An Exercise in Avoiding Boredom

I’ve always enjoyed the high-tech toilets that you can find in modern Asia. They keep themselves clean, warm up when you sit on them, and some even scrub your behind if so desired. The author of an article discussing the Japanese toilet below raves about these qualities.

My reality in the U.S. is rather different. [...]

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No doubt about it, this spam email (forwarded to me by a friend) has literary ambitions:

Subject: jackal in uk
From: noreply@antisigma.classics.utoronto.ca
Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2008 16:07:52 +0200
To: v.wohl@utoronto.ca
bug,
safe and ez trip. ok room. poor sleep. very poor.
i’ll try to find a real terminal soon. this is send-only (museum). hope you and dude abide.
luff,
e

I’m pretty sure that [...]

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Now I know the real reasons behind the demise of my Roomba.

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The 2007 SAP Research Report is out… Subtitled: thinking out of the box… Wished they had asked a native speaker. At least my thinking doesn’t come out of a box. It sure is unique! I hope the readers of this blog can attest to it.
If you use Google as an oracle, it shows to be [...]

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Fan-subs used to say in the opening of an episode:
“Not for sale, rent, or auction.”
These days, it has become:
“Not for sale, rent, auction, or online streaming.”
I guess that’s to prevent services like YouTube and crappy roll from benefiting from fan-subs and hurting the community.

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For yesterday’s drive to and presentation in Suzhou, I picked up my guide at the airport. I could have taken a cab but rather decided to take the Shanghai Magnetic Levitation train, a.k.a. the Maglev. Engineered in Germany but never deployed there, the Maglev connects the inner city with Pudong International airport, and travels 30 [...]

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Monday morning, 7:23am, a great way to start the week.

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Today, Markus Völter interviewed me for his Software Engineering Radio podcast show. Thus, a couple of months from now my name will be tied to some piece of audio on the internet. Already today, when you use Google’s image search, you can find a picture of me. With audio search some time in the [...]

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According to NPR this morning, a transistor is a priest who wears women’s clothes.

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