Leaping Shampoo

Scientists of the University of Twente in The Netherlands won a prestigious place in the 'Hall of Fame' of videos about fluid-in-motion. They have made a video of leaping shampoo, in which they explain the so-called Kaye effect. Scientifically interesting but also of great aesthetic beauty! LINK: Youtube

THE CROUCHING SCULPTURE

“Anthony Gormley’s latest mammoth sculpture, Exposure which is to be unveiled formally in September, has opinion divided. Nothing particularly new there, you might say. Yet Exposure, weighing in at 60 tons, 85 feet in height and poised rather delicately in a crouching position is causing something of a ruckus in the Netherlands, where it has been assembled.” w/ photos. LINK

Bicycle Rush Hour Utrecht

YouTube link.

Time lapse video from the fourth largest city in the Netherlands.

This is an ordinary Wednesday morning in April 2010 at around 8.30 am. Original time was 8 minutes that were compressed into 2 minutes, so everything is 4 times faster than in reality. The sound is original.

This is one of the busiest junctions in Utrecht a city with a population of 300,000. No less than 18,000 bicycles and 2,500 buses pass here every day. And yet Google Street View missed it. Because private motorized traffic is restricted here.

These cyclists cross a one way bus lane (also used by taxis and municipal vehicles), two light rail tracks and then a one way street that can be used by private vehicles.

Commentary at the link addresses the absence of helmets on the cyclists.

Via: The High Definite, Via: Neatorama

8 of the Weirdest Hotels on Earth

When we travel, we often want to stay in the best hotels money can buy, but really, what is the fun in that? The Hotel De Vrouwe van Stavoren Friesland in the Netherlands is built from huge 4,500 liter wine casks! It is just one of eight weird hotels in which you can book a room, but call ahead because some of these are very popular.

Link, Via: Neatorama

Insane Dominoes Maze

Domino Day is a world record attempt for the highest number of toppling domino stones, organized each year in the Netherlands. Unfortunately, there will be no Domino Day 2010 because of the financial crisis. Sponsors were very interested but their available sponsor budgets were not sufficient to produce the TV show this year.

Instead, enjoy this insane dominoes maze made last year to promote the ImagineRIT Innovation and Creativity Festival from the Rochester Institute of Technology.

(Via: AdFreak, thanks David), Via: The Presurfer, Via: Youtube

M.C. Escher Museum

Escher museum at the Hague, Netherlands. LINK: Youtube

The Oldest Naval Vessel in Active Service

The US Navy has the frigate Constitution, launched in 1797. The British Royal Navy has the Victory, which dates even further back — to 1765. But both of these vessels are museum ships, rather than truly active vessels.

The oldest naval vessel in active service is the VMF Kommuna, a Russian Navy salvage ship built in 1915. James Dunnigan writes for Strategy Page:

This 2,500 ton catamaran was built in the Netherlands and entered service in 1915. Kommuna began service in the Czar’s navy, spent most of its career in the Soviet (communist) Navy, and now serves in the fleet of a democratic Russia. Originally designed to recover submarines that had sunk in shallow coastal waters, Kommuna remains in service to handle smaller submersibles, does it well and has been maintained over the decades to the point where it cheaper to keep the old girl operational, than to try and design and build a replacement.

Link, Via: Hell in a Handbasket | More Pictures | Image: Warfare.ru, Via: Neatorama

70-Foot Sandcastle

We're going to need a bigger bucket and spade. LINK: Youtube

The Biggest Lego Mario Ever Built

If you have $3700 handy, you can buy this 6-foot tall, 110-pound, 40,000-brick Lego Mario, the biggest ever built. It took one week to plan, and 175 hours over 16 days to build.

You don't have to feel like a dorky geek for buying it, because the money will go to charity. So you can feel like a good-hearted dorky geek.

The auction lasts till November 1st, and the money will go to the Ronald McDonald foundation in Netherlands, "a dutch organization that arranges proper housing for relatives of hospitalized children, in the vicinity of clinics." [eBay, Via: Brothers Brick] Via: Gizmodo

A Floating Apartment Building

Dutch architect Koen Olthuis responded to the rising sea level by designing a floating apartment building:

The Dutch are uniquely accustomed to dealing with fluctuating water levels; much of the Netherlands is below sea level, and vast swaths of land, known as polders, are continually pumped free of the accumulating rainwater that threatens nearby homes and buildings. The Citadel will simply rise and fall with the changing water levels, making it impervious to flooding, tides, and sea waters inching upward as a result of global warming.

Built atop a floating heavy concrete foundation, The Citadel will house 60 luxury apartments, a parking garage, a floating roadway, and boat docks. Each apartment will naturally have waterfront views via a garden terrace, and greenhouses will be interspersed throughout. But the greenest feature of the Citadel is its cooling system: submerged pipes will pump water throughout the structure to cool it, reducing its energy use by 25 percent compared to a conventional building.

Link, Via: Neatorama

The First Goldfish Hotel In The World

If you go on vacation you can check in your goldfish at the Goldfish Hotel at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. LINK, Via: Youtube

Square Style Painting - Robert Doesburg

Using a "square style" that he developed on his own, Robert Doesburg's paintings exude a great amount of color and almost look like they're sparkling.

Born in 1945 in the Netherlands, Robert has painted all his life. "I see myself as a aesthetic sensualist, always looking for beauty and always trying to paint with intuition and feeling. This emotional language has to radiate from my work." LINK

A Beautiful Modern House

This modern house, called the Villa Berkel, was designed by architect Paul de Ruiter. Located in Veenendaal, The Netherlands, it keeps to an inside/outside theme that I've come to love. By using natural light and playing with the idea of open space, the house creates a connection to the outdoors in a warm and comforting way, one that's not typical of a modern house.

Per the Contemporist: "To create openness and lightness and to give the residents the feeling living outside in the green, the house is entirely oriented to the secluded garden at the south. Every room in the villa looks directly out on to this garden, because three of the four façades are made of glass." LINK

Working Replica of Noah's Ark Opens

In SCHAGEN, Netherlands the massive central door in the side of Noah's Ark was thrown open Saturday for the first crowd of curious Pilgrims and townsfolk to behold the wonder.

Of course, it's only a replica of the biblical Ark , built by Dutch Creationist Johan Huibers as a testament to his faith in the literal truth of the Bible.

The ark is 150 cubits long, 30 cubits high and 20 cubits wide. That's two-thirds the length of a football field and as high as a three-story house.

Life-size models of giraffes, elephants, lions, crocodiles, zebras, bison and other animals greet visitors as they arrive in the main hold.
A contractor by trade, Huibers built the ark of cedar and pine -Biblical Scholars debate exactly what the wood used by Noah would have been.

Huibers did the work mostly with his own hands, using modern tools and with occasional help from his son Roy. Construction began in May 2005.

On the uncovered top deck - not quite ready in time for the opening - will come a petting zoo, with baby lambs and chickens, and goats, and one camel. Visitors on the first day were stunned.

'It's past comprehension, ' said Mary Louise Starosciak, who happened to be bicycling by with her husband while on vacation when they saw The ark looming over the local landscape. 'I knew the story of Noah, but I had no idea the boat would have been so big.'

There is enough space near the keel for a 50-seat film theater where kids can watch a video that tells the story of Noah and his ark. LINK

10 Homes that Defy Gravity

Cube House (Rotterdam, Netherlands)

Living in a tilted house is much easier than it looks—just ask the people living in these the Kijk-Kubus homes. Architect Piet Blom tipped a conventional house forty-five degrees and rested it upon a hexagon-shaped pole so that three sides face down and the other three face the sky. Each of the cube houses accommodates three floors: a living space including a kitchen, study and bathroom, the middle floor houses bedrooms and the top is the pyramid room that can act like an attic or viewing deck. These houses are quite expensive, but you can satisfy your curiosity by visiting the museum show house. LINK

Domino Day 2008: New World Record for Toppled Dominoes

If you didn’t know, yesterday was Domino Day 2008 ("Celebrating 10 Years of Domino Day"). The goal of Domino Day is simple: to set a new world record of highest number of falling dominoes.

Robin Paul Weijers (AKA Mr. Domino) and his team set up 4.5 million dominoes in Leeuwarden, the Netherlands, and ended up setting a new world record by toppling more than 4.3 million dominoes. From Wikipedia:

… the record was broken with 4,345,027 dominoes toppled. Also, 9 additional world record were attempted and successfully broken. These additional world records were:

1. Longest domino spiral (200 m)
2. Highest domino climb (12 m)
3. Smallest domino stone (7 mm)
4. Largest domino stone (4.8 m)
5. Longest domino wall (16 m)
6. Largest domino structure (25,000 stone)
7. Fastest topple of 30 metres of domino stone (4.21 sec, time by Churandy Martina: 3.81 sec)
8. Largest number of domino stone resting on a single domino (727 stones)
9. Largest rectangular level domino field (1 million stones)
LINK, Via: Youtube

Princess Pauline, the Smallest Woman in History

Look down at the man’s feet: that was a not a child, but a grown woman named Pauline Musters. At 1 foot 11.2 inches, Pauline is the smallest mature woman ever recorded:

Born on February 26, 1876 in Ossendrecht in the Netherlands Pauline Munster’s was almost half of her final height straight from her mother’s womb. At birth, she was just over 12 inches. At age nine, the tiny dynamo weighed only three pounds and in adulthood Pauline Munster weighed less than nine pounds. Her measurements at age 19 were 181/2 -19-17, meaning she had curvy little figure and in truth she had no shortage of male suitors.

The Human Marvel has more on the story of "Princess Pauline": Link, Via: Neatorama

Giant eggs in Dutch city

Artist Henk Hofstra installed sunny-side up egg sculptures in Leeuwarden, Netherlands. The "Art Eggcident" will remain in the city square for the next six months. Link, Via: Boingboing

Rotating House

In the city of Tilburg in the Netherlands. Everyone who approaches the city from the north runs up against a roundabout. This roundabout constitutes one of the most important gateways to the city. Thus it is not surprising that the municipality dedicated this location as an art location.

The roundabout is now the scene of a large-scale and unusual work of art. The Rotating House of Dutch designer John Körmeling, which looks as if it is real, rotates on the roundabout in the direction of the traffic and completes one full round in 20 hours. The house is a full-scale model and has an open and friendly look and feel. It is not fit for human habitation.

More about the Rotating House. Via: Presurfer, Via: Youtube

Awesome Floating Staircases

Those two amazing sets of stairs are from the Didden Village project by Dutch architectural firm MVRDV. The project itself is a rooftop addition in Rotterdam, Netherlands. The exterior is a stark contrast to its surrounding (and may not be to everyone’s tastes), as you can see in the link below, but the interior stairs are amazing! LINK, Via: Neatorama