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KnowIT
Last Downloaded: Fri, 03 Feb 2012 20:19:52 GMT. |
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A walk on Te Raekaihau headland provides great views On a cool overcast Sunday the dogs and I explored tracks on Te Raekaihau headland on Wellington's South Coast. The climb was steep, the little-used tracks narrow, but the views were absolutely worth the effort. It’s hard to find any information about Te Raekaihau headland on Wellington’s South Coast.
But I was driving past recently when I glimpsed the start of a walking track. Today was the day for the dogs and I to explore the track. It was a good day for it — overcast and neither cool nor warm.
Te Raekaihau track starts opposite Princess Bay on the South Coast.
The Headland
There’s quite a bit written about Te Raekaihau Point — the darkish spot on the Coast where you can get good views of the Southern sky because there aren’t too many artificial lights around. But my searching for information about the headland and its tracks didn’t produce anything useful.
Even though apparently Te Raekaihau, part of Te Ranga a Hiwi, can be translated as the headland that eats the wind it actually wasn’t a windy walk at all.
The Journal of the Polynesian Society tells us:
Te Ranga-a-Hiwi. We have seen that this is the Maori name of the range extending from Pt. Jerningham to the coast between Lyall and Island Bays, and on which are the three peaks known as Mt. Victoria, Mt. Alfred and Mt. Albert.
Steep climbs
If you’re thinking of doing this walk be ready for some very steep climbing. I think my calves will be complaining tomorrow.
One of several signposts on Te Raekaihau walk. In the background is a glimpse of the South Island.
The tracks themselves were overgrown and clearly not used much. We did meet a party of 3 women coming down the hill just as we were starting up, but didn’t see anyone else.
Where we walked on Te Raekaihau.
There were plenty of signposts, though, crucially, not where we needed them on the track we were coming down at the end of the walk. After stumbling around lost, but heading downhill, we eventually came out behind The Pines.
Beautiful views
As you’d expect, the higher we climbed the better the views.
On the next page are half a dozen photos I took on the walk. The page comes in at around 300 KB.
All up we walked a tad less than 3 Km and spent an hour doing it.
I wouldn’t do this walk in or soon after rain as it’s too overgrown, and parts are very steep so could be horribly slippery. But if you’re fit, enjoy scenery and fancy a different walk then give it a try.
As always, dogs are supposed to be on leash, though I can’t really see why they need to be on this walk.
More dog walks
A couple of years ago I started up the Run Spot Run website to review off-leash dog walks in Wellington, New Zealand. If you have dogs please visit and help fill in and build up the information.
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23 to 27 January 2012 Tech Universe Digest Superbus; No Space For Trash; Sugar Phone; Giant Eye; Painless Eye; Robots Inside; Spiralling Power; Fold To Park; Gun Show; 3D Earth; Dog Meet Snake Robot; Circular Scan; Road Block.
- SUPERBUS: Big cities need to move a lot of people around, so forget your piffling city bus that carries maybe 50 people to work in the morning. Go big: China’s Youngman JNP6250G superbus is 25 metres long and can carry 300 people. It has 2 bending sections to allow it to go around corners, and 5 doors. The buses will be used on Bus Rapid Transit in Beijing and Hangzhou. Maybe they’d be useful in Auckland too. China Tech Gadget.
- NO SPACE FOR TRASH: At the moment if you can get off planet you’re pretty much free of laws and regulation. You can litter as much as you like, and just generally do anything you can afford. Now at last the US is joining existing European efforts to create an International Code of Conduct for Outer Space Activities. The Code aims to establish guidelines for the responsible use of space, including cleaning up our space environment. Section One: no storing or sharing files in space. Network World.
- SUGAR PHONE: The Smart GlucoMeter from iHealth is a detachable dongle for an iOS device that helps track blood sugar levels. Add a small sample of blood to a test strip and insert the strip into the dongle. The iHealth app records the level and produces various charts and alerts. Our health in our own hands. Wired.
- PUT THIS IN YOUR PIPE: Researchers in California have found a way to use cheap plastic to remove CO2 from the air. One of their goals was to filter out CO2 from the air being used by iron-based batteries. They added inexpensive polyethylenimine to the surface of fumed silica and created a material that was good at absorbing CO2 from humid air at comparatively low temperatures. Sounds like we should attach these to the exhaust pipe of every vehicle on the road. Science Now.
- FOUR BY ONE: Silicon wires just 4 atoms wide and 1 atom tall can carry as much electrical current as copper wires, according to researchers from Australia and the US. The wires are made from chains of phosphorus atoms within a silicon crystal. This could be very useful for creating actual quantum computers. They must surely have much wider application than just quantum computers. PhysOrg.
- GIANT EYE: The Giant Magellan Telescope will be situated high in the Atacama Desert in northern Chile in 2020 when it’s finished. The telescope will have 7 mirrors, each 8.4 metres in diameter, arranged as segments of a single mirror 24.5 metres in diameter. The spun glass has to be polished to an optical surface accuracy within about 25 nanometers. The GMT will be able to acquire images 10 times sharper than the Hubble Space Telescope. It should be a whole lot easier and cheaper to maintain and repair too. Giant Magellan Telescope.
- PAINLESS EYE: After some eye surgeries patients must use anaesthetic eye drops at regular intervals over several days. Researchers at the University of Florida have found a way to use Vitamin E to load topical anaesthetics into silicone contact lenses so that they release slowly over 1 to 7 days. What other substances could be added to contact lenses for slow release? MedGadget.
- ROBOTS INSIDE: Researchers from Israel and the USA collaborated to create a robot that will be able to swim through the intestines and send back images. The microswimmer is the size of a large pill. This is different from current similar devices because its movements can be controlled so it can be directed to where it’s most useful. Its copper and flexible polymer tail vibrates in response to the magnetic field created by an MRI scan and propels the device. Next on the list is presumably a handheld device to create the required magnetic field. Singularity Hub.
- HEART OF STEEL: Our societies run on solid copper wire, so it’s not actually terribly funny when people steal it then communications go down. With the price of copper still rising, in some places telecom cable theft is epidemic. The GroundSmart Copper Clad Steel cable hopes to deter theft, simply by being equally effective but less valuable. It uses a thin layer of copper casing around a steel core. Take that, copper thieves. PC World.
- SPIRALLING POWER: A concentrated solar power plant has a central tower that receives sunshine reflected from mirrors all around it. The tower then generates power. Now researchers at MIT and Aachen University in Germany have found that arranging the mirrors in the same kind of spiral pattern as seen in sunflowers can reduce the footprint by 20% and increase the power. The Fermat spiral pattern is more compact, and reduces shading and blocking by neighbouring mirrors. The mantra should always be: follow what nature does. ScienceDaily.
Do you need a writer or trainer? I’m available for and looking for casual, short-term and long-term contracts writing articles, help files, training manuals, websites. See my Portfolio then Contact me.
Notes: I write a Tech Universe column for the NZ Herald. This is a fun assignment: Tech Universe brings 5 headlines each day about what’s up in the world of technology. Above are the links from last week as supplied. The items that were published in The Herald may differ slightly.
While I find all the items interesting, some are just cooler than others. I’ve marked out those items.
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16 to 20 January 2012 Tech Universe Digest Pawsed; Everyone Knows Where You Are; He's Alive, Jim; Cold Storage; High Hopes; Dolphin Detectors; Go Solo; Will Fly For Oil; Whalercoaster; Family Finder.
- JUST BREATHE: European scientists are developing biosensors that can detect the presence of tumour markers of lung cancer in exhaled breath. Our breath contains all kinds of organic compounds, and cancer doesn’t have a single marker. Instead several compounds together can betray it. Tecnalia developed novel materials sensitive enough to detect the compounds medical teams are interested in. Being able to detect tumours early improves the chances of being cured. Sensitive materials, eh. Like a dog’s nose? Tecnalia.
- PAWSED: PAWS may just save your life one day. It stands for Portable, All-Terrain, Wireless System — a lightweight night and day camera that straps on to a search and rescue dog and sends a wireless signal back to a human controller nearby. A trained dog can search through rubble or a collapsed building, while a rescue commander can watch what it sees. An infrared view can cut through dark spaces, Once the dog locates someone who’s trapped the rescue team can go in. The UK makers had to source a camera that weighed even less than a standard helmet cam so a dog could wear it. Does the dog get a helmet too? BBC.
- WALKABOUT: Ekso Bionics hope their new exoskeleton can help people with paraplegia to walk on their own. It’s intended for medical facilities where people can be supervised while they train to use it. A physiotherapist helps control the device with a remote, while the human inside it needs to learn to balance their upper body. In case you think this sounds familiar, Ekso were previously called Berkeley Bionics. If you can walk unassisted now, don’t take it for granted. IEEE.
- SHIFTING SANDS: Teaching robots to walk on a hard surface is tricky enough. On sand it’s enormously more difficult because sand shifts, and the feet sink in. Engineers from Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan, have been studying how a small model robot foot walks in sand. They plan to use this data for full-size robots. Eventually they hope to help robots walk on any kind of sand or loose soil. And maybe it could be applied to exoskeletons too. New Scientist.
- EVERYONE KNOWS WHERE YOU ARE: The US Government runs the current Global Positioning System, and that introduces problems of a political nature. Now China has its own version of GPS in operation. Beidou make available location, timing and navigation data in China and surrounding areas. 10 satellites are currently in orbit for Beidou, while another half dozen should launch soon. Then the network will be doubled over the next few years. Beidou should be correct to within 10 metres for civilians, but the Chinese military can access more accurate data. What’s good for everyone is that the system is compatible and interoperable with the world’s other navigation systems. Meanwhile the European system called Galileo should be up and running in a few years. Location, location, location. BBC.
Do you need a writer or trainer? I’m available for and looking for casual, short-term and long-term contracts writing articles, help files, training manuals, websites. See my Portfolio then Contact me.
Notes: I write a Tech Universe column for the NZ Herald. This is a fun assignment: Tech Universe brings 5 headlines each day about what’s up in the world of technology. Above are the links from last week as supplied. The items that were published in The Herald may differ slightly.
While I find all the items interesting, some are just cooler than others. I’ve marked out those items.
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Dear US authors, from us readers, in the rest of the world Authors, publishers, someone … please let me buy the Kindle versions of your books even though I'm in the-not-the-USA. Please. One of my Internet pals in New Mexico gave me a little gift yesterday, which left me grinning like a fool. Virginia DeBolt went to hear one of her favourite authors speak — someone who’s one of my favourites too: Nevada Barr.
After the talk Virginia had Nevada Barr hold up a sign:
I made this hokey looking sign for Miraz, and Nevada happily posed with a greeting to her far-away fan. The last thing she told me after signing my book, was, “And hi to Miraz.”
This is Virginia’s photo (resized to fit here):
Nevada Barr says Hi Miraz.
The ebook geography problem
I first discovered Nevada Barr’s books a little more than a year ago, thanks to the Kindle store. I mentioned them in Try an ebook today — they’re fun.
What that article didn’t mention though was that only her first book — the one that got me hooked on her writing — was available to me on Kindle.
I came across Track of the Cat (An Anna Pigeon Novel), was interested, downloaded it moments later after paying by credit card and was reading it within minutes, all without leaving the couch. Oh, and ‘shipping’ was free.
Some of the Nevada Barr Kindle books available to US-based readers.
As soon as I finished it I went back to Amazon to buy the next one in the series.
Did you know that if you visit from a US IP address you can see around 21 of her books in the Kindle format, mostly at US$7.99 per book, but if you visit from a New Zealand IP address you see only one (plus one anthology that includes some of her work)?
That day I was in the swing. I had my figurative wallet out and was about to willingly hand over some virtual cash, and … nothing but frustration.
Frustration!
This is not the first time I’ve been disadvantaged by geography. Another of my most favourite authors is Marcia Muller and it’s the same story — I can’t buy her books in Kindle format. Not a single one of her superb Sharon McCone series is available to me on Kindle, because I’m in New Zealand.
I’ll spare you the long rant, but this really annoys and frustrates me.
When I bought the paperback of Muller’s Locked In from Amazon back in September 2010 — I’ve tried and failed to find any of her books locally, except occasionally in second hand stores — I paid US$7.99 for the book and US$9.98 for shipping. New Zealand is a long way away from almost everywhere.
All of the Nevada Barr Kindle books available to NZ-based readers.
I only paid those prices because I had a coupon that covered half the amount. Shipping at the rate I can afford takes weeks.
I suspect most Kiwis who buy from Amazon save up until they have a bunch of items and then buy them all at once to save on shipping.
I’ve bought numerous books from Amazon since then — none were on paper and all were Kindle books.
No spontaneous purchases
So, back to the Kindle Store. I was ready and willing to pay out a sum of money for the instant gratification of reading the series one after the other on my iPad. But it was no go because they wouldn’t sell the books to me.
In fact, if I was logged in they wouldn’t even show the books to me.
The Library loop
So I bought something else instead and read that. Then sometime later I borrowed my partner’s Library Card and visited Wellington Central Library. I haven’t owned, wanted or needed a library card for well over a decade now, perhaps more like 15 years.
After a 10 minute drive to town, finding a free space, paying for parking, I found the correct shelves in the Library and was lucky enough to find the next few books in the series.
I borrowed them, drove home, read them. Then repeated the process, with the added frustration of not finding a couple of books in the middle of the series.
An eternal optimist
I’m now a few books behind with both favourite authors. I’m really reluctant to buy anything on paper any more, and definitely won’t buy a hardback book. Those hardbacks always seem to be published first — it’s very annoying.
I keep thinking with each book that this time they’ll let me buy the Kindle version. Each time so far I’ve been disappointed. I’m in New Zealand so I’m not allowed to buy that version.
Authors and publishers please sell to me
Here’s my plea: authors and publishers, it’s the 21st century. We have devices that display your ebooks superbly. We have instant delivery at almost zero cost. We have a global economy. We have the technology to pay you in your country instantly in your currency from our country.
We have folks here who want to pay you for your products delivered as ebooks.
For that matter, we have people who want to buy all kinds of digital products, including movies and music, if only they were legally available to us. We’re talking books, music and movies here folks, not heroin or biological warfare agents.
Authors: please sell us your work, as ebooks. That $4 parking fee? I’d rather pay it to you for your ebooks than to the Council to rent a small rectangle of roadway for an hour.
And if it’s your publisher who’s stuck in the 19th century, give them a push! Show them the wonders of this newfangled thing called the Internet. I’m sure they’d like to expand their market.
Nevada Barr: thanks for the Hi , and the photo. That was a nice little buzz for the day. From you in New Mexico to me in Wellington, New Zealand in the blink of an eye. The Internet is magic!
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