Afternoons for Wednesday 19 December 2018

Short Story Club

This Thursday marks our final short story club, and we're discussing poems by James K Baxter: 

Mother and Son and To My Father in Spring. Both are from Landfall's recently digitised archive 

http://www.landfallarchive.org/omeka/items/show/22242

The writer of the best email about these poems wins a copy of Landfall 236: Spring 2018

1:10 First song

1:15 Managing the electricity pipeline in an electrified future

We're rapidly replacing fossil fuel-powered appliances with electric substitutes, but what will those increased demands for electricity mean for the finite reservoir of power at our disposal?

A team of researchers at Otago University has been working to figure out how to increase the efficiency of our electricity usage, and come up with a novel solution: using AI to capitalise on off-peak times.

One of those researchers, Dr Michael Jack, joins us to explain more.

1:25 Chinese table manners, and how they can enhance your business nous

Ever found yourself at an unfamiliar dinner table with no real idea how you're supposed to behave?

It can be really uncomfortable, and the pressure can crank up a notch when there's a business agreement at stake.

Graphic designer Alena Woo has written a short book about Chinese table etiquette, providing a gateway for New Zealanders to understand how to act and behave when they're breaking bread with Chinese friends or partners, and joins us with a few handy tips.

1:35 Sound Archives: New Year’s Eve 1999

As the millennium drew to a close in December 1999, the world was either ready to party at massive New Year’s Eve celebrations – or braced for impending doom, due to the so-called Y2K “bug” which many believed would throw the world’s computers into turmoil.  Sarah Johnston takes a look back at how we marked the end of the era, in the sound archives of Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision.

1:40 Great album

2:20 Bookmarks with Kathryn Leafe

This week, the New Zealand Needle Exchange Programme celebrated the 31st anniversary of the law that makes it possible for it to exist. Every year it distributes three million clean needles to intravenous drug users to prevent the spread of blood-borne diseases, and works with those people to improve their lives.

Its executive director Kathryn Leafe has had a long and interesting journey to the job. She's our Bookmarks guest today.

3:10 The art of waiting in an instant world

Anyone  counting down the sleeps until Christmas, knows that waiting can be downright painful. In our modern world of fast moving technology and instant messaging, we've lost the ability to wait well says professor Jason Farman of the University of Maryland.  He explains the cost of instant gratification and offers perspective on how to embrace being on hold in his new book Delayed Response: The Art of Waiting From the Ancient to the Instant World

3:35 Science and environment stories

Stories from Our Changing World.

3:45 The Pre-Panel Story of the Day and One Quick Question

4:05 The Panel with Mike Rehu and Penny Ashton