November 17, 2012

Caspar Berger’s self-portrait

Filed under: Art by Branko Collin @ 2:43 pm

Sculptor Caspar Berger made a bronze self-portrait based on a 3D scan of his skull.

At his website he writes:

In this project, Self-portrait 21, the 3D copy of the skull represents the true image (vera icon). This image has formed the basis for a facial reconstruction by a forensic anthropologist, who received the skull anonymously accompanied only by the information that it belonged to a man in his mid-40s born in Western Europe.

If you want to see if the forensic anthropologist did a good job, here is a photo of Caspar.

(Photo: Caspar Berger. Link: Boing Boing.)

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November 15, 2012

World’s first emergency broadcast system using text messages

Filed under: Dutch first,Technology by Orangemaster @ 10:04 am

The Dutch government has just launched the world’s first nation-wide text message emergency alert system, called NL-Alert, which allows authorities to warn people within the immediate vicinity of an emergency situation (e.g. a major fire or flooding) by sending a text message to their mobile phones about what to do in that event.

All mobile phones users in the affected area will receive text messages automatically, as long as NL-Alert has been activated, the phone is switched on and has normal reception. It is also free to use and you do not need to register to use it.

Considering the goal is to keep people safe, I’m a bit surprised that the website is only in Dutch and that the warning messages will only be in Dutch, contrary to a lot of other less important government information about, oh, taxes. The other thing is, it assumes everyone has a mobile phone, but then again I assume that someone with a mobile phone will be decent enough to warn any phoneless person.

This seems like a very modern response to the quasi obsoleteness of television and radio for up to date information, which nobody except the elderly, housewives and the unemployed listen to during the day. Most major emergencies are often communicated by mobile phone to the media by Twitter and the likes, so it makes sense that the information from the government be broadcast by mobile phone. Granted, cell broadcasting is totally different than using the Internet, but both make use of mobile phones.

My phone, the HTC One X was already configured to receive cell broadcasting messages, a system which is designed to simultaneously deliver messages to multiple users in a specified area.

(Link: www.iamexpat.nl, Photo by William Hook, some rights reserved)

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November 14, 2012

The Netherlands’ reputation as a tax haven is alive and well

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 11:20 am

Last year, The Guardian wrote a column on how the Netherlands is a tax haven for multinationals. In fact, if you Google ‘Netherlands’ and words like ‘tax avoidance’ or ‘tax haven’, you’ll see how gladly the country enables companies like Amazon, Google and Starbucks.

Back in 2002 Portugal got pissed when they calculated the insane amount of money they were losing to the Netherlands, while Dutch telly pointed out that “empty shell corporations pump 8,000 billion euro through the Netherlands”.

It’s bad enough the country’s 16.5 million residents have to deal with explaining themselves when it comes to prostitution and drugs, what we could do without is having to explain why our government wants to be the whore and pusher of corporations. Grab a hot beverage and read The central role of Dutch financing companies in tax avoidance strategies.

In the Netherlands, complex tax law constructions apparently allow companies to show losses in one or more countries to pay taxes at a lower rate in another. While most of it is probably legal, like many capitalist constructions, it screws billions of people over around the world. And the Netherlands thinks that’s ethically fine for some reason.

If you want more information, this is also a nice read from the Netherlands Comparative Law Association. The conclusion says a lot: “The Netherlands has a long-standing tradition of providing tools to address tax avoidance.”

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November 13, 2012

A hand grenade pops up in potatoes

Filed under: Food & Drink,History,Weird by Orangemaster @ 7:38 pm
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It’s déjà  vu time, as grenades like to hide in potatoes.

A standard fragmentation hand grenade used by Americans in WWII was found in a bunch of potatoes at a potato processing plant in Dronten, Flevoland today. Dozens of bombs, bullets and grenades from the war are found every year in this area.

Here’s an upbeat video about finding grenades in potatoes in Europe, with an interesting find at the Netherlands’ biggest amusement park the Efteling earlier this year.

(Link: www.dutchnews.nl, Photo of grenade by macspite, some rights reserved)

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November 12, 2012

Life line for Frisian studies

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

During one of his last days in office former Education Minister Halbe Zijlstra has saved the bachelor programme Minorities and Multilingualism: Into the Frisian Laboratory at the University of Groningen (RUG).

The minister granted the program a subsidy of 120,000 euro per year, the provincial government reported last Tuesday. The RUG will sponsor the programme for the same amount.

In 2010 only one person studied Frisian at the RUG.

Frisian is one of the two official languages of the province of Friesland, the other being Dutch.

Halbe Zijlstra was born in Friesland in 1969, in the town of Oosterwolde.

(Photo by Rupert Ganzer, some rights reserved)

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November 11, 2012

Love letter to the landscape of Holland

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 10:14 am

American blogger Abi Sutherland currently lives just North of Amsterdam, and she is slowly getting used to the fact that there are no mountains here:

This is a good spot. The bike path runs between two strips of water, both bright with reflected sky. To my right is a narrow patch of reeds, its leaves beginning to turn purple-brown with autumn. The last light of the day gives them a bit of its orange, a parting gift of warmth and richness. To my left, the fields stretch out for kilometers, flat and treeless. Only the livestock and the woodwork—bridges and little stretches of fence—break the landscape between me and the outlines of the distant trees and towns. Above it all, the sky is full of light.

[…]

This is nothing like anything I have ever known. If my love of California came through the front door and my love of Scotland through the side, this sudden, inarticulate love of the Netherlands is the unexpected guest who appears one day in the living room, ringing no bell and answering no invitation. And yet here it is, and it draws me out of the house and away from the cities every bright day. I go out for half-hour rides and come back three hours later, windblown and bright-eyed.

Go read.

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November 10, 2012

Teenager from Helmond buys ticket to space

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 10:36 am

Last Sunday Rowin Hellings (18) from Helmond near Eindhoven bought himself a ride on a suborbital space flight.

The flights were being sold as part of a sales promotion by German consumer electronics chain Media Markt. In 2014 Hellings will be flying aboard an XCOR Lynx rocket plane. His ticket was sponsored by his parents and cost 73,333 euro, according to Eindhovens Dagblad.

Although Media Markt charged the regular price for the flight, they padded the purchase with 6,600 euro worth of consumer electronics.

Earlier this year Sabine van der Sluis (33) won a flight on the Lynx as part of a loyalty scheme promotion, AD wrote back then.

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November 9, 2012

Tsunami barrier wins first prize in the US

Filed under: Design,Nature,Technology by Orangemaster @ 1:30 pm

Dutch engineering firm Van den Noort Innovations invented a passive tsunami breaker that won the American Wall Street Journal Technical Innovation Award in the Environment category.

Although all kinds of barriers are being used around the world today, many of them don’t work or interfere with shipping and marine life. This barrier automatically deploys when destructive waves approach, using the mass of the tsunami itself to break the waves. Since it only works when there’s a tsunami, it stays flat in the water when it’s not in use.

The “Twin-wing Tsunami Barrier” lays flat on the sea bed and is activated when waters recede from the shore in advance of destructive waves. The receding “negative tsunami” causes one wing of the barrier to swing up and trap a pool of water. As the “positive tsunami” wave approaches, a second, larger wing is deployed to block and reflect the wave back out to sea—all without human intervention.

Watch this English video:

(Links: www.kennislink.nl, online.wsj.com, photo: Van den Noort Innovations)

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November 8, 2012

Quaint tourist town of Volendam full of hard drug users

Filed under: Health,Music by Orangemaster @ 6:52 pm

According to Dutch television show ‘Spuiten en Slikken’, which talks candidly about drugs with young adults, the picturesque fishing village of Volendam uses more drugs per capita than cities like Milan, Paris and London. The sewer water, which was tested by the KWR Watercycle Research Institute, came up with the equivalent of one line of cocaine per 40 inhabitants. With XTC, Volendam takes the No. 3 spot in Europe, just behind the cities of Amsterdam and Eindhoven.

In July we already told you that Amsterdam had sewers full of hard drugs, but Volendam only has 22,000 inhabitants, although it attracts a lot of weekend drug users. Volendam is not as much the butt of jokes as the town of Urk, where kids drink and snort their religion-induced boredom away, but is home to many Dutch music artists that people either love or find annoying, making this discovery an excuse to make fun of Volendam.

(Link: www.rtvnh.nl, Photo: DEA)

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November 7, 2012

Dutch professor’s fake research keeps piling up

Filed under: Science by Orangemaster @ 1:22 pm

Last year ‘Professor’ Diederik Stapel from the University of Tilburg was suspended for making up pro-vegetarian research, which other ‘Professors’ bought into hook, line and sinker, like a school of professional fish.

An investigative committee was set up to find out how much nonsense he actually made up over the years and apparently, it’s a big pile. From his Groningen period, nine articles and two dissertations have been added to the heap of his confirmed 36 cases of fraud. The committee is also looking into his work at other Dutch universities where fraud is being called ‘highly probable’, which will surely add to the big pile.

(Link: www.volkskrant.nl, Photo of the Erasmus University auditorium released into the public domain by Wikifrits)

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