November 6, 2012

Dermatologists run secret company at hospital, all fired

Filed under: Health by Orangemaster @ 3:02 pm

All four dermatologists of the Catharina Ziekenhuis in Eindhoven were running a cosmetic dermatology company on the side without the hospital’s permission and are being fired for it, albeit not on the spot, as they have six months more to go.

Some 168 patients paid out a total of 24,000 euro in cash or by invoice, and some even paid for costs already covered by their insurance. The specialists also used hospital equipment and letterhead, but a separate bank account to keep it on the down low.

(Link: www.ed.nl)

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November 5, 2012

Sexologists believe virtual child porn may take pressure off for paedophiles

Filed under: Health by Branko Collin @ 1:54 pm

Out of every 20 men that get convicted for possession of child pornography only one will ever rape a child, sexologist Erik van Beek told newspaper Trouw two weeks ago.

A colleague, Rik van Lunsen of the AMC hospital, says that there is a group of paedophiles that they call the ‘healthy’ group. These men report themselves to the AMC and are clearly struggling with their conscience. They are afraid they will end up doing things to children that they don’t really want to do. Van Lunsen believes that the first step for these men is to stop the struggle against their feelings: “It’s like telling somebody that they should not think of a purple crocodile. Such a person will end up only thinking of purple crocodiles.”

Van Lunsen added that paedophiles cannot be cured: “Sexual preferences are set in stone once you turn eight.”

Both sexologists plead for allowing the production and possession of realistic, virtual child pornography. Apart from providing the ‘healthy group’ of paedophiles with a safety valve, they hope this will disrupt the market for real child pornography.

Realistic virtual child pornography was outlawed in the Netherlands in 2002. The Dutch tend to differentiate between paedophiles (adults sexually attracted to children) and child rapists (‘pedoseksuelen’). Lolicon, manga that depicts sex with children, may not be illegal in the Netherlands.

Photo by Jason Rogers, some rights reserved.

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November 4, 2012

Heated bike paths and glow in the dark roads

Filed under: Automobiles,Bicycles by Branko Collin @ 9:43 pm

The towns of Utrecht and Zutphen will start experiments with heating bike paths, DutchNews reports.

The news site quotes a Telegraaf article that says these experiments will start ‘soon’. The idea is that ‘asphalt collectors’ will collect and store the summer heat, and release this energy in the winter to stop ice from forming. This could reduce accidents:

‘The result is cooler asphalt in summer and a warmer surface in winter,’ Marcel Boerefijn, the project’s leader, is quoted as saying. In the future, footpaths could also be kept ice-free using the same techniques, he said.

Boerefijn says the new surface and heat collection system will cost between €30,000 and €40,000 a kilometre – about the same as it costs to lay new asphalt.

Car drivers need not feel left out. In 2013 a “few hundred metres of glow in the dark, weather-indicating road will be installed in the province of Brabant” according to Wired.

The special paint needed for these glow in the dark roads was developed by Studio Roosegaarde and will be used to create road markings.

The studio has also been working on a paint that will be invisible until the temperature drops below a certain point. This could be used according to designer Daan Roosegaarde to indicate that the road is slippery.

The idea is to not only use more sustainable methods of illuminating major roads, thus making them safer and more efficient, but to rethink the design of highways at the same time as we continue to rethink vehicle design. As Studio Roosegaarde sees it, connected cars and internal navigation systems linked up to the traffic news represent just one half of our future road management systems — roads need to fill their end of the bargain and become intelligent, useful drivers of information too.

See also: A Dutch bike path with solar panels

(Photo by Flickr user comedynose, some rights reserved)

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November 3, 2012

DigiNotar hacker came in through front door

Filed under: IT by Branko Collin @ 4:28 pm

In 2011 Dutch web certificate company DigiNotar was compromised completely by an Iranian hacker, and a report released this week details how it was done.

The report, written by security auditors Fox-IT and published by the state last Monday, shows that the hacker managed to get access to Diginotar’s public website, which had already been hacked in 2009. In fact, the defacements from that year were still online when the hack was discovered in August 2011, security.nl reported at the time.

According to Webwereld, Fox-IT’s report reads like a how-to for pwning a badly secured system. The hacker installed a shell on the web server, which must have been easy to do, as the still online defacements showed the way. DigiNotar had a firewall between its public network (which it called the Demilitarised Zone) and its segmented internal network, but it also had a long list of exceptions in the firewall. The certificate servers were also attached to the office network of DigiNotar, so that the hacker could use the standard MS Windows Remote Desktop tool to create false certificates.

Just another day at the office for an experienced black hat hacker.

Techworld reports that the DigiNotar hack was mainly used to attack Gmail users in Iran. DigiNotar declared bankruptcy in September 2011. The company’s certificates were heavily relied upon by the Dutch government, but also by Google.

Web certificates are a means to tell your browser that the website you are visiting real is the website it claims to be. This is useful for online banking and so on.

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November 2, 2012

SS Rotterdam stays in Rotterdam

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 11:39 pm

The recently restored former passenger liner SS Rotterdam will stay in the city it was named after, DutchNews reports.

The ship was bought in 2005 by housing corporation Woonbron which wanted to turn it into a hotel and restaurant complex after renovations. Renovations, however, cost 230 million euro, which is 224 million euro over budget. Woonbron started capsizing and had to let go of the monumental steamer, and at the same time of its board member Martien Kromwijk.

NRC adds that the high cost was partially related to the unexpected presence of asbestos on board.

In 2009 the cost overrun was still limited to ‘merely’ 169 million euro, as 24 Oranges reported back then.

The new owner Westcord Hotels, a Dutch hotel chain, paid almost 30 million euro.

(Photo by Jakub Bogucki, some rights reserved)

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November 1, 2012

Rijksmuseum offers copyright-free masterpieces online

Filed under: Art,Online by Orangemaster @ 2:17 pm

This week Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum launched an online database of 125,000 high resolution masterpieces called ‘Rijksstudio’ that can be downloaded and used for free. The images are copyright-free, and the idea is that you can make your own collection of images, post them to social media, caption them, make mouse pads out of them and all kinds of other creative stuff.

Rijksstudio was royally opened by Prince Constantijn and has a localized Pinterest feel to it.

(Link: www.limburger.nl)

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October 31, 2012

Amsterdam’s Church of St. Nicholas to become a basilica

Filed under: Religion by Orangemaster @ 1:16 pm

The Church of St. Nicholas in Amsterdam, located right across from Amsterdam Central Station, is being upgraded to the status of basilica according to the Catholic church. It will be officially given the status as of 9 December, making it the 24th basilica in the country.

To be given the title of basilica, a church has to have a lot of regular clientele and has to be a unique work of architecture.

Saint-Nicholas is the patron saint of Amsterdam and of many cities worldwide, as well as the patron saint of sailors, merchants, archers, thieves, children, and in some places, students.

(Link: www.katholieknieuwsblad.nl, Photo of Church of St Nicholas/Sint Nicolaaskerk by Judy van der Velden, some rights reserved)

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October 30, 2012

Steve Jobs’ yacht floats first in the Netherlands

Filed under: Design,IT by Orangemaster @ 2:02 pm

On 28 October, one year after the death of Apple’s mastermind Steve Jobs, a yacht he designed together with French product designer Philippe Starck has been put to water in Aalsmeer at the docks of royal shipbuilder De Vries. It apparently took six years to design.

The yacht is called Venus, it’s almost 80 metres long, the outside is made of lightweight aluminium with three-metre-high windows and is powered by seven iMacs. Other features include a Jacuzzi, a huge sun deck and a bridge full of mac screens.

The Jobs family had planned to sail around the world with it, but now the yacht will be shipped to the United States.

(Link: www.automatiseringgids.nl, Photo of Steve Jobs by acaben, some rights reserved)

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October 29, 2012

Bicycle bags transform into picnic set

Filed under: Bicycles,Design,Food & Drink by Branko Collin @ 11:23 am

The Springtime picnic set has three life stages, as a pair of bicycle ‘bags’ (pupa), as a basket (larva) and as a table and two chairs (imago).

The set was design by Jeriël Bobbe. It is made of wood and contains pockets for tableware. It is currently not for sale, according to Bright.

(Photos: Bloon Design)

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October 28, 2012

Douwe Egberts admits its Senseo coffee has been weak

Filed under: Food & Drink by Branko Collin @ 1:20 pm

Dutch coffee makers Douwe Egberts have been reducing the amount of coffee in the pods for its Senseo system for years, Volkskrant reports.

The newspaper quotes CEO Michiel Herkemij, who blames former parent company Sara Lee. The amount of coffee in the pods was reduced from 7.5 grams to 7 grams to cut costs. Now that Douwe Egberts is its own company again (called “D. E. Master Blenders”), the missing half gram has been returned to the pods.

It appears the coffee maker wants to go back to competing on quality rather than price. Earlier this year Herkemij told NRC: “If you lower the quality you open the door for white labels. Their pods are 20% cheaper and yet have the same quality as ours. When I worked for Heineken I learned that the only way to distinguish yourself is with better products.”

Herkemij also wants to ditch the recent style of advertising which involved celebrities like Doutzen Kroes and Rutger Hauer and return to the cosy mood of yesteryear’s ads that used the slogan “het aroma komt je tegemoet” (‘the smell of coffee greets you’).

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