September 17, 2010

Yellow fungus returns to the Netherlands after 55 years

Filed under: Nature by Branko Collin @ 9:42 pm

The Netherlands was still clinging to its delusions of colonial grandeur, Robert Jasper Grootveld was still just a window cleaner, and the province of Flevoland had yet to rise from the sea when the spathularia flavida, a fungus also known as the yellow earth tongue or yellow fan (wiki dixit), was last spotted in this country.

Fifty-five years on, and Bert Oving discovers thousands of them in the Vledder forest of East-Groningen, near Germany. Trouw adds that because of the wet and yet warm weather several other rare species have returned this year, among them the red cage (clathrus ruber) and the octopus stinkhorn (clathrus archeri).

Media Stadskanaal has photos and a video. My camera is aching to go hiking.

(Photo by Irene Andersson, some rights reserved)

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September 14, 2010

Delft University library desk

Filed under: Architecture,Design by Branko Collin @ 10:14 pm

This is the service desk of the architecture library at the University of Delft. Neat, eh?

(Photo by Flickr user IK’s World Trip, some rights reserved. Link, with more photos: Recyclart.)

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September 13, 2010

Child therapy increased by 50% in two years

Filed under: Health by Branko Collin @ 9:06 am

The amount of children under the age of 18 in psychotherapy has increased by 50% in two years, Volkskrant reports. The paper writes that “insurers such as CZ and Achmea” have noticed the trend.

Volkskrant further quotes an unknown quantity of unnamed sellers of therapy, the child therapists, as saying that children haven’t gotten any crazier in the past two years—it’s the parents who have gotten over their reluctance to seek help for their kids.

You’d better read the article yourself (Dutch) to see if you can discover anything resembling reporting in it.

See also: Dutch children could not be any happier

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September 12, 2010

Lawyers may not kiss their friends if these friends are also clients

Filed under: Weird by Branko Collin @ 10:57 am

A remarkable verdict from a disciplinary court: a lawyer was found to have acted without the dignity proper to his profession when he kissed a friend on the cheek in greeting while representing her.

De Pers reports that the unnamed lawyer greeted the friend at a police station in 2008, where an assistant prosecutor took offence and filed charges for ‘unseemly behaviour’. Two weeks ago the Amsterdamse Raad van Discipline (Amsterdam Disciplinary Court) agreed with the assistant prosecutor.

Apart from the fact that there are gradations of familiarity, and that kissing somebody on the cheek at the police station is perhaps not the same thing as walking around a court room in bathroom slippers, there is also a whiff of sexism attached to this verdict. That is to say, I cannot remember hearing of a similar verdict regarding shaking hands, which is how most men greet each other in this country.

The lawyer has received a warning.

(Link: Martin Wisse, second day in a row! Photo by Steve Punter, some rights reserved.)

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September 11, 2010

Gonorrhea infections among American teens 33 times higher than among Dutch teens

Filed under: Health by Branko Collin @ 10:15 am

According to a study by Amy Chalet, 0.5 percent of all US teens aged 15-19 catch gonorrhea, whereas among Dutch teens the number is almost a statistical error (0.01 %).

There might be epidemiological reasons for the large discrepancy, but the evidence points elsewhere: Chalet’s study also shows “dramatic differences between the US and the Netherlands in rates of contraceptive use, teen pregnancy, abortion, and STI transmission”, as Lisa Wade writes (the American sociologist, not the Dutch TV personality).

Wade’s angle is that the Dutch (and Western Europeans) treat (teenage) sex as normal, not as ‘the nasty’, and that Dutch teenagers (therefore?) use condoms and contraceptives where their American peers do not. “Accordingly, most American teenagers hide their virginity loss from their parents, furtively popping the cherry in risky situations, often without protection against pregnancy or sexually transmitted infections (STIs). In contrast, most Dutch teenagers lose their virginity in their own bedrooms with their parents’ approval… and condoms.”

Americans can find comfort in the fact that according to some of their leading thinkers, “the way they do the statistics in the Netherlands is different”.

Link: Martin Wisse.

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September 6, 2010

Holland moped chic

Filed under: General,Photography by Branko Collin @ 8:28 am

In June of this year there were 1,000,000 mopeds on the Dutch roads for the first time, according to NOS.

That is 300,000 up from 2007, and even 600,000 up from 1995. In an article about bicycle manufacturer Batavus, Wikipedia claims that there were more than 2 million mopeds in the Netherlands in 1977, but I could not find anything to back that up.

I wanted to celebrate this millionth moped by creating a sort of “Holland moped chic” set on Flickr, analogous to Copenhagen Cycle Chic and Amsterdamize. Unfortunately, as you can see below, my photography skills were not up to the task and riders came out mostly blurred.

So I did the next best thing, and created a gallery of the best Flickr photos of Dutch men and women riding mopeds.

Dutch road laws make a distinction between bromfietsen (‘buzz bikes’) and snorfietsen (‘purr bikes’). The latter can only legally go 25 km/h, and are considered to be closer to regular bicycles in intent and use. Snorfietsen have also become very popular lately because they can look as good as regular scooter mopeds, yet you do not have to wear a helmet while riding them.

(Top photo by FaceMePLS, some rights reserved. Bottom photo by me, available under a permissive license soon from our Flickr account.)

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September 5, 2010

Temporary reduction of sales tax on renovations

Filed under: Architecture by Branko Collin @ 12:03 pm

Government ministers De Jager (Finance) and Middelkoop (Housing) have announced a temporary lowering of the sales tax on home make-overs from 19% to 6%.

The reduction is to take effect on October 1, 2010 and will last until July 1, 2011, Telegraaf reports. The care-taker government hopes that this will soften the blow of the crisis for the building sector.

Some of the rules for the lower tax are:

  • Only for houses of two years and older.
  • Only for labour costs.
  • Only for improvements that will raise the resale value of your house.

(Photo by Yola de Lusenet, some rights reserved)

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September 4, 2010

Wikimedia’s September photo hunt for monuments

Filed under: History,Photography by Branko Collin @ 12:48 pm

During September the Dutch Wikimedia chapter (the people behind Wikipedia) are calling upon everybody to send in correctly licensed photos of official national monuments, so that Wikipedia can use the uploads.

The Wiki Loves Monuments site has posted a very long list of the monuments, divided by province and town, and tagged with the exact geographic location, so that participants who would like to take fresh photos can easily plot a hike through their neighbourhood.

There is a competition attached to the event, with an iPad being the first prize, and an HTC Desire the second. You have until September 30 to upload your photos, and you don’t have to limit yourself to photos taken this month.

An earlier similar and very successful event was called Wiki Loves Art, and was held in June 2009, resulting in about 5,000 Creative Commons licensed photos. That the current edition is held in September is no accident, as the Open Monuments Day on September 11 gives a lot of access to (the inside of) monuments that are closed the rest of the year.

(Link: Wikimedia.org. Photo by Wikimedia user PVT Pauline, some rights reserved.)

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August 30, 2010

Wiel Kuypers breaks fishing record

Filed under: Animals,Sports by Branko Collin @ 9:01 am

Yesterday Wiel Kuypers set the new world endurance record for recreational fishing at 160 hours.

Kuypers had started the Sunday before at fishing pond De Bus of his home town Mill in Noord-Brabant with his daughter Marjolein and his son-in-law Rick who both quit their attempts during the week. According to Omroep Brabant, an inflammation in Kuyper’s foot nearly threatened a happy end to the record attempt on Friday night.

The old record was set at 157 hours by Jan van de Bovenkamp in 1987, Sportvisserij Nederland writes.

After his successful attempt Kuypers went home to catch some sleep. He and his buddies had made plans to get up bright and early today, to go fishing. “By now I am pretty sure I know how to.”

(Photo of the completely wrong kind of rod by Qrodo Photos, some rights reserved)

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August 29, 2010

Biggest pop artists work outside traditional record company structures

Filed under: Music by Branko Collin @ 5:37 pm

The past week Kyteman manager Niels Aalberts has been posting and annotating a six part e-mail correspondence with Caro Emerald producer David Schreurs about how they got to their respective successes.

One of the most remarkable ideas in the stories of both Kyteman and Caro Emerald as noted by internet marketeer Erwin Blom is the one of developing success outside the framework of traditional record companies. Schreurs mentions that this makes it easier to make quick decisions (you don’t have to keep track of everybody’s agendas), and that since your money is not disappearing into the deep pockets of the share holders of the likes of Sony, you can allocate resources for expensive projects more easily.

Kyteman is young jazz musician Colin Bender’s project, a hip hop orchestra containing 12 instrumentalists and 10 MCs. Their debut album The Hermit Sessions (2009) has been in the Dutch Album Top 100 for the past 79 weeks, and has sold 60,000 copies so far. Earlier this year the orchestra won the Popprijs.

Caro Emerald (Caroline van der Leeuw) is a jazz singer whose A Night Like This shot to the top of the charts, and whose album Deleted Scenes from the Cutting Room Floor easily took over the record for most weeks at number 1 in the Dutch Album Top 100 (30 and counting)—the previous record was held by Michael Jackson’s Thriller (27 in 1982). In the second quarter of this year, Deleted Scenes accounted for 10% of all album sales in the Netherlands.

(Photo of Kyteman and a smattering of his MCs by Oxfam Novib, some rights reserved)

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