedia.org)

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May 30, 2014

Gas extraction reports should be available in Dutch

Filed under: Literature,Science by Orangemaster @ 8:15 am

A group of residents from Groningen are demanding that Minister Kamp of Economic Affairs translate all English-language reports about gas extraction, something that concerns many home owners, into Dutch. Besides the reports being in English — and who knows what the quality of those reports are — the scientific language in them is probably difficult to understand. Should the minister ignore their request, the group plans to take their complaint to court.

First of all, I wouldn’t trust the original report linguistically or otherwise, knowing that the goal is to make it look like it’s safe to extract gas when houses have been known to show cracks in their foundations up in Groningen. Second, the average Dutch person probably can’t truly and fully understand these reports in English and it is safe to assume they would not understand the Dutch version either, at least not 100%. Third, if the original were to be quickly translated into Dutch, the quality of the text will only deteriorate.

Out of principle the Dutch should have the right to read public documents in their own language, and the argument of ‘pfff, everybody understands English’ is not true at all, especially if they are older. It’s that kind of overconfident attitude, which often remains unchallenged, that keeps me and other natives in business in the first place.

(Link: www.rtvnoord.nl)

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May 29, 2014

Dutch cities top drug use chart

Filed under: General,Science by Orangemaster @ 9:16 am

Out of 42 European cities in 21 countries, three Dutch cities show up in the top 10 for drug use, according to the European Drug Report 2014 of the EMCDDA.

The trio of Eindhoven, Utrecht and Amsterdam can be described as the ‘MDMA capital cities of Europe’, respectively in positions 1, 2 and 3. Eindhoven is off the charts as far as speed is concerned, probably because it is often dumped directly into the sewers by makers.

The number one cannabis smoking wonderland isn’t Amsterdam, although Amsterdam is number two. Number one is Novi Sad in Serbia. Amsterdam, Eindhoven and Utrecht are numbers two, seven and thirteen for cocaine use.

We told you a while back that Amsterdam’s sewers are full of hard drugs.

(Links: www.volkskrant.nl, www.nu.nl)

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May 28, 2014

Noise during exams and other complaints

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 11:10 am

Every year at exam time the media reports on how many complaints the LAKS (national action committee for students) receives because it’s always quite a lot. This year, the tally is currently at 108,000, as compared to last year’s 147,000, with one more exam to go today.

Besides thousands of legitimate complaints about exams being too long, too complicated or just badly written, there’s some funny bits mostly related to noise. One girl complained about the djembe lessons above the classroom where she was doing her exam, saying she couldn’t concentrate. Apparently noise from a music class is a classic complaint.

In a similar category, students have complained about screaming kids coming by the exam room window who were doing their cycling test outdoors (yes, children do cycling tests here). And then to really drive home a point about noise, some students had their thoughts drowned out by a Formula 1 racing car that was ripping through town during the making of a commercial.

Then there’s general weirdness like a student with a pimple on his neck that distracted another student, the exam monitor falling asleep and snoring really loud, and good old hay fever from open windows. The most controversial could be the male students complaining about the short skirts and shorts of the female students that distracted them.

(Link: www.volkskrant.nl)

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May 27, 2014

Turkish inspired BBQ pot for better outdoor meals

Filed under: Design,Food & Drink by Orangemaster @ 12:21 pm

BBQ-pot-blue

Conceptually based on the Turkish güveç, a sort of earthenware pot used to prepare stews on barbecues, and designed by Casper Tolhuisen, the Barbecue Pot lets you cook all kinds of noms on the BBQ as a change up to the usual sausage and burger affair. The pot is filled with ingredients (meat and veg or simply vegetarian), including something specifically aromatic like a lemon, then sealed and cooked. The idea is that something like a lemon will act as a mini-steam cabin and cook the stew, giving it a nice barby flavour.

The stoneware Barbecue Pot comes with two recipes and has a blog where people can exchange recipes and tips. Dutch online design store SoonSalon sells the item for 69 euro in a few different colours.

(Link: studiocaspertolhuisen.nl, via www.bright.nl)

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