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Reported at IEEE Spectrum is the news that Holland has just allowed self driving cars onto the roads, although only approved cars as part of test programs:
As the government's announcement makes plain, only manufacturers, universities and other recognized research outfits will be allowed to play, and then only if they've already tested their vehicles under controlled conditions. There's a lot of paperwork to fill out, and as the announcement notes, "Please expect an average 3-to-6-month-turn-around time from sending in your application to executing the test."
The government announcement is available here.
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Holland to Open Roads to (some) Experimental Self Driving Robots
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Tax reform means "Don't tax you, don't tax me, tax that fellow behind
the tree."
-- Russell Long
(Score: 2) by gidds on Thursday July 02 2015, @01:20PM
I for one (can't speak for the original submitter) will be happy to refer to your country by its correct title — but I'm ashamed to say that until I saw your post, I wasn't sure what that was!
I'm English (and I know my country has its own naming issues...), so I guess I share some of the Anglophone ignorance of continental Europe, even though I try to be reasonably well-informed. I'd sort of gathered that 'the Low Countries' wasn't very specific (even though it's a sort of literal translation of 'Netherlands'). But I thought that 'Holland' referred to the whole country; I now see (from its Wikipedia page) that that's only a region on the western coast (and an informal term for the whole country — possibly an offensive one).
I expect the original submitter and/or editor was acting only out of ignorance, and that no offence was intended. Thanks to your post, I think we've all learned something :-)
[sig redacted]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 02 2015, @02:27PM
Most Dutch people don't mind 'Holland', used as a pars-pro-toto. When someone in a foreign county asks where I'm from I'll answer 'the Netherlands' first, and add 'Holland' if they look puzzled.
It is ofcourse a national sport to be pedantic about it (as long as it's not financially disadvantageous).
Inside the Netherlands, 'holland' is sort of used offensively by everybody not living in holland. All the government stuff and most big cities is/are in holland, and 'hollanders' (people from holland) have a reputation of being loud and bossy. Probably like New Yorkers in the U.S. or Londoners in the U.K.
But I meet very few people who are genuinly offended if the country as a whole is called holland.
p.s.
When on holiday in France, most dutch people would say they were from 'la hollande' because 'les payes-bas' is more difficult to pronounce correctly :-)
(Score: 2) by FakeBeldin on Thursday July 02 2015, @05:23PM
True enough - and apologies if my tone was a bit grumpy.
On a side note: my English pronunciation and a taxi driver's English comprehension once collaborated to work out that I was from Poland. Had to correct him thrice before it sank in - and I used the phrase "Holland" exactly as parent explained: when the term "Netherlands" was not understood.
But I was amazed when my on-the-spot invented spanishfication of the french term, "paios bajos", actually is close [wikipedia.org].