A story in today's Wall Street Journal by Alastair Gale and Takashi Mochizuki tells of Japan’s Henn na, or “Strange,” Hotel, which opened to great fanfare in 2015, recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s first robot hotel. A little over three years later, the hotel is "laying off" its lowest-performing droids. Here are some of the problems guests … Continue reading Robots Were So Much Better 50 Years Ago
As I was cutting up our weekly purchase of a dozen bagels so that we could freeze them, I realized how much I loved having a bagel slicer (or as Amazon calls it, a bagel guillotine). We've only had it for about a year, but now I can't remember how we were able to live without … Continue reading Things That Make Life Worth Living
If you're like me, the first thing you would have done when you read the title of this post is go to Google and type, "what happened 413 days ago". And you would have found out that 413 days ago was Friday, November 24, 2017 - Black Friday. And 773 days ago (November 29, 2016) I ended one … Continue reading This Post Is 413 Days Late
Sometimes I can't remember the name of people I met five minutes ago, but somehow I can sing all the lyrics to both the opening and closing theme songs from the Beverly Hillbillies, from 50 years ago. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvE9zJgm8OY And when I watched this video until the end, the memories came rushing back as I heard Daisy May … Continue reading Music Monday: Classic TV Theme Songs
Sorry to make you wait three days, but you can blame good old Dan Ariely. Dan recently received the following email: Dear Dan, I enjoy giving gifts to my best friend, and I was wondering which approach would be better for strengthening our friendship: giving her big gifts twice a year, on her birthday and … Continue reading Don’t Read This Post Now – Wait Three Days to Do So
I've glanced at the Screen Time notices (shown above) I've been getting every week for a while now, but until just a few minutes ago I had never looked at the details of my weekly report. And when I finally did take a look, it was kind of eye-opening, disappointing, embarrassing, and frankly, kind of sad. … Continue reading A Sneak Peek at How I Wasted My Week, Courtesy of Screen Time
I saw the phrase in a Yahoo Finance headline, "At Some Point, Stocks Are Due for a Dead-Cat Bounce", and I have to admit that not only did I have no idea what it meant, I had never heard the phrase before. So I decided to ask Google Home: For those of you who would … Continue reading Are We Experiencing a Dead Cat Bounce?
I've noted before that Christmas commercials in the U.K. are like Super Bowl commercials in the U.S.; it's one of the highlights of the advertising world. I've already written about my favorite British Christmas commercial of 2018, the ad by John Lewis featuring Elton John. If you missed it, here it is; if you've seen it before, … Continue reading The Best of Britain’s 2018 Christmas Commercials
Phoebe Smith of the UK has been given the rather pleasing job title of the “world’s first sleep storyteller-in-residence” by Calm, a leading app for meditation and sleep. Smith was a travel writer and journalist when she was approached last year by Michael Acton Smith, co-founder of the sleep app Calm. She’d written an article … Continue reading I Think I’ve Just Found the Job I Was Meant to Do
Apparently, Amazon's Alexa is so easy to use, even a parrot can use it. Rocco, an African grey parrot, was caught using the virtual assistant to play his favorite music, tell jokes and even order snacks, The Times of London reports. Unfortunately for Rocco, its owner had put parental controls on Alexa, and none of … Continue reading This Polly Wants Way More Than a Cracker
Borden's Blather 