As the title suggests, in this second 'Wednesday Walk' edition by yours truly, I'll be taking a somewhat unusual approach. I do hope you like it. Let me know when you do. But also, let yourselves be heard when you don't like all this I'll be showing you and blabbering about. Recently I made some promises to a HIVEian, not to write 2000 to 3000-word posts. Nobody is interested in spending half an hour reading. Let the photographs speak for themselves, is the idea. Though my credo is: Photographs shall be enhanced with at least something, if not being the guide to the photo, if not one or the other story, at least some humour... {EDJE, get on with the Walk instead of explaining, explaining and even more explaining}
HEAD
SAND
STICK IT DEEP
but but but... before I try and explain to you by visuals and by text what I mean by those strong heavy words, title and front page photograph, I shall show you our Science museum NEMO. A museum created for those who want to learn by experience. A museum in which the laws of physics are brought to reality in fun and real life setups of whatever you can think of, from gravity to centrifugal forces and anything in between and outside this 'range'. Mostly visited by kids and teenagers, also interesting for adults. At least I think it is. Honestly, I never visited the NEMO museum. "Shame on you Edje!" Ah well, I have at least a few decades left to wipe this destination from my bucket list 😉
Soooo, this thingy up here is the NEMO museum. Build on top of a highway. A highway connecting the city centre of my hometown, the (tiny) city of Amsterdam, to its northern part. In between a big river. Well, more like a canal, but used to be a kinda river. Big boats. Big boats pass through that canal. Like the largest passenger ships you can imagine. They have a dock just to the right of this NEMO museum. But, am digressing, since this post is not at all about those big boats, passenger terminals, tourists and whatnot. This post is about HEAD, SAND and more of that. But as said, I'll come to that a little further down this post. But before I get there: A little hint... Think of 'Energy'.
A somewhat wider shot. The highway, well, the tunnel is below this greenish building. This building is NEMO, the museum. The shape is modelled after a boat, a big boat. Owwww, that is the reason I was all blah-dee-blah about big boats! 😄 While writing I realise my unconscious side is driving my fingertips which are kinda dancing over the keyboard. That thing with a lot of knobs connected to something that looks like an LSD... oops... LCD screen.
A little to the left of the museum, we have yet another museum. The building at the left end is or maritime museum. An old flagship docks in front of it. A museum piece as well. Belonged to the (in)famous VOC. But again, not this post to talk about VOC and what its importance was for Amsterdam and the Netherlands.
Owwww, that white building is also used at least once a year for some super interesting concert format. The idea is that all visitors are flat-out lying on the floor, while listening to the live performance. Usually a kind of classical piece extraordinaire, such as Canto Ostinato, but could also be some other piece with a similar repetitive and hypnotic soundscape.
See the 'little' bulb in the water? Part of our light festival. It's happening right as we speak. Well, from early December till late January, or something like that.
With my GIMP app screaming for tasks, I allowed it to filter this still image. The view to the other side to the NEMO museum. Not so yellow in reality, but I thought it does do well in contrast to the somewhat greyish views in previous stills.
To the left apartments...
Who wants to live in a building made of pallets?
Great for photographs though, but still... Wondering, Wondering, Wondering: Who pays money for such wooden boxes?
WOOHOO! Yet another artefact from big boats! Now functioning as a bin. It used to be an airintake for the machine rooms of boats. Big boats had (and some still have) them, but also smaller boats. Those boats sailing the rivers in Germany and the Netherlands.
Ok ok ok... enough about Amsterdam, its buildings, its history. All that has nothing to do with HEAD SAND ENERGY and all that!
Though the photo above says "NEMO Museum", it is in fact called the NEMO STUDIO. Nobody seemed to care when they put the big sign on top of the building 😉
Are you with me? Will you join me for our adventure inside this building?
Helluh, mister Storage. May I take a picture of your head?
I kid you not. You can open the link yourself by scanning the QR code. In case you are too lazy, or for some reason don't have a QR-code scanner, or for whatever other reason you want to click the link, click me.
please use your browser's auto-translate feature; for some reason, the website creators thought everybody can read and understand the Dutch language
It is a website full of interesting information about all sorts of topics that are HOT in the science world these days. From food, farming, climate, data and privacy to humans and babies. All from a technology capability perspective, those we have today, but foremost those technologies we will have tomorrow.
I kid you not. In 50 years from now, we'll not at all recognise the world as we know it today! The changes we'll see in the next 50 years will be similar to the changes we've seen during the last 500 years. My own opinion, obviously. But but but a super objective one. One that is difficult to debate, though you may be inclined to do so. If for some reason you don't believe what I believe, I just need to remind you that rule number 1 is: Edje is always right. Rule number 2 is: Whenever you think Edje is wrong, you are kindly referred to rule number 1 😂
Did you read it?
A showcase of all sort of electrified apparatuses comes next. Many I know from first hand experience. If not I used them myself, I've seen them in use in my grandparent's homes when they were still with us living souls.
Not these though. Gazilliuon generations 😂 Early 1900. Electrical heaters, fans...
...and a strange one in between all the electrical stuff, a gas station with a meter. Put in a coin, and gas can be taken from the system.
Now we seem to enter Amsterdam's Red Light District! Any relation to electrical apparatuses and women of pleasure?
If you like, zoom in the image above. Shows so many different tools that you may recognise. Pretty funny to see them all on display like this. At least, I like this display of stuff. Stuff that automates our lives so we can act lazy.
My mother used to have one of these. Well, one not being electric, but hand-powered. This was back in the 70s. She went all electric in the 80s. Owww you don't know what it is? Well, it is a washing machine.
The media and HIFI corner.
The record player is very similar to what my parents used to have.
The TV was in both my grandparent's homes: Big ass systems with built-in speakers all in furniture. I suppose we needed IKEA to decouple the TV from the furniture 😉
Commodore. Was the first ever computer I was playing around with. Not this version, but the 64 and previous to that the VIC20 types. The tape to store the programs: Those were the days! 😍
Still wondering why all this was in red light though. Do you have any idea?
Lamps such that can only be designed back in the days. I love such lamps. Very similar to, again, what my grandparents used to have in their homes when I was tiny, like a baby.
Telling about babies: An ex-baby-crib turned into a lamp. Something I've seen before as well. In those days, back in the 20s/30s/40s/50s/60s most peeps weren't as rich as the middle-class today. Most had to live on super-low incomes. Those days, much of the possessions were recycled by the homeowners.
Shouldn't we learn from this? Fast Fashion versus Baby cribs giving a new light-full life?
Our Energy Addiction...
Think of it... Shall we continue as we did?
Great summary in this infographic! Perfect for all those that never thought about this, which are more peeps than you would expect. Zoom in and thou can read 😉
In the end, it all about the sea water levels. Temperatures up. Less ice. More water. Higher sea water levels. So many beaches, islands, and countries: Gone. The Netherlands: Gone! Maybe not in 10 years from now, but 50 years from now. If not 50 years, then 100 years. We may not experience it ourselves, but our kids will! Its not a matter of IF. It is a matter of WHEN.
Sea Levels Rising: The blue vertical to the right, about 7 meters up. The sea water levels. The prediction is made by extrapolating the CO2 increase in our atmosphere. A prediction for this century. Less than 100 years.
Climate and Environmental sceptic?
HEAD... SAND... STICK IT is all I can say. One did already. With Sunglasses and teeth remaining. Sufficient for watching the beauties in life and keeping our tastebuds happy. Maybe enough for a happy life 😇 Who knows 🙃
Kinetic Energy charging a lamp or our smartphones. Honestly, didn't want to workout so didn't try this one 😎
DIY corner for all those museum visitors to put their dreams about the future on paper and share with everybody. From the looks of it, mucho kids went all DIY. Love it 😘 Kids are so much purer than adults. Including myself. I enjoyed the wall of dreams, but couldn't get myself to add something 😕
The WALL of DREAMS 😇 😍
The show also had a documentary on display. Wasn't able to find it in YT or something. But my search will continue. When found, I'll update this post, or send the link in the comment section. The topic of this documentary: All sorts of methods to store renewable energy (wind and sun) sustainably. So many innovations are being worked on as we speak. Most of them based on kinetic energy. Energy forms which will be released using gravity. Hydro chambers below the earth floor. Masses pulled up into the sky, with cords, or train wagons. No need for large amounts of lithium ion-based batteries. Just masses and gravity. And release it whenever its is in the middle of the night and the wind is resting.
Intermezzo Story
A few weeks ago I met this lady, at least a generation younger than I. It was on my train trip from Berlin airport to the city. She told me she just came back from Zurich in Switzerland. Back from a teaching thingy at the university for architects. She was telling me about some of the new rules in Switzerland that are not feasible. Such as the method of heating for new build homes. These must be based on heat pumps. Pumps running on electricity instead of gas. Too few heat pumps delivered by the industry, she kept on telling me. Regarding concrete buildings and better alternatives in using construction material: She told me, there aren't. After she paused, I took the stage and told her about all the innovations worked on, from building meter thick walls like in the middle ages, to straw-based insulation and whatnot. I kept on spraying all my knowledge about these possibilities to replace whatever she believed is impossible. The innovations that governments have to direct. To direct the free market in changing things. The role the Dutch government played to push the largest electrical car distribution in the world. The enormous amount of VC capital starting to flow into alternative technologies since our government dictated the rule of no-fossil-fuel cars anymore by 2030. No gas heating anymore by 2030 to 2035. Suddenly shitload of money started to flow into new technologies. When the free market knows what to expected, they direct their money into that direction. It is as simple as that!
I was so dumbstruck. Someone at least a generation younger than me, someone teaching students at the uni level, someone so not in touch with the realities of today. Someone so traditional. Someone that isn't aware of what we need to do.
Then she asked me: "What do you do? Are you working in this field of new technologies?" No feedback on what I was informing her about. No questions on why I believe all these innovations will help to change the world for the better. Just those two questions: "What do you do? Are you working in this field of new technologies?" When I answered them with: "Am an IT consultant, but someone who is highly interested in all these problems we have to solve, someone that tries to keep well informed", she decided to not speak anymore while re-focussing her attention to her smartphone. WTF!
Fortunately, I could continue my super nice conversation with an elderly lady I also met on this same train.
Already back in the 30s, like 100 years ago, an attempt to electrify a bike. It was a working model.
In the hippie-ish 70s, in Amsterdam, these cars were called 'witkar' which means 'white car' in English. An attempt to reduce the fumes and whatnot created by cars operated with fossil fuel engines. An electric car. A car to share. With a monthly or annual subscription, one could use this car whenever one wanted. A kinda taxi, or bus, well basically some form of public transport. Sharing economy isn't something new. It is as old as we created objects and services to share 😉
A version we, as museum visitors, could drive ourselves. Outside the building. Some did. I watched. Only I could take a still image when the thingy was halted. It was super interesting to watch it 'racing' around the museum! Too much fun to watch to pull my attention away into my smartphone for the click-clack history recording in visuals. When not visuals, than text, hence the enormous amounts of words I seem to spend typing into this post.
We all know it, but it's great to see it written down. Just a tiny percentage of the world population is polluting our planet earth the most, by far. Many peeps from this tiny population, those that enriched themselves to the expense of the rest of the world (pre-collonial times, colonial times, present-day) are climate sceptics. HEAD SAND and STICK IT is all I can say!
Wasn't sure about this one. To include it in this post. But I decided to do this to show how these type of innovations leads to greatness. Every year a rally is held in Australia (Down Under) and other spots in the world, with solar vehicles, running for longest distance travelling. Hundreds to thousands of kilometers are put on the clock. Each race. Dutch student teams usually participate. Sometimes even more than one team at the time. And you know what? One of those teams created the Lightyear. A luxury car running on solar power. In production as we speak. The first few 100 units. Sold for ridiculous amounts of money. Like half a million dollars a piece or something. But, they have sufficient buyers and will give them the money to transform their factories to create larger batches, reduced the unit prices over time, as well as give them enough money for add-on research to make better versions for the first generation Lightyear. Check it out in this post by yours truly or on their website. Funnily enough, they call their first gen Lightyear, Lightyear Zero 😂
Three drawings on the wall.
In the last exposition room of the NEMO STUDIO. In this room, a lot of info through tiny setups regarding renewable materials for building construction. Lots of info on all sorts of innovations to replace fossil fuels. But hardly anything that does well in a photograph. I suppose they either didn't have the money to create some great setups and displays, or they didn't want to use too much of current fossil fuels. Or the combo. Orrrrr... who knows. But they showed in three drawings what a future could look like.
Drawing 1: Continue our current paths and end up with overconsumption and destroyed nature. Fun future, isn't it?
Drawing 2: Start living locally again. Create local communities. Define local rules for the community. Bring what we use, local to us. Share what we can. Recycle what we don't need anymore. It's an example, but I like such an example. It is maybe the only way out of our miseries.
Drawing 3: This future focuses more on living in harmony with nature rather than local communities. Though doing this locally is implicit in what this future shows us. I do believe in the combination of the previous and this one. Depends on where we live, and in what kind of habitat it is best to apply. But local is key as far as my few brain cells bring my thoughts.
The closing words from this interesting afternoon spend. All those that contributed to creating this adventure of awareness, realisation and knowledge.
I do hope you like this somewhat alternative Wednesday Walk. If not, let yourselves be heard. If you did NJOY, don't keep quiet and use the comment section below. I'll absorb any criticism you may have. I'll take any questions you may have. I embark on any discussion you may like to get into.
See you soon down below, or till next time 😉