Re #1: I believe it was called minesweeper.

It's a fad. Remember the Rubik's cube?

I've never done a Sudoko puzzle, but I have a similar impression of it. I suppose the people you see doing these puzzles are enjoying some an activity that requires their concentration, and at the same time provides a distraction from their boredom or other pressing concerns related to work, everyday life.

We may have uncovered an investment theme here: invest in companies offering entertainment disguised as learning or mind-focusing concentration.

Vapid activities and entertainments dressed up as middle-higherbrow pursuits are all the rage as society becomes increasingly dumbed down.

@David -- you mean, like blogging? ;)

dub dub -- Ouch! I like to think is a somewhat higher-rent district than that, but I could be wrong.

Turning to David's point, I think that is precisely right. It is amazing how many people play mindless games (i.e., Minesweeper) in the first place, so it should, I suppose, come as no surprise that if you societally sanction a mindless game that people trip over themselves to play it in public.

Come to think of it, this does sound like an investable theme. Ah, mindless pleasures ... which was, apropos of nothing useful, the original title of Thomas Pynchon's bleak satire about modern society, Gravity's Rainbow.

dub dub,

Yes, I agree that blogging can fulfill the same role. This made me very skeptical of blogs and bloggers before I decided to try it for myself.

I think it really depends on the purpose of one's blog and the tone in which it's written.

Then again, some people will find all blogs to be a form of mental masturbations.

I've got to go, there's something coming across the wires about Britney's head...

Why single out environment scientists and their inability to predict the future? Has anybody ever met someone, who can predict the future, reliably and correctly, and does not sit in a tent, with dim lights, wearing a bandanna, in front of a glass sphere, and mumbling abracadabra?

Somehow this post got palimpsest-ized! Cool.

>>>Why single out environment scientists and their inability to predict the future?

Because unlike the other charlatans they are being used by the growth haters and being taken seriously by policy makers.

They way out of this irreversible slide is via more technology, not less and slowing growth is the real suicidal path.

Sudoko is a godsend for those who have never been able to do crosswords (vocabulary challenged much?) Now they can brag about completing books of sudoko (insinuating their math genius) and it's socially acceptable to boot. I've overheard retired men claiming that their puzzle addiction is postponing/preventing Alzheimer's. Can't stand it myself and can't believe it's such a hit. Hey, whatever makes you feel good... just don't do it near me.

Umm, according to the Journal, everyone making over 7 figures is playing brickbreaker