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The arbitrary requirements you linked are to be allowed to use buslanes and taxi parking spaces in Amsterdam not to be a taxi driver in the Netherlands (it explicitely says that taxi drivers from outside Amsterdam are still allowed to drive into and out of Amsterdam without the "Taxxxivergunning"). So how about some information on the real requirements? Another page on the same site you linked mentions e.g. the "regels van de Wet Personenvervoer 2000" but my Dutch is not the best.

At least in Germany the "proper credentials" do include e.g. a special driver license which includes a medical analysis, a police clearance, a check of the driving penalty points registry, check of local knowledge, ... .

What kind of person bills his grandmother for taking her to the supermarket? Jeezz...

Repeat after me: "it's against the law to drive people around for money without the proper credentials".

Your bit about "without proper credentials" makes it sound like all that's needed is for a driver to apply for a license and meet some objective requirements like driving records, vehicle inspections and insurance. If that were the case, you'd have a lot more folks siding with the law.

Instead, in order to pick up a fare in Amsterdam, you need to meet some other arbitrary requirements, chief among them being a member of a TTO ("Regulated Taxi Organization") with at least 100 cars. And to pick up a fare from a taxi stand in Amsterdam, you need a further license -- one given at the discretion of the municipality for "professionalism".

So there we have it -- there's a whole set of common sense regulations that are applied and that anyone can meet based on a set of objective criteria. Then there's another set that got "glued on" which makes no sense at all. So ditch the latter, and soon you'll find there's no reason for uber at all.

[ But hey, at least it's not as bad as the US medallion system ! ]

In the Netherlands, the police regularly setup engraving points throughout the city every Wednesday, with a posted schedule & route. Anyone can stop, get their bicycle engraved and registered for free. So the police have the database everyone looks to.

Bike theft has been such a problem, the current rules upon being caught buying *or* selling a stolen bicycle require a mandatory night in jail, plus other treats. Bike theft has since declined.

There has also been a program where you can implant an RFID chip in your bike. The idea is if a beat-cop walks buy and the scanner goes beep.... (however the program didn't take off like gangbusters as one would hope, and I'm not sure why).

http://www.amsterdam.nl/parkeren-verkeer/fiets/fietsdepot/fiets_graveren/

http://chipabike.com/index.html

Amsterdam has invested in a huge facility for converting trash into electricity, and is improving the barge infrastructure so it can import more waste from neighboring countries. Anecdotally it seems to be a more efficient approach to create electricity, (and salvageable metals), as opposed to merely heat. The trams run on electricity, for example.

http://www.amsterdam.nl/aeb/english

The city of Amsterdam has a plant that imports garbage from other countries to create electricity also. Just to back up your point, Amsterdam is busy creating new canals for barge traffic to more efficiently feed the plant from abroad.

http://www.amsterdam.nl/aeb/english

Seems like a growth industry fueled not by the private sector and the special interest groups, but by governments with an eye on the ball.

The fun part is, firefox displays huge security warning for my self-signed certificate, but displays just litle red cross in url bar for websites using certificate signed by DigiNotar (see https://loket.amsterdam.nl/ for yourself), which i explicitly removed from the list of trusted autorities.

A lot of (most?) dutch intra-government traffic uses their certificates.

See https://loket.amsterdam.nl/ for instance

This example site shows that simply deleting the DigiNotar root certificates isn't enough, because they also are a subordinate CA. You should also delete the 'Staat der Nederlanden Root CA'.

A lot of (most?) dutch intra-government traffic uses their certificates.

See https://loket.amsterdam.nl/ for instance

Information about the free Chlamydia test can be found here: https://www.chlamydiatest.nl/. The problem is it's the first time they do this and only works by invite now... If you live in Amsterdam, Rotterdam or Limburg and are between 16-29 you will be invited to participate. I do not know when other regions and ages will be able to participate...
Self tests are also available at some pharmacies, but please note the following warning: http://www.gezond.amsterdam.nl/Infectieziekten--hygine/SOA--HIV/Zelftesten

Dutch supermarkets are doing that. Test your dutch: original or test google translate: translated.

While I could not find really useful English links about it, the Open.Amsterdam project has been running for two years now, and last October the City Council have declared that the long-term goal is to have all of the local government on open-source desktops. The pilot used SuSE Linux for two of the city's departments. Along with the wide-scale deployments like Munich or Vienna have done, I think you will have plenty data points in a few years.

See here for a minor press release in English.

While I could not find really useful English links about it, the Open.Amsterdam project has been running for two years now, and last October the City Council have declared that the long-term goal is to have all of the local government on open-source desktops. The pilot used SuSE Linux for two of the city's departments. Along with the wide-scale deployments like Munich or Vienna have done, I think you will have plenty data points in a few years.

See here for a minor press release in English.

Or for that matter, why don't they declare war on the Netherlands, particularly Amsterdam?

It's "XXX" for the whole world. Literally.

They had to hget the right Cohen...

Not Bram Cohen (something abbour torrents...)
Not Job Cohen (Amsterdamm== ... )
not leonard cohen for distributing copyrighted material. (although he does have an license for his material....)

well, some millions buy you a item low on this list.

In the Netherlands a big municipality (Amsterdam) is paying for the development of a CMS and releasing modules under teh GPL. See the "web in a box" site of BIA

In the Netherlands a big municipality (Amsterdam) is paying for the development of a CMS and releasing modules under teh GPL. See the "web in a box" site of BIA

Maybe I am overgenerallizing. But most typically, banks get robbed by (ex) employees. Theft from supermarkets (in cities like Amsterdam, Holland (NL)) is due to employees, not customers in 80-90% of the cases. That is: the people that the institution is intended for (ie.: the employees) are more likely to damage it than its outside customers.

As a software developer, I know that it is generally me who (unintentionally) wrecks the (Windows) machine I'm working on, not my manager nor the IT people taking care of firewalls and virusses. It's not a matter of hardware, software(?) or procedures. It's simply the fact that as a developer I spend much more time using "my" computer and I am therefore much more likely to break it.

further, here is the city hall-ish page, and what's that on the back wall?

oh what's this? a quick visit to http://www.amsterdam.nl/ just shut you up. try to research your flames a little better.