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Comment by zachkatz | Hacker News Reader

I'd like to contribute a collection of my own: changes in Dutch streets from 2008-ish to today, captured on Google Streetview: https://twitter.com/z_a_c_h_k_a_t_z/status/14646977114422067...

Even in the last decade, they've still been hard at work upgrading streets, and even some of them more subtle redesigns are absolutely stunning. Dutch street design is really one of the wonders of the modern world, IMO.

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There are two things I miss from my home country: hagelslag (chocolate sprinkles), and the utterly amazing bike infrastructure and traffic design in general.

Can I send you some hagelslag? Puur? Melk?

Haha, you're too kind. But my family already does so every once in a while and it's enough to keep me going :)

Ok! If you ever need something sent that they can't get then let me know, I'll be more than happy to oblige. I've lived abroad a good 40% of my life and I totally get where you're coming from. For me it was old dutch cheese, for you it's hagelslag...

Funny to see fellow Dutch people on this forum. Noticed you blog, like you piano software. Also, be careful with your e-bike, custom battery packs can be very dangerous (we had some on our quadruped robots, stopping a battery fire is hard!). Groetjes!

Hey Erwin, thank you, yes, aware of the dangers, I have a huge article on battery/pack safety in the works, but thank you for the extra caution. I'm actually far more scared of falling than I am of the battery pack!

The piano software is going to be my next decade, stay tuned for some interesting developments.

I don't understand why Dutch leave their home country. It seems so idyllic from the outside! What's San Mateo got that Utrecht doesn't? :-)

> It seems so idyllic

The weather isn't. (I don't think it's the main reason for people to leave though)

I made such move, for me it is mostly about more interesting and well paying jobs, and better weather in the Bay area. Visiting NL every summer and hope to return eventually.

For me: almost complete lack of nature (sorry guys, farmlands don't count as "green"), lack of mountains (I love outdoor sports), the depressing weather, the 20% house price increase in one year, the aggressive people who always know everything better (I refer to the large amount of covidiots who only care about themselves). There's plenty to dislike too.

You went to Holland I guess, not to The Netherlands. ;)

Hey, last time I checked Holland was still officially a part of the Netherlands ;)

I thought the "capital of a country/rest of a country"-split was a universal phenomenon, not just a Dutch one :p

But Holland is like saying Southern England, not the same as saying London

It's a bit like this:

- Amsterdam thinks the rest of the Netherlands is just greater Amsterdam

- the rest of North Holland disagrees

- the rest of the Netherlands also disagrees, but thinks the province of North Holland is greater Amsterdam

I'm oversimplifying for the sake of a joke of course, but like every good joke there's also a kernel of truth in it.

Then who are the Dutch?

The people who were born in Dutchland of course.

The "covidiots", as you call them, seem to be everywhere, at least going by what's happening on social media right now.

House prices are also a common and global problem. At least in urban areas around the world.

The lack of mountains is objectively true.

The lack of nature is subjective. If only you dare go outside of the Randstad. I originally lived in Limburg and I now live in Zandvoort. Both have plenty of non-farmland nature.

With regards to the bad weather: it only rains for 10% of the time in The Netherlands, so it's not that bad.

> The "covidiots", as you call them, seem to be everywhere, at least going by what's happening on social media right now.

We have more of them than others. It's very noticeable when you come back from Italy, France or even Germany how the mentality in the Netherlands is Different. After a week in Italy I have seen 0 people not complying to COVID rules. I'm in the airplane back to NL and immediately I'm greeted with hordes of people wearing chin diapers (and giving you a big mouth if you say something about it).

> With regards to the bad weather: it only rains for 10% of the time in The Netherlands

It's more the cloudedness. Gloomy days just like this whole week. May not always count as rain, but when it's dark and gray all day, all life is sucked out of me anyway.

Greetz from Amsterdam, and welcome back.

A full-spectrum light does wonders, though we had to leave ours behind in the US (120V only).

Hills. I love the Netherlands but the topography would get to me. (I'd take it hands-down over San Mateo, though.)

I get hagelslag (de Ruijter, melk, 8 dollar) and appel stroop from Amazon and from summer trips abroad. I do miss pita broodje shoarma, chinese indonesian food, frikandel speciaal, kroketje.

8 dollar for a box of sprinkles, sweet Jesus.

Feels like buying fancy cheese in Asia.

Yes, it is about 3 dollar in the Netherlands (for a 500 gram box), but shipping would make it more expensive than 8usd.

I moved to France and here I can only get those tiny 50 gram "decorative" sprinkles for 4 Euro... The struggle is real.

After living abroad for several years we found out that a lot of Dutch food we take for granted in the Netherlands but we just get from the supermarket can be made quite easily yourself. Like vla! We also made tjap tjoy and babi pangang just like you get from a Dutch Chinese Indonesian restaurant (you can actually find recipes for them online). A broodje shoarma should be easy; pita bread and shoarma meat can be found in most countries, I think making a good garlic sauce yourself will do the trick. Hagelslag is a bit harder though, we do import that.

Lovely link! A testimonial to the calming power of bricks over asphalt, bikes over cars and hedges over parking spaces.

And curves! The natural, flowing, yet carefully considered geometry of the intersections (basically, design affordance) is really something unique. The Dutch have spent the last ~50 years getting the fundamentals right (something cities all over the world are doing now), so now they can focus on sheer refinement.

The immediate thing I notice in these near-time updates is how the development has worked around trees, even smaller ones.

Any road or pavement changes in the UK seem to come with total deforestation, and sticking some 2yo saplings back in to replace them.

Yep. A great example is here (flip back to 2008 to see the before picture): https://www.google.com/maps/place/@52.3728948,4.8591403,3a,7...

It's remarkable how they squeezed a protected bike lane in there while keeping all of those trees.

And the best is: it's not only in Amsterdam (or Randstad, for that matter) where they're upgrading streets! ;)

All their civil engineering is. Which is why I moved here from NYC. In 2022 I'll be Dutch.

That's a fantastic collection, thanks for doing that.

Thanks!

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