Project Euler

What do you do if you are jet-lagged and wake up at 5am every morning? Programming exercises of course! I've just discovered the cool Project Euler and I love it! Some questions are hard, some trivial (I've mostly done these so far), but always fun. The forum for each question (that you only get access to after having solved the question) is interesting with solutions in all kinds of languages.

Embodiment

This is probably the closest thing you can really get to flying (apart from jumping and missing the ground).

Yes!

New Line and Peter Jackson have finally reached an agreement regarding filming The Hobbit!

In other news I've just stayed a night at the Hyatt Regency Incheon in Seoul on my way back to Sweden. Quite nice to break up a long trip in two legs with a nice hotel in the middle. The breakfast buffet was great with some super spicy kimchi and all the usual Korean food (tofu, noodles, seaweed soup etc) plus the normal western breakfast stuff so I'm truly stuffed and ready for another 11 hour plane ride (and then another two to Stockholm from Heathrow)!

Firm evidence or dubious ideology?

Pope Benedict XVI on global warming as reported by the Daily Mail:

Pope Benedict XVI has launched a surprise attack on climate change prophets of doom, warning them that any solutions to global warming must be based on firm evidence and not on dubious ideology.

and

The German-born Pontiff said that while some concerns may be valid it was vital that the international community based its policies on science rather than the dogma of the environmentalist movement.

Book titles: How a Colon Makes a Best Seller

Just browsed through The Economist's list of their recommended books of the year. Out of about 50 books more than 30 have a colon in their title, e.g, Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything. Why? How come all non-fiction books nowadays always seem to have a colon in their title? Are there no more good book titles without a ':' left? Is this like the web 2.0 companies that are called things like spinr, coolr etc because there are no other domain names left? I don't get it and I don't like it (I guess this means I'm really getting old)!

Sweet revenge

A scammer gets a taste of his own medicine. Long but hilarious.

Recursion all the way up to god ...

... in African villages.

The world is getting smaller

Wow, now there are about 3.3 billion mobile phone subscribers in the world - half the population!

I finally read Naomi Klein's book 'No Logo' and I can't say that I was that impressed. Ok, it raises some interesting points, but in general I think the message is wrong. For example, if brands are so bad, how come Naomi Klein is using the same name to publish her new book and in the all the interviews she's giving to promote the book? Why not just use a random string as a personal name for each interview and book cover? It is of course because her name is a kind of 'stamp of approval'; people know her from before and that they like (or not like) what she writes. That is exactly what a logo, or brand, really is. A method of building a reputation economy where the same actors meet more than once. In other words, an economy where it makes sense to be nice and Tit-for-Tat wins.