The Skyscraper farmer: food for all
Posted by CultCase at Thursday, August 30, 2007
Read more about environment , water
According to Popular Science nearly 41 percent of Earth's land is now used for agriculture, yet we're on the brink of vast population growth, from 6.7 billion people today to an estimated 9.2 billion by 2050, with the majority living in cities.
Dickson Despommier, Professor of Environmental Health Sciences and Microbiology at Columbia University says the only way to make room for the enormous number of new carbon-sequestering trees we need in order to reverse current global warming trend is to change the way we grow our food. Classic farming methods used by our fathers are not good enough as they require too much land. What we need is a new form of vertical farming: Skyscraper farms that provide organic food with no herbicides, pesticides or fertilizers.
Venture capitalists and scientists have already joined Despommier with his efforts in making the theory a reality within 15 years. According to Despommier:
The plants will be placed in automated conveyor belts that move past stationary grow lights and automated nutrient-delivery systems. The first buildings would have to be subsidized, with energy incentives and tax incentives. We're talking about the equivalent of engineering a Saturn rocket.Also, according to the model designed by Despommier, the Skyscraper's energy is generated from a giant solar panel, with incinerators which use the farm’s waste products for fuel and all the water in the system is recycled. Sounds fantastic. but how much should all this cost?
Apparently, previous experiments in similar biofarming show the cost is a major factor here. Biosphere 2 for example was brainchild of a Texas billionaire named Ed Bass who spent $200 million of his own money to construct it. This was in the eighties. In todays economy and technology such a project must cost much more. Despommier says it can come up to "billions"... Thus, it seems the best chances for all of us to see the first Skyscraper farm is in a country that is both rich and short in usable land e.g. Japan, Iceland, or more likely Dubai.
Image souerce: popular science
Blogrolling
Posted by CultCase at Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Read more about internet , tools
Wikipedia's list of blogging terms says a blogroll is simply a list of a favorite blogs presented on the sidebar. This may fit the narrow definition but the truth is that having the blogs you read on your side bar is a common practice of social networking and Internet marketing with roots set deep in the art of Search Engine Optimization AKA SEO.Blogrolling is actually a form of link exchange with the difference that when you put up some other blog on your blogroll it does not mean you should be getting one in return as its done with traditional link exchange, certainly not right away. Usually, if you find yourself in someone's blogroll it means you have found your way into his mind, and that doesn't happen over night.
There are many services providing free tools for easier and more efficient blogrolling and some that are quite good. I've been using the services of blogrolling.com, a Tucows Inc. company supporting multiple blogrolls and RSS, Javascript and OPML export. It's quite good but as it can sometimes take too long to load I decided to take it out of my side bar and link it from there, leaving just the top few on the bar.
Marketing Advertising and Media
Politics, Social and Culture
Technology
Puzzles
Other
Compete.com: toolbar is only one of many information sources
Posted by CultCase at Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Read more about firefox , internet , tools
Is my blogging getting hotter or what? Following my post Alexa get is wrong: switching to Compete, and after getting quoted on ZDNet's Googling Google, Andy Kazeniac from compete.com just posted this comment telling me how they love stories like my in Compete (i bet they do :)) but also added this important addition about them using other sources of information in addition to their toolbar:Although toolbars do contribute to the Compete community, they are only one of many sources of information. We believe that the variety in our sources helps eliminate any bias that shows up in a single source and helps to give a better representation of the average U.S. internet consumer.Jay Meattle from Compete.com explains in a follow-up email:
Compete aggregates data from Internet Service Providers, ASPs, opt-in panels, and Compete software – such as the toolbar and Firefox extension. We like to think it’s a better approach than Alexa’s, and pretty much any other provider of 3rd party competitive stats.
Cheers Andy and Jay.
Individual@home quoted on ZDNet's Googling Google
Posted by CultCase at Tuesday, August 28, 2007 | 1 comments
Read more about google
Google Analytics is back in business but the 3 days hole in my data is still there. I can live with it but I am not sure what others who use this to make their living think about this missing part in their data. Anyway, using my GA this morning I discovered my post about 'Google Analytics in data blackout' was quoted and referenced on ZDNet's Googling Google, Garett Rogers' famed blog keeping track of Google activities.
Check it out below. Apparently Mr. Vint Cerf , vice-president and “chief internet evangelist” at Google, has recently said some things he shouldn't have considering the amount of problems Google seem to experience recently.
Vint Cerf warns about reliability and security on the web by ZDNet's Garett Rogers -- It’s a bit ironic that Vint Cerf is touting Google’s infrastructure and warning users about unreliable software and poor security when both Blogger and Google Analytics were reported unavailable this week. To top it off, Google also recently pulled the plug on their paid video content services — causing users to “lose” their purchased [...]
Compete is America’s 824th fastest growing private company
Posted by CultCase at Monday, August 27, 2007
Alexa is out, we already know that. But now Compete, Inc. has been announced 824th on the first-ever Inc. 5,000 list of the fastest-growing private companies in the country. As Jerry Seinfeld said 'wheels are in motion'...read more | digg story
Out-of-Body Experiences are now real
Posted by CultCase at Monday, August 27, 2007 | 1 comments
I have always been fascinated by out-of-body experiences such as those described in movies like Strange Days, Altered States and the books of Carlos Castaneda. Recently I read that as with many other fascinations we used to have as children technology and science already take us not very far from there.
According to an official announcement published by the UCL institute of Neurology a neuroscientist named Dr Henrik Ehrsson who was a researcher at Institute at the time has managed to generate out-of-body experiences in volunteers, as a paper published in ‘Science’ explains. In ‘The experimental induction of out-of-body experiences’, Dr Henrik Ehrsson, , outlines the unique method by which the illusion was created and the implications of its discovery:
The illusion worked by using head-mounted displays to enable participants to watch a live film recorded by two video cameras located behind their head. The image from the left video camera is presented on the left-eye display and the image from the right camera on the right-eye display. The participant sees these as one ‘stereoscopic’ (3D) image, so they see their own back displayed from the perspective of someone sitting behind them.
The researcher then stood just beside the participant (in their view) and used two plastic rods to simultaneously touch the participant’s actual chest out-of-view and the chest of the illusory body, moving this second rod towards where the illusory chest would be located, just below the camera’s view. The participants confirmed that they had experienced sitting behind their physical body and looking at it from that location.
Sex offenders in your area?
Posted by CultCase at Sunday, August 26, 2007 | 1 comments
Type any address and zip code, and Vision 20/20 system will Identify registered sex offenders living in your area. The system will reveal their location and picture instantly. Find out exactly how they look like, where they live and get to know everything about them including alias names , ID marks, hair color, gender, height, date of birth, weight, race, eye color, offense type and full address.
Vision 20/20 Inc., is a wholly owned subsidiary of ThinAir Wireless Corporation, a two-way wireless telemetry service provider (TSP) headquartered in Houston Texas. Vision 20/20's primary focus are children security and teen monitoring, especially when driving, as well as safety of elderly parents and family and community’s welfare.
Other than warning systems for neighborhood sex offenders, Vision 20/20 also provide tracking devices for children and parents status as well as alert systems for hurricanes and government homeland security cautions. The above screenshot, taken using Vision 20/20 online system, shows the locations of four registered sex offenders living around the New York central park. Click the picture or here for a high res version.
http://www.thevision2020.com
Alexa get is wrong: switching to Compete
Posted by CultCase at Sunday, August 26, 2007 | 2 comments
Read more about internet , tools
Is it my imagination or are there more and more Internet giants failing to provide the goods, making place to newcomer companies? Alexa used to be the "Mecca of traffic research". The only place on the internet where anyone could check for the main traffic parameters of any website owned and controlled by other people.
I have been using Alexa for years and always put a lot of trust in their data, even though its important to remember that there is no magic involved here: Alxea use data collected from users of their popular toolbar to generate their statistics and their data accuracy depends on how close their average user profile to the average profile of the worldwide internet user. They provide some of the data for free and generate high priced reports from the rest of it.
About two weeks ago when Michael Arrington from techcrunch.com reported that in his opinion the became useless after coming up with a "complete fiction" (in Arrington's words) claiming YouTube has more page views than Google ("Alexa Says YouTube Is Now Bigger Than Google. Alexa Is Useless"). This shows how useless Alexa has become as a method for measuring web traffic and reach. Arrington adds:
Comscore tells a much different (and more accurate) story - Google is nearing 100 billion monthly page views; YouTube sees around 16 billion. Even newcomer Compete, which measures traffic in a similar way as Alexa, seems to be getting it right. Alexa needs an overhaul. It’s long since become less than useful. For smaller sites it is understandable that Alexa may not have good data. But Google and YouTube are among the largest sites on the Internet. To get it this wrong is embarrassing.
I tend to agree with Arrington's claim. Alexa seem to have a very serious problem there and this might just be the right time to make a switch to compete.com - another service doing the same kind of job Alexa does, only they might be doing it a bit better. Even though I am sure - due to their toolbar dependency - both compete.com and alexa.com are seriously biased with American users I started my compete.com account yesterday and already find it much more friendly in usability terms. The above charts show one year history trends for (unique) people count, relative rank and number of visits at www.conceptispuzzles.com
Monday, August 27, 18:20 Edit
I was trying to put corresponding Alexa chart here as well but what do you know, their embedding script is MUCH more complicated and can not run on a blog page, at least not on my blogspot one. Luckily their permalink work so you can have a look here and see how different and much more shaky it looks comparing to Compete's info:
Alex's pageview measurement for example is far from being even close to what was really going on on conceptispuzzles.com during the last 12 months. I can tell that because I have their server logs and know about every page view ever requested on the server. Alexa need to find a good doctor, or just buy a good looking gravestate. they seem to be out of the game.
Google Analytics in data blackout
Posted by CultCase at Saturday, August 25, 2007
Read more about google , software , tools
I have been testing the Google Analytics service since the launching of the new version in May this year and was quite impressed:The option to preform a drill down search into particular data segments (similar as its done with Sawmill), the elegant Flash user interface, the easy installation and of course - another one of Google's great services provided for free.
Since about two days ago, however, it started to look like my blog has been banned from the Internet by some cyber punk police as there are almost no visitors there anymore (there was one to be exact but it just made me more suspicious), not at least according to Google Analytics. Could it be that the great Google is not doing its job properly??! naaa... this is Google, not Skype.
Searching in Google didn't do any help and even going over the official Google Analytics blog only brought up some old report from almost one month ago about some problem they used to have on Monday, July 30, 2007. Its not about the problem I though I might be having here but It drove me to search the blogospher for some more updated stuff.
Well, according to FeedComputer, the Google Analytics service completely stopped delivering data to users a week ago and, in accordance to what I read, this glitch is another one in "a series of recent performance and availability problems affecting this popular Web site traffic-monitoring service". Also according to FeedComputer, "the latest problem remains unsolved and is apparently affecting all Google Analytics accounts, according to a message posted Monday afternoon by a Google employee in the official Google Analytics blog".
Oded Ezer
Posted by CultCase at Friday, August 24, 2007
Read more about art , people
Oded Ezer is an Israeli typographer, type designer and artist. While making his living working as a commercial designer, Ezer also manages to find enough time for experimental typo/art projects, where he explores non-conventional solutions in Hebrew typography. His posters and graphic works have been showcased and published worldwide. The above piece (2004) titled Stami Veklumi (Hebrew: סתמי וכלומי English: Unimportant & Nothing) is a typographic homage to my favorite Israeli poet Yona Volach (1944-1985) photograph by Shaxaf Haber.
Ezer is a top line artist and has won many local and international prizes, including the Gold Prize at the international design competition of the Nagoya Design Center, Japan (2000); Certificate of Excellence at the 4th annual competition of the New York Type Directors Club and Certificate of Excellence at the "Bukva raz", a type design competition, Moscow, Russia (both 2001), and the Israeli Education Ministry Prize for Design (2003).
In 2000, two years after graduating at the Bezalel Academy of Art & Design, Jerusalem, with a Bachelor degree in Visual Communication Design Ezer founded his own independent studio, "Oded Ezer Typography". I had the privilege to know about Ezer and his work after digging into some blog 'extensions' of Kosmar - another great artist.
http://www.ezerdesign.com
The most amazing comprehensive blogospher micro-button gallery
Posted by CultCase at Thursday, August 23, 2007 | 2 comments
Use Kosmar's blogbuttons at will, but be kind and respectfully blog about it with a link to his page. Do not hotlink them from Kosmar server but copy them over to your own webspace. Kosmar says "trademarks are owned by their respective owners, send me a mail before you send your lawyers please". My kind of guy.
read more | digg story
Bubble Bath
Posted by CultCase at Wednesday, August 22, 2007
According to Wikipedia Bubble Bath also known as a foam bath can be obtained by "adding a product containing foaming surfactants to water and temporarily aerating it by agitation often merely by the fall of water from a faucet". It also says "children find foam baths particularly amusing, so they are an inducement to get them into the bathtub".
I tried putting some foam in one of Carmel's bathes a few months ago and she didn't seem to like it at all. I think the foam got here scarred. Recently, however, things have changed dramatically. We now like foam baths very much and take them anytime anywhere possible. Including kitchen sink.
Hollywood dinosaurs: social video is behind you!
Posted by CultCase at Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Read more about internet , video
Four Eyed Monsters was the first original feature film ever to be released on YouTube. Developed by Arin Crumley and Susan Buice from a video blog and became public on June 8, 2007 the film seem to be gaining great success in many parameters, mainly in terms of public awareness.
With a total view count of 810,505 when this article was made and still counting, Four Eyed Monsters has already been favorited by 5,296 users, rated by 5318 and commented 3,374 times all summing it up to a 4/5 stars grade movie. I think its safe to say "the people" like both the idea of consuming feature films online and this particular implementation of it. Four Eyed Monsters "made it".
Social video
The Four Eyed Monsters project "started small" with just Crumley and Buice "writing each other notes and sending each other videos". Then, according to the couple, it evolved into creating a feature length film about their story. The movie was of course blogged all over the place and got to be the talk of the day for quite some time. I particularly liked this comment posted by Mike Abundo on insideonlinevideo.com:
Hollywood dinosaurs who think social video is restricted to bite-sized entertainment are in for a full-length dose of reality. Four Eyed Monsters an autobiographical Bohemian love story, is the first original feature-length film on YouTube.
Perhaps somewhat obvious at first yet not a trivial phenomena at all, there are also excellent short films on YouTube taking this great form of art from the darkness of esoteric filmoholics scene to the sunlight of the public eye. Armistice by Triune Films was the first professional short film for me to actually watch and enjoy on YouTube. Triune Films is an Independent production company based in South Florida. Hollywood dinosaurs: social video is behind you.
Suprnova.org relaunched
Posted by CultCase at Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Read more about internet
On August 2, 2007, Slonček, former owner of suprnova.org, donated the domain name to the owners of The Pirate Bay - the world's largest BitTorrent tracker. Today, August 21, 2007, the legendary Suprnova.org "The Universal Bittorrent Source" was relaunched by The Pirate Bay.
Originally launched late 2002 and considered the world's most popular BitTorrent search engine at the time, Suprnova.org got shut down in November 2004 following legal threats. The site operators turned to support the development of the eXeem BitTorrent client after realizing a "fixed" website too difficult to operate in the present legal climate and we all thought that was it. Today Suprnova.org is back to life.
The following message targeted at what they refer to as "non-internet loving companies" closes the official announcement on Suprnova.org homepage:
This is how it works. Whatever you sink, we build back up. Whomever you sue, ten new pirates are recruited. Wherever you go, we are already ahead of you. You are the past and the forgotten, we are the internet and the future.Lastly, an important note from me: under any circumstances don't confuse Suprnova.org with Suprnova.com. The latter being a site that charges for membership while the first and most other bittorrent sites do not.
Skype: Microsoft patch triggered outage
Posted by CultCase at Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Read more about security , software
Last Tuesday, August 14, the great Redmond giant released another one of its patch batches claiming to fix (at least) 14 operating system security holes in computers powered by different versions of Windows and MS Office. The updates were pushed to millions of MS users all over the world using the Microsoft's "Automatic Updates" system.
Windows XP users were pushed with at least six updates from this patch batch, and more if they have any version of Microsoft Office installed. Office 2000 users had to scan the Office Update site for additional fixes not offered via Microsoft Updates.
On Thursday, 16th August 2007, the whole world was amazed to watch how Skype's legendary peer-to-peer network - used by millions for VOIP communications - had actually crashed and became unstable for about 48 hours. According to an official announcement released yesterday by Skype the crash was triggered by a massive global restart of Microsoft based computers across the globe within a very short timeframe. Also according to Skype:
The high number of restarts affected Skype’s network resources. This caused a flood of log-in requests, which, combined with the lack of peer-to-peer network resources, prompted a chain reaction that had a critical impact.
Normally Skype’s peer-to-peer network has an inbuilt ability to self-heal, however, this event revealed a previously unseen software bug within the network resource allocation algorithm which prevented the self-healing function from working quickly. Regrettably, as a result of this disruption, Skype was unavailable to the majority of its users for approximately two days.
According to Washington Post blog a Microsoft spokesperson claimed the August 14 patch release - fixing at least 14 vulnerabilities in its software - was "hardly out of the ordinary" and that "Windows Update is a routine service Microsoft provides to its users to receive software updates, including last Tuesday's security updates, which were not unique," the spokesperson said. "As indicated in Skype's blog, their specific disruption was caused by a bug in their software."
Did you get that? fixing at least 14 vulnerabilities in a software is "hardly out of the ordinary". There are many common jokes about the need to restart Windows based systems but I think this last one is certainly one of the best amongst them. We'll still have to live and see how funny this joke is for Skype / eBay, their engineers and their managers.
By now there are 435 blog responses to Skype message on Technorati.
skype
Jigsaw puzzles of vintage comics, sci-fi and horror magazine covers
Posted by CultCase at Monday, August 20, 2007
Read more about games , puzzles , shopping
Brady's wooden jigsaw puzzle blog is a way for you to get a glimpse onto his "eccentric world of puzzle cutting". The above pictures - covers of old popular magazines - are offered by Brady as custom wooden jigsaw puzzles, cut from their high quality reproductions. With two optional sizes the puzzles are offered in 50 or 100 pieces configurations.
Aren't they cool? check out www.bradypuzzles.com or just order one here.
Syndicated flash games from Miniclip
Posted by CultCase at Sunday, August 19, 2007
Read more about games
The following flash games from Miniclip is a great example of modern content syndication. It can be installed on any website or blog within the speed of a blog post.
Skype protocol has been cracked
Posted by CultCase at Saturday, August 18, 2007 | 4 comments
Read more about opensource , tools , voice
The proprietary protocol used by Skype for its voip services has been cracked by Chinese programmers, voip startup Vozin Communications co-founder Charlie Paglee reports on voipwiki.com.
Paglee says on July 12, 2006 - more than a year ago(!) - he received a Skype call from a friend at a company in China telling him he was not using Skype to make the call (screenshot above) claiming "his company has successfully reverse engineered the Skype protocol". The friend was after testing the new software with another end user in the United States to see how it worked between physically distant IP addresses.
According to Paglee the Chinees programmers reverse engineered a protocol that was not protected by patent. According to Chinese company CEO, their software will not support Skype’s Super Node technology... digg that :)
skype
Kids' Travel Activity Book
Posted by CultCase at Saturday, August 18, 2007 | 1 comments
Read more about games
Totally free and ready to print and use The Kids' Travel Activity Book pdf is an exclusive giveaway jam-packed with fun word puzzles, logic games, brain benders, and more - the perfect distraction for your grade level 2-7 kids on car trip, plane trips or anytime. Due to the graphics and depending on your bandwidth download might take a little time.
Direct download file | read more | digg story
Dreamy hidden bay surrounded by cliffs
Posted by CultCase at Saturday, August 18, 2007
Read more about firefox , water
My Skype seems to be green again and the number of other green contacts makes sense. Could it be that the problem was solved for now? I haven't checked and of its communication features yet. Really don't feel like doing so. People felt as if they were kidnapped here… for example, not being able to get your contact list info was a creepy experience. I read about people who have some contacts in their Skype simply not available anywhere else. Back it up from now on, pals.
Putting an end to that subject, I truly believe this event will become a turn point in how people refer to Skype and open source voip clients from now on. It might not be a one day turn, but just as it happened with IE and Firefox: things will start changing from now on and i'll try to keep up with the news about it from time to time.
skypeDreamy beach
So, yesterday early evening we went out, visiting Zemah and Sisi in their new residence outside the village just 24 hours after their arrival. It's kind of a long story why they moved out of the family farm which is not for me to tell. I'll just say that for Carmel, a new location 20 minuets walk from the nearest beach with lots of nature in the way is a major upgrade. She still have all the other attractions where Nitsi's family lives and now she also have this. Good for her - good for me.
The sea was fantastic. Zemah took us to a small dreamy hidden bay surrounded by cliffs and we had the privilege of saying goodnight to the Friday sun. It was great fun for all of us. Nitsi reminded all of us how some people travel half a globe to get themselves at such a fantastic beach with the water being above zero. We just had to take a short break. Isn't it cool? check out this short video from on my Wordpress Video blog. Same as the above pictures it was taken with my mobile so technically they are not of the best but still get the story straight.
Skype outage: supernode shortage?
Posted by CultCase at Friday, August 17, 2007
Read more about internet , tools , voice
If I am not mistaken we are getting close to the 48 hours line of the world major voip service provider failing to provide its service. Remember we are not only talking about (millions of...) 'free' users who pay nothing and enjoy the ride. Many Skype users I know have good American money invested in their SkypeOut accounts. They use it as a major international communication tool, Including for business. this is a very very problematic situation for Skype.I have read many explanations by now. According to Valery Marchuk from SecurityLab.ru an exploit code published by an anonymous user on their forum may be the reason. Marchuk says the code uses standard Skype client to call to a specific number, causing a "denial of service of current Skype server and forces Skype to reconnect to another server.
David Beckemeyer posted a more reasonable yet much more amazing theory about the nature of Skype problem related to their usage of "Supernodes". According to Beckemeyer Skype depends on "supernodes": selected end user computers preforming as database servers and other network services. Thus, when the number of supernode skype clients goes under a certain minimum the network fails to preform. Beckemeyer think it could theoretically take days for this pathology to end.
By the time i finished writing this my Skype turned green. and then gray again. and then green again. we'll see in the morning.
More about Skype Supernodes
skype
The People's Wiki follow-up
Posted by CultCase at Friday, August 17, 2007
Read more about internet
Jay Gould, founder of few popular websites, such as Music Video Codes, Yashi, Bolt and Sentt aggregated "the more interesting stories" published about his recent project WikiYou, launched July 9th this year.
According to Gould, WikiYou has been called the “Wikipedia About You“, “Twitter Plus Wikipedia“, “The People’s Wiki“, “The Ultimate Ego Play“, while others have already compared WikiYou to new sites.
Hey wait a minute Jay! "The People's Wiki"??! that sounds familiar... thanks for choosing my WikiYou nickname for your collection !
Read the rest here
Skype is a problem
Posted by CultCase at Thursday, August 16, 2007 | 3 comments
Read more about internet , tools , voice
Someone I know has already convinced me long time ago that being Skype such a dominant player in the global Internet VOIP arena is a major problem that needs to be taken care of by the open source community.
Today, when Skype managed to have some kind of significant malfunction making it completely unusable for national or international calls. I know that for sure because I verified it with people I work with abroad.
Check out this message published on the official Skype blog:
Problems with Skype login
By My status Joosep on August 16, 2007.
UPDATED: Some of you may be having problems logging in to Skype. Our engineering team has determined that it’s a software issue and hopes to have this resolved quickly. Meanwhile, you can simply leave your Skype client running and as soon as the issue is resolved, you will be logged in. We apologize for the inconvenience.
Now, excuse me for saying so but I don't think what they say is true because I have three workstations running in my home network and surely all three were already logged in. So, being Skype a so called Peer-to-Peer software: why should I even be in any need for their (commercial) dysfunctional login mechanism?
I used to like Skype VERY much in their early days. I even spent my good money on a Phillips Dect Skype phone. But I am afraid I now think the problem is the VOIP being held in one company, not the login as Skype claim in their blog.
Edit: 23.20 GMT+2
Skype is still down. A world without Skype. wow.
skype
Joined Technorati
Posted by CultCase at Thursday, August 16, 2007
Read more about tools
Just joined Technorati.
Technorati Profile
Leena's addiction
Posted by CultCase at Thursday, August 16, 2007
Leena's major addiction is puzzles. This well written and factual review about Conceptispuzzles.com was posted yesterday on her newly born blogging home.read more | digg story
Maze complexity and aesthetics: deep problems in computer graphics
Posted by CultCase at Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Read more about games , puzzles , software
Craig S. Kaplan is an Assistant Professor at the Computer Graphics Lab, The David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science,
I happen know at least two high-end software engineers fighting similar research area and aware of some of its complexities and difficulties. Yet, Professor Kaplan's Maze Design is certainly one of the most spectacular amazing presentations of discrete geometry and non-photorealistic rendering techniques I have ever seen.
Creating computer generated mazes using human designer input, Professor Kaplan and his PhD student, Jie Xu, were interested in two complementary questions with respect to maze design: Complexity and Aesthetics. According to Kaplan computer-based maze design requires a mix of techniques from discrete geometry and non-photorealistic rendering. Thus, the two questions of complexity and aesthetics in mazes both represent profound problems in computer graphics.
Kaplan and Jie Xu were trying to answer the following questions:
Complexity
"What makes a maze difficult to solve? The more we consider this question, the more elusive it becomes. It's certainly possible to begin defining mathematical measures of a maze's complexity, but complexity must depend on aspects of human perception as well. For example, the eye can easily become lost in a set of parallel passages. Complexity also depends on how the maze is to be solved. Are you looking down on the maze, solving it by eye? With a pencil? What if you're walking around inside the maze? And of course, complexity isn't necessarily what we want to measure. Ultimately we'd like to generate compelling puzzles, which may or may not have a high degree of complexity."
Aesthetics
"How do we construct attractive mazes, particularly mazes that resemble real-world scenes? Here, maze design interacts with problems in non-photorealistic rendering. There are many great projects for producing line drawings from images. Our goal is similar, except that our lines must also contrive to have the geometry of a maze. This additional constraint affects how we think about creating a line drawing in the first place."
Also according to their page, mazes can be used to represent images in two different ways with the most obvious using non-photorealistic line art as in the fantastic examples by Christopher Berg and the less obvious as in the "great new Maze-a-pix puzzles being produced by Conceptis Puzzles".
Following are a few of those creations linked to their corresponding HUGE originals. Click on any of them to download a PDF or PNG of the maze from their website for solving on paper. If you are REALLY interested with the subject you can also download the full Vortex Maze Construction paper by Jie Xu and Craig S. Kaplan (be patient. it's a big one and might take time to download).
Note: All images are courtesy of and copyrighted (2005) by Jie Xu and Craig S. Kaplan. you are free to use any of the images for personal and non-commercial purposes but please check with the owners about any other uses.
Switched to phase 2
Posted by CultCase at Tuesday, August 14, 2007
I've been posting about websites and blogging and techy stuff a lot lately but didn't say a word about how great our daughter is doing with getting herself to be a civilized human being. Well, she is doing VERY well, anxious and excited about everything new and wants to know it all right away. Especially when it comes to using new instruments and gadgets during my afternoon breaks. I wonder how come. strange.
Today she insisted on calling her grandmother using my Skype Dect phone and managed to have a 6 minutes 'conversation'. Later on she demanded using this new gadget shown above which is a significant upgrade on the subject started just this June. Luckily I had my Motorola phone close by so the moment is now properly treasured.
Israelplug.com: new media and social network hybrid
Posted by CultCase at Tuesday, August 14, 2007 | 2 comments
Read more about internet
launched just a week ago israelplug is a new media / social network hybrid platform targeted at Israeli innovative minds and readers who are interested with Israeli inventions. On the same day it was launched the new site made its way to Digg's home page with over 1000 diggs and more than 20,000 visitors arrived at our site within 24 hours.
Miriam Schwab from illuminea.com, providing marketing services to israelplug summarized her seven lessons of the event in her company blog, an interesting reference for anyone interested in launching anything online nowadays and is not already a Dig expert. As I have always been interested with the Internet's ability to have some news spread like a forest fire in an Israeli August, I just had to sign up and have another one of my "additional hemispheres" up online.
israelplug uses the WordPress opensource platform as its core system and integrates with mybloglog.com for its community. Other than stories about recent innovations (interesting example: Israel-developed collapsible system for escaping from tall structures) the site features the option of joining a social network and enjoying many common blogger community elements (RSS, comments, trackbacks, pingbacks) as well as a few extended options which are not seen very often.
I like the way user profiles are implemented at mybloglog.com with the ability to set each data element for different access permissions (Share this information with... Nobody / My Contacts / Everyone) and the (new) feature titled "Services" allowing users to configure their additional presences so I vote yes for israelplug integration.
According to Schwab the goal of israelplug is to "apply Web 2.0 marketing tools to Israel, with the idea that if it works for our clients, maybe it can work for our country too" and the logo's "Web 2.0 style reflects the approach".
In my humble opinion and personal taste the Star of David symbol is a bit too much for a non political website and might triger antagonist reactions, at least in some in some places I know. Yet, I credit Schwab and the rest of the israelplug guys guess they must have known what they are doing when they decided to go for this logo and had their reasons. Israel has many fans in the global hi-tech community so the Zionist logo might have even had to do with the extreme Dig surge.
The Sample Lab: Tryvertising space
Posted by CultCase at Sunday, August 12, 2007
Read more about advertising , shopping
Opened July 25 in Tokyo's Iceberg Building in Harajuku and spotted on Springwise - an innovative social network of 8,000 spotters who scan the globe for smart new business ideas - The Sample Lab is a new exclusive Tryvertising space inviting consumers to sample and test new and innovative products.
After paying a modest JPY 300 (approx. $2.5 US) registration fee plus JPY 1,000 annual membership fee and showing a dedicated QR code stored on their mobile phones members of The Sample Lab can gain their entrance, providing they are over 15 years of age.
Tryvertising is definitely getting hotter.
Moving jigsaw puzzle
Posted by CultCase at Sunday, August 12, 2007
Read more about games , puzzles , software
Check out this cool moving jigsaw puzzle implemented in Adobe Flash by Harada Yasunori, a scientist at the NTT Basic Research Laboratories, Japan.
Free 3-column blogger templates
Posted by CultCase at Saturday, August 11, 2007
Read more about howto , opensource , tools
I've been looking for a decent blogger templates resource for some time now. I simply had to get myself out of this 2-column prison almost every template for the this new Google blogger had. For some reason I didn't came up on Thrbrtemplates on blogspot.com until this morning. I guess I was just not enough into it but now I did so here it is. I used the minima-blue-3col-w960 XML template with a few minor adjustments.
A few Blogger Themes and Templates can be found in the left sidebar. You can grab these templates and install them on your blog through your edit html panel. All templates, other than the one used for the WorkShop design, css and markup, are provided to "use and abuse, beautify and mutilate". There aren't any Terms of Use on this site though it mentions it "would be nice" if you keep their template header information 'as is'.
I also kept this screenshot of the 2-column one (below). Hashem Ykom Dama...
High Heels on Wet Pavement: Film Noir and the Femme Fatale
Posted by CultCase at Friday, August 10, 2007
Defined as “an irresistibly attractive woman, especially one who leads men into danger or disaster” Femme Fatale characters have always been one of the most important aspects of every respectable film noir classics.
Michael Mills from moderntimes.com wrote this wonderful piece about his Femme Fatale favorites, naming the stunning image of Lana Turner, as the camera pans from her ankles upward in that breathtaking shot from “The Postman Always Rings Twice” 1946 as his most engaging semblance of a “femme fatale”. Don't miss the chapter about Vera played with "absolute aplomb by the very underrated" Ann Savage at Edgar G. Ulmer’s Detour - one of my favorite film noir of all times.
read more | digg story
Mobile Media: not just the new kid on the Internet block
Posted by CultCase at Thursday, August 09, 2007
Read more about mobile
Appearance of European popular prints is usually referred to the beginning of the 15th century but the father of mass media has only brought us the first book in 1453. Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg (c. 1400 – February 3, 1468) was a German goldsmith and printer, who is credited with inventing movable type printing in Europe (ca. 1450), mechanical printing globally and the Gutenberg Bible, also known as the 42-line bible.
Amazingly, It took humanity almost 400(!) years to make the next jump when Nicéphore Niépce took the first permanent photograph in 1825 and it was just the beginning of the 20th century(!) that marked the point where the change was not only in the emergence of new technologies anymore but also in the frequency of their appearance and speed of adoption.
Nothing to do with mobile billboard vehicles
It was just in 1990 when Tim Berners-Lee wrote "The WorldWideWeb browser" using a NeXT computer and in 1995 when Jeff Bezos launched Amazon.com and Internet came into our lives as commercially available product and things had really started to change fast. So fast that many of us are simply becoming future shocked. So fast that every one older than two years old can actually see how things change significantly right in front their eyes. Just think about how much time were you spending shopping online five years ago and how much you do now and you'll know how fast.
So, as you must be realizing already where this is heading to, I'll cut to the chase*: Mobile media has nothing to do with mobile billboard vehicles* and is not just a new kid on the Internet block. Mobile media is more like the next king of mass media world.
Mobile as the 7th of the Mass Media
Did you know there are as many as 3 times mobile phones in the world as there are TV sets? Alan Moore and Tomi Ahonen from SMLXL, a cross-platform communication strategies and campaigns company, claim we have to accept TV is simply no longer "the hostess with the mostess" and produced a whitepaper on Mobile as the 7th of the Mass Media.
If you are interested with Mobile media and would like a free copy of this whitepaper visit What do, Cyworld, the iPhone, blyk, Admob, MyNuMo, Artists first, Moblog UK have in common? They are all part of the 7th Mass Media: Mobile, and leave Alan Moore and Tomi Ahonen a comment asking so.
* Did you know the phrase "cut to the chase" was originated from early silent films often climaxed in chase scenes?
* The above picture (check out the high-res version) shows a different kind of 'mobile media' than the one discussed hereby and is kind of a joke, attempting no offense to the picture owners in any way. To help promote Las Vegas’ 100th birthday in April 2005, two of Mobile Billboard trucks were outfitted with mobile billboard ads designed by R&R Partners of Las Vegas. The ads rotated every eight seconds with Gotcha Mobile Media’s Mobile Tri-Ad Technology.
NY Times: TimesSelect Drops Paid Subscription Model, Online Content Now Free
Posted by CultCase at Thursday, August 09, 2007
Read more about internet , news , publishing , shopping
The New York Times is pulling the plug on its paid web service TimesSelect, which gives subscribers access to columnist and Op-Ed pieces. According to the New York Post, the decision came from top Times execs, which will make the content free for all readers. TimesSelect was originally free to access by subscribers of the print edition, while web-only subscribers paid $8 a month for it.
read more | digg story
Get the picture: OpenPuzzle.com
Posted by CultCase at Wednesday, August 08, 2007 | 2 comments
Read more about puzzles
I was introduced to this cool new web2.0 venture by a good blogger friend (thanks Boaz!). After having a glance I knew I just had to share this one with the rest of you.
Composed of people’s faces OpenPuzzle.com ("Get the picture") is a living mosaic of portraits which also preform as a classic web2.0 social network. Sign up with your real email address (verification required) fill in your personal details which will also be used for matching with similar profiles, read a short instruction about how to properly add your picture to become a part of this online art form.
You can bookmark any part of the puzzle using a "puzzle mark" and add comments and descriptions to this bookmark. The guys from openpuzzle claim there is also an option for publishing your puzzle marks on your website or blog but I have to admit I couldn't find it even though I red everything there was to read. There is a search option for old classmates and people in your area but as there seem to be 516 members (from 14 countries...) on this cool website it don't make much sense as the moment.
Got the picture? its a great idea but as everything else it takes some time for every enterprise to gain its fans. even on the Internet. Join me on OpenPuzzle and add your photo too.
The most colorholic website
Posted by CultCase at Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Read more about tools
I think I just found the most bingo website for my beloved wife, who's a professional designer but also a real colorholic. ColourLovers.com is for anyone who is really crazy for colors. Whether for ad campaigns, product design, or even in architectural specification: if you love colors you have to check this site.
Apart from news, articles and trend reports, interviews with creative professionals and examples of the way colors are used in the real world, ColourLovers also allows you to compare color palettes, submit news and comments and share your own color palettes and schemes.
I'll refer my wife to this post and we'll see if she can really use it for "inspiration for color by searching, sorting and filtering through keywords to a color scheme that interests you" as they promise.
BTW, apparently I did not invent the colorholic concept. This mobile phone made by LG is targeted for this sort of people but I suspect they did not have the guts to actually use this term for their brand and its more of a joke made by Amy-Mae Elliott who wrote this August 7 piece on pocket-lint.co.uk.
Unit L-11 was dropped
Posted by CultCase at Monday, August 06, 2007
Read more about war
On August 6, 1945, exactly 62 years ago, the nuclear weapon Unit L-11 nicknamed Little Boy was dropped on the city of Hiroshima by the crew of the American B-29 Superfortress bomber Enola Gay, directly killing an estimated 70,000 people. Approximately 69% of the city's buildings were completely destroyed, and 6.6 percent severely damaged as the United States became the first and only country ever to use an atomic weapon in warfare. In the following months, an estimated 60,000 more people died from injuries in Hiroshima, and hundreds more from radiation.
Three days later, on August 9, 1945 the port city of Nagasaki was destroyed by a second atom bomb nicknamed Fat Man with the ultimate loss of 140,000 lives. The results were that Japan surrendered and World War II was ended. Here is some additional information according to The Manhattan Project - An Interactive History (the emphasizes were made by me):
Development of the bomb followed two paths, one using uranium-235, which occurs naturally, and the other man-made plutonium. In the end, both were built and used: The uranium-based "Little Boy" was dropped on Hiroshima, while the plutonium-based "Fat Man" laid waste to Nagasaki.
How heavily populated cities came to be chosen as the targets remains a matter of controversy. The scientists involved in developing the bomb favored demonstrating their weapon to the Japanese in an isolated area but military and political planners rejected the idea, arguing that the shock of total destruction would have a more profound impact.
The United States maintains to this day that the decision to drop the bomb was made primarily to avoid the necessity of invading the Japanese home islands, an undertaking that would have resulted in enormous casualties on both sides. But that argument ignores the deterioration of Japanese resolve by that point in the war. Although the emperor's government rejected the Potsdam Declaration in late July, which called for an immediate and unconditional surrender, the Japanese had been sending out peace feelers through the Soviet Union, and early signs of starvation, even on the main island, were apparent.
Many historians believe that the real U.S. motive for dropping the bomb was to end the war quickly before the Russians could become involved, thereby denying them a postwar stake in the Pacific -- and, by practical example, to send a message to Stalin.
Whatever the reasons, the bombs were dropped and most of the scientists involved in the Manhattan Project later expressed remorse for what they had wrought.
The above photograph (source: About History) shows Comdr. A.F. Birch, numbering LB (Little Boy) unit L-11, before loading on trailer in Assembly Bldg. #1. Unit L-11 was the one dropped on Hiroshima. Dr. Ramsey standing nearby. (August 1945).
Here is a 10 min video piece from BBC's Hiroshima.
Porn loving ladies???
Posted by CultCase at Sunday, August 05, 2007
According to a recent ComScore Media Metrix research quoted this morning by theage.com (as well as by at least two Israeli daily newspapers, see here, here) in April, more than a third of the U.S. Internet audience visited sites that fit into the online "adult" category.
Yet, at least in my opinion, the most amazing statistical fact generated by this research is that 40% of this "Internet audience" appears to be females, mainly young ones up to 34 years old.
Theage says porn stars are using MySpace pages and do voiceovers for video games and that "the trend has had a particularly strong influence on young women - in some cases, taking shape as an unapologetic embracing of sexuality and exhibitionism" and quotes a 31 year old Canadian lady named Holly Eglinton who recently won a talent search competition to appear as an unclothed newscaster on the Internet's Naked News show:
"I am one of those girls... it's something that sort of suits my personality... I'm kind of an extrovert and a bit of a camera hog, a poser."
Well, I must sat I have been getting those "Katherine" friend invitations to my MySpace account saying "I am 23 years old. I work at a middle school here in Baypoint California. I like to have fun. I am not currently going to school i just work full time. Who I'd like to meet: Fun loving people and of course a fine ass guy!!". I was sure its just some porn website using MySpace for its spam, but now I am not so sure anymore. Could it be that there is a real Katherine (see above picture...) out there...?
Haven't they were always telling us porn is an invention of men for how to sexually abuse women in a legitimate manner? Aren't porn-loving women supposed to be men's imagination?? I knew quite a few women in my life that liked consuming porn so I have always suspected those who claimed the above claims. now my suspicions have become much stronger.
Order, Kola and Drums
Posted by CultCase at Saturday, August 04, 2007 | 4 comments
Read more about games , video
Take a good look at our daughter as she plays with Altman and Zemah during our visit at the farm yesterday for the birthday party of Oz. It's night. We had a good dinner, lots of Sangría and the party is almost over but someone just didn't have enough fun. Timestamp says its 21:12-22:43. The girl had her 2nd birthday just two weeks ago. Have I already mentioned Carmel is a human nuclear power plant?
'Ayn Hawd (Hebrew: עין חוד, Arabic: عين حوض)
Posted by CultCase at Friday, August 03, 2007
Read more about video
'Ayn Hawd (Hebrew: עין חוד, Arabic: عين حوض) is one of the al-Hija villages in northern Israel named after Emir Hussam al-Din Abu al-Hija. Being one of the most well known unrecognized villages In Israel until 2005, 'Ayn Hawd has always been a symbol for the unbelievable issue of the unrecognized Arab villages in Israel. Back in 2002, when I was a journalism student at Koteret it was just like any other unrecognized village. No one knew if and when the village and its people will become a legitimate residents of Israel. When I had to choose a subject for my final video class assignment I thought telling the story of Ayn Hawd and Mohammad Abu al-Hija would be a good idea. The video was later on included in the official graduation documentary magazine and actually got better reactions than I expected.
Mohammad serves his people as chairman of The Association of Forty ever since its establishment in December 1988, when residents from several unrecognized villages and other localities - both Arabs and Jews - met in the village of Ein Hod to discuss ways to confront the recommendations of the official Markovitch Commission Report, ordered to investigate the phenomenon of "unlicensed construction in the Arab sector" in Israel. They formed The Association of Forty which represents the residents of the unrecognized villages and their problems, and promotes support locally and internationally. Among The Association of Forty's goals are to obtain official recognition for the villages, to improve living conditions, and to claim full rights and equality for the Arab citizens of the state.
As most of my class mates, just like most Israelis, have never even heard about the existence of the unrecognized villages and Internally Displaced Palestinians (Hebrew: נוכחים נפקדים) problems I thought it might be a good idea.
The unrecognized villages
There is no exact figure for the number of unrecognized villages in Israel since there is no clear definition of what constitutes a village and since this situation is very comfortable for Israel's authorities. Generally, Israeli government officials have always claimed those villages are unrecognized because they are too small.
Yet, In reality there are many examples for very very small "recognized" Jewish settlements whereas dozens, perhaps even a hundred Arab ones with many more Israeli citizens living in them are not. Its also not clear exactly how many Palestinian Arab citizens live in villages that are constantly threatened with destruction, prevented from development and are not shown on any map. some say 10,000. some say over 70,000.
Another important aspect of the subject is a common mistake regarding the Geo-Political essence of the people living in the "unrecognized villages". Usually, the few Jewish Israeli people who have ever heard anything about the subject are convinced the Palestinians being discussed are refugees and the unrecognized villages are somewhere in the West Bank or the "Gaza strip". That is very far from being true.
None of the unrecognized villages is located in what is commonly described as "The Occupied Territories", "Yehuda Veshomron" etc. That is very much Israel of the 1967 lines we are talking about here, and the residents are not members of Hamas or Islamic Jihad. They are simple ordinary law-obedient Israeli citizens, legitimate in every other aspect of their life just like me and my wife. Only we are Jews and they are Palestinians.
And now the good news
But there is also a good side to the story of this post. On July 30, just a few days ago when I was already planning on posting this, I red in this laconic news item on the Israeli MSN site that after 60 years the residents of Ayn Hawd have finally got their village powered with state electricity (they were using their own generator until now). Hard to describe how happy I was to read that. Can't remember when was the last time any news item made me happy this way.
Until the End of the World: Days
Posted by CultCase at Thursday, August 02, 2007
Read more about classics , music
Released in 1991 by the German-born film director Wim Wenders, Until the End of the World (German: Bis ans Ende der Welt) has been a culture milestone for quite a few people I know. Wenders' career had always been distinguished by his mastery of the road movie and according to Wikpedia had intended this piece as "the Ultimate Road Movie".I remember how thrilled were everyone before it was released in Israel (well perhaps not everyone but everyone who likes good movies...) as well as finally watching it when it finally came (Haifa's Cinémathèque...). It was not even clear what this movie is all about as the plot is very hard to describe. We just knew it was about the "future" and being avid futurists at the time, a movie about "the future" sounded very promising coming from Wenders :)
About two and a half years ago before Carmel was born and we were still watching late night movies together I got a copy of the director cut DVD and we had the privilege to see it together. The following is our favorite scene in the movie - a magic millennium party with colorful garland lights and a a fantastic unplugged version preformed by Claire Tourneur (Solveig Dommartin) doing Kirsty MacColl's "Days". Held by a squad of the most "powerful" living actors at the time, this scene mixes death, sorrow and happiness in the most Wendersed way there is.
I'd like to dedicate this song and post to my loving wife who has been sharing her moments with me for six years already.
Days by Kirsty MacColl
Thank you for the days
Those endless days, those sacred days you gave me
I'm thinking of the days
I won't forget a single day believe me
I bless the light
I bless the light that lights on you believe me
And though you're gone
You're with me every single day believe me
Days I'll remember all my life
Days when you can't see wrong from right
You took my life
But then I knew that very soon you'd leave me
But it's alright
Now I'm not frightened of this world believe me
I wish today could be tomorrow
The night is long
It just brings sorrow let it wait
Thank you for the days
Those endless days, those sacred days you gave me
I'm thinking of the days
I won't forget a single day believe me
Days I'll remember all my life
Days when you can't see wrong from right
You took my life
But then I knew that very soon you'd leave me
But it's alright
Now I'm not frightened of this world believe me
Days
Thank you for the days
Those endless days, those sacred days you gave me
I'm thinking of the days
I won't forget a single day believe me
I bless the light
I bless the light that lights on you believe me
And though you're gone
You're with me every single day believe me
Days
Harmonica
Posted by CultCase at Wednesday, August 01, 2007 | 3 comments
An anonymous user which later on signed as Benjamin posted this comment to my From Sam Spade to Harry Callahan: toughest movie characters of all times article claiming Charles Bronson in Once upon a time in the west should have been be considered, too, as a "really tough" being an "(anti-)hero". He also added the following YouTube reference. I love this film SO much that after watching this scene again I just had to do this gesture for both Benjamin and Charley.So, as this contents is about characters and not actors we should make a note that even though Bronson's character name remains (to the best of my knowledge) unrevealed, it does have this supercool nickname "Harmonica", given to him by Frank (Henry Fonda).
here it is: The Once Upon a Time in the West final showdown.
Why do people play games online?
Posted by CultCase at Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Read more about games , internet
Why do people play games online? Staffan Schröder started this interesting thread on ixda.org* looking for any research in the field of why people play games or gamble online welcoming any pointers in the right direction.
A visitor named Dan Brown suggested that being the Casual Gaming a growing area of gaming involving puzzles, logic games, word games and so on, looking at this community might be a good idea. Brown's comment included the following references, both of which i never knew before: The Casual Games Association, connecting and educating the casual games industry with conferences, mingles, matchmaking, industry research and a magazine; and the Casual Games SIG (in the above screenshot) a dedicated Wiki serving game developers worldwide who are interested in this accelerating marketplace.
*The IxDA is a member-supported organization committed to serving the needs of the international interaction design community. With the help of over 300 members, IxDA provide a forum for the discussion of interaction design issues.
Thanks go to both Steffan and Dan!
My History of Sudoku (数独, sūdoku)
Posted by CultCase at Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Read more about games , opensource , puzzles
Today I discovered my article The history of Sudoku, written and published mid August 2005, is honored as the fifth on Wikipedia's Sudoku article reference list ('Galanti, Gil. The History of Sudoku. Retrieved on 2006-10-06'). It means I'll have to put some more work into it keeping it updated, but at the same time I should say this is an online form of poetic justice!
Being totally fascinated by the emerging of Wikipedia in those days, and having done a comprehensive research about the subject, I was trying to contribute some of my findings to this article. Yet, I quickly found out that Sudoku has already became "too popular" and the people editing this article had to cope with millions of "contributions" by commercially interested elements. Thus, everything I posted there, no matter how short, interesting or new, was simply gone with the wind after less than 24 hours. I guess thats one of the bummer parts of being a famous puzzle :)
I took the opportunity and got myself updated with some new stuff published in the Wikipedia article. For example, I think Howard Garns - now claimed to be the person who actually made the first Sudokus in 1979 (published by Dell Magazines under the name "Number Place") is new. I need to update my article.
The official Wikipedia Sudoku blurb is now:
Sudoku (数独, sūdoku) is a logic-based number placement puzzle. The objective is to fill a 9x9 grid so that each column, each row, and each of the nine 3x3 boxes (also called blocks or regions) contains the digits from 1 to 9. The puzzle setter provides a partially completed grid.
Completed Sudoku puzzles are a type of Latin square, with an additional constraint on the contents of individual regions. Leonhard Euler is sometimes incorrectly cited as the source of the puzzle, based on his work with Latin squares.
The modern puzzle was invented by an American, Howard Garns, in 1979 and published by Dell Magazines under the name "Number Place".It became popular in Japan in 1986, after it was published by Nikoli and given the name Sudoku, meaning single number. [3] It became an international hit in 2005.