Author Archives: Michael Wyres

Shane Van Gisbergen – Doing It Differently

Honestly, this probably isn’t that big of a deal, but in finally catching up with last weekend’s Symmons Plains round of the V8 Supercars Championship – (I was unable to watch it live on the day) – I noticed something really interesting. Notice how Shane Van Gisbergen does some of his downshifts with the back […]

Open Up Public Transport Performance Data

Anyone who expects a public transport system to always run on time and without faults or other problems is almost certainly kidding themselves. Like any man-made system, things just go wrong sometimes. The sign of a good public transport system is how well the situation is handled when things do go wrong. Good public transport […]

Sunday Nerding: The Columbia Disaster

Into space this week for the first time in a little while, and a documentary on the Space Shuttle Columbia Disaster, back in 2003. Unlike a lot of documentaries on this topic, this one looks at more of the cultural and scientific aspects of the incident, rather than just a raw explanation of what caused […]

Propaganda Targeted With Propaganda?

Today has seen another episode of “completely missing the point” released by the Australian Government. Government Targets Online Terror Propaganda “Terrorist propaganda posted on social media and the internet will be monitored and analysed under an $18 million plan announced by the Abbott government.” How will they target the propaganda? “The government will also produce […]

The Metadata Minefield

Despite there being little or no evidence on the effectiveness or usefulness of mass data retention in jurisdictions where it has been implemented, our current Australian government seems determined to steamroll legislation through the parliament to introduce it here. For its part, despite some noises against the idea, the current opposition Labor party – (the […]

Accidentally Revealing Your New Livery Early

It was great to see the return of Shell to the list of major sponsors in the V8 Supercars championship, particularly since it is returning to the team it is synonymous with, DJR Team Penske. Ambrose’s Clipsal Livery Revealed In an economic climate where sponsors have been hard to come by in the category, it […]

Sunday Nerding: Overhauling A Boeing 747

Ever boarded an aircraft and thought “hey, this thing looks pretty old, is it still safe?” Many planes in the global fleet have ages beyond 20 years – for example, the Qantas fleet of 747-400 aircraft which has just been retired, was in service for around 25 years. Their remaining fleet of 747-400ER are about […]

Sunday Nerding: The Enigma Code

With the recent release of the film The Imitation Game about the life and times of Alan Turing, the key scientist – (a mathematican) – in solving the problem of being able to quickly break the German enigma codes of World War II, I thought it might be time to explain in simple terms what […]

You Don’t Know What Non-Fiction Means

Just spotted this in the local Target store while wandering around on my lunch break. Non-fiction? Yeah, I don’t think you know what that means!

Seriously eBay – Not Cool!

I discovered this email from eBay in my inbox this morning, and immediately thought “holy shit!” Click the image for a larger view: The email is about selling up unwanted gifts on eBay, which some people may be inclined to do at this time of year. My nanna passed away 31 years ago, so while […]