Happy Lunar New Year!

This year ushers in the Year of the Pig for 2019!

Now this is a year I can relate to, being born in the Year of the Pig myself, this year welcomes the types of pigs that like to keep their feet to the ground being the Earth type!

It Pays to be a Pig

Regardless of which element of Pig you're born as, you're probably suited to being an Engineer. Being a Water pig myself, I'm allegedly "responsible, serious and full of ideas, listen and communicate well" though I'm still waiting for the ample savings This year sees the occurrence of the Earth Pig, who should be bringing with them a social nature with a lot of support, and as anyone knows that's sat with a project they're struggling with, having the support of the Community behind you can make or break a piece of work with co-operation!

Pigs in China are apparently not seen as smart or intelligent particularly, in fact they're seen as lazy and a little but clumsy. To be fair though, every intelligent person I've met tries to work in the smartest possible way to be the laziest as possible, why should I do something 1,000 times if I can write a piece of programming to do it for me?

Down to the Facts

Being associated with a Pig isn't all that bad anyway, they're one of the animals that are seen as being very close to humans. Being intelligent, omnivores and some people even keep them as pets! Unlike the real-world animals though, the Chinese zodiac associates other traits with our four legged trottered friends. Agate is associated as a mineral, for luck, and in fact is a type of silica it tends to be sourced around volcanic rock. The numbers 2, 5 and 8 are also associated as lucky along with compass directions, which surprised me, of north, northeast and southeast and east. Considering I'm from the 'north east' of England this is a little bit eerie.

Celebrate with Us

A celebration on the Community wouldn't be the same without a way to earn a badge You have until the end of February to earn it.

How can you earn the badge? Well, what type of pig doesn't like hunting for truffles? Don't worry, we haven't hidden anything in particular on the site for you to find - unlike some certain easter egg badges - no, this one we want you to find those sweet yet savory truffles by doing the following:

- Rifle through the element14 Community and comment on this blog post and link to your favorite content on the Community, whether it's a Roadtest review, blog post, document, video, product or otherwise!

- Dig through the element14 presents archive and let us know what you've 'found' by commenting on the archive document with your favorite episode so far!

- Being an optimistic and kind piggy - rate 5 pieces of content on the Community and show encouragement to your fellow Community members! (you should be able to rate content out of 5 stars!)

The badge is no longer available!

Happy New Lunar Year!