Thing of the Day

Advice to Sink in Slowly

zance — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 07:30:04 +0000

Advice to Sink in Slowly is a great project that showcases graduate designed posters for the purpose of passing on advice to first year students. These posters offer some great words of wisdom that all freshers will find useful and the posters are both quirky and beautifully designed. Advice such as ‘Use your library… You’ll miss it when you leave” and “Debt is not your friend” will certainly make your time at university a lot easier!

First year students can also take advantage of their free poster offer!

http://advicetosinkinslowly.net/

Scott of the Antarctic

mluvit — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 07:57:34 +0000

One hundred years ago this month, Captain Robert Falcon Scott led an expedition to the South Pole. These men were the first Britons to do so, arriving just after the Norwegian expedition led by Roald Amundsen. Here is something from the BBC:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16628909

Robert Burns

mluvit — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 07:30:41 +0000

Today is the birthday of the Scottish poet Robert Burns. Here is some information from the National Library of Scotland about him:

http://digital.nls.uk/burns/index.htm

And if you fancy a go at making haggis and other Burns Night cuisine:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/occasions/burns_night

Top Predictions for the Next Hundred Years

mluvit — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 08:28:04 +0000

The BBC recently asked for top predictions for the next hundred years, inspired by American Civil Engineer John Elfreth Watkins’ hypotheses in 1900:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16444966

Here are what BBC viewers have sent in. What do you think will happen?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16536598

农历新年

mluvit — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 07:30:07 +0000

Today marks the start of the Chinese Year of the Dragon. In China, New Year is also known as the Spring Festival. Here are some articles about Chinese New Year:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_New_Year

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_(zodiac)

And some recipies for Chinese dishes!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/cuisines/chinese

Memrise

puhua — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 07:30:43 +0000

Here’s an interesting way to learn the vocabulary for a variety of languages. The site uses flashcards supported by video clips, mnemonics and samples of how each word is used. Anyone can add to the site by creating flashcards, adding words or mems (anything that helps you learn a connection between a word and its meaning).

http://www.memrise.com

Online colour challenge

puhua — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 07:30:10 +0000

According to the NHS, about 1 in 12 men have a colour vision defficiency. The figure is about 1 in 100 for women. Here’s a site that challenges you to arrange colours in their order of hue. This particular male contributor to TOTD scored 76 (towards the low end of colour acuity). What score do you get?

http://www.xrite.com/custom_page.aspx?PageID=77&Lang=en

You can read more about colour vision deficiency here

http://www.rnib.org.uk/professionals/accessibleinformation/colour/Pages/colour_deficiencies.aspx

Map of Reykjavic

puhua — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 07:30:03 +0000

Our Cartographer has been working on a map of the University campus that includes three-dimensional representations of key buildings. We’ve seen many examples of such maps before, but here’s one of the best of its type that was published last year. The base map appears to be hand drawn and coloured – apparently it took two years and over 3,000 hours to complete.

http://www.reykjavikcentermap.com/#

When your model helicopter goes wrong

puhua — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 07:30:23 +0000

Did anyone get a radio controlled helicopter for Christmas? This clip shows what can happen in the event of a battery fault. It’s extraordinary how the operator managed to keep it airborne for so long.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPeoklS3PA0&NR=1&feature=endscreen

Awesome lunchboxes

puhua — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 07:30:50 +0000

As the children returned to school after Christmas it was necessary to get back in the swing of preparing packed lunches. TOTD’s kids have to prepare their own, however it’s clear from this site that some parents either have too much time on their hands or are desparate to encourage interest in food.

http://lunchboxawesome.tumblr.com/

[Thanks to LB for spotting this]