October 1, 2013

Scooping up toy cars to win a real one

Filed under: Automobiles,Online by Orangemaster @ 10:11 am

‘Grab a small one, win a big one’: Amsterdam advertising agency Brandbase placed 100,000 miniature cars on Rotterdam’s Binnenrotte street near the local market. One of the toy cars had a marking under it with which you win a real car. Dutch advertising agency Brandbase patiently placed all of these cars, which were scooped up in 23 minutes. Marktplaats, a Dutch auction site also sell cars. Since it has a lot of competition, this was as an attempt to position the site as the ‘quickest route’ to getting rid of your car.

It was definitely the fastest way to get rid of one real car and 100,000 small ones. My childlike brains says it’s also nice to have all those toy cars to play with even if you don’t win.

(Link: www.amsterdamadblog.com, Photo of Matchbox toy cars by sarflondondunc, some rights reserved)

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September 30, 2013

Dutch law turns solar panel owners into entrepreneurs

Filed under: Sustainability by Branko Collin @ 8:08 pm

It sounds like a win-win plan for everybody: the government subsidizes the purchase of solar panels for private families who use the panels to generate clean energy and sell any left over electricity to the public utilities.

Strictly speaking, selling electricity is a commercial transaction over which value added tax must be paid. The Court of Justice of the European Union confirmed this in a ruling in an Austrian case earlier this year. Dutch junior minister Frans Weekers confirmed last week that the ruling also applies to the Netherlands, Z24 reports. Owning a solar panel and selling electricity to the public utilities automatically makes it impossible, the minister told parliament, “to deny one’s status as an entrepreneur” where value added tax is concerned.

This is problematic for a couple of reasons. Solar panel owners rarely get to see how much they have sold back; the utilities just charge them for the balance. Paying VAT also means you have to start bookkeeping. You can ask for an exemption if you expect to pay less than 1,345 euro a year which also releases you from the obligation of bookkeeping.
According to Vereniging Eigen Huis, minister Weekers considers the judgement undesirable and will ask the European Union for a change in the regulations. In the meantime he will initiate talks with the utilities.

I remember when I started freelancing. I made so little money that the people from the tax office laughed at me when I told them I wanted to register for paying added value tax. The difference between me and solar panel owners was of course that I wanted to be an entrepreneur and saw keeping accounts as part of the cost of entry.

According to Dutchnews earlier this year, “solar panels in the Netherlands produce some 100 million kilowatt hours of power” whereas “Dutch solar panel makers had a turnover of over € 490m in 2010”. A quick calculation using the rates of a local supplier shows that solar panel using home owners lowered their electricity bills by 6.5 million euro in 2012, making the solar panel manufacturers the big winners.

(Photo by Mhassan Abdollahi, some rights reserved)

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September 29, 2013

If you see this ad, the model has died

Filed under: Health by Branko Collin @ 2:53 pm

Two years ago the Dutch ALS Foundation (ALS is also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease in North America) started a bold advertising campaign to call attention to the disease.

The campaign consists of portraits of ALS sufferers on posters and in videos. New ads are released only after the model has died. The caption printed on the posters, “ik ben inmiddels overleden”, means “by now I have died”.

In 2010 the foundation made portraits of 9 patients which it expects to distribute in the next few years. It generally takes 3 to 5 years from the onset of the first ALS symptoms to the death of a patient. In 2011 the campaign kicked off after two patients had died, a woman called Conny Deenik and former hockey player and Olympian Theodoor Doyer (photo).

There is no cure for ALS. The disease causes nerves to die, after which the respiratory system breaks down.

(Photo and story: Adformatie / Stichting ALS Nederland)

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September 28, 2013

The gifts her neighbour brings her

Filed under: Comics,General by Branko Collin @ 11:02 pm

Merel Barends is a cartoonist from Amsterdam. Her neighbour, J., “visits us almost every day. Sometimes he is drunk. Sometimes he is not. Often he brings a small gift.”

Sometimes that gift is an old newspaper or a roll of peppermint. Sometimes he brings fenugreek or chocolate, because he feels Merel is too thin. Once it was statuettes: “if you look up on the Internet what they are worth, then we will split the profits.”

Link and photos: Merel Barends.

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September 27, 2013

Mike Dalhuisen debuts with the New York Islanders

Filed under: Dutch first,Sports by Orangemaster @ 9:36 am

In the Netherlands when anyone says ‘hockey’ they mean ‘field hockey’ and when I say ‘hockey’ I mean the burly guys on the ice like Dutch defender Mike Dalhuisen. Dalhuisen played his first professional game last week with the New York Islanders (often subtitled as ‘Highlanders’ on Dutch telly — please stop doing that) in an exhibition game against the New Jersey Devils.

Dalhuisen started his career when he emigrated to Ontario, Canada and played at junior level with the Lindsay Muskies, then with Chicago Steel and Lincoln Stars (United States Hockey League) and eventually at Quinnipiac in Connecticut for four years at the National Collegiate Athletic Association level. Now playing for the New York Islanders makes Dalhuisen the first-ever Dutchman to play for the NHL, (National Hockey League), which includes Canadian teams as well despite its name.

“For me field hockey was never an option; it’s not physical enough”, says Dalhuisen this week in a Spits newspaper interview. Here’s what he sounds like in a quick locker room interview: he sounds like a real North American.

Besides the fact that Dalhuisen is a rising star from a country that understands baseball way better than hockey, he’s gone viral for having a gloves off fist fight with the Devils’ Ryan Carter, despite a 5-3 win for the Islanders. The defender spent 11 minutes on ice and five in the penalty box.

(Links: www.quinnipiacbobcats.com, www.quinnipiacbobcats.com, Photo of hockey sticks by kicksave2930, some rights reserved)

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September 26, 2013

A warm and fuzzy lamp without drilling holes in the wall

Filed under: Design by Orangemaster @ 3:00 pm

My co-blogger Branko thought of me right away when he saw the Wooll-e, a lamp I could have in my way too dark office without drilling holes in the wall, which I’m not allowed to do.

No more need for screws or nails as wooll-e is a unique ready to hang lamp. The wooll-e is a lamp that doesn’t require any tools. Only a power outlet and blank wall space. Designed to be quick-‘n- easy. No more drilling holes in your walls. Simply stick the wooll-e discs on your wall and the wooll-e FIX will do the rest!

The felt sleeves of the wooll-e (hence the name is my guess) are handmade from 100% Dutch wool. Even the power cords come in different colours. For 5 euro of funding towards this Indiegogo crowdfunding project, you’ll get a thanks, and for anything starting at 95 euro, you get a lamp with combo packs going for up to 210 euro.

(Link: www.indiegogo.com, Photo of Lightbulb by Emil Kabanov, some rights reserved)

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September 25, 2013

Utrecht’s Hoog Catharijne shopping mall turns 40 today

Filed under: Architecture by Orangemaster @ 1:45 pm

The Hoog Catharijne shopping mall in Utrecht, which encompasses the largest and busiest train station of the Netherlands, is turning 40 today. In 2016 it will also feature one of the world’s biggest bike garages.

Hoog Catharijne is currently being rebuilt, and a large part of the area around the train station is under construction. The buses below change places every couple of weeks and the traffic needs human help at street level to get going. Hoog Catharijne is one of the busiest Dutch shopping malls, and according to many, not one of the prettiest. When travelling across the country, popping out at Utrecht Central Station to go shopping for clothes or gifts without going outside in the pouring rain is a real plus.

Here’s the promotional video of what it will look like fully rebuilt in 2019 presented in Dutch is a sales pitch with a lot of ‘experience this’ and ‘discover that’. It has an all-white, fit and young cast as well, which doesn’t reflect reality. Sailing over the Catharijnesingel does sound cool: digging up canals is trendy because waterfront property is expensive. Charging up your electric car for free has to be a good thing although I can imagine that for the price of parking your car indoors, it isn’t a strong selling point.

Watch the old school 1970s promotional video for Hoog Catharijne in Dutch featuring key expressions as ‘oriented towards the future’ and mentions of Postwar rebuilding.

(Link: www.nrc.nl, Photo of Hoog Catharijne by Jeroen Bosman, some rights reserved)

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September 24, 2013

Festive aardvark celebrates the city of Arnhem

Filed under: Art by Orangemaster @ 12:40 pm

Rotterdam’s Florentijn Hofman does it again in a big way, this time in a festive manner with the ‘Feestaardvarken’ (‘Party aardvark’) made mostly of metal and concrete.

The Feestaardvarken is a 30-metre-long concrete sculpture which looks like an abstract aardvark with a golden party hat. The work was made specifically for this site and commissioned by Burgers’ Zoo and is a present for the 100th year anniversary of the zoo to the city of Arnhem.

‘Party aardvark’ is a play on words of ‘feestvarken’ (‘party pig’ in Dutch), while aardvark is an Afrikaans word also used in English meaning ‘earth pig’.

(Link and photo: www.florentijnhofman.nl)

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September 23, 2013

More large-scale scientific fraud uncovered at Dutch university

Filed under: Science by Orangemaster @ 8:32 am

Diederik Stapel, the country’s most notorious scientific fraudster, has some competition. Stapel had some 36 cases of confirmed fraud when we wrote about him in 2012, up to 55 at some point.

And now a former professor of the VU University Amsterdam, Mart Bax, has apparently published at least 61 documents of fake research in 15 years. He was quite crafty and managed to recycle his work under fake names, lie about awards and surely more things that will be excavated soon.

The biggest difference so far is that Stapel was still working as a professor when he got caught and Bax has been away from his university for some 11 years.

Here’s a how to fake it when you’re a fraudster scientist.

(Link: www.dutchnews.nl)

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September 22, 2013

‘Underwater’ bridge for bicycles in Haarlem

Filed under: Automobiles,Bicycles by Branko Collin @ 3:24 pm

The city of Haarlem wanted to create a safer situation where a main road crossed another main road coming off a bridge.

For some reason all practical solutions turned out impossible (more likely someone couldn’t be bothered) so the city opted for a work-around, albeit a well designed one. They built a bicycle bridge that wraps around the underside of the other bridge and then partially submerged the bicycle bridge. The result is either a submerged bridge or an open air tunnel, your pick.

The bridge was designed by IPV who seem to be specializing in these sort of crazy work-arounds—check their bicycle roundabout hovering above Eindhoven.

Mark Wagenbuur, the bicycle vlogger, visited Haarlem and shot one of his trademark videos there.

(Photo: ipv Delft)

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