Tuesday Trivia: Best of Summer

Summertime

Summer is here (fingers crossed it stays) so it's time to enjoy this great weather wherever you might be.

Try a new sport? There are some odd ones on here for sure.

Visit one of New Zealand's best beaches?

Take in a game from the Cricket World Cup being hosted in Australia and NZ this Summer.

"Summer afternoon, summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the english language" - Henry James

Tuesday Trivia: Christmas of course

Christmas cake

Christmas around the world. How does everyone else celebrate christmas?

How well do you know the lyrics of these christmas carols? This was quite hard.

How do christmas lights work and why can they fail?

"Maybe Christmas, the grinch thought, doesn't come from a store." - Dr Seuss

Tuesday Trivia: Cities of the Future

Image: McKay Savage (actually of Dubai)

Pedal powered pods for public transport. No waiting and no congestion.

Rubbish bins that let the city know when they're full. Pretty flash eh.

Cities in space were once the future. Perhaps they could be again?

"It is always wise to look ahead, but difficult to look further than you can see." - Winston Churchill

Tuesday Trivia: Blast from the past

Old 90s dotcom ideas are back. Ideas that failed in the late 90s bust are back in our increasingly connected world.

A return of a ferry to Lake Ferry? Sounds like a great addition to the ever expanding New Zealand cycle trails.

In 2007 Mark Zuckerburg thought people over 30 weren't worth hiring. Well now you're 30 yourself Mark. Good thing he seems to have changed his mind since then.

"How did it get so late so soon? It's night before it's afternoon. December is here before it's June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?" - Dr Seuss

Tuesday Trivia: Walking, Work and Wellbeing

A nice long walk to work?

Active commutes improving wellbeing at work? Ditching the car seems to have more than just environmental benefits.

Henry David Thoreau on walking. Surprise surprise, he was a fan.

Workplace noise. Working in a coffee shop might be better for you.

"All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking" - Friedrich Nietzsche

Tuesday Trivia: Wild New Zealand

Lathrop Saddle outside of Hokitika. Image: Alan Watson

With part of the Spiral Team on the Milford Track this week we thought we'd have a look here at our wonderful wild natural spaces.

The Milford Track. New Zealand's premier great walk, sometimes described as the finest walk in the world. A bit crowded but it certainly looks worth it. And isn't any track crowded that has more than one group on it?

Some amazing photos from the Southern Alps. Caution, may cause an irresistible need to explore New Zealand wilderness.

We have so much here to explore! The DOC website shows that we have tracks all around the country. Wherever you are in New Zealand there is a track not far away.

"There's a real purity in New Zealand that doesn't exist in the States. It's not an easy thing to find in our world anymore. It's a unique place because it is so far away from the rest of the world. There is a sense of isolation and also being protected." - Elijah Wood

Tuesday Trivia: Flames of the world

The Gates of Hell. A flaming crater in Turkmenistan that has been burning for four decades!

The Eternal Flame Falls of New York. Ok these ones need to be relit occasionally.

And finally one that's closer to home! Not far from Murchison apparently.

"The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire" - Ferdinand Foch

Tuesday Trivia: Ancient Tech

Image: Marsyas CC BY-SA 3.0

Making ice in the desert? 2400 years ago the Persians were making ice in the desert to keep cool on hot summer days.

Ancient robots lasers and computers? Not quite as we know them but still pretty amazing.

Antibiotic beer from 1500 years ago. I wonder how effective it was.

"Give me a lever long enough and fulcrum on which to place it and I shall move the world." - Archimedes

Tuesday Trivia: Time to eat bugs?

Image: Takoradee CC BY SA 3.0

Delicious tinned bugs. Looks pretty good based on the packaging at least...

Grow your own food at home. And I'm not talking about a vegetable garden.

A delicious cricket shake after the gym? Are insects the future for gym nutrition?

"If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos." - E. O. Wilson

Tuesday Trivia: Upgrades

Upgrade your view?

Five ways to upgrade your brain before lunch. So simple.

Upgrade your transport. Would you like a pair of electric skates?

Top 10 DIY ways to upgrade your office.

Tuesday Trivia: A little bit of everything

Image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/eggrole/5241906952/

The hummingbird effect: How the printing press lead to the development of microscopes and how measuring time shaped the modern world.

Daily walking and how minimal effort can refocus you after extended periods of sitting

Nichelle Nichols on new at NASA

"The internet is a big place where a lot of people can voice their opinions, and my mother chooses to pick fights with random people from all over the world who don't have the nicest things to say about me" - Chris Evans (Captain America)


(and some tips for anyone who has OS X Yosemite)

Tuesday Trivia: Marvel-ous Mysteries

Image: Wikipedia

Could a S.H.I.E.L.D Helicarrier actually fly? Injecting a little science into the Avengers.

How Marvel built a universe. It sounds like it was quite an effort in the end.

Can I major in Marvel? Studying the Marvel universe is now a university course.

"I'm just a kid from Brooklyn" - Steve Rogers

Tuesday Trivia: The World of Wearable Art

Image: Donldytong / CC-BY-SA-3.0

In the past couple of weeks the World of Wearable Art has hit Wellington hard and it seems like sometimes you can't even walk down the streets without running into some incredible performances from the show.

The Audience loved it..


And why wouldn't they. Take a look at some of the highlights.


"Everything you can imagine is real" - Pablo Picasso

Tuesday Trivia: What's in a name?

From today we can register .nz domains! This means we no longer need to include the "co" and "org" when we choose a domain name for our websites. We can also choose to be plain old .nz, for example spiral.nz, trademe.nz or stuff.nz

$35 million for a domain name! Domain names have come a long ways since their beginnings in 1985. It's hard to believe that one would be worth US$35 million though!

Never forget a name again. Dale Carnegie's trick for remembering names. More useful for people's names I imagine as we have Google to help us with domain names.

"Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya..." - Inigo Montoya

Tuesday Trivia: Swans and Black Swans

Image: Marek Szczepanek

Crown Lynn Swan Vases on TradeMe. That iconic piece of Kiwiana.

Swans inspired a whole theory of sudden surprises based on swans (well, sort of). Thought up after Black Swans were found in the southern hemisphere after Europeans assumed for thousands of years that all swans were white.

How dangerous are swans? When swans attack it pays to be careful.

"rara avis in terris nigroque simillima cygno" - Juvenal
("a rare bird, very like a black swan" i.e. extraordinarily unusual)

Tuesday Trivia: Weird art and other such creations

The Twitter logo. Just a bunch of circles really.

19 of the 100 diagrams that changed the world. Or had some major effect at least.

Unusual business cards. I think the lego one is my favourite.

Kaiju and other assorted beasts put into classical landscapes.

"How bizarre" - OMC

Tuesday Trivia: Technology Marching Ever Onwards

Image: http://www.nieuweheren.com/products/beauty-and-the-geek/

Just a few examples of the truly great heights technology is reaching these days...

Ever feel the need to be handling your phone even when you don't have it with you?

Get woken up by complete strangers from across the globe. A great improvement on the alarm clock.

A wireless mouse and keyboard integrated into a pair of jeans. For those times when having a keyboard printed across the front of your jeans is easier than using your laptop.

And there is so much more out there...

"Technology is nothing. What's important is that you have faith in people, that they're basically good and smart, and if you give them tools, they'll do wonderful things with them." - Steve Jobs

Tuesday Trivia: Tools to change the way we see the world

By Tom Burke from Morgan Hill, CA, USA (Flickr) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

In a world of increasingly large numbers it can be hard at times to gain a sense of perspective. Thankfully the Web is full of tools that can help. Here are just a few examples that:

What's happening in one second on the Internet? A great list of what happens in one second online. Make sure you scroll to the bottom to see how the number of emails sent compares with the other stats.

How much money are the big Internet companies making right now? I was a little surprised at some of these, particularly Amazon's profit.

Watch the Earth breathe. See the world showing births, deaths and carbon dioxide production in real time country by country.

"Don't believe anything you read on the net. Except this. Well, including this, I suppose." - Douglas Adams

Tuesday Trivia: A touch of silliness

"Mandarin.duck.arp". Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

What silly people taking photos at times like these.

Silly bears acting like people.

A few photos of people struggling with in rather silly ways.

Ok we'll stop.

Tuesday Trivia

Image: Alan Watson - Alan's bunk last Saturday night. The Spiral team can get intrepid occasionally

Does a mosquito repelling wristband sound handy to you?

Turn your iPad into a typewriter with help from Tom Hanks.

Anyone else want to stay in this jungle gym house? Looks like such a fun place, just don't drop anything small when you're on the top level.

What's out there spiralling through our solar system?

Image: ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA

The Rosetta probe has finished its 10 year journey to comet 67P/C-G and will spend the next few months attempting to collect as much data as possible in the first long term mission to accompany a comet.

This site has a great diagram of the Rosetta mission, showing the probe pushing out almost to Jupiter's orbit before its rendezvous with the comet.

An abandoned satellite is now under the control of a volunteer group of scientists and engineers operating out of an abandoned McDonalds.

Just a few more steps out from our little planet towards the final frontier.

Tuesday Trio - 100 years of remembrance

Eastbourne beach looking across at Wellington - Image: Phil Benge 

A century ago New Zealand entered into its bloodiest conflict ever, eventually sending a tenth of its total population overseas to fight for the Empire. The commemorations of this centenary have begun throughout the world but we thought we'd share a few distinctly New Zealand examples:

Tweets from 100 years ago - History from the perspective of kiwis at the time. If they had Twitter that is. Imagine how much more personal the conflict could have been with this sort of close contact between home and the battlefield.

WW100 - The centenary project that is a shared identity for New Zealand WW1 commemorations. Details for commemorative events, news and shared history are all on here. What's happening near you?

NZhistory - New Zealand's history in the conflict including stories from the battlefield, military operations and the invasion of Samoa. 

It's hard to imagine what life was like back then before technology made the world the much smaller place it is today but some things are not so different. New Zealand still operated in a globalised world. Our links across the seas were if anything stronger than they are now with an even higher proportion of our citizens born elsewhere. Looking back gives us insight into who we are as a country and who we might want to become in the future. We can only hope that the right lessons have been learned.

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" - George Santayana

Password Saving in Web Browsers

Most recent versions of web browsers prompt you to save usernames and passwords for various sites on the Internet. In most cases your browser will be set to save or prompt you to remember passwords. If your browser is not prompting you or saving your password, and you want it to, try this:

Internet Explorer for Windows

To enable password saving in Internet Explorer on Windows:

1. Launch Internet Explorer.
2. Select Tools > Internet Options > Content.
3. Under "Personal information", click AutoComplete.
    
4. To ensure password saving is happening, check User names and passwords on forms.
    

You may have websites for which you wish to save the username and password, but you do not want Internet Explorer to prompt you on any future sites. In this case, in the AutoComplete Settings box, leave User names and passwords on forms checked, but uncheck Prompt me to save passwords.

Safari for Macintosh

To enable password saving in Safari on Macintosh:

1. Open Safari.
2. Go to Safari > Preferences.
3. Click the Autofill icon and check User names and passwords.
    
4. Click Done and close Preferences.

Firefox

To enable password saving in Firefox on Athena, Linux, Macintosh, and Windows

1. Open Firefox.
2. Go to Preferences > Options, as follows:
   • Athena and Linux: Edit > Preferences
   • Macintosh: Firefox > Preferences
   • Windows: Tools > Options
3. Click the Security icon.
    
4. Check Remember passwords for sites.
5. To quit Preferences/Options:
   • On Athena and Linux, click Close.
   • On Macintosh, click the Close button.
   • On Windows, click OK.

Supp PN Trial Opens

Well done everyone working on the Supplemental Parenteral Nutrition in Critically Ill Patients (SuppPN). It's open for enrolments in 4 locations across AU and NZ.

Read more about it on the study website.

Planned Outage Wednesday 22nd January

We anticipate 2 outages of up to 10 minutes between 10pm and 1am on Wednesday night, the 22nd of January.
Spinnaker websites will be effected by these outages.