October 16, 2009

Hacker students score pizza for pennies

Filed under: Food & Drink,General,Online by Orangemaster @ 10:10 am
pizza

If students and pizza (and probably beer) is not the perfect combination, then imagine students and pizza for next to no money and the money to buy beer.

For months, hundreds of students from cities such as Groningen, Breukelen and Utrecht had been getting pizza from Dutch website Justeat.nl for EUR 0.01 or 0.05 after hacking into the payment system. Just before paying for the pizza through an online banking system, a page was added somewhere to be able to change the final price to a few cents. In other words, the payment system wasn’t installed properly and certainly not secure.

The manager of the website is going to try and get the students to pay for the pizzas after all, as he’s out EUR 30,000. I think he should kick the IT incompetents he hired to install the payment system on his site really hard and claim damages (we don’t run out and sue here). It’s not like he’s the first ever online restaurant using the highly praised and easy-to-use Ideal payment system. Going after the smart students is easier, but lame, and they have no money.

(Link: nu.nl, Photo of Pizza pie by Adam Kuban, some rights reserved)

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January 21, 2009

Text message got students to see Obama live

Filed under: Aviation,Weird by Orangemaster @ 11:15 am
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On 16 January, two ‘poor students’ were at a congress called the Big Improvement Day in Amsterdam where Sir Richard Branson, CEO of the Virgin Group was a guest speaker. Through a back channel screen and using text messages (and oddly enough not free Twitter), people could ask Branson questions. Two guys jokingly asked him, “Would you bring two poor students to Washington?” to which Branson answered “yes” right away. They actually got to jet off to see Obama live yesterday. Cliché number one: ask, and you shall receive. Cliché number two: it’s easy to be off the cuff when you’re loaded.

Branson dropped the guys off in Washington, while the organisers of the congress offered to pay for their accommodations. Not bad.

(Link: rtl.nl)

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October 3, 2008

Students give back 300 traffic signs

Filed under: Gadgets by Branko Collin @ 8:04 am

No student house is complete without a traffic sign lifted without permission during a drunken late-night ramble. Or so I have heard.The Groningen police seem to think that traffic signs belong on the street (not everyone in the North agrees with them) and started a campaign to get the signs back. The result: 300 traffic signs were returned by “students and other citizens,” and 23 shopping carts to boot.

The campaign is now over, and the police say that they will hold checks in the near future based on tips and their own information, and will fine the owners of any traffic signs they might unearth. It’s not clear from the article how they will do that without search warrants.

Photo: Politie Groningen.

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July 10, 2008

Students prefer Donald Duck magazine over serious newspaper

Filed under: Comics,Weird by Branko Collin @ 7:43 am

Left-leaning newspaper of record De Volkskrant came to a shocking discovery (Dutch): it’s no longer the students’ darling. Instead, university students are flocking to a magazine they know from their elementary school years, Donald Duck.

The “merry weekly” is the most popular periodical among students, beating magazines and newspapers like Intermediair and NRC.next which consider students and former students to be part of their target audience. So says the Nationaal Studentenonderzoek (National Student Survey) held by marketing agency StudentServices from Rotterdam. The agency questioned a whole campus worth of students (1,775 to be precise).

Editor-in-chief of Donald Duck magazine Thom Roep is not surprised though. “An earlier study already showed that we’re passing magazines like Playboy as a popular men’s magazine,” he told De Volkskrant.

When I was a student our house was subscribed to the Volkskrant. In a “red-pink” town like Nijmegen a subscription to a lefty paper was almost mandatory. As it happened I also read Donald Duck magazine quite a lot but that was because I considered it homework, as I was trying to sell comics scripts to the magazine.

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July 7, 2008

Germans students in NL cost millions of euro

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 10:16 am
Grad hat American style

According to a report published last week in het Financieele Dagblad (FD), the Netherlands pays about 100 million euro for German students to study at the university level in the Netherlands, while Germany pays but a fraction of the costs as few Dutch students study in Germany. In 2007, some 16,000 German students were studying here while some 1,700 Dutch students did the same in Germany. Back in 2002, there were some 5,000 German students. The FD explains that German students study in the Netherlands for the quality of the education and because classes are given in English. The Dutch avoid German schools because classes are given in German. Studying abroad is also more prestigious and the Dutch universities attract a better class of student by offering degrees in English. But yeah, that’s a helluvalot of cash for knowledge that won’t even profit the Dutch economy afterwards.

And there I go off on a tangent and leave you with the question that haunted my university studies: is a student the product or client of a university? If you’re a product, then you should find the best possible study as you will be judged for the university you attended, not just your diploma. If you’re a client, as in you pay big to go to school, you have the right to tell the university what you want exactly and get it.

(Link: fok.nl)

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June 27, 2007

The Nuna 4 unveiled today

Filed under: Automobiles,Science,Sustainability by Orangemaster @ 10:12 am
Nuon solar challenge 4

Today in Delft, South Holland (and hopefully with some sun) the unveiling of the Nuna 4 solar-powered car (see the car here) will take place, an event open to all.

The team designed a whole new solar-powered car in order to meet new rules of the World Solar Challenge: less solar cells on the car, the driver needed to be sitting up straight and security measures were tightened. In short, this new car is the first step towards an actual solar-powered car that is more like an ordinary car.

Oh, and the Delft University of Technology is looking for its fourth win in a row.

The Nuna 4 was designed and built by 11 enthousiastic students from the Delft University of Technology, who will be leaving for Australia this summer for the World Solar Challenge, the world championship of solar-powered cars, held from 21 to 28 October.

The unveiling will take place at 16:25 at the field in front of the Delft University of Technology on the Mekelweg for anyone in the neighbourhood.

(Link: TU Delft)

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May 26, 2007

Students invent powdered alcohol

Filed under: Weird by Orangemaster @ 6:12 pm

Five students from an institution in Boxtel, Noord-Brabant have developed a powder that by adding water turns into an alcoholic drink. The powder has been baptised Booz 2 go and contains 3% alcohol. And of course, the students did their marketing research and found out that students like the I-can-take-it-with-me-anywhere idea. Once it hits the market, the powder will cost a little more than 1,50 euro. It seems to have all the trappings of a hype.

(Link: zibb)

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May 23, 2007

Dutch students rebuilt Turkish school

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 9:12 am
flag_turkey1.gif

A village school in Silvan, southeast of Diyarbakir, which was repaired by a group of Dutch students, was re-opened last Monday. Some 25 Dutch students from the ROC Albeda College in Rotterdam participated in the renovation process of Taspinar Primary School in Silvan, a proposal made by Mustafa Mermi, a Turkish citizen from Silvan who currently resides in the Netherlands. Delivering a speech at the inaugural ceremony, subgovernor of Silvan, Veysel Beyru thanked the Dutch students for their participation and support.

(Link: Turkish Press)

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March 11, 2007

Loan bank gets cynical with students

Filed under: Comics,General by Branko Collin @ 2:23 pm

studentenrekening-ib.pngThe Dutch government bank specifically founded to get students their loans and bursaries, the Informatie Beheer Groep (literally: information management group) apparently accompagnies its folder on how to pay back with a cartoon that shows a waiter presenting a long bill to a fat guy who has just excessively gorged himself on food and wine. I am guessing the PR department ordered a cartoonist to create an amusing drawing to spruce up an otherwise boring folder, but the result is a rather patronizing message. As if university students need to be told that there is a cost associated with gluttony. (And indeed, students are presented as the stereotype of the partying care-for-nothing; can you imagine a political party advertising to get new members by showing a cartoon of a guy lighting cigars with bank notes freshly stolen from the public?)

(Via Hay Kranen, via Sargasso.)

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