Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Premiership of domains

Last weekend I had a chance to watch a bit of English Premier League match (that's soccer or football as it is called in the Old World) between "Aston Villa" and "Queens Park Rangers". Performance of both teams could not be called superb although Rangers, who joined the League only in this season, were very persistent and controlled ball much more than Villans. Interesting detail caught my attention.

Those ad boards you can inevitably see around the play field do have all sorts of ad messages and promote all kinds of businesses. Some of those businesses more traditional than others but usually they encompass something tangible. That field though had a different kind of ad - it was ad of "Go Daddy", online domains registrations and hosting company. The firm that employs athletic looking ladies Danica Patrick and Gillian Michaels to promote online services to those who in need of online presence. Mastodon of internet hosting that reportedly registered roughly half of all domains out there in the cyberspace.

Those who can be considered soccer fans do not represent the most patient part of society. If "Go Daddy" decided spent a bunch of money (it is hard to believe that ad boards at English Premiership games are inexpensive) that might mean that interface this company currently offers for websites and domains management is going to be streamlined and simplified. It is very confusing in its present state even for those who does do something there frequently. One guy, soccer fan himself, described to me his experience of going to his "Go Daddy" account as if he suddenly finds himself on Las Vegas Strip with all those lights and ads around him. If millions of soccer fans rush to "Go Daddy" website after Premiership season, technical support of that company can explode due to high volume of calls. But who knows, may this is also a kind of strategy they have - to keep interface confusing so people would be calling so agents could upsell something. That's how usually credit card companies push insurance and other related services, you call to sort out some ridiculous charge on your card and end up listening to a long speech about amazing promos only weirdos don't take advantage of.

It was also interesting to learn that British Prime Minister David Cameron is an "Aston Villa" fan. He was on the bench for dignitaries there watching the match with his young son. His facial expression was very intense at times. And no one could say what would be the reason for that: lackluster performance of his favorite team, aggressive promotion of "Go Daddy" or all those problems euro displayed so spectacularly last couple of months.

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Creepy integer

Well, new year arrived and people still doing their best to keep up with new year's resolutions. Like some of us I got back to coding. It is getting busier lately. Seems like everyone finally exiting that seemingly endless loop of celebrations and business activity is back to its normal (why unemployment is growing in BC is a different matter though).

One question a programmer, mathematician (or numerologist for that matter) might ask in this year is what's the deal with the number of 2011? Does 2011 as a number possess any properties worth noting? Well, turns out it does. There is a remarkable property that number has. I discussed that property with several people (none of them programmers) and many of them find it amusing, even amazing and all of them think it is utterly creepy at the same time.

The number of 2011 is the prime one. That's it, there is no divisors of it except for 1 and itself, 2011. Not only that - it is also sum of 11 other primes numbers. Curious detail about those 11 is that all of them are consecutive ones. And finally creepiest part - one of them is 211!

Here we go:

2011=157+163+167+173+179+181+191+193+197+199+211

Chances are lots of people might find this fact significant enough to contemplate on it and even take it into consideration while planning different events for the current year. Next prime is in six years period, in 2017. But arithmetical properties of 2017 may be overshadowed by another fact - it is 100 years since Russian revolution took place and changed the whole world so profoundly. Whether or not people would think of it as of something creepy too is yet to be seen.