Dutch ABC spotted!

At first I was quite scep­ti­cal about the exis­tence of our (The Nether­lands’) very own Alien Big Cat, but now, both pho­tos and videos have surfaced.

Pan­tera, a foun­da­tion ded­i­cat­ed to the defence of big cats in Europe, have made it their mis­sion to find and cap­ture the alleged puma (which they’ve named ‘Win­nie the Poohma’) roam­ing the ‘Hoge Veluwe’ alive. As opposed to Dutch police, who just want to shoot the ani­mal, because it pos­es too great a threat to the public.

Look­ing at the film and pic­tures, to my untrained eye it does appear that the ABC is feline. How­ev­er, I have my doubts about its size. The images have been tak­en at a con­sid­er­able dis­tance, and there is hard­ly any­thing to in the sur­round­ings to com­pare the cat against.

Also, some experts have spo­ken out, say­ing that the ABC can’t be a puma, because it’s the wrong col­or. Love how that works: first there is no puma, because there’s no hard evi­dence. Now there’s evi­dence, but the cat’s no puma, because the color’s wrong!

Anoth­er inter­est­ing fact is that Dutch author­i­ties are study­ing the video made by Pan­tera, to make sure they’re no fake. The same author­i­ties that have been putting expen­sive per­son­nel on the Hoge Veluwe for days, to pro­tect the public!

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Geslaagd!

Mijn broert­je is ges­laagd. Hij studeerde grafisch ontwer­pen aan de WDKA in Rot­ter­dam. Zijn twee afs­tudeer­pro­jecten zijn vet: 

  1. Een extreem min­i­male huis­sti­jl voor de Europeesche Unie, bestaande uit (bij­na) blan­co brief­pa­pi­er, envelop­pen, kaart­jes etc. en een grote bos sjablo­nen waarmee je de dragers zelf van invulling kan voorzien. Het paspoort geeft uit­leg over alle sjablo­nen. Mooi!
  2. Een samen met een studiegenoot ver­vaardigd mag­a­zine rond het the­ma “Rot­ter­dam Water­stad”, welke ver­vol­gens ver­scheurd is en in oran­je plas­tic bak­ste­nen in de Maas is gegooid. Van de actie hebben ze en video gemaakt, en is ver­slag gedaan in het Rot­ter­dams stadsnieuwsblad. 
Ties' afstudeerproject

Foto’s van de diplo­ma-uitreik­ing en het werk van Ties op Flickr.

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Dutch Alien Big Cat

This is so cool. For a few days now, police in The Nether­lands are hunt­ing down an alleged puma on the Hooge Veluwe, a large nat­ur­al reserve.

To me, being a Fortean, this is a treat. Alien Big Cats is a phe­nom­e­non well record­ed in Fortean lit­er­a­ture where mul­ti­ple peo­ple start see­ing a large felid in or around a spe­cif­ic loca­tion. Some­times the ani­mal is nev­er found; some­times it turns out to be a dog, cat or oth­er domes­tic ani­mal. And some­times it turns out to real­ly be a wild cat.

What­ev­er it turns out to be, I’m enjoy­ing see­ing this strange phe­nom­e­na play out in the Dutch media, who have no clue, and see­ing where the mass hys­te­ria will take us.

(Also check out this British ABC roundup at the excel­lent Fortean Times.)

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Lessons learnt at Reboot 7.0

  • More play (see Flickr.com)
  • Make your soft­ware social (how?)
  • Keep things open (no gatekeepers)
  • Get blog­ging to work for you
  • Con­tribute to a new online etiquette
  • Get real
  • Take the nat­ur­al reac­tions of the human brain into account when cre­at­ing interfaces
  • Beau­ty isn’t just on the out­side, but also on the inside
I might go into some of these points in more detail lat­er on.

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Reboot buzz

So, Reboot 7.0 has come and gone. I’m sit­ting here, just got back to my hotel from the after­par­ty at Vega. Sup­pos­ed­ly the hottest club in Copen­hagen. Lone­ly Plan­et was right about the amount of obscene­ly good look­ing and well dressed peo­ple present. Good times.

Before I go to sleep just a thought about how to incor­po­rate at least parts of what I’ve seen and heard these two days into my dai­ly prac­tice as a design­er. Peo­ple like Jason Fried and Matt Webb real­ly push me to become a bet­ter pro­fes­sion­al. We’ll see where it’ll go.

Also, had a lot of fun with two peo­ple from the friend­ly com­pe­ti­tion over at Rhi­nofly. Greet­ings to Nico­l­ine and Jur­gen!

Look­ing for­ward to see­ing you again, Netherlands…

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What is mobile life really about? — Christian Lindholm

Great moment at Reboot: Chris­t­ian Lind­holm of Nokia asks every­one who owns an iPod to stand up. More than half of the audi­ence rise. Then he asks every­one to take the iPod out of their pock­et. Two peo­ple do. 

If you’re not in the pock­et, you’re not mobile.”
If it’s not in the pock­et, it’s not mobile.”
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