October 25, 2011

Dutch have fastest Internet connections in Europe

Filed under: Technology by Branko Collin @ 9:48 am

The Register writes:

The Netherlands have the fastest Internet connections in Europe according to a State of the Internet report by Akamai, with more than 68 per cent of Dutch broadband lines clocking in at 5Mbit/s or more.

[…]

The fastest Internet in the world is found in Japan, with 59 Japanese cities filling out the Akamai list of the 100 cities with the fastest broadband. Brno in the Czech Republic has the fastest connection speeds of any city in Europe at an average of 8.3Mbit/s. No UK cities make the top 100.

Global average connection speed grew 43% in the last year. The Netherlands is also the country with the highest level of broadband adoption in the world, with 68% of the households having a fast connection.

In case you’ve never heard of them, Akamai are the people who used to host large files for large companies until Amazon shouldered its way into the market. (I am sure they’re still doing fine.) In other words, they know a thing or two about connectivity.

See also: Gigabit internet connection to the houseboat

(Photo by Joe Frisino, some rights reserved)

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October 24, 2011

‘Leave Napoleon and his white horse alone’

Filed under: Art by Orangemaster @ 4:33 pm

The Amsterdam Museum has managed to raise 12,500 euro for the restoration of the huge painting ‘The Entry of Napoleon in Amsterdam’ (pic), representing the submission of Amsterdam by the French 200 years ago. They need 30,000 euro to complete the restoration and the money so far has come from crowd funding.

The ‘battered’ painting can currently be seen for free at the museum’s Schuttersgalerij (Civic Guards Gallery), along with a collection of portraits of prominent Amsterdam people, something to do if you’re downtown Amsterdam and you need a break from the tourists and your shopping.

“Each year, the citizens involved in the Civic Guard would pay a high price to have their portraits painted. Only the wealthy could afford such a luxury and so developed this portrait collection of wealthy Amsterdam citizens. Many of the famous artists from the 17th century were commissioned to paint these artworks, including Rembrandt.”

The general view seems to be ‘leave the painting alone’. The cracks and wear are part of the painting’s history and the faded colours have their charm. If anyone wants to see the painting in its current state, visit the museum before the end of the year.

(Links: www.nieuwsuitamsterdam.nl, cityscouter)

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Piet Hein Eek designs furniture for mail order company

Filed under: Design by Branko Collin @ 12:04 am

The guy behind the scrapwood craze of the nineties, Piet Hein Eek, has collaborated with mail order company Wehkamp on a wooden furniture line.

The line contains three oak tables and two oak chairs, Bright reports. The cheapest item, the chair shown here, costs 200 euro.

Piet Hein Eek is known for exclusive and pricey products, whereas Wehkamp (€ 488 million turnover in 2010) is known as relatively cheap. Eek wanted a change of pace, as did Viktor & Rolf (H&M) and Hella Jongerius (IKEA) before him.

Update 2 November 2017: removed a broken link.

(Photo: Wehkamp)

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October 22, 2011

Phone companies may not let thugs force teenagers to buy subscriptions

Filed under: General,Technology by Branko Collin @ 4:03 pm

A type of crime that I had not heard of before is that Dutch teenagers are being forced by peers to buy them expensive mobile phone subscriptions. Back in February consumer watchdog show Kassa reported that this sort of thing happens on a large scale.

Stores that sell these subscriptions tend to close their eyes to this problem. Arnoud Engelfriet reported two weeks ago that in a surprising verdict, a judge said that even though they are not a party to the crime, telecom companies can still not hold the victims to these crimes to the contracts they entered into.

An eighteen year old girl from Rotterdam was forced under threat of violence to enter into several contracts with KPN subsidiary Telfort. Dutch law says that if you entered a contract under threat, you can rescind the contract. The court also weighed heavily that forcing teenagers to buy cellphones and mobile subscriptions is a common enough practice that Telfort should have been suspicious, especially now the victim bought five subscriptions at five different stores in a single day, which is uncommon.

(Photo by Macinate, some rights reserved)

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October 20, 2011

Director Sluizer to finish film with River Phoenix

Filed under: Film by Orangemaster @ 11:33 am

Eighteen years after American actor River Phoenix died of an overdose related heart attack in Hollywood on Halloween night, Dutch film director George Sluizer, 79, has decided to finish shooting the movie ‘Dark Blood’ that had Phoenix in it at the time.

George Sluizer is known for his film ‘Spoorloos’ (1988) aka ‘The Vanishing’ (1992), starring Jeff Bridges and Kiefer Sutherland. He is Dutch even though he was born in Paris (the Dutch wikipedia page is wrong, saying he’s French) and had shelved the film so that it wouldn’t get lost. Sluizer has now re-edited the material and believes with a few adjustments, he will probably have the film released next year. One of these ‘adjustments’ includes having brother Joaquin Phoenix do some voice-over work, as he apparently sounds like River.

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

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October 19, 2011

American writer Bukowski told Dutch library how it is

Filed under: Literature by Orangemaster @ 2:30 pm

In 1985, following a complaint from a local reader, staff at the Public Library in Nijmegen decided to remove Charles Bukowski’s book, Tales of Ordinary Madness, from their shelves whilst declaring it “very sadistic, occasionally fascist and discriminatory against certain groups (including homosexuals).” In the following weeks, a local journalist by the name of Hans van den Broek wrote to Bukowski and asked for his opinion. It soon arrived.

Look at a picture and read the entire poetic response here.

“If I write badly about blacks, homosexuals and women it is because of these who I met were that. There are many “bads”–bad dogs, bad censorship; there are even “bad” white males. Only when you write about “bad” white males they don’t complain about it. And need I say that there are “good” blacks, “good” homosexuals and “good” women?”

I think that whoever complained just couldn’t read English or between the lines properly.

(Link: lettersofnote.com, via @ejpfauth on Twitter)

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October 18, 2011

Vincent van Gogh did not shoot himself, biographers claim

Filed under: Art,History by Branko Collin @ 9:31 am

Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith just published a new biography of Vincent van Gogh in which they claim that the Dutch 19th century painter did not shoot himself, as is generally believed.

BBC writes:

[The authors] say that, contrary to popular belief, it was more likely he was shot accidentally by two boys he knew who had “a malfunctioning gun”.

The authors came to their conclusion after 10 years of study with more than 20 translators and researchers.

[…] [Stephen Naifeh] said that renowned art historian John Rewald had recorded that version of events when he visited Auvers in the 1930s and other details were found that corroborated the theory.

They include the assertion that the bullet entered Van Gogh’s upper abdomen from an oblique angle – not straight on as might be expected from a suicide.

Last Monday the Van Gogh Museum launched a biographical app on the life of the painter that presumably does not include this fresh light on his life and death. Museum manager Frank van den Eijnden nevertheless sees the book’s publication as a positive development according to De Pers: “Because of the news, the app is more current than ever.”

Earlier today the museum’s conservator, Leo Jansen, called the new theory about Van Gogh’s death insufficiently supported by the evidence: “Many questions remain unanswered.” Nevertheless he feels the authors—for which he reviewed a first draft—did a good job: “They looked at everything that was already known, and came up with many new insights and connections.”

(Illustration: the Van Gogh that was ‘discovered’ last year)

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October 17, 2011

Occupy Amsterdam: some impressions

Filed under: General,Sustainability by Orangemaster @ 7:00 am

“Give us our money back, dude!”

Following in the footsteps of Occupy Wall Street and other recent big city protests in London, Rome and Brussels, Amsterdam started its ‘occupation’ on Saturday, 15 October with some 1500 people. On Sunday, 16 October, only some die hards in tents were left, with many people visiting and listening to speakers in circles sitting on the ground telling stories about capitalism. There was also food and people singing Bob Dylan songs.

Some Dutch tweeps (Twitter users) were wondering how long the people on the Beursplein (our Wall Street, if you will) would 1) stay camping 2) be allowed by the police to keep camping. By Dutch standards, it’s getting cold outside and today some people will have to go to work at some point.

And yes, it looks more like a student protest, but in all fairness, the slogans were good and very much to the point: banks are totally screwing us. The Dutch have had bank troubles with DSB (bankrupt in 2009), ABN Amro (acquired and broken up by the government in 2009) and ING, although the latter paid its debt back in full, if I am not mistaken. The Belgians had a nasty fight with Fortis (partially Dutch owned at the time) and are now in a crisis with Dexia, partially owned by the French.

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October 16, 2011

Netherlands wins first ever baseball world cup

Filed under: Dutch first,Sports by Branko Collin @ 6:04 pm

The Dutch baseball team won the world cup in Panama last night.

Radio Netherlands reports:

The Netherlands baseball team has made history winning the World Cup final in Panama after beating Cuba 2-1. It is the first time a European team has won the title since Britain did in 1938.

The Dutch players and team staff celebrated their victory in the Rod Carew stadium in Panama City with dozens of fans. The Dutch embassy and consulate had invited some 200 people to witness the historic duel, team manager Tjerk Smeets said. An hour after the end of the game, he said, all the champagne was long gone, but they were still on the pitch celebrating with all the fans.

Edith Schippers, minister of Health, Welfare and Sport said according to De Stentor: “The baseball team added a golden chapter to the history of Dutch sports. This was a unique performance, both physically and mentally. If you manage to beat baseball super power Cuba twice in two days, you really are the best of the best. Baseball is just a small sport in the Netherlands, which is why this performance is truly impressive.”

Queen Beatrix has sent a telegram to the Dutch team congratulating them.

Algemeen Dagblad wrote that play was delayed because of rain: “The Oranje had Rob Cordemans on the mound. The almost-37-year-old from Schiedam has been a member of the team since 1995, but the highlight of his career was last Saturday. The Dutchman sent Cuban after Cuban packing with three strikes. […] He experienced troubles for the first time in the fourth inning when Frederich Cepeda reached third base.”

Cepeda would score 0-1. Sidney de Jong drew the Dutch alongside after a strike from Bryan Engelhardt, and Johan Schoop let Curt Smith score. Smith (25) was declared the most valuable player of the tournament by the International Baseball Federation, IBAF.

(Photo by John Martinez Pavliga, some rights reserved)

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October 15, 2011

Uprising in the IKEA catalogue

Filed under: Film by Branko Collin @ 9:56 am

This fun little comedy called Page 23 won the Best Movie award of the 2011 Utrecht edition of the 48 Hour Film project.

It was created by advertising creatives Jeroen Houben, Tim Arts and Stefan van den Boogaard. Contestants had to use a specific character (“Ingmar or Ingrid Talis, volunteer”), a prop (a pair of glasses) and a line of text (“amazingly beautiful, but hopelessly impractical”), and had only 48 hours to create the movie.

Page 23 follows the lives and loves of the models in an IKEA catalogue. The Atlantic published an interview with the makers:

You created a very polished, IKEA-look for the piece with very little time. How did you make it happen in only 48 hours?

We found our location only hours before we started shooting. Since we had no time or money, we looked for something that didn’t need a lot of adjustment. We called around for furnished apartments and hotel rooms, but no luck there. Finally, it turned out one of our crew members had a clean-looking, design-furnished apartment. Sometimes it’s just that easy. We bought some extra decoration like candles and a vase with flowers, and most of the other stuff you see in the shot was already in the house. The funny thing is most of the furniture in the shots aren’t IKEA products.

[…]

(Video: Vimeo / Jeroen Houben)

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