December 8, 2020

Man found with heavy fireworks to be thrown out of home

Filed under: General,Health by Orangemaster @ 9:53 am

A 39-year-old man from Winterswijk, Gelderland who was recently caught with 260 kilos of heavy fireworks, including illegal Super Cobra 6 flashing firecrackers in his shed, attic and kitchen, will have his home closed between 14 December through 3 January, putting him and his family out for the holidays. The police claimed on Twitter that had those fireworks exploded, they would have destroyed homes and more within a 400-metre radius.

Usually set off for New Year’s Eve, this year fireworks will not be allowed and therefore be illegal throughout the Netherlands. Businesses often selling fireworks as a source of extra income will not be able to sell any this year, and found out only after they’d already bought their yearly stock. That stock has to either be stored in specific storage spaces or businesses have to pay to have it destroyed – either way they will lose a lot of money.

Of course this also upsets many individuals who bought fireworks because they will be fined if they use them, which is already happening and even a source of police trouble in Urk, Flevoland where teens are throwing heavy fireworks at the police.

Back in January we told you about a father who caught his kids damaging property with fireworks, and this was before covid.

I for one am thrilled to have more peace and quiet for the holidays. The sheer amount of construction works near my home is maddening, and I can imagine many pet owners will be thrilled as well.

(Links: hartvannederland.nl, ad.nl)

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November 7, 2019

Tom Scott visits Waterloopbos, a former open air laboratory to study the way water flows

Filed under: Nature,Science,Sustainability,Technology by Branko Collin @ 7:56 pm

YouTuber Tom Scott visited the Waterloopbos in Marknesse in the Noordoostpolder and had a little chat with Leo van Rijn, a specialist in modelling the flow of watercourses.

As wiki says: “The Waterloopbos [literally ‘Watercourse Forest’] was the property of Delft Hydraulics […]. In 35 large scale models of sea arms and harbours, such as the Deltaworks and the harbour of Lagos, tests were performed in order to learn how to predict the way large hydraulic systems influence the course of water.”

The laboratory closed in 1995 and the forest is now owned by Natuurmonumenten and is open to visitors from sunrise to sunset (Dutch). It is part of the Voorsterbos, the oldest forest in Flevoland, a province that was entirely reclaimed from the water.

Read more about Waterloopbos at Holland.com.

(Photo: screen capture of a video by Tom Scott / Youtube)

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February 7, 2019

Dutch company boasts world’s first transparent wood

Filed under: Dutch first by Orangemaster @ 2:21 pm

According to Dutch company Holland Composites in Lelystad, their transparent composite wood panels are the first ever made in the world.

Mark Hoff explains that the company has developed a panel that looks like wood, but when held up to the light, it’s transparent. The panels can be used indoors as partition walls as well as outside as façade panelling. They feature a very thin layer of wood integrated into layers of composites, making them strong, low-maintenance and with a natural look.

The panels are mainly used by project developers and architects, and cannot be found at DIY stores. Watch a short video in Dutch here.

(Link and screenshot of video omroepflevoland.nl)

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November 5, 2016

Food bank snubs the poor over Facebook like

Filed under: Food & Drink,Online by Orangemaster @ 7:41 pm
bowl_and_spoon1

A food bank in Noordoostpolder, Flevoland has decided to refuse three clients access after they liked the competition on Facebook.

One of the clients who was cut off said the fruit and vegetables she got from her regular food bank are passed the expiration date to the point of starting to rot. She looked around online for other food options and decided to like the competition. Then she found out what she could do to maybe change food banks. While all that was happening, she went back down to her regular food bank, but instead of food, they handed her an envelop with a stern letter and told her to get out.

The competitor, who feeds people who earn too much to get food from the food bank but are in need of food, claims to have too many people to care for and tried to get food from the food bank for the woman in question, but was unsuccessful. The food bank refused to accept that they gave out bad food and then said they don’t want any bad publicity from people getting sick. Oh, and they were pissed about her liking the competition.

The competitor has decided to help that one client who was cut off after all. “If people are ruthlessly turned away, then they need to be helped. You can’t just let people starve”.

And that’s the state of affairs in a small village in Flevoland these days, pettiness at its best. Liking the competition came in handy after all.

(Link: www.destentor.nl)

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October 14, 2015

Biggest bra sizes and interesting condom purchases

Filed under: General,Health by Orangemaster @ 2:06 pm
bra

Dutch online lingerie shop Pabo.nl, also Europe’s biggest, conducted its own survey into who has the biggest boobs and the longest dongs per province, something to briefly take your mind off the fact that the Netherlands is not playing in the European Football Champs this summer.

Women in Zeeland have lots of cup A fans, but Utrecht takes the win for the smallest boobs overall. However, Zeeland has about 10% of women ordering cup F, which no other province has. The cup B fans come from Flevoland, the C cups are for Utrecht, D cups Overijssel, and most of the bigger sizes go to Groningen in the lead for Cup E.

If you believe in condoms sales as a size indicator, North Holland and Friesland buy the biggest condoms. Friesland stands out as a province that buys twice as many flavoured condoms as the rest of the country. I wonder if they’re orange flavoured.

(Link: www.bndestem.nl, photo: ecollo.com)

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December 5, 2014

Dutch-American company to make marijuana gum

Filed under: Health,Science by Orangemaster @ 10:53 am

Dutch-American company Axim is working on the world’s first medicinal marijuana chewing gum, which will be produced in Almere, Flevoland. It should be on the market in two years and it is currently being tested on Dutch patients who have chronic pain due to multiple sclerosis. This special chewing gum will work like nicotine gum, with the cannabis being absorbed slowly by the body in some 20 minutes.

You can easily buy ‘nutraceutical’ chewing gum that contains cannabidiol (CBD), the non-psychoactive component of pot, but Axim plans to make chewing gum with THC in it, the psychoactive ingredient of pot for patients who suffer chronic pain from many different medical conditions.

(Links: www.foodlog.nl, www.in-pharmatechnologist.com)

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April 20, 2014

New Greetings from Holland

Filed under: Photography by Branko Collin @ 9:21 am

nwe-grten-uit-nhm-flickr

In 2009 four organisations decided it was time to reboot Dutch travel postcards, the ones containing cheese, windmills, cows, cheese, wooden shoes, cheese, cheese, tulips and cheese, amongst others. Have I mentioned cheese?

They asked the public to come up with new iconic images of the Netherlands and some 8,000 people responded by sending in photos, often reproducing, referencing or riffing off the same old icons. The resulting postcards were displayed in a travelling exhibition called Nieuwe Groeten Uit… and writer-photographer Hans Aarsman and writer Anna Woltz collected a selection of the cards in an almost-postcard-sized book of the same name.

Hans Aarsman told his publisher Nieuw Amsterdam in the video interview shown here: “You see a lot of family photography. For instance, there is picture of a father and son peeing off a boat together, taken from the back—you just know the mother took that photo. […] You [to Woltz, ed.] wrote about how people photographed their pets, believing the result to be iconic images of the Netherlands. And the funny thing is sometimes that is true.”

The Nieuwe Groeten Uit… exhibit was organised by the short-lived Nationaal Historisch Museum and by FOAM, ANP Historisch Archief and BankGiro Loterij.

(Source photo: Flickr / Nationaal Historisch Museum)

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November 3, 2013

Documentary De Nieuwe Wildernis draws 400,000 visitors

Filed under: Nature by Branko Collin @ 1:33 pm

Dutch nature documentary De Nieuwe Wildernis has managed to lure 400,000 people to the cinema in just a month, Vroege Vogels wrote last Monday.

The documentary about wildlife in the Oostvaardersplassen (‘the lakes of those who sailed to the East’) was released on 26 September 2013. For feature films 400,000 visitors is considered pretty successful, but for a documentary it’s practically a miracle. As a comparison, last year Hollywood blockbuster The Hunger Games took the number 13 spot with 458,816 visitors.

Part of the attraction of Ruben Smit’s De Nieuwe Wildernis may be that there is very little original nature left in the Netherlands. Biodiversity is at an all time low in this country, the Mean Species Abundance having dropped from 40% in 1900 to 15% in 2000. The average MSA for Europe is 40%.

The nature reserve Oostvaardersplassen came about by accident. It is situated on the north end of Flevoland, the largest artificial island in the world. Originally reclaimed in 1986, the area was to be bordered by another artificial island, Markerwaard, and intended for housing business parks, but in 1986 the national government decided not to build the extra island. With businesses also staying away, nature took over. In 1986 the area was designated a national nature reserve.

See also: Searching and capturing that elusive horse wind.

(Photo: crop from the video)

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August 23, 2013

Wolves return to the Netherlands

Filed under: Animals by Branko Collin @ 12:45 pm

When a dead wolf was found in Flevoland last July, it was originally thought that pranksters had planted it there. Wolves hadn’t been spotted in the Netherlands since 1897.

Now there are indications that it may have gotten into the country on its own power. Earth Island Journal writes:

The female wolf was about one and a half years old and appeared to be in good health, the coalition said in a statement (the statement is in Dutch). It said the body showed no signs of having been transported to the Netherlands post mortem. The body didn’t show any signs of having been frozen and there were no traces of wear on the fur, soles and nails that would indicate captivity, the researchers said.

Dutchnews adds:

In addition, possible wolf pellets have been found in a wood on the Noordoost polder, close to where the body was found, they said. […] The pellets contained traces of deer and fox. Scientists had said earlier the wolf’s last meal appeared to be a beaver. ‘These are all animals found within 50 kilometres of where the wolf and the pellets were found,’ the researchers said.

Thanks Fred Yoder for the tip!

(Photo of European wolves by Gunnar Ries, some rights reserved)

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April 19, 2013

Searching and capturing that elusive horse wind

Filed under: Animals,Nature by Orangemaster @ 10:25 am

Dutch documentary filmmaker Henk Meeuwsen is looking for an assistant sound recordist (sign up through the link) to capture the sound of horse farts in the Oostvaardersplassen nature reserve, lodged in between the cities of Almere and Lelystad, Flevoland and home to the biggest herd of wild horses in all of Europe. You can see the horses and deers from the train when you travel from Amsterdam to Zwolle going North and it is indeed a beautiful sight.

Meeuwsen has managed to record horse farts, but unfortunately there has been either too much noise from passing trains and planes or from other nature sounds to be used in his latest nature film, due out this September. This job sounds like a fun challenge if ever there was one.

(Link: opmerkelijk.nieuws.nl, Photo of Oostvaardersplassen horses by fransdewit, some rights reserved)

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