March 18, 2017

Dutchman proposes circular runway systems for airports

Filed under: Aviation by Orangemaster @ 10:07 am
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Aviation expert Henk Hesselink of the Netherlands Aerospace Centre believes that one day airports could be using circular runways instead of today’s straight runways. He claims his 3.5 kilometre wide runway systems would be safer, more efficient, and less noisy, with planes experiencing only headwind and no crosswind.

Crosswind is indeed the stuff that fuels scary YouTube videos, where planes experience lots of yaw, which is going side to side, given them that goose landing on water quality. I typed in ‘crosswind’ and picked the first video – have a look.

As planes could be able to fly from any direction, noise pollution could be reduced. As well, up to three planes could take off at the same time, while nowadays they taxi to the runway and then queue up to take off. Finally, part of me would love to roller skate on one of those runways and I’m sure some cyclists would love to join in as well.

(Links: bbc.com, fastcompany.com)

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March 15, 2017

Tilburg to welcome royal couple with handkerchiefs

Filed under: Design,General,History by Orangemaster @ 10:34 am

[Photo of children wearing inflatable crowns]

Instead of environmentally unfriendly plastic trinkets, the city of Tilburg will have the honour of welcoming the royal couple this year on King’s Day waving handkerchiefs, if the Textile Museum gets its way.

On 27 April King Willem Alexander and Queen Máxima will visit Tilburg on King’s Day, which is also Wim-Lex’s 50th birthday. The idea is to wave at them using specially designed orange handkerchiefs, echoing the city’s former textile manufacturing glory.

People will be given free embroidered handkerchiefs instead of crap like the environmentally unfriendly plastic crowns seen above. Sure it’s good publicity for the Textile Museum, but then crap like those crowns are sponsored by lottery companies who prey on vulnerable people. And if you visit the museum, they’ll embroider a golden crown on it for you and you can even use them until 11 June to get into the museum for free.

(Link: omroepbrabant.nl)

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March 14, 2017

Incentives to get people to vote tomorrow

Filed under: Automobiles,Food & Drink,Gadgets,General by Orangemaster @ 11:39 am

vote-counting-rnw

As if trying to change things for the better by voting wasn’t appealing enough, some Dutch cities have come up with amusing ways to convince their residents to vote tomorrow in the Dutch general election.

Hilversum is going to give people a condescending-sounding ‘voting diploma’, as if they were children learning how to swim, but swiftly make up for the condescension by giving them a free bluetooth speaker, so they can annoy people in the train during their commute.

In the village of Losser, Overijssel, they thought it would be a good idea for the mayor to get into a limo and pick up people all day long to go and vote. The goal is to encourage first time voters aka young people to vote, so apparently those questionable music videos have been sending the right message all along.

The big cities like Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague will use schools as polling stations to get the kids to do their civic duty by them not having to go far to vote. No limos for you!

And then if cycling, walking and rocking the limo isn’t doing it for you, there’s always taking a boat to the polling station in the region of Marker Wadden north of Amsterdam, which, I can tell you from personal experience, is an absolutely delightful place to visit by boat.

And then if transport and a bluetooth speaker is not your jam, imagine some good old-fashioned cupcakes, tea and coffee in Zeist, Utrecht, accompanied by live piano music. The goal here is to attract older voters that need to make an extra effort to vote. No transport for you.

Half of 24oranges HQ can vote and the other half will just hope for the best.

(Link: binnenlandsbestuur.nl, Photo by Photo RNW.org, some rights reserved)

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March 13, 2017

‘Dutch girls not interested in STEM subjects’

Filed under: General,Science by Orangemaster @ 10:00 pm

According to a survey carried out by Microsoft among 11,500 girls and women from 11 European countries including Russia, the Dutch are the most unsure of themselves when it comes to STEM subjects. Some 1,000 girls and women from the ages of 11 to 30 were interviewed at length for this survey.

More than 50% of the Dutch girls and women estimated their knowledge to be less than that of the other countries and 40% said their knowledge fell short of what it should be. Dutch girls were also quicker to claim their disinterest for STEM subjects, one year earlier than their European peers, apparently due to a lack of female role models since 60% of STEM-related teachers in the Netherlands are men. As well, some 31% of the girls talk to their mothers about STEM subjects and 33% to their fathers, while in the rest of Europe, 38% of the girls talk to their mothers and 37% talk to their fathers.

(Link: nieuws.nl, Photo of wilted tulip by Graham Keen, some rights reserved)

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March 11, 2017

Disneyland France can’t seem to get Dutch staff

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 7:30 am

Why are there so few Dutch people working for Disneyland Paris? Besides French people, there are lots of Spanish and Italians, but very few Dutch speakers. Nicole Korssen from Eindhoven who works at Disneyland Paris explains that even though tons of Dutch people go to Disneyland on vacation, her employer’s recruitment days just can’t seem to close the deal. Disneyland Paris needs to have Dutch-speaking personnel seeing as they get about one million tourists from the Netherlands every year.

The first reason is that the Dutch don’t speak French well enough, something I’m thinking the Spanish and Italian actually can do. We can blame the Dutch educational system for not teaching French to children anymore, and that’s on the Netherlands. However, the lower salaries offered in certain positions, as compared to what the Dutch can make here doesn’t help, so that one’s on Disneyland.

And then there’s the fact that the Dutch are generally too tall to be ‘cast’ as characters. Too tall to be cast as Donald Duck or Mickey Mouse at 1.50 metres or even a princess at 1.65 metres. A quick search tells me the average height of a Dutch man is about 1.80 metres, the tallest on the planet, while the average Dutch woman is 1.70 metres.

Why don’t the Dutch get assistance in English when there’s a problem? According to Korssen, the Dutch choose to wait longer to be helped in Dutch. Why don’t they hire Flemish people who generally do speak some French and get paid less than the Dutch anyway? I don’t know, but I’m going to assume Disney would rather have actual Dutch people.

Dutch astronaut André Kuijpers does voice-over work for Disney.

(Link: businessinsider.nl)

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March 10, 2017

Huskies run amok at indoor ski hall

Filed under: Animals,Sports,Weird by Orangemaster @ 7:43 pm

Huskies

The Netherlands is quite flat, but people still ski here albeit indoors. The indoor ski hall SnowPlanet in Velsen-Zuid near Amsterdam had a special day out for dogs, specifically huskies.

Some 68 huskies were allowed to run around in the snow for the whole day, an event organised by a local group of dog enthusiasts for the very first time.

You’ll have to click on the link below for the short video.

(Link and screenshot: nhnieuws.nl)

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March 8, 2017

Football inspired junk food in Arnhem

Filed under: Food & Drink,Sports by Orangemaster @ 7:34 pm
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The end of junk food novelties is nowhere in sight: this time it’s a ‘Vitesse frikandel’, a frikandel that echoes the yellow and black colours of Arnhem’s local football club to celebrate the club’s placement in the Eredivisie cup final against Sparta from Rotterdam.

The frikandel has a slice of Dutch cheese melted over it with stripes of BBQ sauce and costs 1,75 euro at snackbar ‘t Beumertje, fans of their local football club.

(Link and a pic of the Vitesse frikandel: gelderlander.nl)

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March 6, 2017

Imagine Hitler on Dutch reality television

Filed under: General,Shows by Orangemaster @ 11:08 am

Facepalm

The website of popular Dutch reality television show Expeditie Robinson recently fell victim to a hacker with a sense of humour.

The hacker placed a picture of Adolf Hitler on the site as a potential candidate for a new season in which ordinary citizens can participate alongside celebrities. Television chain RTL was slow in noticing the ‘intruder’, not having noticed anyone hacking into their site or disgruntled employees.

When people clicked on Hitler, they could read the words ‘Sieg Heil’, which was in the process of collecting likes as a potential participant. Once social media starting talking about the incident, the media got wind of it. I’m not even going to check if the situation has been rectified, I had a good laugh and I’m thinking, it could happen again.

(Link: tubantia.nl, Photo of Paris Louvre facepalm by Phelan Riessen, some rights reserved)

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March 3, 2017

Dutch Eurovision entry, a close harmony extravaganza

Filed under: Music by Orangemaster @ 8:44 pm

The Netherlands has traded in the three ‘drumming dolls’ of Treble (2006) for a trio of women who don’t drum, but sing in close harmony called O’G3NE as contestants for this year’s entry into the Eurovision Song Contest 2017.

The close harmony is too much for me, it almost sounds like someone is using Auto-Tune instead of actually singing, making it all sound overproduced. The lyrics aren’t appealing to me as a native English speaker, especially fudging the expression ‘turning the pages’ (‘turning the page’) to make the rhyme work. As well, ‘more’ doesn’t quite rhyme with ‘insecure’, which also grates. I would like this song more if I heard some sincerity in the voices, like they care about what they are singing, but I’m not hearing it even though it’s very clear they have singing talent. Oh, and modulating the chorus twice (!) in the song is not helping, either.

Just like many comments on YouTube, it’s not catchy. I can picture some dancers on stage, maybe that will happen, who knows, but I don’t feel this is going to be a winner. I’ve been wrong before, but have a listen yourselves.

(Photo of Microphone by visual dichotomy, some rights reserved)

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March 1, 2017

Dutch tattoo artist designs championship football

Filed under: Art,Sports by Orangemaster @ 11:07 am

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World-famous Dutch tattoo artist Hanky Panky (Henk Schiffmacher), who by the way is celebrating his 65th birthday and 40 years of tattooing at pop temple Paradiso in Amsterdam later this month, will be drawing the design on the Dutch championship (aka ‘Eredivisie’) football.

The football he will design is for the 2017-2018 Dutch championship season, done specially for the 60th anniversary of the Eredivisie and should represent Dutch culture.

According to Wikipedia, Hanky Panky is an expert in the field of body art, having curated exhibitions, written books, and presented TV shows on the subject. And he’s given tattoos to the likes of Anthony Kiedis from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Kurt Cobain (RIP) of Nirvana frontman and Lemmy (RIP) of Motörhead.

(Link: footballstories, Photo of Football by Bramus, some rights reserved)

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