November 9, 2012

Tsunami barrier wins first prize in the US

Filed under: Design,Nature,Technology by Orangemaster @ 1:30 pm

Dutch engineering firm Van den Noort Innovations invented a passive tsunami breaker that won the American Wall Street Journal Technical Innovation Award in the Environment category.

Although all kinds of barriers are being used around the world today, many of them don’t work or interfere with shipping and marine life. This barrier automatically deploys when destructive waves approach, using the mass of the tsunami itself to break the waves. Since it only works when there’s a tsunami, it stays flat in the water when it’s not in use.

The “Twin-wing Tsunami Barrier” lays flat on the sea bed and is activated when waters recede from the shore in advance of destructive waves. The receding “negative tsunami” causes one wing of the barrier to swing up and trap a pool of water. As the “positive tsunami” wave approaches, a second, larger wing is deployed to block and reflect the wave back out to sea—all without human intervention.

Watch this English video:

(Links: www.kennislink.nl, online.wsj.com, photo: Van den Noort Innovations)

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November 8, 2012

Quaint tourist town of Volendam full of hard drug users

Filed under: Health,Music by Orangemaster @ 6:52 pm

According to Dutch television show ‘Spuiten en Slikken’, which talks candidly about drugs with young adults, the picturesque fishing village of Volendam uses more drugs per capita than cities like Milan, Paris and London. The sewer water, which was tested by the KWR Watercycle Research Institute, came up with the equivalent of one line of cocaine per 40 inhabitants. With XTC, Volendam takes the No. 3 spot in Europe, just behind the cities of Amsterdam and Eindhoven.

In July we already told you that Amsterdam had sewers full of hard drugs, but Volendam only has 22,000 inhabitants, although it attracts a lot of weekend drug users. Volendam is not as much the butt of jokes as the town of Urk, where kids drink and snort their religion-induced boredom away, but is home to many Dutch music artists that people either love or find annoying, making this discovery an excuse to make fun of Volendam.

(Link: www.rtvnh.nl, Photo: DEA)

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November 7, 2012

Dutch professor’s fake research keeps piling up

Filed under: Science by Orangemaster @ 1:22 pm

Last year ‘Professor’ Diederik Stapel from the University of Tilburg was suspended for making up pro-vegetarian research, which other ‘Professors’ bought into hook, line and sinker, like a school of professional fish.

An investigative committee was set up to find out how much nonsense he actually made up over the years and apparently, it’s a big pile. From his Groningen period, nine articles and two dissertations have been added to the heap of his confirmed 36 cases of fraud. The committee is also looking into his work at other Dutch universities where fraud is being called ‘highly probable’, which will surely add to the big pile.

(Link: www.volkskrant.nl, Photo of the Erasmus University auditorium released into the public domain by Wikifrits)

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November 6, 2012

Dermatologists run secret company at hospital, all fired

Filed under: Health by Orangemaster @ 3:02 pm

All four dermatologists of the Catharina Ziekenhuis in Eindhoven were running a cosmetic dermatology company on the side without the hospital’s permission and are being fired for it, albeit not on the spot, as they have six months more to go.

Some 168 patients paid out a total of 24,000 euro in cash or by invoice, and some even paid for costs already covered by their insurance. The specialists also used hospital equipment and letterhead, but a separate bank account to keep it on the down low.

(Link: www.ed.nl)

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November 5, 2012

Sexologists believe virtual child porn may take pressure off for paedophiles

Filed under: Health by Branko Collin @ 1:54 pm

Out of every 20 men that get convicted for possession of child pornography only one will ever rape a child, sexologist Erik van Beek told newspaper Trouw two weeks ago.

A colleague, Rik van Lunsen of the AMC hospital, says that there is a group of paedophiles that they call the ‘healthy’ group. These men report themselves to the AMC and are clearly struggling with their conscience. They are afraid they will end up doing things to children that they don’t really want to do. Van Lunsen believes that the first step for these men is to stop the struggle against their feelings: “It’s like telling somebody that they should not think of a purple crocodile. Such a person will end up only thinking of purple crocodiles.”

Van Lunsen added that paedophiles cannot be cured: “Sexual preferences are set in stone once you turn eight.”

Both sexologists plead for allowing the production and possession of realistic, virtual child pornography. Apart from providing the ‘healthy group’ of paedophiles with a safety valve, they hope this will disrupt the market for real child pornography.

Realistic virtual child pornography was outlawed in the Netherlands in 2002. The Dutch tend to differentiate between paedophiles (adults sexually attracted to children) and child rapists (‘pedoseksuelen’). Lolicon, manga that depicts sex with children, may not be illegal in the Netherlands.

Photo by Jason Rogers, some rights reserved.

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November 4, 2012

Heated bike paths and glow in the dark roads

Filed under: Automobiles,Bicycles by Branko Collin @ 9:43 pm

The towns of Utrecht and Zutphen will start experiments with heating bike paths, DutchNews reports.

The news site quotes a Telegraaf article that says these experiments will start ‘soon’. The idea is that ‘asphalt collectors’ will collect and store the summer heat, and release this energy in the winter to stop ice from forming. This could reduce accidents:

‘The result is cooler asphalt in summer and a warmer surface in winter,’ Marcel Boerefijn, the project’s leader, is quoted as saying. In the future, footpaths could also be kept ice-free using the same techniques, he said.

Boerefijn says the new surface and heat collection system will cost between €30,000 and €40,000 a kilometre – about the same as it costs to lay new asphalt.

Car drivers need not feel left out. In 2013 a “few hundred metres of glow in the dark, weather-indicating road will be installed in the province of Brabant” according to Wired.

The special paint needed for these glow in the dark roads was developed by Studio Roosegaarde and will be used to create road markings.

The studio has also been working on a paint that will be invisible until the temperature drops below a certain point. This could be used according to designer Daan Roosegaarde to indicate that the road is slippery.

The idea is to not only use more sustainable methods of illuminating major roads, thus making them safer and more efficient, but to rethink the design of highways at the same time as we continue to rethink vehicle design. As Studio Roosegaarde sees it, connected cars and internal navigation systems linked up to the traffic news represent just one half of our future road management systems — roads need to fill their end of the bargain and become intelligent, useful drivers of information too.

See also: A Dutch bike path with solar panels

(Photo by Flickr user comedynose, some rights reserved)

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November 3, 2012

DigiNotar hacker came in through front door

Filed under: IT by Branko Collin @ 4:28 pm

In 2011 Dutch web certificate company DigiNotar was compromised completely by an Iranian hacker, and a report released this week details how it was done.

The report, written by security auditors Fox-IT and published by the state last Monday, shows that the hacker managed to get access to Diginotar’s public website, which had already been hacked in 2009. In fact, the defacements from that year were still online when the hack was discovered in August 2011, security.nl reported at the time.

According to Webwereld, Fox-IT’s report reads like a how-to for pwning a badly secured system. The hacker installed a shell on the web server, which must have been easy to do, as the still online defacements showed the way. DigiNotar had a firewall between its public network (which it called the Demilitarised Zone) and its segmented internal network, but it also had a long list of exceptions in the firewall. The certificate servers were also attached to the office network of DigiNotar, so that the hacker could use the standard MS Windows Remote Desktop tool to create false certificates.

Just another day at the office for an experienced black hat hacker.

Techworld reports that the DigiNotar hack was mainly used to attack Gmail users in Iran. DigiNotar declared bankruptcy in September 2011. The company’s certificates were heavily relied upon by the Dutch government, but also by Google.

Web certificates are a means to tell your browser that the website you are visiting real is the website it claims to be. This is useful for online banking and so on.

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November 2, 2012

SS Rotterdam stays in Rotterdam

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 11:39 pm

The recently restored former passenger liner SS Rotterdam will stay in the city it was named after, DutchNews reports.

The ship was bought in 2005 by housing corporation Woonbron which wanted to turn it into a hotel and restaurant complex after renovations. Renovations, however, cost 230 million euro, which is 224 million euro over budget. Woonbron started capsizing and had to let go of the monumental steamer, and at the same time of its board member Martien Kromwijk.

NRC adds that the high cost was partially related to the unexpected presence of asbestos on board.

In 2009 the cost overrun was still limited to ‘merely’ 169 million euro, as 24 Oranges reported back then.

The new owner Westcord Hotels, a Dutch hotel chain, paid almost 30 million euro.

(Photo by Jakub Bogucki, some rights reserved)

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November 1, 2012

Rijksmuseum offers copyright-free masterpieces online

Filed under: Art,Online by Orangemaster @ 2:17 pm

This week Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum launched an online database of 125,000 high resolution masterpieces called ‘Rijksstudio’ that can be downloaded and used for free. The images are copyright-free, and the idea is that you can make your own collection of images, post them to social media, caption them, make mouse pads out of them and all kinds of other creative stuff.

Rijksstudio was royally opened by Prince Constantijn and has a localized Pinterest feel to it.

(Link: www.limburger.nl)

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October 31, 2012

Amsterdam’s Church of St. Nicholas to become a basilica

Filed under: Religion by Orangemaster @ 1:16 pm

The Church of St. Nicholas in Amsterdam, located right across from Amsterdam Central Station, is being upgraded to the status of basilica according to the Catholic church. It will be officially given the status as of 9 December, making it the 24th basilica in the country.

To be given the title of basilica, a church has to have a lot of regular clientele and has to be a unique work of architecture.

Saint-Nicholas is the patron saint of Amsterdam and of many cities worldwide, as well as the patron saint of sailors, merchants, archers, thieves, children, and in some places, students.

(Link: www.katholieknieuwsblad.nl, Photo of Church of St Nicholas/Sint Nicolaaskerk by Judy van der Velden, some rights reserved)

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