Converting Pi to binary: Don’t do it

I haven’t really written much about mathematics. And later I might. For now we are still on the comical note… I stumbled (literally, by using stumbleupon) across a site that claims it’s a good thing we can’t write out pi in binary numbers. If you do, you end up with all finite strings of 0’s and 1’s that is possible. That means, converted to letters, you have infringed copyrights of all written material known to man, you have insulted all religions and all of their fictual characters, you have done all kinds of espionage and written a DVD-cracking program (courtesy of DVD-Jon). Read a bit more over at

Converting Pi to binary: Don’t do it@Everything2.com.

Dropbox – my sync’er of choice!

Researchers…teachers…students… a lot of us have a computer at work, a computer at home, and a laptop to boot (sorry, bad pun). I must admit to also have a mediacenter PC and a work laptop. What I wanted was an easy way to keep folders in sync between all or some of these computers, without relying on ftp or windows drive mapping etc.

I went to several sync softwares before landing on DropBox for now. First I considered Syncplicity, and this was really great with excellent service – until they went out of beta. The free version ended up supporting two computers,

Picture from http://www.getdropbox.com

and having three or four I wanted to sync, I had to look elsewhere. Syncplicity comes with a 2 GB account, that grows when you invite friends (up until 5 GB I think).

Next up I went for Foldershare – a microsoft product. This is another concept, syncing as many computers as you like, but only when they are online at the same time. There’s no cloud storage, just moving files over networks. Foldershare suddenly changed into Windows Live Sync, but it is still good. I used it all the time for syncing my iTunes libraries, my iPod libraries, a few movies so that they are available on all computers etc. Another fancy way to use it is to sync a folder with torrents in – that way it’s easy to start torrent downloads from other computers than the one you are downloading to. The freeware uTorrent supports watching a folder for whether a .torrent suddenly pops into it.

I finally ended on Dropbox, the main reason over the others is that it has a 2GB cloud storage, and it allows for several computers to be kept in sync. It also has a clever way of using a public folder, right click a file in the public folder and you get a link you can send a friend. No more swearing when MSN spends seven hours transferring big files. Dropbox also worked on my heavily firewalled work computers, where Foldershare and Syncplicty had troubles installing due to some strange bugs in the Windows Install System (I think it’s called MSI, but not sure…).

Lifehacker also wrote about this in an article about using Dropbox to sync your passwords across computers. Hope you who read this will leave some other clever uses in the comments! I can think of some, like syncing your library of references, to be used in EndNote or Zotero or similar reference managers. Sharing pictures with your family and friends is also pretty easy with this software. And it’s lightning fast!

A funny thing happened on the way to the moon

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Moon (2001) (V)

Directed by Bart Sibrel. With Anne Tonelson. Visit IMDb for Photos, Showtimes, Cast, Crew, Reviews, Plot Summary, Comments, Discussions, Taglines, Trailers, Posters, Fan Sites

Well, here’s some more comic relief albeit of a different type. I hadn’t seen this movie until recently, and really enjoyed it the other day. It’s really, really hard to believe how conspiracy theoreticians (or HB’s – Hoax believers) can relate to all the nonsense and moronness that they actually believe. This movie is worth its weight in gold as far as entertainment goes. It tries to give the impression we never landed on the moon. Of course, it’s easy to kick back at all claims in the movie, many web pages will even lay out the argumenatation bit by bit (i.e. http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html ) but I recommend you see it for yourself first to see how much nonsense you can spot on a see-through. And I have to admit, even if most arguments in the movie are utterly stupid there are some which you might want to look up to understand.

The Darwin Awards

The Darwin Awards.

Now for some comic relief. This site is dedicated to those who improve the gene pool of the world by killing of themselves (or making themselves unable to reproduce) in horribly stupid manners.

Read about the terrorist who mails someone a bomb – with insufficient postage, causing it to be returned to sender – And read more hilarious ways to go!

Norwegian GeoGebra Institute

Image via Wikipedia

NGI, Norsk GeoGebra Institutt (Norwegian geoGebra Institute) was founded this year. Located at NTNU, the university of Trondheim. This institute is aiming to be a gathering point for all activities related to GeoGebra. If you don’t already know this excellent piece of software, take at look at the GeoGebra tag to the right to see some of my older posts, or check it ouf free on the official site, http://www.geogebra.org.

The institute will facilitate courses and seminars, online and on campus, and the first courses are already being planned and starting out. Also, you can be certified for being an instructor at four different levels by attending courses and seminars.