GameUtopia

Rubik's Cube was invented in 1974 by Erno Rubrik. I honestly didn't know it went back that far. When I was a kid I was fascinated with Rubik's Cube. I played with that thing for hours upon end. Funny that something so simple could be so entertaining back then.



Anyway, apparently a group of researcher's have determined or figured out an algorithm for the famous cube. They have determined that the lowest number of moves is 20 to solve. Can you believe that? It took me more than 20 moves. As a matter of fact I can recall being so frustrated trying to solve the thing that at one point I took it completely apart. Then, I reassembled it so all the colors lined up again. Talk about more than 20 moves, but at least I got it hey!

For those of you interested the current world record for solving Rubik's Cube is a mere 7.08 seconds by Dutchman Erik Akkersdijk. Now that is impressive.

The other night Twitter was down for scheduled maintenance according to the message I received when visiting the site. I don't know for sure how long it was down. I really don't mess with Twitter that much, but I'll attach a screen shot of the message I saw when I visited below.

I know there was talk from the folks over at Twitter that they are going to be moving, upgrading, or something to their own datacenter. Perhaps this outage had something to do with it. I don't follow them enough to know for certain.

They have had their share of outages and down time lately. From attacks to stolen information, you name it. People have complained about it being extremely slow at times recently too.




I can live with or without Twitter. In my opinion, it's really not that exciting. I really don't get how thrilling it is to read 140 character or less text messages from everyone in the world. Apparently a lot of people do though. Then again I don't understand how some people send a couple of hundred text messages every day from their cell phone either. Guess I am just old school or something.

I do kind of like the domain name Twitter.com though. It's kind of short and catchy. I really don't think of the bird they use for part of their logo thing.

Anyway the Twitter maintenance page I saw was kind of less than ordinary and not what I would have expected. Here it is:

I have an occasional interest in reading up on conspiracy theories from time to time. Last night I was doing a little research and browsing and I swear there are 1001 conspiracy theories out there.

Well I don't know the exact number, but there were more than I can remember right offhand. Anything and everything you could possibly imagine, and believe me I can imagine a lot. Some conspiracy theories are so far fetched and hard to believe I don't even know how they came to be to begin with. The power of the internet I guess might have something to do with.

Others are kind of iffy. I could go either way on them. They are hard to believe with little or no credible evidence. Mostly hear say, someones own thoughts and beliefs in a lot of cases.

A very small percentage have ever sparked my interest and that have the potential to be true or likely. I won't get into that too much as I am fairly skeptical about most of them.



One thing for sure some people really get into the conspiracy that they believe in. I mean they really take it to the extreme sometimes. I've seen maps, diagrams, charts, videos, and everything in between. Talk about a lot of work. However, most of them are missing any credible source and information why we should believe it. I am not saying it is totally untrue, but some credible evidence, proof, and/or person of high statue would be very helpful.

Then there is the whole world of people that take and edit pictures to fake something. Others original work is sometimes discredited and circulated as a hoax by someone. All this digital technology we have these days make things even more difficult to prove anything remotely realistic sometimes.

At any rate I didn't realize there were that many conspiracy theories out there.

Get ready for the sky to put on another show this week. The annual Perseid Meteor Shower is expected to peak Thursday August 12th. Although any time from now leading up to the peak, and several days afterward should provide you with a few of these guys streaking across the sky.

So if you have clear nighttime skies over the next week to 10 days be sure to venture out and take a peek. Darker skies and away from the city should provide for best viewing. However, mild city lighting in suburban areas should still be acceptable to see at least some.

The estimated number per hour on the peak night of Thursday August 12th is around 50-80 per hour in darker sky locations.




It can be exciting to them streaking across the sky especially for a younger child that has never seen one before. The bigger ones can get pretty bright with a fairly large tail that may last 1-3 seconds.

The other good thing about the Perseid Meteor shower is it is the middle of summer here in the Northern Hemisphere. Generally the weather tends to cooperate with us much more this time of year.

Clear Skies!

Apparently there was a significant eruption on the sun's surface on Sunday August 1st. This sent tons of matter heading strait toward Earth.

What that means to us here on Earth is it is supposed to produce a fairly decent Aurora - Northern/Southern Light show. It is expected to reach us and peak Tuesday August 3rd/Wednesday August 4th. So if you are out and about, or up late take a peek outside and look to the North if you are in the northern hemisphere. For those of you in the southern hemisphere you would look to the south.




These things tend to linger for a few days after they peak. So if you missed any showing you might check the following night or two as well.

This assuming the scientist people accurately got the information and data correct. Sometimes these folks are kind of like the weather forecasters...They usually get it right, but are known to mess up on a regular basis.

I hope you are one of the lucky ones that get a glimpse at this...off I go to investigate with my own eyes!