Thanks for being on-board

Thanks for being on board and for your support this year. We have more projects open and trials taking enrolments than any other year and we couldn’t do that without your support.  What a year!

Supporting your research is why we come to work each day. Here are some of the highlights in our year:

• over 1,480 patients were randomised using Spinnaker
• Deb Gilbertson joined the team at Spiral in the role of development support
• we entirely rewrote the user-permissions module for Spinnaker ready for more complex studies
• we started work on ANZ’s first response adaptive platform trial (REMAP-CAP)

Like you we have been working hard through the year. To recharge and get ready for 2017 we will close on the 22nd of December and reopen on the 16th of January 2017.   

OUR SUPPORT FOR YOU NEVER STOPS. While you are playing cricket on the beach or eating too much ham, our infrastructure team will be monitoring Spinnaker, making sure everything is running smoothly and that your trials can be accessed when you need them. 

Merry Xmas from everyone @ Spiral

Self-learning trial to use Spinnaker software

I am excited to announce Spiral have joined the team working on the first response adaptive platform trial to be based in Australia and New Zealand(REMAP-CAP).  The self-learning design for this clinical trial is an exciting new methodology that significantly reduces the time and number of patients needed to test treatments while increasing safety for trial participants.

For this project our Spinnaker software will be used in Australian and New Zealand ICUs to test questions related to community acquired pneumonia.  Spinnakers adaptability is a key factor in this self-learning/adaptive trial.

Trial funding

The trial is funded by the Health Research Council of New Zealand(HRC) and the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia(NHMRC).

Read the NZ HRC summary and funding details »

General Characteristics of a Platform Trial

• A novel and innovative trial design that is highly adaptive and utilises frequent Bayesian interim analyses to answer as many questions as possible from the available sample
• Simultaneously evaluates the effectiveness of multiple alternative treatment options in a heterogeneous population including identifying any interactions between treatments
• Evaluates treatment effects in sub-groups
• Allows modification of key trial parameters in response to accumulated information and predefined rules
• Preferentially randomises participants to treatments that are likely to be more effective, leading to better outcomes for patients within the trial. 

Self-learning trial to use Spinnaker software

I am excited to announce Spiral have joined the team working on the first response adaptive platform trial to be based in Australia and New Zealand(REMAP-CAP).  The self-learning design for this clinical trial is an exciting new methodology that significantly reduces the time and number of patients needed to test treatments while increasing safety for trial participants.

For this project our Spinnaker software will be used in Australian and New Zealand ICUs to test questions related to community acquired pneumonia.  Looks like Spiral really does have the most adaptable clinical trial software in ANZ!

Trial funding

The trial is funded by the Health Research Council of New Zealand(HRC) and the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia(NHMRC).

Read the NZ HRC summary and funding details »

General Characteristics of a Platform Trial

• A novel and innovative trial design that is highly adaptive and utilises frequent Bayesian interim analyses to answer as many questions as possible from the available sample
• Simultaneously evaluates the effectiveness of multiple alternative treatment options in a heterogeneous population including identifying any interactions between treatments
• Evaluates treatment effects in sub-groups
• Allows modification of key trial parameters in response to accumulated information and predefined rules
• Preferentially randomises participants to treatments that are likely to be more effective, leading to better outcomes for patients within the trial. 

Self-learning trial to use Spinnaker software

I am excited to announce Spiral have joined the team working on the first response adaptive platform trial to be based in Australia and New Zealand(REMAP-CAP).  The self-learning design for this clinical trial is an exciting new methodology that significantly reduces the time and number of patients needed to test treatments while increasing safety for trial participants.

For this project our Spinnaker software will be used in Australian and New Zealand ICUs to test questions related to community acquired pneumonia.  Looks like Spiral really does have the most adaptable clinical trial software in ANZ! 

Trial funding

The trial is funded by the Health Research Council of New Zealand(HRC) and the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia(NHMRC).

Read the NZ HRC summary and funding details »

General Characteristics of a Platform Trial

• A novel and innovative trial design that is highly adaptive and utilises frequent Bayesian interim analyses to answer as many questions as possible from the available sample
• Simultaneously evaluates the effectiveness of multiple alternative treatment options in a heterogeneous population including identifying any interactions between treatments
• Evaluates treatment effects in sub-groups
• Allows modification of key trial parameters in response to accumulated information and predefined rules
• Preferentially randomises participants to treatments that are likely to be more effective, leading to better outcomes for patients within the trial. 

3 local ICU researchers receive 2017 HRC awards

The 2017 New Zealand Health Research Council general career development awards were announced on Monday and 3 of our favourite researchers received awards.

Shay McGuinness, Auckland District Health Board, received a Clinical Practitioner Research Fellowship for Improving outcomes after cardiothoracic surgery.

Paul Young, Capital & Coast District Health Board, received a Clinical Practitioner Research Fellowship for Prevention and treatment of fever in the intensive care unit.

Diane Mackle, Medical Research Institute of New Zealand, received a Clinical Research Training Fellowship for Knowledge translation in the management of oxygen therapy in intensive care.

Nga mihi nui

Read the HRC press release

Paracetamol wins Wellington researchers $20,000 prize

Congratulations to Dr Paul Young for winning the Medicines New Zealand’s 2016 Value of Medicines Award for his work on the HEAT Trial.

Read more about the HEAT Trial and how we support researchers with our study management software

Media release as follows............
Monday, 10 October 2016, 9:48 am
Press Release: Medicines New Zealand
Paracetamol wins Wellington researchers $20,000 prize

Dr Paul Young will be presented with Medicines New Zealand’s 2016 Value of Medicines Award for leading a world-class study into the effects paracetamol has on patients in intensive care units (ICU) this evening.

“We are impressed with the range and high standard of entries for this year’s Award. The Value of Medicines Award supports innovative research that improves the understanding, effectiveness or safety of the use of medicines, and Dr Young’s research is a worthy winner” said Hon Heather Roy, Medicines New Zealand Chair.

Paracetamol, the world’s most commonly administered medicine, has never been tested on critically ill patients, until now.

Dr Young, a leading member of the New Zealand ICU research community, and his team at the Medical Research Institute of New Zealand, collaborated with over 200 ICU doctors and 3000 ICU nurses to answer a simple clinical question that is faced each day with the patient: should the fever be treated with paracetamol or not?

“Dr Young’s study will have a considerable impact on clinical practice in a contentious area of research” said Mrs Roy.

The Value of Medicines Award will help Dr Young collaborate with researchers from Scandinavia and Australia in the area of fever management in the ICU.

The results from this study have shown:

· Paracetamol was safe and well tolerated in ICU patients with fever or infection
· The medicine reduced body temperature by around a quarter of a degree
· Patients who survived spent less time in ICU if they were given paracetamol, but patients who died spent more time in ICU before death if given paracetamol.

Dr Paul Young will be presented the 2016 Value of Medicines Award by Simon O’Connor, Member of Parliament for Tamaki and Chair of Parliament’s Health Select Committee, this evening.

Spinnaker Tip #4 - Save time with "Quick Entry" on changes

Spinnaker tracks changes that people make to your database. At the most basic level we track who made the change, what day/time they made it, and the before and after snapshots of each data point changed.

We know this can be a pain and we are here to help not hinder. So look out for the "Quick Entry" option.  When you have multiple changes on a form AND they are all for the same reason, click the Quick Entry link to shrink that list down to just a single entry explaining the changes for all the data points.

Congratulations TARGET

Congratulations to all the team on TARGET which opened for enrolments last week and has already enrolled 23 patients across Australia and New Zealand. It’s a privilege working with so many dedicated people. The offline conditions and hold ups on this trial challenged us all but we got there in the end, on budget and all still talking to each other. Kudos to the project manager.   

TARGET stands for "The Augmented versus Routine approach to Giving Energy Trial". TARGET is a 4,000 patient, multicentre, double-blinded, randomised, controlled, parallel-group, phase III clinical trial designed primarily to determine if augmentation of calorie delivery improves 90 day survival in mechanically ventilated patients.  Don’t hold your breathe waiting for the results, they are 4 years away. 

Tip #2: DIY locations

Some software makes it hard to add locations. With Spinnaker the Project Manager can easily add locations and control access to the software. Part of the "Manage" section in Spinnaker.

Case study: CAMERA2: A novel way of treating MRSA

I’d like to recognise the work done by the CAMERA team in getting the CAMERA Trial off the ground and flying. It's 6 months since the study started taking enrolments. Recruitment is on target, hospitals in Singapore and Israel have recently joined the multiple sites across Australia.

The CAMERA Trial - Combination Antibiotic therapy for Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus - is a multi-centre RCT to determine if 7 days of intravenous β-lactam in combination with standard therapy will lead to better complication-free survival 90-days after randomisation, compared to standard therapy alone in adult patients with methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) bloodstream infection.

We are fortunate to work with people making a difference to our future and support Josh, Steve and the CAMERA team with our Spinnaker software. We have written a case study on the trial which you can read here. 

The case study will become part of a suite of trials coming to our new information rich Spinnaker website later this year.

Hope you enjoy the read.

Audrey 

Download the case study

Tip #1: Quickly see the status of any patient

CRF status from NovelSTART

Use the “Find a patient” page to quickly see the status of the data entry on the CRF for any patient. Heres what those status icons mean:

A tick means all the data required for this form has been entered into the database (the study project manager will define the requirements)

A question mark means some of the data has been entered into this form. The database is waiting for more data.

A cross means no data has been entered for this form.

2016 goals

Each year I spend some time around January thinking about and setting some goals for the year. I don't usually share these publicly but there is some appeal to writing them down, Making them public and eventually being held accountable (in December?). I find goals exciting and fun to begin,  the real trick is finishing or completing them. A real sense of achievement comes when they are done and I can tick them off my list. Here's my list ...

Redevelop the Spinnaker website

Some of the folks out there who know about our software, Spinnaker, don't know much about our company, Spiral, and vice versa. Time to overhaul the Spinnaker website and get clear on all our messages. We already have design concepts for the new website so this goal is underway.  As part of this process the Spinnaker logo has been reworked to reflect a fresher, more confident product and we have started using the new logo.

The new objectives for the website are:

• to have content that accurately reflects our work and helps people understand what we do
• to be a resources for clients, including videos, and how-to's
• to be responsive and display nicely across all devices
• to make connections across to the Spiral website, to tell the story of our history and out team

Which brings me to my next goal ...

Update the content on the Spiral website

Our company website has been in its current form for around 4 years. The design is still relevant but the content is very out of date. In the interests of keeping life a simple as possible I have elected to retain the existing layout/design and rewrite the content. Still a big job but a job that can be actioned incrementally.  During the year each part of the website will have a content audit and overhaul.  My next goal relates to the previous two goals ...

Create a video resource for Spinnaker

Along with videos about how to use Spinnaker and how Spinnaker works there will be interviews with clients, friends and team members. The response I have received from the short instructional video's I have created so far suggests this is a great medium for training.  The video's will also be a part of telling our story so people know more about us, decide if they want to work with us or find out more. Part of telling our story is writing more so the next goal addresses this ...

Create a content calendar for the whole year

Our approach to content has typically been haphazard and reactionary. Not only will I have a content calendar, to drive our writing for the year, we will be efficient and reuse our content across multiple media. For example when we write a blog post we will re-use that same material for videos, twitter etc.

Along with these promotional related goals we will deliver on all our projects and ...

Continue to improve Spinnaker

We are  fortunate to work with some talented, thoughtful people who have given us really useful feedback on how they work, how they use Spinnaker and what they wish it had! As soon as we get any downtime we use that feedback to improve Spinnaker and ultimately bring out a new version for the next clinical trial we are work on. This year we will bring out at least one new version of Spinnaker. My next goal relates to the new project that will use the next version of Spinnaker ...

Work on another project in Melbourne

Ive enjoyed my visits to Melbourne this year, working with the team at Monash. This goal is simply to have another project, based out of Melbourne and continue those visits. There is something about Melbourne. My final goal is around delivery of our projects ...

Document our QA testing process

We have some great tools that help us to test that our software does the job it was designed to do. How we do that mostly resides in one persons head. It's time we documented how, what and where we test. Its time to spread the load with testing and involve more heads.

So thats it, thanks for being interested and reading my goals. I am looking forward to an interesting year. I hope you have a happy, healthy and prosperous 2016.

Audrey
twitter.com/nzaudrey

Data mine Google books with Ngram

Graph shows that writing about varroa, a disease in honey bees, started around 1970.

What does the Ngram Viewer do?

When you enter phrases into the Google Books Ngram Viewer, it displays a graph showing how those phrases have occurred in a corpus of books (e.g., "British English", "English Fiction", "French") over the selected years.

Have a go - ask your own question

My question, which produced the graph above was "When did we start talking about varroa?". It's a bit of fun. Try it, run your own little mini-research using Ngram. Maybe you will gain an unexpected insight. 

books.google.com/ngrams

Messy big data .... ooooh!

How Google Flu trends are getting to the bottom of messy data

It's never complete and it's always messy

Is healthcare finally ready for big data

"Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple" - Dr Seuss

3 links to explain Big Data

Wikipedia definition of  "Big Data"

1. Big data is a broad term for data sets so large or complex that traditional data processing applications are inadequate. Challenges include analysis, capture, data curation, search, sharing, storage, transfer, visualisation, and information privacy. 

Big data has arrived in New Zealand according to EMC survey

Common sense definition of big data - WARNING more than one definition on this page!

Take a walk on the wild side

Alan relaxing in the Southern Alps

Literally do take a walk! Tramping in New Zealand has got to be one of the best things to do in the world. There's so much to see and such great access.

Bladeless wind turbines. "Asparagus" power plants.

Nature inspired buildings in the middle of cities. Pretty neat.

"Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo
Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo
Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo
Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo
Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo
Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo
Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo" - Lou Reed

Danger danger (or just caution, caution)

Yellowstone tourists get in a bit of trouble practicing bear photography. It always seemed to me that wild bears would look better from inside a car.

It's amazing how really simple design changes can make things so much easier. These easy additions to the NYC subway stations make life much more straightforward for visitors and locals alike.

Cyber crime in New Zealand is on the rise. Not really major news as everyone is becoming more an more connected all the time but a good reminder to stay cautious online.

"The enlightened ruler is heedful, and the good general full of caution." - Sun Tzu

Adaptability

Gecko Foot: Bjørn Christian Tørrissen CC BY-SA 3.0

What's your management style? Are you more of a Stannis or a Daenerys? (I'm a Tyrion)

For everyone who needs a break but at the same time desperately wants to keep working. A new type of holiday, the Jobbatical.

An organisation should be an adaptable team of adaptable teams apparently. Makes you listen a little more when it's a retired US Army general saying it though.

"There can be no life without change, and to be afraid of what is different or unfamiliar is to be afraid of life." - Theodore Roosevelt

Neat stuff

Get a live link to anything happening anywhere. Assuming someone there is using the same service and filming of course.

Still struggling with mornings? This alarm clock for heavy sleepers sounds like a pretty heavy duty solution.

I kind of want one of these. A suit and a onesie all in one. Perfect for those who prefer to sleep in a suit, or work in pyjamas.

"It's hard to let new stuff in. And whether that admits a weakness, I don't know." - Martin Scorsese

Rhino crisis!

© 2013 Agneta Juodenaite. Licensed under CC-BY.

A massive explosion in poaching in South Africa is causing a crisis in the world's largest population of Rhinos. In the last decade the number of Rhinos poached yearly has gone from around 10-15 to over 1,200.

New techniques for reducing the demand for Rhino horn. Making it easier to detect and mildly harmful if ingested.

South Africa is beefing up it's investigative teams. Using DNA testing to link poachers back to specific poached rhinos.

"I like using animals because they help suspend my reader's disbelief. We have certain ideas about dentists. We don't have many ideas about rhinoceros dentists." - Yann Martel

Mix and match

Animals, Taylor Swift and David Cameron as a Marvel supervillain. Things you might have missed last week.

What your favourite map projection says about you! According to XKCD at least. I know I couldn't assess someone's personality based on map preferences.

What happens if you ban cars from a neighbourhood for a month? This South Korean suburb decided to find out.

"God help me if I ever do another movie with an explosion in it. If you see me in a movie where stuff is exploding you'll know I've lost all my money." - Ben Affleck

Clever inventions

Nose jobs nearly 500 years ago? Sounds quite uncomfortable.

A seatbelt for working at your desk. This looks like an interesting idea.

Create your own perfect colour palette. This nifty little generator is surprisingly fun to play with.

"I never did anything worth doing by accident, nor did any of my inventions come by accident; they came by work." - Plato

Small ideas, big results

Make your own Kindle cover from an old book. Just made one similar style to this myself (but not nearly as neat).

Flys bothering you? Well this salt cannon is clearly the best way to deal with them. I want one so badly.

Micropreneurs becoming millionaires. Starting on Ebay or Etsy and making it big.

"No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world." - Robin Williams (Dead Poets Society)

Seeing red, or something at least

Image: Gavin Schaefer

Sounds like this computer had it coming. Eight rounds should be enough to finish off anyone's difficult computer.

No one wants iPads anymore! Well only 12.62 million people did last year, practically no one.

Getting a hand from Big Brother to help with writing emails. Potentially useful, definitely creepy.

"Red is such an interesting colour to correlate with emotion, because it's on both ends of the spectrum. On one end you have happiness, falling in love, infatuation with someone, passion, all that. On the other end, you've got obsession, jealousy, danger, fear, anger and frustration." - Taylor Swift

Moving into the robotic future (Also dinosaurs...)

"ASIMO Conducting Pose on 4.14.2008" by Vanillase - CC BY-SA 3.0

Slow cars and the robotic future. Driving is such a waste of time anyway.

Google robots performing surgery?

Dumb robots, smart robots. How do we get there?

"In the twenty-first century, the robot will take the place which slave labor occupied in ancient civilization." - Nikola Tesla

Also, Dinosaurs!!

Flying here, flying there...

A morning commute in a flying car, 1940

How do flight tracker apps work? Lots and lots of people..

Personal drones are getting smarter. Everyone needs a drone right?

Not the best way to travel I imagine. Worker in the US gets trapped in the cargo hold of a plane.

"He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying." - Friedrich Nietzsche

Wild Weather

Hurricanes' origins in the Sahara. I wonder if there are a lot of butterflies there..

Flooding is becoming more and more of a threat across the world. See where is most at risk.

Weather satellites. More than I ever knew about them.

"Climate is what we expect. Weather is what we get." - Mark Twain

What's the theme?

Image: Luca Galuzzi - www.galuzzi.it CC By-SA 2.5

Everest. It doesn't look all that high right?

What a career. Vettori's change over the years.

French guys see how many people they can cram in a car. Not sure what else there is to say about this... Well done them anyway.

"While on top of Everest, I looked across the valley towards the great peak Makalu and mentally worked out a route about how it could be climbed. It showed me that even though I was standing on top of the world, it wasn't the end of everything. I was still looking beyond to other interesting challenges." - Edmund Hillary

What's this? What's this?

Image: Jon Bunting

If you've got some spare cash lying around then have a look at some classic cars sold recently.

Bringing back balance. Top predator returns to this ecosystem.

How well do you know this famous logo? Apparently it's harder to remember than you might think.

"He was a wise man who invented beer." - Plato

The future is now?

Another example of Apple leading the way into the future... Or jumping the gun and putting new tech into it's products before we need it. Depends on your point of view.

SXSW is a collection of film, interactive, and music festivals and conferences that happens yearly in Austin, Texas. This year they have a new gimmick. Rescue dogs for dying phone batteries...

Architecture of the future? It looks pretty amazing anyway.


"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams." - Eleanor Roosevelt

Trivia and Quizzes

The history of trivia. Looking back at where it all began.

Corporate quiz. The humble pub quiz has become big business apparently.

Trivia of the future? Quiz on your phone of course.

"My idea of relaxation is not lying down by a beach. I have to move around, do stuff. Though I'm a massive quiz show person." - Daniel Radcliffe

Live long and prosper

Image: Pa-he

Leonard Nimoy. I like the bit about his autobiography published in two volumes, "I am not Spock" and "I am Spock".

Feel the need for some more Trek? A guide for binge watching TNG.

Star Trek class. Teaching ethics to engineers.

"Space... the final frontier"

Secret spaces, hidden gems

Image: Kelisi 

Amazing photos of buildings you'll never be allowed inside.

How to hide a subway system. The bits that poke above ground level at least.

Sometimes secret sometimes not. Some of Scotland's most unusual buildings.

"The only secrets are the secrets that keep themselves." - George Bernard Shaw

Easy, easier, easiest

A not so easy walk. Milford Track 2014 Image: Alan Watson. 

Reboot a bad day in ten minutes. Looks pretty easy to me.

Chairs that assemble themselves. Making life easier? Well, not yet but someday.

Life hacks anyone? 100 little tips, some of which even look useful.

"I'm trying to find myself. Sometimes that's not easy." - Marilyn Monroe

The end of Flash

Image: kitty.green66

Youtube dumps Flash as the default player. Cat videos now will be viewed with HTML5 as predicted by Steve Jobs years ago.

Kittens, kittens everywhere!

Check out this list of the most viewed videos of all time on youtube.

"New open standards created in the mobile era, such as HTML5, will win on mobile devices (and PCs too). Perhaps Adobe should focus more on creating great HTML5 tools for the future, and less on criticizing Apple for leaving the past behind." - Steve Jobs, 2010

Gadgets and Gizmos

Image: Morio CC-BY-SA 3.0

Wacky tech gadgets. Eye massager anyone?

New gadgets for 2015. Anything you might need?

And most importantly, a 3D chocolate printer.

"My first transistor radio was the heart of my gadget love today. It fit in my hand and brought me a world of music 24 / 7." - Steve Wozniak

Interesting and Amazing

Dragonfly009: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Amazing_Eagle.jpg

Looks like 2015 will be a bit longer than a usual year. But only just.

The first computer programmer was born in 1815 apparently. And was the daughter of Lord Byron.

SPEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED!!

"There is more to life than increasing it's speed." - Mahatma Gandhi

Tuesday Trivia: Seas and Oceans

Giants of the ocean shown to scale. Wow these guys are big.

Wave heights in the North Sea can now be monitored from space. Dangerous waves could be forecast, could this make the seas safer?

A gallery of colossal sea creatures. A gathering of weird and wonderful ocean leviathans.

"The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever." - Jacques Cousteau

Tuesday Trivia: The Final Frontier

Commercial spaceflight is a good thing? A solid defence of it.

Testing a potential Mars spacecraft. Where will Orion go in the future?

Virgin Galactic getting geared up to send us all to space, more or less.

Our solar system spiralling through space. Amazing!

"Space exploration is a force of nature unto itself that no other force in society can rival." - Neil deGrasse Tyson

Tuesday Trivia: It's 2015, are we living in the future?

Photo credit: Damien Jemison/LLNL

Green tech predictions for 2015. What do we have ahead of us?

Barefoot shoes that look relatively normal, no creepy foot gloves.

Amazon Echo, just like the computer in Star Trek. Sort of...

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." - Arthur C. Clarke

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