What I Learnt Today

I’ve read somewhere that if the army have a reason for you to learn a foreign language, they have techniques that can have you fluent within three months.

I don’t know if they learnt these methods from my primary school teachers, but if Mrs Collins (Grade 3) or Ms Tennant (Grade 4) wanted us to learn something, it stayed learned! Rote learning and mnemonics, reward and punishments.  More than 3 out of 10 wrong in spelling each day – off to Father Schneider to get the strap. We sure learnt our tables and our spelling (most of us – some poor souls would get the strap every day).

I can remember that the mnemonic for costal rivers of NSW is “Tweed, Richmond, Clarance Macleay is a hasty man who hunted hawks on the Shoalhaven River”. That has come in very handy for boring my kids on the long drive from the Richmond River to Sydney.

Today was Millie’s tenth birthday party, and Hallie was kind enough to give her the book “Thirty Days has September – Cool Ways to Remember Stuff” by Chris Stevens. It is a wonderful catalogue of aids to assist in spelling, history, maths and general knowledge.

“You’d better clear a space inside your brain it’s about to fill up with fascinating facts!”

Stevens includes a range of mnemonics including acrostics (mum needs effective methods or nothing is certain), rhymes (in fourteen hundred and ninety two…..), acronoyms (SPA reminds us that the order of Greek philosophers was Socrates, Plato and Arisotle), pithy sayings (always remember you must accommodate two ‘c’s, two ‘m’s, and an ‘o’ after each), and maths tips (if you forget your eight times table, double the number, double again, and double again).

It also includes drawings by Sarah Horne as an aide memoire. Did you know that the countries of central America make a shape like an elephants trunk, and the mnemonic to remember them is My Great Big Elephant Has No Critical Problems. (what a lucky elephant)

I won’t forget the distinction between stalactites and stalagmites. “Imagine what would happen if tiny insects crawled up your aunty’s legs. – The ‘mites go up and the ‘tites come down.”

You beauty. Thanks Hallie.

What are your favourite ways to remember cool stuff?

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They say that all news is local, but some is more local than others.

There were celebrations in Alstonville today with the official opening of the much anticipated Alstonville Bypass – after a 40 year wait and a 40 million dollar spend.

Will checks the sunset over the new bypass.

Alstonville is was on the Bruxner Highway, at the midpoint between Lismore and Ballina. This meant that up to 15,000 cars, trucks and Double-bs had to negotiate the iconic Giant Walking Frame and the narrow main street each day.

Ballina may have its big prawn……

The need for a bypass was recognized in the 1970s – the route was determined and the land set aside. Every state and federal election since, each side has promised that the Alstonville bypass would be funded. Must have been a non-core promise.

Eventually, the Bypass Action Group, lead by Bob ‘Mahatama’ Wilson, organized a campaign of civil disobedience. During morning peak hour, a flotilla of our more mobile residents marched back and forth across the crossing in Main St, accompanied by their respective walking sticks, wheely walkers or forearm support frames. Havoc prevailed for through traffic. You can image how delighted the Lembke children were to be included in the photo of the event published in the Northern Star.

Civil Disobedience – Alstonville takes a stand

The pressure was too much, and after her election in Kevin 07, new member Janelle Saffin secured the requisite funding, to her very great credit.

And today the town celebrates the first day of being bypassed. It’s a bit quiet without all that compression braking.

 

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I love my Fisher Space Pen.

The West Wing, Series 3, Episode 21 “We Killed Yamamoto”, (2002) :

Josh and Toby come in with Leo.

JOSH

Hey.

LEO

We spent millions of dollars developing a pen for the astronauts that would work in zero gravity. Know what the Russians did?

TOBY

Used a pencil?

LEO

They used a pencil.

It makes a good story – rich American’s over-reliance on expensive technology, vs the enforced practicality of poor Russian. However, like many good stories, it ain’t actually so.

The ‘zero gravity’ or ‘space pen’ was invented in 1965 by Paul C Fisher, and they are still made by his company in Boulder City, Nevada. They were developed privately, without funding from the US space program.

Initially, both the Russian and US space program used pencils for writing in zero gravity  But there were problems with broken bits of lead floating around the capsule. and graphite dust, and concerns about flammability.

Pen manufacture Paul Fisher invested about a million dollars in perfecting the ballpoint pen. In 1965, he saw a marketing opportunity, and sent the pressurised pen he had developed to the Houston Space Centre for assessment. He also began to advertise his ‘space pen’ – but the advertisements were blocked by NASA who considered it misleading to claim their endorsement.

However, the pens were good, and, eventually, NASA did place a large order for Fisher’s ‘space pens’, as did the Russian Space Agency soon afterwards. Since 1968, they have been the only pen used in space travel, by cosmonauts or astronauts. 

The full story is told at the space review.

The space pen’s cartridge is pressurised. There is a small sliding float between pressurised gas at one end and the special ‘thixotropic’ ink at the other.  Due to the pressure of the gas, the pen does not rely on gravity to write as other pens do. It can be used in zero gravity, upside down, underwater, over wet and greasy paper, at any angle, and in extreme temperature ranges.

There are two models, the AG7 Astronaut pen, and my preferred model – the compact Bullet Pen. The bullet pen is half the length of a normal biro, but becomes full length when you place the ‘cap’ on the rear end for writing. (Make sure you get the model with the clip – they come in different colours but I like the 400CL)

Closed Bullet Pen

Opened, with the cap on the end

The Bullet Space Pen is a perfect match for my wallet – the Levenger ‘Pocket Briefcase’. I take them both everywhere.

 

Space Pens and refill cartridges are available at Myers and other pen shops, and can be bought online through many eBay dealers and from Peter’s at Kensington. The Bullet Pen with clip costs between $35 and $55 depending on the deal on the day you buy them. Refills are about $10.

You never know when I may find myself in outer space.

If I am, I’m sure it would be handy to be able to write down someone’s number.

 

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Since 1984, TED has hosted some of the world’s most inspiring thinkers, with the aim of “leveraging the power of ideas to change the world“.

Initially a one off event, the TED lecture series has been held annually since 1990, firstly in Monterey, then Long Beach and Palm Springs, and now internationally. Initially the focus was largely on technology and design, and more recently they deal with a wide range of topics within the research and practice of science and culture.

No matter who famous you are, you are allotted only 18 minutes to present your ideas. What a great concept – clearly designed to perfectly match the attention span of a GP! 

Past presenters include Bill Clinton, Jane Goodall, Malcolm Gladwell, Al Gore, Gordon Brown, Richard Dawkins, Bill Gates, educator Salman Khan, Presentation Zen Guru Garr Reynolds, Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and many Nobel Prize winners.

TED is now hosted by Chris Anderson and his not-for-profit Sapling Foundation. For an annual fee of $6000, you can join the TED network and attend any TED conference.

However, if an idea is worth spreading, TED believes it should be set free. All TED talks are available free – either via live streaming of through a complete online archive – which now hosts more than 700 talks!

“We believe passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and ultimately, the world. So we’re building here a clearinghouse that offers free knowledge and inspiration from the world’s most inspired thinkers, and also a community of curious souls to engage with ideas and each other.”

In addition to allowing access through your normal web browser, iPhone and iPad apps make it easy to track TED talks.

TEDxSydney 2011 takes place this Saturday at CarriageWorks, Sydney.

Tickets to the theatre itself were free, but all have been allocated. You can attend the live simulcast next door in the CarriageWorks, or watch it live on YouTube. You can also listen to a special Radio National ‘Big Ideas’ broadcast from 1pm – 7pm.

Speakers are listed on the TedxSydney web site.

Here is a selection of interesting TED talks from over the years:

• Shai Agassi’s Bold Plans for Electric Cars
• Ron Gutman: The hidden power of smiling
• Sir Ken Robinson and Creativity
• Deb Roy – The Birth of a Word
• Cynthea Breazeal – The Rise of Personal Robots
• Nigel Marsh: How to make work-life balance work

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What do these baddies have in common?

They are all disciples of Rube Goldberg.

“Reuben Goldberg was an American cartoonist, sculptor, author, engineer and inventor. He is best known for his cartoon depicting complex gadgets that perform simple tasks in indirect, convoluted ways. 

These devices are now known as Rube Goldberg machines.” (Wikipedia)

Each year since 1949 Purdue University have staged the Rube Goldberg Machine Contest. This year the task was to water a plant in at least 20 steps. The machine featured in the video below ran into a problem during the contest and was disqualified, but (as is the nature of such things), worked immediately afterwards.

The young designers are waiting to hear if they are accepted by the Guinness Book of Records as the creators of the World’s Most Complicated Goldberg machine.

The machine traces out the history of the world from Big Bang to Apocalypse (and then waters a plant)

At full speed it is hard to follow:

Broken down into steps:

 

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