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The Hague, Day 7: It's a Small World.
Sep. 29th, 2022 08:56 pmToday, I visited Holland in miniature at Madurodam.
That's because it was mandatory fun morning at RWOT. In previous years, RWOT was a three-day event, but at Prague (I think) in 2019 we expanded it to four days, but with the morning of day three taken up by fun group expeditions (or if attendees prefer, sleeping in). The idea was to give people a break from the hard work of the first two days, so that they could come back refreshed for the last day and a half of work.
Somehow, this year's events didn't get well advertised on our Eventbrite, which in turn means they weren't well attended. The canal tour that I'd previously signed up for didn't happen, but I decided to go to Madurodam instead, which is a park containing miniature diaromas of buildings (and people) across the Netherlands, all in a big outdoor park. It'd been on my list of things to maybe see while I was in the Hague, so I was happy to get to.
The entrance to the park was a little shocking. It was a movie about George Maduro, which was full of modern-day reenactments that I found humorous. He was a Jewish war hero. He personally led a charge across a bridge to oust Nazi paratroopers who were advancing on The Hague. He was captured. He was freed. He became a member of the resistance. He was imprisoned again. Teh prison was bombed by the Allies. Instead of escaping, he helped fellow prisoners hurt int he attack. He was captured again.
and-then-he-was-shipped-off-to-the-concentration-camp-at-Dachau-where-he-died-weeks-before-it-was-liberated.
Yeah, not where I thought that story was going. And also my first sign that the Dutch don't hide the hard facts of life (and history) from their kids, many of whom visit Madurodam. (Go them.)
Anyway, the park was created by his parents as a memorial.
It was a very neat park, full of little miniature buildings (1:25 scale, so still pretty big). Many of them are real buildings in the Netherlands, some of which I've seen in reality such as the Binnenhof, the Rijksmuseum, and the Schiphol Airport. There were also miniature people all over, many of them seeming to play out their own little stories, such as the guy by the canals holding up his arms in celebration. And finally there were moving bits, mostly vehicles such as cars and boats. But also a little carnival and other things here and there (such as the truck that delivers you a miniature Mars bar, the air raid siren, etc).
The park advertises that you can see the Netherlands in one hour. We were there an hour and a half and could have spent at least that much time again.
Also of note: the gift shop had banana Haribo which I've never seen before (Haribo selection is much more limited in the US), but which were delicious!
--
Anyway, back to RWOT.
Last night was demo night. It went very well, but long. We saw 15 demos (I think) of self-sovereign identity and related technologies. Thrilling, as always to see these ideas made real, and it was really well organized to keep things moving (even if the number of presentations made things run late).
The actual work today at RWOT was mainly two afternoon sessions focused on getting our "artifact" created. We worked on our paper, reviewing all of our threats to allow the whole group to contribute ideas, then we jointly wrote out one of the threats. Everyone seemed to think it came out really well. The idea for tomorrow is that we each write out one additional threat from our list, and then we have most of a paper.
Tomorrow is also the day I really step forward as editor-in-chief and make sure I have all the contacts to help everyone bring their papers to completion. So, it'll be a busy day when I wear a few hats (but I expect I can knock out my own threat faster than my other group members, since we've done the preliminary work and writing is my specialty, so I think I'll get my work done).
That's because it was mandatory fun morning at RWOT. In previous years, RWOT was a three-day event, but at Prague (I think) in 2019 we expanded it to four days, but with the morning of day three taken up by fun group expeditions (or if attendees prefer, sleeping in). The idea was to give people a break from the hard work of the first two days, so that they could come back refreshed for the last day and a half of work.
Somehow, this year's events didn't get well advertised on our Eventbrite, which in turn means they weren't well attended. The canal tour that I'd previously signed up for didn't happen, but I decided to go to Madurodam instead, which is a park containing miniature diaromas of buildings (and people) across the Netherlands, all in a big outdoor park. It'd been on my list of things to maybe see while I was in the Hague, so I was happy to get to.
The entrance to the park was a little shocking. It was a movie about George Maduro, which was full of modern-day reenactments that I found humorous. He was a Jewish war hero. He personally led a charge across a bridge to oust Nazi paratroopers who were advancing on The Hague. He was captured. He was freed. He became a member of the resistance. He was imprisoned again. Teh prison was bombed by the Allies. Instead of escaping, he helped fellow prisoners hurt int he attack. He was captured again.
and-then-he-was-shipped-off-to-the-concentration-camp-at-Dachau-where-he-died-weeks-before-it-was-liberated.
Yeah, not where I thought that story was going. And also my first sign that the Dutch don't hide the hard facts of life (and history) from their kids, many of whom visit Madurodam. (Go them.)
Anyway, the park was created by his parents as a memorial.
It was a very neat park, full of little miniature buildings (1:25 scale, so still pretty big). Many of them are real buildings in the Netherlands, some of which I've seen in reality such as the Binnenhof, the Rijksmuseum, and the Schiphol Airport. There were also miniature people all over, many of them seeming to play out their own little stories, such as the guy by the canals holding up his arms in celebration. And finally there were moving bits, mostly vehicles such as cars and boats. But also a little carnival and other things here and there (such as the truck that delivers you a miniature Mars bar, the air raid siren, etc).
The park advertises that you can see the Netherlands in one hour. We were there an hour and a half and could have spent at least that much time again.
Also of note: the gift shop had banana Haribo which I've never seen before (Haribo selection is much more limited in the US), but which were delicious!
--
Anyway, back to RWOT.
Last night was demo night. It went very well, but long. We saw 15 demos (I think) of self-sovereign identity and related technologies. Thrilling, as always to see these ideas made real, and it was really well organized to keep things moving (even if the number of presentations made things run late).
The actual work today at RWOT was mainly two afternoon sessions focused on getting our "artifact" created. We worked on our paper, reviewing all of our threats to allow the whole group to contribute ideas, then we jointly wrote out one of the threats. Everyone seemed to think it came out really well. The idea for tomorrow is that we each write out one additional threat from our list, and then we have most of a paper.
Tomorrow is also the day I really step forward as editor-in-chief and make sure I have all the contacts to help everyone bring their papers to completion. So, it'll be a busy day when I wear a few hats (but I expect I can knock out my own threat faster than my other group members, since we've done the preliminary work and writing is my specialty, so I think I'll get my work done).