Off to the land of the terminator

I'm off! To San Diego, 14th->20th Novemeber. Two of those days will be spent flying in the air :S
However, I don't mind flights too much - I can sleep, and now I even got myself some noise-cancelling headphones to help out :p
For those interested, the site for the contest is: http://www.topcoder.com/tc?module=Static&d1=tournaments&d2=tccc06&d3=about
and general news may appear frequently at TopCoder's home site:
http://www.topcoder.com/tc
And there'll be a live telecast of the last day of competition! (though, probably at 3am or so here)
While I'm gone - best of luck to everyone with exams/essays left, enjoy the post-exam freedom, good luck with soccer on sunday, etc...! Not sure how much time or availability I'll have over there.
A few thoughts to leave you with, that have stumped me
1) When Nappy companies claim that their new products are more comfortable than their last...*how do they know*?? Are there professional nappy testers?
2) Are interest rate rises really that bad? If you don't want your home loan rate to rise, surely you should get a fixed rate! It seems to be mainly because inflation is so high as so many people are spending more than they can afford...
3) Why, in the Microsoft logo, is some of the first 'o' missing a chunk? Is it really pacman?
4) How on earth did Mr. Thorn (former chess guy, worse than Peter Lewis) manage to get elected? My faith in democratic votes was slowly being restored, thanks to the new US results + the Senate's stem-cell clonic result, but it's all back to zero again.
And with that, farewell! (for a little while)

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