When my train was at Amsterdam Zuid this morning, a passenger collapsed. Because nobody else really did anything useful (they all stared at him), I had to find the conductor and tell him what was going on, so he could keep the train in the station while we waited for the ambulance.
Apparently, people think you should just let unconscious people lie on the floor...
I've decided to combine exercise with shiny new toys: I bought a new bicycle (a Batavus Crescendo) and a GPS (Garmin eTrex Venture Cx), and started cycling through the polders.
So now I have a list of tracklogs, and I'm in the process of upgrading bits of my website to display geographic positions.
I walked into the local MediaMarkt today (almost accidentally, I was waiting for another store to open), and they had 2 Nintendo Wii consoles in stock, which seems to be a very rare event here in the Netherlands. So I went home with a Wii, and it's great.
If anyone wants my Wii number, just send me an email with yours :)
A new OV Chipkaart system has been introduced in Amsterdam this year, and it will be available in all of the Netherlands in a few years. The concept is generally OK: no more counting of strips on a strippenkaart or buying train tickets; just transfer some money to the card and go (there is the thing where the card issuer can track who went where, and when, but I trust that will be resolved in time).
But there's a usability problem with the gates: it's not immediately obvious where you should wave your card (especially if you're