The Wall Street Journal schrijft een pagina vol over Dutch Design, ’establishing that design could be both thoughtful and delightful’. En dat Rotterdam de onofficiële design hoofdstad van Nederland is. Wie had dat ooit kunnen denken van die havenarbeiders?
Voor het hele verhaal hier, wel brood meenemen voor onderweg. Een stukje op drasties.

kiki van eijk - love!

Rotterdam, the sprawling home to Europe’s largest port, is the country’s unofficial design capital. Drawn here by low rent, available workspace, and each other, designers began arriving in the early 1990s. Now, they toil away in enormous harborside warehouses, or along the industrial canals of nearby Schiedam just over the city line. A victim of German bombs in the first year of World War II, Rotterdam became an architecture laboratory in the years after the war, and a spirit of communal experimentation continues to set Rotterdam designers apart.
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by peray, thailand

A dreamy university town in the Netherlands has become a major center for Iranian activists abroad. More than a thousand Iranian students, mostly fresh arrivals from Iran’s best universities, are studying at the Delft University of Technology. And in the evening’s they meet in cafes that line the city’s canals to discuss the future of their country.

The Washington Post - The worldfamous university of Delft hosts one of the largest communities of visiting Iranian scholars in Europe, and many are involved with the Iranian opposition.
For many, Delft’s Iranian student community represents the emergence of a new breed of Iranian opposition activists abroad that is more individual, shuns ideology and promotes debate over conflict. Many here say they want an Iran that is connected to the world, but they also support nationalist causes such as Iran’s right to nuclear energy.
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UPDATE, september 3rd, 2010 at 9:44: Het is geen boorplatform maar een productieplatform. Dat is een stuk minder gevaarlijk. Alles is onder controle. Er zou ook geen olie lekken.

Er is weer een boorplatform in de Golf van Mexico geexplodeerd. Er zijn geen doden gevallen, wel lekt er olie. Aangezien het platform in ondiep water staat, zou een eventueel lek snel gedicht kunnen worden. Wat wel mooit uitkomt, is dat deze week net grootscheeps actie wordt gevoerd door Big Oil tegen het moratorium op boren naar olie in de Golf van Mexico.

Gas and oil drilling platform exploded 80 miles off the coast of Louisiana 

Oh great… So maybe this wasn’t the best week for Big Oil to organize protests of the drilling moratorium after all. 

An offshore oil platform exploded and was burning Thursday in the Gulf of Mexico about 80 miles south of Vermilion Bay, with some workers reported in the water.
The explosion aboard the platform, owned by Mariner Energy, occurred west of the site of the April offshore rig blast that caused the massive BP oil spill.
The Coast Guard said no one was killed in the explosion, which was reported by a commercial helicopter flying over the site around 9 a.m. CDT.
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Kijk dat is nu vooruitgang. In Delft hebben ze een bacterie ontdekt die betonrot kan voorkomen.

Bacteria can make sick concrete better

DELFT, Netherlands - Concrete can heal its own hairline fractures — as living bone does — if bacteria are added to the concrete during mixing, 
Cracks in concrete makes buildings vulnerable, allowing water and aggressive chemicals in, says Henk Jonkers of Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands.
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Deze vraag is afkomstig van Tegelloods.nl en wel de afdeling:
Antwoorden op de meest gestelde vragen en algemene informatie over tegels.

Volgende week behandelen we de eveneens vaak gestelde vraag: Kan ik wandtegels ook als vloertegels gebruiken?
Maar vandaag dus: Kan ik vloertegels ook als wandtegels gebruiken?

a) Nee, tenzij u echt met de rug tegen de muur staat.
b) In principe wel, maar houd wel rekening met gewicht en zuigkracht van de tegel.
c) Nee, ook al gaat u eerst naar het kastje.

Nog even en het is al weer september mensen. De winter komt er aan.

The Atlantic - While trolling the Internet this writer on clean energy came across this experiment in headgear. We have little information about what’s going on other than what’s provided in the Netherlands Nationaal Archief’s bibliographic record. It indicates that we’re looking at “Plastic face protection from snowstorms. Canada, Montreal, 1939.”
In Dutch, these things have a name: Plastic sneeuwstormbeschermer.

Het verveelt ze nooit, de buitenlanders, Nederlanders en water. U weet, waar dan ook in de wereld een probleem is met water kom je Nederlanders tegen. Dit gaat over het boek van Maarten Asscher uit 2009, H2Olland. Het is nu vertaald in het Duits: “H2Olland. Wie die Niederländer das Meer besiegten.”

Alle mensen zijn nat, maar Nederlanders zijn het natst. Niet alleen bestaan wij – zoals iedereen – voor meer dan 70 procent uit water, wij wonen bovendien in een land dat voor een vijfde deel uit water bestaat en waar ook nog eens jaarlijks gemiddeld zo’n 80 centimeter regen valt. Kan het natter?

Nicht umsonst nannte man früher das Leitungswasser liebevoll Gemeindepils

OE1.ORF - In einem Land, das zu einem Fünftel aus Wasser besteht, im Durchschnitt 80 cm Regen im Jahr zu erwarten hat und auch noch am Meer liegt, verwundert es kaum, dass die Bevölkerung eine ganz besondere Beziehung zum nassen Element aufgebaut hat.

Als Fötus besteht der Mensch zu circa 95 Prozent aus Wasser. Nach der Geburt geht der Anteil zwar zurück, aber es sind noch immer mehr als 70 Prozent. Alle Menschen sind also wässrig, doch die Niederländer sind wässriger als andere Menschen.
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Thanks to the deadlocked United States Senate, the Deutsche Bank will not be looking to invest in alternative energy in the US but China and Europe. There policymakers are looking to the future, which the U.S. does not. The new Congressional state aid package is being funded, partly, by slashing $1.5 billion from renewable energy programs, which is like a hungry man buying fish by selling his fishing rod. This is how they do it in Portugal. Nearly 45 percent of the electricity in Portugal’s grid will come from renewable sources this year. 

Alternative energy investment prospects have shriveled in the United States after the U.S. Senate was unable to break a deadlock over tackling global warming, a Deutsche Bank official said.
“You just throw your hands up and say … we’re going to take our money elsewhere,” said Kevin Parker in an interview with Reuters.
Parker, who is global head of the Frankfurt-based bank’s Deutsche Asset Management Division, oversees nearly $700 billion in funds that devote $6 billion to $7 billion to climate change products.
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Is space exploration and colonization a real option? No, according to science-fiction writer Charlie Stross. He is totally pessimistic as can be read in this very well written post. And we’re not talking about distant star systems like Alpha Centauri or Epsilon Eridani but about our own solar system. Mars, the Moon, moons around other planets, forget it, says this expert on manned spacetravel. Till there is a human being invented who can thrive in an airless, inhospitable environment we can forget even colonising the most nearby and earthlike planet Mars.

Colonize the Gobi desert, colonise the North Atlantic in winter - then get back to me about the rest of the solar system!

I write Science fiction for a living.
Possibly because of this, folks seem to think I ought to be an enthusiastic proponent of space exploration and space colonization. Space exploration? Yep, that’s a fair cop — I’m all in favour of advancing the scientific enterprise. But actual space colonisation is another matter entirely, and those of a sensitive (or optimistic) disposition might want to stop reading right now … [read on] (more…)

by arend van dam

De eerste storting van BP is binnen. Er is drie miljard dollar op de rekening van een Claims Fund van de Verenigde Staten gestort. Uiteindelijk moet daar twintig miljard dollar op terecht komen dat zal worden uitgedeeld aan slachtoffers van de olievervuiling in de Golf van Mexico. Goed nieuws allemaal dus want het gat lijkt ook definitef gedicht. Over de schade die is aangericht verschillen de meningen. Het lijkt er op dat de schade  aan het ecosysteem aanzienlijk is maar niet zo erg als eerder voor mogelijk gehouden.

Republican Joe Barton won’t be happy about this

DailyKos - Two months after agreeing to fund a $20 billion account for the economic damage done from its oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, BP has deposited the first installment into the escrow fund.

Washington (CNN) — The Justice Department announced Monday that the details have been completed for establishing a $20 billion escrow account that BP has promised to fund. The money will pay for claims to those who suffered from the effects of the Gulf oil spill. [read on] (more…)

Yesterday, government scientists released their official estimate of the total amount of oil that leaked from BP’s deepwater disaster: 4.9 million barrels, or 206 million gallons. Of that total, they estimated that about half had either been either contained, evaporated, or dissolved, that 24% had dispersed into tiny droplets in the ocean, and that 26% had either come ashore, been buried in sand, or remained in the Gulf as tar balls.
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by paul zanetti, australia

van appelogen want onze belgische vrienden zijn nooit te oud om te leren

by yaakov kirschen, the jerusalem post, dry bones

After three months, the oil industry has a plan. That’s progress people. The oil industry admits it was not well-prepared for the Deepwater Horizon blowout in the Gulf of Mexico and has come up with a $1 billion plan to be ready the next time a drilling disaster occurs.
Engineers look at the Gulf and see an engineering problem:

Devices fall out of favor, but seldom if ever get abolished by design. The explosion of the Hindenburg showed the dangers of hydrogen as a lifting gas and resulted in new emphasis on helium, which is not flammable, rather than ending the reign of rigid airships. And engineering, by definition, is a problem-solving profession. Technology analysts say that constructive impulse, and its probable result for deep ocean drilling, is that innovation through failure analysis will make the wells safer, whatever the merits of reducing human reliance on oil. They hold that the BP disaster, like countless others, will ultimately inspire technological advance.
The sinking of the Titanic, the meltdown of the Chernobyl reactor in 1986, the collapse of the World Trade Center — all forced engineers to address what came to be seen as deadly flaws.
“Any engineering failure has a lot of lessons,” said Gary Halada, a professor at the State University of New York at Stony Brook who teaches a course called “Learning from Disaster.”

Don’t expect engineers to think like social service folks, or environmentalists. Doesn’t make their POV invalid, just makes it different. [read on] (more…)

by cardow, the ottawa citizen

countryside holidays by jiho, france

Hundreds of turtles and birds have already died in the oil spill, but the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is determined that this year’s hatchlings won’t be among the casualties. Biologists plan to relocate all the nests from the Gulf Coast to Florida’s eastern coast, agency spokesman Chuck Underwood tells NPR’s Scott Simon.
In a couple of weeks, he says, the rescue team will dig up an estimated 700 to 800 nests, place them in foam containers and ship them overland to Florida’s far side.
They don’t make car seats for baby turtles, but it turns out some companies do specialize in transporting wildlife — like FedEx, which will be delivering the eggs. Another big name is offering luxury accommodations for the eggs when they reach their destination: the Kennedy Space Center.
Huffington Post confirms that the evacuation is underway:
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Finally, a bit of optimism from the Gulf:

BP will place a tighter-fitting cap on its gushing Gulf of Mexico well that could start capturing all of the oil being released as soon as Monday evening, National Incident Commander Thad Allen said this morning.
BP will begin the process of removing the existing cap, which has been on the well for about a month, on Saturday.

Allen pointed out that containing the oil leak is not the same thing as stopping it. The leak won’t be stopped until a relief well is completed, giving BP the ability to finally stop the flow of oil and gas. That work is unlikely to be finished before mid-August.
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by patrick chappatte - nzz am sonntag

President Barack Obama announced a new Department of Energy program that will pour $2 billion into clean energy in the form of investment in two solar companies in the hard-hit Midwest, Colorado and Arizona.
The first is Abengoa Solar, a company that has agreed to build one of the largest solar plants in the world in the United States. In the short term, construction will create approximately 1,600 jobs in Arizona. Once completed, this plant will be the first large-scale solar plant in the U.S. to actually store the energy it generates for later use – even at night. And it will generate enough clean, renewable energy to power 70,000 homes.
The second company is Abound Solar Manufacturing, which will manufacture advanced solar panels at two new plants, creating more than 2,000 construction jobs and 1,500 permanent jobs. A Colorado plant is already underway, and an Indiana plant will be built in what’s now an empty Chrysler factory. When fully operational, these plants will produce millions of state-of-the-art solar panels each year.
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en mario gaat er een (schrijve 1) bestellen… zegt ie

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by patrick chappatte - the international herald tribune