March 20, 2008

Sawn up furniture by Ward van Gemert on Marktplaats

Filed under: Art,Design by Branko Collin @ 2:23 pm

[photo of a sawn up chair, parts freely separated]

Rotterdam-based artist Ward van Gemert takes furniture from Marktplaats (the Dutch eBay subsidiary), saws it up into interesting compositions and sells the resulting art pieces back at Marktplaats as a set of parts. The unusable chair shown here – hanging from invisible strings – was made for Van Gemert’s final art school exam.

These days, Van Gemert creates actual, usable furniture, but still according to the same principle of redesigning the familiar. The “stretch” table below was sawn up, then reconstructed into an actual table using see-through casting resin. His art/design may look familiar if you have seen the work of Paul Verode, the man who sawed up Ferraris, whom Van Gemert once studied under.

[photo of a functional sawn up table]

Via Bright.

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March 19, 2008

You stupid woman, digital signatures don’t count

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 9:48 am
vroeg1.jpg

The wave of nannyism that has hit the Netherlands as of late sounds like waves crashing onto the Delta works and then wooshing back into the sea right back where they belong. Famous Dutch weblog GeenStijl (in English, No Style), up again this year (today!) for Best Weblog has finally let the group ‘Vroeg op Stap’ (roughly, ‘Let’s party early’, as opposed to staying out late) get a word in edgewise, albeit to make them look utterly stupid.

GeenStijl claims that they have been spammed for months now by these Frisian housewives, as they wanted to gain support for their cause: letting their drinking teenagers go out early so that they can come home at a decent time and not sleep in. The problem is that contrary to Dutch society’s live and live attitude, they want the whole country to follow suit.

To get a good idea of how GeenStijl pushed that wave back into the ocean, they produced a film showing “one MILF and one non-MILF” handing over the petition to the right politician who then accused them of wasting his time because the petition only had digitial signatures, about 120,000 of them.

Long story short, a big fat waste of time. This is how mommy sinks her own boat and goes down with the ship, kids, watch and learn.

(Link: geenstijl.tv)

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March 18, 2008

The dollar drops and droops

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 12:24 pm
dollar1.jpg

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – The U.S. dollar’s value is dropping so fast against the euro that small currency outlets in Amsterdam are turning away tourists seeking to sell their dollars for local money while on vacation in the Netherlands.

“Our dollar is worth maybe zero over here,” said Mary Kelly, an American tourist from Indianapolis, Indiana, in front of the Anne Frank house. “It’s hard to find a place to exchange. We have to go downtown, to the central station or post office.”

That’s because the smaller currency exchanges — despite buy/sell spreads that make it easier for them to make money by exchanging small amounts of currency — don’t want to be caught holding dollars that could be worth less by the time they can sell them.

The dollar hovered near record lows on Monday, with one euro worth around $1.58 versus $1.47 a month ago.

(Link: reuters.com)

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March 17, 2008

Circus combats animal rights activists using elephant pee

Filed under: Animals by Branko Collin @ 3:04 pm

Animals rights activists claim they have been sprayed with elephant urine by circus employees last Saturday in Hoogeveen. The activists said that employees of Circus Renz Berlin used water pistols to shoot at them. When the police arrived at the scene everything was quiet again, although a threatening atmosphere was still lingering in the air according to an unnamed police spokesperson. The police confiscated one water gun that contained a “foul smelling substance”.

Via nu.nl.

(Illustration by Monroe. Used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation license, Version 1.2.)

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Rare black seal lands on Dutch shores

Filed under: Animals,Nature by Orangemaster @ 2:35 pm

This weekend, the seal asylum in Pieterburen found a pitch black baby seal. He could be the brother of Black Lola that washed up on shore two years ago.

The seal has been given the temporary name Black Jack, although a contest to pick a name is being held. He is the third black seal to show up in the Netherlands in 35 years. They say he is black due to melanism, an increased amount of black or nearly black pigmentation, and the opposite of albinism. Black Jack will hopefully be strong enough to go back into the sea in three months’ time.

Any link you click in this article has nice pics! Funny how the name has to have black in it.

(Link spitsnet.nl)

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March 15, 2008

Sonja Bakker, the 90 million euro woman

Filed under: Food & Drink,Literature by Branko Collin @ 10:02 pm

When weight-loss icon Sonja Bakker touches something, it turns to gold. FEM/Business reports that brands that were recommended by Bakker had an increase in turn-over of 62 million euro last year. The old-fashioned, but typically Dutch beschuit—a crispy round dry biscuit served at breakfast with sweet sprinklings or strawberries—saw an increase in sales last year after a thirty year downward spiral. Bakker has also sold 2.2 million copies of her four books, almost overtaking J.K. Rowling of Harry Potter fame, and grossing 28 million euro.

(Illustration by Serassot, distributed under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation license, Version 1.2.)

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March 14, 2008

Duck, duck, goose head

Filed under: Animals by Orangemaster @ 1:56 pm
geese02.jpg

I used to translate stuff about Belgians throwing cats from belfries and swallowing live goldfish during century-old ceremonies and other mischief, but the Dutch in Limburg also have something albeit less way traumatising they don’t want to give up so easily. Then again, the media often reports that the Party for the Animals (PvdD) submits like 200 motions a day to Parliament, so no surprise that this becomes news.

Ganstrekken, the practice of pulling the head off a dead goose during Carnival celebrations in the Limburg village of Grevenbicht (just 2,500 inhabitants), is not decent behaviour but will not be banned, farm minister Gerda Verburg told MPs yesterday. Granting a licence for the tradition is up to the local council, Verburg said.

They used to do it to a live goose (eeeuuuw). Use a doll like they do in Ypres, Belgium with the cat, come up with something new, so many alternatives, think outside the box that is your head.

(Link: dutchnews.nl)

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March 13, 2008

Segway use on roads being debating today

Filed under: Automobiles,General by Orangemaster @ 9:34 am
segway1.jpg

“All the other countries around us are using Segways, why can we?” Because we aren’t forerunners when it comes to innovation, we’re the ‘wait and see’ type. And all the other countries around can buy Segways, but not necessarily use them at will. Germany, Spain, Belgium, Austria and the UK sell Segways, but this doesn’t mean they are legal there or even will be.

However, if – and that’s a big if – you can believe what Wikipedia says about bans in other countries, the Netherlands is far from being alone. Australia, Sweden, Canada, and many US states have problems and proper arguments against using Segways.

Today the Dutch government will be debating trying to impose a licence for Segways like on other motorised vehicles, a process that could take another 1.5 years and possibly see Segways legally on the road/bike paths by 2010. As for ‘countries around us’, Denmark has classified the Segway as a moped and Germany is still conducting local pilot projects, but has not made it legal yet.

However, Segway Nederland says this is all a huge delaying tactic (no kidding), which is not only hurting their business and frustrating users, but defeats the purpose of ‘going green’, a major plus point of the Segway. And what’s really annoying to Dutch Segway fans apparently is that EU rules just say let local government regulate it, we’re OK with that.

We’ll have to wait and see as well then.

(Link: emerce.nl)

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March 12, 2008

Of old people and things that pass

Filed under: Literature by Branko Collin @ 3:47 pm

Today marks the start of the Boekenweek, the Dutch week to promote books. This year’s motto is “Of old people…,” after Louis Couperus’ classic 1906 psychological novel Of Old People and Things That Pass… The theme focuses on old age, both in people and books, and has already been criticised by those who feel that youngsters should be encouraged to read books, not discouraged.

More interesting for 24 Oranges readers may be that Alexander Teixeira de Mattos’ classic translation of Couperus’ masterpiece has recently become available in many formats at the Internet Archive. If anyone would like a version that is more accessible (plain text, HTML, PDF), let me know and I’ll try and post one here. The Dutch version is available from DBNL.org.

Of Old People follows a couple of murderers in their old age, and their children and grand children, and shows how one gruesome act committed many years ago is felt in the family today.

(Picture: Louis Couperus)

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Ecohouse runs out of time and gets axed

Filed under: Architecture by Orangemaster @ 11:55 am
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Yesterday, the police removed GroenFront protesters who were occupying an ecohouse in Steenwijk, Overijssel. Monday, the court in Zwolle ruled that the ecohouse could be scheduled for demolition because the neighbours complained of its unsightly, unfinished look. And today, the house should be destroyed.

Why destroy the friendly ecohouse made of old wood and built by eco-frendly engineer Jan Husslage? Because the house was never finished on time and remains unfinished. The building permit expired. The Green party is red furious and trying to come up with a last-minute solution, like moving the house somewhere else.

Why wasn’t it built on time? Not much seems to be built on time (or even within budget) in the Netherlands. Biggers projects such as the high-speed train line (North-South), the Betuwe train line (East-West) and Amsterdam’s metro are all years away from being finished. Of course, they don’t get the wrecking ball, but the small fry do.

(Link and photo: blikopnieuws.nl, zwolle.nl)

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