BUT A POOR REFLECTION: Dutch Design and Engineering

Tuesday, January 01, 2008

Dutch Design and Engineering - Part 4

Let's hope that we can all do something against global warming and rising sea levels in 2008. To show you that the engineers from the Netherlands are already thinking ahead, have a look at this video showing the award winning floating city project from Delft University. This is their Deltasync website. There is also a floating city project from this University in Second Life - read more here. Today the new competition starts. Royal Haskoning is looking for students with inspiring, innovative ideas and creative solutions to adapt the Deltas of the world to Climate Change. Read more here.

3 comments:

Art said...: Happy New Year, Paul!; 1/02/2008 9:00 pm
Carol Douglas said...: Isn't the North Sea rather rugged? If so, how will these cute islands survive a raging winter storm, without perhaps the tulip losing a petal or the floating island ending up in Oslo?

According to Wikipedia, the first terp (artificial dwelling mound) in the Netherlands was constructed around 500 BC which tells us that fluctuating ocean levels have been a problem for a while.

Perhaps you Dutch are tall to facilitate your wading skills.; 1/03/2008 12:55 pm
Paul said...: Yes, the North Sea can be rugged and the Dutch have always been busy to defend themselves against rising water... The tulip idea is not serious, of course. I don't think that the people living close to the coast would like the idea of having such a long stretched island for their beaches. But they do have serious concepts for artificial islands in the North Sea - for instance as a new location for an airport.
Our Wadden islands (way up North, for the coast of Friesland) do wander in the northern direction. This is a natural process. But because we don't want to give them to our friendly German neighbours, they are protected and sand is moved from one side to the other to make sure that the islands stay right where they are. And this time I'm not kidding!; 1/03/2008 7:36 pm

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God loves us

Have you ever wondered why God gives so much? We could exist on far less. He could have left the world flat and grey; we wouldn’t have known the difference. But he didn’t. He splashed orange in the sunrise and cast the sky in blue. And if you love to see geese as they gather, chances are you’ll see that too. Did he have to make the squirrel’s tail furry? Was he obliged to make the birds sing? And the funny way that chickens scurry or the majesty of thunder when it rings? Why give a flower fragrance? Why give food its taste? Could it be he loves to see that look upon your face?

Max Lucado - He Chose the Nails

Sadhu Sundar Singh

I do not condemn theologians wholesale, but it is unfortunately the fashion in Western thinking to doubt and deny everything. I protest this tendency. I never advise anyone to consult theologians, because all too often they have completely lost all sense of spiritual reality. They can explain Greek words and all that, but they spend too much time among their books and not enough time with the Master in prayer. It is not that I oppose all education, but education without life is certainly dangerous. You must stop examining spiritual truths like dry bones! You must break open the bones and take in the life-giving marrow.

Oswald Chambers

In the Bible clouds are always associated with God. Clouds are the sorrows, sufferings, or providential circumstances, within or without our personal lives, which actually seem to contradict the sovereignty of God. Yet it is through these very clouds that the Spirit of God is teaching us how to walk by faith. If there were never any clouds in our lives, we would have no faith. "The clouds are the dust of His feet" (Nahum 1:3). They are a sign that God is there. What a revelation it is to know that sorrow, bereavement, and suffering are actually the clouds that come along with God! God cannot come near us without clouds— He does not come in clear-shining brightness. (Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, July 29th)