Well, as long as five new DVDs is considered mad it’s madness. All kinds of bases are covered by this selection, and here they are…
Best of Dangerous Encounters with Brady Barr follows a reptile expert as he does all sorts of silly things in the name of science. My favourite bit is when he wears a 200 pound kevlar suit covered in hippo dung to extract sweat from a hippo.
The Most Extreme is a series that follows all sorts of extreme behaviour in the animal kingdom. Fighters, Stinkers, Gluttons and many more are looked at in these fantastically shot episodes originally made for Animal Planet.
Sticking with the extreme, Gravity Games H2O is a four disc box set filled with wakeboarding, tow-in surfing, motorcross, kite surfing and other assorted watery hijinks. Except for the motorcross, I can’t explain it’s inclusion unless they somehow ride on water. Now that’d be extreme.
Ultimate Factories is a National Geographic series that goes to, well, ultimate factories. In this one they go see how Ferraris and M1 Tanks are produced. So if you’ve ever wondered how they put them together, now you can find out.
Naked Science: Surviving nature’s fury is a three disc set in the excellent National Geographic Naked Science series. These episodes look at asteroids, the Bermuda Triangle, alien contact and other popular and controversial scientific topics.
Here are ten Top 10 lists written by other websites (and not by us, although we’ve done a lot). They’re in no particular order, and if you want to add to the list go nuts and comment.
1. Top 10 Harry Potter Moments - so far, anyway. Has clips! (See also; Top 10 Harry Potter supporting characters.)
2. Top 10 Comic Book Cities – does Metropolis beat out Megacity One? No, it does not, and rightly so.
3. Top 10 Most Ridiculous Movie Tech Moments – Nerdrage!
4. Top 10 San Diego Comic Con Exclusives – probably of limited interest but there’s some cool stuff there. I had an original Soundwave once. Wish I still had it, it might be worth a mint.
5. Top 10 Twilight Series Moments - Beware, as this list contains spoilers (for the 2.7% of the population who haven’t read Twilight).
6. Top 10 James Bond Books – as selected by Charlie Higson, author of the Young Bond series of books. He knows his Bond.
7. Top 10 Things You Can Do to Protect Your Privacy - a bit more serious that the others in this list, but very important! Very!
8. Top 20 Free PC Games - Twenty is better than ten, it must be said.
9. Top 10 Rap Songs That Sample Michael Jackson Songs – very topical.
10. Top 11 mashed Potato Recipes – a bit different, this list, but it allows me to a) mention the upcoming cooking event that’s planned (along with the competition!), b) point out that 2008 was the United Nations Year of the Potato and although it’s a bit late it’s interesting to learn, c) I can link to this, and d) mashed potatoes are yum. Don’t know why there are eleven though.
Well, by ‘fun’ I mean it’s more like educational fun. Edutainment? Funucation? I don’t know. Anyway, you can now convert measurements and units of weight by just typing it into Google. Say you want to know how many kilometres are in five miles; you can ask Google ‘how many km are in five miles?‘ And there it is. But! You might want to know what 80 knots is in kilometres per hour. I often do, so I can type in ‘how many km/h is in 80 knots?‘ Or ‘how many cubits in 3 hand?‘ ‘How many acres in 4000 square metres?‘
Also, if you need to know the time somewhere, just type in ‘time [city name]‘ and it comes up. (For example, ‘time reykjavik’.) That’s not so much fun as it is a helpful hint. (It also works with ‘weather’ (e.g., ‘weather ohakune‘), and ’define’ and some other keywords.)
Google Squared builds information tables out of data on the internet. It’s a bit hit or miss – a search for ‘Wellington City Library‘ is fairly useful, but ‘Twilight’ tells us that Bella is a guinea pig.
From Tuesday the 9th to Saturday 13th June the YA area at Central Library will be transformed into a planetarium as it hosts the NightVisionz Cosmodome. Using a digital audio visual show to simulate the stars and a dome large enough to take 30 people inside at a time, visitors will be able to boldly journey through the night sky and learn about Matariki and other constellations with astronomer Ron Fisher.
The Cosmodome is a great experience for children, teens, and adults alike and will be open to the public from 4-8pm from the Tuesday to Friday and 10am-4pm on the Saturday. Entry is by gold coin donation and sessions are on the half hour – people just need to turn up.
Read more about it at our astronomy blog (I write some of the posts there!) The astrodome/planetarium/cosmodome looks like a large, inflatable, and blue igloo.
This Saturday at 8.30pm is Earth Hour, which means that you should switch off your lights (presumably you can keep your computer/console/television on). I wrote about it last week, and embedded a rather neat Youtube channel.
Currently we’re giving away Ecobulbs – lightbulbs that use up less power than your standard, usual lightbulb and are made from recycled materials - to anyone who asks for them, really. So if you want a free lightbulb come on in!
The deal will last until tomorrow or at least until they run out (and we have a lot). See the awesome photo.
You probably have heard that an undersea volcano has erupted off the coast of Tonga – luckily the tsunami warning has since been cancelled, although Wellington would probably have been okay. Earlier tsunamis to hit Wellington tend to be from local earthquakes or from seismic events in South America.
Footage of the volcano (Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai) erupting off Tonga can be seen at the Guardian website. So impressive! There are also some fantastic shots here.
Join the Wellington Astronomical Society and Wellington City Libraries on Saturday 21st March as we explore the sights, stories and secrets of our sun. Using telescopes and special equipment we will observe the sun in safety, with sunspots, flares and other features on show from 10am–4pm in Civic Square (on the City to Sea Bridge). There will also be activities celebrating the sun and its place in cultures all around the world as we mark Race Relations Day, and further displays will also be held inside Central Library, including live links to viewings of the sun.
Come along and explore, wonder and discover as we celebrate the International Year of Astronomy 2009!
If you are passing the Central Library, take a look at the telescope on display in the foyer. It’s massive, and was built in 1930 in Auckland by Robert Bruce. It’s the oldest refractor telescope made in NZ! I took some photos but, eh, they’re not too good – you can’t see how big it is.
See our other post about IYA2009, the International Year of Astronomy, here.
Some neat and interesting websites. For the weekend! Or week. Whatever.
Four-hundred years ago Galileo first looked through an astronomical telescope, and to mark the occasion 2009 has been declared the International Year of Astronomy (or IYA2009). There is an IYA2009 film trailer to watch, and a blog – a Cosmic Diary – to read. New Zealand’s own IYA2009 website has information about planned events for the year (and there’s also an art competition for secondary school students).
More information about Astronomy can be found at NASA’s very nice website; their daily images can be breath-taking. (So can these Astronomy daily pictures. Goodness, isn’t space large?)
Check out the Wellington Astronomical Society, Astronomy.net.nz, and the Carter Observatory (which is currently getting refurbished) for more.
Google Maps now has ‘Street View‘ for New Zealand, which means that as well being able to look at your house (or anyone’s house, for that matter) from above, you can also view the building from the street, as if you’re driving past. This is exceptionally interesting and useful for
a. People who dislike going outside
b. People trying to find a destination
c. Lazy flat-seekers
d. Everyone else
(The Street View of Karori Library is quite funny.)
The Leonardo da Vinci Machines Exhibition is on at the New Zealand Academy of Fine Art until 15 February. A collection of over sixty machines based on his sketches, this exhibition looks pretty cool. The website says that it’s interactive, so you get to pick up some of the models to get a better look (although I suspect you probably don’t get to have a go with his hangglider).
Prices are $10.00 for students and $12.00 for adults (children under 13 get in for $8.00), but from the looks of the photo gallery it’s worth it.
The cover of a book can tell you a lot about the book’s contents. Its designers want you to see the cover, become interested and take the book (to buy, usually, if not just to read). For example, if you’re into Gossip Girl-type books, it’s pretty easy to find know which other books are similar – the covers will be a photograph of one or more fashionable & and wealthy girls. (I’m not so sure about the Ashleys’ fashion sense, to be honest.)
Interestingly, boys are less likely to read a book that has a girl on the cover than a girl is to read a book with a boy on the cover. And YA fantasy books seem to really favour circles on the cover (part II).
What is your favourite book cover? Do you think it matters if a book has a girl or boy on the cover? Do you often choose books by their covers alone?
The Forbidden City: Beyond Space and Time is a virtual tour of the Beijing landmark as it was during the Qing dynasty. For five centuries, The Forbidden City was the palace of the Emperors of China, and is now a World Heritage Site and museum. It was considered ‘forbidden’, as permission to enter and leave had to be granted by the emperor. Now you can download it (it’s free, but a pretty big download) and explore it with your own avatar dressed in Qing era clothing.
Cellphones: not just a replacement for the megaphone, these handy devices are now fashion statements in themselves. But nothing turns your phone-bling into a pocket albatross like a bad ringtone. Maybe you’ve just never gotten around to changing it from the “Nokia tune” (which is a phrase from Gran Vals, by Francisco Tárrega, an early 20th century classical guitar piece). Or have you (wrongly, oh so wrongly) chosen to have Slipknot or Rihanna blasting out every time someone calls? Shame on you.
The trendiest people in Wellington have natural or everyday sounds for their ringtones. Check out the tones here, and have a tui in your pocket! Or for the more adventurous and avant-garde of you, why not formulate your own ringtone using a whole computational universe (for bonus points you can even read about the new scientific paradigm behind your catchy ring). Just remember though: no matter how catchy and stylish your ringtone is, we still don’t want to hear it at the movies …
Little Brother is the latest book by Cory Doctorow (and one of last week’s New Books). It’s about a computer-savvy 17-year-old named Marcus, who is apprehended by the Department of Homeland Security shortly after terrorists blow up a bridge in San Francisco. He is released to a paranoid and martial city, where personal freedoms and the rights guaranteed by the Constitution are ignored in favour of ’security’. Marcus and his friends are able to use their knowledge of computers and technology to subvert the government’s increasing authoritarianism and regain their freedom.
It’s an exciting, well-paced thriller, and much of the technology used in the book has an element of truth;if you’re interested in the ‘techno-counterculture’, this book is a good place to start. (It has a little romance as well, so it’s not all about computers!)
The best part is that the entire book can be downloaded for free! Oh nice.
Animoto.com is a very cool site that allows users to upload photos, set some music, and create a dynamic slideshow. The site somehow analyses your images and sets it to the music selected. It’s free if you just want to make brief clip, and there is a lot of music to choose from.
Here’s one we made using photos taken during the SubText08 events – it only took about ten minutes to create:
Play with spider! You can feed it, make it jump (if you turn on user control) and grow freakishly large – and then drag it around by one of its creepy, hairy legs. I’m screaming with terror as I type this!
Do you play the guitar? Do you like robots? If you said ‘yes’ to both questions you may be excited to learn about the Robot Guitar!
For as long as the guitar has existed, guitar lovers have had two choices—live with a temperamental and out-of-tune instrument or make frequent trips to the shop for setups. Not anymore.
(I think this means that it tunes itself – I don’t know. I am not a guitar player.)
The first SubText08 event is tonight, from 6pm to 8pm at Tawa library. There will be food, music, and entertainment. Details here.
Interesting fact about Tawa; the suburb is named after the Tawa tree, the seeds of which can only be dispersed by two endangered birds, the Kokako and the Kereru. The seeds are too large for any other bird to poo out.
NASA has created a video from stills taken in deep space that show the moon moving around Earth. This is very rare footage as, well, it’s not everyday photos are taken in deep space.
During a full Earth rotation, images obtained by Deep Impact at a 15-minute cadence have been combined to make a color video. During the video, the moon enters the frame (because of its orbital motion) and transits Earth, then leaves the frame. Other spacecraft have imaged Earth and the moon from space, but Deep Impact is the first to show a transit of Earth with enough detail to see large craters on the moon and oceans and continents on Earth.
Watch it here, or watch it below …
Read more…
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