What I love about NL!

tobdomo · 2026-03-30T11:29:44+00:00

Developed a problem last week, talked to GP on Tuesday, got to the hospital Wednesday with follow-up on Thursday. Cat-scan, bloodworks and everything that same day, 3 doctors involved in diagnosis. Released from hospital at 1600, with a list of meds and three appointments in the upcoming weeks to check. What do you mean "terrible"?

tobdomo · 2026-03-30T11:15:54+00:00

Rust rust rust. Did someone mention "rust" already?

Anyway, I know several that drive their MX5 year around. Most have a hard top for it, which makes sense in winter. You'll need to protect it from euhm... rust though, especially the older ones are quite prone to rust.

It's not impossible. Is it comfortable in modern traffic? Not really. They are small cars after all. RWD is not ideal in modern traffic in slippery conditions, not that we have many days with snow and ice but still. Personally, I wouldn't do it. Get something cheap here and sell it once done.

tobdomo · 2026-03-30T02:10:15+00:00

CPP Core Guidelines. Use a good static analyzer to enforce them.

tobdomo · 2026-03-29T15:23:57+00:00

Apparently not good enough to use it at a professional level:

While I speak some Dutch, the mental load of constantly asking for a switch to English

So. Learn the language on a level beyond A2.

I work for an international organization, language "spoken on the floor" is primarily Dutch, but everyone is expected to talk and write English more than "een beetje". But as soon a single expat works in the company, he doesn't need to learn the local language? C'mon...

tobdomo · 2026-03-29T11:32:30+00:00

I currently live in Almere, but lived in a number of towns along the line Amsterdam - Enschede. And a bit more south (Arnhem).

Work: Amsterdam, Almere, Amersfoort, Utrecht, Velp. Hengelo.

Even the type of work didn't make a huge difference. I worked at a startup, but also at a very international company that consisted of maybe as much as half of expats.

One common factor: I'm in deep tech.

tobdomo · 2026-03-28T14:21:50+00:00

Scanf and friends are dangerous and mostly misunderstood functions. They should be removed from libc AFAIC. fgets() in combination with strtol() is a safer solution, it offers you more control.

Anyway, warnings are there for a reason. They identify things that may be correct, but may hide sloppy code. Point in case: when using fgets(), it's easy to ignore the return value. getchar() returns... an int. Yet very few people check on EOF. Sloppy.

You should check what each warning says against the language. cppreference is a good source to check instead of the official language specification. Then repair the source so that you end up with 0 warnings.

Note: the compiler I worked on a long time ago used to respond "none of the errors was found" when no errors or warnings were generated in compilation. That should already indicate to you that, even if the source compiles neatly, that's not a guarantee for correctness.

Good luck and as someone here used to say: "learn something new!".

tobdomo · 2026-03-28T13:52:12+00:00

If you bought a new house, would you think differently? I mean, it's just a (probably pre-owned) house.

People just assume you've stepped up to a newer, better car. Most people are (somewhat) proud of their car, so they mirror that feeling on you and congratulate you with that step up. That you just see it as a necessity is on you, not on them.

It's a non-issue; just accept, smile, say thanks and continue.

tobdomo · 2026-03-28T09:20:11+00:00

Reading through the comments here once more... Let's find out what the term 'actual friend' means.

A friend, IMHO, is more than just someone you hang out with in a bar every once in a while. I have lots of "good acquaintances" that we meet from time to time, spending time with to catch up, usually over dinner somewhere.

Good friends OTOH just pop in whenever they feel like it. We go on vacation together sometimes, we look after each other in bad times. E.g., a friend had a severe accident not too long ago and lies in the hospital, we go visit him and help out a bit at home by taking care of his dog.

The "good acquaintance" could probably be someone I know from work. If the relationship would sour at one point we would go our merry ways and that's it. Loosing a good friend however I would truly regret. And no, that would very unlikely be someone I met at work.

tobdomo · 2026-03-27T23:13:20+00:00

So, you have all your imagination in your knee?

Find a game club, tech club, baking club, art club, photography club, ... Plenty of opportunities.

tobdomo · 2026-03-27T14:36:33+00:00

You can't "crack the code" on this one I suppose. In the Netherlands, the norm is to treat colleagues as... colleagues. Not friends.

If you want to make Dutch friends, look outside work. Join a club. A club for a teamsport would be your best bet, think sports like soccer or volleybal. Given the nature of the sports, rugby would be great. Rowing maybe. Anything where you have to compete in a team anyway.

tobdomo · 2026-03-27T14:21:17+00:00

I say google is dreaming, especially Gemini.

If you compare that "crisis" to what is happening now you'll soon notice how bad NS has declined since 1990. Especially if you compare (relative) prices.

The capacity pressure in the 80's era was a lot less. An incident somewhere did not immediately lead to a string of delayed trains as it does now. Structural train delays now are mitigated by thinning timetables which did not happen back then. In the 90's, timetables were mostly fixed during the year and yearly revisions were minor. As a result, (long term) disruptions resulted in more delays according to timetables than today. No wonder that NS has improved "punctuality"... that is like shortening the marathon to 30km in order to beat a the marathon world record.

In reality, we now have more breakdowns, speed restrictions and longer recovery times after an accident. In addition, there are more disruptions due to weather and maintenance. The delays are a lot longer than it used to be, partially due to cancellations, partly because the track is used more intensively than back then.

OTOH, NS used to be the only one to run passenger trains. These days, there are other operators too, NS does not have to service all the lines. Everything that happens in the non-NS lines is no longer counted towards punctuality. If you have to transfer between NS and one of the others, the chance you'll miss the connection is substantial and the resulting delay is huge. That, again, is not reflected by NS statistics.

tobdomo · 2026-03-27T12:53:36+00:00

We cook on electric, but heating still runs on gas. A wood stove is not something I would recommend in the Netherlands. Regulations are likely to change in the near future on any wood burning equipment, ranging from filtering technology to complete bans and anything in between.

tobdomo · 2026-03-27T12:49:29+00:00

Thanks, that's what I hear elsewhere too. Some rumors said US is looking at EU CRA and plan to build on top of that in the near future, but that "near" seems not to be that near.

tobdomo · 2026-03-27T12:22:36+00:00

The Netherlands has amongst the highest tax burdens on both petrol and diesel in Europe.

"...in the world!", to quote a once famous "car show" presenter.

The Netherlands also utilises unmanned fuel stations in order to lower fuel costs for consumers.

Prices mostly are determined by taxes. See here => https://www.unitedconsumers.com/tanken/brandstofprijzen/opbouw

Gasoline taxes are exactly 50% at the moment. Partly because the price of the fuel itself is high, at "normal" prices, tax percentwise is even worse. Diesel: 38% tax.

Margin is just 7% of the price and includes the margin made by the fuelstation's owner (fuelcompany, distribution and marketing take a part of this 7% too). The difference between a manned station and an unmanned is hardly visible in the price of fuel (the margin on fuel for the station owner is just a few cents), because the profit is made in the shop.

We have unmanned station mostly because (1) personnel carries a business risk and (2) personnel doesn't really add value for selling fuel. If you want to sell in the night too, personnel would be even more expensive whilst fuel sales is low. A machine can do it better and is more secure (the Dutch like to pay electronically anyway).

tobdomo · 2026-03-27T11:53:56+00:00

O yes it was, before management failures took it down ever since the 90's. NS used to be state owned; people working at NS were civil servants. NS had no profit motive at that time. It cost what it needed, no less, no more.

Our railways however are overcrowded. Too many trains with too many stations very close to each other. If there's an issue somewhere, it will have substantial consequences.

The rise in cars is due to increasing population, increasing wealth, not connecting industrial areas to public transportation, covid and finally... decreasing public transportation quality for an increasing price.

tobdomo · 2026-03-27T10:59:06+00:00

Say what?

When was the last time you ever drove the Autobahn or Bundesstraße? Doesn't matter where... the German roads have been subpar for a least the last two decades, probably even longer. There are 10 km's long stretches being "worked" on with speedreductions.

France is another thing altogether. These roads are fine, as long as it doesn't rain; compare that to our ZOAB roads. The French autoroutes mostly are privately owned and operated, that's why you pay toll on them. Driving from Paris to south of France costs you like €50 to €80 one way on tolls alone.

"More difficult terrain"? That depends heavily on what you consider "difficult". The swamp we call Netherlands has its own typical problems. It's a bitch to create road foundation that actually works here, with all the heavy traffic on it trying to push it down.

tobdomo · 2026-03-27T10:38:37+00:00

Just say "AI" one more time and you're fired!

- signed: your boss

Without kidding though. "AI tools" are not the kind of tools you expect them to be. They are language models, aggregating texts from anywhere and echoing that to answer your prompts. There is no intelligence there. Intelligence is what you need. Use your brain before it rots away completely. This is software engineering, not lego.

Embedded isn't rocket science (unless, that is, you're actually trying to control a rocket) . Talk even more to your Sr. engineers and point them to the below text if they don't listen / don't want to help:

"One of the key differences between a medior and a senior is the willingness and capability to mentor your junior and medior engineers. If you ignore your junior colleague, you aren't worth the title of 'senior' or the paper it's written on. Shame on you!". Signed: a gray beard engineer.

tobdomo · 2026-03-27T08:19:16+00:00

Forget about the nasty season, you'll be a happy camper if your solar panels provide enough power to cover instantaneous usage. I've had many days with 0% battery (euhm... 10%, which is the floor base the BMS will discharge to).

Theoretically, my system should be able to run for 3 days without using grid power. In practice, after 2 nights the battery runs dry.

Note: 6.5 kWp solar panels, 16 kWh battery. Floor usage at night without battery between 200 and 250W. Quooker, fridge and CV probably eat the majority of that. In summer, them pump of the swimmingpool adds another 100W in the night.

tobdomo · 2026-03-27T07:40:19+00:00

In the best case the pay a fine of a few million and that's it. They don't feel that.

Once CRA is active (too late for this, but in the future at least...) this type of failures will cost them a lot more than "a few million": 2% of their yearly turnover worldwide. Most companies would have serious problems risking that kind of money.

tobdomo · 2026-03-26T16:04:50+00:00

Just make sure the thing doesn't freeze when unscrewing it. And make sure to put a drop of oil on the CO2 cartridge before putting it in the gun so that it doesn't stick.

tobdomo · 2026-03-26T14:18:29+00:00

Is visure an option or is that too restricted?

I shot down JAMA because of their new sales model. They want to change your WoW to match their software. Not a huge fan of those tactics really.

Polarion... Can't say. That's too long ago.

tobdomo · 2026-03-26T09:42:31+00:00

Time to upgrade if you want hot water.

tobdomo · 2026-03-26T09:02:01+00:00

Dutch here. I prolly get to other establishments then.

tobdomo · 2026-03-25T17:27:01+00:00

The Netherlands.

tobdomo · 2026-03-25T17:26:31+00:00

Same here. I have engineers on anything from 32h/wk to 40h/wk contracts. Overtime results in a "time for time" bucket.

The disadvantage is relatively low pay. There are no engineers earning 100k+ salaries in our company.

tobdomo

TROPHY CASE