March 28, 2008

Superbus gets road trial in June

Filed under: Automobiles,Design by Orangemaster @ 10:26 am
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The Superbus, designed by former Dutch astronaut Wubbo Ockels, will get its first road trial on 25 June. The bus, which can woosh by at 250 km/h, is set to trial run on a 27-kilometer stretch of highway between Harlingen and Leeuwarden, Friesland. The highway will of course be closed for the occasion. Ockels announced the trial last Wednesday during a meeting at the head office of transport company Connexxion, one of the sponsors of the Superbus.

And yes, the Superbus does look like the famous alien designed by the H.R. Giger.

Read more about the Superbus project.

(Link: volkskrant.nl)

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March 27, 2008

Amsterdam Weekly is blogging and for sale

Filed under: General,Literature by Orangemaster @ 3:57 pm
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After a private performance by tap dancer Marije Nie to inspire the troops, Steve Korver, Editor-in-Chief of the Amsterdam Weekly, Amsterdam’s award-winning English-language free weekly, reminded us that print media doesn’t come cheap. After backers of the paper decided to retire themselves and their money, the paper had to come up with a plan to ‘keep it all together’. Here it is:

“In the publishing world, it turns out that it’s hard to be free. Tja… So, while we hatch more secret plans to stay alive, we’re coming to you – the reader – for help. The plan is to sell you our editorial space for the next three issues. Each page is divided into 204 blocks and each block costs €5. So, hey… buy a few. It’s clean, safe, simple and cheap. Then we can go back to being free.”

In the hopes of attracting more interest and branching out in true Web 2.0 style, the Amsterdam Weekly has just started a blog to give you even more of the AW experience. It’s just a few days old and yours truly has gladly become one of their bloggers. Soon enough, you will be able to read the AW blog on Twitter! But, first, let’s get through the weekend.

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Oh nose, more hyperrealistic papercraft

Filed under: Art,IT,Photography by Branko Collin @ 1:07 pm

[photo of three papercraft heads, stuck to a wall]

Heerlen-born, Rotterdam-based artist Bert Simons makes these scarily realistic papercraft models, by first making 3D models of real subjects. Playing with the uncanny valley, eh? Dude uses Free Software, namely the 3D package Blender (originally from Dutch company Not a Number, but released as GPL software after a donation drive); and Ubuntu for his web server.

See also: Papercraft models of the industrial age.

Via Boingboing. Source photo: Bert Simons.

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March 26, 2008

Drooping dollar? Sell beer to the Dutch

Filed under: Food & Drink,General by Orangemaster @ 12:15 pm
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New York’s Brooklyn Brewery is planning to sell a pilsner type beer in the Netherlands through distributor De Brouwketel, a subsidiary of Heineken. The Brooklyn Brewery is a well-known independent brewery located on the East River. The relatively small brewery already delivers beer abroad in the Far East, England, Turkey, Switzerland and Scandinavia.

“The low dollar helps us tremendously. Importers can now make a good profit and the European consumer is happy with the price. We expect a serious rise in exports,” says Brooklyn Director Steve Hindy, a former journalist who decided to start brewing beer with a friend some 20 years ago.

I once had a full evening of Brooklyn Brown Ale in Greenwich Village, New York City with a German friend. We both joined a table of local New Yorkers who just happened to be interpreters for the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta. The running joke was that Brooklyn Brown Ale was made with the water from the East River, which gave it its colour. It’s an ok beer.

(Link: www.z24.nl)

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March 25, 2008

Electrowetting displays coming up in 2008

Filed under: Gadgets,IT by Branko Collin @ 8:30 am

Philips spin-off Liquavista announced last week that it will start production of so-called electrowetting displays this year, having secured 8 million euro in investment money. Electrowetting is a member of a loosely knit family of energy efficient reflective display technologies. It works by manipulating layers of oil and water in a cell (pixel). Liquavista expects to produce small displays for use in mobile devices such as mobile phones and watches first. The Eindhoven-based company claims its ColorMatch FreeStyle platform will have more than twice the brightness of LCD displays.

Via Bright (Dutch). First published at Teleread. Source image: Liquavista.

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March 24, 2008

Farmers to replace cows for worms

Filed under: Animals,Food & Drink by Branko Collin @ 11:47 am

If it is up to Zeeland’s bait producer Topsy Baits, farmers in the North of the country will swap their cows for worms. These worms are necessary according to Topsy Baits CEO Bert Meijering to replace the tons of fishmeal used every year to feed farmed fish. Apparently, for every kilo of farmed salmon, five kilos of wild fish have to be turned into fishmeal, and fishmeal is needed for fish to reach maturity. Meijering claims that using farmed ragworms instead can give the same result.

Meijering’s firm has built a farm in Wales which will raise 50,000 tons of ragworms each year, enough to produce 500,000 tons of fishmeal replacement once mixed with soy, wheat or peas. Currently, the firm is in talks with a farmers’ organisation in Groningen and Friesland to cooperate on his next few farms. According to Meijering, 500,000 tons equals the amount of extra fishmeal needed every year. Building ragworm farms could create between 1,000 and 1,500 jobs in the region.

Via Dagblad van het Noorden (Dutch). Source image: Topsy Baits.

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March 23, 2008

Snowy Easter in Amsterdam

Filed under: Nature by Branko Collin @ 5:34 pm

Snopes says “the last time Easter fell on so early a date was 1913, and the next time it will do so will be in the year 2160.” It’s barely spring, and some late snow is melting on the petals of this daffodil, or paasbloem as it is also called in Dutch (Easter flower).

This weekend will have been the coldest Easter in the Netherlands sinds 1964, although the holiday then took place a week later, according to the Dutch meteorological institute, KNMI. Including this year, frost was recorded at De Bilt (in the middle of the country) during 14 Easters since 1901.

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March 22, 2008

“Old People and the Things that Pass” in HTML

Filed under: Literature,Online by Branko Collin @ 2:15 pm

Last week I promised that I would produce an accessible version of the 1919 Louis Couperus hit novel Old People and the Things that Pass if I were asked to. Somebody requested an HTML version, which you can now find at the Internet Archive: www.archive.org/details/oldpeoplethings1919.

The Dutch Book Week, which wraps up today, had a motto this year—Of Old People…—that was derived from the title of this psychological drama.

(more…)

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March 21, 2008

Papercraft models of the industrial age

Filed under: History,Photography by Branko Collin @ 2:06 pm

In Jasper de Beijer‘s work-in-progress The Riveted Kingdom, the photographer pays homage to “the sheer exuberance of the grand engineering projects of the Victorian era”. His method is to create papercraft models, then take beautiful photographs of them.

Via BoingBoing, via Noel.

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March 20, 2008

Junkie XL commissioned to remix Madonna

Filed under: Music by Orangemaster @ 9:07 pm
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Tonight on Dutch television show ‘De Wereld Draait Door’, DJ Junkie XL (Tom Holkenborg), presented the world premiere of his remix for the new single ‘4 Minutes’ by Madonna.

Orlando Puerto, the man who handles Madonna’s record company business, suggested she do a remix. A list of DJs was submitted to the pop diva and in the end, Junkie XL came out the winner.

Holkenborg had an international hit with a remix of Elvis’ ‘A little less conversation’. The hit, which was originally music for a Nike advertising, went platinum in 24 countries. Junkie XL’s new album ‘Booming back at you’ came out on 10 March and will be presented on March 23 at the Melkweg in Amsterdam.

(Links: dewerelddraaitdoor.vara.nl)

Update: the entire show here (Junkie XL at 38.35 and onwards), or the Junkie XL / Madonna bit at Youtube.

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