April 23, 2015

Siblings reunite through Tinder after 16 years

Filed under: Online,Weird by Orangemaster @ 1:46 pm

Tinder

Dutch siblings Erik (24) and Josephine (22) lost track of each other when their parents split up in 1999, as Josephine stayed in Breda with her mom while Erik and his twin brother Maarten went to live in Belgium.

Sixteen years later Erik and Josephine ‘swiped right’ on dating app Tinder, matched up, and started flirting. However, Erik felt that something was off and eventually shared his suspicions with others online. Erik and Josephine talked about their childhood, and then the pieces fell into place: they were family. They met up in Tilburg and reconnected. Twin brother Maarten is also happy about
the reunion.

(Link: www.ad.nl, Photo of Tinder app by Wayan Vota, some rights reserved)

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April 22, 2015

Prodigy clip by Dutch director poised to win award

Filed under: Film,Music by Orangemaster @ 3:22 pm

Seasoned Arnhem stop motion filmmaker Mascha Halberstad is up for a Berlin Music Video Award 2015 thanks to a video she made for the UK band The Prodigy of their song ‘Wild Frontier’. Frontman Liam Howlett asked her personally to make the video, and according to De Gelderlander, she is a favourite to win the German award.

Featured on the album ‘The Day Is My Enemy’ from February 2015, here’s ‘Wild Frontier’:

(Link: www.gelderlander.nl, Photo of film cans by tallfoot, some rights reserved)

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April 21, 2015

Women’s mag peddles clichés about ‘dark men’

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 2:06 pm

Politely called ‘shortsighted’ on the one hand and ‘racist’ on the other, but mostly referred to as ‘disgusting’, Dutch women’s magazine Viva has started a controversy by publishing an article called ’10 reasons to date a dark man’ full of predictable stereotypes. Dutch news magazine HP/De Tijd made an excellent point: Viva assumes all their readers are white, which represents the ‘eternal status quo’.

According to Viva, a ‘dark man’ has ‘dance moves’, will give you beautiful ‘half-blood’ children, has ‘big lips’, all have family living in ‘warm countries’, have more passion that Dutchmen (because ‘dark men can’t possibly be considered Dutch’ in their world view) and have bigger penises. And I left some stuff out.

Viva have taken the post offline after the editor-in-chief realised that all kinds of people were pissed at the posting and attempted to apologise. The editor-in-chief hadn’t read the posting. Maybe it’s time to double check your work.

(Link: forum.viva.nl, Photo of wilted tulip by Graham Keen, some rights reserved)

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April 20, 2015

Win tickets for the Kunsthal in Rotterdam

Filed under: Art by Orangemaster @ 12:19 pm

Kunsthal-1

Roomed.nl is giving away three pairs of tickets to the Kunsthal in Rotterdam, which is currently featuring many ‘freaky spring’ exhibitions, including ‘Your Light is My Life’ by Czech artist Krištof Kintera, running until 7 June.

Kintera’s solo exhibition is said to be full of irony, mixed with slapstick and dark humour, as well as some political statements. His sculptures and installations can move, communicate, are dysfunctional, and sometimes just plain absurd.

Also on the menu are the exhibitions ‘200 years of the Kingdom of the Netherlands’, ‘The Furry Adventures of the Cabbit and the Folk’ and enough art to make your visit complete.

(Link: roomed.nl, Photo of Kunsthal by kleiobird/Jaap Vogel, some rights reserved)

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April 19, 2015

Dutch student named Global Entrepreneur of the Year

Filed under: Animals,Design by Orangemaster @ 8:14 pm

This week Dutch student Steinar Henskes of the VU University Amsterdam, owner of the Bird Control Group, won Global Student Entrepreneur of the Year, an event held in Washington, D.C. Up against 2,000 students from 38 countries, Henskes took home a cool USD 20,000 (about € 18,500) in prize money.

Bird Control Group provides solutions to keep birds at a safe distance from commercial activities using animal-safe lasers. Founded in 2012, the company operates in 52 countries around the globe including major airports like Schiphol and London Airport. “The products are recognised by the World Wildlife Fund for their innovation, effectiveness and animal friendliness.”

(Link: www.marketwired.com, photo of a lightbulb by Emil Kabanov, some rights reserved)

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April 17, 2015

Rare fish spotted in South Holland

Filed under: Animals,Nature by Orangemaster @ 4:10 pm

vimba

Sightings of the vimba bream (in Dutch, ‘blauwneus’) in the Netherlands are rare, especially really young ones. In early April some 50 volunteers started monitoring and listing fish caught in frame nets in the New Waterway near Maassluis, and the vimba bream stood out. They jump upstream like salmon do.

The vimba bream was originally a Central European species that expanded into Germany to the Rhine Valley when the Main-Danube Canal was being dug. “The first observations of the vimba bream in the Netherlands date back to 1989, when a three-year-old fish was caught in the Lower Rhine.”

(Link: dearkitty1, via natuurbericht.nl, Photo of Vimba bream by zigurdzakis, some rights reserved)

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April 16, 2015

Rabobank kills book containing accusations of art theft

Filed under: Art by Branko Collin @ 2:05 pm

rabobank-ben-kraan-architectenThe court of The Hague has rushed to the aid of Dutch bank Rabobank when it censored the book ‘De Verpanding’ (The Pawning) last Friday.

The book, subtitled ‘Art Disappears Where Rabo Appears’, describes the dealings of two ‘art entrepreneurs’ (as Volkskrant calls them) with the Special Cases department of Rabobank.

The authors claim Rabobank stole art works and chased the art collections of art traders, says NRC. Interestingly, the book was published in March with almost no publicity (at least none that I could find), but Rabobank thought it important to sue the publishers nevertheless. The court of The Hague ordered the book to be taken off the market with the goal of protecting the privacy of Rabobank employees who were named in the book. An anonymised reprint may be in the works. The publishers have asked buyers to return the book for a refund.

Meanwhile De Verpanding has been scanned and made widely available through the Internet. In an age where bankers are considered unconvicted criminals by many, such a response should have been foreseen by the bank.

The court of The Hague told 24 Oranges it expects the written verdict to be available from rechtspraak.nl somewhere in the course of next week.

(Photo by Ben Kraan Architecten, some rights reserved)

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April 15, 2015

Chimpanzee swats drone like a boss, goes viral

Filed under: Animals by Orangemaster @ 9:41 pm

Burgers’ Zoo in Arnhem decided to fly a drone over the chimpanzee enclosure as part of films they make to show the world how the animals are doing, but Tushi the chimpanzee was not having any of it. Sitting quietly in a tree, she armed itself with a stick and swatted the sucker to the ground. The whole thing was filmed and so the world can enjoy another coffee break brought to you by the crazy world of animals living in captivity.

We had another great drone fail that went viral a while back, the ‘My first day with my drone’ film, which also goes great with coffee and boredom.

(Link: www.ad.nl, Photo of Drone by Karen Axelrad, some rights reserved)

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April 14, 2015

Photo-realistic rugs by Moooi Carpets

Filed under: Design by Orangemaster @ 11:19 am

Moooi-carpets_Milan-2015_dezeen_468_36

Breda-based Dutch design studio Moooi is launching a new company called Moooi Carpets with an inaugural collection of photo-realistic designs by Studio Job, Ross Lovegrove, Neri & Hu (as shown above) and many more.

Moooi Carpets explains that it uses advanced technology to print designs directly onto carpet at a higher definition than ever before. Its printing plant will be able to print everything from rugs to full-width fitted carpet as well as one-off designs. “It’s the reinvention of the carpet,” says Moooi CEO Casper Vissers.

“The carpets are produced using a giant machine that measures 100 metres long. Its size allows it to print designs up to four metres wide in unlimited colours, without having to change the dye injectors in its Chromojet printer.”

(Link and photo: www.dezeen.com)

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April 13, 2015

Drone with asparagus crashes and burns

Filed under: Food & Drink,Gadgets by Orangemaster @ 10:12 am

Having a drone deliver asparagus to your restaurant to ring in the new season on 1 April was a novel idea and a great publicity stunt for restaurant De Zwaan in Etten-Leur, Noord-Brabant, but it didn’t go exactly as planned.

Plan B was landing the drone nearby in case of wind and then taking a walk to pick up the asparagus, but that didn’t pan out either, as the drone went with Plan C, which resulting in a crash-and-burn scenario.

The drone made a stop along the way to change batteries, which went well, but the takeoff afterwards eventually turned into a nose dive and a pile of flambé white asparagus.

I’m already curious as to what delivery method they are going to try next year.

(Link: www.omroepbrabant.nl, Photo of asparagus by Stephan Mosel, some rights reserved)

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