November 5, 2008

Journalists and bloggers could get equal legal protection

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 10:07 am
Journalism vs blogging

Justice Minister Ernst Hirsch-Ballin has submitted a bill to the Dutch Lower House so that journalists obtain the legal right not to reveal their sources. The interesting part is that anyone who publishes for a broader audience will be protected under this law – including bloggers. The bill is designed to put an end to the situation where journalists are jailed for not revealing their sources.

Back in 2006, two journalists from Dutch daily De Telegraaf were imprisoned for not revealing the source who told them about state secrets of the AIVD (General Intelligence and Security Service of the Netherlands) because they revealed information about a top criminal who was their source.

However, having a broad definition of who exactly is a journalist is quite practical. “European jurisprudence shows that protecting one’s source is not just for professional reporters, but also for amateurs and bloggers who can claim to be protecting a source.”

The photo about was taken during the Blog08 event in Amsterdam when a panel of well-known European journalists debated the journalism vs. blogging question. They were not very fond of bloggers as a primary source, although now it seems the law might actually provide bloggers with more leverage in the future.

(Link: webwereld.nl)

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November 4, 2008

Ordering food at the restaurant from a computer

Filed under: Dutch first,Food & Drink,Technology by Orangemaster @ 9:49 am
Touchscreenfoodmachine

Waiting for your order at a restaurant is never any fun. Restaurant ‘t Hart van Breda has solved this problem by installing a computer that takes orders: you click on a computer screen from your table and voilà . You can even play computer games and chat with guests of the place as well. According to owner Nanda Koomans, “it’s in tune with the times. We have a young target group who lives and works digitally. This is perfect for them.” She emphasises the popularity of the system using an example. “Yesterday we had a group of girls and boys that were chatting with each other. After their digital talk they all went outside to go out together as a group. That’s of course very nice!”

There are also eight “digital free” tables out of the 26 for the non computer-savvy. The system was developed in Israël where its introduction has usually led to an increase in turnover. Although the initial investment is pricy, Koomans believes it is worth it.

I’d rather use a computer than get stressed out over the service in the Netherlands, but computers break down and make mistakes too. Life is tough.

(Link: fok.nl)

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November 3, 2008

Soft bathtub like sinking into a sofa

Filed under: Design by Orangemaster @ 10:32 am
Tender Tub

Dutch designer Maren Hartveld presented a soft bathtub called the Tender Tub at the Design Academy Eindhoven graduate show in the Netherlands earlier this month. “Bringing a new meaning to sinking into one’s tub,” says Hartveld. “A free-standing soft bathtub made from polyurethene coated foam rubber; not cold and hard like the average bathtub, but soft and warm, and comfortable like a sofa”.

At first glance, the corners are scary, many people commented, and give the impression that you could poke an eye out. It also looks difficult to clean, others said. And seeing the thing in use would be a good idea. It does look cool.

(Link: dezeen.com)

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November 2, 2008

Geometric family tree as birth announcement card

Filed under: Comics,Design by Branko Collin @ 5:35 pm

Piet Schreuders, him of the Poezenkrant (which is not about cats), designed this card in 1984 on occasion of the birth of his daughter Anna. It’s a family tree that goes back four generations, pink branches signifying girls, blue ones boys. It’s one of the reasons that the Fool’s Gold editors clamour for a Schreudermania book.

Ah, speaking of Fool’s Gold. People forgot to tell my clients that there’s an economic crisis supposed to be going on, and as a result I haven’t really had the time to review the latest Zone 5300. Issue 83 is all about Outsider Art. Like every other issue of Zone 5300. Which they sort of acknowledge in the foreword, then still power on.

The good thing though is that as part of that whole Outsider Art thing Fool’s Gold got two extra pages in full colour. Comics are mostly by the regular contributors. Lamelos’ Sam Peeters goes solo this time with In de schaduw van mijn lul (In the shade of my penis), which manages to pack armed robbery, monkeys, slipping-over-banana jokes, faeces, swamp things, camp fires, steaming hot sex, and a gruesome beheading all in six small pages, in that order. I thought you ought to know.

Zone 5300 also checks out how Teun Hocks, illustrator to amongst others The New Yorker and Harper’s Magazine is doing these days. He’s doing… wait, buy the damn magazine already!

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November 1, 2008

Geeked out coin wins design comp

Filed under: Architecture,Design,Dutch first by Branko Collin @ 4:18 pm

Stani Michiels, artist by day and Python hacker by night, created a five euro coin using only free software for a design competion issued by the Dutch mint, and won. The coin, commemorating a rich Dutch architectural tradition, should be available nowish.

The coin’s obverse consists of a portrait of the queen made up out of the names of famous architects, and the reverse displays an outline of the country that doubles as a skyline made by positioning architecture books in a circle.

Michiels — a Belgian responsible for SPE-IDE, a Python IDE, and Phatch, a photo editor — outlines all the little design details in a long blog post, including the software he used (Python, of course) and the calculations and Google search results that went into this design. Unfortunately the mint would not allow Michiels to release the designs under the GPL license.

The Netherlands has a long tradition of meaningful and elaborately designed money, as we touched upon earlier.

Via LWN.net.

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October 31, 2008

Woody Allen’s first gig in the Netherlands

Filed under: Dutch first,Music by Orangemaster @ 9:00 am

For the very first time Woody Allen will be performing with his New Orleans Jazz Band on Sunday 21 December in the Heineken Music Hall, Amsterdam. He is a clarinetist – not everyone knows that, as I just had to explain to a Dutch person over coffee why I said “performing”. Woody Allen is also a huge jazz fan, something that’s pretty obvious if you’ve seen any of his films. The music always has a prominent place in his films, usually jazz from the 1920s to the 1940s.

In this video he’s playing in Budapest with the New Orleans Jazz Band. He has been playing clarinet since he was 15 and started performing in the 1960s with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band and the New Orleans Funeral and Ragtime Orchestra.

I remember a time in the 1980s when he was a regular at Michael’s Pub in New York City on Tuesdays, but never saw him because I was way too young to get in.

(Link: rtvnh.nl)

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October 30, 2008

New Dutch rare groove compilation

Filed under: Music by Orangemaster @ 9:01 am
Dutch rare groove vol. 2

Back in 2005, initiated by the hip Bert and Arjo of Black Audio Market, a CD compilation project called Dutch Rare Groove (CD below, artwork by Bert) compiled by Dutch funk lover and DJ Sjeng Stokking showed the world that the Dutch did have the groove, it just had to be put on a CD.

And since Stokking had plenty of other obscure material waiting to be pressed, he decided to release Dutch Rare Groove volume 2, with 18 very rare, funky tracks, recorded in the Netherlands mostly during the 1970s. And just like volume 1, the extra tracks on the second CD count as well: 14 remixes by people such as Eboman, Perquisite, Git Hyper, Kraak&Smaak and DJ Maestro. Both State Of Monc and Monsieur Dubois reworked some oldies into unique, fresh tracks. Out in stores as of 24 October, Dutch Rare Groove volume 2 will also be presented live on 23 December at the Melkweg, in Amsterdam. Dutch rare grooves volume two includes tracks such as “It’s Time To Get Funky” by Billy Jones, “Street Rondo” by Thijs Van Leer, “Catch Fire” by Rob Franken Organization and “A Box For Leslie” by Jack Van Poll.

Dutch rare groove

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October 29, 2008

Sailor drowns because of language barrier

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 3:38 pm
Sailor\'s cap

Let me see if I get this straight. On Tuesday, 28 October a Czech sailor fell off a German boat into a canal in the province of Limburg, which borders Germany and French-speaking Belgium. A French sailor saw this and ran to warn the Dutch sluice guard in French. The sluice guard could not understand French at all and the fire brigade came 30 minutes later when the man had already drowned.

“Despite the large number of international boats on the canal, sluice guards are not required to speak several languages.” However, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Water Management said that “attention is paid to French and German” and that the “French sailor could have just dialled ‘112’ (the Dutch emergency number)”.

“Attention paid to French and German” means absolutely nothing and was said rather sheepishly in the video (link below). The French sailor not speaking any English is odd too, as I assume the sluice guard spoke some English, as most Dutch do, and that would have sped things up. Working on the border of two other countries and not understanding any French is weird, even though it is not required, but that’s just me. As well, most Dutch who live on the border with Germany do understand some German, but asking the French to speak German or Dutch for that matter is a stretch.

Just like in aviation, everyone could try and learn some English to avoid this kind of deadly mix up. And expecting sailors to know all the different emergency numbers throughout Europe is unrealistic.

Why doesn’t the EU have just one emergency number? Too much to hope for maybe.

(Link: nu.nl)

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Lambiek comic book store turns 40

Filed under: Comics by Branko Collin @ 8:22 am

Not withstanding a recent lament (Dutch) by Dutch comic giants Hanco Kolk and Jean-Marc van Tol about the decline of the local comics scene, comic book store Lambiek is still going strong. Next week the store even celebrates it’s fortieth anniversary. As they put it themselves: “[Lambiek] is probably the oldest existing comics shop in the world.”

The store in the heart of Amsterdam, just off the busy Leidsestraat, is named after a character from the popular Flemish series Suske & Wiske who in turn was named after the beer. To those who don’t shop for comics in Amsterdam—what’s wrong with you?—Lambiek is probably best known for its online comiclopedia, an encyclopedia of comic artists from around the world in English and Dutch.

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October 28, 2008

University cracks Internet security of the future

Filed under: IT,Science by Orangemaster @ 9:50 am
Binary code

Researchers of the Eindhoven University of Technology have managed to crack the McEliece cryptosystem. This system is a candidate for securing Internet traffic in the ‘Post-Quantum Computing’ era, when the superfast computers of the future will be in use. The scientists presented the crack as well as a new encryption key.

Last weekend’s successful attack was done using a large number of computers linked together throughout the world, explained Eindhoven University of Technology professor Tanja Lange. Together with her student Christiane Peters they presented a new encryption key with which the McEliece code will be immune to quantum computers.

Banks currently use the RSA code from 1977 to secure electronic transactions. A quantum computer would have little problems cracking this code, something that takes an ordinary computer three weeks. This is why researchers are looking for something better now before the introduction of quantum computers, which according to Lange is another 10 years away.

(Link: tue.nl)

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