October 24, 2009

Dutch banknotes partially made from fair trade cotton

Filed under: General,Sustainability by Branko Collin @ 11:55 am

In 2007 the Dutch mint started with a pilot project that made it the first in Europe to print money using cotton for which the producers have not been exploited. So far, the 20 and 50 euro bills produced by De Nederlandsche Bank have contained 10 to 14% fair trade cotton.

Paper factories prefer blends of cotton, and according to the mint (PDF, Dutch) “currently there is not enough good fair trade cotton to make up 100% of a bill. But the fair trade cotton market is growing spectacularly.”

The use of fair trade cotton in Euro notes is the result of a bet that the youth chapter of Christian union CNV made in 2005 with the Minister of Finance at that time, Gerrit Zalm.

(Via the print version of De Zaak.)

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October 23, 2009

Shopping tank

Filed under: Art,Design by Branko Collin @ 8:51 am

Wessel van Offeren seems to think shopping is war. His shopping cart with caterpillar tracks was spotted at the Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven by Trendbeheer.

(Photo: Trendbeheer / E.Rosie, some rights reserved)

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October 22, 2009

“You’ve got my vote” popular with populist voters

Filed under: Weird by Branko Collin @ 4:25 pm

Supporters of populist politicians use the phrase “You’ve got my vote” far more often than anyone else.

The phrases “You’ve got my vote, Rita” (Verdonk) and “You’ve got my vote, Geert” (Wilders) are linked to 20,200 and 5,620 times by Google, according to Krapuul.nl, a site critical of extremist politician Geert Wilders. Most given names of other national politicians did not even get into double digits.

The absolute hero of the populist crowd seems to be a guy named Pim though, with 47,400 link-sized portions of Google love going his way.

Link: Geen Commentaar.

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October 21, 2009

Funk band Gotcha! back together

Filed under: Music by Branko Collin @ 8:54 am

Funk band Gotcha! was doing well in the early 1990s, and then suddenly dropped from view. Turns out they broke up due to unspecified differences of opinions.

I went to one of their concerts in 1992, and really enjoyed it, so it is good to hear that they patched up those differences and got back together again, and are due to embark on a tour of ten concerts. Beef founders Pieter Both and Koen Lommerse even took a sabbatical to be able to play in Gotcha! again.

Check the band’s website for all the tracks of their second, 1993 album Gotcha! Gotcha!

(Link: LiveXS. Source illustration: Gotcha!)

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October 20, 2009

Industry lobbyist exaggerates legal download market

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 8:15 am

legal_videos_arnoud_engelfrietNVPI, an organisation representing the ‘Dutch’ entertainment industry*, recently called for harsher measures against legal copying in the Netherlands, pointing out that there is a ‘sufficient’ supply of stores offering really legal downloads**. However, as Internet lawyer Arnoud Engelfriet points out, they are stretching the truth a bit.

There are indeed 19 online stores selling legal video downloads to the Dutch, but as Engelfriet’s research shows, hardly any of them sell the movies people want to buy. The article is in Dutch, but the accompanying table speaks volumes. Engelfriet compared the 100 videos currently most popular at Bol.com to what NVPI’s champions were offering.

*) Amongst which such familiar ‘Dutch’ giants as Disney, EMI, and Nintendo.

**) I realize this must be confusing. Basically, NVPI wants to outlaw what is known as file sharing, which is currently legal in the Netherlands for some types of creative works.

(Illustration: Arnoud Engelfriet.)

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October 19, 2009

Football cup that any team can win

Filed under: Sports,Weird by Branko Collin @ 8:34 am

The Helmond Cup is an unofficial football championship grafted onto official competitions. The team that beats the last champion in an official match becomes the new champion, so that you get a chain of champions across many unrelated competitions.

It was founded by the Huisman family from Hillegom, avid fans of Helmond Sport, a club that has yet to get out of the Dutch second division. Since it was founded in 2008, the Helmond Cup was won and held shortly by teams from the Netherlands, France, Ukraine and Spain. You can it follow its travels at the Ajaxtalk forums.

A similar cup is the Unofficial Football World Championships, founded by Scotland fans when Scotland beat archnemesis England, who were then the real world champions. Currently, the Netherlands hold that trophy, although we might lose it next month when playing Italy in a friendly match.

(Photo by Wikimedia user Carolus Ludovicus, some rights reserved.)

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October 18, 2009

Van Gogh’s letters and Max Havelaar in English

Filed under: Art,History,Literature by Branko Collin @ 11:34 am

English translations of Vincent van Gogh’s letters to his brother Theo have been released in a 6 volume boxed set by the Van Gogh Museum in a 15-year-long cooperation with the Huygens Instituut. The original letters in French and Dutch have also been reproduced.

The entire set contains all the pictures referenced in the letters, that is, all 4,300 of them, The Guardian reports.

If you don’t feel like shelling out the 325 UKP that the set is undoubtedly worth, you can also read the letters and their translations at vangoghletters.org. The Huygens Instituut is part of the Dutch academy for sciences.

Story via Eamelje.net (Dutch), who in a totally unrelated story also points out that another Dutch giant of the 19th century, writer Multatuli, published his masterpiece Max Havelaar 150 years ago last Tuesday. The Havelaar has been in translation for a long time, and a public domain English version can be found at Google Books.

If you do not like PDF or EPUB, you might be able to extract the HTML version from the EPUB file (which is just a ZIP archive under a different name).

(more…)

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October 17, 2009

Pillars supporting Amsterdam are slowly crumbling

Filed under: Architecture by Branko Collin @ 11:16 am

As you may know, Amsterdam was basically built in what can perhaps best be described as a swamp, and as it happens peat is not the best conceivable supporter for brick. Early Amsterdam residents got around this problem by driving huge wooden poles into the bog until it hit firmer ground and then building their houses on top of this wooden foundation.

It turns out, Parool says, that a changing climate is leading to longer droughts, which in turn lowers the water level and causes the poles to dry out and crumble.

It is mostly privately owned houses that are in danger of collapsing, as housing corporations have already replaced their pillars.

The Parool article quotes alderman Maarten van Poelgeest and a spokesperson of Waternet who both say that the situation is serious without going into much detail, although the latter says that “there is no need to panic, this won’t be an issue before 2040.”

(Photo by Wikipedia user Dohduhdah)

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October 12, 2009

Alcoholics wanted as tour guides

Filed under: Weird by Branko Collin @ 11:51 am

A tour company in Amsterdam claims it wants to hire alcoholics as guides, writes Z24 (Dutch).

Amsterdam Excursions believes that habitual drunks know where to find the bars for its tour of Amsterdam watering holes. In order to test suitability the company lets applicants fill out a questionnaire, open a beer bottle without an opener, and do a breathalyser test.

So far it appears only people who drink in the street or quietly at home have shown up, not the ‘kroegtijgers’ (bar flies) the tour company was hoping for.

This is the same company that organized an economic crisis themed tour.

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October 10, 2009

Public Enemy to produce next album through Sellaband

Filed under: Music by Branko Collin @ 11:41 am

Legendary rappers Public Enemy are taking the fan-financed route.

The group will try and sell their next album through Sellaband, according to the Guardian. The Amsterdam based website works by letting users buy shares of an album to provide musicians with the money to produce an album.

Chuck D’s crew have turned to an independent Dutch website to raise $250,000 (£157,000) for recording and promoting their 13th studio album.

On Tuesday, the group began selling $25 (£15) shares in the as-yet untitled, as-yet unrecorded album. By selling 10,000 shares, Public Enemy hope to cover “complete recording costs and expenses … [and] fund a strategic marketing plan for [its] worldwide release … in 2010”.

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