Tuesday, August 26, 2014

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, August 19, 2014

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.

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

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, August 05, 2014

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