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Oct 10 2011

There’s some red port left in the bottle.

Do you know your port from your starboard?

It is easy if you remember that ‘there is some red port left in the bottle’.

‘Port’ is the nautical term for left, and it is designated by the colour red.

‘Starboard’ is the nautical term for right, and is designated by the colour green,

The WILT team have been away on a houseboat for a few days.

Even when sailing the high seas, there are ‘rules of the road’ that must be obeyed.

Sailboats have right of way over power boats.

When travelling upriver (i.e. towards port), keep the green channels markers on your starboard side, and the red channel markers on your port side. Do the opposite when travelling downstream (towards the sea).

If you current course will cause you to collide with a boat coming towards you, change your course to starboard. i.e. pass the other boat on your left side – the opposite of the way we drive.(Keep right)

If you are on a course that will cross another power boat, you should give way if that boat is on your starboard (right).

If two sailing boats are on a collision course, the boat with the wind coming from its starboard side has right of way. If the two yachts are on the same tack, the downwind (leeward) boat has right of way.

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Oct 06 2011

Steve Jobs is my Hero

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

Apple

Apple has lost a visionary and creative genius, and the world has lost an amazing human being

http://www.apple.com/stevejobs/

The White House

Steve was among the greatest of American innovators – brave enough to think differently, bold enough to believe he could change the world, and talented enough to do it….

Steve was fond of saying that he lived every day like it was his last. Because he did, he transformed our lives, redefined entire industries, and achieved one of the rarest feats in human history: he changed the way each of us sees the world.

The world has lost a visionary. And there may be no greater tribute to Steve’s success than the fact that much of the world learned of his passing on a device he invented.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/10/05/statement-president-pas…

Wired Magazine

Steve Jobs’s Greatest Achievements

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/10/steve-jobs-greatest-achievements/

Time Magazine

“It ain’t bragging if you can back it up.”

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2096251,00.html

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Sep 29 2011

Our Personal Ecosystem – We Are What We Eat

Did you know that our bodies are more bacterial than human?

There are so many bacteria living on our skin, in our nose and (especially) in our bowel, that only 1% of the DNA that we carry around is human. The rest is bacterial.

Our body is made up of 10 trillion cells. In addition, we are home to 100 trillion microbial cells, consisting of thousands of different species.

We need these bacteria. They play an improtant role in our immune system, help to break down the food we eat, and produce some vitamins on which we depend.

This ‘microbiome‘ is all the rage. It is increasingly recognsied that our general health is dependent on the composition of the bacteria that we host. Scientists suggest that ‘we are what we eat’ because the food that we have affects the makeup of our microbiome so directly.

Wired magazine this week has published an atlas of this ‘microbiome’, with a discussion of how it affects our general health.

And Norman Swan on the Health Report has recently discussed how our diet affects the microbes in our bowels with Professor Charles Mackay, Director of Immunology and Inflammation at Monash University.

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Sep 28 2011

Spy vs Spy

Spies have to make difficult decisions.

When it comes to iPhone-controlled manoeuroable video surveillance gadgets, do you go with the tank or the quadricopter?

Both create their own wifi network. You can steer them using the iPhone, and onboard video cameras allow you to view what’s happening from a safe distance.