MPJ

The 'X' is definitely one of the most important letters in the alphabet. Not only that it is the most valuable variable in all math equations and scientific chase for the unknown, but in the entire history of human riddles, and I mean not always related to math, it always marks the most interesting spot. Sometimes the one with the treasure. It was not coincidence that old Romans used it for the most important number of them all. 10. The very base of our widely used numeric system. But we are not here to talk about mathematics or treasure hunting per se. It will be more about age. Of ten. My son Viktor is turning this magic number on this year Earth Day (April 22nd) and I decided, in addition to our previous topic and post Interview With an Expert , to fire another set of questions for him to answer. This time more general and within various realm of life and .. well .. stuff... So let's start with favorites. I guess they say a lot about personality. And they don'

There will come one day in the future. Relatively and astronomically speaking, it might come sooner than we think. It could happen way before we realize that there is no turning back. The day when mother Earth will simply say - sorry guys, I have no more energy to sustain this kind of life anymore and when most of biodiversity cocoons on Earth will reach the ultimate hazard and start imploding back into themselves. Air and water pollution will help a lot and not even planet's regular motions will be able to take us into another interglacial cycle. It is as much inevitable as what we are going to do next. We will take a long look toward the stars and say: "Well, we have to do this sooner or later. It's time to leave the Earth. Time to jump into Christopher Columbus's shoes again. And find the new home." But we will not get far. There will be no warp drives, "phasers on stun", robots, AIs or artificial gravity like in Sci-Fi blockbusters and there will b

Do you remember United Nations? The worldwide organisation created just after the sunset of World War Two with mainly one goal - to prevent global warfare in the future and to deal with our planet outside the boundaries of it's members? United Nations Security Council* Yes, it still exists, somewhere on the island of Manhattan, with its powerless debates and Security Council decisions without much responsibilities for those who signed them as well as for those affected in any way. Sadly, the power of global government never actually made to UN, despite all the good efforts throughout the years and it always staid with those in individual countries, or groups of them, either politically or geographically or ideologically divided. The truth is that there was no big decision in the history of the mankind, either good or bad, that is made by some mutual organisation of any kind. Those are all made by either one man alone in some sort of dictatorship, or by a small group of li

Couple of months ago, in the middle of December last year, just before "Mayan doomsday" on 21st, my favorite text editor asked me to approve its regular update. I clicked the link to see what's in new package and it immediately redirected me to the page describing new features and fixes. My fellow, software developer of great Notepad++, Don Ho*, conveniently named the update "New release (v6.2.3) - End of the World Edition". It brought series of chuckles to my face that simultaneously morphed into big smile when I read description below the title. Referring to Mayans prophecy, he wrote exactly this "Even though I don't believe this bullshit, I'm not against to reset our shitty world". Well, I don't know what exactly he meant with the word "reset", but certainly there are days when I can completely agree with him and describe our world exactly the same way. Viktor and his 6th Earth Day Anyway, today is another edition of