Happy New Years – 2012/2013

Happy New Years!

Dear Readers,

Happy new year and wishing you all the best in 2013. It’s been a tremendous year and look forward to the year ahead.

Thanks to all that have visited our blog and made valuable contributions.

Regards,

Spark N Launch

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New Year Facts and Trivia

+ January 1 will start first on some of the islands in the Pacific Ocean. First up is Kiritimati, Christmas Island and Kiribati.
+ Last in to celebrate is American Samoa, Niue and the United States Minor Outlying Islands.
+ 2013 (MMXIII) will be a common year starting on a Tuesday.
+ It will also be the first year to be denoted by four different digits in 26 years (since 1987).
+ Hebrew calendar 5773–5774

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You might also enjoy:
+ Happy New Years – Bring on 2012!
+ April Fools Day – Some of Our Favourites
+ Friday 13th – 3 interesting facts
+ It’s a numbers game – 11/11/11 @ 11:11:11

Welcome new readers! If this is your first time here, you might want to start with a new article or read through our older submissions.

Where to next? Check out a random article.

Stay in touch: Check us out via RSS Feed, Twitter, Google+ and Facebook.

Join the conversation: Leave a comment or tweet this post.

April Fools Day – Some of Our Favourites

Happy April Fools Day! We hope you didn’t get caught out by any of today’s shenanigans. If you did, maybe set a diary reminder for next year?

There were some great entries this year as major brands got involved. Ikea, Google, The Economist, Microsoft Kinect, BMV, Mini, Virgin, Sainsbury, The Independent, Innocent Smoothie, Marmite, Walkers, The Daily Mail… plus many more had a go.

We enjoyed Ikea’s allen key recall and Google’s proposed Gmail Tap. Which ones did you enjoy? Please share!

For more check out the following two handy summaries:

April Fools Day Round-Up 2012 (The Poke)
April Fools’ Day roundup: the big toys, the small toys and the cats (Engadget)

If you like dates and numbers you can always check our these two earlier posts:

Leap Year – 3 interesting facts about 29 February
It’s a numbers game – 11/11/11 @ 11:11:11

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You might also enjoy:
+ Friday 13th – 3 interesting facts
+ It’s a numbers game – 11/11/11 @ 11:11:11
+ Happy New Years – Bring on 2012!
+ Social Media Experiment – Twitter, Google+ and now Facebook

Welcome new readers! If this is your first time here, you might want to start with a new article or read through our older submissions.

Where to next? Check out a random article.

Stay in touch: Check us out via RSS Feed, Twitter, Google+ and Facebook.

Join the conversation: Leave a comment or tweet this post.

Leap Year – 3 interesting facts about 29 February

Our obsession with strange dates continues with the 29 February. The oddity that appears every four years*, allowing our calendars to match up with the earth’s orbit.

Here are three interesting bits of information on this special day:

1. Why the extra day?

The leap year’s extra day is necessary because of the “messiness” of our Solar System. One Earth year (a complete orbit around the Sun) does not take an exact number of whole days (one complete spin of the Earth on its axis). In fact, it takes 365.2422 days, give or take.

Source: BBC Magazine

2. How do we calculate Leap Years?

In the Gregorian calendar 3 criteria must be met to be a leap year:

The year is evenly divisible by 4;
If the year can be evenly divided by 100, it is NOT a leap year, unless;
The year is also evenly divisible by 400. Then it is a leap year.
This means that 2000 and 2400 are leap years, while 1800, 1900, 2100, 2200, 2300 and 2500 are NOT leap years.

The year 2000 was somewhat special as it was the first instance when the third criterion was used in most parts of the world since the transition from the Julian to the Gregorian Calendar.

Source: Time And Date

3. Any famous birthdays?

A person who is born on February 29 may be called a “leapling” or a “leap year baby”. In non-leap years, some leaplings celebrate their birthday on either February 28 or March 1, while others only observe birthdays on the authentic intercalary dates.

In the United Kingdom and Hong Kong, a person born on February 29 legally attains the age of 18 on March 1 in the relevant year.

Source: WikiPedia

Happy Leap Year Day!

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You might also enjoy:
+ April Fools Day – Some of Our Favourites
+ Friday 13th – 3 interesting facts
+ It’s a numbers game – 11/11/11 @ 11:11:11
+ Happy New Years – Bring on 2012!

Welcome new readers! If this is your first time here, you might want to start with a new article or read through our older submissions.

Where to next? Check out a random article.

Stay in touch: Check us out via RSS Feed, Twitter, Google+ and Facebook.

Join the conversation: Leave a comment or tweet this post.

It’s a numbers game – 11/11/11 @ 11:11:11

We don’t claim to be mathematics freak or number men. In fact we don’t really enjoy calculations all that much. We do appreciate they play an important part in our lives and being able to understand figures is a necessary skill for everyone. Seeing little patterns or quirks in an Excel spreadsheet or utility bill does make our day. Yes, how very sad! So today is really special.

The guys over at Time and Date have taken this a little too far. They have even provided you with more 111 combinations – like your age in seconds today if born on Wednesday, 25 August 1976 (1,111,111,111 seconds old). Happy Birthday?

Anyway, here is some bedtime reading for you:
http://www.timeanddate.com/date/11-11.html

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You might also enjoy:
+ April Fools Day – Some of Our Favourites
+ Friday 13th – 3 interesting facts
+ Happy New Years – Bring on 2012!

Welcome new readers! If this is your first time here, you might want to start with a new article or read through our older submissions.

Where to next? Check out a random article.

Stay in touch: Check us out via RSS Feed, Twitter, Google+ and Facebook.

Join the conversation: Leave a comment or tweet this post.