August 2, 2013

Have DJ Tiësto marry you in Las Vegas

Filed under: Music by Orangemaster @ 6:33 pm

On 17 August, world-famous DJ TIësto will perform at Hakkasan at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas and he’s giving his Facebook fans the chance to have him officiate and spin CDs at their wedding. He plans to pick the lucky couple who give him a good story out of his inbox, so send him some mail at entry@inthebooth.com by August 10.

After reaching 15 million fans on Facebook this week, it is apparently time for TIësto to give back and get even more publicity. He’s also giving a whole new meaning to the concept of wedding DJ.

(Links: entertainment.nl.msn.com, www.dutchdailynews.com, Photo of DJ Tiësto by PauliD, some rights reserved)

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August 1, 2013

Gated community ‘not only for whites’ in Rotterdam

Filed under: Architecture by Orangemaster @ 10:30 am

For many a bad sign, for a selected few, no more riffraff, as Rotterdam gets its first gated community, called Ringvaartstaete (PDF in Dutch). It’s only 12 villas of which 6 have already been sold, according to the real estate agent, with prices ranging from 900,000 to 1.5 million euro.

When I think of gated communities, I imagine inside them a scene out of the American movie Pleasantville, with its idealistic American 1950s. Then, there’s also South Africa with its compounds, clearly separating powerful white people from anybody not fitting that description. And then there’s the ones I flew over some 10 years ago when landing in Moscow, which separated the nouveau riche from the hopelessly poor.

What bothers me the most is that Quote magazine felt the need to caption their photo of the community “Not only for whites”, which I find it scary. The article also ‘reassures’ us, as the real estate agent claims they’ve had the honor of welcoming “their first ‘coloured’ buyer”.

See also Police arrest gardener in rich area because he’s African.

(Link: www.quotenet.nl, Photo by Kai Schreiber, some rights reserved)

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July 30, 2013

Fake meat so close to the grill you can taste it

Filed under: Animals,Food & Drink by Orangemaster @ 10:02 am

The lab-produced meat we told you about earlier this year that made headlines in 2012 is now finally ready to be grilled. Professor Mark Post of Maastricht University is behind this project, which was first reported to cost about 250,000 euro, but has now been beefed up to 290,000.

A selected few will get to taste the test-tube meat made up of 3,000 layers at an event to be held in West London. Originally there was talk of letting English chef Heston Blumenthal, owner of the three-Michelin-starred restaurant The Fat Duck cook it up, which could still be the case.

The entire point of making fake meat is of course to feed more people by slaughtering less animals. Boffins believe that the stem cells from one cow can produce a million times more meat that just killing it and grilling it. Then again, you need to kill some more cows to get the stem cells, but that’s par for the course.

Getting the planet to change their eating habits while incessantly pushing junk food made of barely fit for human consumption pink slime is an epic fail. Using guilt, shame or other negative emotions to reach a positive outcome is the recipe for epic fails, and if I hear another bunch of moralistic ecological crazies come up with eating worms and insects outside of the context of peoples in the world who traditionally do such things, I might think violent thoughts. Therefore, it seems logical but not ideal to make fake meat to mirror what so many people eat in this day and age and that’s unfortunately meat-related junk food.

(Link: www.nieuws.nl)

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July 29, 2013

Dutch postal worker burned mail

Filed under: General,Weird by Branko Collin @ 11:39 am

A 26-year-old woman from Swalmen, Limburg has been burning the mail she was supposed to deliver in her short-lived career as a postal worker.

Apparently she said she did not feel like delivering all that mail, though Spitsnieuws doesn’t mention who she told this to.

The woman had been a postal worker for two weeks. Post.nl fired her and reported her to the police. The company also sent the victims a letter informing telling them what happened.

Former state monopolist Post.nl has been replacing well-trained, well-paid postal workers with hard to employ people with little or no experience who are willing to work — or not work, as the case may be — for little money.

See also: Dutch postal strike ends after reaching an agreement

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July 28, 2013

Ballet dances to 1977’s Star Wars Theme in cowboy outfits

Filed under: Music by Branko Collin @ 11:09 am

Back in 2007 we mentioned Showballet Penney de Jager dancing to Meco’s disco version of the theme of Star Wars on 1970’s Dutch TV show Toppop. This is that video.

In the 1970s bands would playback live—if that description makes sense—to their pop songs on television. Sometimes an artist would not or could not show up and Toppop solved this by having its in-house troupe, Showballet Penney de Jager, do a bit. As for why this pre-recorded routine contains cowboys and motorcycle riders, I don’t know.

In the mid-1980s Toppop was pushed out of the fish tank by Adam Curry’s Countdown which focussed on showing music clips instead of live acts. The ballet’s front lady De Jager, now 65, still performs. Her current troupe Burlesque Express is part of the travelling theater festival De Parade at the moment. The festival has set up its tents in Utrecht and will leave for its final stop this year, Amsterdam, in the week of 5 August.

See also: Dutch 70s hit music show revived on the web

(Link: Boingboing. Photo of Penney de Jager in 1970 by AVRO, some rights reserved)

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July 26, 2013

Cleaning up the ocean, a young Dutchman’s vision

Filed under: Design,Sustainability by Orangemaster @ 7:00 am

We’ve mentioned wunderkind Boyan Slat a few times and it has always involved water and pushing boundaries. This time, at 19 years of age, he’s been making waves internationally with his Ocean Cleanup Project, which aims at ridding the world’s oceans of plastics. The best thing to do is just watch the video and let him tell you what his plans are.

Problem: The plastic is not static, it moves around.
Solution: Why move through the oceans, if the oceans can move through you?
Fix the sea water processors to the sea bed, and save vast amounts of funds, manpower and emissions.

In his bio, Slat says: “It will be very hard to convince everyone in the world to handle their plastics responsibly, but what we humans are very good in, is inventing technical solutions to our problems. And that’s what we’re doing.”

This fits in with my personal philosophy that using guilt, shame and other negative emotions to force people to do something positive is not the way to go. I am already looking forward to the rest of Slat’s career.

(Link: m.parismatch.com, Photo: screenshot of Tedx presentation)

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July 25, 2013

Electric charging stations for cars at Dutch filling stations

Filed under: Automobiles by Orangemaster @ 7:11 pm

A court ruled that charging stations may be installed at normal filling stations albeit in the free parking area simply because electricity is not fuel. A collective group of filling stations tried to fight off businesses who wanted to install charging stations, but lost. The law on fuel states that filling stations have a monopoly on selling ‘fuel’ and if electricity isn’t fuel, then they can’t stop the building of charging stations.

This is good news for electric car owners, and particularly for people who rent electric cars but can’t leave the city limits because of the lack of charging stations. Some 250 quick charging station, which claim to be able to charge cars in 20-30 minutes, will soon enough be built to accommodate electric cars on Dutch roads.

Worrying about dropping petrol losses because of hybrid cars is premature, as we told you last year since Dutch Prius drivers use too much petrol.

(Link: www.elsevier.nl, Photo by DaveOnFlickr, some rights reserved)

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July 24, 2013

Fly your own drone-like favourite objects, DIY style

Filed under: Design by Orangemaster @ 8:49 am

With this kit, you can turn your favourite object into a drone (the popular term) or actually an UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle), as designer Jasper van Loenen explains.

As of 1 June 2013 you no longer need to have a permit to use a drone (thanks big corporations), so it’s time to get your favourite items up and flying. Allowing satellite pictures be made of the entire country, but then fining drones that take pictures for spying was finally considered obsolete.

Many of the parts in the kit can be created with a 3-D printer. Van Loenen made the printer files available, so that people can get into DIY mode with 3-D printing. About the printed parts, he said, “I recommend printing them in ABS or something similarly strong and durable. I printed them in ABS with a fill of around 50 percent and a rectangular mesh, but I think printing them with slightly more fill might be better. It will not increase the weight that much (all the printed parts are pretty light) and might increase the strength quite a bit.”

(Link: phys.org, Photo of Drone by Karen Axelrad, some rights reserved)

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July 23, 2013

Amsterdam North’s famous crane is being dismantled today

Filed under: Architecture by Orangemaster @ 8:48 am

One of the symbols of Amsterdam North’s NDSM dock area is a towering, 50-metre crane (‘Crane 13’) that is said to weigh about 300 metric tons. Today marks the beginning of the crane being dismantled and brought to the province of Friesland to be renovated.

Currently, a design hotel that will be 45 metres high and a small television studio is being built right next to the crane (or where the crane was). The crane will eventually be put back, a good excuse for a party maybe, who knows.

(Link: www.amsterdamfm.nl)

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July 22, 2013

Ferry wars are threatening to isolate the island of Vlieland

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 9:42 am

A price war between two competing ferry companies servicing the Dutch Wadden island of Terschelling is threatening to isolate the island of Vlieland as well.

Rederij Doeksen is the official ferry company that connects both islands with the mainland. In 2008 islanders of Terschelling, dissatisfied with Doeksen’s service, decided to start their own ferry company, Eigen Veerdienst Terschelling (EVT), which literally means Own Ferry Service Terschelling.

The Dutch government granted Doeksen a monopoly in 2011 (which was to enter into force in 2012) provided that Doeksen would guarantee a service throughout the year and not just in the summer, when tourists flock to the islands. EVT brought a case before the Dutch Trade and Industry Appeals Tribunal fighting the concession and in the meantime it charged 5 euro for a ticket to Terschelling whereas Doeksen originally charged 25 euro. Doeksen has lowered its rates to 4 euro, but now threatens to cut trips to Vlieland from three times a day to twice a day.

Vlieland’s inhabitants are not happy. Mayor Else Schadd (Labour) told Volkskrant on 15 July: “This is unacceptable. In the future if you want to go to the dentist, you will need to take the entire day off. Islanders who work on the mainland won’t get to their office before ten in the morning. And day trippers who want to visit us in the off-season will have to return home at five o’ clock.”

EVT’s case hinges around whether the Wadden Sea is a real sea or merely a whole lot of water, Veerbootinfo writes. In case of the former European law apparently gives EVT some breathing space.

(Map of the Wadden Sea by OpenStreetMap contributors, some rights reserved. Vlieland and Terschelling are in the top left corner, Vlieland is on the left. The white lines show the ferry routes)

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