(This is the Online column, written for The Southland Times)
I suppose I should get the obvious conversation-starter out of the way now by saying ‘how about this interesting wee spell of weather we’re having at the moment”.
I was talking to someone earlier this week who lives in Singapore but had just arrived in Sydney and he was telling me how chilly it was at 16 degrees Celsius. There was a stunned silence on the other end of the phone when I mentioned it was just 3degC here in Invercargill with a “feels like” of -2C, according to the MetService website. He said he just couldn’t understand temperatures like that.
I guess it just goes to show that one person’s “chilly” is another’s “freezing your bits off”.
If you haven’t had a look at the MetService website lately, it’s worth a visit. You’ll find regularly updated forecasts, current temperatures, a “feels like” reading that takes into account the winds coming off the icebergs and a recommendation of just how many layers of clothes you might need (four, apparently, plus one wind-proof layer, on the chilly day in question).
But enough about the weather.
While everyone’s awaiting the return of invites for the new Google+ social networking system, there are new rumours doing the rounds that Facebook is planning to launch a music service called Vibe.
A geeky-genius software developer stumbled across some references tucked away in the code Facebook’s new video chat setup when he downloaded it. Because I’m sure that we all tear apart the background code of any piece of software we use to see what makes it tick.
Let’s be honest, I’m not particularly inquisitive about the inner-workings of things, and am happy to live without the knowledge of how they work, but I have to take my hat off (and believe me, I am actually wearing a hat as I type this, because I’ve just been outside and I think my ears may have turned blue) to anyone with the brainpower to work it out.
I’m non-techy enough that I’m still impressed by my blender’s ability to turn out perfectly smooth vodka slushies time and time again.