Gelukkig Sinterklaas!

ByJohn Brown

I’ve got about 20 folks in The Netherlands and Belgium who visit this site regularly. I just wanted to say I hope you wonderful kaaskops and frites find your shoes full of good gifts this Sunday! 

For those who don’t know, folks in the low lands celebrate Sinterklaas on the 6th of December and Sinterklaasavond (Saint Nicholas eve) the night before.  The name is a contraction of Sint (Saint) Niklaas (Nicholas). Yes, the real Santa. In America we give gifts on Christmas. But the Dutch and Belgians do gift giving on Sinterklaas. Christmas is a more religious celebration.

However, Nellie and I figure we can catch Santa coming at the first of the month AND going at the end (no need to miss any opportunity for presents), so, of course, we will be putting our shoes by the door Saturday night. Hopelijk zal Sinterklaas niet stilletjes ons huisje voorbij rijden.

Share

Similar Posts

  • NPR’s Intelligence Squared

    ByJohn Brown

    Sometimes I love NPR, and sometimes those folks drive me nuts. But with Intelligence Squared they’ve come up with wonderful programming. I accidentally tuned in one night and found I couldn’t turn the radio off.

    What they do is bring together articulate experts, half who argue for a motion such as “Guns reduce crime?” or “Is the government responsible for health care?” and half who argue against it. The nice thing is that they make enough TIME to allow full statements. These aren’t roundtables of knucklehead pundits spouting sound bites. These are long discussions.

    Of course, so much depends on the presentation skills of the various experts. But being able to listen to both sides of an issue, at the very least, gives much to think about.

    In this debate they argue for and against the motion “The US is winning the war in Iraq”.

    They convinced me (I won’t say which side, however). Take some time and listen to this while you do monkey work for the day job.

    Share
  • |

    Iron Man, Military Insect Spies

    ByJohn Brown

    Iron Man was wonderful, every bit of what the trailers promised–adventure, humor, and a huge dose of gosh-wow. Of course, the idea of military exoskeletons are not new. It’s been in science fiction for a long time. More recently, Dan Brown used the idea in his thriller Act of War. In fact, if you think about it, it becomes clear that airplanes, ships, and tanks are all exoskeletons. So this is all old hat. But when did we ever need a brand-spanking new idea to have a wonderful and new story? What’s important is what the do with the idea–the characters, problem, plot, and setting. And Iron Man does a wonderful job of imagining new twists on all these parts of story.

    *

    In other news, it appears the future is not so far away. The military is going to be using robot bugs for recon.

    British defence giant BAE Systems is creating a series of tiny electronic spiders, insects and snakes that could become the eyes and ears of soldiers on the battlefield, helping to save thousands of lives.

    Prototypes could be on the front line by the end of the year, scuttling into potential danger areas such as booby-trapped buildings or enemy hideouts to relay images back to troops safely positioned nearby.

    Soldiers will carry the robots into combat and use a small tracked vehicle to transport them closer to their targets.

    Then they would swarm into the building and relay images back to the soldiers’ hand-held or wrist-mounted computers, warning them of any threats inside.

    I’m all for saving lives and projecting power while we’re doing it. And robo spies are just cool. Except, of course, when they’re used against you…

    Humm, zing!

    Share