On a clear day you can see forever
On a clear day plane trips provide a glorious bird's eye view of the world's geographical wonders and now travellers can download an app with information on the mountains, rivers, and plains below them. Flyover Country works with a phone's GPS, and uses maps and information from scientific databases to identify land features miles away. According Mental Floss, a map tags the features you're seeing from your window, and you can pull up cached Wikipedia pages to learn about a given peak or body of water. University of Minnesota geology student Shane Loeffler and a team of geologists are now working on adding more information - their goal is for geologists and paleontologists to upload their fieldwork research to create a massive, Earth science database. (Source: Mental Floss).
Stick to your lane in CBD
I'd like to point out the consistently bad driving I see turning from Pitt St into Nelson St in Auckland's CBD, declares a concerned reader. "There are two lanes which turn right and go into four lanes. You'd think that it would be logical that each lane in Pitt St gets two lanes in Nelson Street - the left lane gets the two lanes on the left, the right lane the two on the right. Logical right? I use that route twice a week and without fail I have someone from the right of the Pitt St lanes try to cut across into one of the left lanes on Nelson St. I cautiously follow the road lines around to the centre left lane, hoping that maybe this time I can get around the corner without someone either cutting me off or almost hitting me. Doesn't happen, every time I make the turn someone cuts me off. I got to the point where I thought I was in the wrong, but no - the lanes are clearly marked. Seriously considering investing in a dashcam just for the compilation footage I'll get at this intersection."
Recent history: When Neil Armstrong and Edmund Hillary went to the north pole..."It sounds like the plot of a comic book - Sir Edmund Hillary and Neil Armstrong at the North Pole - but in fact it was one of those spectacular crossroads of history. In the lonely, desolate arctic, these two great explorers - who had never met before - got in a tiny bush plane and took off for the top of the Earth in 1985. Here's how it happened..."Read more here.
Good read: The advantages of a "lock-it-and-leave" apartment lifestyle are obvious in the holiday season - no lawns to mow and better security. But are we ready to give up the dream of a quarter-acre paradise?
Picture this: Where's Waldo Topless Beach Scandal...
Video: This 3-minute video explains why you almost never see portraits of smiling people from the early days of photography.
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Got a Sideswipe? Send your pictures, links and anecdotes to Ana at ana.samways@nzherald.co.nz