August 28, 2013

Foreign birds make history upon arrival in the Netherlands

Filed under: Animals,Dutch first by Orangemaster @ 7:00 am

Last May 11 Iago Sparrows flew aboard the MV Plancius on 6 May 2013 from the Cape Verde Islands. In the end, four birds (two male and two female) stayed on board until Hansweert, Zeeland, making them the first known individuals of that species (endemic to the islands off West Africa) to have reached Europe, and therefore writing history.

Once docked in Hansweert on 19 May, the sparrows stayed on board to eat breadcrumbs and hang out with the captain.

All four sparrows were timid and passive, up until the moment I released the male from his confinement on the bridge. The other male then sought the company of the Captain’s sparrow, and the two cocks started a fight. The aggressive display ended in a clear attempt to copulate. One male definitely mounted the other and tried to copulate. The male that was mounted did, however, not assume the classic submissive solicitation posture (crouched, neck drawn in, wings slightly drooped), a posture known from observation of female House Sparrows (Passer domesticus) that solicit copulation.

Please feel free to insert all kinds of good-humoured jokes in the comments.

(Links: www.improbable.com, moeliker.wordpress.com, Photo of Iago Sparrow by Hans Zwitzer, some rights reserved)

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July 21, 2013

Cardboard dividers nets HEMA design award

Filed under: Design,Dutch first by Branko Collin @ 9:25 pm

The 2013 HEMA design award was won by Tessa Eising, a student at the University of Twente, for her laminated rectangular cardboard space dividers.

The dividers have one folding edge at both one short and one long side with a label you can write on. The idea is that you put them in a cupboard, fold the edge, write your name on it, and put your stuff on it. As we wrote a couple of days ago, Dutch students often share a flat because of the high rents and they often need to figure out ways to determine who owns what. (In my student days, we shared most of the food and wrote our name on the packaging in the rare cases we needed to reserve something for ourselves.)

Another nominated design that I liked is Kim Monster’s ‘spider’ which you screw onto a standard soda bottle filled with water. Put the bottle ‘feet first’ in a planter and you’ve got a drip for your plants. There is also the travel bottle by Zsolt Hayde with two caps, one for dispensing whatever cream you put into it, the other for cleaning it when it’s empty. Handy for these paranoid times where governments won’t let their electorate onto planes with full bottles.

The HEMA design contest is held every year by the department store of the same name. Winning designs sometimes end up in the store, and it seems that first prize winners are sold through HEMA’s web shop. I have seen 2011’s winner Vrachtpatser, an extension for your bicycle’s luggage rack, in the wild a couple of times. This years prizes were awarded at a ceremony held 11 June at the OBA, the Amsterdam public library.

(Photo: HEMA)

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July 10, 2013

The world’s biggest bike garage planned for Utrecht

Filed under: Bicycles,Dutch first by Orangemaster @ 11:13 am

All that heavy duty construction work at Utrecht Central station, the country’s biggest train station, will eventually house the world’s biggest bike garage — all three floors of it. The garage will also feature a bike path and fit neatly under the train station, unlike the sea of bikes that can now be found around the station in the photo above.

Also home to Utrecht University, the country’s biggest university, Utrecht is very visibly full of students, many of which bike everywhere.

Just a few days ago we told you about how many wrongly parked bikes had been removed in 2012, but this kind of mega project should help alleviate the problem. The bike garage will be able to accommodate 12,500 bikes, which is exactly five times as many bikes as Amsterdam’s bike flat next to the train station that’s already overflowing.

Designed by Ector Hoogstad architects, the mega garage will open partially in 2016, and be ready entirely in 2018.

(Link: www.bright.nl, Photo Photo of Bikes at Utrecht Central station by Fietsberaad, some rights reserved)

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June 25, 2013

Dutch brick and mortar stores that accept Bitcoins

Filed under: Dutch first by Branko Collin @ 10:46 pm

Z24 reports that the first ‘physical stores’, as they call it, have started to accept the virtual currency Bitcoin.

Expat supermarket Taste of Home in Haarlem and bar De Waag in Delft (not to be confused with the bar and high tech society of the same name in Amsterdam) both accept the currency. Currently about five people pay their bar tabs at De Waag using Bitcoins.

Irishman Pail Desgrippes, co-owner of Taste of Home, has an IT background. One of the reasons for considering Bitcoin even before he and his partner started their supermarket was the publicity it would generate. “But I also like the idea of being independent from banks. We also get to save on transaction costs and offer our customers an extra payment option.”

Currently the number of Dutch brick and mortar stores that accept Bitcoins seems to be outnumbered by the amount of websites that report on the number of Dutch organisations that accept Bitcoins. At the moment Wat Is Bitcoin? has the longest list.

See also: Bitcoin income shall be taxed, Dijsselbloem says.

(Photo of a detail of De Waag in Delft by M.M.Minderhoud, some rights reserved)

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June 17, 2013

Bitcoin income shall be taxed, Dijsselbloem says

Filed under: Dutch first,Technology by Branko Collin @ 12:19 pm

Dutch people who accept payments in the new Internet currency Bitcoin will have to pay income tax on the funds they receive. Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem confirmed this two weeks ago after parliament had asked questions about Bitcoin, Nu.nl reports.

According to the minister, the “alternative virtual currency” cannot be seen as “electronic money” because it fails the definition set by the Dutch law. Dijsselbloem also reported that approximately 2% of all Bitcoin users in the world are Dutch, and that these Dutch owners possess about 20 million euro worth of Bitcoin. At the time of writing 1 Bitcoin represents about 75 euro.

Internet lawyer Arnoud Engelfriet helpfully explains that the Wet financieel toezicht (the law on financial control) defines electronic money as a monetary value that

  • Is stored electronically.
  • Represents a claim on the person or organisation who issues it.
  • Is issued in exchange for money to make payments with.
  • Can be used to pay both the issuer and others.

Since Bitcoins do not represent a claim on the issuer and they aren’t necessarily issued in exchange for money, they aren’t electronic money. The reason you still have to pay income tax is simply because the law on income tax doesn’t mention money. Any form of income, whether that income consists of money, goods or Bitcoins, is susceptible to being taxed. The problems start when you have to pay these taxes though, because the Dutch tax office only accepts money. Your revenue will somehow have to be valued in euro before you can calculate how much you have to pay.

I can well imagine that the belastingdienst (tax office) isn’t going to chase down small time Bitcoin users just yet. I remember the first time I became self-employed and asked the belastingdienst for a VAT number. The man on the other end of the line laughed at me and said they could not be bothered to issue me my number for the couple of hundred guilders I expected to make that year.

Another complicating matter according to Engelfriet is that Bitcoins aren’t financial products either. That would mean you will have to pay VAT (‘btw’) over the Bitcoins you receive, which would make trading in Bitcoins less attractive for the Dutch.

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June 6, 2013

World’s first transatlantic 100 Gbps links Maastricht to Chicago

Filed under: Dutch first,Technology by Orangemaster @ 3:10 pm

Today, during the last day of the TERENA Networking Conference 2013 (TNC2013) held in Maastricht, the ‘largest and most prestigious European research networking conference’, featured the first-ever demonstration of a transatlantic 100 gigabits-per-second (Gbps or one billion bits per second) transmission link for research and education between North America and Europe.

Demonstrations of the intercontinental 100 Gbps link included big data transfers between Maastricht and Chicago, Illinois taking a few minutes instead of several hours over the public Internet. This first transatlantic 100 Gbps link for research and education will advance high-end projects such as the experiments at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland, the ITER fusion reactor in France and similar international programs.

Short but powerful, as the Dutch would say.

(Link: phys.org, Photo by Jacek Szymański, some rights reserved)

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May 31, 2013

Charging your phone at the train station in Rotterdam

Filed under: Dutch first,Technology by Orangemaster @ 7:00 pm

The folks at Dutch Rail (NS) are currently testing a post called the ‘ChagR’ (pic with complicated instructions) that would allow two commuters at a time to charge up their mobile phones for free while they wait for the train. Some 110,000 people take the train every day from Rotterdam Central Station, so if this were to be implemented, more posts would be a must.

Although Dutch Rail has said to be thrilled about the idea, commuter response has been apathetic, with only 40 people having used the post, which works for micro USB, iPhone and even ordinary batteries. The instructions are apparently long-winded and more testing is needed, but the idea is not bad.

I would rather charge my phone in the train and ideally plug in my laptop there as well. I picture easy smartphone theft as well and two people at a time is way too little charging power.

(Link: blog.phonehouse.nl, Photo of train by Flickr user UggBoy hearts UggGirl, some rights reserved)

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May 25, 2013

Photo essay of botanical garden in Haren

Filed under: Dutch first,History,Photography by Branko Collin @ 2:56 pm

Jip Moors and his father Holly went to the volunteer-run botanical garden in Haren and asked each volunteer what their favourite spot was. This led to an album of 16 photos by Jip Moors. Father Holly interviewed the volunteers and wrote the accompanying text.

The hortus botanica features amongst others a Chinese garden, a rock garden, an apple orchard and a bamboo forest.

The Hortus Haren was founded in 1626 in Groningen by pharmacist Henry Munting out of necessity—colleagues sent him plants from all over Europe and he needed a place to put them. Munting’s knowledge of plants grew enormously and at 1654 at age 71 he even became the first botany professor of the republic. Later, the Muntings had to sell the garden to the state because they couldn’t afford the upkeep, but they were hired for generations to tend the garden.

In 1917 the garden was moved to the nearby town of Haren because it was getting too big. The owners wanted to add new greenhouses for which there was no room at the inner city location. Currently the garden occupies 200,000 square metres.

(Photo: Jip Moors)

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May 8, 2013

Northern radio stations to broadcast live ambulance sirens

Filed under: Automobiles,Dutch first by Orangemaster @ 10:44 am

If you’ve driving around the North of the country and listening to certain local radio stations, you will soon be able to hear ambulance sirens through the radio, a partial solution to people in their cars not hearing ambulances due to car noise or loud music.

The system will cut off radio signals from about a 300-metre radius around the ambulance and broadcast its siren for a short period. However, many radio stations are weary of this system, as they fear loss of advertisers. Another obvious concern is for anyone living near a hospital and hearing every siren that goes off from incoming and outgoing ambulances.

In true Dutch fashion, they’ll give this system a whirl for a year and see what happens.

Here’s what a Dutch ambulance looks and sounds like

Here’s a Dutch ambulance trying out an American sound

And for anyone who didn’t know, “You hear the high pitch of the siren of the approaching ambulance, and notice that its pitch drops suddenly as the ambulance passes you. That is called the Doppler effect.”

(Link: www.waarmaarraar.nl, Photo of a Dierenambulance (animal ambulance) by Alberto Garcia, some rights reserved)

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April 29, 2013

Battle of the Beasts: Men’s roller derby in the Netherlands

Filed under: Dutch first,Sports by Orangemaster @ 1:40 pm

(Team Holland v. Team Germany)

Last Saturday, the town of Valkenswaard, Noord-Brabant played host to the first men’s roller derby tournament of the Netherlands, fittingly called ‘Battle of the Beasts’, featuring three national teams put together for the occasion: Team Holland, Team Belgium and Team Germany.

In a tournament of three complete matches called ’bouts’, the men did some heavy hitting in this full contact sport that is in fact originally a women’s sport. Not only did this tournament become part of Dutch sports history by being the first ever men’s event on Dutch soil, but it also put men’s derby on the map in The Netherlands. Team Holland was mostly made up of referees from Dutch women’s roller derby leagues, many of which play in the only Dutch men’s league from Groningen, Roaring Thunder Men’s Derby.

Team Holland took a surprising second place, decided in a nail-biting recounting of points in their second bout, which first had Team Germany pegged as the winners, but then turned into an unexpected win for the Dutch. The small yet dedicated crowd went wild, as the Dutch men performed beyond anybody’s wildest dreams. The fact that the Dutch were neck and neck points wise with the Germans was a delight to watch.

Team Belgium was the solid winner of this tournament, beating Team Holland in the first bout and Team Germany right afterwards in the second. For those who don’t know, bouts are an hour long with two 30-minute periods called halves, and that’s a lot of skating, sweat and in this case as well, injuries, albeit no broken bones.

(Team Holland v. Team Belgium)

Team Germany took third place, but put up a fierce fight all day, according to Team Holland’s captain, Rollin’ Reckless. “We went from zeroes in the first bout to heroes in the third bout. We rose to the occasion. I’m so freaking proud of all the Dutchies.”

(Disclaimer: I was one of the announcers of this tournament and Branko was one of the photographers, hence these lovely pictures)

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