Inspired by the summer solstice, and the fact that I don't currently have an apartment, I spent the last 5 days in a place I've always dreamed of going: Iceland! (click links to view photos).

Reykjavik is a truly pleasant city. Small, but not sleepy, it radiates a uniqueness that is hard to explain. Strolling around you are always aware that you're somewhere remote and different. Could be the 1am sunshine, could be the corrugated metal buildings that look like something from an Antarctic base, could be the monster trucks everywhere, I don't know, it's just definitely out there, and I really liked it.

Aesthetically, it's surprisingly suburban. Most people seem to live in apartment complexes on the city edge. But the streets at the city center are especially pleasant and quaint. There is art everywhere. Sculptures and murals, and nothing seems to be vandalized. Apparently there are more musicians per capita than anywhere else, and the busses even have books on board for your reading pleasure! Talk about civilized.

It's clearly at the crossroads of America and Europe. There are loads of American cars and trucks all over the place, and certain brand names you don't see in the rest of Europe. Yet you're clearly in Scandinavia. This crossroads manifests itself quite literally at Þingvellir where you can see the mid-Atlantic ridge pulling the island apart. On the right of that photo the rocks are headed for Europe, on the left to North America. Totally amazing.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to see as much as I wanted and mostly hung around close to Reykjavik. The busses are not that practical outside of town, and a car rental would have been out of the question due to cost. Still, I did get to see a bit of the country and the requisite tourist sites, the Gullfoss waterfall, Geysir, and of course the Blue Lagoon, which is a bit of a marketing phenomenon. It's actually excess water from a geothermal power plant that sits around on a lava field. Because it's close to the main airport, Icelandair busses passengers over during layovers making it Iceland's most visited tourist attraction. Still worth an afternoon though!

I've got to make it back there. But next time it's gotta be with a group and a car. Want to come?

Down the street from my flat in London lie the illustrious gates to "Goodenough" college. It's not the best, but it's good enough for me! Actually, for all I know this may be a great school, but I can't keep myself from laughing every time I walk past! (photo c/o J. Rueppel)

The Degree Confluence Project is an attempt to collect photographs and descriptions of the world at the confluence of lines of latitude and longitude. It's completely arbitrary of course, but still pretty neat.

There are quite a few people out there trying to help complete the project, hiking to remote places with GPS devices to score their photos (some making quite a celebration out of it - dig the outfits). Still, the remotest areas of the world remain unphotographed.

Someone's put together a mosaic of the points so far collected: [click here] Quite cool.

According to this article, the $2 bill may be making a comeback.

I've always been a big fan of the double-dollar, as well as the $1 coin, but before you get too excited, it seems they're only planning to print a negligible number of them.

I'm trying to understand the motivation behind this. The $1 coin was basically a failure because they hardly minted any. As a result people kept them all as souvenirs. I've only received a $1 coin once in my life! And naturally, it's now sitting in my drawer as a keepsake.

Perhaps the government calculates that there's some kind of economic benefit to printing money that no one will ever use. Kind of like those souvenir stamps that people buy and just keep.

I would love to use $2 Bills and $1 coins (think vending machines). But unless they print enough, I too am more likely to pocket them as souvenirs!

Watch out: I got some weird spam that appeared to come from Paypal this morning. The email states: "Dear Paypal Customer This e-mail is the notification of recent innovations taken by PayPal to detect inactive customers and non-functioning mailboxes...The inactive customers are subject to restriction and removal in the next 3 months...Please confirm your email address and credit card information by logging in to your PayPal account using the form below:"

Among other things, I am asked to fill out a form with my credit card details and my ATM PIN, supposedly for bank notification.

That's where my scam alert kicks in. There's no way in hell Paypal would ask for my ATM PIN, nor my credit card details. The email looks deceptively legitimate otherwise.

So... analysis of the source code behind the form shows that the form info is sent to:

http://www.paypal.com0..tons of zeros and ones...1@robinsonhost.port5.com/..more zeros and ones...1.php

So the question is... who is that?

One of the drawbacks to having an easy-to-use number list built into my phone, is that I have no idea what most of my friends' phone numbers are. The only numbers I still have memorized are really old ones that I've known for years, like my parents'. If I lose my phone, or if Microsoft Outlook crashes, it would be a catastrophe.

It is said that 7 digits is the practical limit for human number memorization. I wonder if our ability to memorize numbers will de-volve over time as we become more and more intertwined with technology.

I'm going to print out my address book now.

Cool news for people in Milwaukee... free wi-fi is going to be set up in two downtown parks within a month. [article here]

It's really a perfect civic intestment, since it costs next to nothing to set up, and everyone loves it. I think that makes Milwaukee only the second city in the us to do this, after Long Beach.

I wish someone would do this in London, but alas, the only wireless networks you can find are pay-per-use ones which cost a fortune.