This week Dima and Kate talk about bizarre competitions - and the state of broadband in Africa.
This week's question: In an unusual contest in South Africa, a pigeon and the country's broadband system were challenged to deliver a lot of computer information as fast as possible. Which do you think won the race?
a) Was it the humble pigeon?
b) Was it the highly sophisticated internet? Or
c) Did they both perform equally well?
Listen out for the answer in the programme!
Listen to the programme
Pigeon vs. web
Vocabulary from the programme
- broadband internet system
a system that makes it possible for many messages or large amounts of information to be sent all at the same time and very quickly
- gigabyte
a unit of computer information (1 gigabyte = 1,024 megabytes)
- to win comfortably
to win easily, leaving the other contestants far behind
- encrypted
electronically changed into a secret code
- to get through
to reach, to get delivered
- pigeon
a large, usually grey bird, often seen in towns, which can be trained to carry messages
- simile
a figure of speech where you directly compare two things, often using the words 'like' or 'as', e.g: He slept like a log, a commonly used simile meaning he slept really well, completely undisturbed
- metaphor
a figure of speech where you imply, or state a comparison between things that are not similar, e.g: The house is so neglected and dirty that all the cleaning she's done this week is just a drop in the ocean (her cleaning work does not and cannot look like a drop of water in the sea, and yet this is a common way of saying that the amount of something - here, her work - is too little compared to how much is still needed)
