December 15, 2009

Dutch high-speed train still has problems

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 11:48 am
Picture 10

Very few people understand why a resourceful country like the Netherlands is so bad with large infrastructure projects like the high-speed train, never mind the eyesore that is Amsterdam’s North-South metro line started in 2003 and maybe finished by 2017. I’m embarrassed that we seem so backwards at times: “The Netherlands is one of the last countries in north-western and southern Europe where trains do not run at speeds above 200 km/h”. You’d think, small country, less track, vroom vroom, but nope, not yet. “The first full speed Thalys on Sunday was halted again at the Belgian border and arrived in Antwerp 30 minutes late.” It’s like driving a sports car at 120 km when you could be zooming down the German autobahn at 240 km.

The high-speed train is going to cost more, it will try and run at full speed sometime in the summer next year (more than 2 years off schedule), it’s not lucrative (people take other forms of transportation) and… drum roll please… it’s still too loud when it goes along the area of Lansingerland at my friends’ house. The sound constantly changes pitch and is not regular enough to be ignored like the other trains.

All I want to be able to do is go to Paris from Amsterdam in 3 hours because I know it can be done. I want to zoom at 300 km/h, which is incredibly cool, and not feel guilty zooming by my friends’ house.

(Link: nrc.nl)

Tags: ,

December 14, 2009

Kees van der Westen’s espresso machine

Filed under: Gadgets by Branko Collin @ 8:59 am

For those who grumbled about my taste in coffee before, here is the other end of the spectrum. Kees van der Westen (first name pronounced like ‘Case’) from Waalre, Noord-Brabant, has been creating coffee makers since the 1980s. This is one of his latest, the Speedster.

A previous incarnation of the Speedster was made in a limited series of 6, sold to friends and relatives. The price of the current version? A mere 5,000 euro.

We strongly emphasize the need to contact an experienced espresso machine technician locally. The Speedster is a commercial machine that needs to be installed properly. Also for maintenance/service later in its life, a technician who knows espresso machines is essential.

Coffee Geek says, and I paraphrase, that the Speedster is a decent espresso machine. (“Just about perfect,” I believe that is their exact wording.)

(Link: Bright. Photo: vanderwesten.com.)

Tags: ,

December 13, 2009

Collection of 2,400 ecstasy pills stolen

Filed under: Weird by Branko Collin @ 4:11 pm

When Jan from Eerbeek, Gelderland noticed last Thursday that his extensive ecstasy collection had been stolen, he immediately notified the police. Even though it is believed that the collection is illegal, the 46-year-old sounded the alarm because he fears some of the pills may be poisonous.

The man started his collection 20 years ago. The last 10 years he has hardly worked on it, according to an article in De Stentor. The collector, who tried ecstasy once but didn’t like it, hopes for clemency from the Department of Justice.

“It is a great pity I lost the collection. I would have liked to preserve it for the ages.”

Ecstasy pills are often colourful and come in a great variety of prints. BoingBoing moderator Arkizzle explains the magnitude of the loss of the collection of 2,400 pills:

Pill marks in illicit drug manufacturing are lovely ephemeral things, that come and go as the brand is made and fades. Drugs, obviously, don’t tend to get saved for posterity, so this collection was probably unique. Also, I understand that owning the stamping dies is legally akin to having forgery plates, so they are unlikely to be reproducible.

I once saw a fantastic exhibition of acid blotters in London; original and reprints. Lots of ‘Dead-style artwork, amongst cartoon characters and repeating geometric shapes.

(Photo: DEA. Link: Edmonton Sun / AP / Toby Sterling.)

Tags: , , , ,

December 12, 2009

Lost Leyster discovered

Filed under: Art,History by Branko Collin @ 8:31 am

The Frans Hals Museum recently discovered this lost painting by Judith Leyster (1609-1660), the first female Dutch master painter.

The painting depicts a still life of a Chinese vase with flowers. Its Belgian owner, Mrs Luc from Ostend, alerted the museum in August of its existence. Although she was aware art collectors knew about the painting (it is listed in an inventory in Leyster’s husband’s possessions), she was waiting for the right moment to reveal the work, which she originally bought for about 500 euro in the 1970s.

Leyster became a master painter in 1633, the first woman in the West to do so. Her paintings seem inspired by Frans Hals, showing jolly drinkers, musicians and playing children. Both Leyster and Hals had their studios in Haarlem. After Leyster married fellow painter Jan Miense Molenaer in 1636, her output dwindled to a trickle, her last known painting being from 1643 until a few months ago.

The Frans Hals Museum quotes Leyster expert Frima Fox Hofrichter:

Many art historians have often assumed that Judith Leyster gave up painting upon her marriage. With the discovery of the flower still life and its date of 1654, we now have documentation that she continued her career as a painter. It is likely that Leyster moved to still-lives and botanical studies after her marriage, perhaps to split the market with her husband.

The Frans Hals Museum will host a Leyster exhibition from 19 December 2009 till May 9, 2010.

(Link: Parool. Source image: Frans Hals Museum.)

Tags: , , ,

December 11, 2009

Not so merry Christmas yet

Filed under: Animals,Food & Drink by Orangemaster @ 11:50 am
xmastree-20081

Every year around the holidays some of the same complaints rear their ugly heads and every year nothing is ever resolved except for the papers having something to polarize readers about. Although many people do celebrate Christmas in the Netherlands, the real gift-giving was last week, and as one person mentioned on Twitter, it’s time for lists of the best this and that and counting down until 2010.

Back by popular demand, animal activists whining about foie gras in restaurants. Ah yes, the decadent French and their foie gras. They mistreat animals and not serving it in the Netherlands is taking a stand. Why isn’t it banned then? Get on with it. And then list all the other bad things we do to animals and move on and leave Christmas alone!

Not being sure about putting up a Christmas tree in the lobby of a higher vocational school in The Hague because that’s not the best choice for a multicultural society. Excuse me? Nonsense. And it was nonsense, and misinterpretated and the Minister of Education, Ronald Plasterk apparently has time for this nonsense, too.

And in regional news, how about the city of Nijmegen digging a big hole to plant Christmas right in front of your store for Christmas as a recession gift? I can imagine that the big store is not amused with the city’s idea of decorating the square in front of it. The store found out in a letter sent on 3 December that was not even addressed properly.

Companies are apparently going to keep their Christmas parties cheap and I bet the traditional Christmas packages employees receive (I get people’s leftovers, I’m self-employed) won’t have anything special in them, never mind some employees having to drive to their office headquarters (!) to pick up the orange-flavoured powdered hot chocolate and the tuna with tomato and veggies in it.

Tags: ,

December 10, 2009

Low Countries map in shape of a lion

Filed under: Art by Branko Collin @ 9:02 am

Strangemaps talks a bit about this popular 16th century depiction of the Netherlands and Belgium as a lion, known as the Leo Belgicus:

The Leo Belgicus is a lion transposed on a map of the area, its ferocity symbolizing the belligerence of a nation fighting for its life. […] In the 16th century, that general area was also known as the Seventeen Provinces, first under Burgundian and later Spanish tutelage. As the plural description suggests, these provinces were a loose confederation with little or no unifyingly ‘national’ sentiment.

That changed when religious upheavals pitted the increasingly protestant and independent-minded locals against their staunchly catholic Spanish overlords. The old Roman toponym Belgica was used to provide the entire Low Countries with a single geographic denominator.

The Austrian cartographer baron Michael Aitzinger, probably inspired by the prevalence of lions in the coats of arms of many of the Seventeen Provinces, drew the first Leo Belgicus in 1583, fifteen years into the Eighty Years’ War of the Spanish in the Netherlands. The long war soon became a stalemate, with neither party able to achieve total victory.

I remember the story being told slightly differently in history class, with emphasis being laid on Charles V being a good egg, on account of him being a local boy (born in Ghent), but his son Philip being a degenerate Spaniard with whom we wanted to have nothing to do.

(Link tip: Clogwog.)

Tags: , , , ,

December 9, 2009

Rembrandt rings up record price

Filed under: Art,Dutch first by Orangemaster @ 11:12 am

A painting entitled ‘Portrait of a man, half-length, with his arms akimbo’ by Rembrandt, which has not been seen in public for nearly 40 years sold at Christie’s auction house in London for a record € 22.3 mln on Tuesday 9 December according to our Dutch source, while other sources, including British paper The Guardian quotes it at € 20.2 mln. Either way, it’s a record. “It was painted during one of Rembrandt’s most artistically inventive periods, and is believed to be one of only two of the artist’s paintings from 1658 in existence.” It was also sold when he went bankrupt.

(Links: dutchnews.nl, www.guardian.co.uk)

Tags:

December 8, 2009

Publishing pictures of burglars as revenge

Filed under: General,Photography by Orangemaster @ 11:44 am

canvas1

Interestingly enough, Amsterdam’s local television station AT5 got part of this story wrong and here I am to set it straight.

Two men caught on CCTV at restaurant lounge Canvas in Amsterdam on 13 November where I just happen to DJ once a month stole expensive CD players (not turntables, which are way heavier and worth three times less). The building is apparently plagued with theft and the guy who hires me says he actually understands how easy it is to steal their stuff, but not anymore, as I had to replug everything myself before my gig.

Why be bold and print the burglars’ faces on a flyer? Simply because the police are totally indifferent to this kind of theft, and sadly I think rightly so, as it’s not breaking and entering. Is it legal to spread this flyer around? Yes it is, I checked and the local TV station thought it wise to blur their faces to protect themselves just in case. If the thieves didn’t want to be on film, they should have hid their faces or not committed a crime. Imagine my surprise when I saw a very different flyer this month, thinking some hiphop group was in town.

Tags:

December 7, 2009

Cutting of Anne Frank tree planted near Amsterdam

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 11:38 am
annefrankstatue1.jpg

A clone of the famous Anne Frank chestnut tree was planted in a park South of Amsterdam last Friday. Alderman Marijke Vos and the CEO of the Anne Frank Foundation, Hans Westra, planted the young tree in the Amsterdamse Bos in Amstelveen, Metro reports.

Anne Frank used to look out on the tree when she was hiding for the Nazis, and wrote about it in her famous diary. Lately, the tree has been developing a disease, which led to the foundation deciding to plant 150 cuttings before it was too late. The other 149 chestnuts will be planted over the upcoming years.

Link: BN/De Stem.

Tags: ,

December 6, 2009

Spin polarisation achieved at room temperature

Filed under: Science,Technology by Branko Collin @ 2:04 pm

We could hardly contain ourselves either, but then we found out what Engadget is getting so excited about, and it is pretty nifty.

Electronic particles don’t just have or constitute a charge, but also a spin direction. If you have a medium, say a hard disk that works by setting the charge of particles, you can add an extra dimension of information by also storing and reading its spin direction (polarisation). It appears that by doing so, you can speed up reading a hard disk by several orders of magnitude.

The only problem so far was that all this reading and writing required an environment dozens of degrees Celsius colder than even the basement of the loneliest computer geek. Scientists from the University of Twente apparently have now come up with a way of doing all this spinning at room temperature, which has the added bonus of not scaring away their dates, thus improving their sex lives. And you were wondering what science was good for!

The University of Twente also mentions huge energy gains that can be acquired this way.

(Source of sciency looking image: University of Twente)

Tags: ,