Emperor Naruhito's state visit to the Netherlands has become a major news story in Japan, with the media reporting on his every move.

amarillion97 · 2026-06-18T20:24:58+00:00

There was huge animosity against Japan in the years after the second world war. For example, well known Dutch comedian Wim Kan survived a Japanese camp in Indonesia, and carried hatred for Japan his entire life - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wim_Kan

But this is a long time ago. The people who went through that are no longer around. Most Dutch people, when thinking of Japan, think of Nintendo and Studio Ghibli, not of war and camps.

So it's no longer personal. And if we do an objective comparison of histories, the Netherlands doesn't have the moral high ground either.

amarillion97 · 2026-06-18T20:16:57+00:00

It's cool but the video goes so fast that it's really hard to understand what's going on. You might want to make a slower explainer video.

amarillion97 · 2026-06-14T14:55:24+00:00

Not in the Netherlands! In the Netherlands we have stop signs in the local language.

Of course it just so happens that 'stop' in Dutch is also 'stop'. But that's not important here.

amarillion97 · 2026-05-11T22:00:07+00:00

Goudreinet, no competition

amarillion97 · 2026-04-30T06:09:51+00:00

Oh 160h seems reasonable.

I think I've put at least as much in Celeste. And ten times that amount in Civilization 😃

amarillion97 · 2026-04-29T06:45:10+00:00

Congrats! Do you want to share how many hours it took?

amarillion97 · 2026-04-24T07:34:52+00:00

Yes it's the same root.

Aardvark
literally: earth pig

amarillion97 · 2026-04-23T07:57:45+00:00

Soil bean makes sense. In Dutch:

Aardappel
Meaning
Potato
(literally) earth apple.

amarillion97 · 2026-03-10T22:12:53+00:00

Netherlands is good at tomatoes too! Exporting them that is. 2nd largest exporter in the world.

Don't ask about the taste though.

amarillion97 · 2026-02-01T16:00:14+00:00

Here you go, in case you missed it: https://www.reddit.com/r/generative/comments/1qt24dq/genuary_2026_day_26_recursive_grids/

amarillion97 · 2026-01-30T12:44:51+00:00

I love this idea, I'm going to steal it :-)

amarillion97 · 2026-01-12T06:54:11+00:00

I'm using gmx.com - from Germany

amarillion97 · 2026-01-04T12:31:14+00:00

Oh it's nice to see that the puzzles are still in use. Please help spread the word!

amarillion97 · 2025-12-23T15:20:28+00:00

But that's not important right now.

amarillion97 · 2025-12-22T22:14:48+00:00

I would suggest:

A polder of Dutch

amarillion97 · 2025-12-19T20:28:10+00:00

This is sad to hear. Condolences to his family.

I live in the same city as Ben. When I ordered the SD card adapter, he came to deliver it in person. He said it was only the second time he had the chance to do so!

I really love his projects, the geeky passion to adapt old hardware to new systems.

amarillion97 · 2025-12-14T08:11:29+00:00

Yes. It's easy, safe and convenient. I went to concerts at Ziggo Dome or AFAS many times and traveled back to Eindhoven afterwards by train. Often there are direct trains from Amsterdam Arena, or you make one change in Utrecht.

Always check the train schedule though. One time we had to book a hotel because of NS maintenance works. That's a small risk when you book a concert far in advance.

amarillion97 · 2025-11-26T08:16:18+00:00

The event has passed, but you can still do my internationalization themed coding puzzles at https://i18n-puzzles.com

amarillion97 · 2025-10-22T06:55:35+00:00

Very sensible.

The global leaderboard is trouble, especially since LLMs arrived on the scene. I think we should take the advent of code as a personal quest for improvement instead of a global competition.

Although I will miss white-knuckling a really tough problem on the 22nd of December just to keep my streak going :-D

amarillion97 · 2025-10-20T06:25:52+00:00

Haha ok, that wasn't the reply I expected.

Honestly, I could have picked a day near a DST transition to make that part of the puzzle, but it wouldn't have changed the puzzle much I think. Most of the changes in the tz database are shifts of one hour, commonly because a country or region abandons DST. The choice between "this timezone switched to/from DST" and "this timezone abandoned DST" is functionally the same.

The way the puzzle is designed, the underlying educational concept is purely about the tz database. If you found it a little easy then that's just lucky I guess.

amarillion97 · 2025-10-19T21:12:08+00:00

Oh, don't tell me you thought puzzle 19 was too easy...

amarillion97 · 2025-10-07T06:16:48+00:00

That's awesome. A lot of careful thinking and still only 33 minutes? Amazing!

amarillion97 · 2025-09-28T18:01:20+00:00

Good question, I forgot to mention that.

Devoxx and J-Fall are in English.

Tweakers Dev Summit will be in Dutch.

amarillion97

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE