At the time of writing some 10 million people in Ukraine have left their homes. Many of them are, for the moment at least, still in Ukraine and hence do not yet fit the UNHCR‘s definition of refugees. Then add to these to 82,400,000 forcibly displaced people at the end of 2020 of which, according […]
Author: Grumpy Old Man
Strange names
The Austrian town of Fucking (in German it’s pronounced Foocking) for pretty obvious reasons on 1 January 2021 changed its name to Fugging. It’s inhabitants, I suppose they were previously known as the Fuckers, are now Fuggers instead. And that’s by far not the only unusual location name (as you no doubt will have guessed), […]
Smart everything everywhere – one year on
Just about a year ago I was writing a blog about the Internet of things (IoT) and some of its stranger permutations (you can read it here: Smart everything everywhere). And, 12 months later, again I find plenty of intriguing to outright weird contraptions which connect to the Internet. Admittedly, some of these applications are […]
The future of cars… WTF
I am a bit of a technophile as far as new technologies and gadgets are concerned (I suppose others would call me a geek or a nerd), and so it’s always interesting (and sometimes amusing) to read about what the manufacturers are tinkering with. And this also increasingly includes cars, although I am not a […]
How to hook your customers early
Tesla has many grownup fans around the world, and their cars are admittedly among the most popular EVs sold. And as any marketing guru would tell you, better get your customers hooked early: and that is exactly what Tesla is doing. The famous manufacturer of cars and batteries has launched – wait for it – […]
Would you like fries with that?
This is the typical question at McDonald’s employee would ask you when you are placing your order, isn’t it? well, maybe not in Japan these days. It turns out in the country of the rising Sun the common spud is in short supply. As a result, and to make sure that everyone gets at least […]
Wine and Cheese
Now I am really about to blow a fuse! And big time! What does the gathering on the photo below look like to you? A drinks reception with wine and cheese? Or a work meeting? By the way, this gathering took apparently place in May 2020, when the rest of the British population was in […]
Bitcoin City (but not where you’d expect it)
El Salvador ranks 124th among 189 countries in the Human Development Index and with a GDP of $4100 per head of its population of 6.4 million certainly ranks among the poorest countries. But that, if all goes according to the plans of its President, Nayib Bukele, could all soon change. While a law passed in […]
Satoshi Nakamoto
Nobody has ever knowingly met Satoshi Nakamoto, the inventor of Bitcoin, but many techies in recent years have claimed to be him. Nakamoto-san (if he were then really Japanese and a person rather than quite possibly a group of people), is rumoured to hold some 1.1 million Bitcoins, now worth a staggering $50 billion. But […]
The grumpy older man 