Tag: Netherlands
Charge your mobile by swinging
Photo by Koen Laureij.
The Dutch will never stop to impress me with their ingenuity.
Being sustainable is now trending in Europe—and in Holland in particular. So in June 2019 my client, NS, has installed a special kind of swing at the Utrecht Centraal railway station.
This new attraction was presented during the “Sustainability Week” (Duurzame Week), and it can charge your mobile phone!
Mortgage interest rates in the Netherlands are at record low
Interest rates on mortgages in Holland have already been sliding for about seven years.
Dutch banks traditionally update their interest rates in August following the propositions by the Ministry of Finance.
According to De Hypotheekshop, the average mortgage IR is 2.18% as of end of August 2019.
My entrepreneurship ‣ VAT number for zzp’ers is (finally) to be replaced
Each legal entity in the Netherlands receives a special identification number called btw-nummer shortly after the registration (btw is Dutch for “value-added tax”).
This number is necessary for invoicing, both domestic and international, and—obviously—for VAT payments.
So what’s so special about it? Well, it turns out that if you’re a self-employed entrepreneur, your VAT number is based upon your BSN identifier. Which is quite a blunder from the privacy point of view.
Querying any vehicle’s data by its number plate
The Netherlands has a public service that provides information about nearly any vehicle registered in the country, given its number plate.
The service is called OVI (Online Voertuig Informatie or “Online Vehicle Information”) and is being run by the State Traffic Service RDW (Rijksdienst voor het Wegverkeer), whose responsibility encompasses road infrastructure as well as vehicle certification, including mandatory periodic checkups (APK).
Google: quick and paranoid
There are sometimes things in the software world world that I, being a developer, still fail to understand.
One of such things happened when I’ve made the yktoo.com repository public on GitHub.
Second dan Aikido Aikikai
Even though it’s been more than a year, I feel I need to mend this.
On March 19, 2016 I’ve passed my first dan Aikido Aikikai exam. Then, a few months later, I received an official dan certificate from Hombu Dojo.
On the subject of inevitable ⚤
On this same day, precisely two years ago—July 13, 2017—I’ve rolled my mouse pointer over a very beautiful photo of a girl and clicked on Like.
That Awkward Moment
That moment when you find out the official Riverside event page at Tivoli Vredenburg is illustrated with your video.
My presentation at IDM Europe: 20 September 2018
A short announcement.
On 20 September I will be presenting at IDM Europe about two most popular open-source identity servers: Keycloak and WSO₂ IS, exploring their functionality and differences.