December 21, 2012

Steve Jobs’ yacht chained up in Amsterdam

Filed under: Design,IT by Orangemaster @ 7:09 pm

Venus, a yacht designed by the late Steve Jobs, former CEO of Apple, together with French product designer Philippe Starck and put to water in Aalsmeer, North Holland has been impounded in Amsterdam. Starck claims that Jobs only paid him € 6 million out of the € 9 million fee he was owed by the Jobs family.

“The entire cost of building the yacht was reportedly about $130 million. The yacht itself is between 230 and 260 feet (80 metres) long.”

According to DutchNews.nl, the boat is literally chained to the dock.

UPDATE: As of 24 December Jobs’ heirs reached an agreement and the yacht has been unchained.

(Link: mashable.com, Photo of Steve Jobs by acaben, some rights reserved)

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December 20, 2012

Elegant wooden bowls from recycled oak

Filed under: Design by Orangemaster @ 1:36 pm

Designers Van Eijk and Van der Lubbe of Usuals have created 39 wooden bowls from five reclaimed oak poles they found at a Dutch farmhouse.

The wooden bowls have had carefully measured volumes removed from the body of each oak log, with the smooth cut-outs successfully contrasting the rustic ‘lived-in’ characteristics of the wood. They are unique and hand made, with cracks and flaws in each one.

(Link: www.designboom.com, Photo: www.usuals.nl)

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December 19, 2012

Many Amsterdam museums open on 1 January 2013

Filed under: Art,Film,Photography by Orangemaster @ 11:32 am

Everybody has some sort of party on New Year’s Eve, but what to do on New Year’s Day when you live in the capital and the town gets too quiet? Make going to a museum with friends and family a New Year’s resolution. Or there’s also the zoo, catching a film and some other tourist attractions.

The year 2013 will be a special year for Amsterdam as the city celebrates several milestones. The refurbished Rijksmuseum and Van Gogh Museum will reopen, the Artis Royal Zoo will celebrate its 175th anniversary and the Amsterdam Canal Ring will celebrate its 400th jubilee.

Rijksmuseum (11 am – 5 pm)
Hermitage Amsterdam (including Van Gogh Museum exhibition) (11 am – 5 pm)
Foam (noon – 6 pm)
Stedelijk Museum (11 am – 5 pm)
Museum of the Canals (10 am – 5 pm)
Anne Frank House (noon – 7 pm)
Jewish Historical Museum (opens at noon)
EYE Film Institute Netherlands (opens at 1 pm)
Artis Royal Zoo (10 am – 8 pm)
Madame Tussauds (opens at noon)

(Link: www.dutchdailynews.com, Illustration: the Van Gogh that was ‘discovered’ last year)

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December 18, 2012

Firemen’s almanach fans the flame of sexism

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 12:32 pm

Many fire brigades just sent this firemen’s (and firewomen’s) almanach back, calling it distasteful. The head of regional safety for Rotterdam-Rijnmond said even though tastes differ this was inappropriate for their line of work and understands why people would send it back.

A firewoman also wondered if the people who designed the cover knew that women were firefighters in this country, expressing her disgust.

The cover is fugly, poorly photographed (smartphone?), the girl is badly styled to say the very least without sounding like a misogynist, it’s not representative of this unique and dangerous line of work, and looks more like an advert for a low budget strip club. It’s not a Pirelli calendar with hot models, it’s trash and belongs in a bonfire.

(Link: frontpage.fok.nl, Photo: bliub9)

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December 17, 2012

DIY ‘Price Is Right’ game as gift box

Filed under: Design,Gadgets,Gaming,Technology by Branko Collin @ 2:20 pm

Richard Garsthagen made this ingenious gift box for his 15-year-old niece for Saint Nicholas’ Eve.

On Saint Nicholas’ Eve many grown ups and teenagers in the Netherlands give each other gifts. To keep things affordable a spending limit is determined and the name of each recipient is drawn from a hat. The gift is hidden somewhere in the house or wrapped in a difficult to unwrap package called the ‘surprise’, and the person giving it writes a poem on behalf of Saint Nicholas in which the good saint mockingly reviews the recipients’ past year.

Garsthagen’s niece did not seem to understand the concept of a spending limit and asked for gifts that were much more expensive than that, so he hid her gift in a The Price is Right game. In the video he explains how it works, and at Instructables he explains how you can create a game like this yourself.

(Photo: crop from a screenshot of the video by Richard Garsthagen)

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December 16, 2012

Temporary carpet made of bottles

Filed under: Art by Branko Collin @ 12:19 pm

We Make Carpets is an art project in which the artists use everyday objects to create temporary carpets. The carpet shown above was made of bottles and was displayed at the Taragalte Festival 2012 in M’hamid, Morocco.

The collective We Make Carpets consists of Marcia Nolte, Stijn van der Vleuten and Bob Waardenburg. Their base materials are “products that normally have no value once they have been used, such as plastic forks, plasters, paving tiles, pasta, cotton balls and pegs”.

(Photo: We Make Carpets)

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December 15, 2012

Best bosses give women equal career opportunities

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 3:52 pm

The best employers in the Netherlands give employees the feeling that they are appreciated, Effectory and VNU Vacature Media claim.

The two companies polled employees in 269 organisations. Employees in the companies that were rated the highest gave the biggest marks for the following qualities:

  • Being appreciated by the boss
  • Being able to balance work and private life
  • Women appreciated equal career opportunities
  • Clear goals for both the individual employees and the company
  • Feeling proud of the organisation
  • Customer care

The top three of the companies with 1,000 employees and more were:

  1. Stichting Buurtzorg Nederland
  2. KLM
  3. Vanderlande Industries

Stichting Buurtzorg Nederland, a home care foundation, won the Best Employer Award for the second year in a row. CEO Jos de Blok is a former nurse.

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December 13, 2012

Epke Zonderland working on fourth aerial element

Filed under: Sports by Orangemaster @ 12:00 pm

At the London Summer Olympics on 7 August 2012, horizontal bar gymnast Epke Zonderland won gold with a breathtaking routine featuring three aerial elements, the now world famous ‘Cassina-Kovacs-Kolman’ combo.

He’s back in training and — you guessed it — he’s added a fourth element, the Gaylord II, to his super combo. Zonderland talked about it on television very modestly as he has a long way to go to get it down pat. From what the news reports, it’s the Cassina and the Kolman that are the most difficult.

Zonderland does Cassina-Kovacs-Kolman-Gaylord II. Kicks in at about 0:55.

(Links: nos.nl, www.sportnext.nl, Photo by McSmit, some rights reserved)

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December 12, 2012

Working on a deserted Dutch island

Filed under: Animals,Nature by Orangemaster @ 1:31 pm

Finally want to cross off ‘my favourite music if I were stuck on a deserted island’ from your bucket list? Then do we have a nice gig for you: watching birds on a Dutch island.

From April to July 2013, Staatsbosbeheer, which manages nature reserves, is looking for two people to camp out and watch birds on Rottumeroog (Rottum), a small uninhabited island with restricted access.

Ideally you’ll need to apply as a tandem because Staatsbosbeheer wants to have two people that get along well. You’ll also get to stalk butterflies and plants, and write it all down.

(Link: www.blikopnieuws.nl, Photo of Texel island by Searocket, some rights reserved)

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December 11, 2012

Two companies to offer 3D printing services early next year

Filed under: Gadgets,Technology by Branko Collin @ 2:03 pm

A company called 3DSVP will start offering 3D printing services on the premises of the Meneer Paprika store in Haarlem next January, Hyped.nl reports.

The store expects to sell products mainly made of polyamide, but also jewellery made of silver and stainless steel. 3DSVP has been running a web shop since September, showcasing the type of products that you can have them print.

A similar service will be offered by Office Centre in the first quarter of 2013, the difference being that the Easy 3D printing service will use paper as its base material. Office Centre is a Dutch company (founded in 1993 as a merger) that is now owned by American office supplies company Staples. According to Engadget the service “will handle architectural designs, maps, medical models, replica weapons and anything else that can be made with fragments of paper arranged in 0.1mm layers up to a maximum height of six inches”.

Note that realistic replicas of guns are strictly forbidden in the Netherlands.

See also: Ultimaker, a lightning fast 3D printer.

(Link tip: Laurent Chambon. Photo of an Ultimaker-printed casing for a small video camera by HeatSync Labs, some rights reserved)

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