As all the hoopla surrounding the G8 summit kicks into high gear, you might get the feeling that the little acts of an individual make no difference to the world at large. Well, you'd be wrong: it's never been easier to find new ways to do good. A brilliant attempt to use capitalism to fight global warming, TerraPass  lets you buy carbon credits for you car -- the money will be invested in anti-global warming initiatives to offset your car's carbon emissions. Buying a carbon credit from CarbonPlanet  results in the removal of one ton of carbon from the planet's atmosphere yearly -- the money goes towards a reforestation project in New South Wales, Australia. Or, if you'd like to make a more personal kind of change (and need a wee bit of public pressure to make it happen), visit PledgeBank . It allows you to create a pledge that also requires others to follow suit -- i.e., "I will stop using disposable coffee cups if 100 other people worldwide will, too" -- and then watch others sign up to support you. Who says one person can't make a difference?

Virtual G8 Protesting

Just one more day left until the much-talked about G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland kicks off. British Prime Minister Tony Blair is hosting the meeting of the world's eight largest industrialized nations (Germany, France, Italy, Japan, the US, Britain, Canada and Russia). Aid for Africa is at the top of the agenda  with global warming and terrorism figuring prominently as well. Geldof -- likely pooped from putting on 10 concerts around the world in order to call attention to Africa -- will be there. But, the oodles of protestorss showing up with their own very long agendas are not exactly welcome guests. Many are anti-globalists and some are just tagging along for the ride. Guardian correspondent Matthew Tempest  (who spent several weeks as a fellow at SPIEGEL Online) is on scene with colorful accounts of what's really going on.

Puzzle Addiction

A new puzzle is taking England by storm.>The puzzle is said to be so addictive that it will keep you up all hours of the day and night. Certainly it will hamper any attempt to do a proper day's work. Its genius lies in its simplicity. Players must enter numbers into a grid so that every row, column and 3x3 box contains the digits 1 through 9. A number of digits are already entered onto the grid to help you and there is only one solution. Puzzles range from the simple to the mind-bogglingly difficult. 

The first puzzle  appeared in The Times in November 2004, brought to the UK by Wayne Gould, a retired judge, who became fascinated by Su Doku having discovered it in a Japanese puzzle book seven years earlier. The game of logic quickly achieved an avid following, which prompted many other British newspapers to follow suit and publish their own puzzles. Puzzle games, as exemplified by the crossword, breed loyal readers, who prefer to complete the same type of puzzle each day and therefore stick to the same newspaper. Newspaper editors desperate to sell more newspapers realized they had struck gold, and a Su Doku war ensued.