June 16, 2008
On 11 June 2008, Queen Beatrix royally opened the Graphic Design Museum in Breda, the first museum in the world dedicated to graphic design. The museum plans to function as a museum, knowledge centre, training facility, shop, designer café and production house for graphic design. It offers an international stage for established designers as well as a springboard for new talent.
(Link and photos: graphicdesignmuseum.nl)
Tags: Breda, graphic design, Graphic Design Museum
May 12, 2008
The Amsterdam council and Dutch electronics giant Philips will start a test exercise this summer, using a range of Philips LED street lighting called ‘UrbanLine’. The innovation is aimed at stimulating the more economic use of energy. Amsterdam is therefore the first big city in the world to install the new LED street lighting. The council will determine whether it will proceed further with the technology on the basis of the results of the exercise, with specific reference to the issues of sustainability, energy savings and lighting requirements. The LED street lamps along the bicycle path by the Amsterdam city hall/music theatre will be switched on for the first time on 21 July.
Replacing the existing compact fluorescent lamp (PLL-) by the Amsterdam city hall with the Philips UrbanLine LED innovation could lead to energy savings of as much as 51%. The Amsterdam city council’s environmental policy commits the city to the highest energy consumption reductions possible, and if the exercise proves successful, it intends to extend the use of the economical street lighting.
Working on its own account and with partners, the Amsterdam council intends to develop innovations for economical energy consumption in the city in a wide range of areas. For example, Councillor Herrema and a number of Amsterdam companies signed a declaration of intent on 1 April 2008 regarding an approach to sustainable mobility within the city, and established a platform for sustainable mobility. The aim is to support and develop projects that stimulate sustainable mobility.
(Link: iamsterdam.com)
Tags: Amsterdam, energy savings, Philips, street lights
May 7, 2008
After one Moroccan entrepreneur decided to make Gouda cheese in the Sahara, another Moroccan in Rotterdam is going to attempt making stroopwafels – also originally from the town of Gouda – and sell them in Morocco.
You’d think someone would have thought of this already, but according to businessman Mimoun el Arkoub, no one has. He explains that Moroccans love sweets and many of them know about Dutch food, so why not sell stroopwafels there? He bought himself two huge machines to produce the delights and is getting ready to crank them out and sell lots of them.
One major flop of pushing Dutch fare I have heard about in the past and seen on TV was convincing the Chinese to eat cheese. From what the Chinese, the Dutch people I know who have lived in China and others have said, the Chinese are not big on dairy products in general and have a problem with the smell of cheese. I mean, have you ever had cheese at a Chinese restaurant? The appeal of a huge market like China does not mean that if you just market real hard, they’ll start eating cheese. How many decades did it take the Dutch to drink wine? Think about it.
(Link: bizz.nl)
Tags: cheese, China, entrepreneurial skills, Gouda, Morocco, Rotterdam, stroopwafels
May 6, 2008
On Monday in Maastricht, Limburg, the Dutch railways (NS) installed the first ‘reclining seat’ at the train station for use by train personnel. While on the job, train staff can take a 15-minute nap, sitting on this vibrating seat. The idea is that the seat will lull those hard workers to sleep in order to have them fresh and alert on long train rides across the country.
If a train driver falls asleep on the job, it can have fatal consequences for everyone on board a train. Every year some 250 train drivers from the Netherlands and abroad drive right through a red signal.
This picture is from an accident that happened right in Amsterdam Central Station a few years back.
(Link: depers.nl, Photo: ruudvisser)
March 9, 2008
This month restaurant Sucre will open its doors in Amsterdam, serving only desserts. The restaurant is owned by Martijn Machielse (of local caterer Mynth Events) and Eline Kok (of local restaurant Bloesem), while the man behind the pan will be Peter Scholte, formerly of Chateau Brakkestein in Nijmegen. Sucre will be the first of such restaurants in the Netherlands, although similar places in New York and Barcelona (Espai Sucre) have blazed the global trail.
“You can get four or five courses here, made entirely of desserts,” Machielse told the Zest blog. “We will have one non-sweet dish though.” The menu is still a secret, but Machielse ensured the restaurant would not take the molecular cooking route. “We will choose accessible dishes, but twisted! You may for example discover non-sweet ingredients in your sweet dishes. But you won’t find classics like crème brûlée on the menu.”
Tags: Amsterdam, Barcelona, desserts, New York, restaurants
February 22, 2008
De Kleine Hans (The small Hans) is a brand new photography prize and this time around, the winner is a cat. The award, also referred to as “the world’s biggest small photography prize,” was awarded this week to Mr. Lee, a male cat owned by Juergen Perthold, a German man living in the US. Juergen built a camera that he attached to Mr. Lee’s collar, which takes a picture every minute. The result of many wanderings can be seen on the site.
February 20, 2008
The scent of oranges is being used in an experiment to create a calm atmosphere at Rotterdam’s main police station, reports news agency ANP. The tests, begun in January, aim to establish if workers find the atmosphere improved and prisoners are less aggressive, ANP reports the force’s in-house magazine as saying. Initial results show the orange scent is having a calming affect in the cells and that demand for sedatives is down, ANP says. The experiment is now being extended for a further six months.
(Link: dutchnews.nl)
February 2, 2008
As of 1 February, Boerenjongens, an Amsterdam coffeeshop (a place to smoke marijuana and haschisch in the Netherlands) decided to ban smoking inside its establishment. Owner Martijn van Bennekom says that all his employees were for a ban on smoking. “It’s much nicer to work in a smoke-free environment than to work in smoke the whole day”. While some patrons have no problems with the idea, others think it’s weird. “You can’t drink alcohol in a coffeeshop and now you can’t smoke. All you can do is drink coffee now.” So people come to buy drugs and leave because you can’t smoke in front of the coffeeshop either. The owner says he hopes that selling fancy juices, coffee and the smoking ban will attract people who wouldn’t normally go to a coffeeshop. One patron said, “when you go to the supermarket you just buy your food, you don’t eat it there.” That’s one way to look at it.
(Link: Zoomin)
Tags: Amsterdam, coffeeshops, hasch, marijuana, smoking ban
January 29, 2008
Filling station owner Nico van Staveren will have a techno world premiere next week once a robot starts working at one of his filling stations in Emmeloord, Flevoland. Tankpitstop the Robot (typically Dutch with three words stuck together) will fill ‘er up without the driver having to get out of the car. Emmeloord companies Rotec Engineering and N. Van Staveren B.V. worked for three year under deep cover to come up with the tanking robot. It’s perfect for the handicapped or the less mobile and it won’t mean less jobs. On 4 February Minister Maria van der Hoeven of Economic Affairs will officially inaugurate the first Tankpitstop.
(Link: zibb.nl)
Tags: Emmeloord, filling station, Flevoland, robots, Tankpitstop
January 14, 2008
On 13 January, after 923 kilometres of skiing in 38 days, Bernice Notenboom has become the first Dutch woman to reach the South Pole on skis, having endured harsh conditions, including -45 degree winds. Reaching the South Pole on skis pulling a huge, heavy sled was no easy task. Bernice also had pneumonia apparently not entirely gone yet, which she thought was altitude sickness.
“Every day it was 2 hours and 10 minutes of skiing, then a break, then another 2 hours and 10 minutes of skiing, then a short lunch break and again 2 hours and 10 minutes of skiing and so on until the night. Then we set up tents, melted snow for water, filled thermoses, etc. Whew! Now its all over. No more mandatory kilometres a day.”
(Link and photo: ourfernie.com, link: arcticalert.nl)
Tags: Bernice Notenboom, records, skiing, South Pole
