*Nota Bene: With full credit going to one Mr. Kilgore Trout and his essayist/biographer another Mr. Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (from the book Breakfast of Champions) “Gilgongo!” was about a planet which was unpleasant because there was too much creation going on. The story began with a big party in honor of a man who had wiped out an entire species of darling little panda bears.…

Instant ramen becomes fizzy drinks, and we’ve tried them all so you don’t have to.   Just the other day, Nissin, the creators of Cup Noodle, the world’s first-ever instant noodle, came out with their craziest 50th birthday announcement yet: they would be releasing Cup Noodle sodas. That’s right, the esteemed makers of the instant Cup… Cup…

Firmware-based system recovers encrypted data in seconds, but manufacturers are proving reluctant A team of researchers claim to have come up with an upgrade that makes SSDs impervious to ransomware attacks – detecting infections and reverting unexpected encryption within a matter of seconds, at the cost of a small increase in latency.… Boffins unveil SSD-Insider++, promise…

Shouldn’t the idea of publishing on the web mean generating something that can “echo all around the world”? Once again, my experience shows that if you publish something on an employer’s web site, or a company’s web site, or even in something that just takes away the work of managing web sites, the chances of… What…

Feel-good story about a Japanese convenience store becomes one of the most unexpected surprises at the Olympics. If you’ve ever visited Japan, you’ll know just how wonderful its convenience stores are. Unlike a lot of convenience stores overseas, the ones in Japan are warm, clean and inviting, with door chimes to welcome you and a… Canadian…

Can Mr. Sato collect them all or will he wilt beneath the early summer sun trying? Stuffed with sweet red bean paste and consisting of a soft, doughy exterior, anpan is a timeless classic and a ubiquitous feature in bakeries across Japan. The baked sweet is so popular that convenience store chain Daily Yamazaki has… Anpan…

https://soranews24.com/2021/05/11/the-pros-and-cons-of-living-in-nakagin-capsule-tower-an-architectural-marvel-in-tokyo/trackback/ Yes, it still exists. And the author is attempting to stay in the building for one month. Efforts to raze the building are on hold. Similarly the building is not being actively rented out (no doubt due to Covid19), but the writer was able to make contact with the person in charge and find…

Want to give full credit to O’Reilly Radar and NYTimes.com for the articles they published that got me thinking about threats to the veracity and usefulness of the Internet these days. SIFT and DeepCheapFakes Tuesday, May 11, 2021 10:11 AM I know Mike Caulfield was spotlighted in a NYTimes article addressing ways to defend oneself…

Road and Track Magazine: If you think we’re anywhere near fully autonomous cars, this video might convince you otherwise. Thank you Road and Track magazine and website for doing the testing on this long-standing belief in Tesla’s insurmountable technological lead in Autonomous Driving. I’ve marveled at each and every notable reported accident where-in a driver…

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/03/15/977527808/who-points-to-wildlife-farms-in-southwest-china-as-likely-source-of-pandemic I read the following words from this NPR report back on March 15th. And I don’t know how to interpret and read it: “There was massive transmission going on at that market for sure,” says Linfa Wang, a virologist who studies bat viruses at Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore. He’s also part of the…