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As I’ve been writing my next yet-to-be-published blog post, ’8 iPhone Games You Must Have’, I’ve been getting deeper and deeper into geoDefense Swarm. It’s really difficult as the dynamics of the game keep changing from level to level and each level often has a unique solution. I’ve been struggling with medium level 7 ‘Nucleotide’, it’s really hard. So hard in fact, that I haven’t been able to find a sure-fire solution for it online.

Well, I’ve just spent a part of my train journey back from Scotland trying to crack this nut. And you know what? I have prevailed. In the end, it was pretty easy; all I needed as to think of what does ‘Deoxyribonucleic acid‘ mean. (This is written on the starting screen of the level.) From that I started thinking that perhaps it’s a hint on the form of defences you have to build.

I first tried with missile towers but the rockets are too slow so ended up using thumps. Upgrade those to level 7 as soon as. I usually do them in pairs so that two will be maxed out before any of the others are upgraded at all.

First time I managed this level, I only let one creep go through. Not bad.

Update: To clarify a little, Deoxyribonucleic acid is, of course, DNA in everyday language. The form that your defences are to take, resembles its form.

It really is that time of the year when it’s fun to look back the past year and imagine what the new one will bring. This time, of course, it’s slightly different as the decade changes as well as the year. You can’t fail and be wrong about things unless you make claims and predictions first. Here’s my little list of what this decade will bring, how will the world change and what’s left of the great things that the first decade of the millennium brought.

1. Google will grow to be the most profitable and influential company in the history of mankind by 2013. As it grows too powerful, by 2015 we’ll see it being split into two different companies by US Federal Trade Commission and European Commission.

2. Talking about Europe, the Euro will take over US Dollar as the world currency by 2016. Oil and minerals will be mostly traded in Euro. By then, US Dollar will have gone through a devaluation.

3. IPTV will be the standard way of watching TV by middle of the decade, having to make time to watch TV at set times will be considered quaint and will remain as a past time of the upper-classes and the elderly.

4. In 2014, things like Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare and other Internet skills will be tought to primary school pupils alongside with maths and literacy. How to write nice emails will replace the ‘what I did in the summer holidays’ writing lesson every pupil goes through every single autumn.

5. Travel. Domestic air travel will be so heavily taxed that it’s out of reach for most people. Trainline monopolies will be fixed by the end of the decade in order to encourage greener travel. Single fare on London Underground will cost £20 by 2020 but the service will still be terrible. There will also be tax breaks for companies allowing people to work from home.

6. We will still not have flying cars.

7. Mobile phone market will be dominated by Apple and Google with Nokia mostly selling handsets in developing countries. Who knew people would be fine with just one option for a phone. Of course, mobile phone is THE definitive computing platform people use in 2020. Laptops will go the way of the Dodo, or desktop computers.

8. In 2020, Microsoft will only be know for it’s gaming console, Xbox 1440 and the birthday party they had for Windows 7 when it passed Windows XP for years-in-production.

9. By the end of the decade, the Internet will not only come a commodity like water and electricity but like air, it’ll surround us and be so ubiquitous that it’ll be more or less free. Question between using cloud versus local applications becomes a non-issue as bandwidth limitation are lifted; everything is in the cloud and locally simultaneously.

Photograph by Martin Pettitt. Used under Creative Commons license.

10. Finally, two sectors that will change the world as much as broadband has changed it in the past ten year: Green technologies. This is an obvious choice, if you want to be rich in the 2020′s become an innovator or an investor in this area.

Bio-tech. In ten years, much of human body will be repairable and there will only be few things that’ll kill you. Bio tech innovations will also change the landscape for microprocessors, food production and even battery technology.

So, there we go, check back in ten years to see how right or wrong I’ve been. Or follow me on Twitter and I’ll keep you up to date. Thanks for stopping by and have a great year!

What a fantastic animation.

Onwards from AKQA on Vimeo.

via http://www.crackunit.com

This week marked the first solid week of training, uninterrupted by holidaying and was greatly helped by the fact I’ve been working from home.

What a week. I created my casual training programme in the end of last month and this was the first week I could follow it to the letter.

The week started with a long run – 22km @ 2:06:46 – on Tuesday. (Normally I do long runs on the weekends to minimise its impact on regular life.) It went really well, as the time shows, it was a marathon speed exercise. Taking in count that I stopped at a Weatherspoons to go to a toilet and twice to buy water and a banana, it was very close to the 2 hour mark for a half marathon.

Next up after a day of rest was the intervals. 3 times 1000 meters with the fastest burst at 4:08(!) and slowest just under 4:30. I tried to kick it for a fourth one but my legs just wouldn’t carry. Whole run with warmup, in betweens and cool-down came to just over 10km.

Another rest day in between although I really should have done this recovery run right after the intervals. This was a very slow 10km (@ 1:11:34), with a bit of walking here and there. Nice, hardly broke sweat.

To finish the week off, I did a fast 10km with a warmup and a cool-down. First time this week when running I had some pain on the fronts of both shins. This did go away by the time it was time to run faster but I’m a little worried it’ll get worse. I haven’t suffered from really any long term injuries since I started running. Fingers crossed. The fast 10km came to 48:56 and total distance was 13.41km in 1 hour 15 minutes.

Total for the week is 55.56km, longest I’ve ever ran in a single week. Feeling pretty good!

As I might have mentioned, I’m now officially signed up for the Athens Classic Marathon in November. This THE marathon that starts from the coastal town of Marathon and ends in Athens.

Today is also the last day of my holidays which means I can finally go back into a good running routine which has been rather too hard to achieve during the holidays. I still haven’t had a change to upload my actual training I did for the Edinburgh marathon and that’ll have to wait for now. Instead, I’ll briefly describe what I’m thinking for Athens training.

Because of my un-routined work life, I’m going to try to simplify the programme so it’s not so day specific – more like, this is what I need to achieve during each week.

1. Fast paced 12-14k at about 5:00-5:10 min/km
2. Intervals. 3-4 times 1-2k at 4:00-5:00 min/km. Plus some squat-and-cry’s in the end.
3. Long run every 2/3 weekends. And with ‘long’ I mean 20+ km. These should be at 6:05 min/km or faster.
4. Slow recovering run.

I won’t be able to do all of these every week, that I know already, but as long as I aim to run three times a week and do two long runs for every three weeks and interval training every week, I’ll be much better of than last time.

–kristian