Posted by
Andy Brown
on 28 April 2025
Thinking of running a marathon? Here's some useful advice from a non-running Wise Owl who nevertheless completed the course (yesterday at the time of writing).
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 02 April 2025
This is the most addictive simple game I've come across since 2048 - after an hour I had to force myself to stop!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 31 March 2025
Some interesting links for those - like me - who have watched seasons 1 and 2 of Apple's glossy sci-fi-cum-office-satire "Severance"
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 31 March 2025
The TV Garden site allows you to watch any publicly streamed TV program from around the world without any fuss or additional log-in.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 03 March 2025
A host of games and fun stuff from Neal Agarwal - enjoy playing about, and admire the coding which has gone into creating everything!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 03 March 2025
Andy Brown of Wise Owl foolishly signed up to do the London Marathon this year, despite never having previously run more than a few miles. There are lots of runners who write about their experiences - but how many non-runners do?
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 31 January 2025
How did we never discover this site before? Travel into space or the ocean, use the world's most annoying password field or help spend Bill Gates's fortune, to name just 3 of the many pastimes on this amazing site.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 10 December 2024
In what is becoming a Christmas tradition, here are a few suggestions for things to buy the nerd in your life (you?) for Christmas this year.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 26 September 2024
Feeling stressed? Keep one of these wildlife webcams from Namibia open as you work to put everything in perspective.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 03 July 2024
"Is the periodic table yummy? Well, it depends on the element." Any website containing this text bears further investigation. Watch the epic spaceman shrink down by a factor of 10 every 20 seconds until he's the size of an atom, find out how to repair Oreo biscuits using the Japanese art of Kinstugi and learn which elements of the periodic table you should and shouldn't eat: all (and much more) at the Kottke archives.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 27 March 2024
While doing a thorough site audit we came across some pages which we no longer link to, but which we don't want to lose. This blog ensures that you (and Google) can still get to them!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 01 March 2024
There's a famous sentence which reads "Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana". It turns out that this is just one example of a sentence deliberately designed to lead you up the garden path ...
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 26 August 2023
A substantial proportion of Wise Owls had never heard of either of these life hacks. Don't live in ignorance like we did (the texting trick in particular may change your life).
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 07 July 2023
One owl's sad story of addiction to a simple computer game: a tale of lost time and lost sanity.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 28 February 2023
You may have come across XKCD line-drawing cartoons in your website travels, but did you know that there's also a site dedicated to explaining the science behind them?
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 28 February 2023
Not sure when you should be using a semi-colon or apostrophe? Consult this entertaining cartoon style guide from The Oatmeal!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 02 December 2022
Wise Owl (and Sam specifically) presented a sample Power BI report that we had created to APSE in Blackpool - take your place in the audience!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 28 September 2022
Sure, you often turn to StackOverflow to find why a formula isn't working, but are you missing a trick? The site can also help you design solutions to cope with a zombie apocalypse.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 02 September 2022
We review the new Wise Owl bean-to-cup coffee machine, and (at the other end of the scale) a £54,000 samovar for serving tea.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 18 July 2022
Andy B claims to be good at only two things in life: crosswords and time management. Having blogged about the first before, it's time to give some tips on how to make your working life more efficient.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 05 July 2022
Watch Jacob Chandler from Oregon pick out each letter from a tin of alphabet spaghetti in a little over 2 minutes!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 24 June 2022
If you’ve been following the saga of the weight-loss competition between Sam and Shaun, you'll be wondering whether the loser got a tattoo showing the winner's name. Wonder no longer!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 30 May 2022
See how many reams of paper in weight Sam and Shaun lost, who won their competition and what they now look like without their beards!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 30 May 2022
Bored in your lunchtime? See if you can guess films from condensed five-second clips or from up to 6 still photographs, or songs from clips lasting for as little as one second.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 26 April 2022
If you're a fan of Boolean algebra, or are in two minds about Schrodinger's cat, these Ts are for you!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 29 March 2022
Need an idea for a present for the nerd in your life (which may or may not be yourself)? Here are 3 our favourite geek humour T-shirts (and one bonus Wise Owl one!).
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 28 March 2022
Emma Howard recently attended a Python course with us, and has sent through a photo of her cat enjoying the courseware manual.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 28 March 2022
After shortages of semi-conductors caused by COVID and other global supply problems, are Excel worksheets the latest resource to feel the pinch?
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 28 January 2022
The Wordle bandwagon is rolling fast downhill, but we managed to board it. This blog shows one Wise Owl's current stats, and links to our Power BI, Python and Excel VBA versions of this web-based word game.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 29 September 2021
Some of the sites on this page will make you laugh, and some make you shake your head, but they should all entertain you for a moment or two!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 31 August 2021
The IKEA blue Frakta shopping bag is iconic, and everywhere. Here are 5 suggestions (not always totally serious) for how you can recycle your IKEA bags!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 31 August 2021
The Stuxnet worm was one of the most sophisticated bits of software ever written. Find out exactly how the US and Israel used it to target Iranian uranium centrifuges, and see the implications this has for us all.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 27 July 2021
You may know about What 3 Words, which allows you to pinpoint your location in the world using just 3 words. Now there's Four King Words, which does the same for the UK and Ireland using just 4 swear words.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 27 July 2021
Do you know why World Emoji Day is held on July 17th each year? Or how to see the world's emojis being tweeted in real time? Or that Microsft are trying to resurrect Clippy the paper-clip as an emoji? These are just 3 of the 9 fascinating facts explained in this blog!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 02 December 2020
Thanks to Simon Ranson for contributing this bit of trivia: what to type into your browser's address bar to turn it into a text editor.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 26 November 2020
There's an uncanny correlation between the Mr Men series and the list of American presidents. Donald Trump comes in as Mr Rude, Barack Obama as Mr Cool … see how many correlations you can find!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 24 October 2020
Vancouver-based artist Tim Klein has used the fact that many jigsaws are based on the same template to create some truly weird and wonderful composite images.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 13 March 2020
We receive a fair few requests asking us to publish the answers to our exercises. We have now decided to do this, on the understanding that they are for your personal use only.
Posted by
Shaun Wantling
on 22 November 2019
People become trainers for many different reasons. In this blog, Shaun explains his journey from being an accountant to training people in IT.
Posted by
Andrew Gould
on 19 August 2019
Lots of our training material uses examples related to movies but did you know that Wise Owl has several tenuous connections to famous films?
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 09 September 2016
If you want to initiate (or take part in) a discussion on our website, you'll first need to create a post - and to do that, you'll need to register on our site. This blog explains how to do both these things!
