Last week the police apprehended three people for theft and one for buying stolen goods. The three were stealing TVs from a truck they had cut open which was parked near the A58 highway when they initially got caught by a passer-by. The three offered the man a flatscreen TV for his silence, which he accepted. But when he was loading the ill-gotten fruit into his car’s boot, a police car pulled into the parking area. The officers noticed something suspicious going on and arrested all four.
December 25, 2007
Passer-by gets offered plasma TV for staying quiet, gets arrested
Tags: crime, Darwin awards, highway, parking, tvs
December 24, 2007
Photographer Jan-Dirk van der Burg captures the mundane
Photographer Jan-Dirk van der Burg (Flash) tries to capture the out-of-the-way, the old-fashioned and the corny. Like a Dutch Paul Shambroom he visits backrooms to document commission meetings, office culture, hobbies and small passions.
His photos appear in the weekend magazine of Amsterdam daily Het Parool in a column in which young reporters Alma & Fanny ‘collect collectors’. This photo for instance is of a man who collects toy guns, a hobby that, as the collector mentioned matter-of-factly, greatly increases the time he spends at airports, as he always gets picked out of the line by customs.
According to an interview on his website, Van der Burg started to try and capture the rift between people and their environment after he had visited modern office buildings that were furnished like playgrounds yet where employees were unhappy. In order to keep the interior design unblemished, people weren’t even allowed to put up their own pictures.
Tags: collectors, documentaries
December 22, 2007
DIY download Christmas CD
The alternative hit parade hit100.nl has published its second download CD selection, this one Christmas themed. Here’s how it works: they select the songs, you download them (perfectly legal in the Netherlands!), they produce a booklet, you print it and burn the CD. Done!
To me these CDs look like the hit parade CDs being sold in backstreet snack bars in Venlo in the 1980s. Those, of course, were illegal under Dutch law.
Tags: CDs, Christmas, copyright, downloading, publishing
Music promotion community Sellaband partners with Amazon
Amsterdam based distributed band promoter Sellaband are partnering with US online book and music sellers Amazon, Tech Crunch reported this week. Sellaband works by letting fans invest 10 USD in a band of their liking. The fans can decide which music they like by downloading it for free. Once 5,000 fans have paid their tenner, Sellaband uses that money to record and promote a professional studio album.
So far 12 bands have reached the 50,000 dollar amount required for a recording. As long as a band does not reach the threshold, the fan (called Believer in Sellaband jargon) can still withdraw the money or invest it in a different band.
According to The Next Web the announced cooperation will include Amazon spamming its own paying customers with Sellaband promotions—did I just read that right? Also, Amazon’s top 50 reviewers will receive free review copies of Sellaband’s albums.
Photo: Sellaband’s Pim Betist at this year’s Hyves party. Source: Thenextweb.org.
Tags: bands, business models, CDs, communities, Internet
December 21, 2007
Pedal exerciser from the 1990s revisited
Lifehacker’s Gift Guide 2007 for the suave and discerning geek of the noughties acknowledges that the best mods only go with the best bods, so it presents you with a pedaling device called the under-the-desk exerciser (sounds like a Christmas party to me!) to put under your desk or WoW station. But Booklog stands them up with its review of the 1990 summer edition of the Wehkamp mail order catalogue. The “teletrapper” exerciser was sold to an unsophisticated TV dinner crowd even back then, for an even hipper price (in guilders, with about 2 guilders to 1 US dollar).
As one person commented at Lifehacker notes, your desk needs to be higher than waist level, or else you will keep bumping your knees. Of course, if your desk is higher than waist level you’re just begging for RSI. One good solution for that is to get up every 40 minutes or so and take a five minute walk around the office. Once you’ve started doing that, you won’t really need a exercising device, though. Choices!
Tags: Christmas, exercising, life hacking, shopping
First “natural ice” speed skating race of the season in Nijelamer
Last Wednesday the Frisian village of Nijelamer was the first in the country to organise speed skating races on natural ice. On a 160-metre track, 38 pairs started, skating two races each: one away from the village and the second race towards it. The person losing both races was out of the competition. In the end, 21-year-old Ronald Mulder from Zwolle won. Two days earlier, skating icon Henk Angenent had expressed doubt on national TV as to whether natural ice races would be held this week. The farmer from Woubrugge had observed fresh mole hills and saw this as a sign that the frost would not stay. But it did, and the skating peloton was happy for it. (Via free daily De Pers, Dutch.)
Photo by StanTheCaddy, distributed under a Creative Commons BY-2.0 license: children skating at the back of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam in January 2007.
Tags: Friesland, natural ice, Rijksmuseum, skating, traits
December 20, 2007
No condom shaped lights for the Warmoesstraat
The Warmoesstraat is one of the oldest streets of Amsterdam and the gateway to the famous Red Light District. The street’s business association wanted to see the wares it sells reflected in its seasonal lighting, and therefore ordered the manufacturing of lights in the shape of condoms, handcuffs, magic mushrooms and so on. But it wasn’t to be: due to a construction error the light that would have been revealed tomorrow turned out to be too heavy to be hung.
The lighting idea was the result of a competition held by the business association and won by Toko 73 and Coolpuk, who also came up with a new logo. I also liked the idea of Carmela Bogman to use LED lights to create an understated, moon-shaped display that would bring visitors back to a darker bygone era, thereby underlining the age of the street—although the actual designs were a bit “Ot en Sien” (tacky).
Illustration by Toko 73 and Coolpuk.
Tags: Christmas, condoms, handcuffs, lamps, magic mushrooms, Red Light District, shopping
December 12, 2007
Pyromaniac tries to use Bob the Builder sock for arson
Photo: Bob the Builder
Have you seen this man?
A tiny village in Groningen called ‘t Zand has been plagued by a pyromaniac since August this year. Recently, the police revealed that the arsonist had used a Bob the Builder sock during a failed attempt: they believe the sock was placed in such a way that it should lead the fire to other inflammable material. The fire petered out before it could reach that otherwise unspecified material, according to daily Dagblad van het Noorden (Dutch). The police know that the sock was made in 1993, and sold in the Netherlands, but they would like you to contact them if you have any further information about the alleged sock.
Tags: arson, Bob the Builder, Groningen, pyromanics, socks, toys
December 11, 2007
Number of classic cars and motors doubled in seven years
Illustration: a Morris Minor (1953) I saw in the Amsterdamse Bos last spring.
Daily Algemeen Dagblad reports (Dutch) that the number of old-timers in the Netherlands has doubled in seven years, with cars going from 121,000 in 2000 to 204,000 in 2007. The amount of classic motorcycles has risen even more, almost tripling from 32,000 to 94,000. Old-timers are defined as cars that are more than 25 years old.
A number of experts interviewed came up with different reasons to explain this rise. One of them suggested that it may have to do with the increased quality of cars and motorcycles; they last longer. Another thought it might have to do with taxes; owners of old-timers don’t have to pay road tax. A third guessed that the aging population may have to do with it; old people with money buying cars to be seen with.
Link to statistics. Via Telegravin (Dutch).
Tags: driving, oldtimers, pensioners, statistics, taxes
December 9, 2007
Upside down champagne set by Viktor & Rolf
Must have champers for holidays? Dutch clothes designers Viktor & Rolf came up with this upside down champagne set for Piper-Heidsieck’s Rosé Sauvage.
Tags: champagne, drinks, Fashion, Viktor & Rolf