The climate surrounding the climate debate sure have changes over the last five years. A few days ago Google and Specialized announced the "Innovate or Die Pedal-Powered Machine Contest":

"Specialized and Google lannounce the Innovate or Die Pedal-Powered Machine Contest. Seeking zero-emission inventions that transform human energi into unprecedented results and can help save our planet, one pedal stroke at a time"

The companies invite everyone to post videos on YouTube showing the world their pedal powered solution. You can win Specialized bicycles and a $5000 cash prize.

Their own suggestion is not that impressive, but you get the idea. Both companies provide great products (I personally ride a Specialized Sirrus through the smog of Copenhagen almost every day to get to work. And Google is ... well... Google) . Interesting to see what people will come up with - and if the solutions will green the planet. Or the reputation of the companies. Or both.

Have you ever had a tune stuck in your after playing a computer game for too long? Well, I know I have. You dont even have to play for very long to get it under your skin and that is because both the simplest 8-bit coded music from the mid 80es, and the movie-like music of Baldurs Gate, is actually rather catchy. So catchy that it is now catching on in a wider sense and bands such as 8 Bit Weapon is getting more broadly known and popular. The Wikipedia entry on 8 Bit Weapon it shortly explains the idea:

"8 Bit Weapon is a chiptune music band created by Seth Sternberger. 8 Bit Weapons' instrument set is primarily composed of old 8-bit computers such as the Commodore Vic-20, Commodore 64, Commodore 128, Commodore Amiga 500, and the Apple II, as well as game consoles such as the Nintendo Entertainment System, Game Boy, Atari 2600, and an Intellivision synthesizer. 8 Bit Weapon started around 1999 by remixing Commodore 64 SID tunes like Crazy Comets, M.U.L.E., and some Nintendo N.E.S. game music such as Super Mario Bros 2, and Metroid."

There exist other bands as well, specialized in playing computer game soundtrack music such as the Danish band "Press Play on Tape". The band is featuring six computer science students from Univesity of Copenhagen who in 2000 started out playing the soundtrack music from Commodore 64 games they know so well. Since then they have performed at more then twenty concerts, several of them outside their hometown Copenhagen; here is a video of the band playing "Monkey Island" from the demoscene event Breakpoint 2007 in Germany:

I received a wedding invitation this morning. The wedding is later today, in Las Vegas, so I will not be able to attend. And then again maybe I will, because the wedding is broadcasted to the world via a webcam such that friends and family can participate - or at least see whats going on. In the next update it may be cool to have webcams the other way also, enabling the happy couple to see all the (internet) guests. Anyway: Congratulations!