February 25, 2017

3D landscape images using tandem satellites

Filed under: Aviation,Dutch first,Science by Orangemaster @ 12:11 pm

Radar-Favelle

Dutch company MetaSensing has developed a way of taking images using two satellites in tandem to view the Earth’s surface from slightly different angles. Rather than using radar satellites with single instruments, their novel way apparently offers a unique 3D view of the landscape. This airborne experiment using radar satellites orbiting in tandem was carried out for the first time above the flat landscpe of the Netherlands.

The process involved two aircraft flying in very close proximity to each carrying a radar instrument, something that will be replicated in Belgium next month. “While flying two aircraft sounds relatively straightforward, in practice it is a technical tour-de-force calling for well-trained pilots with strong nerves to fly with very little space between each plane”. Christian Barbier of the Centre Spatial de Liège in Belgium explained that by using this tandem method, they could map the movement of glaciers in 3D, improve crop mapping and even create 3D maps of the world’s forests.

(Link: phys.org, Photo of Radar by Pete Favelle, some rights reserved)

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January 6, 2017

World record Game of the Goose in Dutch hands

Filed under: Dutch first,General by Orangemaster @ 6:32 pm

Ganzenbord

And it’s a wrap: the Dutch world record of playing Game of the Goose is now 80 hours and is in Dutch hands, getting the four guys who played it into the Guinness Book of World Records.

According to Omroep Brabant, the last few hours were exhausting and not much fun any more, but once they had broken the old world record, they got a boost to finish the job. Fighting against the will to sleep was the most difficult part of what they had to do, but they did it.

(Link and screenshot: omroepbrabant.nl)

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December 22, 2016

World premiere: donating to the homeless electronically

Filed under: Dutch first,Technology by Orangemaster @ 1:59 pm
bowl_and_spoon1

As of this holiday season people in Amsterdam will be able to give money to homeless people using their bank card and its contactless payment function. It’s an experiment that is making headlines, thought up by Amsterdam advertising agency N=5 and developed together with the ABN Amro bank.

The homeless will be wearing a special jacket with a bank card reader, allowing people to donate one euro that will be used to provide either food, a shower or a place to sleep to the homeless person in question. The accounts will be managed by the cooperating homeless shelters. The idea is to avoid seeing the money spent on alcohol and the likes, something that stops many people from giving. Once someone has donated, they will get a thank you from the homeless person on their bank account statement.

According to newspaper Het Parool, over the past years the homeless population in the Netherlands has more than doubled from 2009 to 2016, from 13,000 to 31,000 people.

(Link: www.parool.nl)

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December 7, 2016

New political party to use a democracy app

Filed under: Dutch first by Orangemaster @ 12:04 pm

vote-counting-rnw

Since we’ll probably have to explain this at Christmas parties, shock blog ‘Geenstijl’, who brought us the crowdsourcing of Dutch European Parliament vote count and blocking the ratification of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement being ignored by the Dutch government for 238 days so far, has decided to found a political party.

GeenPeil – it rhymes with Geenstijl and refers to polling – promises to set up an Internet app to hold ‘microreferendums” for all bills that pass through parliament. “All rank-and-file members of the party will be able to influence how its MPs vote on law proposals, always voting the way of the outcome of the microreferendums.

Like them or not, the fact that Prime Minister Mark Rutte has ignored the results of the democratic referendum prompted by this lot on the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement and possibly passing on the problem to the next government after the 15 March 2017 elections, is really embarrassing and proves that democracy isn’t being respected at all.

GeenPeil, has its own issues. Last month, Dutch media reported that the European Parliament has demanded they pay back €14,500 in subsidies. GeenPeil had used the money, which came from the Institute for Direct Democracy in Europe, a body created by Ukip, a British eurosceptic party, to pay for a newspaper advertisement calling on readers to support the Ukrainian referendum initiative for a referendum although the grant was not allowed to be used for national campaigning.

Although the referendum was legally non-binding, senior politicians had promised they would take the result into consideration and it’s such a thorny subject that the issue is on the agenda of this month’s EU summit in Brussels.

(Link: euobserver.com, Photo by Photo RNW.org, some rights reserved)

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November 30, 2016

Life-size piano made of Lego to go on tour

Filed under: Art,Dutch first,Music by Orangemaster @ 5:20 pm

Composer and pianist Jeroen van Veen of Culemborg, Gelderland built a life-size working piano using almost 30,000 pieces of Lego. As a huge Lego fan and composer, he wrote the ‘Minimal Prelude 18’ with the nickname ‘Lego music’, which features minimalistic sounds with many repetitions.

Building the instrument started as a bit of fun, something Van Veen did with his two adult sons. The piano is easy to put together and take apart, although they are careful when transporting it. Not only is it mechanically functional, but it is also a hybrid piano, with digital and analogue elements, possibly a world first.

People in the United States and in other countries want to have the piano over their way, so the Lego piano will probably be going on tour. The ‘brand name’ is Van Veen & Sons, a nod not only to how it was built, but also to the grand piano brand Steinway & Sons.

(Link: waarmaarraar, Photo by Sunny Ripert, some rights reserved)

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November 8, 2016

Amsterdam-Zuidoost to get its first coffeeshop

Filed under: Dutch first,General by Orangemaster @ 9:22 pm

While Amsterdam is busy closing down coffeeshops – the ones that sell marijuana and hash – the district of Amsterdam Zuidoost is going to get its very first coffeeshop, and I bet many people didn’t know that they didn’t have any in the first place. I didn’t know and I’ve lived there.

The coffeeshop will be close to the Bijlmer Arena station and will probably be called ‘Roots’. The city gave the green light for a coffeeshop there in 2000, but the rules regulating its eventual location were still an issue and it took a long time for it all to get sorted. The new business is not in a residential area or close to schools, so it should be fine.

(Link: at5.nl)

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October 26, 2016

Dutch firm unveils new clear air filter

Filed under: Dutch first,Sustainability by Orangemaster @ 6:30 am

At the two-day Offshore Energy 2016 Exhibition & Conference in Amsterdam this week, the Dutch Envinity Group from Den Helder, North Holland unveiled what they called “the world’s first giant outside air vacuum cleaner”, a large purifying system intended to filter out toxic fine particles from the atmosphere around the machine.

The system is said to be able to suck in air from a 300-metre radius and from up to seven kilometres upwards. It can treat about 800,000 cubic metres of air an hour, filtering out 100 percent of fine particles and 95 percent percent of ultra-fine particles, the company said, referring to tests carried out by the Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands (ECN) on its prototype.

Fine particles are caused by burning wood and other fuels as well as industrial combustion, adversely affecting our health, according to the European Environment Agency. As well, about 90 percent of EU residents are exposed to levels of such particles, which can cause cancer.

On a much smaller scale, there’s also the smaller air-purifying system called the ‘Smog Free Tower’ that was installed in Beijing last month by Dutch artist Daan Roosegaarde.

(Link: phys.org, Photo of a particulate polluted Shanghai sky by Wikimedia Commons user Saperaud, some rights reserved)

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October 20, 2016

Netherlands’ first ever vegan supermarket opens

Filed under: Dutch first,Food & Drink by Orangemaster @ 2:02 pm

chickpeas

All the big European cities have them, but for some reason the Netherlands has been very late to get with the program on this one, as the country’ first vegan supermarket opens today.

The honour goes to Groningen, that ‘way up North’ city full of bike paths and students, who are most probably the target market of the store located on Nieuwe Ebbingestraat in what used to be a former post office.

In fact, it’s mostly female students who are setting the trend in vegan food shopping according to employee Benny Lobo of the Vegan Super.

(Link: www.rtvnoord.nl, Photo of Chick peas by abrunvoll, some rights reserved)

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October 13, 2016

Belgian beer has world premiere on tap in Utrecht

Filed under: Dutch first,Food & Drink by Orangemaster @ 12:49 pm

According to Johan Schmit, owner of Olivier’s cafe in Utrecht, his venue has the world premiere of selling Belgium’s strong Duvel beer on tap. Duvel needs extremely high pressure carbon dioxide on a tap to be served properly, something a normal tap cannot handle. And to be able to do so, the Duvel Moortgat brewery developed a new tap that Olivier has had the honour of trying out.

It could work or it could also not work, which is why no marketing has been done so far. And maybe fans will still want to drink it out of the bottle, who knows.

The beer in the picture is probably ordinary Dutch beer.

(Link: nieuws)

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October 9, 2016

Trix the T.rex on glow in the dark coins

Filed under: Animals,Dutch first by Orangemaster @ 4:11 pm

Trex

The Royal Dutch Mint has produced silver proof coins featuring Trix the Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton, currently exhibited at the Naturalis museum in Leiden, South Holland. And they’re not just any old dino coins either, there’s one that glows in the dark, something the mint has done for the very first time. The coins are limited editions, with only 750 minted, a set of which costs 59,95.

How did the Naturalis score a T.rex in first place?

Back in 2012 researchers went hunting for a T.rex in the US, and found one in the state of Montana. The skeleton was carefully cleaned and prepared, and arrived in August 2016 in Leiden, escorted by the police and experts. The Queen of the dinosaurs, Trix is 12 metres long and her bones, muscles, claws and teeth weigh 6,000 kilos. You can visit Trix until 5 June 2017 after which the museum will be closed for renovations until 2018.

This T.rex skeleton is one of the three most complete ones in the world and obviously a great addition to the museum.

(Links: www.knm.nl (also photo), t-rex.naturalis.nl)

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