The warm sunny weather has led to a discovery under the front lawn. The clue was the fact that the ground was squelchy after three weeks with no rain. Either a new hot spring was in the process of popping up out of the lawn, or our water pipe had sprung a leak. It’s not […]
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Aircraft insulation
I read in the NZ Herald this week that one of Air New Zealand’s energy-saving strategies was to make sure an aircraft’s insulation is dry. Apparantly, 200 kg of water can be sucked out of a plane’s insulation. Sounds impressive. The article appeared to be pushing the weight saving as the main cost saving. Two hundred […]
Continue readingSticky Milk Powder
Earlier this week, we had the end-of-year display of student engineering projects. There were lots of posters put up to browse around over tea, several interesting large objects such as pieces of electric cars, and many fascinating talks given by the students. One of the most enjoyable talks was given by student Timothy Walmsley, concerning a study on […]
Continue readingDiffraction
If you’re like me, you’ve been mesmerized by the colours created by reflections from a DVD or CD. The discs do a great job of splitting the illuminating ‘white’ light of your home light-bulbs into its constituent colours. But unlike a prism or raindrop, which achieve this effect through refraction (blue light travels more slowly […]
Continue readingThe smart tap – the plot thickens
I’ve commented on our tea room tap a couple of times before (here and here). This week it hasn’t been giving any cold water at all. And then this morning it was absent. Just gone, leaving a hole in the sink unit. Now, I think it was probably removed by a university-contracted plumber, but there is […]
Continue readingSeal level rises
I received an email yesterday alerting me to an upcoming news brief on the implications of seal level rise as a result of climate change. A rise in seal level is something that I hadn’t thought of before. I’m not sure whether we are talking about specific species of seal, like the New Zealand fur […]
Continue readingThe smart tap
Yesterday I went into our tearoom and there was a post-it note on the high-tech tap saying it wasn’t working. Why am I not surprised? Maybe we’ll have to replace it with an even smarter one…Have a good weekend, wherever you are…
Continue readingIce on windows
No, not ice on car windows this time, but ice on aeroplane windows. John Fouhy has sent this question to me, and I don’t know the answer. I have a couple of ideas, but what do you think? Below I reproduce John’s question in full, along with the picture. Airpoints Gold Card holders, help us […]
Continue readingCold and humid
Saturday was one of those days that the Waikato winter is famous for. Cold and damp – by damp I mean humid as well as raining – in fact the kind of weather that reminds you that you are living in an area that used to be one massive swamp. The sort of dampness that […]
Continue readingHigh technology tearoom
I feel it is about time I commented on the high-technology tap that is in our Faculty tearoom. It was put in several months ago during refurbishment. It’s certainly an impressive-looking tap. It has switches for hot and cold water, that you can flip up or down to turn the water on (the only difference […]
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