Comments for infoconstructor

Comment on My great-grandfather, J. M. Boekbinder of Amsterdam by Info Builder

Info Builder — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 10:15:59 +0000

Hi, Bill! Just saw your comment, haven’t looked at the blog in a while. Thanks for the information! I never got around to pursuing it, but am still interested to know about the house and my great-grandfather’s surroundings. I wonder if the house contains anything from my great-grandfather’s life / times?

Comment on My great-grandfather, J. M. Boekbinder of Amsterdam by Bill Morrow

Bill Morrow — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 21:11:06 +0000

James Boekbinder specialised in Carton Pierre and decorative plaster work.
From about 1870 he lived in 49 Thornhill Road, Islington, North London.
This was a large detached house with a large workshop built on to the side.
Years later my Grandfather lived here for many years and my mother and her three sisters all grew up here.

Comment on What is it? by Kelly van de Sande

Kelly van de Sande — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 19:10:41 +0000

Saw that exact same coat rack today. And did the exact same thing to figure out what it is, standing in the thing. Haha

Comment on Dark, cold, broken train: the Dutch high speed rail experience by Martin

Martin — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 10:33:50 +0000

Absolutely true, China will have it’s own special problems and of course the situation is more complex than given in the example.
This is solely my own view, but I think Europe as a civilization is on a decline. Not saying that they are suddenly retards or anything like that, but more in a historical way, like the Roman empire, the Mayan civilization and so on…..though I believe (and really hope so) that it will not nearly be as destructive.
This may be due to a lack of vision. After the WWII Europe as a whole had a goal, get back on it’s feet again, rebuild, and improve. And so they did in a spectacular fashion, I think.
After accomplishing this however, it seems that the only goal was to maintain the wealth, without really having a new goal, something to strive for. Of course, integrating the countries into one Europe is a major effort, but looks more like an internal one than an external.
China, and in lesser amounts India and Russia, seem to have these forward looking visions. Given that, at least in Russia, it is done at the cost of welfare of people.
As for the metro in Amsterdam, they really should have gotten Japanese and Russian (especially those who developed the metro in Piter, as it is a swamp literally) tunnel experts. But that is one of the downsides of projects run in a capitalistic environment perhaps, like you told about the American who visited Moscow and later said that they could build such beautiful stations, because it was not about money, but about people….ok, a little off-topic.

Comment on Dark, cold, broken train: the Dutch high speed rail experience by Info Builder

Info Builder — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 17:21:55 +0000

I don’t know enough about the situation in China to say, I’m sure they have their own problems, advantages and so on. Perhaps I shouldn’t compare. But when you see those gleaming new trains, and then see those companies building the new high-speed lines in the US, you can’t help but feel that we’ve sunk into a second-rate condition, at best. And what is the excuse for not implementing this in the Netherlands? Granted, the European-wide net is a special challenge. But ONE of TWO high-speed lines in the ‘Randstad’ or between Groningen and Amsterdam? In 20 years? Mind you, investing in a never-to-be-used, billions-costing subway in Amsterdam was pushed through (weirdly, by one of the same politicians who later was in charge of the colleges defrauding the state with 200 worthless diploma’s). Or is there a pattern here?

Comment on Dark, cold, broken train: the Dutch high speed rail experience by Martin

Martin — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 13:12:04 +0000

I totally agree, but besides corruption and bad governance, I think the endless discussions and the excessive possibilities to object to everything also cost fortunes.

Just imagine the cost of all the committees, investigations, filing and processing of objections, re-evaluations and so on. II wouldn’t be surprised if half the budget for such a project is used for these things, but of course I do not possess adequate and accurate knowledge of this.

It seems that a country like China doesn’t bother too much with every individual, bird, tree and piece of grass. Instead it looks like they keep thinking in the big pictures; ‘Yeah, it’s too bad we have to sacrifice a million homes to build this colossal dam, but it will power many more, and in the end it is better for the mass as a whole’

Comment on Improvised input devices: plastic card for touchscreen by Daan

Daan — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 23:21:57 +0000

when I worked at ‘the printer’ I used my nails as input device,
deliberately kept one nail longer because of that.

Comment on New old drawing table – a beauty! by Jim

Jim — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 15:51:58 +0000

It’s designed for technical drawing, but works for any number of other kinds of drawing, including calligraphy, or geometric layouts for ornamentation patterns. It’s an ergonomic wonder – you can adjust it to fit exactly to the right height and angle, and the arm with rulers allows incredibly fast creation of layouts. I don’t know much about technical drawing, only a bit of applied geometry. And you can position it vertically to step back and look at the work, or horizontally for ink and paint work.

Comment on New old drawing table – a beauty! by Eric

Eric — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 19:03:23 +0000

I didn’t know that you draw a technical drawings, Jim? Undiscovered talents?

Cheers,
Eric

Comment on New old drawing table – a beauty! by jantien

jantien — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 10:38:21 +0000

Oh! this reminds me of my childhood: my father had just one like this, only slightly bigger, he, as an architect, never got used to working with a computer, when Autocad came on the market, he kept drawing with his drawing table. I remember the beautiful hammerite paint: it was a kind of ‘Russian green’.

So, how much does your drawing table weigh? I owned my fathers for a while, untill I was sick of moving this thing from one house to another and finally I let my computer take over….