A colleague told me about a news post I should read, detailing that a new upper boundary for solving the Rubik’s Cube has been found – now 25 moves, instead of 26. While this in itself is interesting, the way it’s described in the news post is even more interesting:

He’s shown that there are no configurations that can be solved in 26 moves, thereby lowering the limit to 25.

What the poster probably meant to write was that there’s no configuration that requires 26 moves, and not that solving the Rubik’s Cube is never possible in 26 moves 😉

None the less, this is great news – with luck, we may soon be able to play with our Rubik’s Cubes in a way we know is truly optimal!

My current internet connection is with a local company delivering internet connectivity to the student housing around here. They get their traffic routed through Telia, which has worked rather well for a while. But a few days ago, a couple of sites stopped working from here, though they still worked using the internet connection in my office at work.

Today, someone I know working at Telia solved the problem for me: Telia and Cogent have stopped exchanging traffic, due to a payment dispute. This is ridiculous.

I’m not sure who’s right or who’s wrong in the dispute, but it must be bad for business for both parties – far worse than the amount of money they would stand to gain from getting paid for peering traffic, or to lose by paying up.

I hope they get it solved soon.

I wasted a bunch of time on this, stupidly. I should’ve been writing some stuff I have to hand in on the 2nd, for a class on peer to peer networking, but instead, I modelled where I live in Google Sketchup. Screens of the results are below. It’s not only possible to model the flat I live in, but converting it to show a whole floor or building, and even showing this inside Google Earth is very easy to do. I like it a lot, I shall have to do more of this.

Pictures are clickable, for bigger versions of same. Please link to the article and not to the pictures.

The flat I live in, from the top down

Same, different angle

This is how the apartments fit together

The building, in Google Sketchup, with Google Earth terrain

My home in Google Earth

Argh. So, it’s December 1st, and time for a couple of random holiday links, that might cheer people up to get a bit less depressed.

First of all, Richard’s site has a really great advent calendar, of random fun and games. He posts fun stuff as well in his diary, and the all famous TCMI – Tacky Christmas Music Interface. This year, there’s even a bookmarklet of it, whatever that is. I’m sure it’s smart.

Second, a game I played a bit last year, with some nice music and catchy gameplay. It’s simply called Winterbells, and the goal is to jump up through all these little bells and score points. Simple. Catchy. And when you get good at it, very time-consuming. Want to beat my high-score? Just get to 559,146,770 points.

I’m sure I’ll be back a couple more times through December with random tidbits from the Christmassy part of the net.

I just played a demo of a newish game, World in Conflict. On Wikipedia it’s classified as a “real time tactical game” – that is, rather than the grand overview of the real time strategy game, you control a smaller group of troops, and are yourself under the command of a higher-level officer. This also means cooperating with other parts of the force, and having to fulfill ever-changing objectives. It also means gaining complete control over the special abilities of each unit, which does take quite a bit of time. An option to tell a vehicle to “stand ground and fire TOWs as needed” could be nice. Maybe it’s in the retail version.

It is set in 1989, and depicts the other course the Soviet Union could have taken – invading West Germany and the United States with force, instead of breaking down into little pieces. The setting is great, with the mission offered in the demo making use of the then-new HMMWV and the M2 Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle, both quite recognizable from the first gulf war, and beautifully modeled.

The game seems to be really great, and has quite superior graphics. The battlefield starts out looking clean and nice, perhaps a little lacking in civilian activity, but is quickly pocked with craters and filled with the wrecks of fighting vehicles and buildings. The camera controls are a little strange at first, but they really allow you a good view of the superior graphics, even if it doesn’t allow a great overview.

I think I shall have to get this game.