http://blog.teara.govt.nz A Blog by and about Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand Wed, 01 Feb 2012 03:20:02 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en [caption id="attachment_6750" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Queen Elizabeth II opens New Zealand's 1974 session of Parliament"][/caption] Today Te Ara commemorates the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II, the queen of New Zealand and the nation's head of state, with two new entries, one on the Royal family and a second on Governors and ... http://blog.teara.govt.nz/2012/02/01/royal-commemoration/ While Wellingtonians were enjoying the delights of ‘summer' weather over new year, my partner Janis and I winged our way to the UK for one of our regular visits to her family in the north-east of England. They live in South Shields, a town on the southern bank of the ... http://blog.teara.govt.nz/2012/01/30/what-i-did-in-the-holidays-part-1-south-shields-and-its-kiwi-connection/ Canadians have a strange obsession with dirt and worms, a lot of people received smartphones for Christmas and, on average, people spent 6 milliseconds longer on each page of Te Ara in 2011 than in 2010. A typical retrospective would look at everything that Te Ara accomplished in 2011, such as ... http://blog.teara.govt.nz/2012/01/17/what-you-looked-at-on-te-ara-in-2011/ [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="502" caption="Ben Hana/Blanket Man"][/caption] All cities (and some towns) have their share of people who live their lives, day and night, out on the streets, whether by circumstance or choice. Most remain nameless to those who pass them by, but some become well known enough to gain unofficial ... http://blog.teara.govt.nz/2012/01/16/a-man-of-the-streets/ The first arrivals in the New Zealand Company settlements at Wellington, Whanganui, New Plymouth and Nelson in the early 1840s were soon aware of earthquakes. They found them alarming, and started to describe their new home as the Shaky Isles. There were complaints that the New Zealand Company had ignored ... http://blog.teara.govt.nz/2012/01/09/the-visitation-the-1848-earthquake/ Doesn't 'normal' seem so 2011? Perhaps it's time for something different? Well, check out Street View Stereographic created by Ryan Alexander. It takes Google's Street View and projects it onto a sphere. [caption id="attachment_6625" align="alignnone" width="498" caption="Normal Street View (Kororāreka Bay, Russell)"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_6626" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Sphere View"][/caption] By distorting the normal view ... http://blog.teara.govt.nz/2012/01/04/a-new-perspective/ [caption id="attachment_6611" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Plaque unveiled at the opening of Te Araroa"][/caption] A couple of weeks ago I attended the official opening of Te Araroa – The Long Pathway – a 3,000–kilometre walking trail along the length of New Zealand, from Cape Rēinga to Bluff. After the speeches at Island Bay, ... http://blog.teara.govt.nz/2011/12/23/te-araroa-one-walkers-vision/ [caption id="attachment_6601" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="A portrait of Noda Asajiro, one of the newly added photographs in the DNZB"][/caption] While the main focus of our work at Te Ara is on producing new material for the Te Ara website, there is a small group of us who also work on the Dictionary ... http://blog.teara.govt.nz/2011/12/21/adding-faces-to-the-names-in-the-dictionary-of-new-zealand-biography/ [caption id="attachment_6574" align="alignnone" width="210" caption="Carmen with former MP Georgina Beyer at Parliament in 2006"][/caption] At Te Ara we were saddened to hear of the passing of Carmen Rupe in Sydney. The irrepressible, flamboyant Carmen (Ngāti Maniapoto) was a ground-breaker in so many ways. In the resolutely conservative Wellington of the 1960s ... http://blog.teara.govt.nz/2011/12/16/farewell-to-a-kiwi-heroine-carmen-rupe-1936%e2%80%932011/ http://blog.teara.govt.nz/2011/12/14/astrology-quiz/