wu :: forums - Print Page


    
      
        wu :: forums
        (http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~wwu/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi)
      

        riddles >> what happened >> The Legend of The Fleeing Dutchman.
        
(Message started by: rloginunix on May 4^th, 2014, 10:37am)

Title: The Legend of The Fleeing Dutchman.
Post by rloginunix on May 4^th, 2014, 10:37am

The Legend of The Fleeing Dutchman.

A little bit of trouble is brewing in the good old Kingdom of the Netherlands. The Dutch authorities there know very well the identity of the notorious criminal mastermind, Mr. Van der Kantooren, and they even know where he works.

But every time the Dutch police arrives to arrest Mr. Van der Kantooren he sees them coming, calmly gets up from behind his desk, walks out of his office and just as calmly walks into the next office over.

The Dutch police officers just stand there and eventually leave empty handed thus keeping the Legend of The Fleeing Dutchman alive.

Why do you think this is happening?

Title: Re: The Legend of The Fleeing Dutchman.
Post by towr on May 4^th, 2014, 10:53am

[hide]Could be an enclave (there's a few borders running straight through buildings), in which case he'd be out of their jurisdiction (though they'd just ask the Belgians to extradite him)[/hide]

Title: Re: The Legend of The Fleeing Dutchman.
Post by rloginunix on May 4^th, 2014, 11:32am

I can not believe this!

towr got it from the first try. This is insane.

Yes, that is correct. The only thing is that instead of [hide]Belgium[/hide] I had [hide]Germany[/hide] in mind. Namely, the [hide]Eurode Business Center Building which is in two countries at the same time. Its German address is Herzogenrath and its Dutch address is Kerkrade[/hide] if Google maps has it right.

Title: Re: The Legend of The Fleeing Dutchman.
Post by towr on May 4^th, 2014, 1:03pm

Well, I am Dutch, after all. :P
(Well, ok, granted, living in a country is no guarantee of having knowledge about [hide]its obscure borderline behaviour[/hide], but still.)

Title: Re: The Legend of The Fleeing Dutchman.
Post by rloginunix on May 4^th, 2014, 6:04pm

Impressive nonetheless. I bet most people don't know the year their hometown was founded in. I certainly have no clue, that's after living in my township for 20 years. Let alone having a good knowledge of what's happening hundreds of miles away [hide]at the country's borders[/hide].

Title: Re: The Legend of The Fleeing Dutchman.
Post by towr on May 4^th, 2014, 10:32pm

on 05/04/14 at 18:04:20, rloginunix wrote:

I bet most people don't know the year their hometown was founded in.

I don't think history records most dates people's hometown was founded in; unless they were founded relatively recently.

For the town I was born they just picked the first date it was mentioned in history, which almost certainly is long after it was "founded". For the city I live now, they didn't even bother to pick a symbolic founding date, because it's known to be much older than its first mention.
And what does "founded" mean anyway? That's fine when there's an actual decision for tens or hundreds of people to suddenly go live at a given place, but for towns that just sprung up "naturally", I don't think there is such a date, before which it was clearly not a town and after which it was.

Title: Re: The Legend of The Fleeing Dutchman.
Post by rloginunix on May 5^th, 2014, 12:03pm

Yeah, I agree. Town's foundation year is mostly symbolic and not binary - nothing today, fully fledged town tomorrow. "Rome was not built in a day", right? Except may be when they erect miniature towns in the Antarctic for the scientists to live in.

I used it as an example of general unawareness of people. Here, a major road usually has a sign (post) with the name of the town on the top, welcome to so and so, and the year it was founded in at the bottom, such and such. Come to think of it, I've been driving past this type of sign for years and still don't know what that number is.

Another even more curious effect is the "driving haze" - I've been taking the same to/from work route for years, crossing that many streets, standing on that many lights but if you ask me "what's the name of the street at, say, fifth light?" - I don't know. I can, however, draw my route on paper with no problems.

Human mind is selective and that's partially why puzzles and riddles can be so hard.

Title: Re: The Legend of The Fleeing Dutchman.
Post by gotit on Jun 15^th, 2014, 8:44am

And now, we have the Legend of the Flying Dutchman - Robin van Persie. 8)