Obsessive songs

From time to time I just run into songs that I just can't get enough of listening. Currently there are two of them: one from the movie Closer, "The Blower's Daughter" by Damien Rice; see also the first scene of the movie which is amazing. I first heard the second song in a commercial of Connex (a wireless phone company from Romania). Then a DJ from a radio station also liked it and started to broadcast it, so I was able find this song (it's from the 80's): "Supergirl" by Reamonn.

Wanna go to a conference? (Sure you want!)

You might know about the God of conferences from David Lodge's novel "Small World": you sacrifice some of your time, and neurons and then you get rewarded (by this God) with a conference participation (meaning free travelling, and drinking). Well, naturally, people really want just the free travelling, and drinking, so what they do is finding money so that they can organize lots of conferences. A new conference being organized, you want some other people submitting papers (so that your conference looks real), so you start spreading the word/spamming other people about your brand knew opporunity to travel and drink. It seems not everybody is happy about this, especially those weird students from M.I.T. who really sacrificed many of their neurons to get in there. What happens next? Read in this story.

One step closer

Yesterday, the European Parliament voted in favour of Romania's accession into E.U. On April 25th the accession treaty will be signed, and, if everything goes well, Romania will be a member starting from 2007. Enjoy! :)

Films

I've seen a couple of movies lately (some of them because they got an Oscar prize): Closer, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Sideways, Dreamers, and Italiencele (The Italian Girls). My pick goes to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which has another great screenplay writen by Charlie Kaufman.

Blog break

I didn't blog for almost two weeks, but I'm still alive and well. Blame it on my laziness :)

Although I read another two books, and I've seen about 4 movies, I'll talk about them later.
For now I have three online readings/movies I found interesting.

First is a webcast of a presentation by a Google guy about their products and some inner workings of their algorithms.
Next we have an article from The Economist about future oil price, and the effects it will have in the global economy.
And last, but not least, the this week's tuesday column of Paul Krugman from New York Times (registration required) about the growing conflict in American educational system between creationists and evolutionists.