Planning on taking the Moscow metro at the beginning of the next century? If so, be sure to have this map handy — it should clear things up for you:

This map — and the version detailing the current Moscow Metro, which is slightly more sane — was made by Artemy Lebedev. In all seriousness, his map of the 2010 metro is a nice improvement to the current standard.

I just finished looking at some interesting slides about the Computational Complexity of Air Travel Planning by Carl de Marcken, when I happened upon the product portfolio of his company. What I found was Matrix 2, an advanced flight planner. It’s the best flight planner I’ve ever used.

Here are some screenshots to better illustrate what I’m talking about:

Step 1: Search

Step 2: Price Calendar

Step 3: Search Results and Itineraries

Voila!

You can’t book flights through Matrix 2, but it’s an extremely useful tool nonetheless. It’s rather advanced, too, if you need it to be:

Extra Search Options

Check it out for yourself, here.

Shortly after arriving in London recently, it dawned on me why there were 182,155 personal injury road accidents in Britain in 2007:

I also made an interesting observation in a pub named The Pack Horse Inn:

“Mor” is Danish, Swedish and Norwegian for “Mom”. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.

There are more pictures (Picasa).

I was recently at a conference in Moscow, the heart of the Russian Motherland. Moscow, albeit heavily influenced by the Western world, is a very unique and fascinating city, and its people appeared to me surprisingly humorous and refreshingly honest. It was a cool experience.

It didn’t take long before a few things occurred to me, however:

• there are a lot of cab drivers in Moscow who really want to drive somewhere with you
• traffic laws; there aren’t any
• travel lanes; why thank you, yes, I think I’ll take eight
• Russians really enjoy the consumption of vodka
• it is considered impolite to sit out on rounds when drinking said vodka
• there are at least 15 ways to say “Cheers” in Russian
• I am holding off on vodka for a little while

What really fascinated me about Moscow was some of its architecture. Neglecting the obligatory Red Square:

Oh look, they have IKEA t--waiiiiiit a minute

I miss you, Dune

We humbly greet our extraterrestrial overlords

I'm not entirely sure what this is

As for the quality, cell phone camera in a moving car: no, no, no.