Ok it seems his has been around for a while (my pal bjorn blogged about it 4 days ago) but it seems that the british online music distributer OD2 (a.k.a loudeye.com) is canceling some of the licenses it has given out a while ago. initialreports suggested that the music bought (downloaded) under the 10-cents-per-song-for-unlimited-playback-on-one-computer-license option ‘possibly will no longer play’ after 1 jan 2007. the quote is taken from a translated letter to users of this licensing model, in which one of the resellers of the OD2 licenses even boasts that they have ‘succeed in allowing you to play the music until January 1st 2007’.

Today this story has been picked up by the Dutch daily het parool which claims that in the case of the 150.000 users of KPN music stream (another of the dutch resellers of OD2 and self-proclaimed market leader in online music distribution in the Netherlands) the licenses will be terminated on 3 april 2006, thereby rendering the DRM crippled files unplayable.

How sick is that? first they (and they is not some shady russian eBay operators, but a division of the biggest dutch telco) sell you a song for unlimited playback and then they disable it at whim. the article quotes the spokesperson of the biggest dutch consumer rights organization stating that at time of purchase it was not communicated to the users that this would be possible. KPN itself claims to be innocent (as they are only a reseller and OD2 apparently decided to terminate this license type at the pressure of the mayor record companies).

They do seem to understand that this situation might not be entirely welcomed by their customers and as a compensation they offer 10 euro vouchers (independent of the amount of songs downloaded under the old licenses) that can be used to buy songs from the OD2 catalogue with a license permits unlimited playback on one computer plus burning and playback on mobile devices (for 99 eurocent a song). Yeah right! Great deal thank you so much you responsible corporate entity! and when they cancel this type of license they will most likely offer you another €5 voucher that you can trade in in order to listen to your whole music library one last time before it autodestructs…

This is exactly why i have never downloaded a DRM crippled file and why i will NEVER do this in the future. This whole story actually makes me feel much better downloading music from the peer2peer corners of the internets (which is still perfectly legal in the Netherlands). The music industry has repeatedly equated downloading with theft which of course is bullshit. But maybe selling something to you for unlimited use and then taking it away from you should be considered theft? Sadly we are living in times where this kind of behavior is more likely to be called an ‘innovative business model’ instead. So i suggest going here for all your music needs.

It seems that the Dutch are not the only ones to prepare themselves for the Soccer World Cup. In Berlin advertisements of the German red cross have started to appear on billboards in various s-bahn stations. The advertisements show a young red-cross paramedic (with a 70es haircut, a reference to ’74?) that bandages the knee of a fully dressed out Dutch football supporter:

The caption on the picture reads, ‘in action for everybody’, which at least to me sounds like ‘ we really help everybody, even those who are scum’… guess the Dutch won’t really appreciate this. And what ever happened to the red-cross? i always thought they where for peace, love and harmony.

One of the the most notable achievements of the Dutch in recent history has been the introduction of targeting aids in the men’s rooms in public toilets. The whole thing seems to originate from Amsterdams schiphol airport (having such a fine airport makes living in Amsterdam much more bearable than it would be otherwise). It seems that having a fly depicted in the bowl of a pissoir significantly reduces the amount of misdirected urine in such places (which is a good thing).

Another remarkable trait of dutch society is how closely Heineken has managed to associate itself with a) queens day and b) the national soccer selection without actually sponsoring neither of them. They have done this by launching high profile give-away actions in the run-up to queens day and important games of the national soccer team.

Now it looks like that the marketing geniuses at Heineken have started to gear-up for this years soccer world cup. Tonight i have come across a soccer-themed orange urinoir mat (the plastic inlay that is supposed to keep cigarette butts out of the water pipe) in a Heineken equipped Thai restaurant on Zeedijk in Amsterdam:

Seems like I have again underestimated the inventiveness (utter stupidity?) of the human mind. Hope i will make it through this summer without developing a serious drug addiction…

Got reminded again that the Netherlands have turned into a society of discussing racist cowards less then 10 hours after arriving back back in amsterdam. on the front-page of todays Volkskrant there is an article titled ‘Verdonk: op straat alleen Nederlands‘ (link requires paid registration). In English this translates into ‘Verdonk: Dutch must be spoken in the streets’. Apparently the minster for ‘integration’ has completely lost her mind (not that this is any news). The local website for english speaking non-dutch speakers has the following summary the speech given by the minister last weekend:

Immigration and Integration Minister Rita Verdonk favors the introduction of a code of conduct for the public to emphasize Dutch identity, including speaking Dutch in the street

I really do not know what to say about this. What about the fact that the Netherlands have been in the front line for criticizing the turks for not allowing the kurds to speak kurdish in public for a long time? They even made this a requirement for Turkey in order to start membership talks with the EU. does that mean that the Netherlands should be kicked out of the EU?

And why would any sane individual want to have more Dutch spoken in the street anyway? It is one of the most ugly sounding languages in the whole universe (if in doubt try travelling in the bord-bistro of a sunday evening berlin amsterdam intercity train). I would rather listen to anything expressed in Arabic or Tamazight (the two languages that Verdonk really wants to ban with her stupid proposal).

Good news coming from the mysterious world of online banking. According to my bank (Rabobank in the Netherlands) it is again safe enough to transfer money to Afghanistan. Don’t really know what they were worrying about before? Me giving osama a little bit of pocket money? Or them war lords hijacking my transactions? In any case this is an important step towards fully computerized opium ordering…

Yesterday the Dutch conductor was wearing an orange wristband. When he was checking my ticket i could not help to wonder why he was wearing a wristband in support of the nutters that are currently occupying the gaza strip and resist the israeli disengagement plan. a young inter-railer (probably being israeli himself) two seats down the carriage actually asked him why and as a response got to hear that this actually had nothing to do with the gaza settlers but was in support for the respect2all campaign that was started after the assassination of Theo van Gogh.

It seems that this whole wristband business is out of control. A quick google search reveals that orange wristbands exist in support of juvenile diabetes patients, responsible gambling, cultural diversity, feral cats, hunger, leukemia, lupus, melanoma, motorcycle safety, racial tolerance, reflex sympathetic dystrophy syndrome, and self injury. It might also be a good idea to have a wristband in support of the dutch royal family (house of orange) as they seem to struggle with their leadership role.

Seems like it has been raining for more than a week now. While this is really getting on everyone’s mood it it provides the newspapers with an opportunity to fill their summer gap with good news stories. Today’s Volkskrant had the following two stories on page three (which is main domestic politics page): ‘Mild summer weather reduces mortality among old people‘ and ‘Increase in visitors at weatheronline.nl due to rain‘. Positive thinking indeed…

Today i soend most of my day trying to get a schengen visa for programmer/activist from cote d’ivoire and that meant i had to make lots of phone calls to cote d’ivoire and while doing that i dialed wrong numbers a couple of times.

Now if you dial the wrong number locally people are usually pissed that you disturb them. not so in this case, each time i got connected with someone wrong, the people started me asking all kinds of questions about me or amsterdam or what i was wearing (sic!) and generally tried to keep me on the phone for as long as possible which is a pretty interesting way of wasting your time… Much better than talking to the people you really need to talk to as the staff of the belgian embassy in abidjan is extremely not-funny, inflexible, rude (they hung up on me twice) and non cooperative when it coes to getting a visa on time.

Bottom line is Yapi won’t come to what the hack, because the Dutch don’t know where their embassy is (they send him to the embassy in Ghana where he was told that instead he should have gone to the belgian embassy in abijan) and the Belgians are rude, not-funny and not felxible at all…

Just came across an article in todays NRC [‘import-bride has to know thorbecke’] about the dutch gouvernement moves towards requiring a Dutch language and culture exam before a person is allowed to settle in the Netherlands. not that this means that by passing the exams you have the right to settle in NL, but if you have acquired the right to settle e.g because you are married to a dutch citizen or someone who has a residence permit you still neet to pass the tests or you won’t get in. (of course all of this does not applies to citizens of the eu, Switzerland, the us, canada australia and new zealand).

So you have to pass a test on dutch history and society (mainly testing stuff that dutch people have been taught in school immediately forgotten afterwards) and a language test. the language test is suposed to be completely computerized. the test will be conducted via a telephone line form special rooms in dutch embassies and consulates around the world. the computer is not only serving the questions and judging your answers (it has to asses complex things like re-narrations of short stories which as far as i can tell is quite daunting task in itself given the current state of technology). also the verdict of the computer is final there is no possibility of appealing a verdict once given. also for each attempt at the 30 minute test euro 350 has to be paid up-front by the applicant.

If i remember it correctly my last encounter with complex speech recognition technology dates back three years or so and at that point i failed to book a train ticket via the phone answering to simple questions in my mother language. that a centralized computer system can cope with 1001 accents that it is inevitably going to encounter seems to be completely unrealistic to me. so maybe we are starting to see a new form of migration management this time with ‘objective’ computer technology acting as a filter. if this becomes practice (the system does exist but its use still needs to be authorized by parliament) you can fulfill all the legal requirements for settling in the netherlands and still not be granted entry because the computer des not get your accent (or the software fails altogether or the phone line is bad or because you are chinese and cant pronunce the R and the computer wants you to pronunce ‘gras’ (speaking of dutch culture here aren’t we) but you only manage to say ‘glas’…