Open source beer and a vacation

Applying computer science ideas to real life just got a big boost with the new open source beer developed by the students of a Danish university :) A more detailed story here. Am I lagging behind in applying computer science to real life? Did these guys need a vacation, or maybe I'm the one who needs one? I definitely need one, so I'll be on vacation for the next two weeks. That means staying away from any computer as much as possible, so this blog will be on vacation too.

Cheers! :)

Playing Moldovans at Tennis

I started reading a new book, Playing Moldovans at Tennis by Tony Hawks. It's a funny book in which the author describes his "adventures" in the post-communist Republic of Moldavia, the misery and the wonders he finds there. For people from Western Europe or U.S. sometimes it's hard to imagine or believe what's described there, you really have to see it to believe it :)

New book

I finished reading Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination by Helen Fielding (author of Bridget Jones's Diary). It's one of the captivating books that you cannot let down until you finish it. It's not a "deep" book, but now it's summer and living's easy :) Another book of this type I read recently is Da Vinci Code, but Da Vinci Code has a poor style; sometimes it feels the author took large passages from a dictionary and pasted them into the book.

Society of trust

As new incidents happened today in London, we see how important is trust in the human society. We agree somehow to not hurt each other, and to cooperate for achieving goals. For my vacation I went to an office, I gave to the women there a plastic card (my credit card), received back a printed paper (my flight ticket). And I'm pretty sure at the date printed there a plane will be at the point indicated to fly me. This doesn't work if some people decide one day to blow themselfs up in a subway train. So we'll have to isolate these guys, and make sure that nobody comes to the conclusion that blowing himself up to kill others is something to do.
The chemistry of trust looks easy to decode, as described here, but the reality is far more complex.
Too much of what we accomplished relies on our cooperation, and trusting each other, so losing it is not an option.

Smile, you're in the biology lab :) 

In our classroom (I didn't write those formulas :)) 

This is how we looked ten years ago 

It's been 10 years

A week ago we had a reunion to celebrate 10 years since we graduated from high school. It was nice to meet my former classmates, and teachers and chat together about what we did "lately". There should be plenty of photos from that evening (I personally didn't have a camera with me), but only a few are online as yet. I'll post here some.

The Supreme Court

In US the Supreme Court is the highest judicial instance. Its rulings are taken as precedences by lower justices. They often rule over controversial cases, like abortion, and in these rulings there is usually a fight between liberal and conservative justices. Today one of the justices announced she will retire, and this will open a battle between democrats and republicans over the next nomination, which is made by the president and approved by congress. Read more here.