June 7, 2018

The purrfect cat crime in Purmerend

Filed under: Animals by Orangemaster @ 8:00 am

catinbox

In a street in the city of Purmerend, North Holland, swimsuits, dolls’ clothing and baby blankets were mysteriously disappearing, something that was happening to several neighbours.

First, the neighbourhood blamed the children for misplacing their belongings, but at some point, there was more thieving and the thief had not been found. Local resident Stephan de Vries solved the case by placing a security camera only to discover that a white cat was stealing all the stuff.

De Vries found the cat’s owner who was on vacation. The neighbours hope that the owner will keep the cat indoors after his vacation. I doubt it, since most people let their cat wander outdoors as much as they can here, but it’s a reasonable request.

And they still have to find out the where the kleptomaniac cat’s stash is.

(Link: nu.nl, Photo of cat in a box by Hehaden, some rights reserved)

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June 6, 2018

Van Gogh fetches upwards of 7 million euro

Filed under: Art by Orangemaster @ 8:00 am

On June 4, an early painting of Vincent van Gogh entitled ‘Women Mending Nets in the Dunes’ from 1882 fetched 7.1 million euro at Paris’ Artcurial auction house, an amount that was much more than expected. According to Reuters, it was expected to fetch between 3-5 million euro, an amount many felt was excessive.

The oil painting from Van Gogh’s The Hague period has been hanging in the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam for the past eight years. It was sold, as it was on loan from a private collector.

(Links: nu.nl, Photo: reuters.com)

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June 5, 2018

Dutch invent world’s first cement separating machine

Filed under: Dutch first,Sustainability by Orangemaster @ 8:00 am

inovahuis

Amsterdam company Rutte Groep has succeeded in building a machine capable of recycling cement – a world first. The machine is called ‘Freement’, which is being presented today at the Provada fair in Amsterdam together with the New Horizon Urban Mining company.

Fremeent, invented by Koos Schenk, can separate blocks of cement into its three original materials of gravel, sand and cement. It is a big deal, considering that producing cement is responsible for nine percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions. Not unlike a cow, the machine ‘ruminates’ cement until the gravel is clean. Freement can process 130.000 tonnes of cement a year.

(Link: trouw.nl, Photo of an unrelated energy-neutral house: bright.nl)

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June 4, 2018

Nijmegen business pays employees in bitcoin

Filed under: Dutch first by Orangemaster @ 11:41 am

bitcoin-key-fob-btc_keychain

As of July, Dutch financial company BTC Direct in Nijmegen, Gelderland will be paying its 33 employees in bitcoins, something no other Dutch company does at present.

The company trades in bitcoin and wants to set a bit of an example, hoping it will become “a full-fledged means of payment”. As well, many of their employees were already buying bitcoins with their salary and they all said yes to being paid in bitcoin, although not their entire salary. Some of the cryptocurrency-savvy personnel have even asked to have part of their salary in cryptocurrencies other than bitcoin.

According to BTC Direct, Nijmegen and nearby Arnhem have hundreds of places that now accept bitcoin.

(Link: waarmaarraar.nl, (Photo by BTC Keychain, some rights reserved)

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June 2, 2018

Dutch operate robot handing out abortion pills in Belfast

Filed under: General,Technology by Orangemaster @ 3:46 pm

On May 31, a robot was handing out abortion pills in Northern Ireland, an action organised by a collaboration between Amsterdam’s Women on Waves and Women on Web, as well as ROSA from the UK that supplied the protesters. The goal was to draw attention to the fact that abortion is still illegal in Northern Ireland even though it is part of the United Kingdom where it is legal. On June 7 the UK Supreme Court will announce a decision on the issue.

And the robot was operated by a Dutch teenager, accompanied by a Dutch doctor for the pills. Women were given the pill and took it, both in Belfast in front of the courthouse and in Amsterdam at the company event space of Mediamatic, streamed live as well. Although it was a bit slow on the Dutch side according to Vice.com, there was an overwhelming amount of police officers present during the action in Belfast where the police arrested the robot. The robot even filmed its own arrest.

(Links: vice.com and womenonwaves.org)

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May 31, 2018

Priceless books found in Dutch Parliament

Filed under: History,Literature by Orangemaster @ 3:24 pm

book_stack

While cleaning up the book attic of the Dutch Parliament to get ready for a big move in the near future, hundreds of priceless books have been discovered, including a first edition of Scottish economist and philosopher Adam Smith’s ‘An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations’ aka ‘The Wealth of Nations’ worth a few hundred thousand euro, published in 1776. Although it is said not to be that rare, it is very much in demand by rich folks as a showpiece in their offices.

Among the hundreds of books published before 1830, 10 percent of them are unique, with no existing second edition. The rest of the books are mostly from the second half of the eighteenth century. Many of the books will need to be restored and will possibly be exhibited at some point in time.

(Link: nu.nl)

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May 30, 2018

Eindhoven to boast world’s first 3D printed homes

Filed under: Architecture,Dutch first,Technology by Orangemaster @ 3:32 pm

Next year, the city of Eindhoven, Noord-Brabant will apparently have the world’s first 3D-printed concrete homes. Six parties are involved in the project: the municipality of Eindhoven, Eindhoven University of Technology, Van Wijnen from Rosmalen, Vesteda from Amsterdam, Saint Gobain-Weber Beamix, and Witteveen+Bos from Deventer.

The project called ‘Milestone’ will have five houses erected in the neighbourhood of Meerhoven, designed by Houben/Van Mierlo architects. The homes will look a bit like henges or even statues in a green garden and have a bit of a Flintstones house feel to them, according to Houben/Van Mierlo and the image above.

(Link and photo: studio040.nl)

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PSA: “Your Comment is Awaiting Moderation”

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 12:28 pm

When you post a comment on 24 Oranges, you should be seeing a message that says “Your comment is awaiting moderation”.

This means that we have received your comment, but a human being needs to look at it to determine it is a proper comment and not just spam.

Unfortunately it appears this message has disappeared, so that now when you post a comment, the site just shows you an empty form. I don’t know what causes this, but rest assured that a) we are looking into it and b) your comments are still being received.

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May 29, 2018

Cows do not sense the North Magnetic Pole

Filed under: Animals,Science by Orangemaster @ 9:54 pm

Around the world in the past decade, all kinds of publications apparently claim that cows, deers and dogs tend to lie down in a North-South direction, possibly affected by the North Magnetic Pole.

However, according to the first scientific studies on the sensitivity of cows for the magnetic North at the University of Wageningen, it’s not true. Although there is scientific evidence to suggest that small animals are affected by magnetism, anything that has been said about large animals has been solely based on observations, from farmer descriptions to Google Earth photographs.

Tests were done in Portugal on 34 cows fitted with a strong magnet by checking their orientation when they were resting. With or without the magnet, the cows just lie around wherever. Actually, the direction of the sun makes a difference, not the wind, which is the same result of a study done at the same time in Portugal of 659 cows on six farms.

Critics who claim that environmental factors such as wind and sun exert such a strong influence on animals that they obscure the effect of the earth’s magnetic field are welcome to repeat this experiment at night.

(Link: naturetoday.com)

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May 28, 2018

Student runs top sushi restaurant from dorm room

Filed under: Food & Drink by Orangemaster @ 1:11 pm

Thai student Kitsanin Thanyakulsajja lives in a dorm room in Amsterdam where he has been running underground sushi restaurant Ephemeral for about three years. Thanyakulsajja will be stopping soon to start writing his thesis because that’s why he came to Amsterdam in the first place: to study.

With no restaurant experience and instead of ‘peeling potatoes’ at some Dutch eatery for low wages, he decided to open up an omakase joint, offering a very fancy 15-course Japanese meal, prepared and served by him in his dorm room, complete with a Tokyo-style counter and traditional Japanese tableware.

According to Munchies, within the last year, Ephemeral has been visited by some of Amsterdam’s most popular food critics, all of whom gave rave reviews. Local Michelin-starred chefs have also eaten here, many of whom expressed an interest in working with with the young student-stroke-chef in the future, if ever his studies bring him on a different path. Thanyakulsajja already has plans to collaborate with other restaurants and introduce Project Omakase to the wider Amsterdam food scene.

Then there’s the elephant in the dorm room: it’s probably illegal, but apparently nobody has a problem with this because everyone is raving about it.

(Link and photo: munchies.vice.com)

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