Sideswipe: In praise of Kiwi ingenuity

Get the feeling?

Stu shares on Facebook: "Back in the early days TV3 ran a competition to see who could come up with the most creative '3'…A friend of mine made a video of himself using a jigsaw and cutting a '3' in the roof of a brand new car, which he then bent up so it was standing upright above the roof. He won a prize for the — 14-inch colour TV. Afterwards, he cut the rest of the opening and installed a sunroof."

Not OK for this Boomer

"One of the fall-outs from the Covid crisis is that NZ universities have adopted online examinations as standard," writes Marty. "In my day, exams were sat in large halls with socially distant individual tables, to prevent you from stealing a peek at another student's written response. The examination halls were tightly supervised and even toilet breaks were escorted. Compare this with an online exam done at home, where any number of support team members could easily assist, or even with screen sharing capabilities, you could have subject matter experts anywhere in the world at your disposal. I know you are not supposed to do this, but how does this play out in reality? How can this be a substitute for an exam being sat under supervision?"

Did you know…

1. Beer is thought to be older than bread. It's much easier to fill a jar with wheat and water, let it ferment, and brew beer than it is to grind grain, mix it, and bake it.
2. Spiders tune their webs like guitar strings, tightening and loosening strands so they can read the different frequencies caused by intruders and determine where/how big the intruders are, if they are predator or prey, or if they're just a potential mate flirtatiously strumming their strings.
3. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, "strengths" is the longest word in the English language with one vowel. The word contains nine letters, eight of them being consonants.

Unco-parking

Cars are hard.

Gardening is the secret to happiness

"Sounds super strange, especially coming from someone like myself - an ex-World of Warcraft gamer. I had kids, got busy with work, wanted out of the suburbs, got some land in the country, and started planting stuff. Years later I have what I call a food forest.

"I have replaced lawns with fruit trees, bushes, vines, flowers, all woven together to mimic a natural forest - except everything in it is edible. It has changed my life completely. I just think there's something about being outside in the sun, feet on soil, hands in dirt, planting stuff. Watching it grow in the background of your life. Going out and checking on it and watching how much bigger it is getting. Watching life find it, and now you get to live with the natural world, not isolated from it.

"Birds making nests in your trees, frogs making home in your ponds, seeing bees all around your flowers, butterflies everywhere. Rabbits and squirrels moving in, then owls moving in to eat those. It's this wonderful trophic cascade that you started, and it's incredibly rewarding. Plus, being able to just walk outside and get chemical-free nutrient-rich dinner is amazing. I actually think a big reason depression is such a big thing these days is because we have all become so disconnected from the life that we evolved in for the last 6 million years. We evolved walking around savannahs and forests, pulling food off bushes and trees, out in the sun, feet in the soil, hands in the dirt. We couldn't be further from that, living inside our isolated homes, cars and offices. It's no wonder we're all so depressed."